Fifty years ago this month, President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared war on poverty.  We've spent nearly three times as much to fight it as on all of America's real wars combined. We haven't gotten much bang for all those bucks. At 15.2 percent in 2012, the poverty rate was the highest since 1965 (17.3 percent). The federal government spends on "means tested" programs more than $19,000 for each man, woman and child classified as "poor."  If a poor single mother with two children actually got all the money purportedly spent on her behalf, she'd have at least $6,000 more than the median income. She gets nowhere near that much.  This fact, coupled with their sheer number (83, according to the Congressional Research Service) suggest poverty programs benefit chiefly the bureaucrats who run them.  Surprised?  I think not.

Traffic was backed up for miles in Fort Lee, New Jersey for four days last September because of lane closures on the George Washington Bridge leading into New York City. Lane closures on the GWB are nothing new.  But this one happened because aides to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wanted to punish Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for not endorsing their boss for reelection in November. When this news broke last week, Gov. Christie held a marathon news conference last Thursday (1/9) to respond to the "Bridgegate" scandal.  "I come out here to apologize to the people of New Jersey," he said. "I am embarrassed and humiliated."  By contrast, America's Narcissist-in-Chief, whose scandals are infinitely worse, is never embarrassed or humiliated by anything.  The scandal provides us with a vivid contrast in damage control techniques, and the most brazen example yet of news media bias and double standards.

In the mega best seller of the Renaissance, Das Narrenschiff, German theologian Sebastian Brant in 1494 satirized the pretensions, delusions and follies of his day through descriptions of passengers on a ship bound for the fool's paradise of "Narragonia." Brant's depiction of humanity as a ship of fools sailing without rudder or compass captured our imagination then and now, inspiring a painting by Hieronymous Bosch, a song by the Grateful Dead. So when the research ship Akademik Shokalskiy got stuck in the ice about 40 miles from Antarctica, those who knew the purpose of its voyage dubbed it the "Ship of Fools." "It would take a heart of stone not to laugh," said British journalist Leo McKinstry. Aboard the vessel were 22 scientists headed by Chris Turney, a professor of climate change at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia; his wife and two children; four journalists, and 26 tourists. During the eight days he awaited rescue, Prof. Turney continued to assert Antarctic sea ice is melting.  It's been growing for 35 years, but Prof. Turney evidently concluded that if what he saw contradicted his climate model, his eyes must be lying. There are no believers like true believers.  Prof. Turney could have been captain of Das Narrenschiff.

The deadliest folly in history began 100 years ago this August. The 20th Century dawned with more hope and promise than any before it.  Living standards were rising rapidly.  During it, poverty, disease and war could be eradicated, many intellectuals believed. Until August, 1914.  More than 9 million soldiers and 16 million civilians died during World War I -- an appalling butcher's bill for a war no one wanted. Our world is very different.  Surely national leaders now wouldn't "sleepwalk into war" as Kaiser Wilhelm, Czar Nicholas, et. al. did back then?  A growing number of military scholars and historians aren't sure - such as Sir Max Hastings, who is hearing "echoes of 1914." The world is teeming with those echoes, from the Middle East to China - and they are reverberating loudly due to the incompetence and fecklessness of Barack Hussein Obama.

The Green Bay Packers paid quarterback Aaron Rodgers $12 million last year.  That was 750 percent more than the average salary for all 72 players on the active roster, practice squad and injured reserve ($1.6 million); 1,850 percent more than the median salary ($647,840), and 117.7 times (11,770 percent) more than the lowest paid Packer ($102,000). Rodgers is worth every penny, most Packer fans think.  I'm quite sure Mae, the TTP Forum's #1 Packer fan does. Green Bay was trailing the Chicago Bears, 28-27, with just 46 seconds left in the game on Sunday (12/29) when Rodgers, facing an all-out blitz on fourth and 8, threw a 48-yard touchdown pass to Randall Cobb, propelling the Packers into the playoffs. "You have to marvel at the fact that he was going to his left and made that kind of throw," said Bears coach Marc Trestmann. Packer players don't begrudge Aaron Rodgers his much higher salary, because they know his pay is based on extraordinary performance, which puts money in their pockets.  Because they made the playoffs, each Packer will be paid about $22,000 more -- equivalent to a 21 percent bonus for the lowest paid players. If Democrats, most especially their leader Mr. Zero, had as little concern about "income inequality" as do football players, coaches and fans, we'd be a lot better off.

