May 26, 2013

Why do western politicians coddle Islamic terrorists?

For some months now I've been mulling over the puzzle of why every western government--I don't know of a single exception--keeps making excuses for Islamic terrorism, and resolutely avoids taking even the most delicate action that might begin to solve the problem.

Obama is the most extreme example of an appeasing western head of state, and is now pushing once again to close Gitmo and release all the detainees back to their home countries.  But other western leaders seem to be little different:  All of them--again, without exception--keep saying things like "Islam is not the enemy."  If that's true then the next phrase is perfectly logical:  "We are not at war with Islam."

Unfortunately, Islamic fundamentalists are at war with the west.  And not just the U.S.--Muslims are rioting in Sweden, murdering in France and the U.K and Boston, supporting terrorism in Canada.

One theory for the bizarre excuse-making by *some* western heads of state is that a few actually, secretly support Muslim terrorism and conquest.  While it's not hard to believe that about Obama--given his parents and his upbringing in Muslim Indonesia--it's hard to imagine that other western politicians are similarly traitorous.

So what's the reason?  I suspect a few are unwilling to call out Islam as the enemy simply out of pure fear.  But I suspect the largest contribution is simply stupidity:  Being products of modern schooling, one suspects most have little understanding of history before, say, 1850, so are literally unable to believe that Islamic leaders could possibly be serious about conquering the entire world for their religion.

Let me say that again:  Literally.  Unable to believe.

Example:  Most modern western heads of state don't seem to have strong religious leanings, so they have a hard time imagining that Islamic leaders can be serious about conquering for religious reasons.  When some radical imam starts screaming that democracy is anti-Islamic, or that music is anti-Islamic, or that women can't go out of the home unless accompanied by an adult male relative, us regular folks take 'em seriously, but our more sophisticated [?] politicians dismiss such talk as simply fire-breathing to keep the local rabble on the reservation.

See, the people we elect are so much smarter than the rest of us, so they just *know*stuff like that.  It's a gift us regular folks just don't have.

So let's predict how this will play out:  Your political leaders will keep doing what they've always done--making excuses for Islam, welcoming Muslim immigrants, bending over backward to avoid calling Islamic terrorism what it is.  Any minute now they'll start marshalling the power of the State...to fine and jail citizens who rise *against* the terrorists and rioters.

This has already happened in both the UK and Sweden:  In the former a man was charged for "making anti-religious remarks" on Facebook.  As you could guess, the religion he was criticizing was Islam.

In Sweden the cops are arresting people protesting against the riots there.  Wholly crazy, but then that's modern political correctness for ya.

Muslims have found a sweet deal:  Come to a western country, bring all your wives and kids, get on the dole, become a firebrand fanatic, and you'll never be deported--let alone jailed for inciting violence.

Our politicians (the term "leaders" seems inappropriate) have been pushing "multiculturalism," and 'diversity." The leaders of the other side are pushing monoculture and homogeneity--Islam and sharia.

What's even crazier is that none of our western politicians even seems to grasp this.  They think that by uttering the magic words "multiculturalism" and "diversity," Muslims will see how enlightened they are and will stop killing westerners.

Stupid, venal, power-hungry politicians.  Crazy times.


One more argument in favor of gun bans. Wait...

Liberals/Democrats/"progressives" keep pushing the idea that gun crime would vanish if only we would ban gun ownership by private citizens.

For example, the nation once known as Great Britain has had a ban on private handgun ownership for years now.  Hell, they've even banned carrying a) any knife with a blade more than 3.5 inches long; and b) all knives with fixed or locking blades.

Now:  Do you recall the story about the British man killed in the middle of the afternoon by two men shouting Muslim slogans?  The two killers who waited around for 20 minutes demanding that onlookers take videos of them standing over their victim?  (If you're not plugged into Net news sources you may not have heard about this particularly gruesome murder.)

Well guess what, cupcake: The two killers had a gun.  Oh, and also an 8-inch fixed knife and a meat cleaver.

But never-you-mind, sweetie.  If we'll just pass those laws banning gun possession--and knife possession, and baseball bats, and box cutters, and...and...and..., then all violent crime here will vanish. 

Cuz, y'know, vicious murderers here in the U.S. are more law-abiding than those in the U.K.  

May 25, 2013

Nobody in this administration knows anything about anything

A great thing about bloggers is they post pieces by others that one might otherwise miss.  Here's one from Cold Fury (slightly edited):
No one in this administration knows anything.

The president didn’t know that the inspector general was investigating his IRS for targeting political enemies.

The president didn’t know anything about his Justice Department’s seizure of the phone records for a couple of dozen phones used by reporters for the Associated Press.

Attorney-General Holder didn’t know anything about his department’s subpoena of AP records, nor anything about "Operation Fast and Furious."

As you could have guessed, Hillary said she didn’t know anything about requests for help in Benghazi--or about requests for extra security once a threat was identified--even though the cables from Libya went directly to her office.

Is there *anyone* in this sorry excuse for a government who will admit to knowing anything?

Harry Reid said, “They’re hyperventilating about Benghazi. [It's just] a sideshow. This is about smear politics and nothing else.”

Hyperventilating? Is that what you really think, senator?

Two Americans on a roof waiting for help that never came--because your asshole president authorized his lackeys to order potential rescue forces to stand down. Instead he boarded Air Force One for a Las Vegas fundraiser and went to bed.

Why does your president apologize to Muslims and lie to Americans?

Why does he use the IRS to silence political dissent, and the Justice Department to threaten the press?

How is it that he can mobilize the IRS to go after his political enemies but can’t mobilize troops to save American lives in Benghazi?
 Wow, those would be some good questions for someone with power to ask some federal appointees.

May 24, 2013

Democrat website: "House Democrats dismiss existence of Obama scandals"

What's the latest Democrat strategy for deflecting or running out the clock on the scandals?  No better place to look than "Buzzfeed"--a hard-left website that never met a Democrat policy it didn't love.  Here's their latest headline:
"House Democrats Dismiss Existence Of Obama Scandals"
Yep.  Wanna make a "scandal problem" disappear?  Simply dismiss its existence.  That is SO cool!  And only available to Democrats, because...fairness.  The details:
Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly refuses to use the word “scandal.”

After two weeks of brutal news cycles — with frenzied Republicans and a hyped up press corps aggressively covering every inch of three controversies surrounding the Obama administration — Connolly insists this too, shall pass.

“I think when the media repeats the word ‘scandals’ you are repeating partisan lines. They are issues that have occurred that have to be addressed. I don’t think they rise to the level of a scandal,” he said. “We had a bunch of idiots at IRS in Cincinnati who didn’t know how to aggregate a flood of tax-exempt applications … but this is not some major scandal in the order of magnitude like Watergate. That’s absurd.”
Connolly was also critical of the way Republicans have investigated the terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans.

“Don’t get me wrong, Benghazi was a tragedy but it has no traction.  Everytime they [talk about Benghazi] they are firing up our base too, and alienating moderate and swing voters.”

It’s a tack many of his Democratic colleagues in Congress are taking, shrugging off or downplaying the recent slate of scandal. If there was any fear that the continual hammering of the administration from House Republicans would hurt Democrats, the party’s members answered with a resounding no.

“I don’t think there is any long-term political impact on House Democrats for any of this stuff,” said Rep. Jim McGovern. “I think the administration has been handling it correctly.

“And yet you’ve got some coo coo clucks here calling for impeachment.  I mean it’s so absurd they are overplaying their hand,” he said of Republicans. “If anything there may be a political backlash on them.”
Lord, that's *such* a relief!  For a minute there I was worried that a small fraction of Democrats might actually display some concern about having the IRS grill conservative groups about, say, the content of their members' prayers for up to 3 years, while giving liberal/Democrat/"progressive" groups tax-exempt status in 3 weeks or so.  I thought a few might break ranks and put truth and loyalty to the law above party.

Looks like those concerns were unfounded.  And I can't say I'm at all surprised.

At the Washington Times, pseudo-journalist Cheryl Chumly simply copied big chunks of the BuzzFeed article and slapped a copyright on it.  Headline:
Dem Gerry Connolly defends White House: They’re ‘issues,’ not ‘scandals'

Virginia Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly said the media has no business using the word "scandal" to describe the ongoing challenges to truth that are beating down the White House, the president and his administration these past weeks.

Instead, the issues plaguing the White House are just that — "issues" that need "to be addressed," he said, in Buzz Feed.

Specifically, Mr. Connolly was critical of how Republicans, and some in the media, were portraying the administration's reaction to the Sept. 11, 2012, terror attacks at America's facilities in Benghazi, Libya, that left four dead, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. He also decried how the last couple weeks' of administration scandals were being portrayed – like the IRS fiasco, and the Justice Department's AP records' seizure, Buzz Feed reported.

