The Hunter Biden Chronicles

This is why we need an "alternative media."  Because you won't get this from the New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media.

Michelle Malkin

Everything you need to know about Beltway nepotism, corporate cronyism and corruption can be found in the biography of Robert Hunter Biden. Where are the Occupy Wall Street rabble-rousers and enemies of elitist privilege when you need them? Straining their neck muscles to look the other way.

...

 

Hunter's first job, acquired after Joe Biden won his 1996 Senate re-election bid in Delaware, was with MBNA. That's the credit card conglomerate and top campaign finance donor that forked over nearly $63,000 in bundled primary and general contributions from its employees to then Sen. Biden. ...

Hunter zoomed up to senior vice president by early 1998 and then scored a plum position in the Clinton administration's Commerce Department, specializing in "electronic commerce" before returning to MBNA three years later as a high-priced "consultant." ...

Hunter got himself appointed to multiple corporate board positions, including a directorship with Eudora Global. It's an investment firm founded by one Jeffrey Cooper, head of one of the biggest asbestos-litigation firms in the country. ...

Hunter also was previously a top official at Paradigm Global Advisors, a hedge fund holding company founded with Vice President Biden's brother, James, and marketed by convicted finance fraudster Allen Stanford. ...which went bust amid nasty fraud lawsuits.

Continually failing upward, Hunter snagged a seat on the board of directors of taxpayer-subsidized, stimulus-inflated Amtrak, where he pretended not to be a lobbyist, but rather an "effective advocate" for the government railroad system serving the 1 percenters' D.C.-NYC corridor.

Read the whole thing as the MSM keeps its gave averted.

‘Calibration error’ changes GOP votes to Dem in Illinois county

Well, this is Chicago, where the Democrats always win. And this is how it's done.

Early voting in Illinois got off to a rocky start Monday, as votes being cast for Republican candidates were transformed into votes for Democrats.

Republican state representative candidate Jim Moynihan went to vote Monday at the Schaumburg Public Library.

“I tried to cast a vote for myself and instead it cast the vote for my opponent,” Moynihan said. “You could imagine my surprise as the same thing happened with a number of races when I tried to vote for a Republican and the machine registered a vote for a Democrat.”

Climate change PROVED to be 'nothing but a lie', claims top meteorologist

John Coleman, who co-founded the Weather Channel, shocked academics by insisting the theory of man-made climate change was no longer scientifically credible.

Instead, what 'little evidence' there is for rising global temperatures points to a 'natural phenomenon' within a developing eco-system.

In an open letter attacking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he wrote: "The ocean is not rising significantly.

"The polar ice is increasing, not melting away. Polar Bears are increasing in number.

"Heat waves have actually diminished, not increased. There is not an uptick in the number or strength of storms (in fact storms are diminishing).

"I have studied this topic seriously for years. It has become a political and environment agenda item, but the science is not valid."

Why do Democrats win when the margin of victory is small? Coincidence or election theft?

Dan McLaughlin analyzed the data:

I took a look at all the statewide Senate and governor’s races from 1998 through 2013 (thanks to Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics for a big assist with the data) as well as all the statewide results in the presidential elections during that period. Let’s begin with the very closest races, those decided by less than one percentage point. There have been 27 such races since 1998, and Democrats have won 20 out of 27:

 

The odds of this happening are about 1 in 300.  This is why voter fraud is such a big deal.  It's almost impossible to detect unless someone is actually caught in the act.  Ballot stuffing, voting multiple times, absentee ballot theft,  voting for dead or people who have moved, all need to be taken seriously.  Otherwise, faith in elections will be lost and who rules will be decided by mobs in the streets.  Voter ID requirements are only a good first step.

Glenn Reynolds makes the point that 

Remember, you don’t just have to beat them. You have to beat them beyond the margin of fraud.

Islam, Terrorism, and White Priviledge

Barack Hussein Obama - mmm....mmm...mmm - was aiming to call the murder of a soldier and the attack on the Canadian Parliament building "workplace violence" until the Canadians had the effrontery to call it what it is, Islamic Terrorism by a recent convert to the Religion of Peace.

Had this happened in the US, high government officials would be telling the press that they didn't know the motive of the killers or killers, but it certainly didn't have anything to do with Islam because everyone knows blah, blah, blah.

Meanwhile in Liberalville, twitter has a post blaming White Privilege.

This is not a joke and will soon appear on college campuses throughout the US.  Apparently Arabs and their supporters resent the intrusion of whites into their exclusive province of murders, be-headings, bombings and other acts of extreme violence against unarmed civilians. 

One reply:

Damn you, whitey! MT @MazMHussain Newest form of white privilege: convert to Islam, commit heinous act, die, brown/black people take heat

It won't be long before the NY Times stable of Liberal commentators jumps on this theme and the editorial staff writes a thumbsucker asking what Canada did to make them hate Canadians so much.

According to the Dept of Education's interpretation of Title IX, that's known as sexual assault.

President Obama grabbed a woman and kissed her.  She did not consent prior to the sexual contact.

By the standards of campus rape culture he is totally a rapist.

“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules."

About that campus rape epidemic

If only 12% of campus sexual assaults get reported, then only 1 in 32 women at Ohio State are sexually assaulted, not 1 in 5.

