By Nathan Barton

Good morning; news stories galore but nothing really major today.

Supposedly, gasoline prices are near a short-term peak and will drop “substantially” in June, even with the 4th of July (3-day) weekend coming up.  So says the gubmint.  Right.  After Memorial Day, prices were supposed to drop, but in the Four Corners they just went UP another seven cents.  Despite all the hype and promises, the government continues to force prices higher through inflation and cracking down on refineries, drillers and producers.  Expect more of the same.

Thanks to Daily Policy Digest for this one:  The Hill, a bootlicking, statist, anything-for-a-buck “magazine” for the idiots inside the Beltway has suddenly discovered that on-line courses for high schools and colleges/universities are cost effective, useful, AND threatened by government regulations.  Now, I just checked my calendar, and it IS 2014.  I had one son graduate from high school in 2006 and another in 2010, as I recall, and BOTH of them got most of their last 4-years-PLUS of education on-line.  I’ve got another family member who got their A.A. and is now working on a B.A. TOTALLY on-line, and has been for the last five years.  WHERE were these idiots at “The Hill” for the past greater part of a decade?  Like their subscribers, they are so STUPID and so IGNORANT and so OUT-TO-LUNCH that they are literally YEARS behind on what is really happening.  But I think that they ARE right about on-line schooling being threatened more each day by government, both federal and state.  Why?  This combined with home schooling and the steady growth of private schooling (despite government attempts to restrict it) are a threat to the essential monopoly of state-run “education.”

Oh, remember that the Fuehrer once promised that he would barely ever use the dreaded signing statement, because he thought that the eeevilll George W used it for… well, evil purposes. Ah, but now, five+ years later, that hasn’t turned out to be the case. He’s now using them as one more way to break the various FedGov laws.  Not that he doesn’t have lots of other ways… and apparently, as this Beghdahl business shows, his memory is almost as short as my senile aunt’s.

Just what do we believe?  Whom do we believe?  One story tells us that selling recreational cannabis in Colorado is a win-win-win:  in March alone, $19 million in sales, $1.9 million in taxes (for schools), and crime down by 10%.  But another story claims that things are bad: adults dying, children being sickened, arrests for driving stoned are up and neighboring states are seeing an epidemic of high drivers coming across the state line.  Another story tries for balance, but the bad news is that the politicians are raking in the taxes and spending even faster than before (and Colorado’s General Assembly is PRO level when it comes to spending money).  At least the battle over marijuana is moving up from the “whose got the biggest gun/knife” level, but the state is STILL messing things up.  (I know, what’s new?)

An interesting article about five reasons that the Bergdahl controversy may be here to stay.  All the points made are good ones, but ignore the obvious: this man and his dubious (at best, but let us wait for a trial and a court martial board to decide) actions are just another prop for the machinations of the Fuehrer and his thugs and shills.  This “five reasons” article doesn’t talk about more and more members of Congress – even Democrats – talking about impeachment: this violation of law isn’t getting a blow-job in the Oval Office, even to Democrats.

By the way, speaking of Bergdahl, I am reading too many “libertarians” praising him or talking about how he is moving from one captivity to another. Leaving aside what he really did when he became a “hostage” in Afghanistan, Bergdahl was NOT a conscript: he VOLUNTEERED for service, and he KNEW at the time of his enlistment that he would be involved in combat or combat support in either Afghanistan or Mesopotamia, with near certainty.  There is no way the recruiters could have lied to him about that.  He voluntarily signed the enlistment contract for a specific term of service of X years, and claims that he could unilaterally “cancel” his contract because he liked the Afghans too much to fight them and therefore wanted out (if that is the case, as the evidence so far indicates) are bogus.  His enlistment contract made it clear what his responsibilities were, and what the Army could do with him and to him, and so far, at least, the Army has not done anything beyond what he agreed to in that contract.

As more and more comes out on just what the VA has been doing (and NOT doing), one of the latest revelations is that one VA hospital shut down its aquatic therapy program at the same time to save several hundred thousand dollars while paying out over a million dollars in bonuses to VA employees.  The VA claims that the hospital is sending the vets to private facilities, but a dozen vets have already come out to say that they were denied the treatment completely, and that treatment in progress has been canceled.  Why we continue to think that corrupt institutions like the VA can be “reformed” or “fixed” is beyond me:  just as the idea that Congress really cares about vets is an evil joke. The concept of these bonuses just sickens anyone who understands government.  As one person pointed out, socialists are always talking about capitalist greed, but the VA Scandal exposes the truth. The problems at the VA would never be allowed in a free market system…but are inherent in a greedy socialist system.