May 28, 2012

NY Post story exposes Kennedys as spoiled, crude, ghastly brats

Recently the estranged wife of Robert Kennedy Jr. apparently killed herself. Now the NY Post has run a story on the family, keynoted by a woman who was formerly married to Kennedy hanger-on Peter Lawford.

Click the link and read the story. It'll get your attention. This is particularly important if you're a liberal/Dem/"progressive" who believed the Kennedys were "American royalty."

In essence, the Post says virtually every member of the family was messed up beyond words. Seriously, reading the story will make your skin crawl.

One thing that gives you pause in reading the story is, if even half of it is true, how in the hell did none of this show up in the newspapers of the day? Why didn't a single reporter tell us candidly--back then, when it could have mattered--how evil and messed up the family was?

And then I realized: This is exactly what the Lying Media did with Obozo--ignored all the ghastly negatives that might have given voters an accurate picture of who he really was, and instead pushed this fable of a politician who virtually walked on water.

Some things never change, eh? Lying Media: always in the tank for the Dems, way back in 1960 and still true today. Whitewash, fabricate, cover up all flaws and records of bad behavior of Dem pols. It's worked for decades, so why change a winning game plan?

May 27, 2012

Iran and the bomb, part gazillion

Dateline: Iran

A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency says it found traces of uranium at an Iranian nuclear site that had been enriched to 27 percent--a level considerably higher than Iran had previously reported.

To build an atomic bomb, natural uranium must be "enriched" in the active isotope, from the two percent found in the natural element to around 90 percent.

The report avoided any suggestion that Iran was intentionally increasing the level of its uranium enrichment, and said the Iranians dismissed the discovery as a "technical glitch."

The Associated Press took care to reassure readers that the find didn't constitute any threat or problem, adding that "Analysts and diplomats said [the "glitch" explanation] seemed plausible."

The report cited a May 9 letter from Iranian officials suggesting any enrichment at 27 percent was inadvertent. The letter said the particles were produced "above the target value" and could have been for "technical reasons beyond the operator's control."

Iranian officials said the discovery of highly-enriched uranium was blown out of proportion for political reasons.

Okay, I'm just a lowly engineer, but I don't know of any way to 'accidentally' enrich uranium to 27 percent. The enrichment process involves repeated runs of feedstock through a centrifuge line or cascade, with each run increasing the percentage of the fissionable U-235 isotope by a small amount.

Unless your target was 26 percent, it seems astronomically unlikely that an operator could have reached the reported 27 percent by accident.

What's more interesting is that the IAEA guys surely know this, and the Iranians must know they know. And yet they rolled out this bullshit excuse anyway.

Now that worries me more than the particle that was found.


House GOP leadership backing off Holder contempt charge?

If you thought Issa was ready to clean up Attorney General Eric Holder's notoriously politicized and corrupt "Justice" department, "The Hill" will set you straight.
Issa pursuing contempt citation
By Jonathan Strong, Roll Call Staff, May 14, 2012

Faced with an initially lukewarm reception from top GOP leaders, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is looking to build support for a draft contempt of Congress resolution for Attorney General Eric Holder regarding Issa’s investigation of the “Fast and Furious” gun-smuggling operation.

Issa has dispatched his lieutenants on the Oversight panel to lobby fellow Republicans on the issue and is working to garner support from a group of about 30 Democrats as well.

The California Republican is pushing the resolution because of what he says is a refusal by Holder to produce documents about Fast and Furious.

Speaker John Boehner expressed support for the effort last week but stopped short of endorsing the contempt resolution.

[Actually], Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have expressed reservations about the political impact of holding Holder in contempt.

“With the other issues, the economy and everything else, I think they would like to focus on that. I don’t think they’re opposed to going ahead with the contempt citation; it’s just that if we can get the Justice Department to move without having to move it, they would probably prefer that,” said Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who forged a reputation for aggressive oversight when he chaired Issa’s committee during the Clinton administration.