And if the White House is right, then roughly 100% (98.14% to be exact) of female students at Ohio State are sexually assaulted.

Assuming that only 12% of campus sexual assaults at OSU are reported.

Assuming that 1 in 5 women at OSU are assaulted over 4 years

There’s a huge, irreconcilable statistical problem here. Using actual reported crime statistics on sexual offenses at almost any US college and applying the White House claim that only 12% of campus sexual assaults actually get reported, we have to conclude that nowhere near 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted while in college. Alternatively, if the “1 in 5 women” claim is true, the percentage of sexual assaults that don’t get reported to the campus police would have to be much lower than 12%. In other words, the claims that the White House uses don’t work together and they therefore both can’t be simultaneously correct.

Here’s an updated analysis of sexual assaults at the Ohio State University, summarized in the top table above. Over the most recent four-year period from 2010 to 2013, there were 104 reports of “forcible sexual offenses” to the OSU’s Department of Public Safety, which included incidents that allegedly took place on campus, in university residence halls, on non-campus properties including fraternity and sorority houses, and on public property adjacent to or accessible from the campus. Using the White House claim that only 12% of campus sexual assaults get reported, there would have been 763 unreported forcible sexual offenses at OSU during that period, bringing the total number of sexual assaults (reported + unreported) to 867 (see top table above).

Stuffing the ballot box

“A person wearing a Citizens for a Better Arizona T-shirt dropped a large box of hundreds of early ballots on the table and started stuffing the ballot box as I watched in amazement,” said A.J. LaFaro, chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Party.

The Maricopa County GOP chairman provided the Arizona Daily Independent with the following account of what happened during the Aug. 26 primary election cycle:

Guy: “What’s your problem?”

LaFaro: “I don’t have a problem.”

Guy: “Stop watching me. You’re annoying me.”

LaFaro: “One of your ballots isn’t sealed.”

Guy: “It’s none of your business. What’s your name?”

LaFaro: “I’m the chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Party. What’s yours?”

Guy: “Go f*** yourself. I don’t have to tell you who I am.”

LaFaro said he later submitted a public information request and obtained this surveillance video from 12:30- 1:30 on Aug. 25 (audio unavailable):

The mainstream media tells me this doesn't happen.  Who are you going to believe, the Virginian Pilot or your lying eyes?

Klavan: The Mainstream Media: Stupid and Corrupt.

The Revolting Truth

Now, of course, with the very elite of the elite running the country, we find that — what do you know? — this statism dodge doesn’t really work all that well. And there are two reasons for this. The first is that the statist premise is wrong. In fact, ordinary people left at liberty to do as they will are actually better at running their lives and businesses and country than the geniuses in Washington. Central planning works great in the imaginations of the elite, but in the real world… not so much.

And the second problem is that the elite are stupid. No, really. They’re educated and sophisticated and they dress well and speak well. They may even have high IQs. But in the immortal words of Forrest Gump’s mother: “Stupid is as stupid does.” And the elite are stupid.

Defending Rove?

Kevin Williamson pens a defense of Karl Rove in National Review online and does a good job. But in doing so he manages to skirt THE issue that has brought Rove back into the national conversation.

I can agree with pretty much all that Kevin Williamson wrote. I have no problem with a political consultant who backs the candidate he believes is most likely to win, and Rove had a good track record.

But the thing that landed Rove back in the headlines recently is an article in the NY Times about WMDs in Iraq. Tons of them …. thousands of them.

And the Times accuses the Bush administration of covering it up.

Here’s my problem with Rove, he is “credited” with advising Bush to ignore the evidence of WMDs in Iraq, one of the primary reasons for the invasion. Keep in mind that Saddam was our sworn enemy and the last thing we wanted to experience after 9/11 was a terrorist attack using chemical, biological or atomic weapons. So Bush … and the UN … demanded that Saddam declare and surrender all his WMDs. As the NY Times now reports, this did not happen.

The Rove theory was that the ”no WMDs” battle had been lost and we must move on. Team Bush never fought back against the lie that there were no WMDs in Iraq. The lie that “Bush lied” became a “fact” because there was never any pushback even when the evidence was there. Even today, I will wager that most people will tell you that there were no WMDs found in Iraq. A good case can be made that the 2008 election was lost years before when Rove and Bush surrendered to the MSM and allowed them to get away with one of the greatest propaganda coups in modern times.

Rove may be very good at counting electoral college votes and supporting Republican candidates for office, but beyond that his strategic thinking is incredibly faulty and resulted in a stupendous loss of the Republican Party. And, by the way, George Bush is ultimately to blame for taking his advice.

Stewardship of Love

1 Corinthians 13 New International Version (NIV)

1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

Obama's "Affordable Health Care" Making health care unaffordable.

As the New York Times explains,

Patricia Wanderlich got insurance through the Affordable Care Act this year, and with good reason: She suffered a brain hemorrhage in 2011, spending weeks in a hospital intensive care unit, and has a second, smaller aneurysm that needs monitoring.

But her new plan has a $6,000 annual deductible, meaning that Ms. Wanderlich, who works part time at a landscaping company outside Chicago, has to pay for most of her medical services up to that amount. She is skipping this year’s brain scan and hoping for the best.

“To spend thousands of dollars just making sure it hasn’t grown?” said Ms. Wanderlich, 61. “I don’t have that money.”

