March 29, 2015

Could there really be corruption and lawbreaking among top Democrat leaders? Well...

Well, well, well:  Turns out that after the House committee on Benghazi asked Hillary to turn over her emails on her private server--the only email account she used, and used for official government business while she was Secretary of State, and the only way Americans could know which ones were her official government records--which, by law, are the property of the government--the scofflaw bitch had her munchkins erase the data!

Of course you probably didn't hear that, since the mainstream (i.e. Democrat-run) media gave it very little mention.  Oh well, it's just a silly law, and only Little People have to worry about trivia like that.

And of course, "At this point, what difference could it possibly make?"

Of course if you're a hard-working, law-abiding, family-raising American you probably find it hard to believe that such a high-ranking, exalted, powerful person as Hillary--often touted by the Dem media as the presumptive Dem nominee for president in 2016--would actually do something so blatantly against the law.  After all, she was a senator and SecState--a good liberal/"progressive" Democrat, f'r heaven's sake--and is married to a former president.  Most of us naturally, reasonably assume that such people are supposed to obey the laws.

It's literally hard for most people to imagine that with all their money and power, people like Hillary and Bill and Nan Pelosi and Harry Reid would they break the laws they're supposedly charged with honoring and enforcing.  Most good people simply can't believe it--they think it's just a fiction by political opponents, part of that same vast, right-wing conspiracy Hillary whined about years ago when Bill's affairs were just beginning to come to light. 

That would be right around the time he committed perjury in the Paula Jones case.

In any case, if you have trouble believing such powerful Democrat leaders break laws with impunity, an incident from 2003 that most of you probably didn't pay attention to will show you how Bill and Hill operate.

It's the case of Democrat Sandy Berger, a long-time Clinton friend who was Clinton's National Security Advisor from 1997 to 2001. 

Eight months after the end of Clinton's term, 19 muslim hijackers destroyed the World Trade Center and killed another couple of hundred at the Pentagon.  Worse damage was only avoided because alert and brave men on Flight 93 determined to retake control of that plane rather than let the rag-heads fly them into a fourth target.

Two years later, with the public still wanting to know if anyone missed obvious clues about the planned hijacking, Berger went to the National Archives in July, September and October of 2003, and reviewed classified documents that were coming to the attention of the 9-11 Commission.

On September 2, 2003, and again on October 2nd, Berger stuffed a total of five classified documents from the Archives in his pants and socks and walked out with them.  An employee who saw Berger stuffing the docs into his pants reported this to his supervisors, but no one on the staff was willing to confront the politically-connected Berger.

It's worth noting here that as National Security Advisor to the president, Berger had a security clearance and was quite familiar with the laws and rules regarding classified documents.  He clearly knew stealing them was against the law--which is why he hid the docs in his pants and socks.  Duh.

Soon after the October visit, employees at the Archives confirmed that documents were missing and  contacted Berger.  Initially Berger denied taking the documents but later told Archives staff he had “accidentally misfiled” two of them. [1]

This, of course, was a brazen lie.  But remember that the guy worked for the perjurer-in-chief, William Jefferson Clinton, so the brazen lie is less surprising.

Four years later here's how the Democrat-loving WaPo summarized the Berger case:
Berger Case Still Roils Archives, Justice Dept.
   By R. Jeffrey Smith
   Washington Post, Wednesday, February 21, 2007

[In 2004 the inspector general of the National Archives and Records Administration, Paul Brachfeld, met with a group of investigators and FBI agents to discuss] Brachfeld's contention that President Clinton's former national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger could have stolen original, uncatalogued, highly classified terrorism documents 14 months earlier by wrapping them around his socks and beneath his pants, as National Archives staff member John Laster reported witnessing.

Brachfeld said he was worried that during four visits in 2002 and 2003, Berger had the opportunity to remove more than the five documents he admitted taking.
So the IG is "worried" that Berger might have removed more than the five docs he admitted taking.  Keep this in mind and we'll see if anyone actually follows up on this possibility. 
Brachfeld wanted the Justice Department to notify officials of the 9/11 Commission that Berger's actions -- in combination with a bungled Archives response -- might have obstructed the commission's review of Clinton's terrorism policies.

The Justice Department spurned the advice, and some of Brachfeld's colleagues at the Archives greeted his warnings with accusations of disloyalty. But more than three years later, as Brachfeld and House lawmakers have pushed new details about Berger's actions onto the public record -- such as Berger's use of a construction site near the Archives to temporarily hide some of the classified documents -- Brachfeld's contentions have attracted fresh support.

A report last month by the Republican staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said for the first time that Berger's visits were so badly mishandled that Archives officials had acknowledged not knowing if he removed anything else and destroyed it. The committee further argued that the 9/11 Commission should have been told more about Berger and about Brachfeld's concerns, a suggestion that resonated with Philip Zelikow, the commission's former executive director.

Zelikow said in an interview last week that "I think all of my colleagues would have wanted to have all the information at the time that we learned from the congressional report, because that would have triggered some additional questions, including questions we could have posed to Berger under oath."

The commission's former general counsel, Dan Marcus, expressed surprise at how little the Justice Department told the commission about Berger and said it was "a little unnerving" to learn from the congressional report exactly what Berger reviewed at the Archives and what he admitted to the FBI -- including that he removed and cut up three copies of a classified memo.

"If he took papers out, these were unique records, and highly, highly classified. Had a document not been produced, who would have known?" Brachfeld said in an interview. "I thought [the 9/11 Commission] should know, in current time -- in judging Sandy Berger as a witness . . . that there was a risk they did not get the full production of records."

In an April 1, 2005, press conference and private statements to the commission, the Justice Department stated instead that Berger had access only to copied documents, not originals. They also said the sole documents Berger admitted taking -- five copies of a 2001 terrorism study -- were later provided to the commission.

Those assertions conflicted with a September 2004 statement to Brachfeld by Nancy Kegan Smith, who directs the Archives' presidential documents staff and let Berger view the documents in her office in violation of secrecy rules.
Why would Smith have broken secrecy rules to let Berger view the classified documents?  Can you say "inside job"? 

But of course everyone knows that rules are only to apply to Little People, right?  Never to Bill, Hill or their staff.
Smith said "she would never know what if any original documents were missing," Brachfeld reported in an internal memo.
This implies that no one at the archives had an inventory of the docs they possessed.  Does anyone think that's remotely plausible?  Archives have inventory lists.  But claiming she couldn't know if any original documents were missing, the director closes off any inquiry into what other docs Berger might have stolen.  Good move if you're trying to sweep the theft under the rug.

In a letter to House lawmakers, Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling did not address the issue of why the department told the commission so little. But Hertling wrote that in numerous interviews, "neither Mr. Berger nor any other witness provided the Department with evidence that Mr. Berger had taken any documents beyond the five."
Again this suggests an inside job, working to close off any inquiry into other documents.

Hertling said the department "stands by its investigation" and believes the guilty plea it negotiated with Berger on April 1, 2005, "was the best one possible in light of the available evidence." He also criticized the Archives staff for failing at the time to confront Berger, search him or contact security officials, saying this failure "had to be weighed against the evidence."

[The IG] has also expressed frustration that Smith and others who suspected Berger of wrongdoing chose not to inform him of their suspicions until more than a week after Berger's last visit to the Archives. "If I had been notified, I would have put cameras in the room. I would have caught him leaving with documents on him. . . . We could have had FBI agents around the facility. . . . He would have been arrested," Brachfeld said.
If the perp had been a Republican do ya think the WaPo writer would have used the gentle euphemism "wrongdoing" instead of "stealing secret documents"?

Brachfeld pressed Justice Department officials on six occasions in 2004 to make a fuller statement to the commission about Berger's actions, to no avail. He also contacted Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, who organized an April 2004 meeting between Brachfeld and Justice officials that convinced him that "these issues had to go before the 9/11 Commission," according to two people present.

But in a notification to the commission the following month, the ["Justice"] department did not mention that Berger had cut up documents, that he reviewed uncatalogued originals or that Brachfeld worried that Berger's theft was greater.
Again, trying to minimize the crime.  Why?

In the Hertling letter, the department noted obstacles in its investigation. The FBI was not advised of the case until Oct. 15, 2003, almost two weeks after Smith concluded that Berger had stolen documents. By then, Archives General Counsel Gary Stern had called Berger and former Clinton lawyer Bruce Lindsey about it and obtained two documents from Berger, who surrendered them at home after first denying they were in his possession.
But you can totally trust him to tell the truth about everything else.  Because he's a liberal Democrat and a good friend of the former president.  Who was famous for telling the truth.

