Witch’s Will For A Mourning In June

I will remain in “mourning” so long as Obama’s unworthy ass sits in the Oval Office.

Quote of the day:

  Political chaos is connected with the decay of language… one can probably bring about  some improvement by starting at the verbal end. ~ George  Orwell

President Obama said he welcomes a national debate over our surveillance policies. He said that’s a debate we wouldn’t have had five years ago. Five years ago? It’s a debate we wouldn’t have had two weeks ago if they all hadn’t gotten caught.

My Favorite 3 Stories:

#1

Government compromises our trust

It looked bad last week, but it looks much, much worse now.  The federal government has been spying and lying.  The only comfort is that, apparently, it’s been largely incompetent at both:  Nobody believes the lies, and the spying wasn’t even able to catch the Tsarnaev brothers.

Not long ago, the Director of National Intelligence assured us that the federal government does not “wittingly” spy on Americans.  That has turned out to be a lie. As Fred Kaplan writes in Slate,   “We as a nation are being asked to let the National Security Agency continue doing the intrusive things it’s been doing on the premise that congressional oversight will rein in abuses. But it’s hard to have meaningful oversight when an official in charge of the program lies so blatantly in one of the rare open hearings on the subject. “  And the spying turns out to go even further than we thought we knew last week.

Over the weekend, the Associated Press reported that the spying goes well beyond the Prism program reported by whistleblower Edward Snowden.  As AP notes, “while Prism has attracted the recent attention, the program actually is a relatively small part of a much more expansive and intrusive eavesdropping effort. . . .  documents show it is one of the major sources for what ends up in the president’s daily briefing.”  From the descriptions available, it appears that the NSA basically just copies everything going over the Internet, and can look at it either in real time or later.

Meanwhile, according to a report from CNET, the National Security Administration has admitted, despite earlier denials, that it’s listening to American phone calls without warrants. The calls are stored, but there’s no warrant application.  Instead, it appears — though as I write this there’s enough back-and-forth that it isn’t certain — that all that is needed is a decision by an analyst.  So, in essence, the NSA may be writing its own warrants.

more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/06/17/government-spying-lying-column/2428705/

#2

Rise in illegal crossings roils immigration debate

  by Byron York

There was a striking moment in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s debate on the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill when Republican Jeff Sessions and Democrat Charles Schumer argued over the number of immigrants who would be allowed into the country under the new legislation.

Sessions cited reports suggesting the figure would be more than 20 million over the next decade in addition to the 11 million or so who are already in the United States illegally. Schumer took issue with that, although he wouldn’t name a figure of his own.

Then Schumer declared the whole dispute beside the point. “It is not that, ‘Oh, this bill is allowing many more people to come into this country than would have come,’ ” he said. “They are coming. They’re either coming under law or not under law.”

more: http://washingtonexaminer.com/rise-in-illegal-crossings-roils-immigration-debate/article/2532040

#3

Ted Cruz Set to Infuriate the Left With Immigration Bill Amendment

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Monday announced his intention to file another amendment to the so-called “gang of eight” immigration bill that is facing tough opposition from some GOP lawmakers.

“I’ll file amendment to immigration bill that permits states to require ID before registering voters & close this hole in [federal] statutory law,” Cruz wrote via his official Twitter account.

Cruz has consistently opposed the immigration bill, voting against its advancement in the Senate three times and has shown no signs of flipping on the legislation.

more: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/17/ted-cruz-set-to-infuriate-the-left-with-immigration-bill-amendment/

Go Cruz!

Commentary:

Two Black Democrats Become Republicans in Louisiana

   by Star Parker

Anyone who doubts that the Republican Party can attract black voters needs only look south to Louisiana.

At a conference held in Baton Rouge at the end of May, called @Large and aimed to attract black conservatives, black Democrat Elbert Guillary, a member of the state legislature, announced that he was switching party and becoming a Republican.

Less than two weeks later, just up the road in Central City, Louisiana, black Democrat city councilman Ralph Washington – who attended this same @Large conference, made the same announcement – he’s becoming a Republican.

It’s really not such a mystery. The mystery is why this is not happening more often.

I’m asked all the time why, when it is so clear that blacks are damaged by the left wing political agenda, black voters so uniformly and consistently support candidates – Democrats – who advance this agenda.

My answer is that Republicans need to start acting more like the businesspeople they claim to be.

Any businessman convinced that his product is the best doesn’t blame customers for not buying it. He doubles down on his efforts to understand these potential customers better and how to sell to them.

There needs to be more appreciation of the differences in the black population.

A Gallup poll done in 2011 showed that whereas 39 percent of whites say they are “very religious,” 53 percent of blacks do. A large percentage of “very religious” blacks are conservative and very different from blacks on the left who identify with the NAACP.

The @Large conference, where I was a speaker, was hosted by pastor C.L. Bryant, who tells his own story about leaving the left-wing black establishment in his new film “Runaway Slave.”

Bryant was president of the NAACP chapter in Garland, Texas, but his relationship with the NAACP soured when he refused to speak at a Planned Parenthood pro-abortion event.

His eyes began to open and see that his traditional Christian values – protecting the unborn and promoting the traditional family, individual freedom, and dignity – were out of whack with the political agenda blacks were automatically signing onto.

Elbert Guillary is now the first black Republican in the Louisiana state legislature since reconstruction.

more: http://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2013/06/17/two-black-democrats-become-republicans-in-louisiana-n1620190/page/full

Worth a Read:

Is California Doomed?

The Beholden State: California’s Lost Promise and How to Recapture It is now officially published and available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble and all the rest. This is a collection of writings on California’s troubles from my friends at the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal and includes excellent essays by the great Victor Davis Hanson, Steven Malanga, Joel Kotkin, Heather Mac Donald and others. Among those others is me, (or I), with my essay on the movies, “The Lost Art of War.”

But while I’m delighted to be included in the book, the thing I really love about City Journal is that the writers and thinkers there are not concerned with party politics, but only with what works. They’ll support Democrats or Republicans, as long as they come up with real solutions to problems — and solutions that don’t compromise American principles of freedom. Also, they’re really good writers and thinkers.

Take a look at the book — and take a look at the journal itself too. Both provide unique takes on issues that are too often obscured by emotion and rhetoric.

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/06/17/is-california-doomed/

Schools Scanned Kids’ Eyes Without Parents’ Permission

Parents in a Florida school district are fuming after learning officials failed  to ask permission to scan their children’s eyes for a high-tech school bus  security program.

The Polk County School District claims a series of errors led to the program moving forward.  Parents were told they could opt out — but only after 750 students had had their  irises scanned.

more: http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/Polk-eyes-scan-permission/2013/06/17/id/510330?promo_code=13074-1&utm_source=13074The_hill&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1

And so it goes. Day after day civil rights violated by the government. And will those idiot voters allow the perpetrator of this violation to continue in his job?

If these parents are really serious about their outrage District administrator Rob Davis will be fired. Immediately if not sooner!Or will he be put on a paid leave and get a free vacation courtesy of the scammed and scammed again taxpayer. 47% won’t give a damn, they don’t pay taxes anyway.

Embattled ICE Director Resigns

more: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/06/17/embattled-ice-director-resigns-n1621795

Big deal! Obama will simply appoint someone with the same lack of integrity. New person with same ideology.

Brit Hume: Silence Is “Not A Way To Lead”

BRIT HUME: President Obama’s handling of the deteriorating situation in Syria follows a pattern traceable through much of his political career. When the issues are difficult and the options unappetizing, he tends simply to go away.

Recall his history of voting present in the Illinois legislature. But when you’re president you can’t simply vote present.

video: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/06/17/brit_hume_silence_is_not_a_way_to_lead.html

Rand Paul: Obama Said He Would Protect 4th Amendment And Privacy But Does The Complete Opposite

Media Malpractice:

NBC Praises Bloomberg’s ‘Great Idea’ of Forcing New Yorkers to Store Rotting  Trash in Apartments

The hosts on Monday’s NBC Today were all in agreement that New City  Mayor Michael Bloomberg forcing all residents to sort out rotten food scraps  from their garbage for composting – and to hold on to the refuse for days – was  a “great idea” that would be “good for the environment.” [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Co-host Matt Lauer briefly explained the program: “[Bloomberg] wants you to  take your food scraps, put them in a container about the size of a picnic basket  in your home, hold them for a few days and then later put them in some  larger…containers out on the sidewalk….This is going to be part of a  voluntary program at first, which will then become a mandatory program.” He  added that “they’ve tried it with a few pilot programs here in New York and the  participation was very high.”

more:  http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2013/06/17/today-hosts-bloomberg-forcing-new-yorkers-sort-rotting-garbage-great-i#ixzz2WYuYaqnC

I’ve composted for years. But I have a house and a yard.

In apartments? Maybe possible if it is voluntary and done by people who know what they’re doing.

Forced composting? Recipe for massive stench, rodent and insect problem. Naturally this idea is endorsed by people who know nothing about it.

Cockroaches Of The Day:

Ari Melber and a panel of liberals

MSNBC: Republican Pro-Lifers Motivated By “White Supremacy”…

more: http://weaselzippers.us/2013/06/17/msnbc-republican-pro-lifers-motivated-by-white-supremacy/

Not only did these idiots get their “facts” wrong, but they are so self-absorbed in their belief system that all conservatives are racists that they haven’t the brains, or guts, to look in the mirror and see the real racists.

These are the people that view every issue through the prism of race. Racists? More on the left than on the right. Lying cockroaches to boot.

Witch’s Will For A Mourning In June

I will remain in “mourning” so long as Obama’s unworthy ass sits in the Oval Office.

Quote of the day:

  There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors… I mean it. ~ Margaret Thatcher

 A recent CNN poll revealed that 54% of Americans still do not support Obamacare. In other news, 54% of Americans are expected to receive IRS audits this year.

My Favorite 3 Stories:

#1

Lois Lerner: The Face of ObamaCare

Obama is famous for having brought “The Chicago Way”  to national politics, to the character of the presidency.  What does this mean, exactly?

In politics, Leftists pursue power while  conservatives pursue principle.  I know.  Rolling of eyes.   Screeches of outrage.  Sarcastic catcalls.  “Everybody does  it.”

“Even if it’s true, you don’t mean all Leftists…”  Well…yes.  To the extent that we organize  ourselves into groups, then the members of a group are advancing the objectives  of that group.  If you are a Democrat, you are advancing the objectives of  the Democratic Party.

Look at the  difference between a Leftist in power and a conservative in power.   If you were to accuse a conservative in power of favoring one group over another  in a civic matter because of the political support of that group, the  conservative would be affronted.

If you were to accuse a Leftist of doing the same  thing, the Leftist would be proud.  “You got the message.  If you are  on our side, good things happen.  If you are not, bad things happen.”   The Chicago Way is simply a harder nosed and more shameless version of  that.

Here is the John Le Carre twist in this.  The  only way the Leftists can expand the power, the reach, of the government is by  pretending that the government is guided by conservative  principles.  I.e., that the government will act dispassionately in  everyone’s best interest intermixed with mercy in more extreme cases (ignoring  Hayek’s argument that it is impossible for the government to have this  sort of knowledge).  If the government is going to be an instrument of  control and retribution, the public would not countenance its  expansion.

