Lightning round II …

Okay, I’ve dealt with the recent stuff from Harry, Nancy, Oprah and Obama and his minions …

So let’s move on.

The Knock-out Game

If you need more proof that we are descending into madness, this is it. Black kids are seeing if they can knock someone out with a single punch.  And it’s overwhelmingly – if not virtually exclusively – black kids doing this.  They don’t know the people they are punching.  But they are happily recording their greatest hits and posting their videos online or sending these to their friends so everyone can share their magic moment of mindless violence.  

People have been seriously injured.  At least one person has been killed.  But the media are going out of their way to pretend this isn’t another instance of black kids run amuck.  So they are now trying desperately to find reports that non-blacks are also involved in the knock-out games. 

They have been able to find one or two.  But that’s about it.  This is a black thing, by young black thugs, targeting innocent people, for no other reason but sport and bragging rights. 

Sharpton finally emerged to say this was wrong.  Good for him.  But these thugs aren’t going to listen to Sharpton.  Nor do they think there’s anything wrong with it – it’s just fun.  They call attacks on whites “Polar Bear Hunting”; attacks on Jews in New York are called “Punch A Jew.” 

These are racist attacks by a young black element that’s increasingly out of control.  Please stop with the BS that blacks can’t be racists.  Please stop with the BS that proportionally more black men are in prison simply because the system discriminates against blacks.  Please stop the BS that if we spent more in the inner cities young blacks would cease being violent criminals. 

And above all, please stop the nonsense that it’s unfair to engage in racial profiling as a predictor of potential criminality.  If the stats show that young black males have a much higher probability of committing violent crimes than other racial groups, then go ahead and focus on them.  In high-crime areas stop and frisk young black males and subject them to more scrutiny. 

Screw political correctness. 

Maybe if we do this we’ll slow the trend.  If we don’t it’s only a matter of time before one of these thugs picks the wrong target – some citizen with a carry permit who isn’t playing the game.  Then the Sharptons and Jacksons of the world will howl about racists with guns. 

The rest of us will shrug.  

Census Bureau cooking the books

Honestly, is anyone surprised at this? Of course the books were cooked to make it seem unemployment was going down right before the last election – a claim Obama was happy to publicize.  Leading financial people and economists couldn’t see how unemployment could possibly be down then, based on the data they had.  The numbers made no sense. 

Now we know why they were down.  Census Bureau folks faked the data.  

It’s long past time for Americans to wake up and realize that the government and government workers aren’t politically impartial.  The government is an entity unto itself, with its own rules.  And the primary rule is to protect the status quo against any change, or any threat to the sweet deals government workers and government contractors enjoy. 

So when Republicans propose to reduce the size of government, Republicans become the enemy of the government and government workers.  When conservatives talk about reducing waste in government – read:  cut pay, benefits and jobs of “non-essential” government workers – they also become the enemy of government and government workers. 

Government and government workers much prefer Democrats who promise to increase the size of government.  That’s also why government-worker unions are solidly behind Democrats. 

And it also explains why the Census Bureau cooked the books to support Obama, the IRS targeted conservative groups, the State Department withholds Benghazi data, and the Justice Department withholds information on embarrassing programs.

Get used to it.

Martin Bashir and Sarah Palin  

Our pals at MSNBC hit a new low when one of their on-air commentators – Martin Bashir – said that Sarah Palin was an idiot, and for making a reference to slavery someone should defecate in her mouth and urinate on her. 

Don’t know about you, but I think that trumps Rush Limbaugh’s references to Sandra Fluke in the context of a slut and a prostitute on the outrage meter. This takes it up a whole notch or so.   

What Sarah Palin originally said was this:  “Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children and borrowing from China. When that money comes due – and this isn’t racist, but it’ll be like slavery when that note is due. We are going to (be) beholden to the foreign master.”

I’m not a huge fan of Sarah Palin’s and sometimes she does say dopey things.  This wasn’t one of those times.  It certainly didn’t warrant Bashir’s comments.   Of course a lot of folks on the looney left didn’t see anything wrong with what Bashir said. 

