So now what do we do?

Dan Bongino was being interviewed by Glen Beck. Bongino was saying that he cannot go along with anything that might be considered as a call to violence to defend America. He used the old "That's not who we are" platitude. I would like to agree with him.

I am just not sure that I can.

Another video included snippets from Ami Horowitz. He was in New York asking New Yorkers about "unity." All of them were saying how we should live in peace and harmony and sing Kumbaya. He then asked the same people if they were willing to work with or compromise with conservatives. It turns out that conservatives were not to be included in the Kumbaya Choir. Conservatives should be exiled and be punished for their views.

It has been said in the past that if conservatives do not like the censorship, or should I say, protections offered by social media sites, conservatives should just "start their own."

Well, people have taken them up on that. Parler was making tremendous gains as people were leaving -- either voluntarily or involuntarily -- sites such as Twitter. Then Apple and Google removed the Parler app from their app stores. It is not as though Parler is a "Conservative" site. It was started by a Democrat, John Matze Jr. It's just that Matze understands what section 230 means and acts accordingly. Parler was using servers provided by Amazon, but Amazon decided to remove Parler from it's servers in violation of its contract to give 30 days notice. Gab, another non-censoring social media site was told that it was being dropped by its domain registry company, Go Daddy. Gab has also been dropped by PayPal.

So conservatives should not only start their own social media sites, but they should start their own app stores. And their own server providing companies, and their own domain registration companies, and their own online pay services. Just to be sure, such "start your own" defence is not available to Christian bakeries.

A President calling for people to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights is now an impeachable offence. Prominent Democrats and leftists calling for Trump supporters to be sent to re-education camps and having their children taken away is perfectly acceptable.

We just saw the Democrats take control of the United States Senate after another questionable vote count in the run-off election in Georgia for its two seats. That was another case of "Oh, let's stop counting for tonight and pick up where we left off in the morning" but somehow a ton of votes, favoring the Democrat candidates, mysteriously were counted in the night when there was no counting going on. At least one of the Republican candidates fell victim to shrinking vote count syndrome.

I see no way that anyone who has an IQ above room temperature can even believe that there were not some questionable things that happened with the Presidential election. However, for some reason, to even question that election implies that you are a direct descendant of Benedict Arnold. I can't help but wonder why not look closely at the concerns and either put them to rest or find out they were true. There is enough evidence to suggest that it is worth looking at.

I still have a hard time believing that the Democrats really won enough elections to take control of the House in 2018. There were a number of races where the Republican was ahead. They were not landslide victories, not they were not squeakers, either. Most, if not all of those "recounts" had the Democrat come from behind. I doubt there was a one where, after the recount, the Democrats said, "Gosh, I guess the Republican won that after all."

The Democrats have been honing their skills at stealing elections since the Washington Governor's race in 2004.

And now Dan Bongino says we cannot even think of resorting to violence. I am not, necessarily, issuing a call for violence, but just what does he suggest?

Obviously, elections are a fools errand now.

 

Buh Bye

Holy Guacamole Batman!

The plot thickens. 

Support Your Local Sheriff....or maybe not.

"Sheriff David Ward formerly worked for the Federal Bureau of Land Management and appears to have actually been a witness against the Hammond family in the ridiculous federal terrorism trial back in 2012."

Wow. Just wow. Read the whole thing.

Cliven Bundy: Under the Bus

I've been watching the whole Nevada/grazing fees/militarized federal response/civilian militia kerfuffle with a skeptical eye. I've spent many years living and working near BLM land that is allotted to ranchers for grazing purposes, and have experienced first hand the possessiveness exhibited by said ranchers towards hunters and hikers. The attitude of some of these guys is asshole-ish in the extreme, so it's been difficult for me to feel much outrage on behalf of Bundy.

However, the response by the feds to a problem that has gone on for decades is straight from the Twilight Zone. What changed? The guy hasn't paid his fees for years; why the armed invasion to kill his cows? It's downright weird. Obviously, there is more going on. The demented nincompoop Harry Reid appears to be chin-deep in cowshit when it comes to this land. It's obvious that something about this episode gave him a super-sized wedgie. But what, at this point, does it matter? (*channeling Shillery*) It's not news that Reid is a corrupt little man. It's not news that our politicians use federal assets for their own benefit, whether monetary or political.