A GOP aide also warned against a racial backlash if Republicans are seen as unfairly targeting the first black attorney general, who is serving under the first black president. “Especially after Trayvon,” the aide said, referring to slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

However, there is a strong current of thought within the Conference... that Holder and the Justice Department have been allowed to escape accountability.

Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said, “My belief is, if in fact the Justice Department is not doing what they’re supposed to do — not treating a separate and equal branch of the government the way they should — then we should proceed with the contempt resolution.”

In the Fast and Furious operation, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed assault rifles and other high-powered weapons to “walk,” which meant ending surveillance on weapons suspected to be en route to Mexican drug cartels. The operation involved undercover sales of weapons as a way to track illegal gun running, but the ATF has been roundly criticized for having inadequate protocols for tracking the guns after they were sold.

Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney who oversaw the case, resigned last summer, and several ATF agents have been reassigned.

But Issa and Senate Judiciary ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who is also spearheading a probe, say they are still trying to determine who ultimately authorized the operation.

Almost a year ago, a group of 31 House Democrats wrote to President Barack Obama requesting that the Justice Department cooperate more fully with the Fast and Furious investigation.

Issa has moved to garner support for the contempt resolution from those Democrats as well. But in interviews, two lawmakers from the group said they’re not ready to hold Holder in contempt.

“I’m for the documents being produced, yes. I’m not ready to go as far as contempt yet, no. Not yet,” Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) said.

“There’s Congressional oversight and then there’s politics. Too much of what’s going on this year has a lot more, in my opinion, to do with the elections than trying to provide proper transparency and oversight,” said Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), who urged Issa and Holder to “sit down and work it out.”

The threat of contempt could also work as leverage in negotiations with the Justice Department over document production. A Justice official confirmed that Issa and the department had engaged in discussions since the California Republican released the draft contempt resolution but declined to go into specifics.

In its public response to Issa’s push for the contempt resolution, Justice Department officials have said Holder is complying with the subpoena and continuing to produce documents.

“The Department strongly disputes the contention that we have failed to cooperate,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole said in a May 3 letter. Cole suggested the two parties negotiate a solution.

Republicans bristle at the response, saying the current documents produced are drops of water in a bathtub. Issa has said the Justice Department has not released any documents in 12 of 22 categories of documents demanded by his committee.


If the consequences weren't so horrible, this might be funny. But if this piece has been honestly reported--something absolutely unknown--it would appear that Speaker Boehner is signalling Issa that he won't support a contempt citation.

In effect, the Republican leadership is again retreating rather than attacking corruption.

May 26, 2012

Islamic poobahs ban soccer in Mali

You probably already knew that Islamic fanatics forbid dancing, secular music, women with uncovered faces or hair, women leaving the house without a male relative, women driving, alcohol and the like. But you probably haven't seen that they want to ban *soccer* too.

And not just playing it, but even *watching* it on television.

Fun guys, eh?

Malian Islamists ban football

Islamic forces controlling north of Mali announced on Wednesday the beginning of Sharia [law] in the region and asked [sic] all citizens to strictly and publicly observe the law, which [bans] football.

Football pitches are now out of bounds and offenders will be severely dealt with, the warlords said.

Moreover, according to the warlords, people won't be allowed to watch football on television either, because that is also forbidden by Islamic law.

Besides football, chatting with somebody of the opposite sex is also considered a crime. Women have been asked to only step outside their homes with faces and legs completely covered while the men must keep their beards.

Mali was plunged into crisis in April after the separatist National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) split the country into north and south.

May 21, 2012

More on the most massive fraud ever

If you were president and your legitimacy to hold that office was challenged because of controversy over your birthplace--and you loved the U.S. and wanted to completely reassure all Americans that you held the office legally--wouldn't you direct your alleged birth state to release every scrap of information it had on file?

Of course you would.

Obama, of course, did no such thing--which allowed the Dem governor of Hawaii to claim that much as they wanted to, by law they simply could not release Obie's actual, original birth records without his permission. So...tough shit, skeptics.

Obie had a chance to order a full release of documents, which would presumably have reassured all Americans. Instead he dodged. And even Democrats must know--on some deeply buried level--the reason he did so.

