Note: CJ Pearson is probably a descendant of the African-American slaves. Barack H. Obama, by his own official biography, is not.

Like others, I don’t care much about the Oscars. But I understand that Patricia Arquette made a stir on Sunday night, with her speech about “All women deserve equal pay”.

Let’s be clear: Women and men absolutely deserve equal pay, when we’re talking about equal work. That is: work of the same category and experience level, that either a woman or man could do, done with equally good results, under equally good (or bad) conditions.

The point of contention is: Are left-wing feminists really talking about that? Are they correct to claim a large gender gap exists? And are left-wing politicians correct, when they claim to be the answer?

Powerline reminds us of research from 2011 about the gender gap being a myth. And also how, on the surface at least, Hillary and Obama are hypocrites – for example, Hillary has paid her women 72 cents on the dollar (compared to her men). While left-wing hypocrisy is a delightfully inexhaustible subject, the first piece is most interesting for the points it makes.

Basically, research supports the idea that men *on average* tend to choose more dangerous (or less popular) careers; more stressful specializations within the same career; and more uncomfortable and undesirable work locations. And tend (on average) to work longer hours including more nights and weekends, and to take fewer lengthy mid-career breaks. When adjusted for such factors, the gender pay gap disappears – or even turns slightly in favor of women.

If you disagree, please feel free to post your facts/logic in the comments.

UPDATE: Peter Schiff makes a good point, that if he *could* pay a woman less for the same work, women would have a competitive advantage. He “would be an idiot to hire a man” – and would gladly hire nothing but women. He doesn’t, because it just isn’t so. (At least in financial services. Maybe, over in show business, George Clooney’s career will indeed age better than Patricia Arquette’s.)

UPDATE: At the same link, Schiff adds, “in adult entertainment [as opposed to Arquette/Hollywood] women are paid much more…this disparity has nothing to do with discrimination…The porn audience cares about the female stars…So pay rates reflect market forces…I wonder if at the next Adult Video News awards a male winner will demand equal pay during his acceptance speech?”

Remember the Left going on and on about President Bush’s supposedly “illegal” and “unilateral” Iraq war? When, in reality, the Bush administration had gone to great lengths to obtain (and did obtain) authorization for Iraq from both Congress and the U.N.

Even Senator Obama got in on the act, saying later in 2007 that “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” His words were correct – but again, irrelevant to the Bush case (since Bush had Congressional, bipartisan approval).

Then President Obama felt like bombing Libya out of the blue (no terrorist threat was involved – until after Ghaddafi was gone). And he sought no authorization from Congress. Did the Left care? A little; but really not much.

President Peace Prize also went on to embroil the U.S. in wars in Syria and Ukraine – unilaterally and with no authorization. And to blow any gains of the Iraq war, allowing ISIS to take hold; an event that President Orwell referred to as his having “ended the war”.

Now that he has done so, he proposes to resume the Iraq war. Except this time, he finally wants authorization first. I suppose that’s nice of him. I suppose we must be grateful, to such a terribly great man, for the small graces that he grants to us, his subjects.

Michelle and Barack Obama want everyone to know that they have suffered the horrors of racism. And the reality of the horrific racism in America is that it’s so horribly, horribly… slightly inconvenient and mildly annoying.

Barack Obama was a black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching cabs,” Mrs. Obama said in the Dec. 10 interview appearing in the new issue of PEOPLE.

“I tell this story – I mean, even as the first lady – during that wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf. Because she didn’t see me as the first lady, she saw me as someone who could help her. Those kinds of things happen in life. So it isn’t anything new.”

Being asked to assist someone in getting an item from a shelf at Target is just exactly like living in the Jim Crow south, I guess. Worse, the Empress is miffed that the lady in the story didn’t seem to realize she was in the presence of the Great Michelle Obama. No Empress should be asked to stoop to help a peasant.

Curiously, neither mentions the role race may have played in getting preferential treatment in college and law school admissions; much less the political advantages of melanin.