ObamaCare is not there to provide us with  health care.  We already have that.  It is there to prevent us  from getting health care – to ration it.  And we are paying for the  privilege.  The government has no source of income except us.  So it  can only pay for our health care with our money.  It is not giving us  anything.

more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/06/lois_lerner_the_face_of_obamacare.html#ixzz2WT0z56O0

Far too many people simply cannot understand that the government has NO money. It can GIVE nothing from itself because it HAS nothing. It can however TAKE from some to GIVE to others. That’s not “giving” IMO, that’s theft.Then they take it a step further and decide who to “give” to, or to punish, based on political ideology. The libs accused Bush of doing that. Now that Obama is doing it, and doing it for more and worse, they don’t have a problem with it.

Hypocrites and scumbags abide on the left. Lois Lerner is just one of the faces. And an ugly one at that. An ugliness that has nothing to do with what she looks like but what she is.

#2

The New American Enemies List

   by Victor Davis Hanson

The vast majority of the annual shooting homicides are committed by inner-city and minority youths below the age of 30. Handguns are involved in 80% of all murders. Rifles and shotguns account for less than 10% of homicides.

No matter; the National Rifle Association is now blamed for generic gun violence, especially the mass shootings at schools, even though usually no one knows of any proposed gun law — barring outright confiscation of previously purchased firearms, bullets, and clips — that would have prevented the shooters at Sandy Hook and Columbine. Gun merchants are blamed by the president while in Mexico for selling lethal semi-automatic weapons to drug cartels. But so far, the only identifiable purveyor of illegal weaponry is the president’s own attorney general, whose subordinates in the Fast and Furious operation sold hundreds of guns illegally to Mexican drug lords.

Suggestions to encourage greater incarceration of the mentally unstable, to jawbone Hollywood about its profitable (and gratuitous) gun violence, to regulate extremely violent — and extremely well-selling — video games usually fall on deaf liberal ears. In short, the stereotyped camouflaged, weekend gun enthusiast is not the problem that leads to Columbine, or the nearly 532 murders last year in Chicago. But because we can’t or won’t address the causes of the latter, we go after the former. He is not the unhinged sort that shoots a Gabby Giffords or innocents in an Aurora, Colorado, theater; but somehow is the supposed red-neck yokel that a journalist like ABC’s Brian Ross assumes does.

There is currently a climate of fear growing throughout the United States. Millions of Americans are terrified of the IRS, the Department of Justice, the EPA, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and even perhaps the FBI, CIA, and State Department.

Why?

These government agencies have never been bigger, more powerful, and more ideologically driven. Citizens fear them for understandable reasons: those who do nothing wrong, whether in filing tax forms or trying to buy a rifle, are considered suspect and deserving to be the target of either federal scrutiny or presidential slurs.  But those who do a great deal of wrong, either by illegally entering the country, disrupting polling, trafficking in weapons in Mexico, eavesdropping on American citizens, pulling tax information for partisan purposes, subverting a government agency, or lying to the public about government activity, seem exempt from punishment — and, more chillingly, sense that they are so exempt.

Ask who now is sitting in prison — a shyster video-maker who had nothing to do with the deaths of four Americans, or their five known terrorist killers lounging about in North Africa? Apparently, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, like EPA director Lisa Jackson, was guilty of creating a fake persona. Like Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, he had a lien on his business. Like former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, he had some unpaid taxes. Like Tamerlan Tsarnaev, he had been visited by government investigators. Like Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, he lied to federal authorities — although they were not quite as high as those in the U.S. Congress. And unlike all of the above, he was therefore jailed.

Of all the legacies of Barack Obama, the most pernicious will be the creation of a rogue government that has cut off and terrified half the population — and for no other reason than that they seem to represent things that Mr. Obama simply does not seem to understand.

more: http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-new-american-enemies-list/?singlepage=true

There are, there must be, more good people in government than bad. But unless and until the good folks speak up and out the bad ones will win.

We don’t need a few whistle-blowers, we need a massive whistle-blower orchestra! Then “we the people” need to make sure that they are protected from this rogue government. Both left and right.

#3

Dem Senator, GOP Chairman Feel Pinch to Get Tax Reform Rolling

WASHINGTON – The top tax policy mavens in the House and Senate are partnering in an effort to rewrite and simplify the nation’s 4,000-page code and doing everything possible to generate enthusiasm for what promises to be a herculean effort.

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, have together expressed an urgency to reform the Internal Revenue Code and have been discussing the possibility with their respective panel members for several months.

Camp and Baucus have launched a website, taxreform.gov, to obtain recommendations from the public on how to proceed and are conducting a series of hearings on the issue, the latest coming Thursday when Camp took his Ways and Means panel on a tour of the sexy issues of tax havens, base erosion, and profit shifting.

The pair also has announced plans to tour the country.

“I don’t think we have a lot of time to wait,” said Camp, adding that he and Baucus have been working on the effort, both jointly and separately, for several years.

The pressure to do something, Camp said, comes from “the fact that a quarter of the kids coming out of college can’t find a job, the fact that there are the highest number of people since the Carter administration who just stopped looking for work and then even if you have a job you may not have had a wage increase in a while.”

“So that is what’s really driving me on this — the jobs and the economy issue and also the complexity of the code,” he said. “Obviously we’re both committed to making this a reality because we can’t afford to wait. We think the time is now.”

There’s another reason time must be now for Camp and Baucus, who have become friends as a result of the process. Baucus is retiring and will leave office after the 2014 elections. And Camp is term-limited as chairman of the tax-writing panel.

Baucus noted that tax reform hasn’t been successfully undertaken since 1986. Since then, the tax code has been amended 15,000 times.

“The barnacles have grown back up again,” Baucus said.

more: http://pjmedia.com/blog/dem-senator-gop-chairman-feel-pinch-to-get-tax-reform-rolling/?singlepage=true

My question is, why would anyone trust Max Baucus who was responsible in a very large part for the writing of Obamacare? He inflicted that monstrosity on the country and then is cutting and running from it. I wouldn’t trust him with a plugged nickel. He’s a political whore who doesn’t even stick around to “service” the John’s.Besides, he’s a Dem. That’s enough for me to distrust and loathe him.

A special message to my spouse and all the friends that I have met over the years:

As I approach my twilight years, I am struck by the inevitability that the party must end. And one clear, cold morning after I’m gone, my spouse will awaken in the warmth of our bedroom and be struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn’t “anymore.”

No more hugs, no more special moments to celebrate together, no more phone calls just to chat, no more “just one minute.”

Sometimes, what we care about the most gets all used up and goes away, never to return before we can say good-bye, or say “I love you.”

Life is important, like people we know who are special. And so, we keep them close!

Suppose one morning you never wake up, do all your friends know how you really feel? The important thing is to let every one of your friends know your true feelings, even if you think they don’t love you back.

So, just in case I’m gone tomorrow, please rest assured I voted against that asshole Obama…..both times.

Commentary:

A Nation of Kids on Speed

Six million children in the U.S. have already been diagnosed with ADHD. Plenty more will follow.

by Pieter Chohen & Nicolas Rasmussen

Walk into any American high school and nearly one in five boys in the hallways will have a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 11% of all American children ages 4 to 17—over six million—have ADHD, a 16% increase since 2007. When you consider that in Britain roughly 3% of children have been similarly diagnosed, the figure is even more startling. Now comes worse news: In the U.S., being told that you have ADHD—and thus receiving some variety of amphetamine to treat it—has become more likely.

Last month, the American Psychiatric Association released the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—the bible of mental health—and this latest version, known as DSM-5, outlines a new diagnostic paradigm for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Symptoms of ADHD remain the same in the new edition: “overlooks details,” “has difficulty remaining focused during lengthy reading,” “often fidgets with or taps hands” and so on. The difference is that in the previous version of the manual, the first symptoms of ADHD needed to be evident by age 7 for a diagnosis to be made. In DSM-5, if the symptoms turn up anytime before age 12, the ADHD diagnosis can be made.

It’s also easier to diagnose adult ADHD. Before, adults needed to exhibit six symptoms. Now, five will do. These changes will undoubtedly fuel increased prescriptions of the drugs that doctors use to treat ADHD: stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall.

more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323728204578513662248894162.html

Worth a Read:

IRS supervisor in DC scrutinized tea party cases

Paz said dozens of tea party applications sat untouched for more than a year while field agents waited for guidance from Washington on how to handle them. At the time, she said, Washington officials thought the agents in Cincinnati were processing the cases.

Paz was among the first IRS employees to be interviewed as part of a joint investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee.

more: http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2013/06/16/irs-supervisor-in-dc-scrutinized-tea-party-cases-n1621233

Yet another official stepping forward to say that they weren’t evil, they were incompetent.   

As the North Rest on Its Laurels, the South Is Rising Fast

by Joel Kotkin

The old Confederate states now have America’s fastest-growing economies, and populations. Joel Kotkin reports on why Northerners have been slow to notice or credit the South’s rise.

more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/17/as-the-north-rest-on-its-laurels-the-south-is-rising-fast.html

Rubio Aide: ‘There Are American Workers Who, For Lack of a Better Term, Can’t Cut It’

more: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/351198/rubio-aide-there-are-american-workers-who-lack-better-term-cant-cut-it-rich-lowry

More and more I am coming to believe that Rubio can’t cut it. A snake in the grass and a wolf in sheep’s clothing! I don’t trust or believe him anymore.

Major tests loom for Boehner

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is facing some tough decisions in the coming  weeks. [WATCH  VIDEO]

By and large, Boehner has dodged controversy since January, when his  political stock took major hits as Congress debated the fiscal cliff and Sandy  relief. But that respite will soon come to an end.

Among the testy issues facing Boehner:  Immigration reform, a five-year farm bill, the constitutionality of the National  Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs, a possible government shutdown and  increasing the federal debt limit.

Boehner has already committed to moving a five-year farm measure, which is  set for a vote on the floor this week. But there are sure to be dozens of GOP  defections.

more: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/305807-major-tests-loom-for-boehner#ixzz2WTTKrcF2

I was willing to give Boehner a chance even though I was not impressed with him. He’s had his chance and to me he is weak and very much the iconic Washington insider. Down with Boehner!

Media Malpractice:

Greenwald Slams Media for Backing Obama’s Domestic Surveillance When They  Opposed Bush’s

GREENWALD: There were all kinds of controversies back then the same as now. Alberto  Gonzalez threatened to prosecute “The New York Times” for publishing that story.  There were calls for the source that turned out to be Thomas Ham (ph), a  midlevel Justice Department lawyer, to be prosecuted.

Uniformly, I bet you cannot go back and find a single liberal, progressive  or Democratic pundit back then taking Alberto Gonzalez’ side or condemning the  source who blew the whistle on that program.

KURTZ: And now you think they have flipped?

GREENWALD: They have completely switched gears.

KURTZ: Yes.

GREENWALD: Yes, you can even look at polling data. Overwhelmingly,  Democrats opposed NSA surveillance programs back in 2006 and overwhelmingly they  now favor them because it’s a Democrat in power who’s doing it rather than a  Republican.

video: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/06/16/greenwald-slams-media-backing-obamas-domestic-surveillance-when-they

Keep calling out the hypocrites Glenn!

