Threat Level Measurements

Apparently this is NOT John Cleese' work.

From JOHN CLEESE
The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria and have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.” The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards.” They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years....

There's more--the Frogs and Italians get it, too...

HT:  PowerLine

How Idiotic ARE the NSA Managers?

Apparently Snowden was a busy little beaver.

In a signed statement revealed at Friday’s hearing, a detective superintendent with the Counter-Terrorism  branch of the Metropolitan Police said that the material on an “external hard drive” seized from him “discloses approximately 58,000 UK documents of the highest level of classification.”--NBC News quoted at Hot Air

At least the Brits could count up the coup.

The NSA?  Not so much:

...The NSA, as it turns out, didn’t have the kind of controls in place for them to know just how much Snowden managed to purloin while working in two consecutive jobs as a contractor to the agency.  Of course, the NSA also didn’t have enough security in place to keep the files from being stolen in the first place...

Whatever the Managerial Class at NSA is paid, it is too much by at least 3 orders of magnitude. And I think that we should find them guilty of treason-by-misrepresentation-of-capability.  That is, they should be shot at dawn for being idiots.

Mormon? Catholic? Evangelical? DOD Has a Word for You!

....and that word is "extremist."

...the Chaplain Alliance uncovered a U.S. Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief that it says expressly pronounced “Catholicism,” “evangelical Christianity,” and “Mormonism” as examples of “religious extremism” like Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the Ku Klux Klan. This led to the FOIA request that uncovered the latest assault on religion by our military establishment.

At one point in time REMFs knew better than to open their mouths.

Things have changed.

HT:  PowerLine

The Collapse of the Culture

A very noteworthy quotation:

"When modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state always change with them." - Plato, Republic

I cadged that from an entry which makes several other good points echoing E. Michael Jones' (Ph.D) commentaries in his "Culture Wars" and "Fidelity" journals.

Whether one agrees with the rest of Vox' post or not, Plato's statement is valid.  We've seen that in the Roman Catholic church--in the West, generally, but particularly in the US--where the Church has utterly failed to catechize her members over the last 50 years.  That's admitted by no less than Cdl. Tim Dolan.

The "Rembert Revolution" of ~1965 had consequences.

Tom Barrett: B-List

While Milk-Carton Tom's office spins his trip to D.C. as "a meeting with the President" (it was), the national press writes it up differently.

Among those attending the session were Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J., a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate; Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter; Washington, D.C., Mayor Vincent Gray; New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu; Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland, Calif.; Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Mayor Sly James of Kansas City, Mo.; Mayor Molly Ward of Hampton, Va., and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.

No mention of Milk-Carton.  None at all.  

So, RoJo: What's At Stake?

Senator Ron Johnson says "there's a lot at stake" in Syria for the US.

When you listen to the interview, RoJo's "at stake" is a nothing-burger.  For example, he said that Syria's WMDs could slip into the wrong hands.

Yah.  That's right.  And exactly how would RoJo prevent that, other than putting a helluvalotta US boots on the ground with packing-crates?

Maybe Ron should define "a lot" a lot better.

Either Amnesty or Mass Rape

From the mouth of Paul Ryan's amnesty-deal BFF:

...“What we need to understand is today, someone is going to die in that desert trying to return to their families; women and men are going to die in that desert,” Gutierrez said in the video, captured by C-SPAN (beginning at ~47:12). “Someone’s going to lose a finger, a hand, an eye, a life today because an unscrupulous employer is going to put them in harm’s way. Someone’s going to die.”

He continued, “There’s a woman that’s going to be raped in a field somewhere in America today because she has no rights in this country, and we need to end that."...

Huh?  So when amnesty happens, rape will stop?

Put another way:  if no amnesty, more rapes?

Given the track record to date, the perps will be illegals.  They're also pretty good at DUI homicides, by the way. 

Amnesty will cure all that, eh?
 

Walker Needs a Refresher on ConLaw 101

It's kinda sad when you think about it:  Scott Walker does not understand the Constitution of the US.  (There is another possibility:  see below)

....after his speech I asked him what he thought about the effort by some Republican lawmakers to defund Obamacare.

“I think in the end, the only caution I put up is, I don’t think you should shut down the government for it,” Walker told me. “I think people, at least in my state, Republicans like me want less government, want limited government, but we want government that works, and I don’t think shutting things down makes anything work.”...

Scott, young man, you need a little lesson in the US Constitution.

See, the House of Representatives writes the budget.

Only the PRESIDENT can shut down the Gummint by vetoing said budget--no matter what was funded, or de-funded.

Which would you rather be, Scott?  A toadying suck-up to Party Bigs, or a Constitutional illiterate from 'tosa?

Jesse Jackson Jr. Now a Rich Slimebag

The slimebag suddenly developed a "mood disorder" which pays him $100K+/year in Federal "disability" pay.

Not bad at all.

This gives rise to the question "How much is paid to other Federal "disability" cases, and what is their "disability"?"

The Back-and-Forthright GOP

When Walt Kelly, Pogo's creator, invented the back-and-forthright Senator Foghorn Leghorn, John Boehner was only cryin' when he didn't get enough attention from his Mommy.

Now Cryin' John gets lots of attention, and--though not a Senator--has become the Back-and-Forthright pol that Kelly satirized; and he's managed to co-opt the office of Paul Ryan in the process.

Back in January, as Republicans geared up for a fight on the debt ceiling, House Republican Leaders assured their constituents that a continuing resolution was the way to fight Obamacare.

... Former Speaker Newt Gingrich went on CBS to advise Republicans that their fight with Barack Obama should be during a continuing resolution fight, not a debt ceiling fight.

... Well, now it is later. And having first told the Republican base that it would have to wait until the continuing resolution and not the debt ceiling fight, now the GOP is telling everyone that it will make its stand on the debt ceiling fight. Never mind that Republicans have said repeatedly that they would never allow the U.S. to default. Never mind that in January, when conservatives tried to get House Republican leaders to fight over Obamacare through the debt ceiling, the GOP got every willing right-of-center columnist, talking head, and pundit to bash conservatives. They told us we could not afford to default on our obligations.

Below, we asked the question 'Fools or Knaves?' about the House "Intelligence" Committee.

In Cryin' John's case, we KNOW the answer.  He's a lying sack of s*&^, the longhand form of knave.

Flat Temps v. Flat Earth Society

The Flat Earthers--AlGore and the IPCC--have been implementing their propaganda strategy again.

Unfortunately, the RSS (satellite temp-data) refuses to self-immolate for The Cause.

The graphic above shows 3 lines. The long line shows that RSS has been flat from December 1996 to July 2013, which is a period of 16 years and 8 months or 200 months. The other slightly higher flat line in the middle is the latest complete decade of 120 months from January 2001 to December 2010. The other slightly downward sloping line is the latest 120 months prior from present. It very clearly shows it has been cooling lately, however this cooling is not statistically significant.

Count "Lightbulb" Rogers (Idiot--MI) as part of the AlGore bunch, by the way.

HT:  JunkScience

House "Intel" Committee: Fools or Knaves?