A policeman walking his beat late one night spotted a drunk on his hands and knees in front of a lamppost, peering intently at the ground. "I'm looking for my car keys," explained the drunk after the cop asked him what he was doing.   After helping the drunk search for a few fruitless minutes, the cop asked: "Are you sure this is where you dropped them?" "No, I lost them in the park across the street," the drunk replied. "So why are you looking for them here?" asked the exasperated cop. "Because the light is so much better," the drunk replied. The joke illustrates the "streetlight effect" -- bias in scientific studies which occurs when researchers look where it's easiest rather than where answers are most likely to be found.  I was reminded of it by a lengthy article in the New York Times on Sunday (12/29).  That's because while it's hard to find the truth when you look in the wrong places, it's harder still when you are only pretending to look.

Christmas has come a little early for lovers of liberty, thanks to five federal judges and a White House task force. *The National Security Agency's collection of "metadata" on nearly all telephone calls made to, from or within the United States appears to violate the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said Monday (12/16). "I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate' and ‘arbitrary invasion' than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval," Judge Leon said.  *During oral arguments in a different case last month, U.S. District Judge William Pauley also expressed skepticism about the legal basis for the NSA collection program. Three more judges gave us Christmas presents.

The portrayal of Santa Claus as an old white man makes her uncomfortable, wrote Aisha Harris in Slate Dec. 10.  Santa should be portrayed as a penguin instead, she said. It bothers me not at all that Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela were black.  But if it did, would that justify me demanding you pretend they were white? "This is ridiculous. Yet another person claiming it's racist to have a white Santa," said Megyn Kelly (sadly, no relation) on her Fox News program.  "And by the way, for all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white." Liberals exploded with indignation.  To call Santa white is "racist," they said.  "Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change," Ms. Kelly retorted.  "Jesus was a white man, too. He was a historical figure. That's a verifiable fact -- as is Santa." That incensed liberals more.  "Fox News' Megyn Kelly refuses to apologize after declaring that Jesus, Santa were white," said the New York Daily News. Next thing you know, that racist Jezebel will claim the sun rises in the east, water flows downhill, it gets dark when the sun goes down.

Rising income inequality poses "a fundamental threat to the American dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe," President Barack Hussein Obama said Dec. 4.  He pledged to make reducing it the focus of the rest of his presidency. During his first term, the incomes of the top 1 percent grew by 31.4 percent, the incomes of everyone else by just 0.4 percent. On Mr. Obama's watch, 95 percent of income gains have gone to the top 1 percent.  When George W. Bush was president, only 61.8 percent did. But if Mr. Obama is serious about reducing income inequality, he should focus on Washington D.C. The average wage of federal civilian workers in 2012 was $81,704, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  For workers in the private sector, it was $54,995.  With benefits, compensation for federal workers averaged $114,976 -- 74 percent more than for private sector workers. Clearly, the way to end this unconscionable threat to our way of life and what we stand for is to cut federal workers' pay by 74%.

The Sunday after he won re-election by a landslide, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was the guest on most of the major television talk shows.  Nearly every question he was asked by the journalist panelists pertained to whether he'd run for president.  Hardly any of the scribes expressed interest in what it was about how he has governed the Garden State that prompted so many Democrats to vote for him. Only if we know whether campaign promises have been kept or broken, whether the challenges that have arisen during his or her term have been met, side-stepped or botched can we make a reasonable judgment about whether an incumbent deserves re-election -- or higher office. Journalists pay more attention to froth and celebrity than they do to substance.  We laugh at "lo-fo" (low-information) voters, but most journalists are just as lo-fo as their readers or viewers.