"I think when the media repeats the word 'scandals' you are repeating partisan lines," he said, Buzz Feed reported. "They are issues that have occurred that have to be addressed. I don't think they rise to the level of a scandal. We had a bunch of idiots at IRS in Cincinnati who didn't know how to aggregate a flood of tax-exempt applications ... but this is not some major scandal in the order of magnitude like Watergate. That's absurd."

Mr. Connolly also described Benghazi as "a tragedy," but added that "it has no traction" and would soon fall under America's radar, Buzz Feed reported.

"They [Republicans] can continue to talk about it to feed their base, they forget we have a base too," Mr. Connolly said, in Buzz Feed. "Everytime they do that they are firing up our base too and alienating moderate and swing voters."
Lock-step, anyone?

Oh, and if you want to get an advance look at the next eight layers of the Dems "layered defense" click here.



May 23, 2013

British town agrees not to fly "flag of St. George" for fear of offending...guess who

For those who haven't paid any attention to how Muslims gain control of a society, the experience of a tiny British town may be instructive.

The town is Radstock, population 5600. 

Enter one Eleanor Jackson, a "university lecturer" and--you'll be shocked to learn--hard-leftist.  Ms. Jackson was indignant that when the town's council was considering what flags to fly on its newly-renovated flagpole, it considered a flag with considerable significance in Brit history, the flag of Saint George.

Professor Jackson's complaint about the flag was...well it's hard to translate professor-speak so we'll just quote her and hope for the best:  "My big problem is it is offensive to some Muslims.  But even more that it has been hijacked by the Far Right."

So it's hard to tell which is her bigger concern: "My big problem" or "But even more...."  But definitely worries about the scary "far right."

But let's be sure we don't do anything that could possibly be construed as offending Muslims.

BTW, 16 of the town's residents are Muslim.

So after hearing Ms. Jackson's complaints the town council agreed not to fly St. George's flag.  But the council did agree to fly the flag of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender pride movement "at appropriate times of the year."

No word on whether Ms. Jackson had any input on the latter.  The ever so thoughtful Professor Jackson is shown below:

Concerns: Labour councillor Eleanor Jackson insisted the flag could still cause upset to Muslims

So to summarize: Far-left professor nags socialist town council into making gratuitous gesture of submission to Muslims, voluntarily deleting a piece of British history so as to avoid even the ghost of an appearance of a penumbra of something that could conceivably be construed as offensive to 'em.

Once again, Leftists and Muslims show themselves to be natural allies.

Oh, you say, that's just the U.K, which has a sizeable muz population.  No level of government here in the U.S. would ever be caught dead doing anything so obviously appeasing like that.

Hahahahahahahahahaha!  Just arrived in the country yesterday, didja?

Children, "your" government is already doing much the same here in the U.S.  Federal courts have struck down several state laws that would have barred state courts from considering foreign law--specifically including Sharia law--when arriving at verdicts or other decisions.

Oh, you say, "That's different.  Those decisions by federal judges were based on the clear language of the Constitution, right there in the First Amendment, which reads "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor denying the free exercise thereof."  So it follows--very sound legal thinking, just as our Ivy League profs taught us--that the states aren't allowed to do anything if the federal gummint is barred from doing it.  Right?  Perfectly logical."

"Tenth Amendment?  Never heard of it.  But surely it doesn't have any bearing on what we're talking about here."

Point is that Muslims get their way because the self-styled "elites" in a country preemtively surrender to their demands.  It's not military defeat but purely a surrender by the elites in government and academia.

Stockholm is having riots--30 cars burned in a night--by people the press is too cowed even identify as muslims.  Riots allegedly sparked by cops shooting a guy who rushed them brandishing a machete.  Or maybe because the Swedish gummint didn't increase the free welfare allowance by as much as the unidentified youths wanted.  Hard to know.

Back in the U.K. two Muslim men rammed their car into a pedestrian, jumped out and almost beheaded him.  In the middle of the afternoon.  Witnesses say the two were shouting "Allah akbar" and one woman who spoke with the killers extensively said they told her they wanted to start a war in London "by this evening."

No wonder the pols want to surrender!

Oh, and just FYI:  Saint George is the Patron Saint of England, and has an interesting parable for us.  According to legend dating from the 11th century or so a town--said to be in North Africa--was being "terrorized" by a dragon.  To appease the dragon, each day the townspeople gave it two of their sheep to eat. 

Finally they ran out of sheep, but rather than sucking it up and killing the dragon they began giving it their children, chosen by lottery, to eat.  (Hmm, terrorizing, appeasement, trying to coexist with the terrorizing entity by giving it food, then giving it the innocent children to eat.)

One day the lot fell on the king's daughter.  The grieving king offered the people all he had if they would spare his daughter, but the people--knowing they'd have to offer one of *their* children in her place if the dragon was to be placated--refused, and the daughter was sent out to the lake to be fed to the dragon.

In the legend George killed the dragon and that was that.

Now that I think of it, I can see why Muslims would find this story gravely offensive.  It's a dead ringer for what's happening today.

Democrats: "IRS problems? It's the Supreme Court's fault!"

The administration's lies about the IRS just get funnier--or sicker, depending on your party--every day.

Turns out Democrats on the senate "finance committee" are actually claiming that the blame for the IRS abuses of conservative applicants for tax-exempt classification lies with...well certainly not with Democrat bureaucrats in the IRS.  And certainly not with their supervisors.

And MOST certainly not with the head of the Democratic Party, Barack "Kenya" Obama.

Rather, the blame lies with...the Supreme Court!

Yep, they're really claiming that.  See, back in 2010 the court made this ghastly, awful ruling that no branch of the government could limit political spending, whether by unions, corporations or any other group.

According to Democrats this decision was absolutely ghastly because...well it's hard to get a straight answer.  You get a lot of emotion and hype and hyperbole but the substance seems to be that the decision put corporations under the same rules as unions.

Naturally union bosses hated that, because up til that point they'd been able to "suggest" that their individual members donate to Democrat campaigns.  Which they did.  In way lopsided numbers.

Example:  Donations by members of the "National Treasury Employees Union" went to Dems by something like 93% to 7%.

Plus, unions are allowed to use part of every members' dues for political donations--a huge advantage corporations simply don't have.  So unions viewed taking away that advantage--levelling the playing field--as a huge hit.

But hey, it's all good.  Nothing to see here, citizen.  All part of the "layered defense" strategy of top Democrat strategists.  Here's the list: 
   1)  There was absolutely no targeting by the IRS;
   2)  If anything remotely like that happened, it only affected perhaps ten or 12 wacko-fringe, Tea Party, "insurrectionist" groups, so there's nothing to be concerned about;
   3)  If anything happened it was all due to decisions made by overzealous, low-level (or in Lois Lerner's clever phrasing, "front-line") employees, acting entirely on their own with no direction from anyone higher up; 
   4)  If anything happened it was because Republicans cut the IRS budget...meaning the IRS didn't have enough employees...so the poor government employees were all terribly overworked, which logically means they'd be more prone to make mistakes;
   5)  If anything happened it was because the Supreme Court, in "Citizens United," ruled that conservative political-action groups could get tax-exempt status just like unions and liberal political-action groups, which led to a wave of applications--and overworked IRS employees;
   6)  "This entire thing is a political witch-hunt ginned up by Republicans to damage the president!"
   7)  No one in the White House knew anything about this until they read it in the papers--indeed, it would be impossible for anyone in the WH to have known about this because government is so vast that it's virtually unmanageable (but not so vast that we Dems didn't vote to expand it to take over all health insurance and health care decisions);
   8)  Okay, it's theoretically possible that some minor, low-level employee on the White House staff may have known about the alleged IRS activity before Ms. Lerner's scripted question.  But if so, no one ever informed anyone higher up the chain of command.  This is called "compartmentalization" and is a very sophisticated technique used in managing large organizations;
   9)  If any secret emails were to be discovered on an unwiped server, using a fake name but coming from the computer of Valerie Jarrett, it doesn't prove anything; Republicans are constantly hacking into the computers of upstanding Democrats.  After all, look what happened to Anthony Weiner;
  10)  "What the IRS may have done may have been poor judgment but was NOT illegal!" -- Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House;
  11)  Even if it turns out Ms. Jarrett knew about the alleged IRS "heightened scrutiny," it doesn't mean she told the president, because compartmentalization;
  12)  You people are all raaacists!
  13)  "If the president does it, that makes it legal."
  14)  "I am not a crook."