For your consideration:

- Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from The Casa)

Kim Strassel laments that the White House is a hostile working environment for anyone of intelligence or the capability for independent thought.

“Doormat” has been the job description for pretty much every Obama employee. The president bragged in 2008 that he would assemble in his cabinet a “Team of Rivals.” What he failed to explain to any of the poor saps is that they’d be window dressing for a Team of Select Brilliant Political Types Who Already Had All the Answers: namely, himself and the Valerie Jarretts and David Axelrods of the White House.

…

The experienced Bill Daley came in 2011 as the chief of staff tasked with repairing Mr. Obama’s relations with the business community. He left a year later, having been stripped of many duties and trashed by the White House to the press. The sage Leon Panetta stepped up as defense secretary in 2011; he too left after 20 months of getting his head patted. The folks who look smartest now are those who fled early, while the fleeing was still relatively good—Rahm Emanuel, Austan Goolsbee, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag, Vivek Kundra.

Who would want to work for a boss who micromanages everything but takes no responsibility when things don’t work out? This president’s playbook for controversy: Deny knowledge, blame subordinates.

Read the whole thing.

Obama has previously declared that he is a better speechwriter than his speechwriters, and know more about policy than his policy advisers. Such a megalomaniac has no interest in hearing, much less entertaining, opinions that do not align with his own. So much for diversity.

But then again, it often seems President Obama doesn’t really run the White House; he’s off playing golf, partying with celebrities and billionaires. Every once in a while, they put a suit on him and stand him up in front of a TelePrompter. It is very much the consensus that the real authority in the White House comes from former Slum Queen Valerie Jarrett, an “advisor to the President” (think “Wormtongue”) who has been granted her own secret service detail and is the first and last word on White House policy and hiring decisions.

It is little wonder that Obama and Jarrett have created an environment where anyone of any intelligence leaves, but those who can enthusiastically mouth the official party talking points … like Jen Psaki, Josh Earnest, and Maria Harf … thrive.

Indeed. [HT: The Blaze]

Tonight, apparently, His Imperial Majesty Barack Obama I — because the legislature has displeased him — will unilaterally impose his will on the country; and on the stupid American voters who don’t know what’s best for him.

The ironic part about this situation is that Democrats claim that Republicans want to impeach Obama because he’s black. But the truth of the matter is that the entire reason Republicans *won’t* impeach Obama is because he is black; no white male president could get away with the abuses of power Obama gets away with; not just on Amnesty, but on the abuse of the IRS to target political opponents, the unilateral exemptions granted under Obamacare, running guns to Mexican drug gangs. The Democrats would like nothing more than an impeachment trial that they and their media wing could turn into “Racist GOP Impeaches First Black President.” Obama’s approval ratings may be underwater with the citizenry, but his approval ratings in the media looks like North Korean election returns.

(more…)

Given how crazy U.S. political culture has become – in other words, given that too many of today’s Republicans are not that much better than Democrats, who went insane years ago – it’s a bit hard for some of us to be pleased by any political news, even news of a Republican victory.

Still, let’s all try to be pleased. What’s the best news of the 2014 election? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. For starters:

• Gov. Scott Walker survives again in Wisconsin, by a margin of several points. As the saying goes, “This is what democracy looks like!”
• Sandra Fluke goes down in California. In Florida, also defeated was the execrable Charlie Crist.
• President Obama provides humor, refusing to give his victorious opponents the traditional congratulations, and seriously claiming that tonight’s election somehow didn’t repudiate him.
• Maryland went GOP, governor-wise. Wow.
• Maybe, just maybe, the silly “War on Wymyn, they’re banning tampons!” shtick is played out? Mark “Uterus” Udall lost in Colorado, and Wendy Davis even lost Texas women by nine points. Attacking the libertarian Koch brothers is another silly Democrat tactic that failed, and is hopefully played-out now.

What else?