The letter also said that six months after beginning the probe and well after Berger testified to the commission, "the Department had not yet asked Mr. Berger any questions, as he had not yet agreed to an interview."
One first thinks this must be a joke:  How in hell can anyone who isn't corrupt NOT EVEN INTERVIEW this slimy snake lyin' rat bastard Berger for over six months?  Give Berger and his legal team lots of time to work out possible cover stories.
Berger's lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said Berger first spoke to the FBI in March 2005 and was interviewed a second time in July of that year, after his April 1, 2005, guilty plea to unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.
Again, this seems so astonishingly unusual that it's really hard to believe.  The former National Security Advisor steals classified documents, lies about it, and yet his own attorney says the first time the FBI even spoke to Berger about the crime was eighteen months after the theft?  WTF?

Breuer... criticized the renewed attention to Berger's case.  "It never ceases to amaze me how the most trivial things can be politicized. It is the height of unfairness . . . for this poor guy, who clearly made a mistake," Breuer said.
Ah.  "A mistake."

The guy stuffs secret documents in his pants and socks and walks out with 'em by mistake?  No way, asshole.  This was in no way a mistake.  In fact, the brazenness and presumably high risk suggests two things:  Desperation to remove something from the record, and that Berger knew that if he got caught, the fix would be in to get him off the hook.

Again, it's not like Berger was unfamiliar with classified docs and the rules surrounding 'em.  I mean, he was the damn national security advisor, f'r heaven's sake. 

If you or I or Joe the plumber had done this we'd be in prison.  By contrast--huge contrast--Berger was sentenced to just two years probation, fined $50,000 and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.

The Justice Department seems to have covered for Berger at every turn, despite a clear record that Berger initially lied about stealing the documents.

As far as I know, no one has ever asked Berger why he stole these particular documents--let alone asked him under oath, in a setting where he would face cross-examination. 

This is a huge omission--one so glaring that it seems to point to a coverup.  The reason is that nothing in the printed version of the documents he admitted taking reflects badly on Berger--which makes it hugely unlikely that he stole the documents on his own initiative

If the docs didn't have damaging info about Berger, why would he steal them?

This apparent lack of motive has led some to speculate that the purpose of the theft was to destroy documents that had hand-written comments on them--possibly information about Clinton administration acts or omissions that the former president didn't want the 9-11 Commission or the public to see.  And of course it's also possible that since the Archives director claimed not to know what docs they had, Berger could have stolen other, original documents which might have contained...well, anything.  But since the corrupt FBI and Justice departments never interviewed him for 18 months, we'll never know.

But definitely a coverup.

Now ponder this:  If the Democrats had enough of their people in the Justice Department--during a Republican administration--to block the Berger investigation so he got off with probation, one can easily imagine they have far more power today, under the emperor's thoroughly corrupt regime.  In which case Hillary wouldn't have worried for a moment when ordering her lackeys to erase her emails, despite this being a clear and obvious violation of the law.

She knew she could trust her people in Justice to slow-walk or otherwise bungle any investigation.  She knew she had nothing to worry about.

Because laws are for Little People, not for elites like Hillary and Bill.  And of course the emperor.

March 28, 2015

NY Times: Nuke agreement with Iran may not even be written, may not specify numbers

For over a year Team Obama has been "negotiating" with Iran about their nuclear program.  Two supposed "deadlines" have come and gone without a deal being reached, but the Democrats smile, shrug it off and ask if we can start negotiating again--a move that tells everyone with a brain how eager they are to make a deal.  Any kind of deal.

In theory the Iranians should be the ones pressing for a deal, because their goal is to win the complete removal of all the economic sanctions carefully instituted by the West--penalties put in place precisely because Iran was running a nuclear program that had bomb-making potential.

But the side that's showing irrational eagerness for a deal is Obama's team.  And they're so eager that administration sources are now saying that this elusive but oh-so-critical "deal" may not even mention any specific numbers, or even produce anything in writing!

Of course you think I'm kidding, because how could any rational person believe a deal is worth a damn if it doesn't have specific, written terms?  But such is delusion under which Obama and company have been operating for the guy's whole time in office.

For liberals, here's how the Obama-loving N.Y. Times reports it:
In Nuclear Talks, Iran Seeks to Avoid Specifics
     NY Times, March 24, 2015 
If an agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear capability is reached by the deadline seven days from now, one thing may be missing: an actual written accord, signed by the Iranians.

Recently Iran has increasingly resisted any kind of formal “framework” agreement at this stage in the negotiations, preferring a more general statement of “understanding” followed by a final accord in June.....

If so the U.S. and its partners may find themselves in the uncomfortable position of describing the accord as they understand it while the Iranians go home to offer their own version.

That poses a political challenge to the Obama administration, which is under pressure to present Iran’s commitments to a suspicious Congress by early April, in an effort to hold off the passage of sanctions or a bill that would require Congress to sign off on any agreement.

Just last week a senior American official involved in the negotiations said that the framework accord with Iran would have to be more than a declaration of intentions. Rather, it would have to contain a “quantifiable dimension.”

There is a lot to quantify, from the number of uranium-enriching centrifuges that would remain spinning to exactly how Iran would change the design of a reactor that is under construction to limit the production of plutonium, another pathway to a bomb. But Iran says it will not agree to such specifics, at least for now.

[A big problem is that] Republicans in Congress, along with a significant number of Democrats, took the March deadline for an agreement--announced by Mr. Kerry last November--as a [deadline].  If the Iranians would not provide specifics by then, many in Congress told the White House, it was a sign that Iran was deliberately dragging out the process and needed to be further pressured by new sanctions.

But Iran’s politics are running in the opposite direction. The country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has declared that he wants only one agreement, presumably the one in late June.

Iran’s top negotiator, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, has made it clear to his Western counterparts that keeping hard-liners in the country in check — including generals in the Revolutionary Guard Corps and powerful mullahs who dislike the idea of being limited by any accord — is a delicate art. His fear is that a deal that details Iranian compromises could give them an opening to scuttle a final deal.

Asked about the problem, an American official conceded that it was still unclear whether Iran would sign anything by next Tuesday. The official said that the United States and its allies would be “making clear with as much specificity as possible what’s been agreed to.” But the official said that “beyond that, we really have no idea,” and that much would be left to the technical annexes.

A senior administration official who was in Lausanne for the talks last week told reporters there that the United States still hoped to agree on specific limits by the end of March that define the parameters of a more detailed, comprehensive agreement that is scheduled to be completed by the end of June.

That is essentially what Mr. Kerry had envisioned last November — a two-step process that would demonstrate concrete progress to Congress and keep the process with the Iranians moving. At the time, the Iranian negotiators seemed on board.

But in early February, Ayatollah Khamenei, who has taken his own negotiators by surprise several times, said there would be only one agreement. That left the U.S. and its allies in an uncomfortable place. What was the March deadline all about if it was no longer a deadline in the Ayatollah’s eyes?

The American answer has been to plunge ahead. “I don’t see how [an agreement] could be meaningful without having some quantitative dimensions,” said the official, who could not be identified under the protocol for briefing reporters. “Otherwise, it’s not an executable program.”
If you're under 30 or so and not a political junkie you need to know that the emperor's aides routinely use the Lying Media to carefully, incrementally reveal things to the public that would be jarring or unfavorable to the emperor.  By leaking such things through anonymous "officials" weeks or months ahead of time, then when the same highly unfavorable or shocking terms are "discovered" by critics after the deal is done, the media can dismiss the revelations by claiming they're "old news."

As one of the emperor's henchmen put it on a Sunday talk show when asked if he'd changed a memo about the attack in Benghazi: "Dude, that was two years ago!"

Short answer: Obama will announce a faabulous deal with the Iranians that will absolutely, positively prevent them from getting an atomic bomb for a whole year.

    Q:  How will it do that?

    A:  Sorry, we can't reveal that.

    Q:  Well what does the agreement actually say?

    A:  Um, it's not written.

    Q:  What?? How can you have an agreement about something so lethal without it being written?

    A:  Because great leaders like our president and Iran's Supreme Ayatollah trust each other. 

    Q:  Wait, the Iranians supplied weapons to Iraqi hard-liners to kill Americans.  How can you trust them to honor an agreement--especially if it's not written?

    A:  You wouldn't ask that when Booosh was president.  You must be a raaaacist.

Just watch--when the agreement is announced, the Times and the WaPo and all the other major papers will minimize the significance of any of what they'll call "potentially troublesome details" in what will be described as a "framework agreement."  Oh they'll mention 'em, but the spin will be that any such nagging questions--raised nearly exclusively by "Republicans in congress" ("and a handful of  mostly southern Democrats"--nudge nudge, wink wink) will be, like, totally resolved in the final agreement at the end of June.