Combine this with Obama's snappy parry to a charge by Alan Keyes, during a debate when the two were vying for the Illinois senate seat in 2004. Keyes remarked that Obie had been born in Kenya. Obie quickly replied, in essence, "But I'm not running for president, so that's not a problem," That certainly seems to be a tacit admission that he was born in Kenya.

So now consider: What utter contempt for American values, law and the Constitution does it show that a man who knew he was ineligible to be president--per the clear language of our nation's highest law--and who had in fact for 17 years had publically claimed (in his publisher's biographical sketch, which Obie presumably had to either write or at least approve) that he'd been born in Kenya, would nevertheless run for that office?

And consider the pure evil of someone like Bill Ayers and the other leftists in the publishing chain, who knew from 1991 on that Obama had claimed Kenyan birth but said nothing--aiding in a fraud of epic proportions. How much must they hate America, to be willing to perpetrate such a massive fraud?

Next, consider top Democrat congresswhores, like Pelosi and Reid. With all the resources of the federal government at their command, those two had to have known as well. Yet not only did they say nothing, Pelosi actually had to certify to election officials in all 57 states that Obozo met all the Consitutional requirements to serve as the Democratic party's nominee for president.

Think Reid and Pelosi might have long since sanitized all files and crafted their "Oh my NO, I had NO IDEA!!" speeches?

Finally, consider the growing "cognitive dissonance" surely being experienced by at least the ten or twenty percent of Dem voters who are smart enough to understand the implications of a promotional bio from Obie's publisher, updated at least annually for 17 *years*--each time reiterating that Obama was born in Kenya: It's gotta be dawning on them that their unquestioning support of an unvetted cipher swung the election and gave the massive payoff to a breathtaking fraud on the American public.

Of course many Dems are probably comfortable with such a massive fraud. But surely a few must be starting to see the truth. And feeling...what?

Again, I realize most Democrats/leftists/"progressives" couldn't care less if Barky isn't legally qualified to be president. To them the Constitution is just a worthless piece of paper. But surely a few are honest and thoughtful. And you'd think that small group might be feeling some discomfort right now.

Wait, they're Democrats. What was I thinking?

May 18, 2012

Obama's literary agent published bio--for 16 years--saying he was born in Kenya

Barack Obama has allegedly written a couple of books. So, unsurprisingly, he has a "literary agent"--the firm Dystel & Goderich.

Per normal practice, that firm published a "client list" that gave short biographies of its clients. As of April 3, 2007 here's how Obie's bio sketch read:
BARACK OBAMA is the junior Democratic senator from Illinois and was the dynamic keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He was also the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. He was born in Kenya to an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister and was raised in Indonesia, Hawaii, and Chicago. [Emphasis mine.]
Born in Kenya, y'say? How...interesting. And the statement claiming Kenya as birthplace seems to have been in the biographic sketch at least as far back as 1991 (under a predecessor firm to D&G).
By April 21, 2007, the agency's brief biographical sketch had been changed. See if you can spot the difference:
BARACK OBAMA is the junior Democratic senator from Illinois and was the dynamic keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He was also the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. He was born in Hawaii to an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister and was raised in Indonesia, Hawaii, and Chicago.

Did ya spot it? Such a tiny change--just a single word, in fact.  Why, it's no more significant than changing "a" to "the."

Both the original bio sketch--claiming Kenyan birth for sixteen years--and the fact that it was changed raise several questions.

1. How did Dystel & Goderich initially come to learn Obama's birthplace?  Did they simply ask Obama, or have him fill out a form, or did they just guess?  It strikes me as an absurd reach to claim--as the Democrats are now doing--that the agency simply fabricated this out of thin air and then published it.

2. Did the agency ask their client authors to review and approve their biographical sketches?

3. Is there any record or conversation indicating that Obozo reviewed his bio?

4. Did Obozo "sign off" on the bio?

5. After 16 years of running the same bio saying Obama was born in Kenya, what event caused the firm to change Obie's birthplace in April, 2007? Did they get a letter from their client saying "Whoa, I just noticed that your bio of me says I was born in Kenya! That's ridiculous, and I can't believe you would just make up such a claim out of thin air! Change it immediately, and then explain publically that it was your mistake, or you'll be hearing from my attorney!"