Any outfit chaired by "Lightbulb" Rogers (who enabled the ban of the incandescent bulb AND who lied like Hell about "fixing" that ban) is almost a bunch of dim bulbs by definition.  So here's the list of Likely Dim Bulbs.

But wait:  they could also be knaves like Rogers, who is already a proven flagrant liar.  So here's the list of (pick one) Fools or Knaves.

Mike Rogers, Chairman
8th District of Michigan
Mac Thornberry
13th District of Texas
Jeff Miller
1st District of Florida
Mike Conaway
11th District of Texas
Peter King
3rd District of New York
Frank LoBiondo
2nd District of New Jersey
Devin Nunes
21st District of California
Lynn Westmoreland
3rd District of Georgia
Michele Bachmann
6th District of Minnesota
Thomas J Rooney
16th District of Florida
Joe Heck
3rd District of Nevada
Mike Pompeo
4th District of Kansas

You might say "Well, maybe they're not!  After all, Because King!  Because Bachman!  Because Nunes!"

Really?  Then read this little essay and re-assess your opinion in light of the facts.

Coincidence, Eh?

Vox phrased it correctly, although the sarcasm doesn't come across in pixels too well.

In an amazing and unsettling coincidence, it seems the recent massacre in Syria, which we are supposed to believe was committed by the Assad regime just as it had taken control of the civil war, was anticipated by the need for one more than 18 months in advance....

He goes on to quote a Wikileaks-discovered Stratfor email (posted at ZeroHedge) which just happens to describe a strat-session envisioning a "mass murder" by Assad which will gin up US animosity to that thug--so much so that the USAF will have a chance to test its capability against the Syrians.

Jack Ryan, call your office!

It's the Culture, Stupid!

Nothing to see here.

...How dark is contemporary fiction for teens? Darker than when you were a child, my dear: So dark that kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things in novels directed, broadly speaking, at children from the ages of 12 to 18.

Pathologies that went undescribed in print 40 years ago, that were still only sparingly outlined a generation ago, are now spelled out in stomach-clenching detail. Profanity that would get a song or movie branded with a parental warning is, in young-adult novels, so commonplace that most reviewers do not even remark upon it....

But hey!  They'll be voting in 4-10 years. And if Boehner has his way, ObozoCare will still be the law of the land.

HT:  AOSHQ

War Party Setback

The War Party--an eclectic mixture of (R) and (D) folks also known as NeoCons, don't really give a rip about the national mood.  In all likelihood, Obozo will jump in here with both feet. other people's boots.

But sensible people do.

...About 60 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should not intervene in Syria's civil war, while just 9 percent thought President Barack Obama should act....

...25 percent of Americans would support U.S. intervention if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces used chemicals to attack civilians, while 46 percent would oppose it. That represented a decline in backing for U.S. action since August 13, when Reuters/Ipsos tracking polls found that 30.2 percent of Americans supported intervention in Syria if chemicals had been used, while 41.6 percent did not....

The "To Hell With Them All" group is growing rapidly.

Frankly, if McCain, Graham, and Obozo want to intervene, let 'em.  

But they should do it in person.  Anyone else who wants to go can follow them.  We'll pack a picnic basket for them. 

HT:  WeaselZippers 

JS' "March on Washington" Story

The JSOnline has been running advertisements asking participants in the '63 March on Washington to call in and tell their stories.

Prolly part of a larger story on the March.

What WON'T the JS story say?

In the 50 years since the 1963 March on Washington,it’s connection to the socialist movement has been largely airbrushed from history.

Wanna take bets?

Eric Holder, Racist, In the Schoolhouse Door

It's no small irony that this is happening in the Deep South.

The U.S. Justice Department is suing Louisiana in New Orleans federal court to block 2014-15 vouchers for students in public school systems that are under federal desegregation orders. The first year of private school vouchers "impeded the desegregation process," the federal government says.
Thirty-four school systems could be affected,...

...The Justice Department's primary argument is that letting students leave for vouchered private schools can disrupt the racial balance in public school systems that desegregation orders are meant to protect....

Yes, it does!

...State Education Superintendent John White took issue with the suit's primary argument and its characterization of the program. Almost all the students using vouchers are black, he said. Given that framework, "it's a little ridiculous" to argue that students' departure to voucher schools makes their home school systems less white, he said. He also thought it ironic that rules set up to combat racism were being called on to keep black students in failing schools....

That's not "ironic"; it's Holder's Schoolhouse Door stand, where he chains them IN, never to let them free.

Cryin' John: Master of the 'Prevent Defense'

As we all know, the "prevent" defense doesn't prevent a damn thing.

Insight in the Tee Shirt

Apparently the NSA lawyers forced the designers to cease using the vague likeness above.

'S OK.  If you read this blog, you're going to Club Fed with me!!

HT:  MoonBattery

Perma-War and .....Walker???

The Spectacle brings interesting news.

Walker is reportedly putting together a campaign book and he’s having Marc Thiessen write it. I suppose it’s possible that Walker could choose to work with Thiessen without knowing about or agreeing with the latter’s extremely hawkish views on national security, but it seems unlikely. Put another way, if you were a politician interested positioning yourself “somewhere in between” Paul and Christie on national security issues, would you select an ardent defender of Bush-era torture methods as your ghostwriter? No, you wouldn’t.  (Larison), quoted at AmSpec

Oh, good.  Another one who believes that If Only We Could Implant Democracy, Whirled Peas!!

I joined the "to Hell with them" club a while back, when it became clear as crystal that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan will profit from our long-term adventures there.

NRO Asks a Silly Question

For crying out loud, Mr. Stiles, it's been all over the "news" for the last few months, NRO.

It’s worth noting that people launching these attacks on Ted Cruz are the same people who instantly impute malign or racist motives to almost any criticism of President Obama. (In the world of MSNBC, for example, it is apparently racist to point out that the president plays a lot of golf, or even to refer to him as “Obama.”)

Cruz, on the other hand, is fair game.--quoted at AOSHQ

Cruz is a WHITE Hispanic.  QED

Wiggy, Again

I'll defer answering Wiggy's first question ("...which half is right?") but leave you to speculate whether it's the top or the bottom half.

Meantime, he's on another tangent:

Let the state patrol roam the freeways (consolidation!) and get rid of the sheriff’s department. Milwaukee County taxpayers would be better off without the extra layer of government inefficiency.

As Grim sagely observed in the combox, appointed LEO's are the preferred choice of statists everywhere.

Some are far more comfortable with a State Patrol which--coincidentally--is run by an appointed head, in preference to local Sheriffs who, in Wisconsin, are elected.  Police chiefs are also appointed.

Hmmmmm. 

One may argue that any given Sheriff is not managing his resources well.  Fine.  That's what "elections" are for.  But mis- or mal-management by a political appointee?  Yah--it's another election, but only indirectly.

But one cannot argue that the State Patrol is an unalloyed good.  They are not even full-bore LEO's, as their powers to arrest are limited.

We've argued before, and still maintain, that the State Patrol's highway-patrol operations should be eliminated in favor of county Sheriff's departments.  The Patrol's truck-inspection business should be maintained; otherwise, the Patrol should be dismantled.  It's an expense which is needless.

