I'm still trying to figure out how a holiday set aside to celebrate unemployed people, big labor union cartels, illegal immigrants, government bureaucrats, tenured academics, professional litigants, race-class-and-gender warriors, welfare recipients, and other assorted parasites on society got the name "International Workers' Day."  It's a little like calling a Gay Pride Parade "The March for Heterosexuality"...

Here's a simple rule of thumb when dealing with the mainstream liberal media:  If a group is being portrayed as "extreme" in any way, it will be labeled as "Right-Wing."  Golden Dawn, the Tea Party, heck, even the Boy Scouts - all part of a pernicious worldwide cabal of Right-Wing Extremism run from the guest bedroom in Jim DeMint's house. 

For the liberal media, Left-Wing Extremism is an inherent impossibility, like a sunrise in the west.  After all, the completely objective and unbiased professionals at The New York Times and NPR believe The Left is by its very nature pragmatic, and one cannot have extreme pragmatism or pragmatic extremism.  Therefore, only the Right can be extreme in the media:

School vouchers?  Extreme!  Partial-birth abortion?  Pragmatic!

The right to bear arms?  Extreme!  Two years' worth of unemployment dole?  Pragmatic!

Keeping the money one earns?  Extreme!  Inefficient wind turbines that chop up endangered eagles?  Pragmatic!

America has turned from a nation that cherishes the freedoms of responsibility to one that craves the freedoms from responsibility.

Perhaps it will depend on one's definition of a terrible ex-president.  While the Panjandrum of Peanuts has chosen to spend his post-presidency giving legitimacy to all manner of murderous anti-Western despots, I imagine King Barry will spend his time after he leaves the White House with the Hollywood royalty with whom he feels a natural kinship: dining at the Château Marmont, handing out "Best Bromance" at The Teen Choice Awards, going to Kabbalah class with Madonna and Ashton Kutcher, and stopping by The Wendy Williams Show to pitch his gig as judge on The X Factor with Simon Cowell and Rihanna, where he'll take time to call Marco Rubio a "GOP d*****bag."  Obama will be the Sarah Ferguson of ex-presidents, someone who will see no debasement in the former leader of the United States guest hosting Saturday Night Live.  He will make Bill Clinton seem as cloistered and conservative as ex-pope Benedict...

I'm pretty sure Jimmah will be relinquishing that title in the spring of 2017...

Some countries with no term limits - either de jure or de facto - on their "elected" executives:

Algeria
Argentina*
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Cameroon
Chad
Cuba
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Equatorial Guinea
Ethiopia
Gabon
Guinea
Russia*
Rwanda
Sri Lanka
Turkmenistan
Uganda
Uzbekistan
Venezuela
Zimbabwe

* Argentina and Russia both use a similar system where a break of one term must be taken between terms by a president, which was used by Néstor Kirchner and Vladimir Putin, respectively, to retain power through proxy presidents.

Considering the nations on this list, would it really be wise for the U.S. to join the ignoble club of nations with non-term-limited presidents?

We cannot dictate to Muslims what they can and cannot do.  Only Christians.

This is perhaps the most glaring paradox of the Left:  Before I had to stop listening to it for the sake of my blood pressure, I remember how paleo-Liberal Robert Scheer would argue on Left, Lefter, and Leftest (a.k.a., Left, Right, and Center) about how the West had to respect that the Muslim world will have their own Muslim governance and that we should not force Western values on them.

But Christians?  They are flat-earthers who must be forced to support Planned Parenthood, gay marriage, kindgarten sex ed, and all other forms of "enlightened" Liberal social programs.

Does it make sense?  Not at all.  But is it the Liberal's way?  Absolutely.

Not to belabor the point, but I wonder, if Hobby Lobby put out a statement like:

We're Muslims, and we run our business on Islamic principles. I've always said that the first two goals of our business are 1) to run our business in harmony with Allah's laws, and 2) to focus on people more than money.  We believe that it is by Allah's grace that Hobby Lobby has endured, and He has blessed us and our employees.

Would the current administration be so hellbent on forcing the corporation to comply with all aspects of ObamaCare?

Just the other day, I was listening to a podcast (by Deutsche Welle) lionizing the gay British couple who have spent two years successfully suing a Christian couple for denying them a room in their bed and breakfast because that would violate their religious principles.  One of the couple launched into a spiel about how he had to stand up for his beliefs because he needed others to know that they have the rights to stand up for what they believe in and for what they think is right.  Had this not been a "news" organization slightly to the left of Engels, someone might be tempted to ask, "But didn't the Christian couple stand up for what they believe in?  Did they have a right to act on their principles?"