In case you've forgotten, Obama declared his candidacy for president two months before the bio claiming he was born in Kenya was changed.

2007 is only 5 years ago--hardly ancient history--so someone at the publishing house should recall how the change came about. It's a shame that congressional Republicans aren't interested in investigating.

It's also a shame that no reporter has the guts to ask Obozo about this.

h/t Breitbart

Update: According to several commenters at other sites who claim to have worked in the publishing business, literary agents get their biographical data by having their client fill out a form. Was this the normal procedure with the predecessor firm to D&G?

May 17, 2012

Dem congresswhores introduce bill to kill photo-ID-to-vote laws

To no one's surprise, congressional Democrats have introduced a bill to curtail state efforts to show a photo ID to vote.

But of course they couldn't let anyone describe it that way, so here's how that Dem hothouse The Hill described it:
"House Democrats push to make voting easier" [not "push to block state laws designed to reduce vote fraud"].

House Democratic leaders on Thursday introduced legislation to streamline Americans' trips to the polls.
"...to streamline Americans' trips to the polls," huh? Can there be a more obvious example of spin or propaganda?  In their effort to support a bill to block states from reducing vote fraud, by requiring photo ID to vote, the Hill calls it something innocuous and glitzy--streamlining. Call it anything but what it is. Why not just claim the Democrat bill will put an extra thousand bucks in everyone's pocket while you're at it? Makes as much sense as what you're doing.
The bill is a response to a slew of recent state legislation – some proposed, some already law – setting stricter standards for voters to register or cast a ballot.
Supporters of those state efforts — including new picture ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements – say they're necessary to weed out ineligible voters and maintain the integrity of elections. But critics contend they're designed to suppress eligible voters, particularly minorities and low-income Americans who tend to vote Democratic.
At issue are a growing list of state laws recently pushed – usually by Republican lawmakers – aimed at preventing voter fraud. Since the start of 2011, at least 14 states have enacted – or are about to enact – new voting restrictions that will affect this year's presidential election, according to New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice. Eight states have passed new photo ID laws, while the number of states with proof-of-citizenship requirements has doubled over the same span, the Brennan Center found.
In all, 176 restrictive bills have been proposed over the last 18 months in 41 states, according to the Brennan Center.
"Voter ID is not a problem. Everybody that goes to vote shows some form of ID," [Democrat congressman James] Clyburn said. [That's utter bullshit.] "The big problem has been the process…you go through to get there."
The Democrats decried the cost of some required IDs, comparing them to the poll taxes that discouraged poor citizens from voting generations ago.
Lord help me, I'm beginning to hate these lying, election-stealing bastards. How the hell can anyone be sure an election is honest if people can vote without showing photo ID? Because once a ballot makes it to the box it's impossible to tell which ones are fraudulent.

May 16, 2012

Obozo's "porkulus" wastes another $24 mill

Another coup for Obambi's "stimulus" program: The feds gave West Virginia $24 million in "stimulus" money--i.e. your tax dollars (or more accurately, dollars borrowed from China) to buy 1,064 top-of-the-line "routers," which it planned to install in lots of schools and libraries.

According to a Cisco salesman the routers are designed to serve 10,000 users each.

The state installed them in some libraries that only had one computer terminal.

Go here to read the whole story.

This is a classic example of how government--at all levels--wastes money. Because govt employees see it as "free," there's no incentive to be efficient in spending it.

In this case it's hard to tell whether the state bureaucrat who ginned this up was simply incompetent or whether he took a bribe. If the media was interested in better government, they'd find out.

Greek bank run, latest act in a long, tragic play

The financial storm in Greece continues, as Greek depositors withdrew €700 million ($898 million) from local banks Monday.

$900 million may not seem like much to Americans--accustomed as we've become to trillion-dollar deficits--but to a small nation like Greece that's a big number, and shows that Greeks are worried about not being able to get their own money out of their bank if everything hits the fan.