THAT should demonstrate that my name is not Fitzgerald, eh?

By the way, Jim:  "inefficiency" is having 8 police chiefs instead of one, and 24 captains instead of 3, and 72 lieutenants instead of 24.  Not to mention 8 multi-million dollar communications installations, 8 maintenance facilities (etc., etc., etc.)

Wiggy's Half-Right

Wiggy's combox is shut down, so here's a response.

I had a conversation today with a well-connected individual who related to me that many municipal police and fire departments were on a path toward absorption by other, larger departments.

In the case of law enforcement, small villages, townships--and even cities--are ceding LEO duties to County Sheriffs.  The fire/rescue departments are on a similar path, but "county fire chiefs" do not exist (yet)--so instead, they are forming regional departments.

The North Shore fire department is one example, but look to the Oconomowoc/Lake Country Fire/Rescue brouhaha and you see another merger which WILL take place.

In Waukesha County, the Sheriff patrols Sussex and Pewaukee.

The City of Milwaukee may be an exception.  Wauwatosa may be another.  But in 20 years, don't expect to find an Elm Grove PD, nor a Town of Brookfield PD; and perhaps even the City of Brookfield will use the Sheriff instead.

Just sayin'...

State: "They Had Careers"

The four scapegoats (and bumbling idiots) that Hildebeeste strung up have been returned to State, pardoned by Kerry.

The State reasoning?  "They had careers."

Uh-huh.  So did the Ambassador and the three other dead people.

These "careers" were on paid leave for 8 months.

Did you miss them?  Did State collapse without their "services"?

Hmmmmm?

Who Said "Shutdown"?

One of the First Things in politics is "Never, ever, adopt the language of the enemy."

So when Ted Cruz and Mike Lee started the movement to de-fund ObozoCare, they never said "shut down" the Gummint.

The White House and Harry Reid said that.  A compliant press repeated it endlessly.

De-funding the administration of ObozoCare--thus, stopping its implementation by turning off the money-spigot paying thousands of bureaucrats to write millions of rules--is NOT "shutting down" Gummint.  It is simply de-funding ObozoCare.

But the simpleton semi-Statist Pubbies made a fatal error:  they used the Enemy's term:  "shutdown."

And they wet their own pants in fear, and they will drown the country in their pee-puddles.

Men with chests?  Nope.

Picture, 1000 Words

Today's Obozo's 140th golf-game of his reign, by the way.

HT:  AOSHQ

Compare and Contrast

This should be easy, except for Tom Barrett and his Chief of Cops.

HHS' Husbandry

Oh, they're careful with those tax dollars.

The Homeland Security Department spent $600,000 apiece to build houses in Arizona that would have gone for less than $100,000, according to a report in the Arizona Republic that’s raising questions in Congress.

Six to one.  Pentagon toilet seats, DHS houses, and ObozoCare.  What a Country!!

...Homeland Security officials repeatedly refused to answer the newspaper’s questions about the project, the Republic said....

Well, silly, it's a "security" thing.  Right there in the Department's title, stupid. 

And besides, the housing if Gummint-Approved Triple-A Wowzer!!

“These homes have been constructed in line with federally mandated requirements, designed for long-term use with minimal maintenance in a harsh climate,” Mr. Friel said.

He said the homes were built as Energy Star-rated homes and are 75 percent more efficient than the average homes in the area.

Oh.  OK, then.  No problem.  Sorry we brought it up.


HT:  Protein

HooCouldaNode?

the pResident's very own study of gun problems reveals:

Between the years 2000-2010 firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearms related violence in the United States

....and....

The study said that “interventions,” such as background checks and restrictions on firearms and increased penalties for illegal gun use, showed “mixed” results, while “turn-in” programs “are ineffective” in reducing crime. The study noted that most criminals obtained their guns in the underground economy — from friends, family members, or gang members — well outside any influence from gun controls on legitimate gun owners.

Curses!  Foiled again!!

HT:  Zippers

Sums It Up

Jonah Goldberg, found at Cold Fury:

...But there’s a simpler reason for American reluctance to intervene in the Middle East that plays a much bigger role in peoples’ attitudes about foreign policy. It can be summed up with the words “to hell with them.”...

Yup.  After about 20 years of watching armed squabbling (i.e., waves of murders, torchings, and beheadings) and sending US troops into Bill Murray-land, the time has come to just walk away. 

Christie Flips: Now He's "Pro-Gun"

Despite an anti-gun background, Christie allows .50-cal shooting in New Jersey.

NSA and ObozoCare Enforcers

After the NSA has gathered the information, HHS will raid your home.

The Health and Human Services’ website states that your family will be targeted if you fall under the “high-risk” categories below:

• Families where mom is not yet 21.
• Families where someone is a tobacco user.
• Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities.
• Families with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces, including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had multiple deployments outside the United States.

There is no reference to Medicaid being the determinant for a family to be “eligible.”

Now you know why HHS is sucking up all that ammo.

Who the Hell Do These Creeps Think They Are?

This happened under the Obozo/(D) regime, folks.

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by law and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.

... In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional.

Now we'll hear again from Sensenbrenner that 'we certainly didn't MEAN to give the spooks this....'

Right-O, Jimbo!  Whatever you say, Jim.  Do you really think we're as stupid as you appear to be?

HT:  Hit/Run

Disabled? Really?

Walker has quite a ways to go to re-write Wisconsin disability-pay practices for public employees.

Stephen Heimsness was exonerated in a shooting death in November, but he could have faced termination stemming from accusations that he violated several policies.

Heimsness is seeking early retirement due to post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from the November shooting of Paul Heenan.

If his request for disability benefits is approved, he could get $57,200.04 annually, a Wisconsin Reporter analysis showed.

What used to be called "battle fatigue" has become PTSD, and now only a couple of gunshots "trigger" this horrible result in this poor widdle cop.  Compare his "trauma" to that of the survivors of D-Day, or of Iwo, or Pork-Chop Hill, or even of

One wonders if Heimsness is a man, or a mouse.

IMHO, if he is awarded disability, he should be confined to his home for the rest of his life.  Poor fellow could suffer again--horribly--if he heard a horn honking or a firecracker.  Can't be too careful, ya'know.

Bloomberg's Tattered Terrycloth

Seems that the NYPD's "Terry stop" license will be terminated.

Belling rants on about the decision; in his view, it was wrong.

Really?

During the period in question, only 12% of the detainees were arrested or issued a summons.  Further, only HALF of the detainees were patted down, and only 1.5% of those were found to be armed.

This while justifying the Terrys as "gun-related" only?

Pipe down, Mark, or find statistics that support you and Czar Bloomie.

Is Ryan Serious About Higher Office?

If Paul Ryan is serious about running for President, he's not going to have a free pass from Conservatives.

Ryan has been toying with amnesty in the usual Double-Talk fashion, underlining "border security" but forgetting that NO recent President or Congress has bothered with "security" at all.  He also propounded a new economic theory:  that more supply (of cheap labor) will necessarily drive the price of labor UP.

