Obama's Budget-Busting Spending Plan Expected to Balloon Federal Debt to More Than $25 Trillion by 2025

Man, talk about drunken sailors.

The Obama-Dems have no inkling of restraint. None.

See Town Hall, "Obama's record budget: Tax the rich, screw the middle class":

The deficit would remain under $500 billion a year through 2018, but would rise to $687 billion by 2025, according to administration projections — though levels of red ink could still be considered manageable when measured against the size of the economy.

But the cost of financing the government's debt would spiral as the debt grows to more than $25 trillion by 2025 and interest rates rise. According to the projections. Interest costs would jump from $229 billion this year to $785 billion in 2025...

And see the Hill, "President to unveil $4 trillion budget that busts spending limits."

More astronomical budget projections at the Wall Street Journal, "Obama’s 2016 Budget: Behind the Numbers."

And see, "Obama Budget Sets Off Push for Deals: Republicans Dismiss Calls for New Taxes, but Openings for Compromise Are Seen."

Students at Eastern Michigan University Kill Mandatory Indoctrination by Using Anonymous Social Media App Yik Yak

This is great.

At Instapundit, "FIGHT THE POWER: The latest press release from GWU Law Prof. John Banzhaf explains why some campuses are so hostile to Yik Yak."

Leftist Enclave: Santa Monica Infant-Toddler Center Closed After Baby Diagnosed with Measles (VIDEO)

Santa Monica, heh.

Hippies, Hollywood poseurs and entertainment industry tycoons, to say nothing of the biggest technology sector this side of Silicon Valley. Lots of granola-crunching 'Whole Foods' lefties, that's for sure.

At LAT, "Santa Monica High School's day-care center closes after infant contracts measles."

Also at WSJ, "California Child-Care Center Closed After Infant Diagnosed With Measles: More Than a Dozen Children Quarantined for 21 Days:"

In the 2013-14 school year, 11.5% of students districtwide received waivers to avoid vaccination, said Ms. Pinsker, who noted that the district has encouraged immunization for students.

Dang, that's one of the highest waiver rates I've seen. More kooks down Santa Monica way than even the ultra-entitled Marin-San Francisco elite-culture corridor.

Plus, a video report at CBS News Los Angeles, "New Case of Measles Reported at Santa Monica Infant Toddler Center."

PREVIOUSLY: "Anti-Vaxxers: Prius-Owning, 'Whole Foods', Composting Types," and "Affluent Leftists Dominate the Ranks of Anti-Vaxxers, Overwhelmingly Voted for Obama."

Groundhog Bites Wisconsin Mayor at Sun Prairie Ceremony (VIDEO)

The perils of prognostication.

At the Chicago Tribune, "Jimmy the Groundhog turns on Wisconsin mayor."

And watch, at AP, "Groundhog Bites Wisconsin Mayor at Ceremony."

RELATED: At WaPo, "Groundhog Day 2015: Punxsutawney Phil sees shadow, predicts six more weeks of winter."

San Francisco Racial Segregation Surging as Affluent Parents Opt for 'School Choice'

Affluent leftists.

Maybe they'll self-segregate so hard that they get naturally selected out of the population due to a catastrophic infectious disease epidemic.

Seriously. Hispanic students are increasingly marginalized in the schools.

At the San Francisco Public Press, "As Parents Get More Choice, S.F. Schools Resegregate":

San Francisco faces a challenge: promoting educational options without undermining classroom diversity.

San Francisco faces a challenge: promoting educational options without undermining classroom diversity

Each January, parents across San Francisco rank their preferences for public schools. By June, most get their children into their first choices, and almost three-quarters get one of their choices.

A majority of families may be satisfied with the outcome, but the student assignment system is failing to meet its No. 1 goal, which the San Francisco Unified School District has struggled to achieve since the 1960s: classroom diversity.

Since 2010, the year before the current policy went into effect, the number of San Francisco’s 115 public schools dominated by one race has climbed significantly. Six in 10 have simple majorities of one racial group. In almost one-fourth, 60 percent or more of the students belong to one racial group, which administrators say makes them “racially isolated.” That described 28 schools in 2013–2014, up from 23 in 2010–2011, according to the district.

But the San Francisco Public Press has found the problem may be even more stark: If Asian and Filipino students are counted together — the standard used by the Census — together the number of racially isolated schools in the last school year rose to 39.

The drive toward racial isolation in the district parallels a larger trend in the city: With many wealthier families opting for private alternatives, the public school system is becoming racially and economically isolated from the city as a whole.