Patricia Wanderlich may well "bend the cost curve down" (in Obama's famous phrase) by dying from an unmonitored aneurysm on her brain. I suspect that was always part of the plan.  

If you were one of Obama's "1%" a $6000 deductible would not be a big deal to monitor a blood vessel whose bursting could kill you or put you in a coma for the rest of your life.  For people like Patricia Wanderlich, taking a pain pill will have to do.

As we can see from the Obama administration's reaction to Ebola, individuals don't count.  It's the collective that's important.  If a few, or a few hundred or even a few thousand die in a country of 300 million, the theoreticians and ideologues are willing to make that sacrifice.  Especially because they are certain that they won't be the ones dying.  

Naked Politics: The Ebola Czar Has No Clothes

All the president's men and women apparently weren't enough.

1. We shouldn't need an Ebola czar.

2. We already put somebody in charge of corralling federal bureaucracies and coordinating local responses to national emergencies. His name is Barack Obama.

3. He has a chief of staff, the nation's chief operating officer, Denis McDonough; a homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco; a national security adviser, Susan Rice; a director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and a Cabinet full of secretaries.

4. That should be enough.

by Ron Fournier .. read the whole thing.
(Notice the girls drinking tea)

This is why Wiki is not a reliable source.

Brian Cates ‏@drawandstrike  10m10 minutes ago

Oh, hey, looks like all the Lefty editors at Wiki are gonna have to update this now... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMD_conjecture_in_the_aftermath_of_the_2003_invasion_of_Iraq …

WMD conjecture in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq concerns the failure by the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG) to locate undeclared stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction both before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[1]

Katy Conrad - CBS News "Journalist" is Achingly Stupid

Tweets' snark "not sure when [Rand Paul] become a doctor?"  Deletes tweet when informed he IS a doctor.

For Obama, Ebola is seen not as a health issue for America but as a political problem.

It's self evident: the appointment of a political "fixer" as Ebola czar.

Ron Fournier (who was an Obama shill when being an Obama shill was cool) makes the point nearly as well as I did:

The choice makes sense if Obama's main concern is a) the incompetence of his team, or; b) midterm politics. My strong hunch is it's "b". The Obama White House is not self-aware. It is nakedly political. The uneven response to Ebola threatens to be a toxic issue for Democrats, and the president is under pressure from his party's desperate candidates to do something.

Ebola: First, do no Harm

Good article in the American Thinker about the CDC and Thomas Friedman.

In response to repeated inquiries about travel bans to and from Ebola-riddled nations, Dr. Tom Frieden has said from his very first appearances onward, that our highest moral obligation is “to first, do no harm.” He claims that implementing travel bans would harm the very people we are trying to help -- that bans and quarantines would restrict humanitarian aid (despite the fact that exceptions can be made for charter and/or military flights to bring supplies and care in and out of the region) and disrupt economic and political stability in the region. Moreover, he and other experts claim that there would be a negative impact on the economies of these already faltering nations.

In fact, Representative Tim Murphy personally spoke to Dr. Frieden about travel bans and he responded that “cutting commercial ties would hurt these fledgling democracies.” Murphy further questioned the good doctor at congressional hearings about the source of his comment -- whether it was his opinion, the CDC’s, or advice from the administration or one of its agencies -- a question he conveniently ducked. But a quick perusal of the CDC’s Mission Statement at CDC.gov, proves that it is not tasked with the job of nation building or ensuring the economic success of any country. There is no way one could recast the words in its “Pledge to the American People” or the bullet points about the Role of the CDC, to read “Thou must first do no economic or political harm to any fledgling democracies.” The Mission Statement is ironclad about the tasks of the CDC -- even Obama himself, the Master of Slick Talking -- couldn’t make these words fit Frieden’s assertions:

CDC works 24/7 to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S. Whether diseases start at home or abroad, are chronic or acute, curable or preventable, human error or deliberate attack, CDC fights disease and supports communities and citizens to do the same.

CDC increases the health security of our nation. As the nation’s health protection agency, CDC saves lives and protects people from health threats. To accomplish our mission, CDC conducts critical science and provides health information that protects our nation against expensive and dangerous health threats, and responds when these arise.

The bottom line: the CDC's responsibility is to protect America, not the rest of the world. Read the whole thing.

Obama pays attention to Ebola, time to panic.

Question for "the folks" as Bill O'Reilly might say.  When has Obama's personal attention to any issue ever had a good outcome?  Can't think of one?  Me neither.

Maybe his pollster tell him that he has to take time out from fund raising and golfing to hold cabinet meetings so that his dwindling fan base will stop leaving the stadium. the other explanation is that the threat posed by the Ebola virus is as dire as the most alarmist stories suggest and that the president feels he needs to personally take control. This would cause us to panic, and we’d prefer not to.

Who To Blame When You Get Ebola: A CDC Guide For Healthcare Workers

From the Happy Hospitalist:

 

Atlanta, GA -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced new flowchart guidelines Monday to help healthcare workers understand who they could blame once they contract Ebola in the hospital setting. The new recommendations follow declarations by Dr Thomas Friedman, Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that nurse Nina Pham in a Dallas, Texas hospital contracted Ebola due to 'protocol breach' while caring for the now deceased Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan.

