Dan Calabrese

Trump will propose roll back of approved spending, but sounds like Collins, Murkowski will kill it

Apr 11, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

Spend, baby, spend!

That’s what they do in Washington, and now that they’ve just passed the kind of omnibus spending blowout they dream of night and day, you didn’t really think they were going to rescind any of that spending, did you?

Arizona Supreme Court: Sorry, colleges can’t give in-state tuition to illegals protected by DACA

Apr 10, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

The logic seems hard to argue with to me: How can you claim legal privileges as a resident if it isn’t even legal for you to live where you’re living?

Before American discourse got the idea that illegal immigration wasn’t really illegal – because people don’t like it to be, I guess – this type of common sense logic would have been unassailable.

Trump to states: You no longer have to force people to pay for ObamaCare ‘benefits’ they

Apr 10, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

Democrats are declaring it part of the drip-by-drip decimation of ObamaCare.

And so it is, and thank God for that. The only thing better, obviously, would be complete repeal. But since our Republican Congress wasn’t up to the task after seven years of campaigning on nothing else, we’ll take death by a thousand cuts if that’s what we can get.

You voluntarily gave your data to a social network with a billion members—and people got the info

Apr 10, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

Make this stop. Please.

Not because I have any sympathy for Mark Zuckerberg, whose groveling over the matter is only feeding this silly narrative.

But how can you take seriously the notion that people who willingly gave their data to a social network with more than a billion members are now crestfallen because some outfit called Cambridge Analytics got ahold of it.

Media aghast as Trump blames Obama for Syrian chemical attack . . . but he’s right

Apr 9, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

It’s considered untoward for presidents to expressly blame their predecessors for problems. And let’s be honest: Conservatives jumped over Barack Obama all the time when he blamed George W. Bush for everything under the sun.

GOP Senate Judiciary member: Hey, Facebook’s problems may be impossible to fix without us regu

Apr 9, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

I know. You’re mad at Facebook for being biased against conservatives or whatever, and you’re pretty sure it needs some comeuppance for abusing its powerful platform to help the left. You’re convinced Facebook is censoring conservatives, and you’re incensed over the way Facebook has made it easier for mainstream media sites (meaning liberal sites) to reach their fans than alternative media sites (meaning conservative sites . . . and yes they have).

So even though you’re not the type to scream for regulation, and even though it probably seems a little off that a Republican senator is the one calling for it, you’re mad at Facebook and that trumps all else, so sure.

How did that cocaine get in her purse? Well, she offered police a perfectly reasonable explanation .

Apr 8, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

I’ve seen people say the alcohol on their breath was the result of someone throwing it at them. I’ve seen people claim drugs crawled all by themselves into their backpacks.

This one, however, takes things to a whole new level.

On March 21, police in Fort Pierce, Florida made a traffic stop on 26-year-old Kennecia Posey, and smelled marijuana. For those of you about to scream about the Fourth Amendment, smelling marijuana is recognized under the law as probable cause to do a search, and police proceeded to search Posey’s car. When they did, they found cocaine in her purse.

FBI still stonewalling crucial Steele dossier information request from August 2017 congressional sub

Apr 6, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

It sounds like Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray may need to be summoned once again to Paul Ryan’s office for another round of “You Will Be Held in Contempt If You Don’t Comply With This Subpoena, Boys.”

It worked the last time. Kinda. Sorta.

Oof: 34 percent of Millennials aren’t sure the Earth is round

Apr 6, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

No wonder Democrats want these people to vote in numbers as large as possible. They’ll believe anything – unless it’s true.

My 17-year-old son, who assures me he’s a round-earther, thinks Kyrie Irving might have something to do with it. It wouldn’t be the first time my son was convinced a major societal phenomenon had its roots in the NBA, and I can’t say definitively that he’s wrong.

But really, what to make of this? YouGov, which took the poll, tries to make it about religion:

Unsend is real! Mark Zuckerberg got caught nixing his Messenger sends

Apr 6, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

I always figured “unsend” was a myth, like the Loch Ness Monster.

Come on . . . once you’ve sent someone a message and it’s been downloaded to their computer or device, you can’t unsend it. You can’t make it disappear from their inbox.

Judge tosses PragerU’s censorship suit against YouTube . . . and it’s hard to argue with

Apr 5, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

This probably isn’t the news you want to hear about this, and it probably isn’t the take you want to hear either. PragerU, the conservative organization headed by Dennis Prager that produces educational videos with a conservative point of view, sued YouTube after YouTube restricted its videos in what appeared to be a very blatant case of viewpoint discrimination. The earnest young liberals at YouTube were putting the screws to PragerU because they didn’t like its conservative opinions, so they concocted pretexts for finding its content objectionable.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh didn’t deny that YouTube had done this when tossing PragerU’s suit, but she tossed it anyway for one simple reason: YouTube is under no legal obligation to be fair:

Hillary: Fox News is trying to impeach me!

Apr 5, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

I think she’s the one someone needs to explain reality to, but hey, Hillary gonna Hillary.