The rest of the spin will be that the U.S. would have been able to negotiate a much stronger, better agreement, but opposition and criticism of Obama by Republicans in congress limited the administration's flexibility.  So if this whole deal turns to shit, remember it's the Republicans' fault.

Meanwhile Obama will have removed the remaining sanctions--thus removing any incentive the Iranians had to make any real concessions.

But LOOK!  We have an Agreement!  All hail our faabulous emperor!  No one else could have done such a faabulous thing!  Peace!

March 27, 2015

Goofy college newspaper editorial board says guns wouldn't reduce rape

I rarely post about breathless pronouncements by college students and/or their propaganda organs (amusingly called "newspapers") because one expects goofy acts and declarations from people who have virtually zero real-world experience. 

I'm not saying they're stupid--hell, I was the same way at that age.  It's just that without experience it's hard to make causal connections about complex systems.  Again, totally understandable.

With that said:  Agreeing that rape was a problem, students at the U of North Carolina decided that a great tool to reduce the incidence would be to allow students to carry a handgun.

Hard to argue with that one.  Plug a few attackers and the rest quickly decide there are better ways to spend their time.

Of course the idea of armed, law-abiding citizens is totally repugnant to liberal/"progressive" thinkers, so the editors of student newspaper have now come down against the idea of concealed-carry to reduce rape.  And their stated reason? 

"Guns would not address the causes of sexual assault,” the editorial board wrote.  “Worse, they could reinforce rape culture because the burden of stopping assault would be further placed upon women.”

Didja get that?  "We no let wimmens have guns cuz guns not address causes of assault."

Wow, there's some real high-grade looney-left logic for ya.  Notice what they *don't* say:  They don't deny concealed-carry would reduce the incidence of assault--because the layman would instantly recognize that as utter crap.  So instead they proceed to set up a strawman: Guns wouldn't "address" (interesting leftist word dodge there) the cause of assault, so they're a bad idea.

Uh-huh.

Not only that, guns "could" "reinforce rape culture."  Really?  The editors explain that this astonishing twist would--excuse me, could--happen "because the burden of stopping assault would further be placed on women."  They don't tell you how that would occur but gee, it sounds so marvelously cryptic and vague that it just has to be true.

Okay, I know, not fair to make 22-year-olds defend their illogical statements.  Sorry.

Dem congresswhore prints up "I've gotten amnesty, you can't arrest me" cards for illegals

Wanna see how the Left is winning?  It's by slimy shits like the guy in the vid below--Luis Gutierrez, a congresswhore from Illinois (land of Obama and Shitcago).

Guteirrez has printed up cards that he'll give to illegals--specifically illegals that your emperor has illegally amnestied via programs cleverly acronymed "DACA" and "DAPA."

Points if any of you know what either of those terms means.

The "progressives" and Democrats give those imperial decrees acronyms so you can't tell what they really do--unless you're a political junkie.

Of course the Dems and progs know.  And to our outrage and dismay, so do we political junkies.  Which means we know how utterly illegal they are.

You almost certainly don't know.  Of course that's not your fault:  You're busy making a living and raising your kids.  You depend on the media to tell you whether something is a rape of the Constitution.  It's understandable: You don't have time to do all you do and *also* know the details of every piece of imperial-decree bullshit.

And of course the Lying Media tell you jack-shit about what stuff like this means or does. 

Oh, they'll tell you about 'poor little tykes from Mexico or Central America who are just coming to the U.S. to get away from'...fill in the blank with whatever horror story the reporter gloms onto. 

The horror stories are horrible, and interchangeable.  The editors and reporters believe we should offer U.S. citizenship to everyone around the world who's seeking a better life.  Ask these exalted, elite reporters and editors where they would draw the line at this and you get a blank stare:  If they've thought about it at all they're on the side of the illegals.  As far as they're concerned, all that matters is the right feelings, the right politics.  Consequences?  If there are any, someone else can deal with 'em.

Okay, scoring time: DACA is "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals."  Meaning--as the emperor has decreed it--that any kid brought into the U.S. by his/her parents can stay--can't be deported.

See, the tykes had no say in the matter.  So it would be just terribly cruel to deport 'em.  Cuz, you know....

Now: DAPA is "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans."

See how neatly they did that trick?  No?  But how could you?  The program has been cleverly--cunningly--misnamed to specifically to prevent you from knowing what it does.  Which is, it allows the parents of the kids amnestied under DACA to stay in the U.S. too.

See, you thought "Parents of Americans" meant parents of legal citizens, right?  But if you look at the wording of the decree, it's the parents who illegally entered with their kids...who are now, by the first imperial decree, "legal" Americans.

Of course they named it "DAPA" because they wanted you to think that it was innocuous.  And given the carefully misleading name, who can blame you for thinking that? 

And that's totally not your fault.  If someone re-labels black as white, and you naively think black still means...well, black...is that your mistake?  Hardly.  Instead it's the calculated result of deliberate acts by the people who intentionally mis-labeled A as B--cunningly abetted by a Lying Media who carefully did NOT tell you they did that.

So...here's Gutierrez:


Watch the face.  Note well the expression.  What do you see?

March 25, 2015

Iran: No surprise inspections of our nuclear facilities. But trust us, it's all for peaceful purposes!

As some of you may have heard, Iran has been "enriching" uranium for several years now.  That action is the only hard part of building an atomic bomb.

Of course the Iranians smilingly deny they're trying to build a bomb, instead claiming they're just enriching uranium for research and "peaceful purposes."

Here's a hint:  You don't need 6,000 uranium-gas centrifuges to make a few grams for research.  But then almost no lay-person knows anything about nuclear weapons, so what should be an obvious, glaring inconsistency in the mullahs' fable passes without comment by the Lying Media.

Why would the media cover for Iran's efforts to build a bomb?  Well for one thing, for the last two years or so the emperor's munchkins have been "negotiating" with the mullahs on a Faabulous Agreement on Iran's nuclear program.

Isn't that wonderful?  An Agreement!  And not just an ordinary agreement, but a Faabulous Agreement--because it will have been negotiated by The One, the faabulous Emperor Barack, the only editor of the Harvard Law Review not to publish a single article in that journal.  The man who's so smart he doesn't need to obey the Constitution.  But I digress...

The Agreement:  It's faabulous--trust us, because we aren't gonna tell you what our goals are, or what the current draft of the Agreement actually says because...well, it's got lots of technical terms in it so you wouldn't understand it.

But one little detail was revealed by The Associated Press...um...yesterday.

If, as the mullahs claim, their nuclear program is peaceful, you'd think they wouldn't have any problems letting a neutral outfit like the U.N's International Atomic Energy Agency inspect their facilities without advance notice.  Since, you know, they wouldn't have anything to hide, right?  And indeed, last year Iran's nuclear spokesman said his country might accept so-called "snap inspections" as part of a final nuclear agreement.

But of course that gem was designed to encourage the Emperor's peeps to drag the talks on longer and longer--in fact past two earlier supposed "deadlines."

And it worked.

But looks like the mullahs' real position just got revealed:  From the AP:
An Iranian official on Tuesday rebuked the chief of the U.N. atomic agency for demanding snap inspections of Iran's nuclear sites, saying the request hindered efforts to reach an agreement with world powers....

Earlier this month the head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, said Tehran should agree to snap inspections to reassure the international community.

Iran's nuclear spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi commented, "It would be much better if Amano only talked about the IAEA's seasonal and monthly reports," according to Iran's state TV channel.

Last June, Kamalvandi said Iran may accept snap inspections as part of a final nuclear agreement.
There's the clear truth revealed:  Last June snap inspections were a maybe.  Now, the idea prompts a really scathing rebuke from the Iranians ("better to only talk about your agency's monthly reports").

Wow, is the cat out of the bag?  Did the AP's top editors just drop off the White Hut's guest list?

Not to worry, citizen:  Just because the AP put the piece on the wire doesn't mean any American paper will print it, nor any network newsreader broadcast it.  No one will ever see it except a handful of people--literally only a couple of hundred in the whole country--who are looking for it.

As far as most Americans are concerned it never happened.  Which means the emperor's march to sign the Faabulous Agreement can continue unhindered.

Cuz after all, who cares if the mullahs get an atomic bomb?  Well, maybe Israel, but that's not the emperor's concern.  In fact, the emperor's people are whispering that Israel's prime minister deserves some payback for his temerity in speaking before the U.S. congress without asking the emperor's permission first.  It's almost like they're calling Netanyahu "uppity."

Oh wait, that was what a liberal writer for New Yorker Magazine called conservative Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz.  Oh, okay then.

Hey, did you hear our emperor made his picks for the NCAA basketball tournament?