Nurses are used to getting blamed for everything. In fact, most nursing programs teach nurses how to take one for the team when bad things happen. Getting blamed for spreading Ebola is naturally accepted by most nurses as business as usual.

"After speaking with representatives from the American Nurses Association, everyone agreed blaming nurses for spreading Ebola was just the easiest thing to do," said Jason Fenster, a CDC spokesman who blamed his nurse last year for undercooked eggs while hospitalized for an undisclosed infection contracted at a CDC laboratory.

Following the release of these CDC guidelines, officials at the Dallas, Texas hospital confirmed they are probably going to blame three or four nurses for spreading Ebola while taking care of Mr. Duncan, including one on maternity leave for the last six weeks.

"I've been in the hospital CEO business for 30 years. Whenever bad things happen in a hospital setting, we can count on at least one nurse to take the fall. In fact, I'm so confident that a nurse is always at fault, we built an entire section into our hospital rules and regulations titled 'How To Blame a Nurse For Anything Bad That Could Lead To A Lawsuit," said Jed Brainer, CEO of Texas Presbyterian Hospital.

A spokesman at the CDC, who wished to remain anonymous, says guidelines to be released next week for non-healthcare workers and pets who contract Ebola will likely blame nurses as well.

I THOUGHT IRAQI CHEMICAL WEAPONS WERE A BUSHITLER/CHENEY FANTASY

Glenn Reynolds:

New York Times: The Secret U.S. Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons. “From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule. In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs.”

If you read the NY Times story, it's another attack on Bush for keeping the finding of chemical weapons secret because they were old. In the NY Times world, finding old weapons is worse the not finding any WMDs.

Ace of Spades  documents the lies the Times printed.

Progressives deeply invested in the lie during the Bush years that no WMD were found in Iraq. Bush gave many reasons for the war, but progressives seized on just the presence of WMD and then pretended it was the only reason for war. We've known they've been wrong about the lack of WMD for many years now. But, upon the chance that ISIL will find and use any remnants of WMD, however, progressives have had to modify their story even more.

Now, progressives have finally admitted that Hussein's stockpiled weapons were found during the Iraq War, but claim these were not the weapons Bush said would be found. This is just one more lie. And they've compounded it with another lie: that the sole reason for the Iraq War was an active weapons program.

As I have demonstrated from Bush's own contemporaneous words, an active weapons program was not the sole reason for war. In fact, an active weapons program was not even mentioned in the multiple speeches Bush delivered to the American public and to an international audience.

Do not let the NYTimes get away with its false history of the Iraq War. The war was not made solely based on claims of an active Iraqi weapons program. It was made because, as President Bush explained repeatedly to the American public: Saddam Hussein possessed old weapons of mass destruction, desired to evade inspections so as to keep them, hoped to restart his weapons programs in the future, and could pass weapons to terrorist groups with ambitions to harm the West.

There really is an Obama White House censor's office. And the media has been using it.

It's all explained by Paul Farhi in the Washington Post.  Before pool reports are disseminated to the rest of the media, the Obama censors make the "appropriate" changes.  Of course the Post doesn't call it the censor's office, it's referred to as the press office.

I suspect that his story was printed because someone was getting ready to leak it without the excuses that Farhi makes.  He wants us to believe that, in the age of instant electronic communication, the poor press needs the White House to send out news stories.  

This story is total cr*p. It’s designed as cover for the media, telling us that without the Obama White House’s help they could not get their pool reports out. They really expect some people to be gullible enough to believe that it costs something to set up a blog for pool reports. Or to send out a blast e-mail to hundreds or even thousands of news organizations with pool reports. In the era of mass electronic communication via the Internet, how stupid does Paul Farhi think his readers are? Everyone knew that the press were stenographers for Team Obama, not everyone knew that their stories were run through the White House censors office.

When Rush Limbaugh refers to the "State Run media" I thought he was referring to the fact that the press is slavishly attached to Obama and the Democrats.  I didn't realize that they were actually running their stories through an actual Obama censor.

An uprising of the facts is making the management of the news cycle impossible.

Richard Fernandez:

By this time in the election cycle, the public should have been awash with stories about how a poor, minimum wage worker at Walmart has lost her health insurance due to corporate greed and why that greed has is leading America closer to single payer. Everyone should now be focusing on how the resurgent economy would be trending on Twitter were it not for the sabotage of conservative news outlets — paid for by the Koch brothers.

Who would believe that reality would intrude despite the best efforts of the media to control what people talk about and how they were supposed to think about it. There are still a few weeks till the election and the spin doctors in the White House and the media as the Palace Guard will do their best to change the narrative. But it's harder to do when there is literally no part of this Administration that's believable.

From the comments:

Reality has gotten so far inside Obama's OODA loop that MSM is having difficulty propping up the Dems. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that Reality has gotten inside MSM's OODA loop, making it difficult for them to prop of the Dems.

For a while Team Obama was able to control the series of scandals because they occurred consecutively: Fast &; Furious, IRS, NSA, Benghazi, the ObamaCare roll out, the VA, Solyndra, etc. The media were able to turn the page as scandal followed scandal, the latest obliterating its predecessor. But the current crop of disasters are happening all at once: the Secret Service scandal, ISIS/ISIL, Ebola now coming to a hospital near you. And now even the low information public is beginning to understand that this government is not just oppressive and expensive but incredibly incompetent. They want to run your life but can't tie their shoelaces.