UPDATES (some from comments or Twitter):

• Congratulations to Mia Love (R – UT), here celebrating with her family:
  
• At least for now, openly gay Republican Carl DeMaio clings to a 700-vote lead, in CA’s 52nd Congressional district. (50,000 mail ballots remain to be counted.)
• Tim Scott (R – SC) is the first black Senator to be elected from the South since Reconstruction. Congratulations, Tim!

Barack H. Obama, putting down the Bush administration for allegedly being unprepared for the avian flu:

Via Patterico.

UPDATE: Powerline points out Obama’s political desperation. He recently said this:

I actually believe that capitalism is the greatest force for prosperity and opportunity the world has ever known. And I believe in private enterprise — not government, but innovators and risk-takers and makers and doers — driving job creation.

It’s not that Obama is lying – there’s nothing new, in Obama lying about his own beliefs. It’s that he’s now lying to pretend some sort of admiration for capitalism. How are the mighty fallen! Remember him saying in better times how we’ve got to “spread the wealth around”? And wanting to tell business owners, “You didn’t build that!”

Zimbabwe tells the Obama administration to ‘go hang’:

THE United States has reportedly warned Zimbabwe about its growing economic dealings with Russia…

According to Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru, who is thought to be President Robert Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba, the Obama administration threatened further sanctions against Zimbabwe over its ties with Russia…

The US imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe in 2003, accusing Mugabe of human rights abuses and electoral fraud…

Manheru said it was ridiculous for the US to refuse to lift sanctions against Harare and then demand support for its measures against Moscow…He wrote…“This is where I am tempted to tell the American government to go and hang, hang on a banana tree, bums up.”

In 2008, left-liberals told me – explicitly and with a straight face – that electing a brown-skinned President would make us more trusted and popular, in the Third World.

Obama says US ‘underestimated’ rise of ISIS, admits ‘contradictory’ Syria policy:

President Obama acknowledged Sunday that U.S. intelligence officials “underestimated” the threat posed by the Islamic State and overestimated the Iraqi army’s capacity to defeat the militant group…

Let’s be clear: Officials who were chosen and supported by Obama. The administration of Barack Hussein Obama underestimated ISIS.

Or else, we can make this entry #39,422 in the files of “Obama pretends that he hasn’t been president all these years”. In the interview, Obama goes on to also blame Iraq’s PM al-Maliki for the problems; never himself.

One more thing. Does Obama still have the U.S. backing the world’s evil dictators? It seems so:

Obama also acknowledged that the U.S. is dealing with a conundrum in Syria, as the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State is helping Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom the U.N. has accused of war crimes.

“I recognize the contradiction in a contradictory land and a contradictory circumstance,” Obama said…

Bush practically would have been impeached, for saying that. (And Bush wouldn’t have said it because Bush did what he could, to push U.S. policy in the direction of overthrowing the world’s evil dictators.)

One more thing. Has Obama made it a thing of the past, that the U.S. might strike its enemies pre-emptively (or perhaps unilaterally, as the Left calls it)? Not so much:

Obama called the threat from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and other terror groups a more “immediate concern that has to be dealt with…” “…in terms of immediate threats to the United States, ISIL, Khorasan Group — those folks could kill Americans,” he said…

Both groups have been targeted by U.S. airstrikes in recent days…

Barack Obama: Just what the Left always *accused* Bush of being. And of course, the media lets him get away with it.

UPDATE: Some Democrats agree that it was the Obama White House, more than the U.S. intelligence community, which underestimated ISIS.

Former Rear Admiral Joe Sestak, a two-term Democratic member of the House of Representatives…appeared to surprise his MSNBC interlocutor when he noted that the only people who got ISIS wrong work in the Obama administration.

“If you remember back in January and February, the head — the general, the Defense Intelligence Agency, actually testified before the House and Senate that in 2014, ISIS would take over large swaths of territory,” the Navy veteran asserted. “In fact, at the time he testified, they had already seized Ramadi and Fallujah — 35 miles from Baghdad.”

