Michael R. Shannon

John Barleycorn, Not Joe College, Is the Real Threat to Your Daughter

Many parents concerned about their daughter’s future are concluding it’s safer for her to clerk in a Baltimore liquor store during a Freddie Gray rally than it is to attend college.

Robot Buses & Lord of the Rings

A reporter at the Dailydot.com writes “We’re one step closer to the automated bus future of our dreams,” which tells you something about the content of nerd fantasies.

Votes Are No Indication of Support When Media Is Counting

We have an instructive contrast between how the mainstream media treats a candidate whose positions it supports and how it treats a candidate whose positions it loathes. MSM Donations Both of our candidates have remarkable similarities. They’re outsiders who parachuted into the political arena and have never previously held office. Both are scornful of the entrenched political elite and promise big changes if they’re elected.

Maine’s Unpretentious First Lady Takes a Real Job

This summer we have an interesting contrast between first ladies at the state government level. Ann LePage, wife of Maine Gov. Paul LePage is waiting tables, while Maureen McDonnell, wife of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, is waiting to see if she can avoid going to jail.

Obama Insults the Bereaved in Dallas

It takes a special kind of president to travel to Dallas, ostensibly to speak at a memorial service for five assassinated police officers, and instead deliver a Black Lives Matter convention speech. A president completely oblivious to the purpose of the occasion and what decency requires.

Comey & FBI Blink After Email Investigation

FBI Director James Comey’s news conference on the conclusion of the Hillary Clinton investigation reminded me of another staged media event in a hostile environment almost 50 years ago. During the Vietnam War Commander Jeremiah Denton had been shot down on a bombing raid and was being held in a Hanoi prison camp.

Orlando and the Imaginary Wave of Islamophobia

When did shielding Moslems from criticism supplant baseball as the national pastime? The Washington Post features the shocking story of Hannah Shraim who extended her hand for a shake and was instead shaken to her foundations.

It’s Not Trump’s Fault GOP Leaders Have Failed

Way back in the pre–Trump mists of time, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry began his presidential comeback at the Gridiron Dinner where he described his 2012 campaign thusly, “The weakest Republican field in history — and they kicked my butt.”

Great Britain Experiences Bureaucratization Without Representation

Call it the Forty–Year Itch, there’s something about being in a larger combination of former opposites that causes husbands and nations to get restive. Forty–four years after the Constitution was ratified in the United States the nation experienced the Nullification Crisis.

Great White Leftists Know What’s Best for Red Man

A handful of activists using “civil rights” as justification convince leftist reporters and publicity–hungry Democrats to support a cause that until recently was not a concern to anyone who didn’t subscribe to Mother Jones magazine.

Media Decides Trump Can't Judge Judges

It’s curious that when establishment Republicans circle the wagons, somehow Donald Trump is always left outside the perimeter, where he is relentlessly pursued by Hispanic supremacists. This time RINOs were frightened by his remarks regarding the judge presiding over the Trump University class–action lawsuit.

Vets Need Better Options Than the VA

Here’s one federal employee who won’t be leaving “public service” to make millions in the private sector. Unless being the star in a dunk tank pays much better than I previously thought.

Resistance to Tolerance Is Futile

The legions of “tolerance” have crushed another dissenter. Ron Schneider, owner of Leon’s Frozen Custard in Milwaukee, has been forced to surrender his English–only ordering policy after complaints from ethnic agitators. It started Tuesday, May 17th, when a customer in front of a prickly Hispanic tried to order his custard in Spanish.

USDA = Busywork at Taxpayer’s Expense

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) — motto: Let’s pay farmers for what they used to do for free, is the 2015 Spendy Award defending champion and at the rate it’s going this year, the agency could be a repeat winner.

Is Retirement Bad for Your Health?

Rumor has it David Duke is wondering if Oregon State has finally discovered the holy grail he’s been seeking all these years: Proof there’s at least one benefit for those suffering enforced servitude.

Roadside Hook–Up Results in Slow Bern

Most of us don’t normally associate tow truck drivers with humor. Anger, outrage, despair and generalized hostility, yes, but humor, no. That’s why the story from Fox News in Asheville, NC is so interesting. Tow truck driver Kenneth Shupe received a call to pick up a woman who was stranded beside her wrecked car. The tow was shaping up to be a routine rescue. Just the usual concerns about expense exacerbated by additional worry regarding what to say to the driver during the awkward ride to the shop.

VA Reform: An Oxymoron Supported by Morons

Both David Gewirtz and Tom Young had a problem with a faceless, unresponsive, inertia–bound bureaucracy that views people with problems as nuisances. Yet neither one was in a Star Trek movie.

If I Want, Texting, Talking & Turbulence, I’ll Just Stay Home

It must have been the result of what Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr derisively terms a “nationwide search.” AMC Theatres was looking for a new CEO and it hired Adam Aron. He’s not on the job three months before Aron unveils a new marketing strategy: Attracting 22–year–olds by driving off everyone aged 35 and over.

Obama Creates a Military Only the Enemy Could Love

Obama SonTacitus, quoting Calgacus, wrote that Rome “makes a desert and calls it peace.” Today, in the United States, Barack Obama ruins an institution and calls it a legacy.

An Education in DC Driver’s Ed

Normally cost is the last consideration when an unelected bureaucracy is in pursuit of “safety.” No price is too high, particularly if business or conservatives are footing the bill. Even if only one child, polar bear or glacier is saved by the expenditure, it’s a small price to pay.