Reid invents clever scheme, uses it for years, then wails when court says it's legal after it's used against Dems

Hypocrisy?  Hell, they never heard of it.
Harry Reid--lying asshole extraordinaire--said Wednesday that he will push to confirm more judges to the federal appeals court in D.C. after that court ruled earlier this year that President Obama’s broad use of recess appointment powers was unconstitutional.
Oh, you want to know where I found that "lying" part?  See the bolded words below:
“You have a majority in that court that is wreaking havoc in the country. For the first time in 230 years, they ruled the president can’t make a recess appointment, so yes there is a crisis,” Reid said on the Senate floor....
Gosh, Harry, I read every single word of the decision by the appeals court, and I didn't see even a hint of a ruling that the prez can't make a recess appointment.  What the court said was that the senate gets to decide when it's in session and when it's not.

Oh wait, Harry:  Didn't you personally call the senate into pro-forma sessions when Bush was prez, simply and solely to keep him from making recess appointments?

Why yes, yes you did. 

In fact, wasn't that too-clever scheme invented by cunning Democrats specifically to block Bush from making recess appointments?

Why yes, Harry, it was. Your party was...well, either brilliant or ass-holic, depending on one's viewpoint.  But either way, you used the tactic because it helped you.

Yet now--astonishingly but not surprisingly, considering who you are and what party you have sold your soul to--you suddenly cry that this practice of calling pro-forma sessions to keep the president from making recess appointments is terrible, awful, ghastly!

"For the first time in 230 years," you solemnly bloviated, "they ruled the president can't make a recess apointment!"  Ignoring the fact that YOUR party not only used exactly this technique, you invented it!

All the court did was to rule that the scheme YOUR party invented is indeed legal.

And now you have the gall to appear before the cameras and shamelessly wail that "For the first time in 230 years they ruled that the president can't make a recess appointment"??

Have you no sense of shame, Reid?

Wait, what was I thinking?  If any Democratic pols have any sense of shame I have yet to see it.  Reid is a lying, treasonous, Constitution-shredding, hypocritical asshole.  A perfect choice to head his party as it controls the senate.

May 22, 2013

London terrorist attack by Muslims. Uh, wait...


British Soldier Beheaded In London By Attackers Shouting “Allahu Akhbar”

Update: Police Call It “Islamist Terrorist Attack”

Update: "We Swear By Almighty Allah We Will Never Stop Fighting You"

Update: MSNBC host says this is NOT a terrorist incident and has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam


Well you know that's coming, eh?

"Susan Rice merely repeated the original CIA 'best estimate' of the cause"

Y'know, I coulda' *sworn* that virtually the entire dust-up about Benghazi was about who drafted the original memo that said the attack was due to a bad video posted on the internet.

Then in just the last two weeks we've learned that there were roughly a dozen revisions to the official talking points between their origin and the moment Susan Rice read them before tha cameras.

But here comes the leftist hacks at Politico, writing the following as if it were true:
The talking points as originally drafted by the CIA said the Benghazi attack was believed to have been “spontaneously inspired” by protests in Cairo blamed on a U.S. made anti-Islam video.  [I recall reading the exact opposite.]
When Rice made her statements, she merely repeated what the intelligence community “said was their best estimate,” according to [Dem rep Adam] Schiff.  [My recollection is that the original CIA memo did NOT mention a "spontaneously inspired" demonstration spurred by "a U.S. made anti-Islam video."]
I must be reading too may conservative news sources--like the NY T****.

That or Politico is re-writing history--which is ops-normal for the Left.

British guy attacked by Muslims on London street at 2 pm.


Two men shouting Muslim slogans used a car to deliberately run down a British man in a London street in the middle of the afternoon.  They then got out of the car and proceeded to hack him to death with a knife and meat cleaver.

After killing the guy the killers didn't flee but stood around arguing with bystanders for a full 20 minutes until police arrived.

You read about this, right?  It just happened today (5/22) so it surely led the nightly news on...well, surely it was the lede story on at least ONE of the alphabet networks, right?

No?  Well damn, color me so totally unsurprised.  After all, Muslims killing kaffirs is so common as to not be even remotely newsworthy anymore, eh?

Bastards.

Do you suppose it's just barely possible that their decision to kill the victim had anything to do with their "religion"?  Well consider what the killers said to bystanders.  (Click on the link.)

And if you don't think this exact same thing is coming here you're too stupid to live.

Hell, a variation already has happened here:  Remember the Fort Hood massacre?  Muslim fanatic gunned down--how many?  32 or so?  And since then Barry's government has been so scared about the political bullshit that the military hasn't even been allowed to make the goat-fucking son of a bitch follow military regulations and cut his fucking beard.  (The killer is still in the military.)

I'm sorry, but here's where rational people should draw a big bright line:  Wrap the son of a bitch in a pigskin, shoot him low in the gut and let him take half an hour to die in the Texas sun.  Then let the carcass rot for a month or so.  Then use a front-loader to scoop up the remains, plus a ton or so of dirt.  Then shove the whole shootin' match out the back end of a C-130 200 miles offshore.  (Auction off the front-loader, with the proceeds going to Wounded Warriors or similar.)

Then publish the following in every publication, world-wide, that wants to take the money:
Combat is one thing.  As soldiers we respect those who take up arms on the battlefield.  We do not respect those who deliberately murder unarmed people--and you see the result.  This will happen to the next Muslim coward we find, and the next.  On the battlefield you can win or lose with respect.  But take the fight to unarmed people and you'll get exactly you just saw.
Of course this won't happen as long as dickless wonders are running the United States.  So you'll keep getting this same murderous terrorism, over and over.

Ah, I hear some liberals whining "If we would just [insert some action], they'd stop hating us, and stop killing us."

Sigh.  Yes, certainly, that must be right.  Just like the 19 poor Muslim hijackers were driven to commit suicide on 9/11 because Booosh had invaded Iraq, right?

Too stupid to live.

Who is this guy?

Who d'ya think this is?



Is it
a) Lord Percival Plushbottom, 7th Earl of Velveteen;
b) Dan Rather;
c) Madonna; or
d) Ernest Moniz, Obozo's new Energy Secretary?

Now, I'm certainly not in any position to make judgments about someone's appearance, but...I *really* wanna go over this guy's CV.  I get a really...odd...vibe about this pic.  Oh, I don't doubt that the guy has beaucoup degrees, from absofuckinglutely stellar institutions. But just...dayum!

Obama, talking about people who refuse to testify

"IRS exec in charge of tax-exempt determinations to plead 5th rather than testify before House committee."


Obama's response?  Well here's what he said to get elected, so...surely he was telling the truth, right?


May 21, 2013

IRS division chief will take the 5th, refuse to testify before House committee

Hey citizens, guess what?

You'll never guess!  It's so, like, totally unexpected.

Remember that head of the IRS division in charge of tax-exempt designations, Lois Lerner?  The House committee investigating that trivial little overreach by overzealous, low-level employees of just one IRS office asked Ms. Lerner to appear and answer a few questions about it.  Under oath. 

And guess what?

Her attorney has asked that the committee just forget the whole thing--that his client not be made to appear, since she intends to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights to not testify on the ground of self-incrimination.

In a letter, Lerner’s attorney asked committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., if he'd just let his client skip Wednesday’s hearing since she would be pleading the Fifth.  In a move sure to elicit tears of sympathy from Democrats as well as conservatives targeted by the IRS, her attorney claimed that forcing Lerner to appear “would have no purpose other than to embarrass or burden her.”
Geez, we'd never want to "burden" this wonderful Democratic functionary by, y'know, actually having the gall to ask her [GASP!] questions about how this policy of targeting conservative groups came about or anything.

Because Obama assured Americans that his administration was gonna be "the most transparent administration in history."  So that means we don't need to ask anyone in it questions about possible unconstitutional and illegal policies.  Cuz they're so transparent and all that.

Blogger catches NY T**** red-handed re-writing story on IRS

The NY T**** has always supported Democrats, and will cheerfully, shamelessly slant news stories to minimize any damage to Democrats.

Ah, I can hear my liberal friends and relatives whining that "You wingnut Rethuglicans just make this shit up, cuz you're all paranoid, bitter clingers," or some such crap.  So for any of you who think this is all just a figment of conservatives' imagination, read on:  Because blogger Brian Cates ("Draw and strike") has caught 'em red-handed.

I encourage you to click on the link, because Brian has absolutely nailed the bastards--caught 'em in a way they can't deny or wave away with any of their myriad tired excuses (like, "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is").

But if you're in a hurry, here's the gist:  After former IRS chief Miller's brazen barrage of lies at last Friday's congressional hearings on the targeting of conservative groups, junior Times reporter Jonathan Weisman wrote the story like this:




Notice the headline: "Treasury knew of IRS inquiry in 2012, official says."  Then look at the lede 'graf, which skillfully summarizes the story in a single sentence.  The first sentence.  Which ends, "...disclosing for the first time...that Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign...."

Wow!  Guess the vaunted "layers of editors" at the Times must have all been getting back from three-martini lunches or something, because there's no other way to explain how this got past every single one of 'em.