A decade ago, Fallujah was a crucial victory for the Marines (some of whom gave their lives) against an earlier version of ISIS. I guess Obama threw it back.

UPDATE: A report that Obama was warned about ISIS in 2012. As Ed Morrissey puts it:

…the US intelligence community told him of the danger at the same time Obama ridiculed Mitt Romney during the presidential debates…for wanting a residual force in Iraq to prevent exactly what Romney warned would happen.

As ISIS runs amok in Iraq and Syria decapitating Americans and committing genocide, as Libya falls to Islamists, as American, British, and German citizens rush to join up with ISIS and prepare to bring home their savage ways, as Boko Haram slaughters entire African villages, the President of the United States dithers in denial.

You have to wonder if reality has yet caught up with any of Obama’s slavering fan-boys yet.

Hot Air reminds us how, in 2008, gay Trig-Palin Conspiracy Theorist Andrew Sullivan proclaimed that Obama’s face was going to make Muslims like America, and his magical genius would transform the political dynamic in the Middle East, create lasting peace, and raise America’s internal prestige to unprecedented levels of awesome.

What does he offer? First and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan. Such a re-branding is not trivial—it’s central to an effective war strategy. The war on Islamist terror, after all, is two-pronged: a function of both hard power and soft power. We have seen the potential of hard power in removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. We have also seen its inherent weaknesses in Iraq, and its profound limitations in winning a long war against radical Islam. The next president has to create a sophisticated and supple blend of soft and hard power to isolate the enemy, to fight where necessary, but also to create an ideological template that works to the West’s advantage over the long haul. There is simply no other candidate with the potential of Obama to do this. Which is where his face comes in.

Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.

I wonder if this seems as idiotic to Andrew Sullivan now as it did to everyone with an IQ above room temperature in 2008.

So, yesterday, the Mohammedan savages of the Islamic State (ISIS) sawed off the head of an American journalist on live video, but no one on the left seems to care very much.

President Obama does not want to deal with ISIS and makes it clear that he does so only with the greatest reluctance. Some say this is out of fear of angering the far left base of his party, but that’s not it. It’s because just a few months ago, he was trash-talking ISIS as the “JV Squad” of Al Qaeda, whom he had put “on its heels” by personally making the “gutsy call” of taking out Osama bin Laden. (Because, you see, no other president would have had the guts to do that. [Well, Bill Clinton didn’t, and he bragged about his failure to kill Osama bin Laden.]}

No, Obama does not want to deal with ISIS because their barbarity is a reminder of his own disastrous foreign policy failure. To admit that this “JV Squad” is a problem would be admitting that he underestimated them, that his policies allowed them to become a threat. His ego simply will not permit him to confront his failure; that would require admitting that he failed.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry matches his boss for egocentric narcissism. He has very little interest in ISIS, his bailiwick is “Global Warming.” Not so much because he believes it is a genuine crisis as it is because he believes that his position will win him plaudits from the New York Times editorial page, the faculty lounge at Harvard, the international elites, and his fellow yachtsmen; the people that really matter.

The Obama Administration will do little to fight ISIS unless they do something really bad, like shoot a 292 pound thug who just robbed a convenience store, or their actions become an unignorable political liability to the Democrat Party. Until such time as that happens, ISIS can go on murdering and beheading as much as they please.

After the Black Panthers intimidated white voters on Election Day 2008, Eric Holder’s Justice Department wasn’t interested. When they were running guns to Mexican Drug Gangs? A phony scandal, not worth the DoJ’s time. IRS intimidating and harassing opponents of the President? Holder appoints a big Obama donor to lead the “investigation.”

But let some dude in Nebraska create a July 4th approach that offends our thin-skinned president, and Eric Holder jumps right on the case.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating a float that appeared at the annual Fourth of July parade in the small town of Norfolk, Neb. because the float featured a blue flatbed truck carrying a zombie-looking mannequin in overalls on the door of an outhouse labeled “OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY.” The Justice Department sent a member of its Community Relations Service team to Norfolk.