Why does it matter whether schools are diverse? One reason is academic performance. Recent studies from Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley, show that many students do much better on tests when placed in integrated classrooms, and that all kids are much less likely to grow up with racial stereotypes and prejudices. Far from being opposed to each other, excellence and diversity go hand in hand.

How did this resegregation of schools happen in a city where almost everyone from district leaders to parents supports the ideal of diversity?

Dramatic income inequality, shifting demographics, rising housing costs and the proliferation of language programs are fueling the trend. But the biggest culprit, say outside researchers and local education leaders, is the feature that defines the student assignment system: school choice.

The district provides parents with a dizzying amount of information about the schools. The application process requires time, language skills and access to technology — advantages that often come with education and financial resources. “Choice is inherently inequitable,” San Francisco Board of Education member Sandra Fewer said at a December meeting on student assignment. “If you don’t have resources, you don’t have choice.”

Orla O’Keeffe, the district’s policy director, said affluent, educated parents compete for the small number of seats at the highest-performing schools. Children from poor and working-class families, disproportionately black and Latino, often end up in underperforming schools.

The district currently has few tools to address the problem. “If you’ve got racially isolated choice patterns, then your capacity to create diversity using a choice mechanism is constrained,” O’Keeffe said. “There’s none of that in our system. It’s all about what families want.”

The choice system tries to make the schools diverse by giving more preference to students who live in neighborhoods with low average test scores, a proxy for measuring poverty. But some Board of Education members are acknowledging that mechanisms intended to promote diversity are flawed.

“The story of our efforts at student assignment is the story of unintended consequences,” said Rachel Norton, a board member since 2009. “In some ways, it’s a perfect mismatch of intent and results.”...

Hey leftists!

Diversity is great, right? As long as you're not the ones diversifying. Yippee!!

Anti-Vaxxers: Prius-Owning, 'Whole Foods', Composting Types

Leftists are literally the worst people on earth.

Here's more on the anti-science left, at Science Magazine, "Why the 'Prius Driving, Composting' Set Fears Vaccines":

Journalist Seth Mnookin's new book, The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear, explores the public health scare over vaccines and autism. The 1998 paper in The Lancet by British physician Andrew Wakefield that sparked the panic has long since been debunked and retracted, and Wakefield himself has been barred from practicing medicine and accused of fraud. But that hasn't stopped thousands of people from refusing to vaccinate their children out of fear that they could become autistic.

Mnookin warns of grave consequences. Recent outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, and other preventable infections have sickened thousands of children and killed more than a dozen in the United States. Vaccine rates are falling below the level needed to prevent an outbreak in a growing number of communities, including ones with wealthy, educated populations.

Last week, Mnookin spoke with ScienceInsider about why.

Q: There's a perception that vaccine refusal is especially common among affluent, well-educated, politically liberal parents—is there any truth to that?

S.M.: It's dangerous to make broad generalizations about a group, but anecdotally and from the overall data that's been collected it seems to be people who are very actively involved in every possible decision regarding their children's lives. I think it relates to a desire to take uncertainty out of the equation. And autism represents such an unknown. We still don't know what causes it and we still don't have good answers for how to treat it. So I think that fear really resonates.

Also I think there's a fair amount of entitlement. Not vaccinating your child is basically saying I deserve to rely on the herd immunity that exists in a population. At the most basic level it's saying I believe vaccines are potentially harmful, and I want other people to vaccinate so I don't have to. And for people to hide under this and say, "Oh, it's just a personal decision," it's being dishonest. It's a personal decision in the way drunk driving is a personal decision. It has the potential to affect everyone around you.

Q: But why liberals?

S.M.: I think it taps into the organic natural movement in a lot of ways.

I talked to a public health official and asked him what's the best way to anticipate where there might be higher than normal rates of vaccine noncompliance, and he said take a map and put a pin wherever there's a Whole Foods. I sort of laughed, and he said, "No, really, I'm not joking." It's those communities with the Prius driving, composting, organic food-eating people...

"Entitlement." That's so disgusting, but then regressive leftism is disgusting.

More.

And ICYMI, "Affluent Leftists Dominate the Ranks of Anti-Vaxxers, Overwhelmingly Voted for Obama."

Bill Bellichick Baited Pete Carroll's Play-Calling Clusterfuck

That's the hypothesis at the Washington Post, a possibility that occurred to me almost immediately after the interception. Carroll must have been rushed. He must have thought he could catch the Patriots off-guard with a pass play. It's the 64 million dollar question.