And apparently the young reporter, Weisman, hadn't read the "real" NYT style guide, which would have told him a) we don't put anything remotely critical of Democrats in the lede 'graf; and b) we never, ever criticize Obama.

Oooooh, now what do we do to recover?

Answer:  Send a more politically-reliable reporter to re-write the thing.  Oh, and re-write the headline too.

Enter Jeremy Peters.  And here's the result:






Notice the headline has been changed from "Treasury knew of IRS inquiry in 2012" to "Republicans expand IRS inquiry, with eye on White House."

Ah, yes, that does a much better job of alerting the reader to the real story:  It's not about a high official in the Obama administration who knew before the election that the IRS's inspector-general was investigating why the IRS seemed to be targeting conservative organizations.  Instead it's about Republicans trying to nick our Dear Leader with a presumably manufactured "scandal."

And note the lede 'graf: 
Congressional Republicans, not resting with the [IRS] scandal, are moving to broaden the matter to an array of tax malfeasances and "intimidation tactics" they hope will ensnare the White House.
Ah, that's *so* much better.  Takes the reader's focus off any possible illegal act by the Obama administration and puts it right where it belongs:  On those canny Rethuglicans, who've taken a trivial mistake by a couple of over-zealous, low-level employees in a single IRS office and tried their best to link it to the White House!  BAD Rethuglicans!

Whew!  What a relief that thanks to the fast reactions of editors at the T****, the early story that might have reflected badly on Obama has now been re-written to defend Him against the scandal-mongering Rethugs.

Lord, thank you for the Internet, which occasionally makes it possible for regular citizens to catch the opinion-shapers in the Press lying and air-brushing stories to protect their Democrat boyfriends.

Oh, and to the NYT editors who re-wrote Weisman's "real journalism" story:  Fuck you.  May you live to see the consequences of your prostitution.

May 20, 2013

Is trying to intimidate opponents or nosy reporters a standard Obama tactic?

In the wake of the revelations about the IRS attempt to intimidate conservative political groups I took a new look at a story from October of 2011, in which CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson said two functionaries in the DOJ raked her over the coals in a seeming attempt to intimidate her into abandoning her inquiry into the department's gun-running scheme called "Operation Fast and Furious."
Did the try to strong-arm a journalist in the wake of the Justice Department’s “Operation Fast and Furious” scandal? CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson says government leaders took a very aggressive tack following her revelations earlier this year.

Attkisson said DOJ spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler and White House associate communications director Eric Schultz yelled and screamed at her over the story.

“The DOJ woman was just yelling at me,” Attkisson said. “The guy from the White House on Friday night screamed at me and cussed at me.  Oh, the person screaming was Tracy Schmaler--yelling, not screaming. And the person who screamed at me was Eric Schultz at the White House.”

The reporter explained "I was asking for her explanation so there would be clarity and no confusion later over what had been said. She wouldn’t put anything in writing,” she said.  “So we talked on the phone and she said things such as ‘the question Holder answered was different than the one he asked.’ But the way he phrased it, he said very explicitly, ‘I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.’”

Attkisson also said the DOJ and White House representatives complained that CBS was “unfair and biased” because it didn’t give the White House favorable coverage on the developing scandal.

“They will tell you that I’m the only reporter, as they told me, [who] is not [being] reasonable. They say The Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, The New York Times is reasonable — I’m the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I’m unfair and biased by pursuing [the story].”
Hmmm.  Pattern?

May 19, 2013

How many Obama officials are married to media presidents?

Paranoid right-wing nutters charge that our wonderful media is biased in favor of our wonderful Leader.  This is a scurrilous rumor pushed by his political enemies and there's no truth to it whatsoever.

Of course it's a free country--unless you're a Tea Party insurrectionist, of course--so a few media types may have some distant connection to our wonderful Administration.  For instance, CNN VP and Deputy Bureau Chief of the DC bureau, Virginia Moseley, just happens to be married to a fellow who was Hillary Clinton's deputy secretary until this past February.

Virginia spent 18 years at ABC, most recently as senior Washington producer for “Good Morning America.” She has also been ABC’s senior political editor.  So yes, she's pretty influential.  But you can't possibly think...

Well, and the brother of the president of CBS News--David Rhodes-- (brother is Ben Rhodes) is a top official in the Administration.

Oh, and the sister of ABC president Ben Sherwood (Elizabeth Sherwood) is a high-level Obama advisor.

But no one could possibly believe that connections like these would cause any of these fine organizations to slant their coverage of our wonderful president by even an iota.  I mean, that's just utterly crazy!

I don't know any husband who would change any business decisions to help his wife gain greater influence in her job, or vice versa.  That's just crazy talk.

May 18, 2013

Obama evades reporter's question on whether WH knew about IRS. "Non-denial denial"?

Last Thursday, just after the revelation by Lois Lerner that the IRS had targeted conservative groups, Obama held a press conference with the Prime Minister of Turkey.  Since the IRS policy had just been revealed, afterward Bloomberg reporter Julianna Goldman asked Obama, "Can you assure the American people that nobody in the White House knew about the agency’s actions before your Counsel’s Office found out on April 22nd?” 
 
Obama replied, “I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the IG report before the IG report had been leaked through the press."

This strikes most people as a responsive answer, and it certainly sounds as if he's saying neither he nor anyone on the White House staff knew about the outrageous IRS policy before it was "leaked."

But wait a second:  the reporter didn’t mention the inspector-general’s report.  Why did it occur to Obama to mention that in his "answer?"

Moreover, the reporter clearly asked whether anybody in the White House knew (though phrased in the negative).  Obama didn't respond to that part either.

If you're older than 35 or so this careful phrasing--a "non-denial denial," as they say--may sound familiar.  It's the exact same tactic infamously used by Bill Clinton in denying any sex with Monica Lewinski.  

That would be the Slick Willy who parried an investigator's question with the famous line, "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

Charles Krauthammer thinks the president’s rhetorical handling of the IRS scandal makes even Bill Clinton's word games look unsophisticated.

Absolutely.  But no one in the press will *ever* ask Obama the more careful followup question that would either pin him down or reveal the too-clever parry.  Because that would get them kicked off the A-list for party invitations.

And so it goes.

Oh all right, you got me:  I'll admit the link is to a biased, partisan, unreliable website that constantly tries to mislead its millions of viewers.  So this report is probably totally made up.  If you click on the link, go to "read the transcript" and do a search for Julianna Goldman.

Latest Leftist scare-term: "Insurrectionist"

Ever heard the term  "Insurrectionist" ?

It's the latest buzzword in a long line of terms invented by leftists to try to make conservative positions sound absurd or extreme.  Some examples are birthers, denialists (people who don't believe humans are causing whatever tiny amount of global warming may or may not be occurring) and that oh-so-clever double-entendre, "teabaggers."

Their latest propaganda piece, "insurrectionist," is apparently intended to describe anyone who believes in the ordinary, obvious meaning of the second amendment:  "The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Oooohh, can't have people believing that, eh?  An armed populace is soooo much harder to control!  Leftist/Democrat solution:  disarm those stupid, bitter clingers!

How?  Well for starters, try to get everyone with a gun to self-identify, by demanding--under threat of a huge fine--that everyone register every firearm they own.  Simple, elegant, easy to sell to the sheep.

Oh darn, looks like too many senators were worried about being unelected, so the senate wouldn't go along.  Looks like another "vast right-wing conspiracy"!

Okay, let's go with Plan B:  Start a campaign to paint supporters of the 2nd amendment as crazy anti-government nuts.  Yeh, dat's da ticket.  Sounds good, now we need a vague but scary buzzword.  Ho, we got it:  "Insurrectionists"!

Yeah.

All you statist, socialist bastards pride yourselves on being soooo clever, confident that you've always been able to win the propaganda wars.  Of course the reason that works is that 52% of the population knows almost nothing about history, including the history of socialism and other totalitarian regimes.  They're as defenseless as lambs being led to the slaughter.

Fortunately there may still be a few sheepdogs around the edge of the flock.

Oh, and we'll remember who led our less-knowledgeable countrymen to the slaughter.

May 17, 2013

Q to former IRS chief: "Your agency demanded to know the content of prayers. Izzat okay?" IRS chief won't answer.

Is there anything systemically wrong with Democratic party government?  Well this morning the former head of the IRS appeared before a House committee investigating the alleged IRS targeting of conservative groups.

Representative Aaron Schock was questioning former IRS chief Steven Miller.  Schock read a paragraph stating that a pro-life group in Iowa had received a letter from the IRS demanding that the group "list the content of the members of your organization's prayers."

You read that right.

Rep. Schock then asked the former IRS chief if he thought that was an appropriate question for the IRS to ask Americans.

Miller refused to respond substantively.  Here's the video clip; the question noted above is at 40 seconds in.