"Healthcare.gov No Longer a Complete Fail" was the headline on the story in Time Magazine Dec. 2 on the rollout of the "new, improved" version of the Obamacare web site. It's hard to find a better illustration of the expression: "to damn with faint praise." To hide from Catherine the Great the squalor that existed in the Crimea, Gregory Potemkin allegedly erected pasteboard "villages" along the banks of the Dnieper.  Actually, the villages were real and Potemkin was smeared - Jack Wheeler recounts the true history in Potemkin America (June 2009). Yet though "Potemkin villages" is a myth, it's still a common metaphor for the fake.  Thus, regarding healthcare.gov, the Obama administration "has erected a Potemkin village online - a façade that temporarily conceals the lack of architecture behind it," said Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin. Indeed, the metaphor applies to the entire Obama Presidency.

The attention of Americans understandably is riveted on the Obamacare fiasco.  But the harm done by Obamacare can be ameliorated fairly quickly by repealing it. There is no simple way to repair the damage that could result from Mr. Obama's mammoth foreign policy blunder regarding Iran The U.S. and allies will lift economic sanctions on Iran, in exchange for the mullah's promise they'll stop work on a nuclear bomb, the Obama administration announced Nov. 24. That'll give Iran a cash infusion of at least $7 billion.  We get...bupkes.    Mr. Obama is taking the mullahs' word for it their nuclear research is for peaceful purposes.  You'd think a president who lies as often as he does would be more skeptical. This "is the worst deal since Munich," said columnist Charles Krauthammer.  It's worse than Munich, said Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal.  Neville Obama indeed.

One of the things for which I'm thankful this Thanksgiving is that I'm not Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. That Ms. Sebelius is still HHS secretary is remarkable.  If they'd presided over a fiasco like the Obamacare rollout, the CEO of every corporation anywhere in the world would have been fired long ago. Ms. Sebelius is fortunate she works in government, where there is no accountability.  And in the Obama administration, where there is no integrity.  Breathing new life into the old saw, "close enough for government work," the White House Press Secretary said last week that if Healthcare.gov works 80 percent of the time, the administration will consider it fixed.  It's cosmically appropriate he's named Carney, as a carney barker who ropes in the rubes to lose money on his dishonest game. "In what other line of work is 20 percent failure considered a success?" asked Ron Fournier of the National Journal. "If one out of every five meals served by a restaurant is inedible, the joint goes out of business."

"After years of trillion-dollar deficits we reined in spending," Barack Hussein Obama told the Wall Street CEO Council last week.  "And since I took office, we have now cut our deficits by more than half. "Add it all and businesses like yours have created 7.8 million new jobs over the past 44 months, we've gone farther and recovered faster than most other advanced nations," he said. It must have taken a great exertion of willpower for the business titans to refrain from bursting in laughter. He wasn't trying to con an audience of lo-fo's.  To make these claims to the nation's top business execs is evidence of an estrangement from reality that could be pathological.

Real (inflation adjusted) median household income last year was $51,371, 4.44 % lower than when Mr. Obama became president in 2009, the Census Bureau says. The number of Americans living in poverty rose by the equivalent of the population of Massachusetts during Barack Hussein Obama's first term.  By the time his second ends, "black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category," television talk show host Tavis Smiley said last month. From 2009 to 2012, the top 1% received 95% of income gains, a study by University of California-Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez indicated.  But during the presidency of George W. Bush, the top 1% garnered just 65 % of income growth, Prof. Saez said. "While the populist rhetoric of modern (Democrat) politicians is all about redistribution and inequality, the reality is that (their) policies entrench privilege," said Walter Russell Mead, editor of The American Interest.  So who's the "party of the rich" again?

For Democrats and especially their leader, the American people -- including those who vote for Democrats -- are sheep to be sheared, cows to be milked, suckers to be swindled.  Exactly as does con-man fraudster Kevin Trudeau. Last week (11/12), a jury in Chicago found Kevin Trudeau guilty of "criminal contempt" for making misleading claims in television infomercials for his weight loss book.  The prosecutors cited as false and fraudulent Mr. Trudeau's claims of "easy" and "secret" (secret because of a government and Big Food conspiracy to hide them) techniques that actually called for daily injections of a prescription-required hormone (human chorionic gonadotropin or HCG), a 500-calorie-day diet, and a month of colon hydrotherapy.  Trudeau also claimed that after completing the diet, consumers could eat anything they want without regaining weight. These surely are deceptions, but seem mild compared to "if you like your health plan, you can keep it; if you like your doctor, you can keep him or her; Obamacare will reduce insurance premiums for the average family by $2,500 a year."

