THE SMARTEST DEER IN HISTORY?:  Apparently this Bambi has had enough of President Obama’s policies.  We cannot endorse the vandalism, of course, but we have empathy for his frustration.  :)

DO BARBERS REALLY NEED A LICENSE?   Dick Carpenter and Lisa Knepper of the Institute for Justice discuss their jaw-dropping licensing report in the Wall Street Journal today.  Among their findings:  Cosmetologists need, on average, 10 times as many days to fulfill their educational and training requirements (372) than emergency medical technicians (33). In fact, 66 occupations face greater average licensing burdens than EMTs.  Carpenter and Knepper smartly ask:

Are all these regulatory barriers to entry really necessary to protect public safety or prevent consumers from shoddy work, as defenders of occupational licensure claim? Regulatory inconsistencies from state to state undermine this argument.

The vast majority of jobs we studied are done in one state or another by people without any government-issued license. Interior designers are licensed in just three states and the District of Columbia, for example, funeral attendants in only nine states, and shampooers in a mere five states. We know of no evidence that consumers in the remaining states demanded occupational licenses to protect them from an epidemic of dangerous shampooing.

And what are these unnecessary licensure laws doing for job growth? Time for a serious re-think.

TAXING SUCCESS, OBAMACARE-STYLE:  Great op-ed by Henry Miller in the WSJ today about Obamacare’s punitive tax on medical device manufacturers and what that might mean for medical innovation and jobs.

CAN YOU SAY WET BLANKET ON EMPLOYMENT? 1 in 3 OCCUPATIONS NOW REQUIRE A LICENSE:  Surprising occupations that need licenses include funeral attendants, makeup artists, auctioneers, interior designers,  travel agents, shampooers, and florists.  No wonder unemployment is so high!

I mentioned this new Institute for Justice report earlier this week when it came out, but didn’t have a link to the full text.  So here it is.  Also, here’s the excellent video below:

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OBAMA LOSES TO INMATE:  Apparently President Obama is sufficiently unpopular in West Virginia that federal inmate Keith Judd beat him in 10 counties in the Democratic primary on Tuesday.  In fact, Judd did so well that the final tally in WVA was Obama: 59%; Judd: 41%.  According to the AP report, “Attracting at least 15 percent of the vote would normally qualify a candidate for at least one delegate to the Democratic National Convention, but Judd didn’t designate a delegation chair or complete other steps required of a presidential contender.”

And apparently West Virginia is a closed primary. So the anti-Obama sentiment is emanating from Democrats, not crossover Republicans.

Why isn’t this getting more play? This is an important  sign of the depth of opposition to President Obama’s policies.

DOJ SUING SHERIFF JOE:  Seems Eric Holder’s idea of “justice” took another step forward today, with a civil rights lawsuit filed against outspoken Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  Talking Points Memo Ryan Reilly reports:

DOJ’s suit, filed in the District of Arizona, accuses jail officials of referring to Latinos as “wetbacks,” “Mexican bitches,” and “stupid Mexicans.” The suit says Arpaio “voiced his biased opinion of Latinos and Latino culture” in a book he coauthored in 2008.”

Arpaio singles out Mexicans and Latinos as different from all other immigrant groups in America,” the complaint says. “For example, Arpaio states that Latinos maintain ‘language [,] customs [and] beliefs separate from the mainstream,’ and are trying to “reconquest” American soil through migration to the United States.”

So let me get this straight. It’s a violation of federal civil rights law now to use derogatory slang or express your opinion about things?  Hmmmm….. First Amendment anyone?  Oh, that’s right: progressives think “hate speech” is outside the ambit of the First Amendment.  The present Administration’s culture of intimidation continues…..

OBAMA HATES GUNS (AGAIN):  This is getting old, but here we go again.  Fox news reports that President Obama is threatening to veto the DOJ appropriations bill that would halt a Obama-initiated ruler requiring gun dealers in the four U.S.-Mexico border states that border Mexico to report sales of multiple semi-automatic rifles to the ATF.  According to the Fox report:

Several House Republicans have charged that the Obama administration had an anti-gun agenda when it carried out Fast and Furious, and are particularly wary of Attorney General Eric Holder, who once expressed the need to “brainwash” the American people into disliking firearm ownership.

They cite emails CBS News acquired in December, in which lead Fast and Furious Agent Bill Newell and ATF Field Operations Assistant Director Mark Chait discussed how to use the scandal’s aftermath to promote the long-gun reporting requirement for multiple sales.

Amazing how the Obama administration and progressives in Congress can take an embarrassing scandal (Fast & Furious) and try to use it to further their own anti-gun agenda, Second Amendment be damned.  (That pesky Constitution keeps getting in the way– well, let’s hope, anyway.)