March 23, 2015

U.S. leftists back Palestinian state

A U.S. liberal writer and professor has proposed a way to solve the major problem burdening the Middle East:  He proposes denying U.S. visas to residents of certain countries.

Of course the people he wants to deny visas to are residents of...Israel.

He proposed this because he's furious at the results of the Israeli elections, which resulted in a majority for Netanyahu's party.  And why does he hate that?   Because Netanyahu opposes giving Palestinians their own state.

Peter Beinart wants the U.S. to ramp up pressure on Israel to give the Palestinians a state--and he's willing to use a wide array of means to achieve this.
"Our principle should be this: Support any pressure that is nonviolent and consistent with Israels right to exist. That means backing Palestinian bids at the United Nations. It means labeling and boycotting settlement goods. It means joining and amplifying nonviolent Palestinian protest in the West Bank. It means denying visas to, and freezing the assets of, Naftali Bennett and other pro-settler leaders. It means pushing the Obama administration to present out its own peace plan, and to punish yes, punish the Israeli government for rejecting it. It means making sure that every time Benjamin Netanyahu and the members of his cabinet walk into a Jewish event outside Israel, they see Diaspora Jews protesting outside. It means loving Israel more than ever, and opposing its government more than ever. It means accepting that, for now at least, the peace process is over and the pressure process must begin."
Of course if giving the Palestinians a state results in the destruction of Israeli democracy, U.S. leftists, "progressives" and Democrats will loudly deny they had a thing to do with it.

They'll claim Israel's destruction was inevitable, "because we waited too long to give them their own state.  If only you Rethuglicans had taken our advice years ago the destruction of Israel could have been avoided.  But you didn't listen."

They'll deny they ever suggested a Palestinian state.  If confronted with their written words they'll claim they were misquoted.  Framed.  Show 'em video clips of them making the proposals?  Same response.  "Video can be faked."   And "It's all part of a vast, right-wing conspiracy to make those of us who are more sophisticated, more nuanced, look bad."

"I didn't draw a red line--the world drew it." Sound familiar?

People like Peter Beinart and Obama are never held to account for the results of their policies, in part because most of the time reality moves slowly enough that by the time things blow up, people have forgotten who proposed and implemented the policies and programs that blew up.

The other reason is that the organizations that could educate the public about dumb policies--the media--will always circle the wagons around liberal/Democrat/"progressive" pols. 

So we repeat the same blunders again and again.

Of course, "At this point, what difference could it possibly make?"  (Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, on the killing of four Americans in an attack in Benghazi)

March 22, 2015

Obama complains about president not going thru congress? Oh, he was talking about previous president

Who said this:
I take the Constitution very seriously.  The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all.

And that is what I intend to reverse when I become president of the United States.
The speaker, of course, was the emperor, B.H. Obama, during a campaign rally on March 31, 2008. 

Consistency:  You don't need it to be emperor.

March 21, 2015

A murder in Philadelphia

In Philadelphia two 15-year-olds and a 14-year-old shot a 51-year-old married father to death as he begged for his life.  The man was walking his dog when he was accosted and murdered.

Let's freeze it right there for a moment.

Philadelphia.  Three teenagers.  Murder for no apparent reason.  Those are the only clues you'll get.

Now guess the races of the victim and the killers.

Admit it: You knew, didn't you?  From the first sentence.

Okay, here's the victim, James Stuhlman:

And now two of the teens who participated in his murder.  (The third--the shooter--is still at large.)



If you don't believe monsters are among us...wait, what am I saying??  These will inevitably be described as innocent, "good" boys who just happened to fall in with the wrong crowd.  They undoubtedly volunteered for "Meals on Wheels" and wanted to be doctors and....

Uh-huh.  Right.

Would anyone like to bet on whether these li'l angels were raised by single moms?  Is it hard to raise a kid as a single mom?  Absolutely.  And with all the hate-whitey bullshit deliberately taught in the black community, is it even harder to raise a black kid to not kill any white person they see?  You bet.

Of course to black racists ALL whites should be killed.  So there.

Rest in peace, James Stuhlman.  You were killed--and your kids are now fatherless--because of your race, period.  The demon that shot you would have killed any other white person just as readily.

Of course this wasn't a hate crime.  Ask the media.  Ask Obama.  They'll tell you: Only whites can commit hate crimes.  No hate crime here.  Cuz dem kids black.

Spare me.

Spare James Stuhlman.

But of course, they didn't.

March 20, 2015

"Scholastic Children's Press" publishes book of North Korean propaganda ?

A post at the Federalist:
While browsing at Barnes & Noble a woman noticed a new book in the section on children’s guides to foreign countries.  It was titled “A True Book About North Korea” by "Scholastic Children’s Press."

Could the children’s book company actually have tried explaining gulags or slave labor to children?  How about a society that starves its people while lavishing luxury goods on its ruler?
Of course the book explained none of these things. Instead it was as if Kim Jong-un himself had written a guide to his kingdom. 

The back cover reads: “The capital city has an excellent subway system. It is decorated with wall paintings and chandeliers.”  In fact only two subway stations seem to meet this description--the only two stations foreigners ever see. North Korean officials claim the whole system looks like this, but it’s impossible to know if any other stations even exist.

One foreign visitor was able to escape his minders and tried to make his way to a station off-limits to visitors.  It was closed.  Some North-Korea-watchers believe parts of the system exist but none are in use--that there's just a shuttle running between the two show stations when visitors are present, with actors playing the part of busy commuters.
Another talking point revolves around the devastating famine of the mid-1990s and how it impacted the people. Scholastic, like North Korean propagandists, claims, “Unfortunately, juche (self-reliance) has not always worked. In the mid-1990s, floods and drought led to terrible famines. Many people died or lost their homes. Today, North Korea is a poor country.”
Juche has never worked. North Korea has relied on foreign aid from its inception. Since the fall of the Soviet Union it has held the Western world hostage with threats of nuclear advancement and war in exchange for food. The famines of the ’90s, which killed one to two million people, were not due to natural causes. They were directly caused by the policies of North Korean leaders.

The abject poverty in which most North Koreans live isn’t due to drought, floods or American sanctions (as North Koreans claim). It’s Communism. At the end of the Korean War, both the North and the South were in rough shape. Today, they could not be more different. The change took place in just one generation: the South embraced market economics and made great strides in increasing individual liberty for its citizens. The North did the very opposite, and got opposite results.
 
Scholastic claims Pyongyang is filled with modern apartment buildings and architecture.  In truth, many buildings are simply unfinished outer shells. One of the most iconic buildings, a hotel in the center of the city, cannot be completed because of what is believed to have been flawed architectural planning. The windows can’t have glass installed because of poor design, and an elevator cannot be installed for the same reason. It was under construction while North Koreans starved in the 1990s. 
 
Now it sits empty.

There are several other laugh lines, including: “North Korea puts great emphasis on education. All schooling is free."  While schooling is technically free, it’s widely known from defector testimony and interviews that parents are “expected to provide desks, chairs, building materials and cash to pay for heating fuel.” One of the most disturbing reports is that, to set the foundation for the brainwashing that will continue throughout a North Korean’s life, the only heated room in an entire school is a room dedicated to worshiping the Kim family. Thus the only warmth a child feels all day is while admiring a photo of their Great Leaders.
Here’s another gem: “North Koreans shop mostly in simple stores that sell local products. They buy fruits and vegetables at outdoor markets. To purchase food, people must present food coupons. These are handed out by the government.”
The truth is, as in other Communist countries, the food voucher system sounds great in theory but fails in practice. There are usually not enough fruits or vegetables to go around, making government food coupons useless, leaving North Koreans with cash reliant on the black market for food.
I think I'll hit B&N's website and see.  And then Scholastic's.  Doesn't surprise me a bit that the published of "educational" childrens' books would put out pro-communist propaganda like this.  Is anyone else surprised?

House committee passes budget; Democrat-fellating media twist story to "failure" to do same, warn of "cataclysm" for GOP

Thursday morning the House Budget Committee did what it was supposed to do:  It voted to send a budget to the full House for a vote.

Twenty years ago this would have been a story right up there with "Scientists announce sun will rise tomorrow."  But for the Democrat-sucking press, it's a breathless drama filled with "embarrassing episodes" and the prospect of "cataclysm" for Republicans if they "fail to pass a budget."

Naturally you think I'm being facetious, but the skilled propagandists at Politico have indeed written just such a piece.

The last 'graf starts,
Failing to pass a budget would be cataclysmic for Republicans, and would prove once again that they have difficulty with some of the basic functions of governing. 
Ah, now it all makes sense:  They're laying the groundwork for "Republicans can't rein in their own extremist members, so they can't get anything done!  Which just proves (once again, if you caught that little zinger) that they're unfit to govern!"

