Lefty Logical Disconnect of the Day

When contemplating gun-control laws, "If we can save just one life..." is the imperative of the effort.  When fighting terrorism, "ISIS is not an existential threat to us..." is the operating principle.

The families of the next 50 or so people to get blown to bits or gunned down by ISIS will not be comforted by the fact that ISIS is not an existential threat.

Why Is Raqqa Still Standing?

Intelligence professionals understand this very well...

As far as is known, the attacks were planned by the headquarters of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Raqqa, Syria, which it has pronounced as the capital of its Islamic caliphate.

So, someone tell me why the hell have we not Daisy Cutterred Raqqa into a smoldering pile of sand???

More Importantly

3rd suspect in Brussels bombing captured.

So let's ask the really important questions... is he good-looking?...can we put him on the cover of Rolling Stone?

Buyer's Remorse?

Ha.  So the lefty post-mortems are coming in regarding the Obama years and they are lamenting that there just wasn't all that much "change" as part of Hope'n'Change. (h/t Instapundit)

That's fine, they can lament the lack of complete and utter progressive transformation all they want, a failure of a sort to them.  What they won't do (and I am waiting for an honest lefty to pen one) is assess another type of failure, that of outright backfire.  I laid out what would most likely be a lamentable list of backfire that the lefties could choke on as the Obama era winds down.

- The post-Obama American citizenry will be massively more armed than pre-Obama;

- A post-Obama America will have a healthcare system far deeper in disarray;

- A post-Obama America will less respected around the world, (considered weak by its enemies and unreliable by its friends);

- A post-Obama America will be more bitterly divided and contentious;

- A post-Obama America will have substantially more income inequality than pre-Obama America

 That's just for starters.  What is more terrifying to contemplate for lefties is that America may have less, call it, constitutional solidity by which to restrict the depredations of a conservative (or even just a non-progressive) POTUS.  What would a President Trump seek to do that he would not have considered were it not for a Constitution-flouting Obama??

Michael Bloomberg In Content-Free Fawning Over Trudeau

Michael Bloomberg takes to his namesake news agency to pen a mushy, feel-good paean to former pot-smoking school teacher and now Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.  Canada's future looks bright says Bloomberg because Trudeau talks "inclusion" and is going to dump billions of Canadian dollars down the rat hole of renewables/clean energy. 

Aside from the generalized content-free nature of this elitist mutual ass-licking, Bloomberg is wrong on several counts.  Ontario, for instance, has been plowing billions of dollars into its infrastructure for years now, Justin Trudeau had nothing to do with it.  Just ask anybody who's been stuck on the Gardiner Expressway anytime in the last five years. 

Second, Bloomberg says that the market has been reacting well to Trudeau's initiatives.  Poppycock.  The market is noticing that oil has bounced off its lows - West Canada Select is up 90% from its lows.  The Canadian dollar has rallied with oil but it remains depressed from 2015 levels after Trudeau reneged in grand fashion on his campaign promises to run "moderate" deficits.  Now elected, Trudeau's government will blow the doors off with massive deficit spending and all sorts of Keynesian nonsense.

Bloomberg's argument it nothing more than "he's young and he's liberal, so all looks good."  Sorry, that doesn't cut it.

POTUS Gone Rogue...Obama Torture Chambers Exposed!!

Holy crap.  From the New York Times...

WASHINGTON — An Islamic State detainee currently in American custody at a temporary detention facility in Erbil, Iraq, is a specialist in chemical weapons whom American military officials are questioning about the militant Sunni group’s plans to use the banned substances in Iraq and Syria, Defense officials said.

The detainee was identified by defense officials as Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, a chemical and biological weapons expert who once worked for Saddam Hussein’s Military Industrialization Authority.

Defense officials said that Mr. al-Afari, described by the military as a “significant” Islamic State operative who was captured a month ago by commandos in an elite American Special Operations force, has, under interrogation, provided his captors with details about how the group had weaponized mustard gas into powdered form and loaded it into artillery shells.

I repeat, "Holy crap!"  Special forces, temporary interrogation centers on foreign ally soil, no mention of Geneva Convention rights?!??!?!?!?!  Damn that George W. CheneyBushHitler.  POTUS gone rogue, I tell ya'!  Get me Code Pink on the horn!  Call the anti-war movement!

Oh wait...never mind.

Bad Journalism and Bad Math

CNBC is attempting to sex up Hillary's anti-1% credentials, but I can't help laugh at the semantic construction...

A study from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that Clinton's plan would generate $1 trillion in additional revenue for the government over the first decade and an additional $2 trillion over the next 20 years.

That is the exact same as saying the plan would raise $100 billion per year for 30 years.  But "trillions" sounds better in terms of soaking the rich.  $100 billion isn't big at all.  In fact, the government runs a structural $400-500 billion deficit even after heroic efforts by the GOP congress to rein in Obama's typical $1 trillion deficits.  So what HRC is proposing is pretty silly, especially when you consider that revenue coming in far in the future.  Discount that revenue by historically typical interest rates and the net present value is half of that.  Add in that everything that the government would spend that money on will be more expensive due to inflation, and these numbers are REALLY underwhelming.