Ryan bent over and went with "leadership" to continue NSA funding of domestic spying, which (of course) he would categorize as "necessary intel-gathering."  Not even the author of the original Patriot Act--Sensenbrenner--could stomach this abuse of the Constitution by the Statists-in-Charge.

And Ryan has artfully voted against ObozoCare when it NEVER MATTERS--but is now, along with RoJo, mumbling about a "shutdown" --the language of the (D) party--instead of "defunding Obozocare", which is exactly and ONLY what the citizens of this country want.

Really, Paul?

Eydie and Friend

We agree:  Eydie was a great one.

Here she appears with another great one.  The talent displayed here eclipses an entire season of "America's Got Talent"--and then some.

Let's Talk About "Defunding"

The Second Circuit slaps Obozo--but the "defunder" is Harry Reid.

In a rebuke to the Obama administration, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been violating federal law by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

By a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the commission to complete the licensing process and approve or reject the Energy Department's application for a never-completed waste storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

Blahblahblahblah....

Anybody who has paid attention to Yucca knows that the blockage comes from Harry Reid, who "defunds" Federal laws any damn time he wants to.  Harry laughs at the Court:

...Reid, a Democrat, called the appeals court decision "fairly meaningless," noting that Congress has nearly eliminated funding for Yucca and is unlikely to restore it.

"This isn't even a bump in the road," Reid said. "This, without being disrespectful to the court, means nothing."...

Yet the cowards of (R) cannot bring themselves to "defund" ObozoCare--a far worse agenda-item than Yucca Mountain could ever hope to be.

Thus the whimper-not-bang end of the Stupid Party.

It's "The Stupid Party" for a Reason

Ace notices that the Stupids are displaying their colors.

...So the GOP says it's willing to shut down the government unless Obama agrees to spending cuts, which the public supports when you ask them but not when you ask them twice.

One of the few areas the public would like to cut spending is on... ObamaCare.

And yet that's the thing the GOP will definitely not shut the government down over.

AOSHQ also notes that (R) Congresscritters are cutting back on "town hall" events this August.

Prolly the heat., right?  But not from the kitchen, where the Ruling Class does NOT work.

Rumor Fun, Complete With Conspiracy!

This will be fun, if it actually happens.  InfoWars is not exactly the perfect source.

Journalist Michael Hastings was investigating CIA director John Brennan before his untimely death in a suspicious car accident it has been revealed, with the report set to be published posthumously by Rolling Stone Magazine within the next two weeks.

Why Brennan?

...Dvorak [ ... ] cites a Stratfor email hacked by Wikileaks and first published last year which names Brennan as being, “behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources.”

“There is specific tasker from the WH to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked,” states the email.

Good thing that those journalists weren't the OTHER objects of Brennan's attention:

...Brennan was a counterterrorism advisor for the Obama administration and helped compile the “kill lists” for the White House’s drone assassination program....

But you don't know if there was one more 'kill list' which has yet to become operative. Did anyone check Hastings' car for drone-sized holes, for example?

Is He Stupid, or Worse? The Obozo Mystery

I'd thought of titling this post 'Dumbass President Tricks' but then I remembered that his mentors and pals are first-rate anti-Americans.

So the charitable interpretation is that he's really, really, really stupid.  The other one...well....

In the continuing saga of Benghazi--which DOES matter now, despite the bleating of Gorgon Hildebeeste--Owens sums:

...I’d like to remind you that Obama refused to give cross border authority to a force of 100 Recon Marines spinning up at Sigonella NAS, told Green Berets in Tripoli to stand down, and refused to call the region’s elite Delta CIF force to come to the rescue of more than two dozen and perhaps as many as 40 Americans under attack.

He had his campaign narrative of “al Qaeda is on the run” to preserve, and the destruction of a U.S. consulate and the possible over-running of a CIA position in a dusty desert version of Custer’s Last Stand is what he was willing to gamble. That he was also negligent enough to deliver al Qaeda hundreds of the exact weapons they’ve most wanted is a clear sign of the dangerously arrogant incompetence that permeates this White House....

I wish it were merely "arrogant incompetence."

Another Wheel Comes Off ObozoCare: You're the Victim, Again

So far, Obozo has taken care of businesses (no deadline!!) and insurance companies (no stop-loss!!!!!)

In another setback for President Obama’s health care initiative, the administration has delayed until 2015 a significant consumer protection in the law that limits how much people may have to spend on their own health care....The limit on out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and co-payments, was not supposed to exceed $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a family. But under a little-noticed ruling, federal officials have granted a one-year grace period to some insurers, allowing them to set higher limits, or no limit at all on some costs, in 2014...

I know.  ObozoCare was designed to fail so Shrillary could "fix" it.

Looking forward to that?

HT:  AOSHQ

Clowns Everywhere in Missouri Gummint

It's clear that Missouri is governed by idiots.

...The Missouri State Fair imposed a lifetime ban on the rodeo clown whose depiction of Obama getting charged by a bull was widely criticized by Democratic and Republican officials alike....

The clown has competition from at least three other clowns:

...Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill called it shameful and unacceptable....

...Gov. Jay Nixon’s press secretary, Scott Holste, said in a statement, “The governor agrees that the performance was disrespectful and offensive, and does not reflect the values of Missourians...

...Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder weighed in in a series of Twitter posts. Kinder said he loved the fair and planned to attend but said the clown’s performance reflected poorly on the state. “I condemn the actions disrespectful...

One suspects that there will be a run on Obozo masks.

Shrillary's Slither Begins

Another lawyer without any ethics or morals and with all the wrong friends begins slithering towards the White House.

Prissy Writer of the Year?

This squeal written with estrogen as ink is easily one of the Prissy Scribbles of the Year.

So I Consulted With My Pals: Screw Taxes This Year!!

How does Obozo break the law??

...I didn’t simply choose to delay this on my own. This was in consultation with businesses all across the country...--Obozo, quoted at HE

Well.  In consultation with a lot of friends and family, many of whom are in business across the country, we've all decided not to pay taxes this year. 

After all, we have EXACTLY THE SAME authority to ignore the IRS Code as Obozo has to ignore the ObozoCare law.

Defund ObozoCare? Si, Se Puede!

Somewhat involved argumentation, but von Spakovsky reminds us of the ADA (Anti-Deficiency Act), which the cojones-challenged Congresscritters would rather forget.

...No one disputes that Obamacare would stay on the books and that defunding would not change the existing law. But all federal funds already appropriated for the implementation and enforcement of Obamacare could not be used by any federal agency to take any action—whether it is issuing new regulations or filing an enforcement action against an individual or an employer for not complying with the new health insurance mandates. The termination of all “entitlement to benefits” would stop the automatic appropriation of new entitlement spending for things like the law’s Medicaid expansion. The rescission of “unobligated benefits” would return to the Treasury appropriated funds that have not yet been spent on items such as the payment of outside contractors—navigators—for enrolling participants in Obamacare, although it would probably not relieve the government of the contractual obligation to pay for services already rendered.

There is no question that such a defunding bill can stop entitlement spending....

No question, except in the minds of the demi-Statist (R) folk (read:  McConnell, Boehner, Cantor) and their easily-swayed (R) followers.

