Trump wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal – at least, I hope he wrote it because if he paid someone to write it for him, then he was robbed. It is mostly just a whine about that mean, dirty, rotten Cruz and how (billionaire insider) Donald Trump will give Power to the People. I’ve had a lot to say about Trump, but now he’s just irritating me.

Related: Trump under 50% in New York?

Additional related: Trump protest in Colorado fizzles.

The lawsuit against gun makers in relation to the Sandy Hook massacre can go forward…as I said, the left will just keep going and going and going with this. Eventually they’ll find a jury to award billions to someone and then gun manufacturers will be out of business. So, do we pass a law immunizing gun makers? We already did. In 2005. But we don’t really have laws anymore – we just have whatever a judge says.

Obamacare continues its complete financial crash. It is a bad law which was stupidly written and bears no relation to reality. Democrats will go to their graves defending it.

Jonah Goldberg notes a bit of liberal silliness on the abortion issue:

The White House is asking for a lot of money to fight the Zika virus. “I think Democrats and Republicans in Congress are interested in making sure that pregnant women and unbor children in this country can be properly protected,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in February. Unborn children? Yes, both parties want to protect unborn children from disease-carrying mosquitoes. But that bipartisanship falls apart when it comes to Planned Parenthood.

I can’t see how a Democrat can justify a single penny being spent to help an unborn child and then turning around and demanding money be spent to kill an unborn child. Either the unborn child is human – and thus can’t be killed – or it isn’t, in which case no one would give a darn what happens to it. Pick one, liberals.

Related: Liberals are thinking a bill which would prevent sex-selection abortions is racist. Don’t try to follow the logic folks, there isn’t any…its just a general liberal demand that abortion never be restricted in any way, shape or form…

When the United States built the Panama Canal more than 100 years ago – back in the days when we would actually build things, you know? – one of the main things which made our effort a success where the French failed was in eradicating Yellow Fever (along with many other diseases) from Panama. Certainly, 100 years later, Yellow Fever is just gone, right? Wrong. As I wrote some years back – to the complete lack of understanding of liberals – the Age of Science is dead. We are now benighted savages and worship our Earth Mother and must propitiate our goddess with the sacrifice of our Evil Science…you know, like banning DDT and stuff. I do think that some time in the next 20 years tens of millions of people will be wiped out by what should have been an easily containable disease…and they’ll die because we simply refused to apply science to the problem.

Sanders supporters – people who want free stuff, don’t want to pay for it.

Saudi Arabia says it won’t limit oil production unless Iran does. If this goes forward, expect a rapid drop in oil prices soon.

Ostensible Trump supporter Ben Carson is either a lot dumber than we thought, or he’s sticking the shiv in Trump with surgical skill.

Jay Cost – who knows more about American politics than 99.9% of us – says no one should fear a brokered GOP Convention.

King Abdullah II of Jordan proves conclusively that Christians and Muslims can be friends.

Obama is still the best gun salesman in human history.

Make people work as part of the welfare requirement and this happens:

In the first three months after Maine’s work policy went into effect, its caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents plummeted by 80 percent, falling from 13,332 recipients in Dec. 2014 to 2,678 in March 2015.

And that, my friends, is why Big Government liberals are opposed to welfare reform…and it’s not just that people will move off the rolls and become independent, but the additional horror that we’d need fewer bureaucrats…and that, in the end, means lower donations to the Democrat party.

Glenn Reynolds suggests a bit of punishment for Attorney Generals who try to criminalize dissent.

Ok, so a third or so of Wisconsin GOPers won’t vote GOP if Trump is the nominee…that is understandable…but about the same number won’t vote GOP if Cruz is the nominee. That makes no sense even in 100 parallel universes. I get it that Cruz has likeability issues. I get that he’s a bit far right for some even in the GOP. But this concept that “well, I’ll stay home or vote third party which ensures that Hillary is President if Cruz is the nominee” is just, well, absurd. Part of it is, I think, just passion-of-the-moment thing. There are still plenty of Rubio voters who feel betrayed their guy lost, and plenty of Kasich voters who are just officially sticking with their man to the bitter end. The balance would be made up of Trumpsters who simply won’t vote GOP, at all, if Trump isn’t the nominee. Most of the #NeverCruz people will, I think, come home in November.

Cruz does have a very high hurdle to jump – first getting the nomination; then uniting the party; then facing off against Hillary and figuring out a way to poach enough Rare Voters and disaffected blue collar Democrats. I figure his chances of beating Hillary are significantly less than 50/50…but he will have one magnificent asset in the quest: Hillary. She’s just terrible.

Related: Democrats shouldn’t underestimate Cruz.

So, a Dominican priest walked across a college campus – and the kiddies went into a panic thinking his white Dominican robe was a KKK outfit. College – it just doesn’t make any sense.