The administration is spending $67 million to hire thousands of "navigators" to help people sort through the Obamacare maze.  Some could be convicted felons, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted. "HHS decided to build political support for the Affordable Care Act by pouring money into supportive organizations so they could launch poorly trained workers into their communities without obtaining criminal background checks or creating systems for monitoring their activities," said former Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue.  "It will not take long for navigators to become predators, and HHS has no plan to deal with the new breed of predators it is creating." "Navigators" in Texas were caught on video advising clients to lie to obtain subsidies. Fraudsters and scam artists take advantage of the frequent crashes of Obamacare web sites. "If an insurance shopping website is usable, it's not the federal government's," the Wall Street Journal warned. There is no greater consumer fraud than Obamacare itself, which I suppose is why Ms. Sebelius wants to exempt it from laws which fight fraud in Medicare.

President Barack Hussein Obama is a "flagrant liar," said Joe Scarborough, host of the "Morning Joe" program on MSNBC. That's unquestionably true, as Mr. Obama is demonstrating yet again by lying about the big lie he told to get Obamacare passed.  But it's startling to hear an MSNBC talk show host say it. The president has been able to lie with impunity, confident the "mainstream" media would never call him on his ever more frequent, ever more blatant departures from the truth. But the botched rollout of Obamacare is changing things.  It's enabling millions of Americans who voted for him to see The Zero in the White House for who he really is -- and it's a very ugly sight.

It's the most breathtaking lie in the history of American politics, the dirtiest trick a president and his political party have ever played on the people they were elected to represent. In June of 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services estimated that as a consequence of Obamacare, 66 percent of those covered by small employer plans and 45 percent of those covered by large employer plans would have their health insurance cancelled.  So would "40 to 67 percent" of those who had individual health insurance policies.  That adds up to 93 million Americans, calculated Avik Roy, the health care expert for the Manhattan Institute.  Barack Hussein Obama knew.  So did senior Democrats in Congress.  Yet both promised Americans over and over that "if you like your health insurance, you can keep it." This was a bald-faced lie.  And Mr. Obama and the senior Democrats knew it was a lie. Often before, political leaders have made mistakes which inadvertently have caused Americans pain.  Never before has a president and his party conspired to do deliberately so much harm to so many.

Reality was again the nemesis of Democrats.  Millions have received word that because of Obamacare, their health insurance policies will be cancelled.  Millions more soon will.  Most of those whose policies aren't cancelled will have to pay more. The White House and Democrats in Congress have known since 2010 as many as 93 million could lose their insurance, but kept lying about it.  Instapundit makes an excellent suggestion on how Republicans might capitalize on their mind-blowing mendacity. * * * * Most world news this week ranges from bad, to very bad, to awful.  As long as Barack Obama is president, it'll get worse. * * * * The president is in "great distress," says a body language expert. But Zero may be happier than HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. She's on "death watch," the Washington Post said before she testified to Congress. It's a "suicide watch" now. * * * * How can Republicans capitalize on the Obamacare meltdown? A superb strategy is that begun by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.  Proposing legislation to let people who like their health insurance plan keep it directly addresses the element of Obamacare that's causing the most pain; sounds moderate, but would be fatal to Obamacare if enacted, and will prove irresistible to Democrats in tight races.