Okay, you're probably wondering why most Americans would care about a bank run in Greece. It's because Greece is us a dozen years from now.

To put it another way: As my father often said, politicians regularly vote to repeal the law of gravity--meaning they pass laws that have no basis in reality. But numbers can't be bluffed or fooled for very long, even by politicians. Despite all the cover and propaganda of the Lying Media, eventually reality asserts itself.

And at that point, if a nation's leaders have been playing fast and loose with numbers and policies, the shit hits the fan.

And at that point, guess who bears the pain?

Hint: It ain't the lying politicians--at least not since the French revolution. They jet off to their carefully prepared (and hidden) refuges in Switzerland and live the good life, while the rest of us deal with the crap-sandwich here in the country their nutty, self-serving policies destroyed.

Watch the events play out in Greece. Because they're coming here soon.

Is The Stupid Party finally getting serious?

If you're a liberal you probably don't know who Brian Terry was. He was an agent with whatever they call the Border Patrol now, and was shot and killed by one of a group of men who'd come into the U.S. illegally, by crossing the border with Mexico.

Agent Terry was killed by a gun sold by a U.S. dealer to a known "straw buyer," under a totally insane program created by Holder's Department of Injustice, named "Fast and Furious."

Under FF, Holder's minions ordered licensed U.S. gun dealers in Arizona to sell guns to people the dealers strongly suspected were simply re-selling the guns to Mexicans, in violation of U.S. law.

Outraged Republican reps asked Holder to furnish information to them about this program. Holder denied knowledge, but this was later shown to be a lie. Holder has subsequently refused to furnish information to Congress.

Now Republican reps have applied a kind of minor hand-slap: They've introduced a bill to name Agent Terry's border patrol station after him.

It passed both chambers of congress--including the Dem-controlled senate--unanimously.

Hey, Democrat congresswhores may be stupid but they're sure not crazy.

The bill now goes to Obozo, who by law has only two choices: sign it into law, or veto. Betting is that he'll be forced to sign it, to avoid putting congressional Democrats in the position of having to vote to override a veto.

The main speculation now is whether Team Obama will bar members of the press from the traditional signing ceremony--and how they'll spin their ruling.

Oh, and Rep. Darrell Issa says the House will "absolutely" cite Holder for contempt of congress before the November election.

Interesting. Could the party affectionately known (even by its own members) as The Stupid Party be rolling up its sleeves and starting to play serious ball?

(Thanks to NiceDeb for a good summary.)

May 13, 2012

U.N. peacekeeping is a bad joke

Richard Fernandez is one of my favorite analysts.  Here's one of his latest posts (I've edited slightly):
There's a movie called Beyond the Gates, about the failure of the UN mission in Rwanda. In the U.K. it's called “Shooting Dogs,” from the fact that the UN troops were not allowed to fire their weapons to save the victims, but were ordered to shoot starving dogs gnawing at the resulting corpses--in the name of preserving human dignity.

Probably they meant to say “preserving appearances.”  Appearances, you see,  are very important to bureaucrats.

The movie depicted a tragic irony:  Rwandans who sought shelter with the UN wound up getting slaughtered. (As did the Kosovars who sought shelter in the “safe zones” in the Balkans.) Maybe it is better to trust no one than to trust in Judas. The UN is like fake Hope and Change, attractive to the unwary but ultimately incapable of keeping any promises, merely dispenser of snake oil by the gallon.
That is the charitable view. The uncharitable one is that they’re part of the set-up.
The U.N. bureaucrat in charge of the failed mission in Rwanda was Kofi Annan.
A friend once told me “there is no better way of ruining a noble cause than by getting rogues to represent it.”  This is what's happened to peacekeeping, environmentalism and even the campaign for racial equality. These causes, which are otherwise noble, will take decades to recover from the grifters who have made a fortune in their name. How on earth did peacekeeping get put in the care of Kofi Annan? Why was a guy like Al Sharpton allowed to assume the role of the racial conscience of America? How come Al Gore gets to pronounce on science?

The Narrative, probably. Always the Narrative.