I thought the post that referred to this had to have been satire--until I viewed the clip.  If you wrote this as fiction no one would believe it--way too paranoid, they'd say.

In evaluating Miller's non-response, keep in mind that Miller was only the acting chief of the IRS for about six months.  His term was due to expire in just over two weeks, so Obama's "firing" him cut his term by a grand total of 20 days before when it would normally have expired.

So having already been "fired," one would think Miller could afford to be candid and admit that the demand by the IRS agent to "list the content of members' prayers" was not only inappropriate but outrageous.  But being a Democrat and Obama supporter, Miller did no such thing.

A normal person might be curious as to why Miller would be so reluctant to condemn a practice that strikes most people as outrageous.  What business does the IRS have demanding to know the content of a citizen's prayers??

Here's a theory:  Miller refused to condemn the outrageous question because he almost certainly encouraged his subordinates to ask it--just as his superiors up the chain told him to slow-walk applications by conservative groups.  If he'd criticized the practice--leaving division heads like Lois Lerner hanging out to dry--the chances would go way up that someone thrown under the bus would take exception to being the scapegoat.

Here's Miller responding to a representative who asked "Who told the IRS agents to target conservative organizations?" 
    Miller doesn't respond.
    Rep:  You conducted that investigation.  Who was responsible?
    Miller:  I don't have that name, sir.
    Rep:  Did you even *try* to find out?  Did you ask anybody?
    Miller:  Of course.
    Rep:  Who did you ask?
    Miller [hesitates]:  I'd be happy to provide a list.
    Rep:  You don't have that name either.
    Miller:  I asked the senior technical advisor.
    Rep [immediately]:  And what was the senior technical advisor's name?
    Miller [clearly taken aback by the fast followup question]:  Nancy Marks.
    Rep:  And what did Nancy tell you?  Who's responsible?
    Miller: That I don't remember to be honest with you.
    Rep:  You don't remember again.

It's an astonishing performance that can't be fully appreciated just from the transcript.  One can't help but come away with the overwhelming impression that the guy is lying his ass off.  And the big question is:  Now that he's been fired, why in the world is he lying about what he knew?

Oh, that's right:  He knows that if he rats out the Obama-supporting thugs he'll never be able to get a job again.

A union supports Democrats 94% to 6%. It's the union of Treasury Dept employees

You probably could have guessed that employees of the federal gummint's Department of the Treasury--the folks who run the IRS--have a union, the National Treasury Employees Union.

No one will be surprised to learn that in the last election 94% of contributions made by members of that union to either candidates for or members of congress went to Democrats.  Yep, here's the breakdown:

U.S. Senate:
   Contributions to Democrats: $156,750
   Contributions to Republicans: $1,000
U.S. House of Representatives:
    Contributions to Democrats: $391,062
    Contributions to Republicans: $23,000

So what do you think the chances are that NTEU members had a signifcant role in the writing of the recently released report from Treasury's Inspector General concerning the IRS's targeting of conservative organizations?

And finally, what do you think the odds are that the IG's report accurately describes the role of Democrat politicians in creating the policy of targeting conservative groups?

IRS: Tax-exempt organizations aren't allowed to protest or picket??

Examples of the abuse of power by IRS agents seeking to hamstring conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status keep leaking past the media's defense shield.

In one of the newest examples the service demanded that as a condition of receiving that status, one pro-life group had to promise that it would not  "picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood."

'Cuz ya see,citizen, tax-exempt groups aren't permitted to do any protesting.  For example, you never see "Organizing for America" protesting or pushing a favorite Democrat policy, right?

The agent who made that demand went on to detail how that assurance to happen:   She demanded that every member of the board sign a letter swearing under penalty of perjury that they would not picket or protest Planned Parenthood.

Do you think the IRS made the same demand of Organizing for America?  Or of any other Democrat-supporting group?

Oh, but believe us, citizen, none of the IRS's grilling was politically motivated.

Not. A.  Bit.

How vast is the divide between Dems and conservatives?

How big is the division between Dems and conservatives?  Read a few of the *comments* to this post at TPM.

Or not.  It would just make you ill.  The article describes how IRS division chief Lois Lerner revealed that her division had been targeting conservative organizations applying for IRS approval as tax-exempt organizations.  Some of these organizations had been trying to win IRS approval for as long as three years, only to see a series of increasingly detailed demands to turn over lists of their donors, lists of volunteer, lists of members, lists of their reading materials and so on.

The IRS even demanded that one conservative organization furnish the names of every student it had taught or planned to teach in the future.

But as far as all the Left/Democrat commenters at TPM are concerned, there's no problem.

As one commenter put it, "We don't really know yet if this is really even much of a scandal. Because the IRS says they weren't deliberately targeting the right wing."

Riiiight.

When someone noted that the far-left Obama-supporting group "Organizing for America" had the tax-exempt status the conservative groups were seeking, Dem stalwart Mark Garrity responded "Actually these days Organizing for America is only about issue advocacy. Those issues coincide with the D agenda, background checks and immigration reform, but nonetheless we don't talk about candidates...."

Sounds like exactly the sorts of issues the Tea Party wanted to push their side of the story on.  But Democrats can't let conservative organizations do that, because it's wrong for tax-exempt groups to engage in issue advocacy.  Unless they support Democrat goals and politicians.  In that case it's just fine.

Every day it gets harder not to hate these people for their single-minded lust for power, and their willingness to overlook *everything* to maintain their lock on it.

May 16, 2013

Do high-level bureaucrats hugely support Dem presidents?

For those who may wonder how IRS division chiefs could decide to target conservative groups for harassment and delay in approving tax-exempt status for years, while waving liberal groups through in less than a month, consider this:

Government bureaucrats view Republican presidents as occupiers, and Democrat presidents as liberators.

Think about it:  Which party is constantly pushing for a bigger, more powerful federal government?

So if you were a government bureaucrat, which scenario would give you more power, more influence and a bigger salary:  a weaker federal government, or a bigger, more powerful one?

So since power-hungry people are *way* more determined and motivated than the average, over time all government bureaucracies would become Democrat-heavy...at all levels but even more so at the top.

And civil-service regulations make it virtually impossible to fire corrupt ones, including those who merely abuse the power of their office.

I'm certainly not implying that all gummint employees are either power-hungry or willing to abuse their powers, but frankly I think this simple, logical mechanism would explain a LOT.

When governments run the economy, things just work better!

Experience all over the world has shown that when the government controls something, that sector of the economy works SO much better and more efficiently!

Do I have to tell you that was sarcasm?

Consider the latest triumph of government control of markets:  Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities — toilet paper.

In case you think that's just an aberration, they've also run short of other basics like cornmeal, milk, butter and even--astonishingly--coffee.

Not surprisingly the socialist government blames political enemies for all such shortages.  President Nicolas Maduro, hand-picked by Hugo Chavez as his successor, claims anti-government forces--and he specifically included the private sector--are causing the shortages, in order to destabilize the country.  Commerce Minister Alejandro Fleming blamed the shortage of toilet tissue on "excessive demand" built up as a result of "a media campaign that has been generated to disrupt the country."

See, it's not government mismanagement, it's a plot by enemies of the Benevolent Socialist State!  People are deliberately using the toilet more than normal, in order to cause a shortage.

One imagines roving gangs, funded by rich speculators, hijacking truckloads of toilet paper as they travel from factory to cities.

But experts say the shortages are due to two things:  price controls, imposed by the government to make basic goods cheap (a vote-buying scheme); and government controls on foreign currency.

Many factories in Venezuela operate at half capacity because the currency controls make it hard for them to buy imported parts and materials.  Chavez imposed currency controls a decade ago to stop capital flight as his government started seizing land and dozens of businesses.

As a result of government mis-management, consumers face long lines at supermarkets and pharmacies. Shoppers often spend several days looking for basic items.

But don't worry, citizen:  Venezuela's problems can't possibly apply to Obamacare.  Because our statists are a lot smarter than their statists.  The experts in the Obama administration have promised us that no shortages will occur under Obamacare.  Instead, medical costs will fall for everyone, without causing any doctors to retire early, and without overwhelming medical providers with patients.

And if you don't know much about economics, or human nature, or history, or current events--which is to say, if you're a typical low-information voter--you'll believe that nonsense.

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Scandals? Lies? Sic'cing the IRS on political enemies? Naw, nothin' to see here, citizen

So now we've got the IRS giving retroactive tax-exempt status to the "Barack Obama Foundation," started by Obama's half-brother, in a record-fast 30 days.

Meanwhile conservative groups applying for the same status were grilled by the IRS for up to three years.  In some cases the service demanded that they provide lists of all their recommended reading materals, the names of all their volunteers and those of all students they planned to teach in the future.