Barack Hussein Obama bears an uncanny resemblance to Sgt. Hans Schultz, the dim-witted guard at the Stalag 13 POW camp.  Not a physical resemblance, of course.  Sgt. Schultz, played by John Banner in the 1960s sitcom "Hogan's Heroes," was a portly white guy. But the lines Sgt. Schultz uttered most frequently during the sitcom's seven year run were: "I know nothing.  I hear nothing.  I see nothing."  The president and senior aides have been saying something similar quite a lot recently. President Obama didn't learn there were problems with Healthcare.gov until a couple of days after the rollout began, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who was skeptical. He didn't know security at the consulate in Benghazi was so lax, Mr. Obama said.  He didn't learn about IRS harassment of conservative groups until he read about it in the newspapers.  It seems odd this never came up during the hundreds of visits IRS officials made to the White House. The president didn't learn the Justice Department was running guns to Mexican drug cartels "until he heard about it through the media," Mr. Carney said.  And of course the NSA never told him they were bugging the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

There was a large crack Sunday night (10/27) in the wall of silence the "mainstream" media have erected around the events in Benghazi on the night of 9/11/2012. CBS broadcast on its "60 Minutes" program a segment which featured an interview with one of the eyewitnesses to the attack on our consulate the Obama administration has been trying to hide from Congressional investigators. He is "Morgan Jones."  That's a pseudonym for a former British soldier turned security consultant, who was hired to train the Libyans the State Department chose to guard the consulate, in lieu of U.S. Marines, who customarily guard our diplomatic installations. Additional testimony by other witnesses was equally devastating. An Army Special Forces officer based at our embassy in Tripoli, LtCol. Andy Wood, told CBS correspondent Lara Logan that for months before the attack, he reported to the State Department and up his chain of command in the Defense department that al Qaida was planning to attack the consulate.

Democrats are learning the hard way what the expression "Pyrrhic victory" means. Dr. John, a health care professional who blogs at Flopping Aces, explains why: "Obama won the shutdown battle and his prize was the country discovering just how incompetent he is. The great irony of this is that had Obama given the GOP the delay they sought they could have hidden their galactic incompetence." * * * * In the last week, millions of "low information" voters received letters from their insurance companies informing them that because of Obamacare, their health insurance policy has been cancelled, or their premium has doubled.  Many more will receive such letters soon. For a creature of media mythology like Barack Obama, nothing could be more dangerous than to permit reality to slap millions of "lofos" in the face.  It'll be hard for the news media to piece its shattered shield back together.  More likely, damage will cascade: * * * * His mendacious - and hilarious -- refusal to acknowledge Obamacare's problems during his press conference/infomercial Monday hasn't helped Zero's credibility.  It wasn't just conservatives who noticed the resemblance to the Sham Wow! guy: * * * * Now that Democrats know what's in Obamacare, it scares the hell out of them, says the Chicago Tribune. Panic over Obamacare "is splitting the caucus wide open," writes liberal Jonathan Chait in the New Yorker. Fueling panic among Democrats are stories I bet you never thought you'd see in the "mainstream" media. * * * * Four pending lawsuits could kill Obamacare subsidies in most of the country. * * * * Journalists have forgotten about Benghazi, but Americans haven't.  By a margin of 60-28, respondents to a Fox News poll say the Obama administration is trying to cover up what happened there on 9/11/2012.  That's a big increase from a year ago. "60 Minutes" will broadcast an interview Sunday (10/27) with one of the witnesses to the attack the administration has been trying to hide.

The rift in the GOP today isn't about policy or principle. Ostensibly, it's about tactics.  Mostly it's about culture. Tea Party insurgents in Flyover Country regard more "moderate" Republicans -- the GOP leadership in Congress especially -- as Establishment "squishes" too comfortable with the status quo, too timid to take on the powers that be. To Establishment "squishes," Tea Party insurgents are chest-thumping Yahoos who haven't a clue. Losing -- which, with the partial exception of the 2010 midterms, Republicans have been doing since 2006 -- intensifies factional disputes. Since Ronald Reagan, every GOP nominee for president has come from (what these days passes for) the party's moderate wing.  They've done poorly. 