You see, the far left can get away with saying anything because – as we know – they have the moral high ground.  So they can call Laura Ingraham a slut and it’s okay.  And say that someone should defecate in Sarah Palin’s mouth and that’s okay, too.  

But call Sandra Fluke a slut and it’s an outrage.      

Bashir did apologize.  Well then, everything’s okay, right? 

ObamaCare ads

Don’t get me wrong, I like sexy, provocative ads.  But when the government runs ads featuring a young woman hoping to bed a cute guy, and thankful that she has free birth control because of ObamaCare, that's not sexy; that's silly. The only thing these will provoke is ridicule.     

Sure, I know they are trying to get young people to sign up. They NEED young healthy people to sign up to balance out all the old, sick people frothing through their dentures to get coverage.  If the plans end up with just the old and ill, it will be a disaster.  Rates will skyrocket. 

But really, do they think young healthy women are going to sign up because birth control will then be free?  I think the current generations aren’t all that smart – not nearly as smart as they think they are, and certainly not as smart as their mommies and daddies have told them all their lives.  

However, even an idiot can see that paying a couple of hundred bucks a month just to get $10 worth of birth control pills for free is a bad deal. 

Or maybe not.  If they can’t, perhaps we’re all better off if they don’t reproduce.    

More to come …

Lightning round …

The other day a good friend asked why I hadn’t written anything recently.

I told him there were just too many crazy things to choose from … it’s hard to pick a target. 

With Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Democrats in general, Obama, Oprah, the Knock-Out Game, Census Bureau election hijinks, Martin Bashir and Sarah Palin, and the ObamaCare ads … there’s just an embarrassment of riches to work with. 

Rather than be the mule who starved between two bales of hay, here’s some quick hits …

Harry Reid

I can’t stand this insincere, lying, hypocritical pipsqueak.  He’s Obama’s Renfield (look it up) willing to do or say anything in the service of his master.  He revels in using the implied authority of his master to punish and humiliate his opponents.  Harry is what often happens when someone everybody always made fun of finally gets some power; he gleefully abuses it.  He’s vindictive, short-sighted and a downright nasty piece of work. 

His lasting legacy will be for going nuclear by recently overturning a centuries-old Senate tradition that protected the rights of the minority party from being run over by a majority party.  BTW, he had strongly defended that tradition when Democrats weren’t in control of the Senate.  This single move alone will increase polarization and result in even greater gridlock. 

Does Harry care?  Nope.  Just following orders …

Nancy Pelosi

The delusional Queen of the intellectually and ethically challenged, Nancy proved how completely nuts she really is in a recent interview with David Gregory.  When confronted with video of her own statements about ObamaCare, since unequivocally proven false, she continued to claim that what she said in those clips was true.  Gregory isn’t exactly a Republican shill by any means, so she was obviously caught off guard and seemed to get wackier and blinkier as the interview went on. 

Dennis Miller once said that she was so bat-shit crazy that he swore she must sleep upside down.   I agree.  Remember, she’s the one who said that the House had to pass the ObamaCare bill to learn what was in it.  Yep, that’s our Nancy …. 

Democrats in general

ObamaCare is a disaster.  When Obama said “If you like your plan you can keep it” and that if you liked your doctor you could keep them, too, he lied.  Plain and simple.  He lied.  Bald-faced and with not a single caveat.  He even punctuated those lies with “period.”  He knew he was lying at the time.  He knew that people wouldn’t be able to keep their plans, nor their doctors. 

In fact, the Democrats had to vote on a specific bill that very clearly stated that those existing plans must be cancelled by the insurance companies.  They also knew that people wouldn’t necessarily be able to keep their doctors either. 

So now they either claim they didn’t know – a convenient case of political amnesia – or that “technically” what they and Obama said was true.  They and Obama just weren’t as explicit or detailed as they probably should have been.  

More of them are sticking with the “technically” true argument these days.  They truly believe that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself. 