Cockroaches Of The Day:

Rubio, McCain, Flake & Graham

Rubio thinks immigration bill in good shape; Graham says a GOP block would add  to party’s ‘death spiral’

The top Republican crafting the Senate’s sweeping immigration-reform legislation  acknowledged Sunday the bill still has flaws, while a fellow GOP senator said  their party blocking its passage will only add to their “demographic death  spiral.”

more:  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/16/rubio-thinks-immigration-bill-in-good-shape-graham-says-gop-block-would-add-to/#ixzz2WTUMYBb1

Witch’s Will For A Mourning In June

I will remain in “mourning” so long as Obama’s unworthy ass sits in the Oval Office.

Quote of the day:

 The  marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens  unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. ~ George  Washington

 A new report shows that prison inmates in New Jersey have picked up $23 million in government benefit payments. Huh. I thought criminals had to get elected before getting government paychecks.

My Favorite 3 Stories:

#1

Blundering O out at second

   by Michael Goodwin

If you want to start a fight with a room full of liberals, insist that Barack Obama is the worst president in recent history. The blowback about George W. Bush and Iraq will drown you out, but here’s a way to quiet the crowd: Insist that Obama’s second term is the worst term in recent presidential history.

There can be no argument there.

Each week hits a new low point, and the only debate is about which moment was the worst. Last week featured the massive security breach by Edward Snowden and Obama’s pathetic Hamlet act over Syria.

We don’t yet know which caused more harm to American interests and eroded more trust in government. Either way, the president is lost in a fog of his own making.

Snowden, on a private contractor’s payroll for only a few months, was able to download a mountain of classified material and flee the country. After news accounts revealed the surveillance programs, he popped up in Hong Kong to out himself as the source and praise China. Washington gumshoes don’t have a clue about where he is or how he got access to so much data.

On Syria, Obama moved to help the rebels only after Bill Clinton embarrassed him into action. Clinton warned that Obama would be remembered as a “wuss” and accused him of following polls instead of leading.

Obama’s instant stirring — he suddenly remembered that Syria had crossed his “red line” by using chemical weapons — amounted to an admission of guilt. Stories about the scramble to put together a quickie plan, which was released by aides, not the president, recounted Obama’s “agonizing” deliberations during a two-year civil war that claimed nearly 100,000 lives. “Leading from behind” is now standard operating procedure.

The growing image of Professor Obama paralyzed by indecision as the world unravels is accurate — up to a point. The full picture is far more troubling.

more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/blundering_out_at_second_rvgpnja5Fuo9iV0HA1jjaP

#2

Obama is Abrading the Social Fabric

By Clarice  Feldman

I  have always believed that regardless of the laws of a nation, the social fabric  that binds it is woven of mutual trust between the people and their private and  governmental institutions. Once that fabric is weakened, the dangers to an  ordered society are extreme. This week, the holes in the U.S. social fabric are  manifest, and they are caused by the administration’s ever-expanding  lawlessness..

The statements by the high-tech self-exile  Snowden set off alarms even among those who are willing to repose their  confidence in the general integrity of our intelligence services. In my case,  not because I believe his overblown claims of civilian snooping, but because I  now have doubts about the efficacy of the controls on access to the information  gathered and my substantial, growing distrust of the president and the civil  service.

In any event, with the FBI having ignored  specific warnings from the Russians about the Boston bombers and the  administration announcing it will provide military support for the Syrian rebels  just as they in turn announce their affiliation with Al Qaeda, the need for this  elaborate record-gathering becomes ever less clear. From the outside it seems as  if in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iran, and Egypt we are doing everything in our  power to strengthen our enemies. What’s the point then creating this expensive  apparatus to permit listening to their communications as if we still regarded  them as enemies?

For most of my lifetime, I believed that our Founding  Fathers (“Founding  Founders to the White House“) set up a good — if not infallible –  means of keeping the excesses of the executive in check.  And that to supplement those checks and balances, the system of Inspectors  General created by Congress to audit operations and uncover misconduct and  criminal activity would do much to punish and prevent  wrongdoing.

But in the face of such widespread misuse of  government personnel and resources by the Obama Administration, the Constitution  and Inspector General provisions seem inadequate to the task.

more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/06/obamas_abrading_the_social_fabric.html#ixzz2WN2ozMfQ

#3

U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms

Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said.

These programs, whose participants are known as trusted partners, extend far beyond what was revealed by Edward Snowden, a computer technician who did work for the National Security Agency. The role of private companies has come under intense scrutiny since his disclosure this month that the NSA is collecting millions of U.S. residents’ telephone records and the computer communications of foreigners from Google Inc (GOOG). and other Internet companies under court order.

Many of these same Internet and telecommunications companies voluntarily provide U.S. intelligence organizations with additional data, such as equipment specifications, that don’t involve private communications of their customers, the four people said.

Makers of hardware and software, banks, Internet security providers, satellite telecommunications companies and many other companies also participate in the government programs. In some cases, the information gathered may be used not just to defend the nation but to help infiltrate computers of its adversaries.

Along with the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency (0112917D), the Federal Bureau of Investigation and branches of the U.S. military have agreements with such companies to gather data that might seem innocuous but could be highly useful in the hands of U.S. intelligence or cyber warfare units, according to the people, who have either worked for the government or are in companies that have these accords.

Microsoft Bugs

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world’s largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft (MSFT) and other software or Internet security companies have been aware that this type of early alert allowed the U.S. to exploit vulnerabilities in software sold to foreign governments, according to two U.S. officials. Microsoft doesn’t ask and can’t be told how the government uses such tip-offs, said the officials, who asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential.

Frank Shaw, a spokesman for Microsoft, said those releases occur in cooperation with multiple agencies and are designed to give government “an early start” on risk assessment and mitigation.

In an e-mailed statement, Shaw said there are “several programs” through which such information is passed to the government, and named two which are public, run by Microsoft and for defensive purposes.

Willing Cooperation

Some U.S. telecommunications companies willingly provide intelligence agencies with access to facilities and data offshore that would require a judge’s order if it were done in the U.S., one of the four people said.

In these cases, no oversight is necessary under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and companies are providing the information voluntarily.

more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap-data-with-thousands-of-firms.html

Government and big business hand in hand. Now there’s a surprise. /s

Commentary:

Googled to tears

  by Kathleen Parker

At a party a few years ago, a young reporter bounded over to my cluster of social nodders and, with the breathlessness of a born tweeter, chirped: “What’s the new hot thing?!”

Without disturbing my mascara, I replied: “Anonymity.”

She looked befuddled.

I continued: “To be Googled and to have nothing turn up. That’s hot.”

Too late, alas, even then.

In these post-Snowden days, the notion of anonymity is ludicrous. But so it has been for some time, though recent disclosures bring pause even to the habitually inured. It is one thing for Mrs. McQueen and Mrs. Harry G. Brown, my elderly dowager neighbors from childhood, to spy on each other through their porch screen doors. It is another for the National Security Agency to compile records of one’s phone calls.

Oh, for the days when Mrs. McQueen trumpeted gleefully: “I saw you eating that apple pie!”

While Americans bemoan their loss of privacy — and allow me to ululate right along with you — it is helpful to recall our own role in this gradual process of, shall we say, regurgitative knowingness.

That is, our apparent willingness to show and tell every little thing in the quest to be known. Fame and Celebrity are, by comparison, higher callings than whatever compels strangers to display, say, their tongues (or other points of anatomical interest) in the public forum of social media. These acts of baboonery, not so feigned after all, are unsubtly reminiscent of chimpanzees who, unconsciously aware of the camera’s hostile intrusion, try to offend it with grimaces, grins and lingual extrusions.

Now, suddenly we’re offended that national security operatives are following our behavior patterns? Cue Cheetah’s laugh track.

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-googling-ourselves-to-death/2013/06/14/ea004bba-d532-11e2-8cbe-1bcbee06f8f8_story.html

Worth a Read:

Will Marco Rubio Be Hoisted On His Own Petard?

  by Derek Hunter

Remember all the build-up around the Facebook IPO? Investors wondered when it would happen and how they could get in on it. People were scrambling to be part of the action. Then, it happened, and it flopped. Marco Rubio is fast turning into the Facebook IPO of the United States Senate. There was hype, there was hope, there was sizzle…but there’s been no steak.

In his first year in the Senate, Marco Rubio did … what exactly? He was sworn in on Jan. 3, 2011, and didn’t even deliver his first Senate floor speech until June 14. Conversely, Rand Paul and Mike Lee joined the Senate on the same day, hit the ground running and haven’t stopped running since.

Not everyone has to be Paul or Lee, and we can argue their success (but not their impact). But as a senator, Marco Rubio hasn’t lived up to half the hype. The proclaimed “savior of the conservative movement” is in the midst of selling it out for a handful of empty promises and feel-good platitudes.

The face for the “Gang of 8” senators on “comprehensive immigration reform” has done more spinning than a top lately and seems dangerously unfamiliar with the legislation. He has said areas of the bill, written by Democrats led by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., needs improvement, but almost nothing he’s said about it is accurate.

A good friend of mine, a high-ranking Republican aide in the Senate, told me a popular joke on Capitol Hill is that Sen. Schumer let Rubio write the talking points while his staff wrote the bill. It would be funny were it not proving so accurate.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., took to the floor of the Senate and asked some of the most important questions that, sadly, have not been asked by “Gang” members or the mainstream media. Sessions asked,

“Will it help the millions of middle-class working Americans who need jobs, need pay raises, need to be able to have health care and retirement benefits?”

It might seem shocking that a senator who has been touting “comprehensive” reform with amnesty at its heart hasn’t addressed this most important question, but Rubio hasn’t.

Sen. Sessions asked,

“Has anybody considered that if we bring in more people than the economy can absorb, this will create unemployment, place people on welfare and dependency, deny men and women the ability to produce an income sufficient to take care of their families, make them dependent on the State because we simply don’t have enough jobs?”

Thank God Jeff Sessions is there to ask that question, because Marco Rubio hasn’t.

more: http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2013/06/16/will-marco-rubio-be-hoisted-on-his-own-petard-n1620858/page/full

The Most Politically Incorrect Novelist Alive?

more: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/06/12/the-most-politically-incorrect-novelist-alive/?singlepage=true

Our Masters, the Bureaucrats 

A republic, if we can keep it.

With so many scandals swirling around the Obama administration, it is hard to identify which is the most politically damaging for the president. But there’s no doubt which one should trouble constitutionalists the most. The Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups raises core questions about the nature of our government that the public has ignored for generations. It’s high time to revisit the issue of how the people can maintain control over those who are supposed to do their business.

more: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/our-masters-bureaucrats_735245.html

Media Malpractice:

Not News at AP: Connecticut Legislative District Goes GOP For First Time in 40  Years to a Second Amendment Defender

A GOP candidate for the Connecticut State Legislature’s 53rd District about  70 miles northeast of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown won election on  Tuesday, marking the first time the seat has gone to a Republican since Richard  Nixon was president.

