Because this is the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s declaring war on poverty, there has been a lot of attention paid to the problem that I’m betting will somehow survive even longer than cockroaches and Twinkies.

Over the past half century, more than $20 trillion has been squandered on various programs intended to magically bring those who refuse to be educated, to refrain from using drugs or waiting until marriage to have children, into the middle class. Like all federal programs initiated by liberals, it demands nothing of recipients but that they refuse to change their ways.

The upshot of all these programs is that whereas there were 36 million people living below the poverty line in 1964, today there are 47 million. The Democrats would have you believe that the soaring of the illegitimate birth rate from seven percent in 1964 to 40% today is nothing more than a coincidence.

The benefit to the Democrats is that at no cost to the DNC, they ensure themselves of at least 25% of the votes anytime an election rolls around.

That is also the reason that the Democrats are so heavily invested in raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits. Dependent voters are dependable voters. That’s why Obama and Harry Reid actually insist that unemployment insurance creates jobs. But they don’t bother explaining why, that being the case, after five years, anyone is still jobless. They also don’t explain why they are pushing for a mere three month extension of unemployment payments. Why not three years? Why not 30 years if it’s such an enormous boon for the economy?

Liberals insist that adding people to the dole is an act of kindness. If so, they’re killing America, especially the vanishing middle class, with kindness.

The reason, I believe, that democracy is so irrational is that it empowers the irrational, the illiterate, the slothful and the greedy.

Speaking of which, after sending Barack and the kids, presumably her nearest and dearest, home from Hawaii, with whom was Michelle sticking around to celebrate her fiftieth birthday? And for a president more concerned with optics than reality, did it ever occur to Obama that blowing a million of our tax dollars so that the missus could extend a two-week vacation for herself and her team of Secret Service agents looks like the sort of boorish behavior one might have expected of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette?

Obama, who makes a habit of spitting in America’s eye, recently selected Debo Adegbile to head up the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. Up to now, Adegbile’s major claim to fame was that he represented notorious cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. A question that inevitably pops to mind is whether Obama’s proclivity for appointing people with Islamic names to positions in his administration comes naturally or if he goes out of his way for no other reason than to piss us off.

Once again, we’re hearing from certain quarters that college athletes should be paid to play football and basketball. I guess in their constant search for the downtrodden, some knuckleheads don’t mind making absolute fools of themselves. Are they totally unaware of the fact that college athletes are already getting a free ride and their choice of coeds, whereas those who are trying to become doctors and lawyers are forced to run up thousands of dollars of debt in student loans?

What’s more, the athletes spend their four years being coached, housed and fed, while getting the opportunity to audition for the teams waiting to make them millionaires for no better reason than their ability to throw passes, shoot baskets or muscle other 300-pound behemoths around a field.

I know there was a time when Americans were forbidden from visiting certain nations. Apparently that is no longer the case. Still, how is it that Dennis (The Worm) Rodman is apparently free to fly off every other weekend to play footsies with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un? Is Jane Fonda his travel agent?

The truth is I have no real objection to Rodman’s going wherever he likes, whenever he likes. But why on earth do we keep letting the jackass back in?