When Jon Stewart begins making jokes about Obama you begin to wonder if he would not be a better host of Meet the Press than Chuck Todd.

There is a God

Moe Tucker Interview

Mike Appelstein: In the now-infamous videotape, you indicated that you're furious about the way we're being led toward socialism and "incredible waste of money" being spent. Could you elaborate a bit on these sentiments?

Moe Tucker: No country can provide all things for all citizens. There comes a point where it just isn't possible, and it's proven to be a failure everywhere it's been tried. I am not oblivious to the plight of the poor, but I don't see any reason/sense to the idea that everyone has to have everything, especially when the economy is so bad. I see that philosophy as merely a ploy to control.

My family was damn poor when I was growing up on Long Island. There were no food stamps, no Medicaid, no welfare. If you were poor, you were poor. You didn't have a TV, you didn't have five pairs of shoes, you didn't have Levi's, you didn't have a phone; you ate Spam, hot dogs and spaghetti. We all survived! I am not against food stamps, welfare or Medicaid, if only they would oversee these programs properly!

I am also against the government taking over the student loan program, car companies, bailouts and the White House taking control of the census (what the hell is that all about?); [about] any First Lady telling (I know, I know, "suggesting to") us what to eat, the mayor of New York City declaring "no salt" (screw you, pal!), the mayor/city commissioners of Anytown, U.S.A. declaring you can't fly a flag, can't say the Pledge of Allegiance and can't sing the National Anthem. I'm against a President dismissing any and all who dare to disagree; the water being turned off in (central) California, at [an] area where they've turned off the water because they want to save a one-inch fish -- turning that huge area of farming land into another dustbowl -- the insipid start of food supply control methinks! The government deciding what kind of lightbulbs we can use (all you "think green" people, three objections to this b.s.: 1) Those bulbs give off the light of a candle; 2) They're very expensive; 3) They have mercury in them - how the hell are we supposed to dispose of them?).

I am against the government now thinking about bailing out unions. The unions made the contracts which include insane pensions; the U.S. government didn't. I'm against the government closing down offshore drilling in the Gulf with one hand and with the other giving (lending?) Brazil money to help them do way deeper offshore drilling -- rather curious. I'm against a government that will not defend our borders; and on and on and on.

As a lead-in to the next part of your question: Today it was announced that there would be no cost of living increase for Social Security recipients because "there's no inflation." I'd love to know what makes them think that! Where the hell do they shop? Prices have been rising for over a year. Inflation is a natural happening, I know. But why is it that suddenly food prices don't go up two or three or five cents, but instead they're going up 40, 50, 60 cents at a clip? No inflation my ass!

My anger stems from the unbelievable (criminal!) waste of money on pork and earmarks. It drives me nuts to see that X millions are being allocated to build a turtle tunnel, a donkey museum, a salamander crossing, etc, etc, etc. Billions spent every friggin' year on totally unnecessary crap so that these Congressbums can tell their constituents that they "brought home the bacon" and get re-elected. I'm sorry, but I don't want to pay for any Congress SOB's vote buying, and sure as hell not in these very very worrisome times!

What specifically about the current administration do you disagree with?
I disagree with spending / borrowing / printing -- damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! I disagree with the "we won" attitude, which is the cowardly way of saying fuck you! I disagree with an administration that for twenty months blames Bush. If the President and his minions are so damn smart, why didn't they know the severity of the situation? The president has actually said (and I saw it on video) that they didn't know!

What would you like to see change?
The current administration!

How did you get involved with the local Tea Party movement?
I'm not "involved" with the local movement. I went to the first Tea Party in June or July of 2009 because it was within striking distance and I wanted to be counted.

Are you still involved in Tea Party activities?
I do my own protesting via email and postcards. Anyone who thinks I'm crazy about Sarah Palin, Bush, etc. has made quite the presumption. I have voted Democrat all my life, until I started listening to what Obama was promising and started wondering how the hell will this utopian dream land be paid for? For those who actually believe that their taxes won't go up in order to pay for all this insanity: good luck!

What are some misconceptions that people have about Tea Parties (and their attendants) in general?
That they're all racists, they're all religious nuts, they're all uninformed, they're all stupid, they want no taxes at all and no regulations whatsoever. Those "arguments" are presented by the Dems in order to keep their base of uninformed voters on their side. In my opinion, as soon as you start name-calling, your opinion is immediately deemed invalid!

Have you always had conservative views?
To be honest, I never paid attention to what the hell was going on. My always voting Democrat was the result of that. My philosophy was and is all politicians are liars, bums and cheats. I make decisions on an issue by issue basis. I'm far more of an independent than a conservative or liberal. I don't agree with all of either side, and I think anyone who claims to is either a fool or a damn liar.

Did your experience working at Wal-Mart influence you?
I don't think so. I did some protesting there, too!

When you consented to an interview with that television reporter, did you envision that your words would be spread online a year and a half later?
No. I'm amazed at this.

What are your feelings about the online reactions? Many people seem upset or outraged.
I'm stunned that so many people who call themselves liberal yet are completely intolerant. I thought liberals loved everyone: the poor, the immigrant, the gays, the handicapped, the minorities, dogs, cats, all eye colors, all hair colors! Peace, love, bull! Curious they have no tolerance whatsoever for anyone who doesn't think exactly as they do. You disagree and you're immediately called a fool, a Nazi, a racist. That's pretty f'd up!! I would never judge someone based on their political views. Their honesty, integrity, kindness to others, generosity? Yes. Politics? No!