Republican Samuel Belsito defeated Democrat Anthony J. Horn by  a 58.5%-41.5% margin, largely because his stances in support of citizens’  Second Amendment rights and fiscal restraint were more convincing. Based on a  review of Newsday’s Associated Press Connecticut feed carrying stories from  throughout the Nutmeg State (most June 11 and June 12 stories as of the time of  this post are here  and here),  it appears that the AP did not run any stories on the result, and almost  certainly made no attempt to discern its meaning.

more:  http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2013/06/15/not-news-ap-connecticut-legislative-district-goes-gop-first-time-40-year#ixzz2WNheEMsx

Any doubt in anyone’s mind that had the result been t’other way round, a Dem taking a districts held by a Republican for 40 years, that it would be trumpeted by The AP aka “The Administration’s Press” . Most of all because of the district being near Sandy Hook elementary School.

Last but not least:

Distrust of Government Is What It’s All About

By Scott  Rasmussen

Another week, another controversy in official Washington.

At the moment, 35 percent of voters consider recently exposed National  Security Agency surveillance efforts as the most serious. The Internal Revenue  Service’s targeting of conservatives is No. 2 on the list, followed by concerns  about the Obama administration’s handling of the incident in Benghazi last fall  in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya was murdered. The Justice Department’s  secret probe of reporters’ phone and email records is seen as the top concern by  only 9 percent.

Competing for attention with the controversies are ongoing policy disputes  over immigration, gun control and full implementation of the national health  care law.

While each of these stories has its own cast of characters and internal  dynamics, it is now possible to identify a unifying theme.

President Obama, whose deeply held faith in government is unwavering,  unintentionally provided that moment of clarity last week. In attempting to  dismiss concerns about the NSA disclosures, he said,

“If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust  Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure that we’re abiding by the  Constitution with due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some  problems here.”

We have a problem.

more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/14/distrust_of_government_is_what_its_all_about_118824.html#ixzz2WNf9aJZG

Witch’s Will For A Mourning In June

I will remain in “mourning” so long as Obama’s unworthy ass sits in the Oval Office.

Quote of the day:

  Most bad government has grown out of too much government. ~ Thomas Jefferson

 Barack Obama named U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice national security advisor. She got away with blaming the Benghazi attack on a video and didn’t rat on anyone. Going back to their days in Chicago, she not only knows where the bodies are buried, her fingerprints are on the shovel.

My Favorite 3 Stories:

#1

Freedom: The Unfolding Revolution

  by Jonah  Goldberg

“Why are there no libertarian countries?”

In a much-discussed essay for Salon, Michael Lind asks:

“If libertarians are  correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society,  how is it that not a single country in the world in the early twenty-first  century is organized along libertarian lines?”

Such is the philosophical poverty of liberalism today that this stands as a  profound question.

Definitions vary, but broadly speaking, libertarianism is the idea that  people should be as free as possible from state coercion so long as they don’t  harm anyone. The job of the state is limited to fighting crime, providing for  the common defense, and protecting the rights and contracts of citizens. The  individual is sovereign; he is the captain of himself.

It’s true, no ideal libertarian state has ever existed outside a table for  one. And no such state will ever exist. But here’s an important caveat: No ideal  state of any other kind will be created either. America’s great, but it ain’t  perfect. Sweden’s social democracy is all right, but if it were perfect, I  suspect fewer cars would be on fire over there.

Ideals are called ideals for a reason: They’re ideals. They’re goals,  aspirations, abstract straight rules we use as measuring sticks against the  crooked timber of humanity.In the old Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s  Cambodia, and today’s North Korea, they tried to move toward the ideal Communist  system. Combined, they killed about 100 million of their own people. That’s a  hefty moral distinction right there:

When freedom-lovers move society toward  their ideal, mistakes may be made, but people tend to flourish. When the hard  Left is given free rein, millions are murdered and enslaved. Which ideal would  you like to move toward?

Lind sees it differently.

“If socialism is discredited by the failure of  communist regimes in the real world, why isn’t libertarianism discredited by the  absence of any libertarian regimes in the real world? Communism was tried and  failed. Libertarianism has never even been tried.”

What an odd standard. You know what else is a complete failure? Time travel.  After all, it’s never succeeded anywhere!

What’s so striking about the Lind standard is how thoroughly conservative it  is.

Pick a date in the past, and you can imagine someone asking similar  questions. “Why should women have equal rights?” some court intellectual surely  asked. “Show me anywhere in the world where that has been tried.” Before that, “Give the peasants the right to vote? Unheard of!”

In other words, there’s a first time for everything.

more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/14/freedom_the_unfolding_revolution_118820.html#ixzz2WHPPNSWj

#2

Marco Rubio: Dumb as a Post? Or Clever as a Fox?

Rubio has been warning since the compromise measure emerged that his support was dependent on securing a stronger border-security provision. And on Thursday, he announced that any attempt to add an amendment granting gay partners overseas the right to a green card would cause him to withdraw his support.

Are we to believe that he wasn’t aware that any change in the compromise on closing the border would be a deal killer for Democrats? Are we to believe that during the Gang of Eight negotiations the subject of gay partners being allowed to petition for their spouses living overseas to receive a green card never came up? Are we to believe Rubio was unaware of the issue and that some Democrat wouldn’t try and add it as an amendment to the bill when it reached the floor?

Two deal busters for Rubio gives him an easy “out” to oppose the bill. And the Democrats appear at this point to be more than willing to oblige him.

Imagine if Rubio were to renounce his support because of one or more of the poison pills mentioned above and lead the charge against the bill in the Senate. Many on the right won’t be taken in by his conversion, but others will be. It could be that Rubio has been performing a Kabuki dance with regards to immigration reform all along and that he never had any intention of supporting a comprehensive bill in the first place.

All of this presupposes that Rubio is a very clever man — which he is — and that he has a political subtlety that rivals Machiavelli — which is doubtful. Still, all the candidates have a limited path to the nomination, and Rubio has, for good or ill, banked on his leading role on immigration reform as a catalyst to help him break out of the crowd.

more: http://pjmedia.com/blog/marco-rubio-dumb-as-a-post-or-clever-as-a-fox/?singlepage=true

Whether dumb as a post or smart as a fox the idea that Rubio is playing a game to make himself look better makes me nauseous. I thought, silly me, that he was a man of principle.

How many times do I have to be proven wrong before I finally accept, for once and for all, that there are NO people of principal in politics. Just bad, worse, and Barack Obama.

#3

Obama exerted ‘unlawful command influence’ in speaking on military sexual assault, judge says

President Obama’s comments condemning military sexual assault and suggesting that those convicted be punished with, among other things, a dishonorable discharge may be backfiring on his efforts to root out the growing problem.

In pretrial hearings in two cases, a Navy judge in Hawaii ruled this week that Obama had exerted “unlawful command influence” as commander-in-chief in outlining the specific “consequences” he saw fit for members of the military convicted of sexual assault.

As a result of Navy Judge Cmdr. Marcus Fulton’s rulings, the defendants in United States v. Johnson and United States v. Fuentes can’t be punitively discharged, even if they’re convicted of sexual assault. Stars and Stripes first reported on the rulings.

more: http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/06/obama-exerted-unlawful-command-influence-in-speaking-166288.html

Oh my, the smartest POTUS evah stuck his foot in his big fat mouth again.Too bad it’s nothing new.

Commentary:

U.S. confident weapons to Syrian rebels won’t fall into wrong hands, but should
they be?

(CBS News) On Thursday, the White House said that President Obama had decided to send weapons to the rebels fighting to overthrow the dictatorship of Bashar Assad in Syria, but the White House did not say what kind of weapons. Now we have new details.

The military aid to opposition forces is intended to show Syria that Mr. Obama meant it when he said the use of chemical weapons was a “red line.” It would also shore up the rebels who have suffered recent defeats.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said the increase would be dramatic, but not to expect dramatic results.

“This is not something that’s going to be resolved with the turn of a switch,” he told reporters Friday.

Previously approved shipments of food, medical supplies and military gear, including armored vehicles, would increase in size and frequency. And for the first time, the CIA would be responsive to rebel weapons requests for small arms ammunition and anti-tank weapons, but not anti-aircraft missiles. Rhodes seemed confident the CIA could keep the aid away from Islamic extremists in the opposition.

“We have relationships today in Syria that we didn’t have six months ago. That gives us greater certainty that we can get stuff into the country, but also that we can put it into the right hands, so that it’s not falling into the hands of the extremists.

Testifying before Congress in April, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey did not share that confidence.

 ”It is actually more confusing on the opposition side today than it was six months ago,” he said then.

more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57589451/u.s-confident-weapons-to-syrian-rebels-wont-fall-into-wrong-hands-but-should-they-be/

Something tells me that this will not end well.

Worth a Read:

Obama’s Multiplying Foreign Policy Failures

The president’s policies have, by almost every objective measure, failed. And they have failed by his own standards, his own promises, and his own words. What he said would happen has not; and the things he complained about have gotten worse. His incompetence in international affairs is staggering; and in some of these circumstances it will take years, in some cases decades, and in some cases generations to undo the damage, if we ever do.

more: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/06/14/obamas-multiplying-foreign-policy-failures/

Mike Bloomberg’s Gun Control Message Backfiring

more: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/06/14/mike-bloombergs-gun-control-message-backfiring-n1620213

Good news. Time Mayor Moneybags learns that his deep pockets don’t buy everything. Even if they bought him the Mayorship 3 times. But then New Yorkers aren’t fussy about who they put in office. Witness the resurgence of pervert Weiner and his campaign for Mayor.

Russia Hits Back at U.S. Over Syria

MOSCOW—The Kremlin criticized the U.S. decision to arm Syrian opposition fighters and said Washington’s evidence that the Syrian regime is using chemical weapons was unconvincing, but said Friday that Moscow is “not yet” discussing its plans to deliver of air-defense missiles to the regime.

more:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323734304578545062769525132.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

Chicago Public Schools lays off nearly 850 employees after closings approved

Nearly 850 Chicago Public Schools employees received layoff notices Friday,  hours after officials said they had identified $52 million in administrative and  operational cuts to help close an estimated $1 billion deficit in the upcoming  fiscal year.

Eliminating almost 100 central office positions and adopting more efficient  building maintenance will help save $20.7 million, on top of $31.6 million in  cuts announced earlier this year, officials said. They did not estimate how much  the district might save through layoffs — most resulting from a Board of  Education decision last month to close 50 schools and programs — because some  workers will be eligible to reapply for other jobs.

CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett called the deficit “historic.” She said the  district will spend the next several weeks looking for more ways to trim  expenses but will try to avoid cuts that would affect students.

more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/15/chicago-schools-announce-52m-in-cuts-850-layoffs/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fnational+%28Internal+-+US+Latest+-+Text%29#ixzz2WHyTPd13

Greenwald: Rep. King “Fabricated” Allegation, “Menacing” On A “Complete Falsehood”

Media Malpractice:

NPR Silent On Reporter Ari Shapiro Covering Obama White House While Spouse Works  There

NPR’s rising young celebrity-like star Ari Shapiro, White House  Correspondent, appears to be able to follow his own set of rules at NPR. As detailed  in Newsbusters Wednesday, Shapiro will soon join vicious bomb-throwing activist & lefty partisan Democrat Dan Savage to promote Savage’s new book. Last May,  when covering Romney, Shapiro slammed him as a bully on Twitter and Instagram  with a carefully juxtaposed photo.

