Last Call For Henry Waxman

40-year House veteran Democrat Heney Waxman of California is calling it quits after serving 20 terms, and he's blaming the Tea Party.

Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, a diminutive Democratic giant whose 40 years in the House produced some of the most important legislation of the era, announced Thursday that he would retire at the end of the year.

Mr. Waxman, 74, joins a growing list of House members who are calling it quits, many in disappointment over the partisanship and ineffectiveness of a Congress that may end up as the least productive in history.

“It’s been frustrating because of the extremism of Tea Party Republicans,” Mr. Waxman said in an interview on Wednesday. “Nothing seems to be happening.”

The frustration is felt on both sides. More than 30 House members have announced they will retire, resign or run for other offices this year, including stalwarts like George Miller, Democrat of California; Tom Latham, Republican of Iowa; Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia; and Howard P. McKeon of California, chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Waxman knows things aren't going to get any better in 2014, and with the Republicans still not having anyone who can win in 2016, they'll be just as insane then, too in the House.

Why would you want to stick around in this funhouse of stupid?

The Illigitimate Presidency

After five years and two elections, you'd think Republicans would accept the fact that Barack Obama is President of the United States.  But of course, you'd be wrong.

Congressional Republicans are taking President Obama to court over his use of executive power to sidestep Congress.

The executive actions that Obama touted during the State of the Union speech are adding fresh urgency to the legal efforts of Republicans, who say he is using the authority of his office in unprecedented ways.“We can go to court,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said. “We haven’t got many more options except [to] tell the American people that we’re seeing an abuse of the intent of the Constitution.”

Republicans have launched a salvo of legal actions to challenge the president on issues ranging from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance programs.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Republicans would not sit idly by as Obama takes unilateral actions like raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 an hour.

“We’re going to watch very closely, because there’s a Constitution that we all take an oath to, including him, and following the Constitution is the basis for House Republicans,” Boehner said.

Remember, these are the same guys who said when Bush was President that not only could the "plenary executive" regularly override the other two executive branches, but absolutely had to in order to win the Warren Terrah.

Now, the President with the fewest number of executive orders in modern history somehow must be reined in by a nearly all-powerful Congress who must resort to the judicial branch to stop any constitutional actions they don't like.  They've all but killed the recess appointment, now they're looking to destroy executive actions in the courts.

The real goal of course is impeachment...

The Jersey Takedown

GOP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie continues to drown in bad news, and the latest is a brutal NY Times piece on Christie's inner circle, portraying a man (that despite his protestations that he had no idea what his aides were up to) was in total control of every aspect of his influence machine.  Christie knew exactly what his inner circle was up to.

His campaign called them “the Top 100,” the swing towns that Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey wanted to win as he prepared for a re-election campaign. Capturing these towns, sometimes referred to as mini-Ohios or mini-Floridas, would validate the governor’s argument that he would be the most broadly appealing Republican choice for president in 2016.

Staff members in the governor’s office created tabbed and color-coded dossiers on the mayors of each town — who their friends and enemies were, the policies and projects that were dear to them — that were bound in notebooks for the governor to review in his S.U.V. between events.

Long after most of the State House had been shuttered for the night, Mr. Christie’s aides worked on spreadsheets, documenting calls and meetings with key players in the towns — one Republican called it “political Moneyball” — as the governor tried to win endorsements and friends.

New Jersey's mayors were the key to Christie's bi-partisan credibility -- and thus, the key to his 2016 ambitions.  Christie and his aides played hardball with them every step of the way.

Officially known as “intergovernmental affairs,” the operation was a key element of the permanent campaign that allowed Mr. Christie to win twice in a largely Democratic state. It was led by Bill Stepien, his two-time campaign manager and deputy chief of staff, and then by Bridget Anne Kelly, who succeeded him in his role in the governor’s office.

They were part of what one high-ranking Republican called “the crew” around Mr. Christie: friends who strategized at Mr. Christie’s kitchen table in Mendham and socialized with him in the governor’s box at MetLife Stadium.

Now this operation is at the heart of the growing scandal over the closing of lanes at the George Washington Bridge in an act of political retribution against the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J.