The furor over the government "shutdown" has distracted attention from the Obamacare rollout. The news media focus more now on GOP dissension, but Obamacare's troubles aren't going away.  Such media attention as there's been has focused on "glitches" in the websites of Obamacare exchanges.  The glitches aren't in Obamacare, they are Obamacare - the whole program is one giant glitch from end to end. The cheapest plan anywhere in the country will be 99 percent more expensive for men, 62 percent more expensive for women than the cheapest plans are now, according to a Manhattan Institute study. "Of course I want people to have health care," Obama voter Cindy Vinson told the San Jose Mercury News when she learned she'll have to pay $1,800 more for health insurance. "I just didn't realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally." Cindy got what she voted for.  Will she still be averse to voting for the GOP in 2014?

A crowd of "thousands," composed chiefly of veterans, descended on the National Mall in Washington D.C. Sunday to remove "barrycades" blocking access to the World War II, Vietnam, and Lincoln memorials. Police in riot gear blocked road access to the World War II memorial, but didn't interfere as the vets took down the barricades.  Younger vets helped the veterans of World War II -- now in their 80s and 90s -- past the barricades and up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Some of the protesters -- including a vet who had lost both legs -- carried a few barricades more than a mile to the White House and dumped them there. "I'm totally, thoroughly disgusted in our government's decision to close these monuments," Mike Freeman, a retired Green Beret who served in Vietnam, told the Daily Caller. So should we all.  Tearing down Zero's barrycades could be the way to regain our freedom.

Gunwalker.  Benghazi.  IRS audits.  NSA surveillance.  All are overshadowed by Smokey the Bear becoming a Nazi, thinks the Weekly Standard. * * * * By refusing to pay death benefits to the loved ones of service members killed in action, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel found a way to be more despicable that the National Socialist Parks Service.  * * * * Zero is a lot more fond of the Muslim Brotherhood than he is of vets or our troops.  He's planning to slash aid to Egypt as punishment for ousting his buddy Mohamed Morsi. * * * * The problems that plague Healthcare.gov aren't going to be fixed anytime soon, because, experts told the Washington Post, the "root cause is not simply a matter of flawed computer code but rather the government's habit of buying outdated, costly and buggy technology." A Canadian firm got a sole source contract for $634 million to build it, so the worst built Web site ever is also the most expensive ever. * * * * Gun rights advocates in Colorado have begun collecting signatures to recall a third state senator, Evie Hudak, who represents a district in the suburbs north of Denver. "Hudak's district is more conservative than either Morse's or Giron's," notes the Washington Post. * * * * North Korea has opened a luxury ski resort.  The Swiss are "human rights abusers," the Norks say, because the Swiss won't sell them ski lifts. * * * * Both sides are losing in the shutdown showdown, but Republicans are suffering most.

The presidency is a "bully pulpit," said Teddy Roosevelt. "For Roosevelt, ‘bully' was an adjective meaning ‘excellent' or ‘first-rate' -- not the noun ‘bully' (‘a blustering browbeating person') that's so common today," the Merriam-Webster dictionary explains.  For Barack Hussein Obama, "bully" has the more common meaning. To make the reality of the "shut-down" comport with his apocalyptic rhetoric, Mr. Obama is inflicting as much pain as he can on ordinary Americans. He's ordered all national parks closed -- including more than 100 privately staffed parks which make money for the government. Mr. Obama's choices make it clear he's acting out of petulant spite. 

The Obamacare rollout was FUBAR.  That's the acronym for F(ouled) Up Beyond All Recognition. * * * * Tom Clancy, "the military's Boswell," died Tuesday night at Johns Hopkins University hospital in Baltimore.  He was 66. * * * * Last week, Republicans were at each other's throats.  This week, Republicans watched in delighted amazement as Democrats made blunder after blunder. * * * * Things are looking up for the GOP candidates for the Senate in New Jersey and for governor in Virginia. * * * * Capitol police shot to death Thursday an apparently deranged woman from Connecticut when she tried to drive her black Infinity sports coupe into the Hart Senate Office building. * * * * Dingy Harry declared Sen.Ted Cruz, R-Tex, joint Speaker of the House.  That's mostly nonsense, but in one way it's true, because Cruz deserves credit for the excellent idea for the House to send to the Senate bill after bill to fund parts of the government * * * * The CIA's effort to train "moderate" rebels in Syria is, ah, a government program.  Max Boot sums up the strategy - imposed upon the Company by the White House - as "Go out and risk your lives for a stalemate."