Now Bundy has stumbled into the gooey, stinking tar pit of Political Correctness. Everyone has jumped on the band wagon. It's positively stunning. Perhaps he could have phrased his off-the-cuff comments a bit differently, but were his comments racist? I've made similar observations in the past; the black family has been utterly decimated in our inner cities. Lifelong welfare and handouts, penalties for daring to have an intact family with a working father, the wholesale slaughter of black children by Planned Parenthood and other baby-slaying entities, have left a path of destruction across several generations. These people have indeed traded one brand of slavery for another, and it's not just black families. Rural Appalachia has seen similar devastation. Is it particularly courageous of me to make these observations? Will Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rand Paul and other shrieking apologists point a shaky, rage-filled finger in my general direction? Bah. What a bunch of cowardly jackwagons. We'll never be a true melting pot until we actually have an honest discussion about failed liberal policies, and until we quit heeding and feeding the race hustlers.

So, it's under the bus for dear old Cliven Bundy. The politicians and the "conservative" lip flappers have grabbed his legs and arms and joyfully tossed him between the oversized Bluebird tires. Thump. Thump thump.

For many of the rest of us, we'll simply turn the radio dial from talk to an oldies station, and reexamine who shall receive our political donations in the future.

An Open Letter To Mitch McConnell

Oh, Mitch Mitch Mitch...you just HAD to go there, didn't you?

While I know that reading things is not your strong suit *cough* healthcare bill *cough*, perhaps you'll indulge me if I keep it short and to the point.

You said:

 "The most important election yesterday wasn't the governor of New Jersey and it wasn't the governor of Virginia, it was the special election for Congress in South Alabama, where a candidate who said the shutdown was a great idea, the president was born in Kenya, and that he opposed Speaker Boehner came in second." The victory of a more electable Republican, is significant, Mr. McConnell says. To govern, parties must win. To win, parties must "run candidates that don't scare the general public, [and] convey the impression that we could actually be responsible for governing, you can trust us—we're adults here, we're grown-ups." 

We DON'T trust you. You and your cohorts do not behave like adults, you behave like spoiled children in a candy store. The candidate from Alabama is unelectable because he questions the president's birthplace and opposes the sniffling, weak-spined Boehner?  But yet left wing extremists are elected wholesale, people who believe that islands will tip over if there are too many people on them, people who are so overtly racist against white people that they tremble with hatred, people who blatantly lie through their teeth, people who are crooks and cheats, people who refuse to produce a college transcript, people who have never had a real job or managed anything more complex than their checkbook. Perhaps you could try throwing rocks at THEM instead of some guy from Alabama I've never heard of and can't find with a google search. The general public is indeed scared. They're scared of inept bureaucrats like you, Mitch, and they're angry that you refuse to represent them or even hear their concerns. Damn angry.

You said, when asked if the GOP is in a civil war:

 "No, I don't think so." Everyone agrees on the central issue: "We would all love to get rid of ObamaCare. If we had the votes to do it we'd do it in a heartbeat. It's the single worst piece of legislation that's been passed in modern times."

On the homefront, there is no civil war. We have abandoned your party, Mitch. In droves. Hundreds of thousands of us, MILLIONS of us. Some of our young guns in Washington think that they can wrestle power away from you long-term geriatric leviathans. I'm not sure that qualifies as a "civil war". It's more like a good old-fashioned house cleaning. You, sir, are simply a dust bunny that will be swept out with the rest of fluff.

You said:

 "The tea party... consists of "people who are angry and upset at government—and I agree with them." But "I think, honestly, many of them have been misled. . . . They've been told the reason we can't get to better outcomes than we've gotten is not because the Democrats control the Senate and the White House but because Republicans have been insufficiently feisty. Well, that's just not true, and I think that the folks that I have difficulty with are the leaders of some of these groups who basically mislead them for profit. . . . They raise money . . . take their cut and spend it" on political action that hurts Republicans.