Mr. Christie has said that he had not been aware of his office’s involvement in the maneuver, and nothing has directly tied to him to it. But a close look at his operation and how intimately he was involved in it, described in interviews with dozens of people — Republican and Democrat, including current and former Christie administration officials, elected leaders and legislative aides — gives credence to the puzzlement expressed by some Republicans and many Democrats in the state, who question how a detail-obsessed governor could have been unaware of the closings or the effort over months to cover up the political motive.

In other words, the notion that Christie didn't know what was going on is patently absurd.  Absolutely everything was a political calculation to the man, and everything had a political motive.  Christie's political machine ran roughshod over New Jersey, and those that crossed him found out the hard way that there was a lot of political damage Christie's office could do if they didn't play ball.

Everything that the Republican party has attributed to the Obama administration for last five years was really happening in Trenton, in Chris Christie's inner circle.

And it's all crashing to earth around them.

StupidiNews!

• A New York man has plead guilty to charges of smuggling nearly 40,000 live piranha into NYC through a Hong Kong supplier over 2011 and 2012.
• Research published this week in the journal Nature describes a process used to "rewind" any adult cell into an embryonic stem cell state, which could be a major medical breakthrough.
• The Obama administration is preparing financial sanctions against Ukraine unless violence from both government police and protest groups is toned down.
• The final phase in Detroit's $18 billion municipal bankruptcy will begin as soon as emergency manager Kevin Orr files his plan with creditors.
• Sci-fi staple super-food Soylent not only exists now in real life, but it now has a company, a formula, and a nutritional label.

Last Call For Louisiana Cookin'

Louisiana is the latest state to attempt to regulate all of the state's abortion clinics out of existence, something that's working very well so far in places like Ohio.

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) is currently in process of finalizing new regulations on abortion clinics. The complicated rules, which are more than 20 pages long, could end up closing all five of Louisiana’s abortion clinics — effectively banning the procedure in the state. 

DHH first enacted the rules at the end of November, and has scheduled a public hearing for the beginning of February to finalize them. State officials, who likely intended to slip the new regulations under the radar, have already attempted to diffuse media attention. After media outlets began reporting on one provision in the new regulations that would require a 30-day waiting period before women could proceed with an abortion, DHH officials said they would rescind that particular rule. 

Even without the proposed waiting period, however, the new regulations still represent an alarming threat to abortion access in Louisiana.

So yes, they were about to be caught throwing in a thirty day waiting period for abortion, which would have effectively ended all abortions.  Now they'll have to sneak other things in:

For instance, one of the most concerning aspects of the new rules involves a new licensing procedure for clinics. Each abortion clinic will need to apply for a “certificate of need” in order to renovate its facility, to build a new clinic, or even to transfer ownership of a clinic. The state’s health department has complete power over accepting or denying these certificates. Meanwhile, providers will lose the right to appeal potential citations to outside parties. Essentially, DHH is endowed with the ultimate authority over clinics, and could choose to close facilities at whim. 

Another new requirement stipulates that an abortion can’t be performed until 24 hours after a woman’s blood work has been processed and entered into her chart. For the clinics that don’t have the capacity to do blood work, and typically send out samples to be analyzed elsewhere, that will ultimately require them to delay abortion procedures.

Just run all the clinics out of business, and you win.  You win reducing women to chattel with no control over their own reproductive systems.

Rep. Mike Grimm In "Breaking Bad"

New York City cable news station NY1 caught up with Staten Island GOP Rep. Michael Grimm at the Capitol Rotunda after the State of the Union address to ask him a few questions.  Reporter Michael Scotto apparently touched a nerve when he asked Grimm about the federal investigation into his 2010 campaign spending.  After happily bashing President Obama, Grimm gave a terse "This is only about the President" in response to Scotto, and the interview was over.

Until, with the camera rolling, Grimm stomped back over to Scotto and basically threatened to hurt him.

So Congressman Michael Grimm does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances," Scotto said before tossing back to the station. But as the camera continued to roll, Grimm walked back up to Scotto and began speaking to him in a low voice. 