PETS AS BOMBS:  According to this ABC Report, Al Qaeda bomb-maker Ibrahim al-Asiri’s life mission seems to be discovering ways to hide a bomb from existing security measures, including not merely underwear bombs, but bombs in printer cartridges, hard drives, cameras, human bodies and yes, fluffy sweet pets.  “While al-Asiri and al Qaeda’s latest plot was foiled by a double agent working for U.S. and allied intelligence agencies, authorities tell ABC News there are several other plots aimed at US airlines that are at the least in the planning stages if not further along.”

BLUE STATE PAIN:  John Merline at Investor’s Business Daily reports that an IBD analysis of government data shows blue states have fared noticeably worse than red states under Obama:  “IBD compared average job growth, unemployment, changes in housing prices, per capita income and GDP growth, and gas prices for the 22 states that voted for John McCain in 2008 and the 28 states that voted for Obama. On every indicator but one, blue states have done worse, on average, than red states.”

SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION?  Don’t quite know what to make of this one, or whether it has any real legs.  But it was intriguing enough to me that I read it, re-read it, and mumbled a four letter word to myself afterwards.  Doug Hagmann at the Canada Free Press says a high level Department of Homeland Security insider is blowing the whistle on Department preparations for a “civil war.”  He says:

The Obama administration and many of the un-elected ‘czars,’ either directly or indirectly, are engaged in covert activities with the occupy movement, various labor protests, and other subversive activities inside the U.S.,” stated my source. Using untracked campaign funds, they are paying people to infiltrate the various movements to cause physical destruction of property and disrupt commerce. That began last year, but has increased ten-fold already this year,” stated this source. He added that they are using some lower level DHS agents to make the payments under the context of tracking subversives, but they are the unwitting subversives. “It’s like Fast & Furious” but in the social realm,” he added.

Let’s hope this is a hoax or something.

CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL (AND MAYBE POLITICS, TOO): Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart.com says it’s time for Elizabeth Warren to fess up.  Leahy observes, “This issue isn’t going away until Ms. Warren either makes this statement or offers verifiable proof of her claim. Fessing up is the best option for a campaign that is presently on life support.”  Exactly.

IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION SLATED TO BEGIN:  It’s a wide open convention, 100 delegates, with a one-year time deadline.  The Irish Times reports that the convention “will include consider an agenda that stretches from the prosaic to the controversial, including: review of the Dáil electoral system, reduction of the voting age, the presidency, same-sex marriage, participation of women in politics and public life and blasphemy.”

BYOP (BRING YOUR OWN POT):  As in marijuana.  A restaurant in Asland, Oregon gets a business license to operate by foregoing pot on its own menu and instead opting to let patrons bring their own. According to the Seattle Times,

“[T]he chef will no longer add hashish-infused oil to the Mongolian barbecue. Instead, cardholders will add their own after going behind a curtain to a corner decorated with a wall hanging of reggae singer Bob Marley.The owners had thought that if they gave away the pot ingredient, the establishment would be legal under Oregon’s medical marijuana law, but they were thwarted by a city ordinance that denies business licenses to anyone violating federal law.”

Yeah mon.

FORMER DETROIT MAYOR KWAME KILPATRICK CHARGED BY SEC:  For influence peddling.  “The SEC complaint alleges Kilpatrick and former Treasurer Jeff Beasley solicited and received $125,000 worth of private jet travel and other perks paid for by [investment advisor] MayfieldGentry.”  I had the distinct “honor” of teaching Mr. Kilpatrick in my very first semester as a law professor.  Shoulda seen it coming.

NEWS FLASH! OBAMA ADMITS HE SUPPORTS GAY MARRIAGE (*YAWN*):  Is anyone seriously surprised by this “revelation”? Is it not patent that he supported it all along, but didn’t think it politically expedient to admit? He needs to scrape together every single vote to win this November; hence the sudden confession.

LET THEM EAT PREMIUMS: Dr. Scott Gottlieb at AEI previews the impending financial catastrophe for the middle class, known as Obamacare.  He rightly observes that, under the individual mandate, families making under $88,000 per year will get no subsidies for the cost of their mandatory health insurance:  “Under the Obama plan, many of these families could instead find themselves buying their health insurance on the new state-based exchanges that get started in January 2014. For a family of four, premiums on even one of the lower priced “silver” options could still cost more than $15,000 annually on the exchanges.”   Cha-ching!

FOR EVERY PROBLEM, THERE’S A SOLUTION!:  Governing through the eyes of progressives: An overview

Problem (Americans are….)/Progressive Solution:

Too fat?  Ban bake sales and junk food; mandate broccoli

Too ignorant?  Censor journalists; control the curriculum

Too rich?  Tax the greedy bastards

Too white?  Favor non-whites whenever possible

Too individualistic?  Encourage dependency

Too uninsured?  Mandate health insurance

Too carbon-y?   Ban incandescent lightbulbs; loan billions to friends who start “green” companies; cap and trade; demonize energy consumption

Too unemployed?  Raise taxes to pay for temporary government jobs; discount jobless numbers by excluding those who have given up on finding a job

Too American?     Cede U.S. sovereignty to supra-national U.N. bodies whenever possible; use international and foreign law when interpreting the U.S. Constitution

I’M TOO SEXY? ONLY IF YOU ARE CONSERVATIVE:  Does anyone else want to hurl over the fawning compliments the MSM is giving to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton for ditching her makeup and donning eyeglasses?  A Washington Post blogger gushed that this was the “real Hillary,” the Hillary who was “relaxed, carefree-yet-ever-brilliant-and-hip”– a “fresh-faced” woman who looked “like schoolgirl.”