HT: PowerLine

Define the Enemy, Then Destroy It

When one conducts a proper war, the first thing is to define the enemy.  The next thing is to destroy that enemy.  (Cartago delenda est.)  That's the way of war.

Thus when we read Kennedy's decision in Windsor, a bell should be ringing.  The bell could be inscribed "Dred Scott."

...Justice Scalia rightly identified as particularly outrageous the Court’s assertion that the purpose of the definition was a “‘bare … desire to harm’ couples in same-sex marriages.”...

Could Kennedy really believe that?  Yes, he could:

...from what counts as serious discussion by serious people in our country it is clear that most well-placed and influential Americans have come to believe that opposition to same-sex marriage can only be a matter of ignorance and bigotry. They are convinced that a social institution that involves sexual differentiation can have no legitimate function or right to exist, and the point is so obvious that no rightly constituted mind could possibly believe otherwise....

IOW, the Ruling Class--the Elites--have come to the conclusion that Kennedy used as an assertion:  those opposed to same-sex marriages are Hating Bigots, devoid of rational thought.

The Enemy has been defined, folks.

Such views [that were expressed by Kennedy here] are considered an obvious demand of reason and justice. To reject equal fulfillment as the highest standard and technology as the model for putting it into effect can, it is thought, only be a matter of greed, bullying, sadism, or irrationality. After all, the alternative to giving people what they want equally is preferring some people and their desires to others, the alternatives to technology are passivity on the one hand and magical thinking on the other, and the alternative to equal respect is suppression of some people and what they want for the sake of a scheme that other people want to impose on them. How can any of that be justified?

Since it is all so obvious, or so it is thought, resistance is not merely misguided or wrong but an expression of gross irrationality that can only be motivated by gratuitous hatred. It is evidently for some such reason that the Windsor majority treats those who disagree with it, in the words of Justice Scalia, as hostes humani generis: enemies of the human race.

If this is a war, the "define-the-enemy" stage is now accomplished.  All that remains is to destroy that enemy.

Kennedy is a tool; we saw that in his infamous Lawrence obiter dicta when SCOTUS overruled Bowers.  It's clear that he is easily influenced at cocktail parties.  But this simple tool has a black robe--and friends--and his blather will have effects.

Should the logic of the war analogy prevail, we have just seen the second Dred Scott decision.  Let us hope that what follows does not resemble 1861.

Jack Ryan Would Go Crazy

Most of you know about Jack Ryan, the fictional CIA operative/Navy veteran who became POTUS in the span of about 7 marvelous and highly-detailed novels written by Tom Clancy (e.g., The Hunt for Red October, Cardinal of the Kremlin, etc.)

Jack Ryan did NOT believe in co-incidence.  Period. 

This essay would have driven him nuts.

No Kidding, Mr. Hillyer!

Hillyer notes the essence of the problem with the Hypocritical Exemption.

This sort of special exemption for government workers is not a merely symbolic annoyance; instead, it feeds a perception that soon becomes an attitude that soon makes itself manifest in various actions. The perception is that government workers are above the law; the attitude that can grow among the federal workforce is that those workers are our masters rather than our servants; and the actions that flow from that attitude can include many abuses, small and large, of privacy or liberty.

Yah, like IRS' squashing of conservative activists, NSA's "total war" infogame....stuff like that, hey.

Leno Is Dead-On

Leno gets it, and broadcast it to a LARGE audience.  Good on him!!


"Congress took the hypocritic oath.....

“Before they went on vacation, Congress voted to exempt themselves from Obamacare. They gave themselves a special exemption, because they thought it was too expensive. So the people who voted for Obamacare for us voted to exempt themselves from Obamacare. See now, doctors take the Hippocratic oath. Congress apparently takes the hypocritic oath,” Leno said. - See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/jay-leno-congress-took-hypocritic-oath-obamacare-exemption#sthash.NxNuqqqf.dpuf

“Before they went on vacation, Congress voted to exempt themselves from Obamacare. They gave themselves a special exemption, because they thought it was too expensive. So the people who voted for Obamacare for us voted to exempt themselves from Obamacare. See now, doctors take the Hippocratic oath. Congress apparently takes the hypocritic oath,” Leno said. - See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/jay-leno-congress-took-hypocritic-oath-obamacare-exemption#sthash.NxNuqqqf.dpuf

“Before they went on vacation, Congress voted to exempt themselves from Obamacare. They gave themselves a special exemption, because they thought it was too expensive. So the people who voted for Obamacare for us voted to exempt themselves from Obamacare. See now, doctors take the Hippocratic oath. Congress apparently takes the hypocritic oath,” Leno said. - See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/jay-leno-congress-took-hypocritic-oath-obamacare-exemption#sthash.Tqi2BR6D.dpuf

“Before they went on vacation, Congress voted to exempt themselves from Obamacare. They gave themselves a special exemption, because they thought it was too expensive. So the people who voted for Obamacare for us voted to exempt themselves from Obamacare. See now, doctors take the Hippocratic oath. Congress apparently takes the hypocritic oath,” Leno said. - See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/jay-leno-congress-took-hypocritic-oath-obamacare-exemption#sthash.Tqi2BR6D.dpuf

The Sixth Amendment: A Casualty of NSA/DEA Statism

Let us pause and bow our heads in memory of the recently-assassinated Sixth Amendment.

In relevant part:

...to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor,...

...When Edward Snowden alleged that he, as a low level IT technician, could access communications by virtually anyone simply by asking there was a howling from the general direction of Fort Meade, MD that this was not true. Because FISA Courts. Because The Constitution. Subsequent reporting by Glenn Greenwald (or one of his sock puppets. it is really hard to tell… ) indicates that Snowden was more right than wrong.

Reuters....detailed how the Special Operative Division – a unit within the DEA comprising representatives of two dozen agencies including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security – passes tips from wiretaps, informants and a database of telephone records to field agents to investigate and arrest criminals. Reuters reports that, although such cases rarely involve national security issues, the DEA agents using the tips are trained to “recreate” the source of the criminal investigation to conceal its true origin from defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges.

One is reminded of a passage familiar to most:  "Witnesses??  We have no need of witnesses!!"

....followed by a summary non-judicial execution.

Sorta like the line from the Disney song:  "...it could happen to you..." except the song was not about the end of the US Constitution done by a bunch of skinhead power-mad vest-wearing full-auto bearing enemies of the Republic.

UPDATE:  Speaking of summary executions, do NOT visit Delaware.

Not Much Choice in Wisconsin ObozoCare

Seems as though there's no rush to cover ObozoCare exchanges in Wisconsin.

United HealthCare, Humana, and Assurant bowed out.  "Maybe next year"---

Anthem CompCare will provide for the individual, but not small-business, market.

WPS and a startup, Common Ground, will provide for the small-biz market.

There are also a number of small firms which will compete.

Teh Stupid: Krugman

Charles McMillion makes a point.

...Over the past 30 years of lobbying by the financial sector in Washington and support by naive academics for "free" trade, the normal, small U.S. trade surplus in goods and services has turned into an unbroken torrent of 30 consecutive annual deficits that now total an astounding $9 trillion of which $7.7 trillion is for manufactured goods. 