"What?" Scotto responded. "I just wanted to ask you..." 

Grimm: "Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this f-----g balcony." 

Scotto: "Why? I just wanted to ask you..." 

[[cross talk]] 

Grimm: "If you ever do that to me again..." 

Scotto: "Why? Why? It’s a valid question." 

[[cross talk]] 

Grimm: "No, no, you're not man enough, you're not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy."

The best part:  Grimm's office released arguably the worst possible statement ever explaining the incident.

"I was extremely annoyed because I was doing NY1 a favor by rushing to do their interview first in lieu of several other requests. The reporter knew that I was in a hurry and was only there to comment on the State of the Union, but insisted on taking a disrespectful and cheap shot at the end of the interview, because I did not have time to speak off-topic. I verbally took the reporter to task and told him off, because I expect a certain level of professionalism and respect, especially when I go out of my way to do that reporter a favor. I doubt that I am the first Member of Congress to tell off a reporter, and I am sure I won’t be the last."

Keep in mind this all happened after Grimm went on NY1 to call President Obama divisive.  This is the same guy who screamed about the IMPERIAL OBAMA PRESIDENCY when Richard Cordray was appointed to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, calling the President arrogant and a sham.

But don't you dare ask the great and powerful Michael Grimm a question, because he really is the most important guy ever.

The State Of The Union

President Obama commenced with his 5th SOTU address, and the theme was both very powerful and very obvious:  He's going around Congress.

Obama said he will order the U.S. Treasury to create a new federal retirement savings account called MyRA, a savings bond that he added would guarantee "a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in." It will be available to those whose jobs don't offer traditional retirement savings programs, he said. 

Additionally, Obama called for: 

-- Eliminating $4 billion in tax subsidies for the fossil fuel industries "that don't need it" and instead "invest more in fuels of the future that do. 

-- Women who make 77 cents for each dollar a man earns to get equal pay for equal work, adding "that is wrong, and in 2014, it's an embarrassment." 

-- Setting new fuel standards for American trucks to help reduce U.S. oil imports "and what we pay at the pump." 

-- Reworking the corporate tax code. He urged Congress to work with him to close "wasteful, complicated loopholes that punish businesses investing here" and instead "lower tax rates for businesses that create jobs right here at home." 

-- Congress to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay in 2014. 

Obama also reiterated that he will veto any new sanctions bill from Congress that would derail talks on preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, adding that "for the sake of our national security, we must give diplomacy a chance to succeed."

 Republicans aren't happy about it.  Of course, they haven't been happy since November 2008, so frankly, who gives a damn about them anymore?

StupidiNews

• University of North Carolina Chancellor Carol Folt has admitted that the Chapel Hill school had failed students "for years" with false classes designed to boost grades of student athletes. 
• Scientists studying the brain have discovered a region that could be responsible for determining when a decision made is a bad one and when a different course of action is needed.
• Yemen's UN envoy is calling on the UN Security Council to draft a resolution backing Yemen's transitional government plan.
• Brazilian Olympic officials say the 2016 Rio Summer Games will directly cost $2.3 billion, but that they expect costs to rise in the years ahead.
• Google has released plans for prescription frames to use with its Glass product, but the titanium frames will run you $225 extra.

Last Call For Executive Actions

The paranoid winger right is fully mobilized against the notion that President Barack Obama has any right to issue executive orders, and are doing everything they can to suggest that him doing so is not only immoral, but criminal and even necessitating armed rebellion to stop him.

A retired Army general and Fox News analyst told a Tea Party group that he would lead a military coup against the U.S. government, if only reluctantly.

Paul Vallely, a retired major general and senior military analyst for the conservative news channel, told the Surprise, Arizona, Tea Party Patriots during a Dec. 3 speech that other retired military personnel and veterans groups had contacted him about the possibility.

“I had a call this afternoon from Idaho, the gentleman said, ‘If I give you 250,000 Marines to go to Washington, will you lead them?’” Vallely said as the group laughed and gasped. “I said, ‘Yes, I will, I’ll surround the White House and I’ll surround the Capitol building, but it’s going to take physical presence to do things.”