Now, as reported  June 13 in The Washington Post by Paul Farhi (but relegated to the Style  section), Shapiro’s spouse Michael Gottlieb has been working in the Obama White  House Counsel’s office since April. Despite this, NPR has kept Shapiro in the  same position as White House Correspondent and has never disclosed on-air or on  their website this conflict of interest (when asked, NPR Vice President of News  Margaret Low Smith weakly told Farhi that Shapiro wouldn’t cover anything about  the White House Counsel’s office).

NPR’s own ethics  handbook demands a higher standard for its reporters:

To secure the public’s trust, we must make it clear that our primary  allegiance is to the public. Any personal or professional interests that  conflict with that allegiance, whether in appearance or in reality, risk  compromising our credibility. We are vigilant in disclosing to both our  supervisors and the public any circumstances where our loyalties may be divided – extending to the interests of spouses and other family members – and when  necessary, we recuse ourselves from related coverage.

Unsurprisingly, Shapiro’s main NPR mentor is Legal Affairs Correspondent and  bias queen Nina Totenberg, who has also been granted wide berth by NPR to follow  her own set of rules. As an ostensibly impartial reporter, Totenberg has been  able to pursue multiple crusades against Republicans and rack up a long list of  incendiary anti-Republican statements—never with any pushback from NPR or  apologies from Totenberg to those targeted. And, like Shapiro, she is allowed a  disclosure-free conflict of interest: a personal friendship with Supreme Court  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, someone she is supposed to cover impartially.

 http://newsbusters.org/blogs/john-williams/2013/06/13/npr-silent-reporter-ari-shapiro-covering-obama-white-house-while-spou#ixzz2WHl4zcLc

NPR = National “Public” Radio my ass. NLR = National Liberal Radio would be more correct. Only a small part of their funding comes from federal money but even that is too much. If libs want to fund this biased and dishonest radio that’s their business. But no taxpayer money from honest, decent citizens should go to this liberal propaganda POS!

Cockroach Of The Day:

Michael Gagliano

Florida Educator Alters Student Records to Achieve Federal Aid

Federal officials say that Michael Gagliano, president of the Galiano Career Academy in Orlando, Florida, altered student records in order to receive federal funding. The Department of Education provided the school with $1.9 million in taxpayer money for student aid. The students who received that aid were not really eligible for it.

The school was first raided in 2010 by the feds, but it took three years for Gagliano to be charged in Orlando federal court with theft of government property, aggravated identity theft and obstructing a federal audit. Gagliano has pled guilty to all three charges.

Gagliano worked with a company owned by his wife, Columbus Academy, to provide students with diplomas. For a cost of just $125, students were granted diplomas, making them eligible for student aid. In order to prevent backlash from federal inspectors, Gagliano installed cameras and microphones in the school to monitor the feds.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/14/Florida-educator-alters-student-records

Witch’s Will For A Mourning In June

I will remain in “mourning” so long as Obama’s unworthy ass sits in the Oval Office.

Quote of the day:

  Doublethink  means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind  simultaneously, and accepting both of them. ~ George  Orwell

 A new poll shows that 76% of Americans want a Special Prosecutor to investigate the IRS Scandal. The other 24% said they’d settle for a guy with a cattle prod who hasn’t had his morning coffee yet.

My Favorite 3 Stories:

#1

Ushackle Us From Progressive Mob Rule

   by John Ransom

Barbara1247 wrote:  The Republicans have helped bring us to this sorry state of affairs. – How About More Scandal, Incompetence, Venality, Hubris, Vanity and Error to Start

Dear Comrade 1247,

You’re a liberal, so even when you are right- like you are now- it’s accidental.

So as a public service, let me explain to you, in the simplest terms, what you got right, accidentally.

Certainly the GOP has helped establish a track record of what might be the sorriest 25 years of governing in American history. But it’s because they have supported watered-down versions of the Democrat agenda.

For every frick we have in government, we have another frack on the other side, proposing something equally idiotic.

I mean really: How do you run against each other for president as Mitt Romney and Barack Obama did and pretend like there is that much substance between the two parties at times?

Obama spied, so did Bush.

Was Mitt Romney going to stop the NSA spying program? Heck and no.

Obama declared war, as president, without the consent of Congress. Bush waged an unpopular war, which was poorly justified and poorly run.

Obama’s kept GTIMO open, killed American citizens by assassination, which he claims he has the legal authority to do.

George Bush on the other hand opened GITMO as a prisoner of war camp and allowed the torture of enemy combatants, which he claimed that he had the legal authority to do.

But here’s the difference: Bush isn’t some moralizing, Nobel-peace prize-winning, hypocrite wannabe who thinks America’s problem is that he’s not emperor.

Obama, on the other hand, is.

and in conclusion: http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2013/06/14/ushackle-us-from-progressive-mob-rule-n1619919

#2

State watchdog blasted for keeping hooker claims from Congress

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday accused the  State Department’s watchdog of violating its mission by keeping Congress in the  dark about accusations of political cover-ups at the department.

In  a letter  to the department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), Rep. Ed  Royce (R-Calif.) blasts the agency over a February report that was scrubbed of  specific references to misconduct allegations that included eight cases of State  Department officials sleeping with prostitutes and other misconduct.

“The final version of the report submitted to Congress in February 2013 was  bereft of any reference to these specific cases,” Royce wrote to Harold Geisel,  the deputy inspector general.

“Instead the OIG concluded, without the requisite context, that ‘The Bureau  of Diplomatic Security (DS) Special Investigations Division (SID), which  investigates allegations of criminal and administrative misconduct, lacks a  firewall to preclude the DS and Department of State (Department) hierarchies  from exercising undue influence in particular cases.’

According to reports, some or all of these omissions came at the behest of  senior State Department officials.”

more: http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/congressional-delegations/305441-royce-accuses-state-department-oig-of-keeping-congress-in-the-dark-about-cover-up-allegations#ixzz2WBpOfBKq

#3

All In the Family

by Matthew Continetti June 14, 2013

Last week John Nolte of Breitbart observed that the mainstream media had failed to break any of the controversial news occupying Washington. This week Paul Farhi of the Washington Post, without intending to, explained why.

There are four stories harming President Obama’s approval rating, and the heirs of Tarbell and Woodward and Novak uncovered none of them. The long-simmering tale of what happened before, during, and after the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, was all but ignored by media other than Fox until Gregory Hicks’ blockbuster testimony before the House Oversight Committee last month. It was the IRS, in a carefully planned “apology,” that revealed to the world it had targeted the applications of conservative and Tea Party groups for special scrutiny.

The Justice Department, not the press, announced it had been scouring AP phone records to plug national security leaks. And Edward Snowden, the contractor who exposed secret intelligence, went to the Guardian, a left-wing British rag, with his scoop. (Only when Snowden’s anti-anti-terror accomplice Laura Poitras suggested, in the words of Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald, “It would be good to have the Washington Post invested in the leak, so it wasn’t just us—to tie in official Washington in the leak” did the three filtradors approach former Post reporter Barton Gellman.)

Four stories, four separate races in which the establishment press, the major print dailies and the heavily watched network broadcasts, are sweating to catch up. “We are getting big stories wrong, over and over again,” said Scott Pelley, the anchor of the CBS evening news, in a speech at Quinnipiac University in May. Did he, did anybody, read the June 13 Washington Post, I wonder; did Pelley’s eye scan the innocuous headline—“Media, administration deal with conflicts”—and the well-kneaded copy below? If so he would have learned much about life in the capital city.

“Conflicts” is not the best description of Farhi’s subject. His topic is marriages, unions, and blood, legal and romantic and familial connections between individuals where one party works in media and another works in politics. The extent of such links is staggering.

Farhi has to interrupt his story to announce, in a parenthetical, that Post reporter Sari Horwitz, who covers the Justice Department, is married to William B. Schultz, who is Kathleen Sebelius’ top lawyer at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Ben Sherwood, the president of ABC News, is brother to Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, “a top national security adviser to President Obama.” Another Obama national security aide, Ben Rhodes, is brother to David Rhodes, president of CBS News.

One of CNN’s top D.C. hacks is married to Tom Nides, whose upward career trajectory has taken him from the office of Democratic congressional powerbroker Tony Coelho to, where else, Fannie Mae, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley, as well as a two-year stint as an undersecretary of state for Hillary Clinton. Whose daughter is on contract with NBC.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, who worked for many years at Time magazine, is married to Claire Shipman, a correspondent for ABC News. The White House correspondent for NPR, Ari Shapiro, has been married to former White House counsel Michael Gottlieb since 2004.

Longtime NPR personality Michele Norris went on leave in 2011, when her husband Broderick Johnson, a corporate lawyer who served in the Clinton White House, joined the Obama reelection campaign as a full-time adviser.

Wall Street Journal political reporter Neil King is married to Shailagh Murray, who serves as communications director for Vice President Joe Biden, and who used to report on Congress for the Post.

Savannah Guthrie of NBC recently became engaged to Mike Feldman, a former Gore aide who is now part of the Democratic Glover Park Group consultancy. Syndicated columnist Connie Schultz is married to Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

Tracing these associations is enough to keep busy any student of the caste. Assurances from mainstream media outlets that “they’ve worked out the conflicts” that might arise from deep ties between reporters, editors, and government employees, Farhi reports, “hasn’t stopped a few eyebrows from being raised.” You can guess whose eyebrows are those.

Farhi quotes the great Mark Steyn, who wrote on National Review Online in May, “The inbreeding among Obama’s court and its press corps is more like one of those ‘I’m my own grandpaw’ deals.” The journalists, though, aren’t laughing. “Such insinuations make media types bristle.”

And oh, how they bristle. “There is zero evidence, zero, that [Sherwood’s relationship to his sister] has had any impact on our coverage,” ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider tells the Post. Employing the old reporter mind trick of using paraphrase to inject one’s viewpoint into an article, Farhi writes of “media types” who “take exception to the notion that complicated judgments about the news—often made by others within an organization—have anything to do with personal favorites or familial relationships.”

Media types take precautions. Work is “closely monitored.” Recusals are sometimes demanded. Journalists can be reassigned.

The mainstream media says it goes to great lengths, then, to avoid the whiff of bias, to guard against a reputation for compromised integrity. But there are no prophylactic measures against living in a shared culture, attending the same schools, uttering the same clichéd small talk, and breathing the same atmosphere of conventional wisdom. What matters here are not the relationships themselves but the closed and impenetrable bubble in which they exist.

Why would network executives and New York Times editors put resources into investigating Benghazi when their friends and relatives and trusted informants tell them the only people who care about the story are the cranks at Fox?