And yet there is also a minority that agrees with you.
There are a lot more than you think who agree with me.

Have you heard from Lou [Reed] or John [Cale] about it? Other artistic/musical friends?
No, haven't heard from anyone, but anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a fool, a racist, a Nazi. Anyone who knows me knows I'm afraid of flying, afraid of bugs, but not afraid to say what I think.

In your experience, are there other closet conservatives in the music/art world? (Without naming names, of course.)
I don't consider myself a "closet" anything! That TV reporter was the first who ever asked me what my political views might be. I'm sure there are plenty of conservatives in the music/art world since I don't believe there's any group, club, organization or profession in which all members think exactly the same.

Moving away from politics: Are you still involved in music? Have you continued recording or songwriting these past few years?
No time for it anymore. I take care of my eight-year-old grandson and it's a full-time job. He wears me out, keeps me laughing, and I love him to pieces!

The Man Who Knew Nothing

Sultan Knish on Obama

Let’s take Obama at his word for a moment and assume that he really is a clueless dilettante who doesn’t know anything about anything until it appears in bold type on the front page of the New York Time. But then what exactly does he do besides give speeches at fundraisers, golf, vacation and blame Congress for not passing some gimmick bill that even his own party loyalists wouldn’t touch in an attempt to divert attention from the latest disaster he only found out about through the media?

He tried to force amnesty through Congress and instead caused a border crisis. After blowing a billion dollars on a contractor with a top family friend executive, the ObamaCare website went 404. His stimulus funds went into the trash. His Green Energy recipients went into bankruptcy court. He’s still claiming credit for fixing unemployment by convincing the unemployed to drop out of the economy.

And now he’s stuck being a third-rate Bush, bombing Iraq while trying to explain that the Al Qaeda he’s bombing now is not the Al Qaeda he claimed to have defeated when he was running for reelection.

...Obama didn’t want to do anything about ISIS. He didn’t want to do anything about the VA. He didn’t want to acknowledge knowing anything about the IRS targeting and he didn’t care about how well or how badly the ObamaCare website would work until he realized its impact on his approval ratings.

Obama’s incompetence and ignorance are expressions of his contempt for the people beneath him. His policies implode because he never bothered to understand how they would impact real people. He chooses not to know, because he chose not to care.

Read the whole thing.

Kowtowing to Headchoppers

We are informed by the always delightful Bud Norman that President Obama sent an emissary to a mosque in Oklahoma City.

Has the President of the United States sent an emissary to your house of worship to commend it for its good works? Our humble little low church on the near westside hasn’t yet been so honored, despite its many commendable efforts on behalf on the poor and unfortunate, so we’re feeling a bit slighted. The Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City recently got a high-ranking visit and official effusive thanks, after all, and none of our congregation have beheaded anyone.

The mosque wasn’t being thanked for the beheading, we are assured, but rather for its past support of the rescue and recovery efforts in the aftermath of a devastating tornado last year in the nearby town of Moore. We don’t mean to diminish the mosque’s good works, and will freely acknowledge Islam’s longstanding reputation for charity, but there’s no shaking a suspicion that the official effusive thanks from our government has more to do with the more recent beheading committed by one of the mosque’s newest converts against a former co-worker in that very same nearby town. Islam also suffers a longstanding reputation for such brutality, especially lately, and by now it’s an obligatory rite to respond to every Islamist outrage with official pronouncements that Islam is a religion of peace and has contributed greatly to world civilization and most Muslims aren’t going to chop your head off and the rest of the familiar boilerplate.

When I stood with George Bush on the war in Iraq, and even now support it (though not the nation-building that followed), I was always uncomfortable with his decision to absolved Islam of any complicity in 9/11. I realize that we he did not want to start a religious war - and even renamed it after initially referring to it as a 'crusade."

The practice began shortly after Islamist terrorists slammed airliners full of terrified passengers into the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon, when even good old President George W. Bush felt compelled to immediately rush to the nearest mosque and pose for a religiously tolerant photo-op ...

At what point are we going to stop allowing Islam to war on us without acknowledging the fact that there is a war going on and Islam started it. Invading countries is an act of war. Bombing is an act of war. The problem with the current - unacknowledged - war is that we refuse to name the enemy. It's as if we face Voldemort: "He who must not be named."

There are several reasons. The first is the all-embracing multiculturalism that pervades the Liberal portion of the American population.  The thought police on the Left strictly enforce the belief that other cultures are neither superior or inferior, better or worse, friendly or inimical. We are compelled to celebrate them all. So when the practitioners of Islam force women to wear burkas, forbid women to go out without an escort, forbid them to drive, stone women to death for adultery and subject them to clitorectomies, the women who call themselves feminists, the ones who attend "slut walks" and redefine unwanted touching as rape, are silent.