Vallely, who has suggested a variety of extra-constitutional remedies to remove President Barack Obama from office, said extraordinary means were necessary to achieve the legislative results he wanted.

“Writing letters to these senators and congressmen, I am so frustrated because nothing happens,” Vallely said. “I’m not inciting a revolution, but we’ve got to get more physical and stand up and protest.

He said such a protest would be a continuation of Tea Party activism.

Sure, you're not inciting a revolution.  But you wouldn't have any problem with one, or leading one if given the opportunity.  That seems like a sane, responsible thing to do, right?

But what of Obama's hundreds upon hundreds of executive orders that must spark a second American revolution to bring him down?  Surely these patriots of justice wouldn't be lying about his 923 executive orders, would they, Snopes?

The item reproduced above purports that President Obama has so far issued a whopping 923 executive orders (compared to about thirty each for previous presidents) and offers supposedly alarming provisions of some of those orders. However, the entirety of this item is erroneous.

First of all, the number of executive orders issued by President Obama is grossly exaggerated here. Through the first five years of his presidency (i.e., as of 20 January 2014) the count of all executive orders issued by President Obama was 168, not 923. Moreover, compared to President Obama's predecessors in the White House, this is not an unusually large number of orders for a modern president: President George W. Bush issued 291 executive orders during his eight years in office, while President Bill Clinton issued 364 such orders over the same span of time. 

So then, far fewer executive orders than Bush 43 or Clinton (and it turns out far fewer than Eisenhower's 484, Nixon's 346, or Reagan's 381.)  Poppy Bush issued 166 order in 4 years, Ford 169 in 4.  In other words, Obama has issued the fewest number of executive orders per year of any modern President, not the most.

Turns out if you really do want to see a President who issued a metric crapton of EOs, take a look at either Roosevelt.  Teddy issued over a thousand, and FDR over thirty five hundred.

But Obama is, you know, Kenyan and stuff.  So WOLVEREEEEEEEEEEENES!

The Greatest Glibertarian Meltdown Ever

Oh Truth, you are not only stranger than Fiction, you are also far, far more entertaining at times.

U.S. government agents have arrested Charlie Shrem, the CEO of Bitcoin exchange BitInstant, charging him with laundering money for customers of online drug bazaar Silk Road.

Just the first sentence is pure Dudebro rage fuel:  A Bitcoin exchange CEO, getting busted by Evil Government Types, for using the cryptocurrency to by drugs online. And Shrem is no small fish, either.

The U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York said Shrem helped someone he hadn't met in person, Robert Faiella, sell more than $1 million worth of bitcoins to Silk Road customers. Faiella, a 52-year-old Florida man, allegedly ran an underground Bitcoin exchange using the alias BTCKing.

Shrem was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Sunday, and Faiella was arrested at his home in Cape Coral, Fla., on Monday, prosecutors said. Both are charged with conspiracy to launder money and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Additionally, Shrem faces a charge for not tipping off the feds to what was allegedly going on.

Here's the best part:

Shrem, 24, is a major player in the Bitcoin world. The BitInstant exchange, based in New York City, lets people buy bitcoins locally at more than 700,000 locations in the United States, as well as Brazil, Russia and elsewhere. It received a $1.5 million investment last year from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. Shrem is also vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, one of the currency's biggest advocates.

On the board of the Bitcoin foundation AND took angel money from the Winkelvii.   The story is literally GOLD! WEED! END THE FED!

Bonus question:  What did you guys think glibertarian tech dudebros were using an all-digital, non-country based currency for, anyway?  To cure cancer?

SNAP Off The Heater, Will Ya?

There's a deal on Capitol Hill to finally cut expensive red state direct farm subsidies pork in the farm bill, but Republicans get to extract their pound of flesh from blue states where there's an additional state bonus to SNAP checks to help pay for heating.

The bill changes the current agricultural subsidy system. It ends direct payments to farmers for planting crops and replaces it with a revamped, beefed-up crop insurance program.

"Today's bipartisan agreement puts us on the verge of enacting a five-year Farm Bill that saves taxpayers billions, eliminates unnecessary subsidies, creates a more effective farm safety-net and helps farmers and businesses create jobs," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate agriculture panel.