The Panama Papers scandal continues to cause a stir. If you ever wonder why rich and powerful people act like the laws don’t apply to them there is a simple reason for this: generally, the laws don’t apply to them. Certainly not like they apply to a poor or middle class person. If you’ve got enough money and enough pull, you can avoid prosecution; get sweet heart deals if prosecution is unavoidable; tie up the law in endless appeals if you can’t get a sweet heart deal; provide donations in return for an executive pardon if all else fails. But, mostly, you don’t even have to worry about that – Hillary isn’t the only easily indictable person out there walking around free, after all. The love of money is the root of all evil and power corrupts…people with lots of money tend to love money (otherwise, in almost all cases, they wouldn’t have made quite so much of it – and by “lots” I mean once you start getting into the billions of dollars of net wealth); people in power are always at risk of being corrupted by it and the longer a person has power, the more chance they’ll be corrupted. I have my solution for these problems – a wealth tax and term limits. Yeah, maybe not the best…but let’s hear yours.

The natural response to a $15 minimum wage. Spoiler alert: those making a minimum wage won’t like it.

State writes a confusing medical marijuana law. Small business owners decide to set up a marijuana dispensary which they believe has obeyed the law. Police disagree. Raid the place. Take everything they own. Charges get dropped. Small business owners still rather out in the cold. The biggest issue here is the asset forfeiture law – Michigan’s appears to be one of the worst, but all around the nation this sort of thing goes on…and one can’t help but feel that some of the incentive for the police to get a bit over-aggressive is the fact that many asset forfeiture laws allow law enforcement to keep the goods even if no conviction ever results. My solution: no seizure of assets until after conviction. And rather, period, end of story. Yep, this does mean some real criminals will be able to hide some of their ill-gotten gains, but that risk is worth it to me in order to ensure that innocent people don’t have their property seized.

Related: Juries should curb out of control prosecutors.

Merle Haggard, RIP

The non-war we aren’t fighting against ISIS could require more US troops.

The President of France – a Socialist much in tune with political correctness, it should be noted – said the Bad Words Islamist Terrorism while Obama was there…and so his people censored them. If a Republican President had done something like this, it would have been front page news for a month…

Glenn Reynolds – Instapundit – takes Hillary’s MSM toadies to task.

State Department has suspended it’s investigation into Hillary’s e mails because Reasons.

New military medal has a sword on it, liberals commence hand wringing.

Manufacturing jobs are going away, but bartending is having a boom year. Obamanomics!

Once upon a time, men were men – and could be warrior poets:

Safety

Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest
He who has found our hid security,
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
And heard our word, ‘Who is so safe as we?’
We have found safety with all things undying,
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.
We have built a house that is not for Time’s throwing.
We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.
War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,
Secretly armed against all death’s endeavour;
Safe though all safety’s lost; safe where men fall;
And if these poor limbs die, safest of all. – Rupert Brooke

Ever wonder what goes on in colleges? Here’s a sample:

Glaciers are key icons of climate change and global environmental change. However, the relationships among gender, science, and glaciers – particularly related to epistemological questions about the production of glaciological knowledge – remain understudied. This paper thus proposes a feminist glaciology framework with four key components: 1) knowledge producers; (2) gendered science and knowledge; (3) systems of scientific domination; and (4) alternative representations of glaciers. Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.

This is what is known in polite society as “bullsh**”. But it is BS with a purpose – to pretend that people who don’t know anything must be listened to. Oh, and you paid for that with your tax dollars. Human-ice interactions? For normal people, that is when you pour the bourbon…

Did George Bush lie us into Iraq? Short answer: no. But check this video out.

The hacker Guccifer has been extradited to the United States – he’s the guy who, among other things, hacked Hillary Clinton…but you can bet your last dollar that the Justice Department won’t bring up that little detail.

A chance to turn New York red in 2016? There’s been a surge of Democrats re-registering Independent and Republican this year…and Democrat primary turn out is not just a bit low, it is disastrously bad. Things could get interesting.

Why we Catholics have to keep “Popesplaining” things to you:

1. Pope says that Europe is facing an “Arab invasion” and notes that Europe has been able to deal with such invasions in the past.

2. MSM reports it as “Pope says Europe is being invaded and it is a good thing”.

The other day I saw a bit of a joke on Facebook – three pictures. First picture is of a smiling Pope Francis with the caption, “we must love all men”. Second picture is of an MSM talking head saying, “Pope Francis has made homosexuality mandatory for all men”. Third picture is of Pope Francis with a WTF look on his face. Seriously guys and gals, the Pope is not a Commie and he’s not an agent of the Global Jihadist Conspiracy. He’s Catholic – he’s going to say Catholic things and he will try to give as little offense as possible because if you’re insulting people, it is rather difficult to convert them.

Related: mass baptisms of refugees in Germany.

Related, Related: number of Catholics continues to increase faster than global population growth. Still down in the Americas and Europe, but growing by leaps and bounds in Africa and Asia. Main thing, we’re eventually going to take over. Muhahahaha! You’ll all be doing Rosaries!