Same deal in the notoriously lawbreaking EPA:  Former EPA chief Lisa Jackson was discovered to have created and used an email account with a phony name so she could conduct agency business but avoid having to turn damaging emails over if the agency ever received a subpoena demanding that it provide "all emails to or from EPA Director Lisa Jackson."  (Cuz, see, the govt's attorneys would argue--possibly with a straight face--that the emails to or from the account with the phony name weren't covered by the subpoena.  All these Democrats are SO much smarter than us peasants, eh?)

Oh, and the EPA waived fees for information for pro-Democrat interest groups ten times more often than for conservative groups.  (Of course that's trivial compared to the other charges.  After all, aren't all conservatives filthy-rich?  And aren't all their fortunes derived from killing babies for their internal organs, or something like that?)

And let's not even get started on the administration's seizure of phone records for two months of phone records for phones used by 100 AP reporters, allegedly in an effort to pinpoint the source of a leak.  The InJustice Department has yet to disclose the exact classification of the information disclosed--whether Secret, Top Secret or Politically Embarassing.

Well...the Democrats have started damage-control procedures--and predictably, here's how the defense is shaping up:
"Entirely the work of overzealous, low-level employees."  (IRS division chief Lois Lerner used the marvelously vague term "front-line employees.")

"This is all just partisan politics--attacks by Republicans who have been eager for the past five years to trap this amazingly talented president who's always championed the interests of the middle class."
“They’re hyperventilating about Benghazi. President Obama was absolutely right to call this a sideshow. This is about smear politics and nothing else.”  --Democrat Harry Reid

"If there actually turn out to be any minor problems it's not the president's fault, because government has gotten too big for one person--no matter how amazing and talented--to control by himself."  (Axelrod actually said something very much like this.)

"Seizing the phone records for the AP reporters is actually the fault of Republicans, because they voted against a bill that would have protected reporters from this sort of thing."
And finally,
"At this point, what difference does it make?!!"
On the off chance that the public might be...shall we say, a bit put off by the recent IRS thuggery, or the lies on Benghazi, the leftist rag Politico has started the pre-emptive defense:  "Establishment Democrats, never big fans of this president to begin with, are starting to speak out."

Did they actually write that?  "Establishment Democrats" were never big fans of Obama?

Wow, keep tellin' those whoppers, dudes.

Okay, time for a prediction:  All the posturing by the media is just theater.  They'll never abandon Duh Won, because they have so much credibility invested in him.  The moment reporters or editors sense the crisis is past they'll revert to shamelessly carrying water for the Democrats.

May 14, 2013

Story that IRS grilling of Tea Party organizations was "done by low-level employees" is falling apart

If you follow politics at all you may have heard that the IRS sent letter to a wide variety of conservative groups demanding that they give the agency a list of their members and donors, and copies of all communications as to the nature of the organization's political leanings.

If so, you may also have heard the official party-line response:  that this policy was entirely created and run by a handful of overzealous employees in the agency's Cincinnati office.  Lois Lerner, head of the IRS tax-exempt-organizations division, told reporters Friday the “inappropriate” actions targeting groups with “Tea Party,” “patriot” or “9/12″ in their names were done by “front-line people” working in Cincinnati.

One can't know with certainly what Lerner meant by the term "front-line people" but the implication is that the policy was "done" by low-level employees.  Lerner is clearly implying that these employees were acting on their own.

Well guess what?  Turns out that--in what must surely be an amazing coincidence--*four* widely-separated IRS offices around the country were carrying out the same policy!

Wow, what a coincidence, eh?

I mean, what are the odds that employees in four scattered offices of the IRS would not only get the same illegal idea at the same time, but would actually execute such a policy?

Now if we find--as we will--that the wording of the demand letters from the various IRS offices just happen to be almost identical...well, just another in a string of coincidences, comrade.

Honestly, folks, if someone caught Obozo on videotape personally ordering the IRS to put the heat on conservative groups--or to approve the DOJ scheme to sell guns to Mexican drug cartels, or to order his fixers to create a fake birth certificate, or to blackmail a Supreme Court justice--the media would wave it away as being "just coincidence."

Think I'm kidding?  Well guess what:  The Washington Post knew about this policy a year ago, but you're just now hearing about it, right?  That would mean the Post sat on the story for a whole year.  Gee, wonder why? 

Now that conservative organizations are onto the story, the Post is covering its skirts by publishing short CYA stories on page B-156 (that's sarcasm).

May 13, 2013

Being drunk is a valid defense to assault--if you're a Muslim in the UK

Another bit of information from our former cousins in the UK.  At first it may strike you as trivial.

You'd be wrong.

The original incident:  A group of three Somali "women" got drunk and ganged up to brutally beat a 22-year-old white female.  During the attack they yelled "Kill the white bitch."

At their hearing their attorney used this novel defense:  "They're Somalian Muslims and alcohol or drugs isn’t something they’re used to.”  The attackers also claimed the victim's male partner used unreasonable force to defend her.

And amazingly--no, check that:  *Sadly and all too predictably,* Brit judge Robert Brown gave the Muslims a suspended sentence. 

Now:  The significance isn't the attack by a trio of drunk Muslima thugs--after all, in this sorry age Muslim attacks on non-Muslims are so frequent as to get scarcely a mention in U.S. papers. Rather, the significance is that the Brit judge accepted this ridiculous assertion.

Mark this day well:  If you think this won't be used by other attorneys you're crazy.  More significantly, once judge Robert Brown set the precedent by accepting this absurd defense and wasn't immediately tarred and feathered for that outrage, it opened the door for other foolish, politically-correct judges to do the same.

Oh, but I hear you saying that this would never happen in the U.S.  Because...because...uh...our judges aren't that politically correct, or cowardly, or corrupt, or....  

Yeah, right.

25% of guest lectures at UK universities now segregated?? By...can you guess?

For some years now conservatives have noted that feminists and leftists never utter a word of protest against bizarre, sexist Islamic policies.  In fact, Code Pink and others have actually supported militant Islam.

Well, sweethearts, your support of evil is coming to the U.S. with the momentum of a freight train.  Example: In formerly "Great" Britain--now hopelessly mired in Islamic lawsuits and the paralysis of political correctness--a quarter of guest lectures at public universities were segregated.

Segregated, that is, by gender.  At the insistence of Muslims.

Gotta tell ya', I'm well over 50 and don't have any kids so I got no dog in this hunt, but if you've got a daughter--or if you're female--news like this should make you mad as hell.  Because it's nothing less than the representatives of the enlightenment fleeing like scared rabbits before Islamic fucktards.

Are you willing to condemn your daughter to not leaving her home unless she's accompanied by a male relative?

Are you willing to give up music, dancing, fine wine and the occasional pork roast at restaurants-- because that's the destination, Sparky, just as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow.

And if you don't believe it you're too stupid or naive to reproduce.

LOOK AT HISTORY, folks.  Look at *every* *single* country where the cancer that is Islam has taken over.  Can you not read?  Can you not understand what you read?  Or do you delicate flowers just think "Oh, this is such an awful story that it can't possibly be true!

Right, it's all just a plot by a bunch of foreign reporters to make Islam look bad.  Cuz, everyone knows Islam is--can we say it all together?  "The religion of peace."

What a bunch of horse shit.  If you believe it you're fools.

But of course, 52% of you elected a guy who for over a dozen years claimed in his own published bio to have been born in Kenya, and who refused to release a "long form" birth certificate that--if it existed--would have settled all questions.

Ah, well.  Time for a drink.

May 12, 2013

Rare "hot ice" blows off Canadian lake, damages or destroys 20 homes

Global Warming!!!  The scientists warned us it was happening, and that you were causing it by a) driving; b) using electricity; c) flying more than 482 miles a year; and d) exhaling CO2.

But did you listen?  Noooo, you did not.  And now look what's happened:

On a lake 60 miles northwest of Winnipeg a huge wall of ICE blew off the lake and damaged or destroyed 20 homes!

Long-time residents said they'd seen ice get blown off the lake before, but never this bad.

See?  Glowbull Warming!!

What?  You say you fail to see how this proves Global Warming is a) real; and b) caused by humans?

You must be a DENIALIST!  Denialist!  Denialist!  Denialist!  Denialist!

It proves global warming because SHUT UP, that's why!

Oh, and when Lord Obama gets through solving all the OTHER problems in the world, all you deniers are gonna' hafta pay an extra $3000 apiece each year in *carbon tax*!  So there!  Neener neener neener!

And no, we won't have to pay the carbon tax.  Because we're EEEEeee-leeets, that's why.  And you peons pay our salaries, and for our jets and limos, so we must be better than you.  That's why.

Stupid bitter clingers.

Washington P***: "Universal basic income" would end poverty

A few months ago I wrote a satirical post along the lines of "Hey, wanna end poverty overnight?  It's easy:  we just need to have the federal gummint write everyone a check every year for, say, $100,000."