The changes to food stamps would trim $8 billion from the program over the next 10 years, according to congressional aides. That's less than the $39 billion that Republicans had wanted to cut from the program, but double what Democrats had suggested.

Lawmakers say the deal will prevent 17 states from doling out more generous food stamps to people who get federal help to heat or cool their homes, even if the help is as little as $1. They stress the move won't cut families from food stamps, it will just shrink the amount some families get. 

So, not only do the SNAP cuts at the end of this year become permanent, there's $8 billion more being cut from the program.  Granted, it will only affect a small number of total SNAP beneficiaries (850,000 or so out of 47 million) but the cuts will be significant:  as much as $90 a week.  That's real money to real people who are going to have real problems this winter.

I don't like this deal, but given the fact that Republicans wanted to cut nearly $40 billion from SNAP, it's something of a Pyrrhic victory.

StupidiNews!

• Two Toledo, Ohio firefighters are dead after responding to a fire at an apartment building, both men suffered fatal burns and smoke exposure.
• Florida's state Supreme Court has signed off on a medical marijuana ballot initiative to be put before voters in November.
• The Obama administration has reached a deal with tech companies to inform the public and customers about surveillance court orders.
• Hong Kong health officials will destroy 20,000 chickens at a wholesale market after bird flu was found among the poultry population there.
• Smartphone-based car service Uber faces a wrongful death lawsuit in San Francisco after a New Year's Eve traffic accident resulted in the death of a six-year old girl.

Last Call For His Inevitable Be-Trey-al

Turns out GOP Rep. Trey "The Red-Nosed Coke Fiend" Radel's insistence that he won't be quitting Congress after his cocaine bust in October was a much of a snow job as the rest of his time as a Tea Party nimrod.

Embattled Rep. Trey Radel of Florida plans to resign Monday evening, a little more than two months after pleading guilty to misdemeanor cocaine possession. 

Radel, 37, a Republican from Fort Myers, submitted a resignation letter to House Speaker John Boehner saying he will step down effective at 6:30 p.m. 

"Unfortunately, some of my struggles had serious consequences," Radel said in his letter to Boehner. "While I have dealt with those issues on a personal level, it is my belief that professionally I cannot fully and effectively serve as a United States representative to the place I love and call home, Southwest Florida." 

Radel sent shorter resignation letters to Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who will have to coordinate the special primary and general election to choose the next person to represent Florida's 19th District.

Same guy who said Obama should be impeached for "the decisions he's making", same guy who voted for legislation that would require all SNAP recipients nationally to be drug tested.  This freakin' guy, eh?

I said a while ago that as soon as the GOP found someone to run for Radel's seat, he'd be forced out.  At the time it looked that person was former GOP Rep. Connie Mack IV, son of former Florida Senator Connie Mack III.  Mack wanted back in Congress after losing to Bill Nelson in 2012 for his dad's old Senate seat.

Mack said he would only seek the seat (which used to be his old House seat) only if Radel didn't seek re-election.  Seems to me that this is now the case, and I'm betting that Mack decided to run with the blessing of (and serious money from) the RNC.  As such, I'm sure Radel was told in no uncertain terms that he would be getting no support from the party, and that if he continued to remain in Congress, life would become very, very uncomfortable for him.

The special election will allow Connie Mack IV to waltz right back into Congress.  I said it was a no-brainer then, and I'm honestly surprised it took this long to execute the obvious plan.

Anarchy For Thee But Not For Me

Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds has another ridiculously boneheaded anti-Obamacare column in USA Today again, which reads in part:

If the program fails, it won't be because Republicans stopped it, despite all the House votes and defunding efforts. It will be because millions of Americans' passive resistance brought it to its knees.

Now, putting aside Reynolds inability to objectively analyze anything more complex than a paper bag, let's break down the core of this "reasoning" here.  He's basically saying that in a representative democracy like the United States of America, when your side loses a free and fair election, the answer is to break the system.