As Detroit demonstrates, production, businesses and jobs lost to imports are not merely "displaced" and automatically moved to other, more productive and higher-wage uses -- as many economic theorists still claim. In fact, the Labor Department has tracked workers displaced by cutbacks and closings since 1979 and most such workers -- especially in manufacturing -- are either permanently forced out of the paid labor force or eventually forced to take sharp cuts in pay, benefits and hours. 

The cuts in compensation for displaced workers reflect the drive to less productive jobs and businesses that are protected from import competition in industries such as health care, education, entertainment, tourism, retail sales and now many levels of "homeland" security. Over the past 30 years of worsening trade losses, all of the net new jobs in the United States are in services. Most all of these jobs have been immune to outsourcing or imports -- although this, too, is changing quickly.

THAT is not what makes Krugman and his fellow-traveler pointy-headed academics stupid, although it's a big part.

HERE is what makes him a Stupid:

...Detroit is ridiculed for not adequately adapting to the low-wage global and subsidized "market," with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman literally raising the cliche of "buggy whips," blithely urging Detroit to find a new competitive advantage. (Who wants to buy autos today?) Like others, Krugman is silent about any new industries, jobs or businesses that could provide good salaries to hundreds of thousands of people in Detroit and millions elsewhere in the country who have been displaced by surging imports.

Krugman and the rest of the Theoretical Class (read:  rulers-with-Ph.D.) haven't a clue as to what will "replace" the jobs now vanished from the auto industry.

Not. A. Clue.  Nonetheless, they pontificate.

RoJo's on the Wrong End of the Cannon

Jerry Bader is sympathetic as RoJo attempts to defend the Boyzzz of D.C..

"Your 80% you 90% your 99% friend is still your friend and what’s happening right now in the conservative movement we are starting to shoot people who are 99% our friend."  --Sen. Ron Johnson

Johnson reiterated several times that conservatives are losing sight of the goal by getting bogged down in strategy; we all agree Obamacare should be stopped, the question is how.  Texas Senator Ted Cruz is a driving force behind the defund movement. Johnson refused to criticize Cruz, trying to live by his own rules. But Johnson made it clear that if Republicans don’t unify they’re doomed. Johnson prefers the delay strategy, mostly because he believes Republicans might get enough Democrats to join in that effort. But what’s the end game in that strategy? Delay for how long? And what happens during the delay? Uncertainty, that’s what.

 

...I’m not sure what the right answer is. But Senator Ron Johnson wants angry conservative voters to know that, in his words, "eating our own," isn’t the answer.

 

RoJo happens to be standing at the wrong end of the cannon; in fact, he was not even born when the problems began--with Wilson--and he's not the proximate cause.  But he, Ryan, Sensenbrenner, and the execrable Boehner/McConnell Gang are at a moment in history where the center may no longer hold.

 

Most of the tools the Obozo Regime is using were handed to them by Republican and Democrat Statists of the past:  the IRS, EPA, Dept. of Education and NSA being prominent in the band.  The Bank Bailouts, the GM/Chrysler Bailout, the cronyism, the inane effort to 'install democracy in the Middle East'....shall we go on?

 

But Obama has taken the next step of  simply ignoring law and doing whatever the Hell he wants to do.

The opposition party (which was, I remind you, complicit in all but the law-breaking) now discovers that it has become The Enemy.  The light-bulb and toilet-regulators, the unnatural-sex-and-abortion pushers, the Corn-a-Holers, the War Party--all are populated with (R) names.

And the people have had enough of this.  The frustration boils over; and RoJo happens to be standing in the middle of the tracks between two high-speed freight trains approaching from opposite directions.

I'm sympathetic, too.  But RoJo said that he would take down ObozoCare.

And he damn well better DO it.

The "Dumb Babes" Gambit

This ......ahhh........*politician* ........from Texas has a few words for women.

T[he] W[eekly] S[tandard]: What do you make of polls showing that a majority of women support these late-term bans? There have been a few polls–Washington Post, Huffington Post, different polls–that show women support this. What do you think of those polls?

DAVIS: I again think that a lot of people don’t really understand the landscape of what’s happening in that arena today...

That's Wendy Davis, who is a blonde.

HT:  PW

Don't Want Surgery? Cops Will Kill You.

The Cop-as-Infantry "mentality" at work.

...On July 26, a doctor reportedly told Wrana if he survived surgery, he would likely be put on life support. The elderly man refused the operation, and paramedics attempted to involuntarily transport him for medical treatment. He was sitting in a chair, holding a cane and a shoe horn when police arrived at the Victory Centre senior living facility located just south of Chicago.

The Cook County medical examiner reported that Wrana bled to death internally from injuries caused when the elderly man was shot in the stomach with a 12-gauge shotgun that fired a bag filled with lead shot. The death has been ruled a homicide, according to reports....

According to the Park Forest police account, Grapsas had threatened officers with a two-foot-long metal shoe horn and cane.

95-year-old armed with cane!!  The cops are endangered!!!!!  Time to open fire!!!!!!!!

But first, they had to have an excuse for homicide, right?  So here it is:

...“Attempts were made verbally to have the resident comply with demands to drop the articles, to no avail,” the police statement said. “The resident then armed himself with a 12-inch butcher type kitchen knife.”

But Grapsas told the Tribune the staff and Wrana’s family said they never saw a butcher knife in his room. 

“So where did the knife come from?” the attorney asked.

I'm surprised they didn't plant a kilo of cocaine and a couple of rifles on the old dude.

There's the Right Way and the Illegal Way (Obozo's)

Obozo does not have the legal authority to 'suspend employer obligations' under ObozoCare.

He does not have the legal authority to 'suspend verification of income' for ObozoCare applicants.

And he does not have the legal authority 'pay premiums for Congressslime and their aides'.

...the White House is suspending the law to create a double standard. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that runs federal benefits will release regulatory details this week, but leaks to the press suggest that Congress will receive extra payments based on the FEHBP defined-contribution formula, which covers about 75% of the cost of the average insurance plan...

...This latest White House night at the improv is also illegal. OPM has no authority to pay for insurance plans that lack FEHBP contracts, nor does the Affordable Care Act permit either exchange contributions or a unilateral bump in congressional pay in return for less overall compensation.  --WSJ quoted at AOSHQ

Fauntelroy needs a few lessons.

The Wonders of Socialism

The Obozo socialist economy!!

...Since January 2009 the country has added a net total of 270,000 full-time jobs, but it has added 1.9 million part-time jobs, according to the House Ways and Means Committee....

So to make it all better, Paul Ryan will add 14 million illegal immigrants to the mix.

Helluva deal, Paul.

Franciscans Allied With Illegals

Not surprising at all.

...This past year, 23 year old Kathleen Shea of New Jersey served as the New Sanctuary Coordinator for Voces de la Frontera via the Capuchin Franciscan Volunteer Corps and AmeriCorps. Shea’s position served the New Sanctuary Movement, a campaign sponsored by Voces to organize churches and faith groups together in service of "a more just immigration policy in our country and asking ICE to uphold the basic human rights of all people."....