How delusional are they?  Well, after David Gregory eviscerated Pelosi recently on a Sunday talk show, the looney left blogs were full of praise for how Pelosi decisively debunked Gregory’s Republican talking points about ObamaCare.  And exactly what show were they watching? 

I’ve often said being a liberal Democrat is a form of mental illness.  This is more proof. 

Oprah

I admire how successful Oprah has become.  She’s so famous she only needs one name.  She’s made millions on her own merits, not because she’s black nor despite being black.  While she was skyrocketing to fame and fortune by attracting millions of loyal followers of all races, nobody ever cared about her race.  And they don’t care now. 

However, Oprah has now decided that she cares about race.  She thinks Obama gets a raw deal because of his race.  People don’t respect him as they should, simply because he’s black. 

Hello Oprah.  People don’t respect him because of what he’s done, not the color of his skin. 

He’s lied to the American people.  He’s abused the office of President.  He’s diminished the respect people have here and around the world for the Presidency by going back on his word and abandoning long-time allies.  He’s treated the Presidency as no more than a “cool job” with neat perks like rubbing elbows with celebrities and shopping trips to Europe for his family, rather than stepping up to what the job really entails.  As someone said, he likes being President; he just doesn’t like having to do the job. 

He’s an empty suit having the time of his life on what is the world’s most important stage.  The public doesn’t trust him.  World leaders don’t trust him.  Even politicians in his own party don’t trust him.

Note to Oprah:  It’s not because he’s black.  It’s because he’s deceitful and incompetent.    

Obama

I am both embarrassed and terrified by Obama.  

He is an insult to the high standards we should expect from someone who holds the most powerful office in the world.  With his waffling and “leading from behind” nonsense, he’s abdicated his role as leader of the free world.  He’s cutting deals with the enemies of our allies, and tossing those allies under the bus.  Nobody trusts his word.  Now Russia is more trusted; imagine that.

Truthfully, we can recover from all that.  We survived Carter, after all. 

What’s really scary is what Obama’s doing here at home.  The ObamaCare debacle and the food-stamp Presidency are small potatoes.  I suspect Obama – like many progressives since Woodrow Wilson – thinks our system of checks and balances is archaic and inefficient, and should be streamlined.  Everything he does is to diminish the power of the other two branches of government and increase the power of the Executive branch to near dictatorial status. 

This is unacceptable.  This is also unconstitutional. 

It’s now clear that he is trying to overthrow the structure of government outlined in the Constitution.  The result will be the culmination of the Progressive dream:  the creation of an enlightened ruling class unimpeded by the whims of a less enlightened populace.  This ruling class will make better, more informed choices for society because of its intellectual superiority.

If you don’t think that’s possible, consider the ever increasing power of Federal agencies these days.  Are they elected?  No.  The key people running these agencies are appointed to reflect the ideologies of the party in power.  So the rules they pass reflect the will of the Executive branch.  With the change in filibuster rules, the party in control of the White House and Senate can appoint whoever it wants to head these agencies. Now it can also close the loop by packing the courts who rule on the legality of the regulations they create.

Next, consider how Obama has already used Executive Orders to bypass Congress.  Consider how he’s decided that he has the power to determine what laws he will or won’t enforce, and what laws he can change any time he pleases.  Nobody is stopping him.  And every time he gets away with another of these power grabs, he’s setting precedent. 

Dangerous precedents are being set in stone.  The checks and balances are being knocked out, step by step.  It’s effectively a coup d’état if allowed to continue.   

If that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will. 

More to come …

Mob rule II

As I said in an earlier posting, politicians love mobs.  Especially irrational, unthinking mobs focused only on short term solutions. 

Mobs don’t care about any rights except their own.  They ignore rules or laws that stand in the way of what they want. Nor do they care about the consequences of their actions.   

All that makes mobs so attractive to politicians.  Well, as long as the mob is the majority, and remains on their side. 

And there, my friends, is the inherent danger of mobs and pure majority rule.  Sooner or later, all mobs dissipate, majorities switch, and you are left with the aftermath. 