Indeed, at the top of his article, he does this:

In his excellent book, Two Cheers For Anarchism, Professor James Scott writes:

"One need not have an actual conspiracy to achieve the practical effects of a conspiracy. More regimes have been brought, piecemeal, to their knees by what was once called 'Irish Democracy,' the silent, dogged resistance, withdrawal, and truculence of millions of ordinary people, than by revolutionary vanguards or rioting mobs."

Now here's the funny part:  Reynolds is basically advocating bringing down Obamacare through mass refusal, refusal to participate, refusal to work within the system to fix the problems, refusal to acknowledge that the program may be helping people (and refusal to do anything other than shrug and say "gotta break a few eggs" when it comes to folks like this) but most of all, refusal to legitimize the fact that all three branches of the federal government signed off on this.

The second half of Reynolds' column deals with Colorado's pot laws, something he considers again to be a de facto defeat of federal law.  He then lays out this passive resistance as a way to destroy Obama (and get high.)

The irony about all this is that this really is an example of classic "Saul Alinsky playbook" tactics to destabilize a government, something the "intelligentsia" of the right have been accusing Barack Obama of doing pretty much all his adult life.

Just goes to show you that the louder the right is accusing the left of doing something, the more they themselves are the ones doing it.  We've gotten to the point now where Instagoofball is confusing bureaucratic inertia with mass refusal, and imagining a massive silent condemnation of Obamacare, Obama, Democrats and liberalism some tens of millions strong.

Why, I bet he thinks since only 65 million people voted for Barack Obama in 2012, the other 250 million people or so in the United States are silently standing strong against him, too.

Meanwhile, somebody should tell Glenn here that Republicans are running in 2014 on how great Obamacare is.

In an interview with National Journal last week, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, expected to be effectively unopposed for the Republican nomination for the open U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia, had some of the kindest words yet for one of Obamacare's key provisions from a GOP candidate.

"Coverage is great and having more people covered is excellent," Capito said of the expansion. She included a number of caveats -- she's concerned about long-term costs -- but she simultaneously acknowledged that repealing Obamacare is likely an unachievable goal and that aiming to improve the health care reform law while keeping people insured is a preferable pursuit.

"Hopefully, when I get to the Senate and we begin to make changes in the Affordable Care Act, that we will be able to find a way through tax credits and subsidies to keep folks in that insured area," she said. "And then, as they move up and we grow the economy -- because of better policies we're putting forward -- once they move up they're able to move out of that category, maybe in a more gradual fashion than one day you're on, one day you're off."

Capito's borderline heresy likely has a very pragmatic source: Medicaid expansion is a pretty good deal for her state. With the federal government covering all of the expansion costs for the first three years and 90 percent thereafter, the Kaiser Family Foundation projects that 116,000 West Virginians would be covered by the expansion by 2022.

Yeah, people are going to line up around the corner to remain without health insurance.  And this is West Virginia, arguably the most anti-Obama state in the nation.

Shutting Down Reality

Sen Ted Cruz has a memory problem.  Or a reality problem.  Or both.  Crooks and Liars has the video of Cruz tal;king with CBS Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer:

"Well, Bob, with all due respect, I don't agree with the premise of your question," Cruz replied. "Throughout the government shutdown, I opposed a government shutdown. I said we shouldn't shut the government down. I think it was a mistake that President Obama and the Democrats shut the government down this fall." 

"The question I asked you was, would you ever conceive of trying to shut down the government again?" Schieffer pressed, clearly not buying in to the alternate reality. 

"As I said, I didn't threaten to shut down the government the last time," Cruz insisted. "I don't think we should ever shut down the government. And I repeatedly voted..." 

"Well," Schieffer interrupted, laughing out of frustration. "If you didn't threaten to shut down the government, who was it that did?" 

"President Obama," Cruz said. 

Schieffer dropped his head as the Republican senator's rant continued: "I understand the White House said over and over again that the shutdown is the Republicans' fault. And I understand that's what you're repeating. But the reality is, I voted over and over again to fund the federal government."

"Remember when President Obama and the Democrats shut down the government?" will be all over 2014 and 2016 political ads, and Cruz, Rand Paul, and the rest of them will simply say it's Obama's fault.  And none of our "liberal media" folks will dare correct them.