This is the 18th time since 1977 the federal government has been "shut down," which suggests Democrats and journalists exaggerate the harm they do. Democrats are so confident this "shut-down" will end as that one did, they're refusing to negotiate with Republicans.  But even if Republicans lose this battle, they're poised to win the war. Few Americans are hurt by the "shut-down." All essential services go on. Checks go out for Social Security and other entitlement programs.  Mainly impacted are the roughly 800,000 (of 2.1 million) federal employees deemed "non-essential," who are put on unpaid leave.  Democrats get most of their campaign funds from public employee unions, so don't expect Republicans to shed tears for furloughed workers.

"Who you gonna believe?  Us, or your lying eyes?" The UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in effect issued that challenge with its 5th Assessment Report Monday (9/30). A Summary for Policymakers was formally issued last Friday (9/27).  But release of the report itself was delayed because revisions needed to be made to make the report proper comport with the Summary for Policymakers, the IPCC said. Since the report is written by scientists, while the summary is written by political representatives of UN member nations, this would seem to be bass-ackwards.  In a rational world, the summary should be adjusted to reflect the current thinking of scientists. But the IPCC bureaucrats live in an irrational world of bottomless corruption.

Four days after the Somali terror group al Shabaab attacked the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, the Kenyan government claimed it had taken full control of the mall.  They killed at least 72, injured about 175 more.  The body count was so high in part because mall security weren't allowed to carry guns.  It would have been higher had not a former Royal Marine had his with him. * * * * Obama's surrender to Putin on Syria is now complete.  Assad is crowing about it. * * * * Zero was at the UN Tuesday, where he gave a lousy speech, and got snubbed by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. * * * * Obamacare officially begins Tuesday.  As evidence mounts that efforts by the Obamunists to implement it will be what those in the military call a cluster**** of monumental proportions, flop sweat is accumulating in gallons on the brows of Democrats. * * * * It's easy to see why Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex, was a champion debater.  Especially delicious is how - at an hour when most of us would have been groggy from lack of sleep -- Cruz lured the insufferable Dick Durbin, D-Ill, into a trap, and eviscerated him. * * * * The IPCC leaked advance copies of its report to the most friendly journalists Thursday, with disappointing results, because even these tools "quickly realized the IPCC Summary for Policymakers contained several embarrassing walk-backs from alarmist statements in prior IPCC reports," said James Taylor of the Heartland Institute.

When President Barack Obama said blame for the murders of 12 people at the Navy Yard Sep. 16 on "those who fight to make it as easy as possible for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun," he was partly right. But the culprits aren't those he was trying to smear.

On Monday (9/16), Aaron Alexis, 34, who worked there for a private contractor, shot and killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard. There seems to be an epidemic of mass shootings -- in Tucson, Arizona in 2011, last year in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Appearances are deceiving. In the 30 years ending in March, there were 78 mass shootings, said the Congressional Research Service.  CRS defines a mass shooting as an incident "in which four or more people were killed at random by a gunman killing indiscriminately." In these mass shootings, 547 people were killed.  The FBI estimates that in the 30 years ending in 2012, 559,347 people were murdered.  The 547 slain in mass shootings account for less than one tenth of one percent of these murders.  Many more die in collisions with deer. Even one mass shooting is too many if it could have been prevented.  If liberals wanted to, here's what they could do.

The good news for former State Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs and former State Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo - both Democrats - is their place in history is now secure.  They're the first legislators in Colorado ever to be recalled. Despite outspending their opponents at least 6 to 1, Mr. Morse and Ms. Giron lost in districts Democrats should win handily.  Obama won them last year by 21 and 19 points respectively last year.  Mr. Morse lost because Democrats in his district didn't turn out, and Republicans did.  More Democrats than Republicans voted in Ms. Giron's district.  Her problem was so many of them voted to throw her out.  It was chiefly the votes of blue collar Hispanics that did her in. More recall petitions were signed by Democrats and Independents combined than by Republicans. Here's why this is such really bad news for Democrats nationally.