As noted, the post was satire.

Well you'll never guess what's happened:  the Washington P*** has published a blog column by a so-called "progressive" who's offered this exact suggestion, apparently seriously:  He wants to have the federal gummint give every person in the U.S. a "universal basic income."
what are some advantages of providing a universal basic income?  [It] would create greater equality by ending poverty and providing a minimum living standard. It would also increase bargaining power for workers, who could demand better working conditions with a safety cushion.   
Did you catch that?  The author not only claims this would end poverty, but would also increase bargaining power for workers, since they could demand better conditions--and presumably would have an easier time calling a strike if the employer didn't cave to their demands--because the workers would have the taxpayer-funded "basic income" to live on during the strike.

Wow, sign me up!  The author goes on to claim that this will actually "eliminate unpleasant work"!  You may wonder how that would occur.  The author explains:
Such bargaining power “will generate an incentive structure for employers to seek technical and organizational innovations that eliminate unpleasant work,” which would “have not just a labor-saving bias, but a labor-humanizing bias.” 
If that strikes you as a bit of a reach, hey, the author is just getting started!
The fact that it is universal is crucial. This eliminates income traps that can cause severe work disincentives. A UBI answers the Foucauldian critique about the welfare state being a way for the state to stigmatize and control marginalized populations. There are no state officials determining whether or not a single mom “deserves” help or drug tests and other invasive, humiliating requirements.
Oh, absolutely.  Those "income traps" are absolutely *vicious.*  And we wouldn't want anyone seeking taxpayer-funded money to have to actually, y'know, show they were eligible to receive it or anything.  And the very idea of denying benefits to drug users is...well it's just a ghastly plot by the GOP to "stigmatize and control marginalized populations."

Oh, and lest you think this idea is just being pushed by this one goofy, nutty Leftist, the author wants you to know that those on the Right also support it:
The right likes basic income because it would allow for the removal of many overlapping and piecemeal government programs, such as food stamps and unemployment insurance, as well as programs the government directly runs. 
What??  He says "the right" actually likes this idea?  Oh, I'm sure.  And as to his alleged reasoning:  I'm totally certain that if only Republicans would agree to write everyone a check for nothing, the Left would absolutely *promise* to remove "many" of the overlapping and piecemeal programs that distribute tax dollars as welfare.  He specifically mentions that we could pay for the "universal basic income" by ending "Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, virtually all transfer programs and certain tax breaks." 

I guess this is supposed to show he's ever so fiscally responsible, and not just trying to take more money from taxpayers.  Cuz' everyone knows that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are the biggest items in the federal budget.  And if we'd just do as he asks, the Left would agree to scrub them??  So by implication the "universal basic income" won't cost taxpayers a dime?  Oh yeah, I'm totally believing that.

Sure, just like they promised you Obamacare would both cut your health insurance costs and save the government money.

Just.  Like.  Obamacare.

Gosh, with an idea this great there must be a catch.  And sure enough, the author finds one:
Eliminating poverty is an essential part of any egalitarian project, and a universal basic income could finish that in one move. But the question then becomes: What projects would still animate the left?
Ah yes:  With poverty eliminated, what projects would remain to "animate" the Left?  Read on:
One project would be to make sure merit goods are sufficiently provided to everyone who needs them. There are certain goods that we owe to each other — education, health care, a secure retirement  — and it isn’t clear that the private market is capable of providing a basic minimum across society. In addition, the government that allow it to provide these goods more efficiently. [sic]  Medicare is able to hold down costs better than private insurance, and Social Security is significantly better than 401(k)s or private pensions in providing income security in old age. These programs work very well....
Notice the author's phrasing:  It's not "you taxpayers owe people X" but rather We owe these goods to each other.  A far more pleasant phrasing, eh?   Just how everyone is supposed to do this for each other is of no concern to the author.  But don't worry, citizen: it'll all work out fine.

The author claims certain "goods" should be provided by government, but not through "market logic."
the goal... is to...remove markets from the way people interface with certain goods, such as education or health care. As the welfare-state theorist Gøsta Esping-Andersen argued, "de-commodification" is defined as a situation in which “a service is rendered as a matter of right, [so] a person can maintain a livelihood without reliance on the market.” 
That's so wonderful!  I want to be able to "maintain a livlihood" without having to "rely on the market."  In case that strikes you as too vague, the author explains that "A UBI would de-link survival and subsistence from the labor market, advancing this goal."

Still too vague?  Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was the author's intent.  "De-linking" subsistence from the labor market means having the government give people money, period.  No need to be anxious about the drudgery of work, or even to pretend to look for a job--government will give you a check regardless.

Hey, count me in!  Why should I have to work to live?  Why can't I relax and get stoned all day, and have you pay my expenses?  As far as I'm concerned, my survival--at your expense--is my basic right as a human.  It necessarily follows from this that it's your obligation as a taxpayer to give me anything I claim I need to survive.

If you cave to that, my next demand for "de-linking" will be that you give me anything I want.

Still have doubts about this benefits of universal basic income?  There's more!
Another project is to expand the say workers have in their workplaces. This includes not only unionization, but also a more general project of democracy that doesn’t end once you walk through your employer’s door.
Yes, businesses must be democratic.  Because businesses aren't really private enterprises, started by entrepreneurs who are willing to bet their entire assets that they can succeed.  Rather, all businesses are properly owned by their employees--just like Barack acknowleged when he gave controlling interest in General Motors to his union supporters.  So each employee should have an equal voice in decisions affecting the company.  Makes perfect sense.

If you're a conservative you might well be worried that universal guaranteed income might give too much power to workers.  Well don't worry, citizen!  As the author explains,
a universal basic income would help workers by giving them more bargaining power.  [It would also] force innovations and productivity gains by industry to balance out workers’ new power.
Got that?  Forcing innovations and productivity gains would actually balance out workers' new power.  In fact, the author concludes by noting that a "universal basic income" would actually show a "general commitment to democracy."  And to freedom, and individual rights, and self-determination, and any other buzz-phrase the Left thinks might resonate with low-information voters.

Just...wow. You can't make this stuff up.

May 11, 2013

"Nothing to see here, citizen."

I've been watching the reaction of Democrats and their media allies to the testimony before a congressional committee looking into the killings of our ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi.  Both seem to be spinning the story like this:
*The testimony contained no revelations, nothing new, simply a re-hash of old claims and accusations.

*The CIA wrote a memo giving their best estimate of the cause, and if a few trivial words were changed between the original author and some minor government functionary on Sunday morning talk shows, what difference does it make?

*Someone may have denied pleas for assistance, and later some nameless functionary in the government may have denied that the government ever received such requests, but hey, mistakes happen.  "Fog of war" and that sort of thing.

*In explaining the terribly confusing situation to the press, Hillary Clinton and President Obama relied on talking points--prepared by other, unnamed functionaries.  So IF--emphasis on if--either Hillary or Obama ever really said that the attack was sparked by an anti-Muslim video on the internet, and that later turned out to be incorrect, it wasn't Clinton's or Obama's fault because they were just going with the talking points witten by someone else.  And of course Obama claims he said *from the outset* that the attack was carried out by terrorists.  So what makes you wingnuts think you heard something different?

*It's not useful to try to find out what the original CIA talking points said, or whether they were changed, or if they were, who might have done it, because none of this will help.  As Madame Clinton said:  At this point, what difference does it make?

Uhhh...yeah.  And Watergate was a "third-rate burglary" not worth paying attention to.

It seems glaringly, blindingly obvious that the U.S. has stopped being a nation of laws, in which all legal principles were governed by Constitutional restraints and rights.  The Obama administration began disregarding the Constitution almost from their leader's first month in office, and it's only gotten worse.

Attorney-General Eric Holder's subordinates are caught selling high-grade weapons to Mexican drug cartels.  Obama claims Holder never briefed him on the program.  Congressional Republicans subpoena Holder to find out what the hell happened.  Holder ignores the subpoena and then asks Obama to shield him from having to testify, under the theory of  "executive privilege."

But in all the history of the republic, this doctrine requires that in order to invoke the privilege, the official must have advised the president on some aspect of the action in question.  Yet Obama claimed Holder had never briefed him or counseled with him about the scheme.

And the lying media shrugged.

Early in his first term Obama violated bankruptcy laws in arbitrarily giving controlling interest in General Motors to his union buddies, and in yanking Chrysler franchises from franchisees in good standing.

And the lying media yawned.

The "Porkulus" bill was supposed to create a zillion "shovel-ready jobs," but somehow the Obamites ended up giving most of the money to banks and Wall Street firms.  Admittedly the $787-billion program did create a couple of thousand jobs--at an estimated cost of just $11 million per job.

And the lying media gushed at Duh Won's great compassion for working families.