So, let’s post this “offensive” picture and see if we can get the DoJ sicced on us, why not.

#TheBearIsLoose

[And since someone in the comments sent me the pic, step forward and take credit.]

[P.S. It was Annie.]

One might have been tempted to think the Obama Administration had hit rock-bottom when they called Bowe Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers liars and “swift-boaters*” for disputing the Administration’s official line that Bergdahl served with “honor and distinction.” (Maybe with the Taliban.) That seemed to be as low they could go.

Then, somebody went and tossed them a shovel.

An administration spokesman (for the Department of Housing and Urban Development) took to Teh Twitters and called those soldiers (the ones that didn’t desert and collaborate with the Taliban)… “psychopaths.”

Name-calling has been the administration’s modus operandi for dealing with critics since Day 1. Curious as to why the president is keeping his college records secret? You’re a “birther.” Skeptical about the president’s Draconian environmental laws? You’re a “climate change denier.” And the perennial catchall for any critic of the president’s policies… “racist!”

Administration insiders apparently believe that criticism of the Bergdahl Affair has nothing to do with honest disagreement about the wisdom of turning loose five of the Taliban’s top generals for one deserter. They honestly believe it all springs from personal animosity toward the president. “[All criticism in the Bergdahl matter] Obama aides say, is in their minds a proxy for the hatred toward the president.”

How simplistic this all is. There are no genuine arguments, only personal animus. Therefore, there is no need to argue in support of policies; simple name-calling of your opponents is sufficient.

* “Swiftboat” – verb. When knowledgeable people reveal an unpleasant truth about a Democrat that contradicts the official party narrative.

No one in Obama’s Inner Circle has ever served in the military or understands military culture.

In one of the most tone-deaf statements in White House history (we’re making a lot of history here), the national-security advisor, on a Sunday talk show, described Bergdahl as having served “with honor and distinction.” Those serving in uniform and those of us who served previously were already stirred up, but that jaw-dropper drove us into jihad mode.

But pity Ms. Rice. Like the president she serves, she’s a victim of her class. Nobody in the inner circle of Team Obama has served in uniform. It shows.
…
The president, too, appears stunned. He has so little understanding of (or interest in) the values and traditions of our troops that he and his advisers really believed that those in uniform would erupt into public joy at the news of Bergdahl’s release — as D.C. frat kids did when Osama bin Laden’s death was trumpeted.

Both President Obama and Ms. Rice seem to think that the crime of desertion in wartime is kind of like skipping class. They have no idea of how great a sin desertion in the face of the enemy is to those in our military. The only worse sin is to side actively with the enemy and kill your brothers in arms. This is not sleeping in on Monday morning and ducking Gender Studies 101.

To Team Obama, Bergdahl and the rest of those soldiers were just kids who didn’t study hard enough and got stuck in Afghanistan.

Team Obama’s latest gambit — accusing Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers of “swiftboating” him – probably won’t play very well either.

UPDATE (from Jeff): It also doesn’t help that, by his own admission, Obama broke the law in making the Bergdahl swap.

A top aide to President Obama is now apologizing to Congress for not informing lawmakers, as required by law, that the White House was planning to trade…

(Democratic Senator Dianne) Feinstein said that it was “very disappointing” that President Obama decided not to alert Congress about the deal…Feinstein said that in previous conversations with Senators about the trade, “there were very strong views and they were virtually unanimous against trade.” “The White House is pretty unilateral about what they want to do when they want to do it,” she added…

Unilateral? Whoa, did someone say the President was being “unilateral”?!

In light of the VA scandal and the announcement of a unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Obama felt the need to appear “pro-military” and so gave the commencement address to the military academy at West Point.