Why would journalists adopt an adversarial relation to the government for which their spouses, relatives, romances, friends, and social betters work? No specific conflict can be easily identified because all of the bias occurs prior to the actual manufacturing of news: in the punches pulled, in what stories are selected, in what position is assumed by writers and editors, in which experts are judged knowledgeable, “objective,” “straight-shooters” and which are not.

more: http://freebeacon.com/all-in-the-family-3/

And meanwhile these “elite” insiders often crack jokes and write smears about “inbred” bumpkins in the south. Bumpkins who have the temerity to disagree with these inside the beltway incestuous people. How droll.

Say what?

IRS  Refunds $4 Billion Child Tax Credits Per Year to Illegal Immigrants Whose Kids  Do Not Live in US (and May Not Exist at All); Earned Income Fraud Another $13  Billion

Worth a Read:

Krauthammer: Obama A “Bystander To His Own Presidency”

video: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/06/13/krauthammer_obama_a_bystander_to_his_own_presidency.html

Shuffle Subtext at the CIA: Connecting the Points of Scandals and Agenda

more: http://pjmedia.com/blog/shuffle-subtext-at-the-cia-connecting-the-points-of-scandals-and-agenda/?singlepage=true

The Obama Family Trip to Africa to Cost $60 to $100 Million

President Obama and his family will be going to Africa later this month. But the trip won’t be cheap; it’s expected to cost American taxpayers $60 to $100 million, according to the Washington Post.

“When President Obama makes his first extended trip to sub-Saharan Africa later this month, the federal agencies charged with keeping him safe won’t be taking any chances. Hundreds of U.S. Secret Service agents will be dispatched to secure facilities in Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. A Navy aircraft carrier or amphibious ship, with a fully staffed medical trauma center, will be stationed offshore in case of emergency,” reports the Post.

“Military cargo planes will airlift in 56 support vehicles, including 14 limousines and three trucks loaded with sheets of bullet-proof glass to cover the windows of the hotels where the first family will stay. Fighter jets will fly in shifts giving 24-hour coverage over the president’s airspace so they can intervene quickly if an errant plane gets too close.

more: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obamas-family-trip-africa-cost-60-100-million_735195.html

How nice. And yet Mr. & Mrs. Average America Citizen, who pays for all this crap, can no longer have a tour of the White House.

Sequester doesn’t seem to have caused any problems for the King and Queen of America.

Supreme Court sides with Oklahoma in water fight

WASHINGTON — With water, water virtually everywhere, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that thirsty Texas counties can’t run a pipeline into Oklahoma for more drops to drink.

The decision, which upholds two lower court rulings, is a victory for states’ rights over multistate water compacts that are common throughout the West. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the opinion for a unanimous court.

On one side of the dispute was Texas, accused of trying to divert water from Oklahoma under terms of a four-state compact that entitled each state to up to 25% of the water from a segment of the Red River. On the other was Oklahoma, asserting that Texas can get the water from within its borders or elsewhere.

more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/13/supreme-court-water-texas-oklahoma-compacts/2382849/

Finally a Supreme Court decision I can agree with. Even with POSs Sotomayor, Kagan and Ginsberg.

It must also make some other people in Great Lakes states heave a little sigh of relief. We know that other “thirsty” states have greedily eyed the water in the Great Lakes.

Marco Rubio: We need to legalize immigrants so they can pay for border security

more: http://washingtonexaminer.com/rubio-we-need-to-legalize-immigrants-so-they-can-pay-for-border-security/article/2531906

Rubio in a hole with conservatives and keeps on digging.

And this statement? Is he related to Ninny Pelosi?

Media Malpractice:

Reporters Laugh at Serious Question to Nancy Pelosi About Gosnell, Abortion

Most press conferences are very serious affairs, with reporters seeking  important information to distribute to the public about a wide variety of  issues. That wasn’t quite the case on Thursday, when John McCormack of the  Weekly Standard magazine asked House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to explain  the moral difference between Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s murder of infants born  alive and legalized late-term abortion.
Not only did the question anger  the California Democrat, it also resulted in laughter from other  reporters in the room.

The incident began when McCormack noted that members of the House Judiciary  Committee passed Arizona Republican Trent Franks’ bill banning most abortions  nationwide after 22 weeks.

They argue that there really isn’t much of a  moral difference between what someone like Dr. Gosnell did to infants  born at 23, 24, 25 weeks into pregnancy, and what can happen at a clinic down  the road in Maryland where a doctor says he’ll perform an elective abortions 28  weeks into pregnancy.

“So  the question I have for you is what is the moral difference between what Dr.  Gosnell did to a baby born alive at 23 weeks and aborting her moments before  birth?” he asked.

Pelosi responded:

“You’re probably enjoying that question a lot. I can see  you savoring it.”

more:  http://newsbusters.org/blogs/randy-hall/2013/06/13/press-corps-laugh-reporters-question-pelosi-about-gosnell-abortion#ixzz2WBaTd4Ag

Savoring or not, and after a lot of obfuscation and yadda, yadda by Pelosi, she never did answer the question. And her continuel remarks about being a “practicing” Catholic are another bit of bullshit. Or maybe she’s “practicing” because she just can’t get it right. And she is at odds with her church so perhaps her “sacred ground” is a fiction.

Cockroach Of The Day:

The Obama Administration

Obama Administration Thugs Threaten State Department Whistleblower… And Her Kids

State Department whistleblower Aurelia Fedenisn, who accused the Obama State Department of covering up eight investigations including accusations of child prostitution, says she is being threatened and so are her kids.

Fedenisn released documents that show the State Department may have covered up allegations of illegal and inappropriate behavior within their ranks.

more: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/06/obama-administration-thugs-threaten-state-department-whistleblower-and-her-kids/

Witch’s Will For A Mourning In June

I will remain in “mourning” so long as Obama’s unworthy ass sits in the Oval Office.

Quote of the day:

 Attorney General Eric Holder met with Washington reporters and said he supported press freedom but he asked that it be kept off the record. It has to be hush-hush. If he stands up for any part of the Constitution he’ll have to find a job outside Washington D.C.

My Favorite 3 Stories:

#1

Scowling face of the state

  by George Will

As soon as the Constitution permitted him to run for Congress, Al Salvi did. In 1986, just 26 and fresh from the University of Illinois law school, he sank $1,000 of his own money, which was most of his money, into his campaign to unseat an incumbent Democratic congressman. Salvi studied for the bar exam during meals at campaign dinners.

He lost his campaign. Today, however, he should be invited to Congress to testify about what happened 10 years later, when he was a prosperous lawyer and won the Republican Senate nomination to run against a Democratic congressman named Dick Durbin.

In the fall of 1996, at the campaign’s climax, Democrats filed with the Federal Election Commission charges against Salvi’s campaign alleging campaign finance violations. These charges dominated the campaign’s closing days. Salvi spoke by telephone with the head of the FEC’s Enforcement Division, who he remembers saying: “Promise me you will never run for office again, and we’ll drop this case.” He was speaking to Lois Lerner.

After losing to Durbin, Salvi spent four years and $100,000 fighting the FEC, on whose behalf FBI agents visited his elderly mother demanding to know, concerning her $2,000 contribution to her son’s campaign, where she got “that kind of money.” When the second of two federal courts held that the charges against Salvi were spurious, the lawyer arguing for the FEC was Lois Lerner.

More recently, she has been head of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division, which has used its powers of delay, harassment and extortion to suppress political participation. For example, it has told an Iowa right-to-life group that it would get tax-exempt status if it would promise not to picket Planned Parenthood clinics.

Last week, in a televised House Ways and Means Committee hearing, Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), Salvi’s former law partner, told the riveting story of the partisan enforcement of campaign laws to suppress political competition by distracting Salvi and entangling him in bureaucratic snares. The next day, the number of inches of newsprint in The Post and the New York Times devoted to Roskam’s revelation was the number of minutes that had been devoted to it on the three broadcast networks’ evening news programs the night before: Zero.

House Republicans should use their committee chairmanships to let Lerner exercise her right to confront Salvi and her many other accusers. If she were invited back to Congress to respond concerning Salvi, would she again refuse to testify by invoking her Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination? There is one way to find out.

Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, defeated Salvi by 15 points. He probably would have won without the assistance of Lerner and the campaign “reforms” that have produced the FEC’s mare’s-nest of regulations and speech police that lend themselves to abuses like those Salvi experienced. In 2010, Durbin, who will seek a fourth term next year, wrote a letter urging Lerner’s IRS division to pay special attention to a political advocacy group supporting conservatives.

Lerner, it is prudent to assume, is one among thousands like her who infest the regulatory state. She is not just a bureaucratic bully and a slithering partisan. Now she also is a national security problem because she is contributing to a comprehensive distrust of government.

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-lois-lerner-the-scowling-face-of-the-state/2013/06/12/e644307c-d2d5-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html

#2

The Left’s Phony Defense of Freedom

By David  Harsanyi

There are many idealistic progressives who’ve remained opposed to the  National Security Agency’s data mining programs regardless of who is in the  White House. (We can’t surrender our freedom for safety, you know!) It’s only a  shame that these same people have such little reverence for constitutional  liberties in other areas of public life.

Really, it’s worse than that. Consider the central case of the left these  days: “Unfettered” freedom is a tragedy — decadent, unfair and un-American. So  if, as liberals like to argue, it’s a moral imperative for Americans to scale  back personal liberty to build a cleaner, fairer and healthier world, shouldn’t  we be willing to do the same to protect the nation from terrorists? Why one and  not the other? If Washington can shield you from the vagaries of economic life,  why can’t it do the same with terrorists?

Soon after news of the NSA’s data mining and PRISM programs hit the news, we  learned that there are Democrats with an uncanny ability to be malleable,  apathetic and partisan in the face of an intrusive state. In January 2006, when  George W. Bush was president, Pew Research Center asked Democrats how they felt  about the NSA’s surveillance programs. Thirty-seven percent labeled the spying  “acceptable,” and 61 percent said they were unacceptable. The reverse is true  today, as 64 percent of Democrats believe that Barack Obama’s surveillance  programs are acceptable and 34 percent say they’re not.

more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/13/the_lefts_phony_defense_of_freedom_118795.html#ixzz2W6AhywtZ

#3

Reid Blocks Senate Vote on Border Security Amendment to Immigration Bill

On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) blocked a vote on the border security amendment to the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill offered by Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

Grassley was pushing for an up-or-down vote by the Senate on his amendment, which would have required the border to be secured for six full months before any legalization of illegal immigrants in America began. Reid objected to Grassley’s motion, effectively implementing a 60-vote threshold that completely blocked any attempt at a fair vote on the amendment.

Grassley protested Reid’s plan, which the Senate Majority Leader laughed off. “I’m somewhat surprised at this request,” Reid said in response. “How many times have we heard the Republican Leader say on this floor and publicly that the new reality in the United States Senate is 60?”

So I just thought I was following the direction of the Republican Leader. I mean, this is what he said. That’s why we’re having 60 votes on virtually everything. And with this bill, with this bill, no one can in any way suggest this bill is not important and these amendments aren’t important. So, I care a great deal about my friend, the ranking member on this committee, but I object.

Grassley responded with fury to Reid’s obstruction.

“Well, it’s amazing to me that the majority has touted this immigration bill process as one that is open and regular order, but right out of the box, just on the third day, they want to subject our amendments to a filibuster like a 60-vote threshold.”