Yes, yes, we see now.  And after all, back when the senate was Democrat-controlled, Politico--like all media outlets--wrote dozens of similar stories critical of the Democrats after senate Democrat Harry Reid, leader of the then-Democrat-ruled senate, failed to even bring up a budget for a vote for four consecutive years.

Just kidding--not about Reid's actions but about the Democrat-run media--which never criticized Reid and his fellow Democrats for brazenly blowing off a responsibility levied by the Constitution--and not just once but four years in a row.

One wonders how Reid managed to avoid impeachment for this dereliction of duty.

If any reporter bothered to ask Reid why he didn't bring a budget up for a single vote during this time, as far as I can determine the answer was never printed or broadcast.  But now, mere minutes after the House passed a normal budget, Democrat support machine Politico has published a breathless warning that Repubs are on the verge of "failing to pass a budget," showing "once again that they have difficulty with some of the basic functions of governing."

There's something else curious about the piece:  It's datelined "3/19/15 6:44 AM EDT."  The 19th was Thursday, and according to the story the vote was that morning.  But for the dateline to be accurate the vote would have had to be taken at six a.m. or so to give the two hack authors time to file the piece.  If the committee convenes at 5:30 a.m. I'm impressed with the work ethic of the Republicans running that committee.

If this is "having difficulty with some of the basic functions of governing" I like it. 

Hillary's hand-picked "Accountability Review Board" on Benghazi didn't review a single email from her as SecState !

For two years Hillary and her supporters have claimed that a thorough and comprehensive review of the Benghazi attack had been conducted by her hand-selected "Accountability Review Board."

She and they continued to claim this even after a House Oversight Committee investigation showed that the Review Board was “a charade” from the beginning. Thomas Pickering--who headed the so-called investigation--may claim that it was no whitewash, but he and his panel apparently never asked to see even one e-mail to or from Mrs. Clinton during their so-called "investigation."  Indeed, their report gives no hint that they knew that the then-Secretary of State didn't have or use a government email account.

In other words there's no indication that anyone on the "Review Board" knew that Hillary conducted all her official State Department business using her private email account, on a non-government server outside State Department offices, and didn’t use the State Department's e-mail at all. 

Now the chair of the House Select Committee on Benghazi has issued subpoenas for the e-mails of a number of aides to Mrs. Clinton.  

If one was investigating what seems to have been a massive failure at State, reviewing all emails to and from the Secretary and top aides be a fundamental, logical step.  Hillary wasn't having any of that, which is why she selected Pickering:  She could count on him not to investigate--indeed, could count on the official "investigation" not even to mention--her emails.

The subpoenas will of course be ignored.  Holder ignored 'em, Lois Lerner ignored 'em, the State Department initially ignored 'em until whistleblowers inside that thoroughly corrupt cesspool made it clear to the House committee exactly who was lying about emails.

Hey, is anyone surprised.  It's what happens when the president and his hand-picked attorney-general are determined to only obey laws they happen to like.

Nixon was a choir-boy by comparison.

For those who missed it, the House Oversight Committee grilled the two co-chairs of the board--Pickering and a curiously slippery character by the name of Mike Mullen, on the details of how the board worked and how it arrived at its report.  The testimony revealed--well, a total charade, with Hillary getting a draft and Mullen tipping off insiders about a "problematic" witness.  Here's Ed Morrissey on their testimony:

The co-chair of the Accountability Review Board assured CBS News’ Sharyl Attkisson that the report on the Benghazi attack was not a whitewash for Hillary Clinton.  However, neither Thomas Pickering nor co-chair Mike Mullen bothered to interview Mrs. Clinton about security failures surrounding the attack on the consulate. 

Co-chair Admiral Mike Mullen even advised Clinton on her own testimony to Congress — while he was supposedly chairing a totally impartial, thorough investigation.

But hey, other than that, the ARB was totally independent, right?

To anyone paying attention, the hearing utterly destroyed the Board’s credibility.  Among the revelations:
*Mrs. Clinton handpicked the two leaders of the ARB who were given the job of investigating her department.
*At Mrs. Clinton's request Cheryl Mills, Clinton's official chief of staff at State, called both Pickering and Mullen to ask them to serve.  Mills was briefed regularly on the investigation as it proceeded and got a draft copy of the report before it was finalized.
*Mullen--co-chair of the Board--testified that he called top Clinton aide Cheryl Mills to warn her that the impending appearance of Charlene Lamb before Congress would be problematic for the State Department.  Lamb had "done poorly" in her interview with the ARB, Mullen said, and he called Mills because he was worried that a similar performance before Congress would cause problems for the State Department and its leadership.
Is that what an “independent” investigation does — warn its subjects about testimony in advance so they can prepare a rebuttal/response?  And do they water down a report when the subjects demand it?  Apparently so. But remember, it’s not a whitewash!
*The chairman of the panel acknowledged at least one instance in which language in the report was softened after an early draft was sent to Clinton and her top aides. “The draft, as I believe it went to her, said the security posture was grossly inadequate for Benghazi, period. And we made the editorial correction recognizing that there was certainly a very real point that ‘grossly’ was probably not applicable...”
The consulate was sacked, the ambassador assassinated, and three other Americans got killed trying to defend a retreat from it, all after State decided to rely on local militia for security and failed to recognize the danger that prompted all our allies to flee the city earlier.  If that’s not “grossly inadequate" the phrase has no meaning at all. 

But it’s not a whitewash!

As for Mullen’s declaration that the “physics” of a military response prevented the DoD from defending Americans during the attack, the process of making that determination skipped quite a few people in position to know:
*The ARB did not speak with nine key military officials on the ground in Libya or Germany who were deeply involved in the US response to the attacks. Among those who was never interviewed: Lt. Colonel Steven Gibson, who was on the ground in Tripoli and whom State Department official Greg Hicks has testified was on the receiving end of the “stand-down” order that Obama officials have repeatedly disclaimed.
But remember, it’s not a whitewash!

H/T Hot Air.

AP article shows Team Obama quietly changed policy, will now accept Iran getting atomic bomb

Wanna know what's happening with the emperor's canny "negotiations" with Iran about the latter's effort to build an atomic bomb?

Here's how the semi-official, Obozo-fellating Associated Press spins it:
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The United States and Iran are drafting elements of a nuclear deal that commits Tehran to a 40 percent cut in the number of machines it could use to make an atomic bomb, officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. In return, the Iranians would get quick relief from some crippling economic sanctions and a partial lift of a U.N. embargo on conventional arms.
Wow!  Commits 'em.  To a whopping 40 percent CUT in "machines it could use to make an atomic bomb.  How faaaabulous!
The sides are racing to meet a March 31 deadline for a framework pact and a full agreement by the end of June....

Officials said the tentative deal imposes at least a decade of new limits on the number of centrifuges Iran can operate to enrich uranium, a process that can lead to nuclear weapons-grade material. The sides are zeroing in on a cap of 6,000 centrifuges, officials said, down from the 6,500 they spoke of in recent weeks.

That's also fewer than the 10,000 such machines Tehran now runs, yet substantially more than the 500 to 1,500 that Washington originally wanted as a ceiling. Only a year ago, U.S. officials floated 4,000 as a possible compromise.

But U.S. officials insist the focus on centrifuge numbers alone misses the point. Combined with other restrictions on enrichment levels and the types of centrifuges Iran can use, Washington believes it can extend the time Tehran would need to produce a nuclear weapon to at least a year.

Right now, Iran would require only two to three months to amass enough material to make a bomb.
If you're under 30 or a Democrat, this article makes the emperor's lackeys look like the most brilliant negotiators evah!  I mean, could an ordinary president--say, some dumb Rethuglican--have talked the Iranians into agreeing to cut their current 10,000 "machines" (what?) by a whopping 40 percent??  NO WAY, citizen!  You are looking at greatness here!

That is, unless you know jack-shit about nuclear weapons, Obama, Kerry and how eager the Lying Media is to support 'em.  As a trained engineer, with a decade as an Air Force officer and teaching physics and chemistry for 30 years, I'm well acquainted with how nuclear weapons work and what it takes to build one.  And having been a political junkie for 40 years I have some insight on how to spot and read government propaganda.

IF the AP piece is accurate, there are so many holes in the draft agreement that it's useless.  For starters there's no mention of verification provisions.  The Iranians aren't about to agree to any, and Team Obozo won't mention that issue to the AP because it renders any agreement useless, since we can't know if they're adhering to the negotiated limits.

And of course the AP reporter won't ask, because it would reveal how utterly worthless this whole charade is, when the goal is to make it appear just the opposite to voters: brilliant, air-tight, reassuring.