But they didn't.  And why should they?  That question is pretty much moot.  Christians have no religious rights.  In the eyes of the Left, Christians are superstitious nitwits who must be dragged kicking and screaming into the light of the new Liberal utopia the Democrats are cramming down our throats.

The moral of the story:  If you want the government to respect your religious convictions, become a Muslim.

I'm very tempted to write something like, "That's no reason.  After all, being born outside of America didn't stop Obama," but I'll take the high road.

It's hard for me to imagine a Hillary 2016 campaign that wouldn't seem like McCain 2008: "We're just like the guys in power now - except that we're completely different!"  Also, has Hillary remained independent or merely impotent?

Hillary ran as a more moderate force than Obama in 2008; would turning to her be an admission by the Left that they went too far in pushing the Euro-style superstate?  Or would the Democrats want a candidate who would continue pushing the radical Belgiumization of America?

What might be most troubling about Hillary 2016 for Dems?  If the Democrats start down the road of "the next guy (or gal) in line" à la Republicans - and it would be difficult to see a Hillary campaign as anything other than that - that could easily be seen as a sign of increasing sclerosis in the party.

I suspect serving in the Obama administration will be as toxic in 2016 as serving in the Bush administration was in 2008.  I'd bet Hillary will struggle with the same stigma Colin Powell did, although she'll have better sense than Powell to hit the road with a dog-and-pony show for the opposition.

I think Democrats will look outside the current administration; while the party showed amazing powers to sell feces of both bovine and equine varieties, even they know they can't shove Biden down America's throats.

Some top contenders for the Golden Donkey Throne:

Jennifer Granholm:  She has shown she can overcome common sense and reason to win re-election even after firebombing her state's economy.

Julian Castro:  If a black president was coated in Teflon, a Hispanic president would probably be covered in Kevlar.  As a bonus, Castro gives the Dems a real shot at flipping the second-largest block of electoral votes.

Cory Booker:  He will almost certainly win the NJ governorship from Christie in 2013 and is definitely at the top of the list.  The downside?  Black presidents could seem soooo 2008...

Tony Villar doesn't stand a chance.  For starters, he appeared utterly hapless as the Democrats booed him for trying to shoehorn God and Israel back into the party platform in Charlotte this year.  The fact that he didn't run for California governor in 2010 tells you how far his prospects have fallen.  While fellow mayoral adulterer Gavin Toothsome could smarm his way to the Lieutenant Governor's office, Tony was so shamed by the magazine cover below - from a distinctly lefty magazine - that he had to pull out of the race before it started.  Los Angeles is a basketcase, and the city's woes will be ample fodder for his rivals.  If he makes the mistake of throwing his sombrero into the ring, he will almost certainly be the first candidate to be turned on and cannibalized by the rest of the field.

The Democrats in the 1960s:

“I’ll have those n*****s voting Democratic for the next 200 years.”  —  LBJ

The Democrats in the 2010s:

“I’ll have those Latinos voting Democratic for the next 200 years.”  —  BHO

Obama has breezed through life accomplishing nothing of substance while reaping bushels of praise and adulation.  He has been richly rewarded for a life of nothing but rhetoric, never facing scrutiny.  Had he lost last week's election, it would have been the first time in his entire life someone, anyone, said no to him.  But he won.  A man who should have failed miserably was instead richly rewarded for his inability to produce positive outcomes.  After more than a half-century of facing people whose sole desires are to open more doors and grease more wheels for him, why would you think Obama would be inclined to be persuaded by anyone?

Obama's own personal delusion has become America's mass delusion.  The only person who can persuade Barack Obama is Barack Obama.  He is the one he has been waiting for.

What do we say to all the people who have been following the laws and waiting for their chance to immigrate?  How do we explain to all the people who remained in their home country, who didn't jump the border, that people who didn't follow the law get all the benefits of being in America?  What do we do to make up for the jobs they have missed, the money they didn't make, the education their children couldn't get, the freedom they had to delay while they did as we asked?

This is never mentioned in all the heart-tugging pro-illegal immagrant stories on National Propaganda Radio:  Illegal immigrants are cutting the line.  Amnesty would overwhelmingly favor Latin Americans, whose countries are contiguous with the U.S. - over Europeans, Australasians, and Africans.  (Imagine the howls of "Racism!" if someone proposed immigration reform that allowed disproportionately high amounts of Europeans into the country.)

This is the immigration story the Right needs to tell - the story of all the immigrants who are following the law, who are doing as they are asked, and who would be screwed over if amnesty was granted to illegal immigrants.