The second reason for refusing to refer to Islam as an enemy of the West is because "we don't want to declare war on 1.3 billion people."    But what happens when many of those people are part of the war on us?  If we should acknowledge Islam as the enemy of modern civilization, we will gain much-needed moral clarity and may well be surprised by the effect is has in the Muslim community.  It may have escaped the notice of people unfamiliar with war that most people in any country don't do any fighting.  They go to work, raise families and try to live as normal a life as possible.  Most Germans did not fight in World Wars 1 or 2.  From our perspective, we fought the Kaiser; we fought Hitler and the Nazis.  In the Cold War we fought against Communism and its leaders - Stalin and the butchers that followed him - not the Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians, and the of the people that comprised the USSR. 

It is time to take a realistic look at militant Islam, why it's rising, where it's centers are, who funds it and spreads its message, and why it attracts new followers in the West.  Europe has imported the agents of its own impending civil war.  We need moral clarity to make sure it does not happen here.

Ted Cruz Interview

Democrat Allison Grimes Lies about Kentuck Coal.

Liberals and Unicorns

Liberals believe in unicorns.  The unicorn in this case is the human being who, when employed by a government agency, suddenly inhabits a higher, more exalted moral plane.  Just as judges become wiser than the lawyers they once were.  And students become wiser and more disinterested once they become academics.  They also believe that men and women who write and edit newspapers know what they are writing about.  It’s not just Liberals who believe this, many others do. They are known as “low information” voters. 

Gallup: Voter opposition to Obama at 16-year high, worse than Bush, Clinton

Angry and frustrated voters are planning to use the midterm elections in one month to tell President Obama they oppose his agenda, the highest “no vote” percentage in the last 16 years measured by Gallup.

The polling outfit found that 32 percent of voters want to send a message of opposition with their vote, compared to just 20 percent who are sending a signal of support.

That is 13 points higher than in 1998 when former President Clinton was headed to impeachment for lying about his sex affair with a former White House intern and even a smidge higher — 2 points — than in 2008, when Americans were tired of President Bush’s military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And in a related note: Axelrod: Obama ballot line a 'mistake'

'Where's the global warming?'

This week saw the 18th anniversary since the Earth's temperature last rose - something that Dr Benny Peiser, from the Global Warming Policy Forum, says experts are struggling to understand.

He explains that we are now in the midst of a "crisis of credibility" because the global warming - and accompanied 'Doomsday' effects - that we were once warned about has not happened.

Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) once predicted a temperature rise of 0.2 degrees per decade - but are now baffled by the fact our planet's temperature has not increased for almost two decades...

Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, Dr Peiser said: "What has happened is that the public has become more sceptical because they were told we are facing Doomsday, and suddenly they realise ‘Where is the warming that we were promised?’"

"They say we can predict the climate and the reality is that they can’t."

Here in Virginia we're having an unusually cool fall. It's very pleasant.

Booby Kennedy likes heroin

Bobby Kennedy is unhinged.  He wants the death of people and institutions that disagree with him.
 

From Power Line

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Apparently yesterday’s rant about the Koch brothers wasn’t enough for Little Bobby. Here he is calling for the jailing of the Koch brothers, and possibly politicians who “deny” climate change, when all they’re really denying is the will to power of brownshirts like Little Bobby. (John referred to this rant yesterday, but here’s the tape.) He cites “reckless endangerment” as the legal cause of action for jailing the Kochs, who belong “with all the other war criminals.” Hmm: shouldn’t Little Bobby be in prison for the “reckless endangerment” of his unrelenting claims that vaccines cause autism, which every scientific review has debunked? How many children of getting the old childhood diseases again because their stupid, gullible parents listened to this demagogue? (Video is just 45 seconds long—hardly time to pour a shot glass for Power Line’s Little Bobby Drinking Game.)

But here's a possible explanation for his outbursts ... (in an article about RFK Backtracks Amid Skakel Furor 11/15/2002)

Kennedy served as a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney's office from 1982 until 1983, when he was arrested for heroin possession. He checked into treatment, pleaded guilty, and was given probation. He currently heads an environmental group working to protect the Hudson River.

It's amazing what the rich and famous can get away with.  Unfortunately, Bobby Kennedy may well be saying what much of the Liberals really believe.  What they really want to the rest of America. The new Brownshirts, who were also radical anti-capitalists.   

The "Great Satan"

In the WSJ a comment intrigued me.

The West -- the Great Satan -- is an existential threat to the power that the theocrats hold over their struggling nations-- largely 'the street' -- for as long as those hovels have satellite dishes, can see how the West lives, and can see how they live.

I believe this misses the point because it assumes the perspective of the "Secular West." For much of it's long existence the West was not secular but Christian. During this time there was also a clash of cultures, but not a clash or morals. When the West became "secular" with a vengeance (that battle is being waged in the West as a cultural civil war with religion in retreat), Islam began to see the West not just as an opponent, but as the "Great Satan." The cultural manifestations of secularism must be viewed from their perspective as a destroyer of the soul. For a deeply religious people that is worse than a physical threat.

It's "Zombie Preparedness Month" in Kansas

“If you’re prepared for zombies, you’re prepared for anything” is the theme behind the zombie apocalypse preparedness campaign.

We discovered this interesting fact while reading Bud Norman's great blog.  He also notes that with the introduction of the Ebola virus into the US:

The extraordinary amount of press coverage devoted to the disease has already revealed several instances where themost up-to-date protocols for dealing with the disease with have not been followed, including an unpleasant account theinfected patient’s vomit being cleaned off a sidewalk by power hoses that no doubt sent dangerous bacteria flying off into the atmosphere, and one shudders to think what mistakes might come next. So far as we can tell the government decided not restrict flights from infected countries partly because that had been a Bush administration idea, and partly because it was thought that discriminating on the basis of a deadly disease might offend African sensibilities. Such pointless political considerations are likely to override medical necessity again in the coming days, if the government’s recent history of border security and presidential security are any guide, it does not inspire confidence.