Reports that plenty of DC Republicans might vote Hillary is that is what it takes to stop Trump. Sorry, folks – but that is just another indicator if its Trump Vs Hillary, Trump wins. Maybe 10 or 20 thousand upper echelon GOPers might vote Hillary…but millions of Democrats will vote Trump. If we want to stop Trump, November ain’t the place to do it…he’ll have to be stopped in the primaries.

Over 80% of the jobs added in February – if we can trust BLS stats, at all – were low wage (and there’s a Zero Hedge link for those of you who have been starved for such). But don’t sweat it – I’m sure that our economy is far more valuable with more people tending bar than working in mines…

On Saturday, the GOP has caucuses in Kansas, Kentucky and Maine and a primary in Louisiana – if the Great Wall of Trump is starting to crack, we should see some signs of it in these places.

People are still arguing that Cruz should step aside and allow Rubio to be the Anti-Trump – sorry, folks, but that just isn’t rational. I caucused for Rubio but you just have to admit that stopping Trump requires someone to get more delegates than Trump…and Cruz is best positioned to do that. Cruz is, on balance, probably the guy who can keep most of the GOP Trumpsters on side. Whether or not he can generate the sort of cross-over Dems Trump has been getting is an unknown. Now, if Rubio starts to do well and pulls ahead of Cruz (this would require, at minimum, winning Florida), then perhaps Rubio can be our Anti-Trump…but elections are about votes, not about what one prefers. Right now, Cruz is getting more votes.

Gallup has Obama above 50% approval…that is bad but, also, I think quite wrong. What has happened in Obama-world which would make people think, “wow, he’s doing a good job?”. It could be a reflection of popular disgust with Obama’s prospective replacements which is driving Obama’s numbers up. It’s the first time in two years Gallup has Obama in positive territory, so I suspect it is an outlier. This is is borne out by Gallup showing Obama +7 while no other recent polling shows him in that condition – and his RCP average is 48% approval, if you include this latest Gallup poll. But, we’ll have to see how it goes – keep in mind that the President’s party usually scores within a point or two of the President’s approval rating at election time…so if people are getting happy out the Obama Era, it bodes ill for the GOP…on the other hand, the collapse in Democrat primary turnout (ie, what people are doing rather than saying the pollsters) is a stronger indicator that Obama’s time has gone.

Allahpundit wonders – is it going to be Trump/Kasich or Trump/Cruz after all is said and done?

Topical: Hitler or Stalin – who is worse?

Progressives explained: “There’s no alternative to logic except laziness” – G K Chesterton.

Making sure Trump cannot corner the Insane-American Vote: Hillary will get to the bottom of the UFO business in Area 51.

UPDATE: Well, Cruz crushed it in Kansas and Maine, while Trump narrowly carried Louisiana and Kentucky. What we have here is a political contest which no one can see the end of – Trump still has the advantage, but it is small and shrinking. Meanwhile, Bernie took Kansas and Nebraska while Hillary rolled to victory in Louisiana…I’m starting to suspect that Her Majesty’s coronation might be delayed.

The Justice Department has given a grant of immunity in the Hillary case…grants of immunity are usually only given to someone who is guilty but willing to spill the beans on someone else. My guess: beans will be spilled on Someone Other Than Hillary. This way we get a prosecution while Hillary can be given an allegedly clean bill of health on the whole matter. Only question is who get thrown under the bus.

But is Bernie playing his hand in a manner to ensure that no one else can step in if Hillary is indicted?

Mitt Romney is going to give a speech tomorrow – some expect a Rubio endorsement, everyone expects some sort of attack on Trump. I don’t think an attack on Trump will do much – the sort of people backing Trump will treat Romney’s words with contempt. On the other hand, endorsing Rubio might help. On the other other hand, endorsing Cruz would be quite the unexpected thing – and probably be most useful in stopping Trump, if that can still be done.

Related: Lindsey Graham suggests it might be time to rally around Cruz.

For an alternative GOP view on Trump, Roger L. Simon appears unfazed by Trump’s enormities:

…With all his victories, however, many Beltway Republicans are obviously still tremendously upset by Donald’s success. It’s hard to tell how big the #NeverTrump crowd is, but you will excuse me if, in plain English, I don’t know what the Hell they’re talking about.

Do these people want to lose? Would they prefer Hillary Clinton be president? Are they looking for a perfect candidate? Has there ever been one? Donald Trump may actually be expanding the Republican Party. Isn’t that good? … For that group I would recommend a reading of Hugh Hewitt’s “Six reasons Trump is still better than Clinton.” If Hugh can write that after Donald famously dissed him for low ratings at the last debate, a lot of other people can swallow their pride too and get on board…

Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg isn’t having any of it:

…Trump says he gets along with everybody and will unify the country, even as he suggests that an inconvenient judge is biased because he’s Latino, vows to ban all Muslims from the country, insists his Central Intelligence Agency will torture people, and boasts that he will declare war on disloyal journalists.

When your opponent is that unreasonable, the reasonable response is not surrender.

I don’t know whether Trump will win the nomination or the presidency. But I am fairly certain that if he does, a great many people will one day say, “My God, what have I done?”