Ronald Reagan famously said "Trust but verify."  Team Obama says "Trust us...cuz we're far more sophisticated and nuanced! than any Republican could ever be!"

Next, look at the line "Washington believes it can extend the time Tehran would need to produce a nuclear weapon to at least a year."  Wait, wasn't the whole point of the exercise to prevent the rag-heads from getting the bomb, period? 

Why yes, it was.  But that's now quietly vanished.  Team Obama has quietly moved the goalposts, conceding the Bomb but crowing that we've extended the time it'll take 'em to get one "by at least a year."  That's an earthshaking shift in strategic goals.  But note how quietly and cleverly it was revealed:  not by a formal announcement in the Rose Garden or the White Hut press room, but by a wire service article attributed to unnamed "officials." 

See how that works?  No questions from the press, no recognition that Obama has accepted an Iranian bomb, just a line in a wire-service piece to show that this has been the policy of the U.S. government since way back in 2015.

Geez, citizen, do try to keep up, would ya?  You must live out in Kansas or some other backwater part of flyover country.  (That's an inside joke: To Washingtonians ALL of flyover country is a backwater.)

You have to read all the way to the last paragraph in the AP propaganda piece to find this gem:
Iran already can produce the equivalent of one weapon's worth of enriched uranium with the centrifuges it now runs.
"One weapon's worth of enriched uranium"...in what length of time?  Without the time frame the statement is meaningless, useless, senseless.  The propaganda writers threw it in to underscore how great the emperor's achievement is:  "LOOK!  Without Dear Leader's faabulous, canny negotiating skills the Iranians would be able to produce a weapon's worth of uranium in [some short but omitted time].  But now it'll be pushed back by [oh, lots of time units]!"  I think the earlier reference was "by at least a year!"

Finally consider this line:
Right now, Iran would require only two to three months to amass enough material to make a bomb.
Now, according to the AP the emperor's minions are "racing" to conclude a (totally illusory) agreement by "the end of June."  It's now March 20th, which leaves 3 months to the alleged "deadline."  Since it's stupid to think the Iranians would cut their enrichment before the agreement was finalized (if ever), then if you accept the line in red above as accurate, they have enough time between now and the date of finalizing the (illusory) agreement to get enough uranium for a bomb.

Again, a quiet, back-door admission that the emperor has moved the goalposts.

Okay, say liberals, if you're so damn smart what would you have done?  I'd have privately announced to the Iranians that their avowed reason for wanting to enrich uranium for scientific experiments was utter horse-shit, and that the west would enforce a limit of ONE centrifuge. And if they refused to allow international inspections of *every* facility, not only would ALL the econonmic sanctions remain in place but the U.S. would take all possible steps to add even more.

You either have a serious goal of stopping a rogue, terror-sponsoring nation from getting the Bomb or you don't.  While one can certainly make the argument that any nation should be allowed to have the Bomb, the Obama regime has never made that argument--because they know that won't sit well with most Americans.

But with the help of clever propagandists, they can quietly present Americans with a fait accompli --after which the whole discussion is moot.  Which of course has always been how Obama has operated.

March 19, 2015

AP: "White House says" taxpayers could save billions in electricity costs by...doing away with coal? More bullshit.

Story today from the Obama-fellating Associated Press:

Obama orders 40 percent cut in government's greenhouse gases

Associated Press, Mar.19, 2015

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama ordered the federal government on Thursday to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases by 40 percent, as the U.S. seeks to spur other nations to get serious about climate change.

Obama's executive order also directs the government to ramp up use of renewable energy sources to 30 percent of the federal government's consumption. The White House said U.S. taxpayers could save up to $18 billion in electricity costs by reducing greenhouse gases 40 percent over the next decade, compared to 2008 levels.
Unlike the emperor's decree--via his corrupt and lawless EPA--ordering tighter emission standards for coal-fired generating plants that has caused over 170 to either already be shut down or be scheduled for closure, Barry does have the legal authority to demand that his government (and it sure as fuck IS his, lock, stock and barrel) cut its emissions of "greenhouse gases."

But with that said, check the last sentence of the AP quote above:  There's no way in hell that "U.S. taxpayers could save up to $18 billion in electricity costs by reducing greenhouse gases 40 percent over the next decade"--unless one defines "could" in the same way as "Tomorrow the earth could fall into the sun!"

That saving claim is pure, unalloyed bullshit for the credulous, low-info voter.  The people who still think Barry occasionally tells the truth about anything.

People who will vote for Hillary Clinton "because she's so honest, and always looking out for people just like me!"  In other word, people too fucking dumb to breathe.

Unless you were trained as an engineer you almost certainly don't know that coal is a very efficient (thus a very low-cost) way to make electricity.  It's so efficient that coal-fired powerplants form what's called the "base-load" of the country--it spins all the time, with more-costly generating methods brought on-line at peak hours of the day.

"Reducing greenhouse gases" means cutting the use of this lowest-cost source of electricity.  Is there anyone out there who doesn't recognize what this must do to the cost of electricity?

Just kidding:  Low-info voters have no idea what that even means.  So let me explain: It means reducing the use of coal will increase the cost of electricity.  Meaning your own precious bill will go...um...which way?

That's right, sparky:  Up.

Which, it should be noted for Hillary fans, is the opposite of "down."  Meaning that instead of Barry's decree saving "taxpayers" "up to $18 billion in electricity costs" you're gonna pay more

Hell, the average electric bill back east has risen a staggering 15% in the last year, since the east was most affected by the last EPA decree.

Interestingly, if you read past the first couple of 'grafs of the AP story you start to notice the weasel-phrases:
Yet it was unclear exactly how either the government or private companies planned to meet those targets.
The U.S. government is responsible for only a small portion of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, but the Obama administration is hoping that taking aggressive steps at home will increase the political pressure on other countries to do the same.
Oh my yes...it's absolutely certain that after Barry gives orders that will increase the electricity bills for voters, other national leaders will be eager to do the same.  Oh, you bet.

Last year Obama set a U.S. goal to cut emissions up to 28 percent by 2025, in a joint announcement with China that boosted hopes that an aggressive climate treaty may come to fruition.

The president hasn't fully explained how he'll meet that goal, but his aides have suggested that unprecedented pollution limits he's imposing on power plants will get the U.S. much of the way there.
"His aides have suggested," huh.  That's the political equivalent of a giant red flag: it keeps the emperor from going on record himself with quite so much utter bullshit that people could point to later as solid evidence that he was lying.  Or ignorant of the facts.

Nah, if one of his staffers realized the emperor didn't know the facts and was about to release a dumbshit, bullshit statement they would have intervened.  Ergo, he did it deliberately.  Like everything else. 

Wheeee!

Facebook rejects Christian ad for violating their advertising guidelines??

A couple of indie film-makers want to make a film about Meriam Ibrahim, a Sudanese woman who refused to recant her Christian faith even after being sentenced to death by Muslim nutters in Sudan because her father was Muslim.  (The koran says kids born to a Muslim father are automatically Muslim, and any muslim who converts to another religion should be executed.)

The nutters were unmoved by the fact that her Muslim baby-daddy left when she was two years old, and that she'd been raised as a Catholic by her mother.

In any case, the production company tried to place a promotional ad on Facebook, asking readers “Are you a Christian?  We challenge you to change your profile picture to this ‘I Am A Christian’ photo for one week! Change your picture and challenge your friends to do the same. Stand up and declare Yes, I Am A Christian!”

The producers say Facebook rejected the ad, with the following message:
“Your ad wasn’t approved because it doesn’t follow our advertising guidelines for language that is profane, vulgar, threatening or generates high negative feedback,” Facebook reportedly wrote to the producers. “Ads can’t use language that insults, harasses or demeans people, or addresses their age, gender, name, race, physical condition or sexual preference.”
If you think Facebook's managers and execs don't hold Christians and Christianity in contempt, you haven't been paying attention.

March 17, 2015

Faabulous new urban school program stops disciplining bad behavior. Result? Just as you'd expect.

Big-city public schools are always trying super-duper new ideas.  Always liberal or so-called "progressive" ideas, of course.  Never conservative ones.  Because liberal ideas always produce such fabulous results.

The newest new fabulous thing in the public schools is something called "restorative justice."  It's such a wildly popular theory that one company has already made millions of taxpayer dollars training teachers in how it works.

Cool, huh.

This hot new idea is rooted in the observation that black students are disciplined at higher rates than whites.  Naturally this can only be because teachers are unconsciously racist.  No other explanation is possible, therefore no other explanation will be considered.