Team Obama gave $26 Billion in taxpayer loans and loan guarantees to crony-owned firms in the "green energy" field.  An amazing number of these firms promptly went bankrupt--though not before giving their executives hefty bonuses.  If a Republican had been president it would have been a huge scandal.

With Obama in office, the lying media yawned.

Now former SecState Clinton lies about having seen any requests for better security at whatever was going on at the non-consulate annex in Benghazi.  Someone high up in government invents a bullshit story about the cause of the attack, then denies it, then the Obama administration arranges the arrest of the man who made the film that allegedly sparked the attack, then clams up.  The lying media yawns.

The lie created about Benghazi by Team Obama wasn’t due to confusion--the fog of war--but was instead a deliberate attempt to hide a truth that would have embarassed Obama. Since Obama had told American voters that thanks to his leadership Al Qaeda was no longer a threat, everyone in his administration was determined to blame the attack on anything *except* Al Qaeda.

So the fable was invented:  After all, no one could possibly hold Duh Won responsible for a shady film-maker posting a video insulting to Islam on the internet.

Team Obama lied--and far better people than anyone in this administration were left to die--to ensure that Obama and Clinton wouldn't be hurt by the politically-damaging truth.  

It seems clear that the media believe progressive goals are all good; and thus anything the media can do to support those policies must be good.  In particular, individual freedom and Constitutional principles can be trashed at any time if it helps further "progressive" goals.  And if you're a progressive I guess it makes perfect sense.


"Fathom the hypocrisy..."

"Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured...but not everyone must prove they are a citizen.  And now [thanks to Obamacare, all those who NOT citizens] will receive *free* insurance, paid for by those who are *forced* to buy insurance--because they *are* citizens."  --Ben Stein

May 10, 2013

Democrat congresswoman: "Obamacare will result in better marriages"

Democrats keep coming up with new claims as to why Obamacare is the most wonderful law ever (and thus it would be just awful, ghastly, terrible to repeal it). 

The newest claim:  Obamacare will result in better marriages!

Seriously.  A Dem congresswoman is on video saying just that. 

Her reasoning?  She had a friend who actually married the wrong person just so she could get health insurance.

Using that same reasoning we can expect the next Democrat entitlement program to be "The federal government needs to pay every person in the country $150,000 a year.  Because we have friends who have been forced into either crime or the wrong kind of job because they didn't have enough money!"

And after all, isn't "happiness" a basic human right, written right there in the Constitution?

And if the Rethuglicans oppose this wonderful new program it just shows once again that they really don't honor the Constitution after all!  Oh, and they're raaaacists.

Leftist media re-writes history of Korean conflict

It's a common belief among conservatives that most reporters and editors are wildly left-liberal.  Thus we're not surprised when editorials and opinion pieces are published bashing the West or glowingly praising socialist, communist and assorted totalitarian regimes.

For example, have you ever seen an article in the New York T**** even remotely critical about, say, Cuba, China, North Korea or Iran?  As far as the T**** is concerned, those places are fabulous, whereas the West is uniformly criticized. As far as the media is concerned, the West is just awful.

If you think this is just hyperbole read this article in a large British newspaper. The author defends the dictatorial regime of North Korea, and actually blames the West for that country's problems.
we have the self-same west to thank for the fact that North Korea exists at all... [T]he arbitrary division of Korea by the allies after second world war is certainly a contributing factor to what we're confronted with today. It's kind of like Saddam Hussein-era Iraq, another gift bestowed on the world by the greed of western powers. And the American involvement in using North Korea as a pawn in their Cold War jousting with Soviet Russia means that the Kims have been caricatured an enemy to use for propaganda purposes.
One wonders how much massive stupidity can be packed into a single paragraph.  First the guy blames the west for the fact that North Korea exists in the first place.  While it's certainly true that instead of abandoning all of Korea to the communists after WW2, the West managed to save half from the loving and oh-so-benign embrace of communism, the author evidently would have been happier if we'd left the entire country to the communists.

Ah yes, the ultimate leftist "solution" to conflict:  let the communists have *everything.*

Next the author throws in a phrase about American "involvement" in "using North Korea as a pawn in their Cold War jousting with Soviet Russia."  Wait, wasn't the Korean War triggered by North Korean troops invading South Korea?  So when the author writes "involvement" he's really re-writing history--omitting the facts and putting a contemptible spin on the West's defense of the non-communist south.

But of course what's history good for if you can't lie about it?

Admittedly the newspaper where this appeared is in the U.K., but the "reasoning" and willingness to re-write history would be right at home at most U.S. papers.

May 05, 2013

If Obamacare has any bad features, it's all the fault of...congressional Republicans!

I'm seeing more and more comments from Democratic Party congresswhores and spokespersons complaining about various terrible results of that horrible, awful, draconian 1.5% cut in federal spending known as the sequester.

And guess who they blame for the sequester?

Amazingly, they blame congressional Republicans.  They say this despite a clear record that the plan was actually devised by Obama's advisors as a clever scheme to try to put the Republicans in a no-win situation.

Which leads to the prediction of the obvious next move:  With more evidence emerging every day suggesting that Obamacare a) will cost taxpaying working folks a lot more in premiums, taxes and fines than Dems claimed; b) will reduce the number of experienced doctors, as many retire early rather than submit to complete government control of their jobs; c) surprisingly, will fail to improve the health of the millions who previously had no health insurance; and d) will hasten the financial collapse of the government, Democrats and their allies in the U.S. media are trotting out a new party line:

Instead of these disasters being predicted results of a bad idea, any of these problems that *may* be alleged to happen are all the fault of...congressional Republicans, for blocking Democrat-pushed measures that would have made the whole monstrosity work just as Reid, Pelosi and Duh Won planned!

And half the electorate--knowing nothing about how the bill was passed--will agree.

Outrageous brazenness, right?  Such an egregious rape of the truth that no one would possibly believe it, right?

Clearly, citizen, you haven't been on the planet long enough to recognize Democrats at work!  After they saw they could get away with blaming the sequester on the GOP (with help from their allies in the Lying Media), they'll realize that blaming the GOP for any alleged problems with Obamacare will be just as easy.

It's a brazen move, so in the interest of establishing a historical record I'd like to look at just one example of an effort the GOP made to have a small input on the bill that would become Obamacare.

As a political junkie I followed the amazing political maneuvering used to pass the bill very closely, and the truth is that the GOP couldn't get even one of their amendments into the final bill.  The closest they came was when a group of reps including Democrat Bart Stupak said they wouldn't vote for the bill if it included either federal funding of abortions, or federal subsidies of insurance covering abortions.

The House approved the Stupak–Pitts amendment by a wide margin (240–194).  But the senate version of the bill didn't contain the Stupak provisions, and a handful of Democratic representatives said they wouldn't vote for the bill if it didn't have those provisions.

Pelosi and the Dem strategists knew that even with majority control of the House, they wouldn't be able to pass the bill without the votes of the Stupak group.  But the Dem-controlled senate--far more aggressive about making abortion available regardless of ability to pay--wasn't about to agree to the restrictions in Stupak's amendment.

Oooh, what to do, what to do?

So in a brilliant tactical move, Obama promised Stupak that if the congressman would get his group to support the senate version of the bill--which, again, didn't contain the provisions Stupak had said he had to have to vote for the bill--Obama would issue an executive order enacting the provisions of the Stupak amendment.

Believing that the his president's promise would indeed become national policy, Stupak agreed, and with the crucial votes of his group Obamacare passed the House, 219-212 --without the Stupak provisions.  The leftist rag Politico summarized the deal as follows:
The announcement by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and a half-dozen colleagues came just after Obama said he will sign an executive order reaffirming a ban on federal funding of abortions.  
Earlier in the day, Stupak (D-Mich.) told Democratic leaders that he would vote for the bill after receiving assurances that Obama will issue the order and that [Stupak] would be able to state his concerns about abortion funding in the bill in a colloquy on the House floor before the vote.
Later, Stupak and Waxman took to the floor to put into the record that the bill is meant to completely prevent the use of any federal dollars to pay for abortion.
"We've always said ... that we were for health care reform, but there was a principle that meant more to us than anything, and that was the sanctity of life," Stupak said
Does anyone recall what happened after that?

Why yes--Obama's own Solicitor-General, whom he later appointed to the Supreme Court for life--told him the executive order was a sham and did not have the force of law.  Various liberal talking heads agreed, and waxed ecstatic about how their brilliant president had managed to talk Stupak into getting his group to vote for the bill without the restriction they had insisted on--and which had passed the House by a wide margin.

Next stop:  "It's legal because it's a TAX!"

"Wait, we promised no new taxes on the middle class.  So it's not a tax!"

"It's whatever we say it is TODAY, but we're free to change that to anything else tomorrow.  'Cuz we're Democrats, and everything is perfectly fine if it will enable us to stay in power!"