The founders wanted a democracy – within limits

The founders tried desperately to stave off mob rule and potential abuse by a majority.  The balance of power incorporated into the design of our government was not an accident.  The Electoral College was not created on a whim.   The founders thought long and hard about how to preserve the rights of the minority in the face of challenges from the majority. 

They knew that absolute power almost inevitably led to abuse of power.  And that’s also why they created limits on what the Federal government was permitted – and precluded – from doing. 

They recognized that if everything was decided by popular vote, with no checks and balances in place, we’d end up with a populist dictator.  We’d get someone who would promise the masses everything to seize power, and then use the resources of the government to retain power.

It wasn’t as if they didn’t understand what could happen under autocratic rule. 

We’d fought against a king and defeated his armies to gain our independence.  We had seen that absolute power corrupted absolutely, firsthand.  We had rebelled against unjust rules and laws forced on us without our consent.  We rose up against restrictions on our freedoms.  And finally we went to war to reclaim our rights, our liberties, and to throw off the vestiges of a corrupt form of government that existed entirely for itself at the expense of the people it governed. 

Sound familiar? 

The nuclear option and autocratic rule

Well, with the Senate vote to eliminate filibusters on many Presidential appointments – engaging the so-called nuclear option – we’ve taken yet another step toward mob rule and the entrenchment of a pure autocratic state.

From now on, many appointments can be confirmed by the Senate with a simple 50 +1 majority vote.  This gives the party in control of the White House and Senate the ability to place almost anyone they want on a series of Federal courts, but not – at least for now – on the Supreme Court. 

The Democrats had been stymied in their attempts to get a number of new Obama-nominated judges appointed to a variety of courts, and to some executive branch positions.  Republicans threatened to filibuster many of the nominees, which would then require a vote for cloture in the Senate, which would take 60 votes to pass.  And the Democrats knew they couldn’t get 60 votes. 

So they invalidated a Senate tradition of more than 200 years that had enabled minority parties to hold up Presidential nominees to executive branch positions and to Federal courts.  Now all you need is a majority in the Senate.      

Why is this important? Its most dramatic impact will be on who gets Federal judgeships. 

Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have always been political battlefields.  Both parties have tried to place judges on the benches they think will be favorable to their causes.  Sometimes this works and they get an ideological stalwart; sometimes they get surprised.  Over time a sure-fire conservative can become more liberal and a rock-solid liberal can become more conservative once they are on the Federal bench. 

There’s always that risk, and many Federal court appointments are for life. 

Most of the current battle is over the Federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is a unique entity in many ways.  It tends to get cases that involve Federal regulations.  It’s also seen as a stepping stone for many justices to get to the Supreme Court.

Problem is, that court is currently balanced with an equal number of Democrat and Republican appointed full-time judges.  The Democrats want to add several new judges to that court, obviously hoping to tip the balance and set up a pipeline of more liberal- and regulatory-friendly judges for the next Supreme Court vacancies.  Republicans, of course, want to stop them. 

Hence the impasse.  And the reason why Democrats invoked the nuclear option.       

With the Senate in control of the Democrats, and with Obama in the White House, it’s pretty much clear sailing to do whatever they want in terms of appointments.  They can stack Federal courts with far-left loons if they like and there’s nothing to stop them.  They can turn the D.C. Circuit Court into a rubber stamp for any regulations they feel like imposing.

Since Obama’s already shown a proclivity toward ruling by fiat – using Executive Orders in place of legislation, spawning regulations without Congressional input, much less approval and deciding which laws he will or won’t enforce – this was one of the last checks on his power grabs.

And now it’s gone.  He is officially the King of America.  He can pretty much do whatever he wants.  The only thing standing in his way is the House.  

His supporters are thrilled.  They think this will allow them to shape policy through the courts for years to come.  What they can’t get in legislation, they’ll finagle through regulations, acquiesced to by friendly judges appointed by like-minded progressives.  That’s the plan. 

There’s only one flaw.  When and if the Republicans ever retake the Senate and the White House, the tables will be turned.  Payback will be a bitch. 

The only time it’s good to have dictatorial powers is when you are the dictator. 

When you're not in power anymore, life sucks.