Books, movies, politics, and whatever I want

Archive for May, 2013

Quote of the Day

Thursday, May 30th, 2013

“This will be a scandal like Watergate if it turns out that the IRS was acting under orders from Barack Obama or Valerie Jarrett. If the White House’s conduct turns out to be unimpeachable, then it is something far worse: a sign that the government itself has become a threat to the Constitution.”

— James Taranto

Quote of the Day

Tuesday, May 28th, 2013

“And the IRS scandal was a subversion of democracy on a massive scale. The most fearsome and coercive arm of the administrative state embarked on a systematic effort to suppress citizen dissent against the party in power. Thomas Friedman is famous for musing that he wishes America could be China for a day. It turns out we’ve been China for a while.”

— James Taranto

Monday Book Pick: Damn Few

Monday, May 27th, 2013

Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior by Rorke Denver

Memorial Day Special. Rorke Denver was one of the actual Navy SEALs who starred in the movie Act of Valor. He is a combat vet, having lead a SEAL team in Iraq and has been of of the officers in charge of SEAL Training. An interesting book that goes into how the program molds highly motivated men at the peak of physical conditioning into highly skilled special operators.

Monday Book Pick Archive

Quote of the Day

Sunday, May 26th, 2013

“He had some measure the infuriating trait that causes a young man to be a noncomformist for its own sake, and found that the surest way to shock most people, in those days, was to believe that some kinds of behavior were bad and others good, and that it was reasonable to live one’s life accordingly.”

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

Quote of the Day

Saturday, May 25th, 2013

“That, it seems to us, is the central story of our time. The left-liberal elite that attained cultural dominance between the 1960s and the 1980s–and that since 2008 has seen itself as being on the cusp of political dominance as well–is undergoing a crisis of authority, and its defenses are increasingly ferocious and unprincipled. Journalists lie or ignore important but politically uncongenial storiesScientists suppress alternative hypothesesPolitical organizations bully apolitical charitiesThe Internal Revenue Service persecutes dissenters. And campus censorship goes on still.”

James Taranto

This sums it up pretty well

Friday, May 24th, 2013

The Bookworm Room nails it:

…the Obama government is about politics before country, revenge before law and morality, and cover-ups above and beyond everything.

Yes, there is more…

…the head of the IRS went before Congress and confessed that the IRS denied what was going on before the election (a lie) and that it timed the release of information to bury it in the news cycle.  And then there’s all that other fascinating stuff that’s been oozing out from the single most powerful coercive entity in the federal government.

In every single statement she made, Lois Lerner, the IRS official who every so casually broke the story, lied.  Just some examples are the fact that the IRS didn’t target, maybe, 75 groups.  It targeted at least 470 groups.  And it wasn’t just wacky Tea Party groups that got caught it the cross hairs, it was any group that appeared even vaguely to oppose Obama’s policies.  The targeting wasn’t just confined to a rogue Ohio office, it went to the top.  And, indeed, the very top person got over $100,000 in bonuses and was promoted to head the — ahem — nonpartisan branch of the IRS in charge of enforcing ObamaCare.

We also know that the IRS illegally leaked information about Obama’s political opponents — which definitely has a kind of mirror-like Watergate quality to it.  Nixon’s henchmen stole data directly from his political opponents; Obama’s henchmen release data about Obama’s political opponents to Obama’s supporters.  And of course, speaking of stealing things, it appears that the IRS stole tens of thousands of medical records — this would be, of course, the same IRS that’s in charge of enforcing ObamaCare.

Of course, our Dear Leader claims he knew nothing of this, and his cultist followers will deny any wrongdoing, except to blame former President George W. Bush.

The Smoking Gun for the Obama IRS Scandal

Monday, May 20th, 2013

As you may know, unless you get all your “news” from MSNBC, the Obama administration’s IRS illegally targeted conservative groups.  Of course, our Dear Leader denied any knowledge and sent out his spokes weasels to claim that this really isn’t important.

 Jim Hoff at Gateway Pundit has the details on what looks, sounds, walks, and smells, like a smoking gun of Barack Hussein Obama’s direct involvement with the IRS’ illegal, and unconstitutional, hate crimes against conservative groups.

President Obama met with anti-Tea Party IRS union chief Colleen Kelly in the White House the day before the agency targeted Tea Party.

The very next day after her White House meeting with the President, according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s Report, IRS employees — the same employees who belong to the NTEU — set to work in earnest targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America.

In short: the very day after the president of the quite publicly anti-Tea Party labor union — the union for IRS employees — met with President Obama, the manager of the IRS “Determinations Unit Program agreed” to open a “Sensitive Case report on the Tea party cases.” As stated by the IG report.

Now let’s see if any of the mainstream media, besides possibly Fox News, pick up on this.

Of course, there is more:

A tea-party group targeted by Democrats gets attention from the IRS—and the FBI, OSHA, and the ATF.

The Washington Post gives  “A Bushel of Pinocchios” for IRS’s Lois Lerner.

IRS Scandal Roundup, Day 11.

 

Sweet, sweet Schadenfreude….

Sunday, May 12th, 2013

Michael Graham writes the following about our Dear Leader’s Press Secretary:

It was one of the tastiest servings of schadenfreude I’ve sampled in a long time.  Watching Carney lie is boring. Watching him lie while he knows everyone watching knows he’s lying is a delight.

What we’ve known from the beginning–and the folks at ABC News are just starting to figure outis that the White House knew within 24 hours--48 max–that the Benghazi consulate was destroyed by a pre-planned, organized attack on the anniversary of 9/11 by Al Qaeda. Which means every time Hillary Clinton said “video” at Chris Stevens funeral or President Obama said it at the UN or Susan Rice said it on TV–they were lying.

They were lying because the CIA, the State Department and the Libyan government has all told them the truth within a day of the attack.

Bottom line, Carney is moving into Baghdad Bob territory every time he opens his mouth about Benghazi.

Of course, the Obama cultists “don’t care” about the President and his staff lying repeatedly to the American people, as long as it is their “lightbringer” doing the lying.

 

Quote of the Day

Friday, May 10th, 2013

“ I’ve come to realize after the Sandy Hook shooting that the reason we can’t have a rational gun debate is because the anti-gun side pre-supposes that their pro-gun opponents must first accept that guns are bad in order to have a discussion about guns in the first place. Before we even start the conversation, we’re the bad guys and we have to admit it. Without accepting that guns are bad and supplicating themselves to the anti-gunner, the pro-gunner can’t get a word in edgewise, and is quickly reduced to being called a murderer, or a low, immoral and horrible human being. You might think that’s hyperbole too, but I’ve experienced it personally from people I considered friends until recently. . . . How can we ‘gun people’ honestly be expected to come to the table with anti-gunners when anti-gunners are willfully stupid about guns, and openly hate, despise and ridicule those of us who own them? There must first be respect and trust — even just a little — before there can be even the beginnings of legitimate discussion of the issue.”

Barry Snell

HT to Mr Reynolds, who points out, “As with most lefty causes, the key driver is a craving for moral superiority, usually driven by oikophobia.”

Quote of the Day

Thursday, May 9th, 2013

Why is it so important for the liberals to push out the only reporter who covered Benghazi?

“Ghettoization.” If the “neutral media” — actually liberal as hell — can present a unified party line on stories, always supporting one another and never showing a crack in the wall, they can sneer at stories they don’t like by saying “Only Fox claims that.”

This becomes unhelpful to the liberals for the same reason it’s helpful to conservatives. Conservatives always say “Wow, now it’s on CBS!” We call that vindication — that it’s gotten out of the ghetto to the liberal media. That even the liberal media was forced to cover that.

Ace