Blah, blah, blah.

So the Franciscans take Federal money to launch and maintain opposition to US immigration law--and to attempt to destroy a local business.

Nice.

HT:  Sykes

It's What's for Dinner!!

We expect Moochie, HHS, and EPA to be wildly enthusiastic (using your tax dollars) about this.  But we don't expect the czars and czarinas to actually lead by example.

“Black soldier flies themselves do not eat, they just drink. And they do not transmit any disease to humans,” Unger explains. “Unlike normal house flies they usually do not sit on food and they do not sting or bite, either. They also fly very slowly, so in case one should escape it is easy to catch them.” [...]

The larvae have a nutty, almost meaty flavor, Unger says, and her favorite dish is a tomato larvae risotto. But as tasty as it may be, and as well as Farm 432 may work, Unger admits that the design challenge is only part of making such an idea a success.

“With my design I am proposing a new lifestyle,” she says. “It’s about a potential new Western culture of insect eating and breeding. It’s about making people aware that there is a great variety of food on our planet that we rarely consider.”  --quoted at Protein Wisdom (cough)

And you thought that boiled spinach was bad.....

Only Gummint Builds the Roads, Eh?

The inanity in pictures.

Not hard to tell which one is Tommy "RoadBuilder" Thompson, is it?

HT:  Dollar Vigilante/Last Ditch

60 Years Old, Even More Worth a Read Now

Yes, I read it; yes, I still have it around.  Mine's at least second-hand with a bookplate from someone in Indiana (!)

A decade ago, Regnery issued the 50^th anniversary of Whittaker Chambers’ Witness, honoring its corporate motto that reads, “it is our purpose to publish good books where we find them.”  Witness is not simply a good book, but one of the most profound studies of human nature published in at least the past hundred years. It rips apart the media and cultural narrative about the early Cold War in the United States.  At a very basic and human level, the book also lays out Chambers’ own tortuous navigation of the spirit.
Chambers is one of the most complex and unremembered of important American historical figures.  Like many other writers between the world wars, such as John Dos Passos, he embraced Communist leftism as the only possible savior of humanity.  Most of these men and women flirted with the international Communist movement as fellow travelers.

Not ever content to flit at the periphery of events, Chambers slid into an even deeper ensnarement.  He ended up managing part of a Moscow based spy network that used journalists, artists, and technocrats to extend its poisoned tentacles into the world’s most important capitals.

By 1937, however, Chambers made “the decision to die, if necessary, rather than to live under Communism.”  Unlike the slow climb from Communism to conservatism made by some contemporaries, again, such as Dos Passos, Chambers moved quickly. First, he decided to mentally abandon Communism as a set of beliefs.  That not being sufficient, he walked into the home of Assistant Secretary of State Adolph Berle in 1939 and gave a full confession.  To him, the break was a “personal, intellectual, and religious act” that had much less potential consequence for himself and his family than deserting a Soviet spy apparatus.  Time editor Henry Grunwald later related that Chambers told him that Communism equated “slavery and spiritual night.”

It's not an easy read, but it is very clear and lucid.  And yes, Chambers 'gets' the human condition, although his work is clouded a bit by his Protestant theo-philosophical meanderings.

HT:  Sipsey Street

Acerbically Yours, Steyn

This guy Steyn is a national treasure.

Any day now, Hillary Clinton, having spent 20 minutes in the private sector, will be needing a new “transition team” to help her transition into replacing President Obama. He’s “smart” and “accomplished,” too. He had a million bucks of elite education — Occidental College, Columbia University, Harvard Law School — and became a “community organizer.” His wife went to Princeton and became a 350-grand-a-year diversity-outreach coordinator, a job so vital to the University of Chicago Hospitals that when she quit to become first lady they didn’t bother replacing her. This is what it means to be “smart” and “accomplished” in the hyperpower at twilight.  --quoted at Cold Fury

Gun Control: Lying WIth Massaged Language

It's not a co-incidence that AG Holder and all the rest sound the same about gun control.

GQR advises gun control groups that in order to be effective in making progress toward their stated goal of restricting gun rights and enacting gun bans, they must use specific terms to counter Stand Your Ground self-defense laws, such as “Shoot First” laws or “Kill at Will” legislation. The objective is to tar and feather sensible self-defense by using such derogatory language every chance they get. And indeed, these phrases have been used repeatedly by Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, and others on the front lines of the gun ban movement.

The firm also advises that gun control advocates avoid using the term “duty to retreat” in support of their position, due to the fact that the term is viewed negatively by the public, not to mention that the Supreme Court and lower courts have ruled over a long period of years that citizens have no duty to retreat if their lives are immediately threatened.  --quoted at Protein Wisdom

There's an 80-page PDF at the link which exposes their entire re-working of logic and English.

Benghazi, Graphically

HT:  MoonBattery

Some Pigs Are More Equal Than Others

You'll all be shocked.......shocked......to read this.

The White House has approved a deal that will exempt members of Congress and their staff from some of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, Politico reported late Thursday.

... without the subsidies they currently enjoy, the members of Congress would have faced thousands of dollars in additional premium payments each year, the report said. However, the Office of Personnel Management now plans to rule that the government can continue to make a contribution to the health-care premiums of the lawmakers and their staff, it said, citing unnamed congressional sources and a White House official...

We could change the headline to this:  Some Pigs are More Equal Than Their Subjects

The Boehner/Cantor/Sensenbrenner Bend-Over of 2011

Just as a reminder to Jim Sensenbrenner, Paul Ryan, Petri, and Duffy:

...After Congress narrowly passed Obamacare in 2010, that year's midterm election became a referendum on the law. Backed by the grass-roots activism of the tea party movement, Republicans won control of the House. John Boehner replaced Nancy Pelosi as speaker.

When the new Congress was seated in 2011, the government was funded by a continuing resolution (CR) that expired on March 18 of that year. Because the Constitution says that "no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law," Boehner's Republican House had a veto over what the Obama administration would be able to spend money on after that date....

So what did Cryin' John and Paul Ryan do??

...the Republican House passed its first in a series of government-funding deals permitting implementation....

With the money that Boehner, Cantor, and Ryan voted to spend,

Obama and his bureaucrats used the money Boehner's House gave them to implement Obamacare — as they saw fit.

They issued the regulation requiring most health plans to cover sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs — thus violating the First Amendment by forcing Christians to act against their faith.

Obama unilaterally suspended the provision in the law that requires large employers to buy health insurance for their workers or pay a penalty. He thus violated the president's constitutional mandate to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

What you men-without-chests did in 2011 can and should be un-done in 2013.  Don't whine and mewl about "not controlling the Senate".  Don't shovel the s*&^ about "we can't shut down the Gummint"--which only Obozo can do.

Jim:  it's well-known that there are half-a-dozen people lined up to replace you in Congress.

Is it time for them to primary you??

The New Oliver North

Yah, it's Obozo again.

Seems that he was gun-running to the rebels in Syria (which are just another bunch of community organizers when you come right down to right down.)