See, "Bill Belichick made a sneaky-smart decision that might have contributed to fateful play call by Pete Carroll":

Pete Carroll’s confounding last-minute play call Sunday night will be dissected, debated and mocked for as long they play Super Bowls. It might have been prodded by a sneaky-brilliant decision by Bill Belichick.

With 1 minute, 6 seconds seconds left and the Seahawks down by four points, Marshawn Lynch rumbled to the 1-yard line on first down. The Patriots possessed two timeouts, and the Seahawks had one left. The clock ticked down, and at first it appeared odd for Belichick not to exhaust one of his timeouts. With the Seahawks on the doorstep, New England needed to conserve seconds for a desperation drive in response.

Belichick’s choice to not use a timeout, though, made life more difficult for the Seahawks by complicating their play-calling options. It may have even convinced them to throw their ill-fated pass on second down.

Imagine Belichick had called a timeout in hopes of saving seconds for Tom Brady. The Seahawks would have had enough time to hand off the ball three times without fear of the clock running out, particularly because they had a timeout of their own.

But with Belichick allowing the clock to tick, Seattle’s calculus became more complex, especially as they used almost the entire play clock...

Interesting.

Keep reading.

There's going to be a lot of theorizing about this, and I do mean theory. See the New York Times, "Game Theory Says Pete Carroll’s Call at Goal Line Is Defensible."

Awesome Emily Rossum

An interview with Ms. Rossum, at the Hollywood Reporter, "'Shameless' Postmortem: Emmy Rossum on Fiona's 'Desperate Attempt' at Stability."

And at Egotastic!, "The reason God invented the Boob Tube Roundup really was to showcase the splendid bare peaches of Emmy Awesome on her Showtime original Shameless."

Ross Douthat on the Left's Post-Post Racial Political Correctness

Douthat's got some interesting and considerably astute observations on the left's recent blow-up over over Jonathan Chait's essay on regressive leftist P.C. culture.

See, "Does Political Correctness Work?", and "Our Loud, Proud Left":

FOR the last week, liberal journalists have been furiously debating whether a new political correctness has swept over the American left. The instigator of this argument was New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, normally a scourge of Republicans, whose essay on what he dubbed “the new P.C.” critiqued left-wing activists for their zeal to play language cop, shout down arguments and shut down debate outright.

It will surprise absolutely nobody that I think the phenomenon that Chait describes is real. But I come not to judge but to explain — because whether you like or loathe the “P.C.” label, the rise of a more assertive cultural left is clearly one of the defining features of the later Obama years. This assertiveness is palpable among younger activists, on campus and online; it’s visible in controversy after controversy, from Ferguson to campus rape. And it’s interesting to think about exactly where it’s coming from.

The first source, probably, is disappointment with other forms of left-wing politics. A decade ago, the left’s energy was focused on Iraq; in President Obama’s first term, it was divided between his quest for a new New Deal and Occupy Wall Street’s free-form radicalism. But now the antiwar movement is moribund, Occupy has gone the way of the Yippies and it’s been years since the White House proposed a new tax or spending plan that wasn’t D.O.A.

What’s more, despite all the books sold by Thomas Piketty, the paths forward for progressive economic policy are mostly blocked — and not only by a well-entrenched Republican Party, but by liberalism’s ongoing inability to raise the taxes required to pay for the welfare state we already have. Since a long, slow, grinding battle over how to pay for those commitments is unlikely to fire anyone’s imagination, it’s not surprising that cultural causes — race, sex, identity — suddenly seem vastly more appealing.

The second wellspring is a more specific sort of disillusionment. Call it post-post-racialism: a hangover after the heady experience of electing America’s first black president; a frustration with the persistence of racial divides, even in an age of elite African-American achievement; and a sense of outrage over particular tragedies (Trayvon Martin, Ferguson) that seem to lay injustice bare.

Post-post-racial sentiment is connected to economic disappointments, because minorities have fared particularly poorly in the Great Recession’s aftermath...

Three Ways to 'Do Something' About Poverty

A great commentary, from Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today.

RELATED: At Forbes, "How Hair Braiding Explains What's Gone Wrong With America's Economy."

Fox's Shepard Smith Slams Leftist Anti-Vaxxers: 'You're Science Deniers!' (VIDEO)

Via Memeorandum:



Also at the Hill, "CDC warns of ‘large outbreak’ of measles."

And remember, "Affluent Leftists Dominate the Ranks of Anti-Vaxxers, Overwhelmingly Voted for Obama."

The Emerging Republican Advantage

Are you ready for a morning long-read?