“So I have to ask, who is obstructing now?” Grassley said. “There is no reason, particularly in this first week, at the beginning of the process, to be blocking our amendments with a 60-vote margin that’s required when you suppose there is a filibuster.”

Grassley said the Senate should “at least start out” the immigration process with “regular order.”

“Otherwise, it really looks like the fix is in and the bill is rigged to pass basically as it is,” Grassley said. “Bottom line, you should have seen how the 18 members of the Judiciary Committee operated for five or six days over a two-week period of time.”

“Everything was open, everything was transparent,” he explained. “There was a complete cooperation between the majority and the minority, and there is no reason why we can’t do that out here in the United States Senate right now and particularly at the beginning.”

“This is a very provocative act,” Grassley warned.

Grassley was not the only senator who expressed dissatisfaction with the process Reid was using on the Senate floor. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who voted in favor of the bill coming out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said during a floor speech that he is concerned votes on his amendments will be blocked as well.

“I was promised by leaders in the Gang of Eight they would work with me, that they would help me to get these things done,” Hatch said. “I consider those promises to be very important, and yet I’ve had some indication over the last few days that maybe they’re not going to work with me.”

more: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/12/Floor-Fight-Reid-blocks-Senate-vote-on-border-security-before-amnesty-amendment

Grassley and Hatch believed that they would have a fair chance? Really? Two old hands like that actually thought that Harry Reid would act like an honorable man, that they could trust him and the Gang of Eight to keep their word?

When Reid, Schumer and Menendez are part of the equation no honor, honesty or integrity is possible.

Commentary:

Consent of the Governed

Worth a Read:

Obama ‘Strongly Objects’ to Religious Liberty Amendment

The Obama Administration “strongly objects” to a proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have protected the religious rights of soldiers – including evangelical Christian service members who are facing growing hostility towards their religion.

The amendment was authored by Rep. John Fleming, R-La. It would have “required the Armed Forces to accommodate ‘actions and speech’ reflecting the conscience, moral, principles or religious beliefs of the member.”

The Obama Administration said the amendment would have a “significant adverse effect on good order, discipline, morale, and mission accomplishment.”

“With its statement, the White House is now endorsing military reprimands of members who keep a Bible on their desk or express a religious belief,” Fleming told Fox News. “This administration is aggressively hostile towards religious beliefs that it deems to be politically incorrect.”

Fleming introduced the amendment after a series of high-profile incidents involving attacks on religious liberty within the military- including an Air Force officer who was told to remove a Bible from his desk because it might give the impression he was endorsing a religion.

He said there are other reports of Christian service members and chaplains being punished for their faith.

• The Air Force censored a video created by a chaplain because it include the word “God.” The Air Force feared the word might offend Muslims and atheists.
• A service member received a “severe and possibly career-ending reprimand” for expressing his faith’s religious position about homosexuality in a personal religious blog.
• An enlisted service member received a career-ending punishment for sending personal invitations to his promotion party which mentioned that he would be providing Chick-fil-A sandwiches due to his respect for the Defense of Marriage Act.
• A senior military official at Fort Campbell sent out a lengthy email officially instructing officers to recognize “the religious right in America” as a “domestic hate group” akin to the KKK and Neo-Nazis because of its opposition to homosexual behavior.
• A chaplain was relieved of his command over a military chapel because, consistent with DOMA’s definition of marriage, he could not allow same-sex weddings to take place in the chapel.
• An enlisted service member was threatened and denied promotion by a senior NCO for expressing – during a personal conversation – his religious belief in support of traditional marriage.

Last month Coast Guard Rear Admiral William Lee told a National Day of Prayer audience that religious liberty was being threatened by Pentagon lawyers and service members are being told to hide their faith in Christ.

more: http://www.redstate.com/toddstarnes/2013/06/12/obama-strongly-objects-to-religious-liberty-amendment/

Kerry lands on hot seat over State Department misconduct claims

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) is demanding that  Secretary of State John Kerry provide him with the names of any State Department  higher-ups who may have been involved in squashing internal investigations.

more: http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/congressional-delegations/304983-royce-presses-kerry-on-state-department-misconduct-allegations#ixzz2W5mfiMzG

Chief counsel in lawsuit against IRS: top Democrat Cummings’ claim is ‘ridiculous’

more:  http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/13/chief-counsel-in-lawsuit-against-irs-top-democrat-cummings-claim-is-ridiculous/#ixzz2W5o10Gib

Fox News poll: Voters oppose NSA program, most lack trust in government

more:  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/12/fox-news-poll-voters-oppose-nsa-program-most-lack-trust-in-government/#ixzz2W6BiWJ3y

Leftist Member Of Pro-Trayvon Martin Group Tries To Sneak On To Zimmerman Jury…

more: http://weaselzippers.us/2013/06/12/leftist-member-of-pro-trayvon-martin-group-tries-to-sneak-on-to-zimmerman-jury/

Media Malpractice:

How Long Will Obama’s Love of Surveillance State Turn Media Away?

For the last four years, conservatives have been scratching their heads,  wondering what it would take to get the so-called elite media to sit up and take  notice of President Obama’s penchant for seizing powers not granted to him under  the Constitution.

The answer, as it turns out, was an offense so egregious that it  caused Joe  Biden to bellyache to CBS News:

I don’t have to listen to your phone calls to know what you’re doing. If  I’m able to determine every phone call you made — [if] I’m able to able to  determine every single person you talked to — I’m able to get a pattern about  your life that is very, very intrusive. And the real question here is what do  they do with this information that they collect that does not have anything to  do with al Qaeda? And we’re gonna trust the President and the Vice President of  the United States to do the right thing? Don’t count me in on that.

Of course that was in 2006. Biden was still a U.S. Senator at the time, and  the object of his pique was then-President George W. Bush.

Fast-forward  to now and to a whole new round of allegations of snooping, this time leveled at  an administration in which Biden himself is the number 2 executive, and you have  a whole different game. You have the White House press secretary dancing as fast  as he can to put a happy face on the burgeoning NSA scandal and the revelation  that the administration has targeted reporters.

You also have the long-awaited outage from once-unlikely  complainants such as The New York Times.

The latest MSM former water carrier to unload on the administration  is The  Atlantic’s Molly Ball, who acknowledges in a column today that Obama  surveillance revelations are pushing liberals over the edge — her included. Her  words actually come close to cutting the Bush administration some slack:

For liberals who accused the administration of George W. Bush of  insufficient transparency, expansion of executive power, and disregarding  constitutional protections, Obama’s policies — and the contrast with his  campaign rhetoric — have long grated.

Ball quotes Zaid Jilani of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee as  saying that many on the left were willing to turn a blind eye on Obama’s  shenanigans, but that the NSA revelations were the last straw:

‘If you go back and look at candidate Obama’s statements about whistleblowers  and civil liberties, breaches of freedom and privacy under the past  administration, you’d have a hard time saying Candidate Obama would agree with  President Obama on this,’ Jilani said. ‘Within six hours of the whistleblower  being outed, they were already talking about a criminal probe. They weren’t  talking about any internal investigation of the NSA’s conduct or abuses of the  Patriot Act.’

The left, Ball acknowledges, is not unified in its outrage, and that includes  some members of Congress. But the NSA scandal is still new. Its potential  to damage careers has yet to be fully assessed. On the other hand, old habits  die hard and there is no guarantee that the liberal media won’t revert to  their natural hyperpartisanship.

Only time will tell.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/howard-portnoy/2013/06/12/how-long-will-obama-s-love-surveillance-state-turn-media-away#ixzz2W6D5OQO7

Cockroach Of The Day:

Chris Matthews

Sleazy Matthews: Ted Cruz, Bill O’Reilly Are the Same as Nazi Sympathizer Father  Coughlin, Huey Long

Chris Matthews on Wednesday took his smearing of conservatives to a new level,  comparing Ted Cruz to the Nazi-sympathizing, World War II-era Father Charles  Coughlin. After playing a montage of the Republican senator, Matthews sneered,  “I think [Cruz] fits in the tradition of Father Coughlin and McCarthy and, of  course, maybe to a lesser extent, Pat Buchanan and, of course, [Bill]  O’Reilly.”

more:  http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2013/06/12/sleazy-matthews-ted-cruz-bill-oreilly-are-same-nazi-sympathizer-fath#ixzz2W5TXO4fO

Every time you think that lil Chrissy McTingles can get no crazier or sink no lower, he does. How often does he go beyond the pale and still have any audience at all? Those who still choose to watch him evidently are fine with this kind of smear. And I’m sure his goofy sidekick, Slimebucket bitch Joan Walsh will soon be along to afirm how right he is in his assessment.

Witch’s Will For A Mourning In June

I will remain in “mourning” so long as Obama’s unworthy ass sits in the Oval Office.

Quote of the day:

 President Obama has called on Congress to pass a media shield law that would allow reporters to do their job without fear of government prosecution. Don’t we already have that? It’s called the First Amendment.

My Favorite 3 Stories:

#1

The Gang of Eight’s Bill: To Know It Is To Hate It

more: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/the-gang-of-eights-bill-to-know-it-is-to-hate-it.php

The Gang of 8: Schumer, Durbin, Menendez, Bennet,  Graham, Flake McCain, Rubio

#2

Sex and the Military

  by Thomas Sowell

The headline on the front page of the New York Times said it all: “Women in the Senate Confront the Military on Sex Assaults.”

In a triumphalist article showcasing the growing numbers of women on the Senate Armed Services Committee, “one of the Senate’s most testosterone-driven panels,” the story line presents female Senators attacking male military officials over charges of sexual assaults against women in the armed forces.

Us-against-them stories are great for generating excitement in the media and in politics. But whether any of this political theater will actually reduce sexual assaults against women in the armed forces is a totally different question.

For thousands of years, people around the world had the common sense to realize that putting young men and young women together in military operations was asking for trouble, not only for these young people of both sexes, but for the effectiveness of military forces entrusted with the fate of nations.

Yet, in these politically correct times, civilian leaders who increasingly have no experience whatever in the armed forces are far more willing to try to micro-manage the military than back in the days when most members of Congress and most Presidents had served in the military.

There seems to be something liberating about ignorance and inexperience. You are free to believe whatever you want to, unencumbered by hard facts and, if you have political power, to impose your headstrong ignorance on those with first-hand knowledge.

If sexual assaults in the military are taking place in our own country, far from the scenes of battle, what do you suppose is going to happen when men and women are in the same tents or trenches at night on battlefields thousands of miles away?

We don’t have to ask what will happen on warships at sea. The number of Navy women who already get pregnant in such places tells us more plainly than words.

How much of this country’s military resources do you think should be diverted from preparing for, and fighting, battles involving life and death to adjudicating conflicting stories about who did what to whom, and whether it was consensual or not?

Such issues have plagued college campuses with coed dormitories, where there are no bullets or bombs to complicate matters. Why would we imagine that “he said, she said” issues are going to be any easier to deal with in a military context?