Under this hot new theory, any black kid who pulls a knife on another student, or gropes a teacher, or threatens to kill a teacher, can't be suspended or otherwise punished.  Instead proponents of this wonderful new system encourage the...let's call 'em "troubled youth"...to verbalize how they feel.  This is better because it keeps 'em in school, which is better.

Exactly how this is better, and who it benefits, aren't much examined.  All but a few white teachers hate it, and say it's destroyed what little order there was in their classrooms.  Bullies and thugs and gang-bangers instantly picked up on the new deal and are reportedly swaggering around the halls during class, secure in the knowledge that administrators won't take any action against them.  The word has come down from headquarters to support the New New Thing, or else.

It's probably just a coincidence that since public schools get funds based on the number of warm bodies in attendance, the fabulous new scheme maximizes a school's funding.  But I'm a bit cynical.

The NY Post describes things in highly critical terms.  Click the link.

Kerry: Iran deal "non-binding" but Congress won't be able to change it !

The Obama administration gets more insane by the day.  Here's ABC news--total Obama worshippers--reprinting an AP article from three days ago:
Kerry: Congress Won't Be Able to Change an Iran Nuclear Deal

Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that U.S. lawmakers won't be able to change the terms of any nuclear agreement with Iran because it won't be legally binding.

"We've been clear from the beginning: We're not negotiating a, quote, legally binding plan," Kerry told the panel. "We're negotiating a plan that will have in it the capacity for enforcement. We don't even have diplomatic relations with Iran right now."

Kerry said the letter posted Monday by freshman Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas "ignores more than two centuries of precedent in the conduct of American foreign policy."  Whereas formal treaties require ratification by two-thirds of the Senate, "the vast majority of international arrangements and agreements do not," he said. "And around the world today we have all kinds of executive agreements that we deal with," he said.

Kerry, who will meet Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, next week in Switzerland for another round of talks, said the senators' letter "erroneously asserts that this is a legally binding plan. It's not.  Number two, it's incorrect when it says that Congress could actually modify the terms of an agreement at any time. That's flat wrong. They don't have the right to modify an agreement reached executive to executive between leaders."

No side has emphasized the need for a legally binding deal because each has stronger forms of leverage. If Iran cheats, the Obama administration has spoken of re-imposing suspended sanctions.

Congress, too, wields a threat: new forms of economic punishment of Iran that would be forbidden in the agreement. This would almost surely require overriding a presidential veto and could pin a diplomatic collapse on the United States.

Negotiators from the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia hope to seal a framework with Iran by month's end and a comprehensive agreement by July. Kerry scoffed at the notion that Obama's successor would discard a deal reached between so many powerful governments and adhered to by Iran.
Jen Psaki, Kerry's spokeswoman, raised the possibility of the deal assuming legal character through the U.N. Security Council. Psaki didn't speak definitively on the matter but cited the example of a 2013 strategy agreed to between the U.S. and Russia on Syria relinquishing its chemical weapons stockpile. That plan was then endorsed by the United Nations' top body.

"This framework was not legally binding and was not subject to congressional approval," Psaki told reporters. "It outlined steps for eliminating Syria's chemical weapons and helped lay the groundwork for successful multilateral efforts to move forward." In that case, she added, the U.S.-Russian agreement "went to the U.N. to the Security Council vote."

Zarif is the only one who has gone on record saying such a model would be followed with a nuclear deal.

U.S. negotiators have been more circumspect. Making such a declaration would amount to telling Congress that it won't have a say on the accord, because it is not a treaty, but that the United Nations will.
This piece, and John F'n Kerry, and the emperor, are all three so full of shit one hardly knows where to begin.  Start with the Catch-22 notion that Kerry claims that because the secret agreement is NOT a treaty and is NOT legally binding, congress can't change its terms.

To say this is utter crap--nonsense in the purest sense of the word--is an understatement.  There is no constitutional authority that empowers any president--even a black emperor--to unilaterally bind this nation to any agreement with any foreign power--including the United Nations.  To claim otherwise is purely an impeachable offense.


Dem-controlled Oregon passes law to automatically register everyone to vote if they interact with the DMV

Another day, another 300,000 illegal voters added to the rolls:
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed legislation Monday making Oregon the first state to have automatic voter registration, potentially adding 300,000 new voters to state rolls.

The “motor voter” legislation will use state Department of Motor Vehicles data to automatically register eligible voters whose information is contained in the DMV system, with a 21-day opt-out period for those who wish to be taken off the registry.
Really, cupcake?  And how will they know any given person is eligible to vote?  Last I heard any illegal alien in the U.S. could get a California DL--and in most states a new resident can exchange their previous state's DL for one in the new state without going thru much formality--certainly not a driver's test or showing any but the most rudimentary photo ID.  So the system ain't gonna check.

Oh, they *could* have made that part of the law, but they didn't.  How do I know?  Because the Oregon legislature is Democrat-controlled.  And the governor is smiling.

Letting people register to vote at the DMV is one thing.  You had to affirmatively seek that out.  This is radically different, because everyone is automatically registered unless they opt out of it within 21 days.
“It just changes expectations for who’s responsible for making elections work,” said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and the director of the Elections Research Center. “In every other state, it’s the responsibility for the voters to make sure it happens.”
Lord, that sounds so fucking wonderful!  Totally benign!  The asshole leftist professor totally sugarcoats this subversion of the vote by saying "It just changes expectations for who's responsible for making elections work."  Yeah.  Just add 300,000 new Democrats and elections will be pretty well changed for the rest of our lives (and theirs).
Supporters say the legislation’s goal is to keep young voters, students and working families who move often from losing their right to vote. 
"Losing their right to vote", you say?  Gosh, I wasn't aware that moving meant you lost the right to vote.  I've moved a few dozen times and can still vote.  Sounds like the reporter is trying to make this move look great to voters in the other states.  Cuz otherwise a bunch of 'em are gonna see this for what it is, and what it was intended to do and be:  A way to add 300,000 new Democrat voters to the rolls.

But hey, "At this point, what difference can it possibly make?"

Seems like 1938 again!

If you were born after 1980 or so you probably know almost nothing about WW2.

That's not your fault, of course.  Your school rulers had more important things to teach, I guess.  Economics?  Business theory?  Advanced management?  Fundamentals of genetic therapy?  No?

Well, surely they had some sort of priorities when it came to deciding what you needed to know.  Maybe someday someone will ask 'em to explain what those were.

I won't hold my breath.

Since you never learned about WW2 I want to tell you about one small event that happened just a year before that war started, because it seems to have a lot in common with what we're seeing today.

The event concerns a British prime minister who believed Hitler was actually a reasonable, rational, honorable, trustworthy man.  A gentleman, like the prime minister.

When Hitler demanded that Germany be given a few thousand square miles of a neighboring country, many people who had carefully studied Hitler's background and tactics predicted this wouldn't be the last of his demands.  But the PM could not imagine a national leader so greedy and belligerent.  Didn't fit his world-view.  So he flew to Munich to "negotiate" with Adolf Hitler over his brazen demand.

Lots of smart people who had carefully studied Hitler's rise to power advised the PM that trying to appease the chancellor would be not just useless but worse, since it would lead Hitler to believe the west would always surrender to his demands.  But the prime minister was head of the British government and no one could overrule his decisions, including on foreign policy.

Much like the situation here in the U.S., now that the emperor has junked the Constitutional requirement that the U.S. is only bound by a treaty if it's ratified by a public vote in the senate.

So the PM signed off on turning a chunk of Czechoslovakia over to Germany.  The fact that the Sudetenland wasn't his to give away didn't enter into the calculations, because at the time Britain was arguably the strongest nation in the European theater that could oppose Hitler.  If Britain wouldn't oppose Hitler, no other European nation would step up.

So in an infamous news film the PM was seen getting off his plane on his return from Munich.  He waved a piece of paper over his head and assured the British public that he had achieved "peace for our time."

The peace lasted almost exactly a year.

After the war, examination of Hitler's writings, and interviews with his advisers, showed that he would have backed down if he'd been opposed by Britain or France.

After the war began the PM, having been proven so utterly, ridiculously wrong about virtually every foreign-policy recommendation regarding Hitler's aims and actions--and arguably having made world war a certainty when it might have been averted--at least had the grace to admit his error before the nation, and to apologize for his bad judgment and refusal to listen to people who had studied Hitler carefully.

Just kidding, of course.  Chamberlain never apologized.

So here we are about 75 years later.  The Bush administration worked with our allies and the U.N. to impose a coordinated system of economic sanctions on Iran after the mullahs were discovered taking steps to build an atomic bomb.  Obama has now discontinued over half of those sanctions, and is negotiating a secret agreement with those rational, trustworthy wackjobs running Iran. 