Here's John Judis, a National Journal, "The idea of an enduring Democratic majority was a mirage. How the GOP gained an edge in American politics—and why it’s likely to last."

Interesting, considering that Judis is one of the main proponents of the "emerging Democrat majority" thesis, which obviously came crashing down in 2014.

Noah Rothman has more, "John Judis: About that “emerging Democratic majority’ thing… yeah…"

Regressive leftists are looking at years, if not decades, in the political wilderness.

'Roaring Success'— Super Bowl Television Review

The O.C. Register decided to put a television review on the front-page, which seems a bit more, er, normal than the L.A. Times' domestic violence PSA above the fold this morning.

See Michael Hewitt, "Late-game heroics remind us Super Bowl not just about commercials, halftime show (those were good too)":

The biggest TV show of the year delivered on all fronts Sunday: laughs, tears, controversy, music, dance – and a heck of a football game.

Nothing in American culture is quite like the Super Bowl, an unofficial national holiday that about one-third of the country celebrates by watching four-plus hours of television together.

Super Bowl XLIX proved worthy of the attention, thanks mostly to the seesaw battle between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, won by New England, 28-24, and a nearly flawless performance by NBC Sports.

So many years we spend Monday morning talking about the commercials or the halftime show, but much postgame chatter this year will be about New England rookie Malcolm Butler’s game-saving goal-line interception or Seahawks receiver Jermaine Kearse’s improbable catch seconds earlier. Both plays were perfectly captured by NBC’s cameras, allowing us to drop our jaws again and again with the replays.

The visual image that will stick the longest may well be NBC’s sideline reporter Michele Tafoya chasing after Butler to score a post-game interview, as the unlikely hero ran off, seemingly overwhelmed by the moment.

Keep reading.

NFL's 'No More' Domestic Violence Super Bowl Ad

Here's Mary MaNamara's front-page story at today's Los Angeles Times, "Most important thing on TV this year could be this Super Bowl PSA."

I guess domestic violence is more important than Pete Carroll's play calling.

Here's the ad: "NO MORE's Official Super Bowl Ad: 60 Second."

Katy Perry Rocks Super Bowl 2015 — #SB49

One helluva spectacle.

She's a consummate professional. A very enjoyable performance.

At LAT, "Super Bowl 2015: Katy Perry packs it all into halftime show":

When you have a song called “Roar,” you put a lion in your concert. When you have a song called “Firework,” you arrange for some pyrotechnics.

And when you’re playing the Super Bowl halftime show, as Katy Perry did Sunday night, you bring every other bit of spectacle you can think of — whether it’s mentioned in one of your songs or not.

Headlining the biggest gig in pop, Perry crammed a full-scale production into her 12 1/2 minutes on (and above) the field of the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., beginning with her entrance astride a gold lion about three stories tall and ending with a regal wave from the moving platform that made the 30-year-old singer look like a shooting star.

But Perry, who appeared to be singing live, also brought real vocal power to her performance as well as the surprising dash of humility required to give over a sizable portion of her time to her special guest, Missy Elliott.

In all, it was the kind of pop extravaganza that even the NFL’s crusty classic-rock contingent could love...

More.

Sacramento Reports Cards Now Grade Students on 'Being Sensitive to Others...'

Because "being sensitive" is now more important than knowing how to read.

And if you don't believe that, just remember that two-thirds of all American students are "below proficient" in reading skills (and one-third are "below basic").

At the Sacramento Bee, "Grit and gratitude join reading, writing and arithmetic on report cards" (via EAG News).

Here's That Incredible Jermaine Kearse Bobbling Catch in #SB49

With Seattle's running game, after Kearse's catch I thought it was over.

But, ah, no.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Vows Revenge for Beheadings — #KenjiGoto

This is like, "Whoa!"

At the New York Times, "Departing From Country’s Pacifism, Japanese Premier Vows Revenge for Killings":

TOKYO — When Islamic State militants posted a video over the weekend showing the grisly killing of a Japanese journalist, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reacted with outrage, promising “to make the terrorists pay the price.”

Such vows of retribution may be common in the West when leaders face extremist violence, but they have been unheard of in confrontation-averse Japan — until now. The prime minister’s call for revenge after the killings of the journalist, Kenji Goto, and another hostage, Haruna Yukawa, raised eyebrows even in the military establishment, adding to a growing awareness here that the crisis could be a watershed for this long pacifist country.