I’ll give the progressives for being somewhat consistent here–they really seem to prefer ladies to be unadorned, au naturel.  It’s those mean, nasty men who force us to wear makeup and look pretty.  I’m sure this (and not politics) is why Sarah Palin was excoriated by Salon columnist Cintra Wilson back in 2008 as ” a hyperconservative, fuckable, Type A, antiabortion, Christian Stepford wife in a ‘sexy librarian’ costume,” who was the Republicans’  “hardcore pornographic centerfold spread” and a “Republican blowup doll.”

I forget:  Who, exactly, is engaging in a “war on women?”

AT LEAST SOME PART OF THE ECONOMY IS GROWING: GUN SALES:  Guns sales are up– way up.  Women, in particular, are arming up like never before. Yes, it has something to do with the Obama Administration’s frankly scary totalitarian tendencies.  And yes, it also has something to do with the raw freedom that comes from a pair of Supreme Court decisions, Heller v. District of Columbia (US 2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (US 2010), that had the chutzpah, after over 210 years post-ratification, to finally declare that the people, indeed, have a right to keep and bear arms.

Oh, but of course the Obama Administration supports the Second Amendment, too– at least for Fast &Furious Mexican drug smugglers. House Republicans considering contempt charges against AG Eric Holder, now joined by several Democrat colleagues, are just playing politics with guns.  Defending the rule of law has nothing to do with it–unless you are one of those naive types who thinks the rule of law still matters.

LUGAR LESSON: DON’T TREAD ON THE TEA PARTY: Richard Mourdock’s big (20 point) Republican primary win last night in Indiana shows that the tea party is very much alive and well. The progressive post-mortem on this uniquely American movement–defined by fiscal and constitutional conservatism–were vastly premature. Mourdock himself is properly giving credit to the tea party for his victory.  Even DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz seems to get it, saying, “It’s official: the Republican Party is now indistinguishable from the Tea Party.”  Mitt Romney: Are you listening?

IT MEANS MORE WHEN YOU EARN IT– “JULIA,” ARE YOU LISTENING?:  This is of course commonsense, but then again, many folks seem to have lost commonsense in recent years– witness the Obama campaign’s pathetic, government dependent “Julia.” Arthur Brooks has great op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, “America and the Value of ‘Earned Success,‘” in which he compares his experience working and living in Spain with that of the U.S.  He concludes, “what set the United States apart from Spain was the difference between earned success and learned helplessness.”  Earned success is indeed, as Brooks points out, the heart of American exceptionalism, and it leads to individual happiness in a way that handouts never can.

BLOGGER FIRED FOR CRITICIZING BLACK STUDIES DEPARTMENTS, PART II:  I wrote about this late last night. The Wall Street Journal has a spot-on editorial about it today and the fired blogger, Naomi Schaefer Riley, has a must read op-ed across the page.  Welcome to Obama’s beautiful post-racial, rainbow-filled world!

OKAY, NOW THIS IS EXCITING!:  Gumby and Pokey gummies!  Am I the only one who finds this incredibly exciting? What’s not to love?

WILBUR THE PIG CAN STAY:  Awwwww….. This is sweet.  A Texas trial judge ruled yesterday that a Vienamese pot bellied pig named Wilbur is a “pet,” not “livestock,” and thus is allowed under homeowners’ association rules. There is justice!

JOURNALIST FIRED FOR CRITICIZING “BLACK STUDIES” DEPARTMENTS:  Here we go again with the political correctness that is crippling intelligent discourse in this country. Nick Gillespie over at Reason reports that a Chronicle of Higher Education blogger, Naomi Schaefer Riley, has been fired for offense of penning a post titled, “The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations.” Keying off a recent Chronicle story touting Ph.D. candidates in black studies, Schaefer Riley notes in part:

If ever there were a case for eliminating the discipline, the sidebar explaining some of the dissertations being offered by the best and the brightest of black-studies graduate students has made it. What a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap. The best that can be said of these topics is that they’re so irrelevant no one will ever look at them….

I’m sure she must be wrong about this– why, there must be hundreds and hundreds of dissertations from such students that espouse a wide range of viewpoints, with conservative viewpoints as prevalent as in society at large. Yeah, right– if you believe that, I have a bridge for sale I’d like to show you.