Obama is a master in the use of the straw man argument. He attributes outrageous positions to his opponents, so as to make his own positions appear reasonable. Usually, is the formulation “Some say we should wipe out the entire state of Nebraska with a series of carpet bombings and nuclear strikes. But I believe the smarter option is to not build the Keystone XL pipeline.”

His speech at West Point, which of course was not written by him, was replete with examples of the genre.

For the foreseeable future, the most direct threat to America at home and abroad remains terrorism. But a strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks is naive and unsustainable.

No one has ever advocated invading every country that harbors terrorists.

“I would betray my duty to you, and to the country we love, if I sent you into harm’s way simply because I saw a problem somewhere in the world that needed fixing, or because I was worried about critics who think military intervention is the only way for America to avoid looking weak.”

No one has suggested that the USA’s foreign policy should be based on intervening everywhere for the sake of not appearing week.

“Of course, skeptics often downplay the effectiveness of multilateral action. For them, working through international institutions, or respecting international law, is a sign of weakness. I think they’re wrong.”

Again, “unnamed skeptics” oppose multilaterialism and following international law.

“Those who argue otherwise – who suggest that America is in decline, or has seen its global leadership slip away – are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics.”

Or they’re just paying attention. Obviously, the only people who note that Iran, Russia, and China have been emboldened by American weakness and fecklessness are only doing so for reasons of “partisan politics;” there is no such thing as legitimate, rational criticism of Mr. Obama’s flawless foreign policy.

“Your charge now is not only to protect our country, but to do what is right and just.“

Because until Obama came along, what the military did was wrong and unjust.

The man is not only a megalomaniac and a narcissist, he’s also a tedious bore.

The Preezy today vowed today to make Global Warming a “top tier” issue for the rest of his presidency. (Doubtless, this will be followed by his 178th “pivot to jobs” sometime later this month.) Earlier this week, the President of France, M. Hollande, (who is a Socialist, but strangely, follows the exact same economic policies as Mr. Obama, whom we are told is not a Socialist. It’s crazy, right?) expressed the opinion that Vladimir Putin has been emboldened by Obama’s weakness and fecklessness.

These two foreign policy stories are connected through the Nexus of Obama’s enormous ego. And although Global Warming isn’t intuitively a foreign policy issue, it is the paramount global issue in the mind of the Secretary of State.

And it’s not because they really think Global Warming is a horrific menace. It’s because, more than anything else, Obama wants another Nobel Peace Prize. He’s faintly aware that his first one was essentially a participation trophy. More than anything else, John Kerry wants one of those, too; a consolation prize for losing to George W. Bush. There are two paths to this for an American President/Secretary of State:

• Get a Middle East Peace Agreement, which worked for Jimmy Carter. This requires capitulation from the Israelis, since the Palestinians will never compromise. So, getting a Mideast Peace Agreement would be really, really hard.
• Hype ManBearPig, which worked for Al Gore and was really easy; all he did was produce a movie and “write” a couple of books.

So, Global Warming becomes the central issue of Obama’s administration. As with everything else in this administration, the most important thing in Obama’s foreign policy is to ensure that Obama receives adulation for it.

Vladimir Putin knows he never will win a Nobel Peace Prize, and so this liberates him to pursue a foreign policy based on the best interests of Mother Russia. And he cares even less about Obama’s #Hashtags than he does about the Nobel Committee. He sees a weak American president twice elected, and showing him that Americans, by virtue of electing a weak president, are a weak people from whom he has nothing to fear.

The Obama Administration asserted today that nothing Congress can do will stop them from implementing Draconian environmental regulations to cause energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket.”

“All I would say is that those have zero percent chance of working. We’re committed to moving forward with those rules,” [Obama Advisor John Podesta] said. “We’re committed to maintaining the authority and the president’s authority to ensure that the Clean Air Act is fully implemented.”

Sadly, since the Senate under Harry Reid is a rubber-stamp for Obama policy, and the House GOP Leadership is as limp and useless as [INSERT Your Own Metaphor], Congress probably won’t do anything to stop him anyway.