She tries to turn it on Fox News, of course, by making it sound like they’re the ones who don’t understand she’s a private citizen. But she’s the one who keeps making the rounds and denouncing everyone under the sun for costing her the throne to which she thought she was divinely entitled. Maybe people should stop asking her. Then again, if that happened, we wouldn’t get gems like this:

HILLARY AT IT AGAIN. The failed presidential nominee going on yet another post-election rant against President Trump, Putin, & Fox News | @JackieibanezFNC pic.twitter.com/64GMVFidIG

— Fox & Friends First (@FoxFriendsFirst) April 4, 2018

Trump: Props to Mexico for stopping the caravan, avoiding a ‘giant scene’ at the border

Apr 5, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

Presumably after all the attention it got, border security would have been waiting and ready.

You’d like to think that. As controversial as it’s now become in this country to simply enforce our own existing laws, who knows, but apparently the all the attention paid to the infamous caravan made it impossible for its participants to actually cross the border into the U.S. And President Trump, who is not known for praising Mexican authorities, did just that in giving credit where due:

Tennessee considers changing its state constitution to identify God as the only true source of liber

Apr 5, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

I’m not sure this is an exercise with a direct, practical application in the sense that it changes any policy or anyone’s life if it happens.

But that’s not to say Tennessee wouldn’t be doing something significant by making this move, which is exactly why you can expect plenty of opposition to it from secularists, and probably not just on the left – although primarily there for reasons we’ll get into in a moment.

California Democrats propose to place insane restrictions on when police can fire their weapons

Apr 4, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

You might as well call it the “Let Cops Get Killed Act.”

That’s essentially what a bill proposed by Democrats in the California state legislature would do.

Coming on the heels of the fatal shooting of Stephon Clark – a story that’s been wisely misrepresented by media and celebrity activists – cop-hating California Democrats see an opportunity to further emasculate police officers by changing to standard for when they can fire their weapon from “when reasonable” to “when necessary.” As with most things Democrats do, that’s worded in a way that makes it sound far more reasonable than it really is:

Trump tweets celebration of poll that shows approval near 50%, which is better than ‘Cheatin’ Obama’

Apr 3, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

If you don’t follow political polls for a living, first, congratulations on having a relevant and productive job. Second, I should probably point out that Republicans tend to outperform in Rasmussen polls compared with how they do in others. Whether you attribute the skew to Rasmussen or to everyone else, I will leave that to you.

Having said that, it’s rather astonishing that Donald Trump could be near 50 percent approval in any poll considering the nonstop pounding he takes from the media. Rasmussen actually has him this morning at 49 up and 50 down, so Trump went ahead and rounded up with this tweet:

Thank you to Rasmussen for the honest polling. Just hit 50%, which is higher than Cheatin’ Obama at the same time in his Administration.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2018

EPA throws out Obama-era clean air standards for cars

Apr 3, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

California apparently thinks it is a republic, and that doesn’t only apply to immigration enforcement. The Golden State also takes advantage of a federal waiver that allows it to impose even higher clean air standards on industry than those imposed by the federal government.

That waiver may be in jeopardy now, however, as the Trump Administration has done away with Obama-era rules that imposed burdens on auto manufacturers to achieve absurdly pristine air quality standards. California remains the outlier, but for how much longer? Scott Pruitt’s EPA doesn’t seem inclined to keep the waiver in place, and that seems likely to provoke a lawsuit:

Sheriff accidentally leaves his gun at a school; the gun doesn’t get up and shoot anyone

Apr 3, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

Shepherd Middle School in Michigan’s Mecosta County wasn’t a gun-free zone for a day last month, and it was the fault of none other than Mecosta County Sheriff Michael Main.

Main had used a school bathroom stall to change from his uniform into civilian clothing – for whatever reason – and thought he had put his gun in his bag before he left the stall. He hadn’t, and the fate of civilization hung in the balance:

Trump Sunday tweetstorm: DACA is through, and maybe NAFTA too

Apr 2, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

It sounds like the president started the morning watching Fox & Friends instead of going to church, although he made it to the Lord’s house eventually. Maybe it calmed him down.

But he was a little worked up early, and perhaps not surprisingly considering the experience of trying to get Democrats to be serious about a solution to DACA. They were never going to do that, since the problem that is DACA gives them far too valuable a political wedge to use. Solving it would restore the rule of law and rob them of the opportunity to portray Trump as a hater of immigrants. He’s not, of course – he just wants immigration to happen legally. But when Democrats can spew this slander and the media will let them get away with it, why would they want a solution to the problem that takes the issue off the table?

Lefty media freaking out because Sinclair Broadcast Group made its station anchors denounce bias and

Apr 2, 2018 — Dan Calabrese

Let’s review a few basic facts about the nature of business and employment:

First, when the owner of your company wants you to do something, it is generally not considered scandalous that you’re expected to do it – provided its not illegal, dishonest, unethical, etc.

Second, if you’re not willing to be supportive of the corporate goals and priorities established by the owner of your company, your option is to seek work elsewhere. The people who sign your paychecks decide those things, not you.