People who can understand that “prevention” is better than “cure” in many other contexts seem not to understand that simple fact in a situation where cures are often either elusive or impossible. You cannot un-rape somebody after the fact. Nor can you restore the honor of someone unjustly accused and convicted to appease civilian politicians on a rampage.

more: http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2013/06/12/sex-and-the-military-n1616932/page/full

Sexual assault is a terrible and unacceptable thing no matter where is occurs. There is no excuse for it. However, I don’t think the posturing by some media-seeking pols like McKaskill will solve anything. On that issue I agree with Professor Sowell 100%.

#3

Obama Sees an Immigration Bandwagon

The complexity of writing and enacting comprehensive immigration reform at the congressional level is such that seemingly conflicting news reports of progress and setbacks can both be right. Today is no different. First, the progress: the Senate voted to send the comprehensive immigration reform bill to the floor for debate, which will likely last for the next few weeks.

Matthew Yglesias reported two weeks ago about a compromise on so-called high-skilled worker visas, or H1-B visas, that helped paved the way for the bill’s passage out of committee and gave it a shove forward. He wrote:

The basic issue is that the Gang of 8 immigration framework both expanded the H1-B skilled guest worker program and added some new hoops that companies have to jump through if they want to hire H1-B workers. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a longtime ally of the technology industry on this issue, had a couple of amendments that would basically pair those hoops back. Dick Durbin, a major ally of the union groups that don’t like H1-B but also a major ally of Latino advocacy organizations, did not like those amendments.

The result was that they basically met somewhere in the middle, with the amended version of the bill passing out of committee with 13 yes votes and 5 no votes; Hatch was a yes vote. Hatch wouldn’t promise to vote for the final bill, but his support gave the bill momentum and allowed the process to take a not-insignificant step forward. Yglesias approvingly noted that this is “how the legislative process in the United States is supposed to work,” but acknowledged that the high-skilled visa portion is far from the most controversial aspect of the bill. Nonetheless, the bill proceeded with key support from both sides.

The setback of the day comes from Evan McMorris-Santoro. President Obama has generally been less than helpful to the cause of comprehensive immigration reform, working to kill such efforts both as a senator and then as president. Obama also has a habit of calling press conferences to goad and taunt Republicans while they are engaged in the actual work of crafting bipartisan legislation–something that does not put anyone in the mood to compromise. So you would think that the one thing the president would know not to do if he finally wants immigration reform to pass would be to dive into the process in the middle of negotiations and call a press conference to slam some of the bill’s critics as people who “think that a broken system is the best America can do.” But of course that’s exactly what he did today.

Regardless of the contents of the speech, McMorris-Santoro notes the chilly reception the polarizing president is getting for even talking about the process. So why would the president jump in? McMorris-Santoro explains:

President Obama, who has been deliberately absent from the debate until now, has reemerged, hoping to cross the finish line along with the lawmakers who have championed the bill.

Yes, it’s about Obama. As always. The president has never before been truly supportive of immigration reform, always working to undermine the process when he can use its failure to demagogue Republicans to win elections. Throughout the current push for immigration reform, it has been an open question as to whether the president wants it to succeed this time or if he’d prefer to have it fail in order to fire up the Democratic base in time for the mid-term congressional elections next year.

Although the president’s decision to take counterproductive actions would seem to undercut the idea that he genuinely wants reform to pass, his speech today at least demonstrates that he thinks the legislation is likely to pass. If he thought the bill didn’t stand a chance, he wouldn’t want to tie himself too closely to a failing effort. That way, if the bill fails, he can use it as an issue in the midterms but without taking ownership in its failure.

But the president doesn’t want to pass up an opportunity to share credit for someone else’s success. It’s far too early to tell if the bill will pass in its final version, but today’s progress was enough to convince the president that it’s time to jump on the bandwagon.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/06/11/obama-sees-an-immigration-bandwagon/

Commentary:

Hill’s distr@ct act

by Michael Goodwin

Did you hear the big news? Hillary’s on Twitter. Yep, she went live at noon Monday, making jokes about her hair and pantsuits and, according to one breathless report, “fueling speculation” that she’ll run for president by saying her future job is “TBD”— to be determined.

Bill and Chelsea chipped in, too. OMG, stop the presses!

There was another bit of breaking Clinton news that same day, but nothing nearly as important.

It seems there were some hooker scandals at the State Department during her watch, and that one of our ambassadors also has a sick fondness for other people’s children.

But all the investigations got quashed by higher-ups, according to an agency report, so it’s almost like they never happened.

In fact, as far as most of the news media are concerned, they never did happen.

The timing of the two news developments could be an amazing coincidence, or you could remember Rule No. 1 about the Clintons: There are no coincidences.

As Hillary herself once said about things too odd to be true, “If you find a turtle on a fence post, it didn’t get there by itself.”

You could say the same about her being on Twitter just as the sordid sex revelations were breaking. She didn’t start tweeting out of the blue.

more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/hill_distr_ct_act_JbfcJ056zwwdnHqWQFYQRJ

Worth a Read:

Biden: Republicans Scared of Paul, Cruz

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Tuesday night blamed conservative Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas for sinking a bipartisan background check bill and, more generally, for stoking a fear of ideological primaries that has gridlocked Congress.

At a Washington fundraiser for Massachusetts Democrat Edward J. Markey, who is running in a special election to fill the seat vacated by Secretary of State John Kerry, Biden teed off on the GOP, especially its tea party wing. The vice president’s central argument to Democratic donors was as much, if not more, a knock against the national Republican Party as it was a ringing endorsement for Markey.

“I’m not talking about the character or even the quality of the minds of the people I’m going to mention. But the last thing in the world we need now is someone who will go down to the United States Senate and support Ted Cruz, support the new senator from Kentucky — or the old senator from Kentucky,” Biden said, according to a pool report of the event.

“Have you ever seen a time when two freshman senators are able to cower the bulk of the Republican Party in the Senate? That is not hyperbole,” Biden continued. “On the gun issue, I don’t care what your position is — I called 17 senators out, nine of whom were Republicans. Not one of (them) offered an explanation on the merits of why they couldn’t vote for the background check. But almost to a person, they said, ‘I don’t want to take on Ted Cruz. I don’t want to take on Rand Paul. They’ll be in my district.’

“I actually said, ‘Are you kidding? These are two freshman,’” Biden added. “This is a different party folks. They’re not bad guys, and they’re both very bright guys. And I’m not questioning their motive.”

more: http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/biden-republicans-scared-of-paul-cruz/

Having the “old guard” in the Republican Party “scared” of newbies like Cruz and Rand Paul is a good thing IMO. Having an idiot like Biden with a microphone and a pulpit, not so much. Who is stupid enough to listen to this old fool?

IRS taxing of tanning beds and other Obamacare absurdities

by Kathleen Parker

It is reassuring that amid so much government dysfunction, the Internal Revenue Service has resolved the question of when and whether to tax tanning beds under the Affordable Care Act.

Do not be concerned about that giddiness you feel. You are not having a nervous breakdown but are suffering a symptom commonly associated with recognition that the absurd has become the accepted norm — and that you are, in fact, alone.

Indeed, the IRS’s tanning ruling comes in the nick of time. Amid incessantly breaking news — NSA surveillance, IRS political targeting, DOJ seizing — Americans were beginning to feel that no one over the age of 12 was in charge. The finger-pointing and blame-shifting have been a feast of cannibalizing acronyms.

“The CIA did it.”

“IRS pleads the Fifth.”

“They’ve gone rogue in Cincinnati.”

What? No DOJ to rehab?

But the night is young.

Lest you wilt from suspense, the tanning bed challenge has been resolved as follows:

Obamacare, the concision of which even President Obama prefers to the name “Affordable Care Act” (ACA), calls for a 10 percent sales tax every time some pale face exposes himself to potentially harmful, cancer-causing rays, thus affecting everyone’s health-insurance premiums.

(Note to tanning bed businesses: Buh-bye, now.)

But, wait, there’s an exception: If such beds are offered as part of a gym or fitness center at no extra charge, no tax will be imposed.

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-irs-taxing-of-tanning-beds-and-other-obamacare-absurdities/2013/06/11/42b8e99e-d2cf-11e2-8cbe-1bcbee06f8f8_story.html

Bush More Popular than Obama

more: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/11/Bush-More-Popular-Than-Obama

Senate passes trillion dollar farm bill

more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/06/senate_passes_trillion_dollar_farm_bill.html

Question: what kind of idiots pass a “trillion” dollar bill in a country that is basically broke? Debbie Stabinow for one but she’s always been and always will be a free-spending tax and spend Democrat idiot. No use expecting common sense or decency from that POS.

But what the hell is wrong with Republicans? Thad Cochran? Trying to buy some votes with this bill?Huh?

 Subsidizing rice and peanut farmers? What happened to the GOP’s oft touted love for “free enterprise”? If the farmers can’t make it on their own,sobeit. No more damn subsidies.

And definately no more “foreign food aid”. Sending money abroad is like pouring sand down a rat hole. It might make you feel better because you are doing something, but it’s basically useless. They all hate us any way so screw them.

International Response to NSA: WTF, America?

In a relatively scathing op-ed, a high-ranking government official let loose on the National Security Agency’s data-mining program: “The more a society monitors, controls, and observes its citizens, the less free it is.” Like many politicians who find themselves talking the security-privacy trade-off, she cited Benjamin Franklin. The thing is, the author isn’t American. She’s the German Justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger. The op-ed ran in Der Spiegel.

The commentary, and its accompanying feature story, is just a further sign of the growing international implications of the leaked NSA program, especially in privacy-conscious Europe, where people often use the U.S.-based Internet companies that are now at the center of the PRISM revelations.

more: http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/international-response-to-nsa-wtf-america-20130611

Media News In The News:

PBS NewsHour Closes Offices, Lays Off Staff, Turns to Freelancers

TVNewser obtained an internal PBS memo Tuesday and reports that, starting July 1, the beginning of their new fiscal year, “PBS NewsHour” is completely closing down its Denver and San Francisco offices, eliminating “several production positions in its Washington DC office, while leaving two open senior-level roles unfilled,” and preparing to turn to more outside freelancers:

Along with sending our own teams in the field, we anticipate building new relationships with a variety of locally-based freelance video journalists around the country,” Winslow wrote to staff. “Under no circumstances do we intend to abandon the mini-documentary reports that have become so critical to our broadcast. The NewsHour remains committed to delivering the same kind of in-depth reporting our viewers and supporters expect from us.”

Freelancers, eh? Sounds like PBS is trying to avoid the ObamaCare they championed.

No doubt that all those losing their jobs are certain they have nothing to worry about in the Obama economy their network has been happy-talking for the last five years.

It is called funemployment, right?

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/06/11/PBS-NewsHour-Closes-Offices-Lays-Off-Staff-Turns-to-freelancers

Cockroach (s) Of The Day:

Al Gore

Goracle Smears Koch Brothers As Being “Purveyors Of The Dirtiest Energy On Earth”…

Says the guy who just banked a hundred million in oil petrodollars by selling his failing TV network to Arab oil barons.

more: http://weaselzippers.us/2013/06/12/goracle-smears-koch-brothers-as-being-purveyors-of-the-dirtiest-energy-on-earth/

Just one more environmentalist hypocrite. Albeit one with a big mouth and the ability to get his nonsense noticed.