“Japan has not seen this Western-style expression in its diplomacy before,” Akihisa Nagashima, a former vice minister of defense, wrote on Twitter. “Does he intend to give Japan the capability to back up his words?”

As the 12-day hostage crisis came to a grim conclusion with the killing of Mr. Goto, the world has suddenly begun to look like a much more dangerous place to a peaceful and prosperous nation that had long seen itself as immune to the sorts of violence faced by the United States and its Western allies...

More.

The Alarming Thing About Climate Alarmism

This guy's great. See Bjorn Lomborg, at WSJ:

It is an indisputable fact that carbon emissions are rising—and faster than most scientists predicted. But many climate-change alarmists seem to claim that all climate change is worse than expected. This ignores that much of the data are actually encouraging. The latest study from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that in the previous 15 years temperatures had risen 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit. The average of all models expected 0.8 degrees. So we’re seeing about 90% less temperature rise than expected.

Facts like this are important because a one-sided focus on worst-case stories is a poor foundation for sound policies. Yes, Arctic sea ice is melting faster than the models expected. But models also predicted that Antarctic sea ice would decrease, yet it is increasing. Yes, sea levels are rising, but the rise is not accelerating—if anything, two recent papers, one by Chinese scientists published in the January 2014 issue of Global and Planetary Change, and the other by U.S. scientists published in the May 2013 issue of Coastal Engineering, have shown a small decline in the rate of sea-level increase.

We are often being told that we’re seeing more and more droughts, but a study published last March in the journal Nature actually shows a decrease in the world’s surface that has been afflicted by droughts since 1982.

Hurricanes are likewise used as an example of the “ever worse” trope. If we look at the U.S., where we have the best statistics, damage costs from hurricanes are increasing—but only because there are more people, with more-expensive property, living near coastlines. If we adjust for population and wealth, hurricane damage during the period 1900-2013 decreased slightly.

At the U.N. climate conference in Lima, Peru, in December, attendees were told that their countries should cut carbon emissions to avoid future damage from storms like typhoon Hagupit, which hit the Philippines during the conference, killing at least 21 people and forcing more than a million into shelters. Yet the trend for landfalling typhoons around the Philippines has actually declined since 1950, according to a study published in 2012 by the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate. Again, we’re told that things are worse than ever, but the facts don’t support this.

This is important because if we want to help the poor people who are most threatened by natural disasters, we have to recognize that it is less about cutting carbon emissions than it is about pulling them out of poverty...

Right.

But climate change leftists don't care about pulling people out of poverty. All they care about is increasing government power to "save" the environment.

Keep reading.

Amazing Finish Marks a Super Bowl for the Ages

I had no real rooting interest in either of these teams, but, as much as I admire them, I've had a lingering grudge against the Patriots since the 2001 AFC divisional playoff game against the Raiders.

So, I'm torn between the awe of a phenomenal game and the head-shaking dejection of the Seattle loss. Weird that.

In any case, here's Mitch Albom, at the Detroit Free Press:

GLENDALE, Ariz. – And then it broke. The magic bubble that Seattle had been living under, the immortal elixir, the string of amazing finishes, the incredible touch of Russell Wilson and decision making of Pete Carroll — it all ended in a blink, the most unlikely of plays, a forced pass by Wilson to Ricardo Lockette with just 20 seconds left that was snatched at the goal line by New England's Malcolm Butler.

And suddenly, the Patriots were Super Bowl champions. It happened so fast, I'm not sure the Patriots believed it themselves. Tom Brady, still reeling from watching a ridiculous circus catch by Seattle's Jermaine Kearse moments earlier — one that looked like the final dagger to the Pats' hopes — suddenly threw his hands in the air and screamed. So did every New England fan.

And so, for that matter, did every Seattle fan. Because a team with Marshawn Lynch in the backfield, a team that only needs one yard to score a championship-winning touchdown, should not be knifing a pass into coverage in the most crowded part of the field.

But the Seahawks did. And they paid for it. Final score: 28-24.

Champ, dethroned.

In an incredible finish to an incredible Super Bowl, it was a bad call and a bad pass that left the biggest mark. And if, upon hearing the names Lockette and Butler, you said, "Who?" well, you're not alone.

But it was that kind of Super Bowl. These two teams, the best in the business, were so adept at taking away each other's strength, it left the stage vacant for the second-tier guys.

Or in some cases, the end of the bench...

More.

And I think Mike DiGiovanna nails it here:

Feel like I just watched the NFL version of the #Royals-#Athletics wild-card game. Wow.

— Mike DiGiovanna (@MikeDiGiovanna) February 2, 2015