Also that it's all the fault of white people out to kill black people.  Black Leader "Calypso" Louis Farrakhan is telling Obama voters that this nefarious plot was .. well, you can read it here:

The situation has already prompted the survivalists to take precautions beyond their usual paranoid preparedness, and the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan is predictably blaming it all on a white supremacist conspiracy to kill black people which is currently being carried out by the first black president, although it was apparently launched at some nonexistent point in history when Henry Kissinger was serving as Secretary of State to President George H.W. Bush, but we’re remaining relatively calm. We’re counting on those reportedly low transmissions rates, though, and not the government. There have been strange accounts of Ebola victims awakening from the dead, and we note proudly that this is  “Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness Month” here in Kansas, but otherwise the government doesn't seem ready for the coming challenges.

The Keystone Cops are running America, or could it be "Evil Clowns?"

Justice corrupted

Daniel Henninger begins his piece on Eric Holder thusly:

History will ill-serve Eric Holder if it does no more than echo the view common in the wake of his resignation that his tenure as Attorney General was "controversial." Mr. Holder's more than five years as the nation's chief legal officer were consequential.

In tandem with Barack Obama 's White House, Mr. Holder pushed the authority of the federal government and its administrative agencies beyond the edge of the Constitution and law. They did so not in one or several controversial instances, as with past presidencies, but repeatedly and across the breadth of the federal government.

Holder’s official duties are to be the country’s chief law enforcement officer. In reality he was Obama’s “enforcer.” He was there to give a legal gloss to what Obama wanted done. In many cases what Obama wanted Holder to do was nothing.  To hold the line, to hide the truth, to obstruct justice.  He was the goalie past whom no investigation of corruption or malfeasance was allowed to pass. He was Obama’s “stone wall.”

But he had help in what he did: the Democrats in Congress. When the cover-up surrounding the Watergate break-in was revealed, members of Richard Nixon’s own party went to the White House to tell the President that he should resign or face impeachment. These men put the country ahead of their party. Nixon, rather than fight impeachment in the House and a trial in the Senate, resigned, sparing the country much trauma and a Constitutional crisis. There is reason to think that Nixon could have taken the route that Clinton did years later, with the same effect. The Republicans who went to the White House to confront Nixon - the Republican Senate and House leadership - also understood their critical responsibilities assigned to them by the Constitution.  They were the checks and balances.  Congress was there not just to make laws but to make sure that the President did not overstep his bounds.  They viewed Congress as a separate and co-equal branch of government, transcending party loyalty. The Senate under the leadership of Democrat Harry Reid is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Obama administration. Without Reid and Pelosi, Holder could not hold the line. It is inconceivable that any action by Obama could cause a Democrat revolt. To take an extreme example, can anyone see Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi confronting Obama if he would announce that, because of a national emergency, the election of 2016 will be postponed indefinitely?

The comparison of Obama to Nixon is apt because both Presidents committed unconstitutional acts. But only one paid a price for it. Compare Eric Holder to John Mitchell, Nixon’s Attorney General. Because Mitchell aided Nixon in attempting to cover up Watergate he was indicted and sent to prison. Unless there is a dramatic change of attitude by Democrats in Congress, Holder will never be held to account for helping Obama obstruct justice in, for example, the IRS scandal or Fast & Furious. I put the onus on Democrats because it is difficult to imagine Republican leaders such as John Boehner or Mitch McConnell having the will or courage to stand up against the Democrats or (in Glenn Reynolds' memorable phrase) the "Democrats with bylines" in the media.

When you realize that the thing that separates us from a South American caudillo-style government is not the constitution, but lethargy on the part of the President, you become worried about the future.

EBOLA PATIENT HAD CONTACT WITH SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN

Authorities say five students who had contact with a man diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas are being monitored but are showing no symptoms of the disease.

Didn't Obama promise us we had nothing to worry about? Of course he also promised us we could keep our doctor and the insure plan we liked and our premiums would go down $2500.

How's that HopeN'change working out for you?

Secret Service Director Resigns

According to the Lying Times

Julia Pierson, the director of the Secret Service, is resigning in the wake of several security breaches.

The resignation came less than a day after lawmakers from both parties assailed Ms. Pierson’s leadership and said they feared for the lives of the president and others in the protection of the agency.

I'm sure Barack Obama will give her a grand send-off speech.

Lefties tend to want their opponents dead or in jail. Naturally, they assume their opponents feel the same way about them.

Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit)

WELL, AFTER ALL THOSE YEARS OF BUSH ASSASSINATION-FANTASIES BY THE LEFT, YOU CAN SEE WHY THEY’D BE PUZZLED: New York Times: Say, Why Don’t Republicans Want President Obama To Be Killed? “Of course we want the president to be safe. Those who are surprised by this perhaps need to spend some more time with their ideological opponents, or — and this will be harder, I grant — spend a little more time examining what it is about their ideology that led them to conflate political opposition and violence in the first instance.”