In the last ten months the Iranians have missed two so-called "deadlines" for signing an agreement, but just like Obama's "red line" to Syria's Bashir Assad, the actions of his agents have made it clear to the mullahs that deadlines weren't really, um, deadlines.  Merely suggested timetables.

So Obama's team let the mullahs know that the U.S. was eager to continue negotiating--a fact the Iranians couldn't have failed to notice.  When your opponent is happy to ignore "deadlines" to sign an agreement, and your team still does everything it can to bring them back to the table, what does it do to your negotiating position?

Lots of people have spent years studying the Iranian regime and its players.  Almost all serious students of the regime believe the mullahs are trying to build an atomic bomb.  But Obama--like Neville Chamberlain--knows history and psychology and negotiating better than anyone else on the planet.  He only listens to Valerie Jarret--who, interestingly, was born in Iran.  Surely just a coincidence.

But surely, if Obama is wrong about the mullahs being determined to get the Bomb he'll apologize to Israel and the world for getting so many people killed.  Since he's a Nobel prize-winner this will make things all delightful again--except for the people killed by the bombs, of course.  But it's a small price to pay for "peace for our time," eh?

Chamberlain's "peace" lasted a full year after he came back with Hitler's signature.  Surely our skilled community organizer can beat this.

March 16, 2015

Obama before 2008 election

The pic below, from before the 2008 election, shows the emperor during the pledge of allegiance.  It was posted on a number of conservative blogs.  It should have been a BIG clue to voters about how the emperor felt about this country. 

The mainstream media fell all over themselves to ignore it or rationalize it.  No one who saw this pic and still voted for the Constitution-shredding liar can possibly claim they had no idea he'd turn out to be who he was all along.


March 15, 2015

Another jihadist boasts that they want to blow up the White House. Emperor's team says "Has nothing to do with Islam"

The Middle East Media Research Institute has translated a message from a spokesman for Islamic State, saying the Muslim jihadist group plans to blow u” the White House, Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower on its way to conquering Paris, Rome, Portugal and Spain.

The threat was delivered Thursday by spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani in a 30-minute audio message titled, “So They Kill And Are Killed.” The title refers to a verse in the Koran.

“We want, Allah willing, Paris before Rome and before Al-Andalus [Spain and Portugal], [and] after that we will blacken your life and blow up your White House, Big Ben, and the Eiffel Tower, Allah willing,” Adnani said.

He added, "Muslims shall return to ruling and leadership everywhere.”

The White House immediately responded by issuing the following statement:
"This has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.  Whoever made this audio has completely warped the peaceful views of the religion of peace, and the totally peaceful prophet Mohammed (pbuh), all of which are just totally, amazingly peaceful.  And anyone who doesn't believe that is just an intolerant, anti-religious racist and bigot! 
We will support our Muslim brothers against the winds of adversity! Allahu ackbar!  And by the way, the State Department has said they believe the audio is a fake, planted on the internet by Republicans acting at the direction senator Tom Cotton!  And the esteemed Republican leader of the senate, Senator McConnell, will confirm this very shortly."

The media and the Left all in a huff about the Senators' letter to Iran

I'm amused by the reactions of the Left / Democrats / lying media to the letter 47 senators sent to the Iranians advising them that any treaty negotiated by the emperor would only bind the U.S. if ratified by the senate.

For those of you who've never bothered to read the Constitution, that's one of the key provisions of that document.  But amusingly, the Lying Media are spinning this as... treason!! 

For the benefit of the idiots in the media, let's review:  It's in the Constitution.  So unless you believe fidelity to the Constitution is now an act of treason--and since you're leftist morons to the last man and woman that's a very real possibility--then you're full of shit.  Which is exactly what we've come to expect from you.

The screaming from the media, of course, is because they have a huge interest in slapping down even the smallest hint of backbone or resistance to the emperor by Republicans.  Because if the latter get a whiff of success in exercising their Constitutionally-mandated power to rein in a rogue president, they just might do more of same.

OMG, says the leftist media, we can't allow that!!!  Must protect the Preciousssss!

Of course the media said exactly the same thing when future senator and secretary of state John F'n Kerry travelled to Paris back in 1973 or so and appeared before a tribunal to claim that the U.S. had committed war crimes throughout the Vietnam war (Kerry having seen so much of that as he spent a whopping two months in that country before hustling out after three scratches).

Of course the media said no such thing--not a damn word.

But surely our honest, unbiased media sounded screaming alarms when then-senator Kerry went to Nicaragua to negotiate with communist dictator Daniel Ortega in 1985.

Oh wait, the media didn't say a word--because both times that Kerry went overseas to advise a foreign foe and undercut the U.S. government a Republican was president.  So naturally the leftist media thought it was perfectly fine.

Of course the media didn't always look the other way when Democrats went to foreign countries to "negotiate."  For example, in 2002 three Dem Congressmen --Jim McDermott (D-WA), David Bonior (D-MI), and Mike Thompson (D-CA)--visited Baghdad to play defense for Saddam Hussein’s regime.  Bonior said openly he was acting on behalf of the government.

Viewers of Iraqi television learned the following (this translation comes from U.S. government sources):
"Three U.S. Congressmen arrived in Baghdad this morning on a visit lasting several days. The delegation will hold several meetings with Iraqi officials and members of the Foreign Relations Committee at the National Assembly. They will also visit hospitals to see the suffering caused by the unjust embargo and the shortage of medicines and medical supplies. Congressman Jim McDermott told reporters upon arrival at Saddam International Airport that the delegation members reject the policy of aggression dominating the U.S. administration."
The video then showed McDermott talking, with a voiceover translation in Arabic. Here is what Arabic-speaking audiences heard from McDermott:
"We are three veterans of the Vietnam War who came over here because we don't want war. We assert from here that we do not want the United States to wage war on any peace-loving countries. As members of Congress, we would like diplomatic efforts to continue so as not to launch any aggression. We will visit children's hospitals to see the negative impact of the sanctions imposed on Iraq. We hope that peace will prevail throughout the world."
While McDermott was still in Baghdad a CNN reporter asked him how he felt about being used as a propaganda tool against his own country.  McDermott replied, "If being used means that we're highlighting the suffering of Iraqi children, or any children, then, yes, we don't mind being used."

Democrat House minority leader Dick Gephardt carefully avoided criticizing his 3 Democrat colleagues for helping Hussein: "I don't agree with his views on some of the facts, and obviously we may not be in agreement on his conclusion about what to do about those facts. But every member, as I've said over and over again, has to reach their own conclusion."

Well let me tell ya, our media went ballistic over that one!

Oh wait...they didn't say jack-shit about it.  As far as the press was concerned this was absolutely fine.  But now the lying sacks of Gruber all have their panties in a twist because 47 senators gave the Iranians a clue about what old-timers once called "the supreme law of the land"--the Constitution.

You don't hear that anymore--partly because the press loves to play to young people and ignore people over the age of 65 or so--unless it's Hillary Clinton or the fake native American from Boston.  What's her name?  Fauxcahontas Warren, or some such.

So for the media and the Democrats to suddenly get all huffy about the senators telling the Iranians how our Constitution used to work is a hoot.  Not only is that not a crime, it's right there in plain text for anyone to read.  But it seems very few Dems--including those in congress--know jack-shit about the Constitution.  Rather, they all believe it means whatever the emperor says it means.  Not a whit more or less.

Let me be perfectly clear here:  I'm not arguing equivalence between what Kerry and Bonior and McDermott and other Dems did, and the letter to the Iranians.  Instead I don't think the letter to the Iranians is wrong or harmful to the U.S. in any way, shape or form. 

By contrast--huge contrast--Kerry and Bonior and McDermott and Pelosi and a dozen other Democrats who have sought to negotiate on behalf of the U.S. weren't giving a lesson on our Constitution, but were giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and seeking to undercut the government of the United States.  I think they should all have been imprisoned immediately on return to the U.S., period. 

With that said, it's certainly true that 47 senators fired a shot across the nose of the emperor.  They let His Excellency know, in no uncertain terms, that if he didn't submit his much-ballyhooed secret treaty with the rag-heads to the senate for confirmation--and if the senate didn't ratify it--the U.S. wouldn't be bound by it.

This, of course, they Lying Media could NOT tolerate.  "We must protect the Precioussss at all costs!"  So they swung into action.

The media is the enemy.  Fuck them.  They hate America and agree with Obama that the U.S. should have less influence in the world.  By contrast, they love Muslims and Russians and socialist dictators of all strips, and think whatever any member of those groups do is just wonderful.

And hey...are you "Ready for Hillary"?  Well you better get ready, citizen.  Cuz the media knows who their favorite grandmother is, ya know?