But since THAT could be embarrassing, Obozo & Co. have lied, loudly and blatantly, ever since.  Shrillary was the most notorious, but Obozo takes the cake.

Survivors of the attack are not only being silenced, complete with threats to their families from "our" guys, but are being given the Witness Protection Program treatment.

They might not like it, but that's their "treatment."  Better than Siberia, I suppose.

Obozo's Alternative Universe

That alternative universe is the one Obozo lives in--you know, the one with golf courses, Martha's Vineyard, world travel for the fam, and fabulous dinners--and the MSM won't, or can't, ask the obvious question.

Obama’s first term, with all its tax hikes, regulations, mandates, subsidies and bailouts, saw stock markets rise, corporate earnings break records and the rich get richer, while median income stagnated and unemployment remained stubbornly high.

Obama rightly calls the last few years “a winner-take-all economy where a few are doing better and better and better, while everybody else just treads water.”

Median household income has fallen by 5 percent since 2009 — when the recession ended and Obama came into office — as the Wall Street Journal pointed out after Obama’s speech. But corporate profits and the stock market keep hitting record highs.  --Driscoll quoting M C Ham

Yup.  ObozoNomics leaves us in a "winner-take-all economy" where "median household income has fallen by 5%" under ObozoNomic programs.

So it's all Bush's fault!!  Because Bush.

Ryan's Budget: Not Bad, Not Great

Despite Paul Ryan's Double-Talk Express problem with immigration reform (see here and here) and his love for NSA snooping, his budget proposal isn't bad at all.  It's not great, but not bad.

However, under Boehner's "leadership" there are problems--mostly because Boehner spends too much time crying, I suppose.

...Moderate Republicans may have all voted for Ryan’s budget blueprint this fall, but now that the reality of those spending cuts are becoming clear, they are balking.

The Transportation and Housing and Urban Development spending bill pulled Wednesday, for example, cut spending on the Community Development Block Grant program from $3.8 billion in FY 2013 to $1.6 billion in FY 2014. The CDBG is a classic big government/crony capitalist boondoggle long objected to by limited government conservatives.

But the “Tuesday Group” of moderate Republicans said they could not vote for the bill unless their districts got their CDBG spending restored, and even after House leadership agreed to put back $350 million of pork back into the bill, the moderate Republicans still walked.

...Spending is not the only area where libertarians have been giving Republican leaders headaches. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., forced a close vote on the NSA’s domestic surveillance program this week...

The Statists, including Ryan, won that vote, but not by much.  No wonder they're getting sweaty palms over at RNC HQ.

1984 Redux: "Public Safety" Unions

Orwell's quip--that 'some are more equal than others'--was not fiction.  Never was, never will be.

The "public safety" unions will make double-damn sure you know it, too, even if it requires a little lying and deception to make it so.

Gov. Scott Walker stirred things up Monday with talk about extending the state ban on public sector union rights to police and firefighters, before downplaying the idea Tuesday.

...At a public event in Milwaukee on Monday, Walker said he would consider expanding the law, and that police and fire workers may now be willing to forgo union rights taken from other government workers — collective bargaining, paycheck dues withdrawals and arbitration to settle disputes with management....

Here's where the fun starts:

...Leaders of two police unions said their members wouldn’t accept any such change, and they believe the governor knows that.

“He understands that there is an absolute difference between public safety and general employees in this regard,” said Milwaukee Police Association president Mike Crivello.

Crivello said he cautioned officers who called him Tuesday not to jump to conclusions. Walker knows public safety workers face personal danger on the job, and that the union has allowed them to advocate effectively for weaponry and equipment that makes them safer, Crivello said....

That was three-card monte in pixels.

You see, "union advocacy" and the militarization of the cop-shop are totally unrelated.  The cops can "advocate" (i.e., demand) "weaponry and equipment" without Crivello and his bush-league rabble-rouser WPPA yappydog Palmer.  If the citizens of a given community think the cops need military-grade weapons and protective equipment, they'll cough up the money.

That's what Crivello and Palmer fear, by the way.  They represent cops, not the 101st Airborne.  Some citizens have reservations about flash-bang grenades, full-auto AR's, and armored cars for their cops.

Actual History on (D) Racism

O'Reilly swallows the Camelot Myth whole, and regurgitates it as "fact."  Coulter takes him down.

...During his otherwise excellent commentaries on race in America, Bill O’Reilly, host of the No. 1 cable news show, claimed on Tuesday night that the one person who tried to help African-Americans more than any other was … Robert F. Kennedy!

No one laughed....

...According to O’Reilly’s Bizarro-World history, Bobby Kennedy was “the guy who was really concerned about African-Americans” and “who really DID SOMETHING. … He went in with the federal government and he cleaned out the rat’s nest that was abusing African-Americans in the South.”

Although this myth has been polished to perfection by the Kennedy PR machine, ...it is simply a fact that helping blacks was not the Democrats’ priority. Even the ones who wanted to, such as Bobby and John Kennedy, couldn’t risk upsetting the segregationists, more than 90 percent of whom were Democratic.

Another world-class history professor, Oprah Winfrey, declares that there were 'millions' of blacks lynched in the South.  Actually, there were 4,700+, and 1,000+ of those were white folks.  Most of the 4,700+ were Republicans, by the way--and the lynch-ers were Democrats.

That's why the Camelot folks didn't act against segregation.

Paul Ryan's Double-Talk Express

We could call it the "Straight Talk Express", but let's cut to the chase:  it's double-talk.

A week or so ago, Paul Ryan proposed a new economic theory that increasing the supply of a commodity will increase the price of that commodity.

It was buried in typical political double-talk, but there it is!  Chairman, Budget, believes in the tooth fairy, unicorns, and pixie-dust.  Because seashells and balloons.

The Ryan Double-Talk Express now requires you to believe this one:

...Bringing these bills to the floor, we’ll find out. It is not, “they don’t come to the floor unless we have a majority of the majority,” because we don’t know if we have a majority until we vote on it....

IOW, Boehner, Cantor, and Ryan are voiding the "Hastert Rule" but not voiding the "Hastert Rule."

Because rainbows and unicorn farts, you see.

NSA & Pals Voted: YOU Are the Lunch Menu

Schneier sums it up very nicely.

...It would be reasonable for our government to debate the circumstances under which corporations can collect and use our data, and to provide for protections against misuse. But if the government is using that very data for its own surveillance purposes, it has an incentive to oppose any laws to limit data collection. And because corporations see no need to give consumers any choice in this matter -- because it would only reduce their profits -- the market isn’t going to protect consumers, either.

Our elected officials are often supported, endorsed and funded by these corporations as well, setting up an incestuous relationship between corporations, lawmakers and the intelligence community.

The losers are us, the people, who are left with no one to stand up for our interests.

It's roughly analogous to the old Big Three automakers and the UAW.  Since the Big Three owned the US market through (roughly) 1970, they were willing to give the UAW a lot.  (It was helpful that the white-collar folks got the same benefits as the blue-collars, too.)  The only one without a voice at that lunch-table was the US auto buyer, and by no co-incidence, the US auto buyer was the lunch menu.

Things changed in the auto biz.  They'll change in that spying biz, too.