You agree with us, but we have been misled. More Washington gobbledegook and double-speak.  We have not been misled. We are not ignoramuses hanging on every word Limbaugh or Beck utter, or captivated by DeMint's PAC . We Tea Partiers, as a whole, are smart, savvy, and know our history and our constitution. When you flip us the bird by calling us stupid or not able to think for ourselves, it just strengthens our belief that you have to go, Mitch. Go back to Kentucky and live in this gawd awful mess you've created. Do you realize how patronizing you sound when you say things like  "because Republicans have been insufficiently feisty". Feisty? You rolled over and played dead, Mitch. We didn't expect you to be more feisty, we wanted you to FIGHT, to get mad, to yell the alarm from the rooftops, to stand against the giant blob that is Washington progressive politics and say NO. And as for radio and TV commentators making a profit? It's a business. We're capitalists. We BELIEVE that excellence should be rewarded with profit. Remember capitalism, Mitch? You, on the other hand, are making a profit as a public servant. How does that happen? Why are you making so much money? You're SUPPOSED to be representing us. Who's paying you, besides the padded paycheck you've wrestled from the public coffers? Tsk tsk. I don't think you want to open that can of worms.

I won't address anything else you said in your interview with Peggy Noonan. You've lost your credibility with me. That cocky smirk may be wiped off your face when you run for your upteenth term; people like me, who don't even live in your state, WILL support your opponent. And we WILL contribute to Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund that is targeting you for your malfeasance.

You, Mitch McConnell, are a big chunk of the problem. You have to go.

Fraud, and More Fraud

I see SNAP abuses and "disability" fraud every time I go to WalMart (which isn't often these days). Perhaps if there were some kind of penalty for abusing the system, such as being declared ineligible for ALL taxpayer-funded benefits and "entitlements" for life, we could clean up this mess. Fraud, and more fraud.



H/T: The Blaze

Meet Chief Thief

                               Chief Spence on day 23 of her "hunger strike".

Theresa Spence is the Chief of a G-d forsaken community called Allawapiskat in Northern Ontario.  The "First Nations"  band living in Allawapiskat total between 1500 and 1800 people.  In the last six years the Canadian government (i.e. me, and my fellow tax payers) has given the community $104 million dollars, most of which has not been used to provide aid or assistance to the residents.  In addition to the Federal money, the DeBeers Diamond Mining company has provided over 100 jobs and $325 million in contracts to local band business.  More than 80% of all of these funds are unaccounted for (more about that later).

In 2011 the band pleaded for help stating that residents were living in abject poverty with inadequate housing, heating, clothing, schools and food.    The band was, at the time, "co-managed" (more about that later).  The Canadian government, in an effort to improve the lot of the band members, appointed a third party manager to oversee the financial management of the band.  And this is where things start to get really interesting.  Chief Spence objected to the appointment of the third party administrator and she took the Harper government to court over their imposition of third party management in her community – and won. The courts called the government’s implementing of third party management “unreasonable.”

Fast forward to December 11, 2012 when Chief Spence decided to move her well nourished body together with an entourage of "supporters" and "spokespersons" to an "island" in the Ottawa river (Ottawa being the seat of the Canadian Federal government) to begin a "hunger strike" (more about that later).  Said strike to be in force until the Canadian PM Stephen Harper and Governor General David Johnson agree to sit down and meet to discuss her demands for no less than one week.

Returning to the unaccounted for funds, here are the details of the damming report.

Returning to the "co-manager" of the band, Clayton Kennedy, who also happens to be Chief Spence's common law husband. He (and she) apparently see no conflict of interest in his co-management of the band and his relationship with the Chief. He is quite content to invoice the band $850 a day plus expenses for his "services". They own two vacation homes in Florida, she drives an $80,000 Cadillac Escalade, and the band stock portfolio is estimated to be worth almost $9 million.

 

Returning to the “hunger strike” which some newspaper columnists have referred to variously as a diet/New Years cleansing. Her liquid only “diet” and by liquid we ain’t just talking water. In true ancestral style, Chief Spence is also partaking daily of fish broth and moose broth. Both of which would keep an Olympic athlete fit for months. As one astute columnist noted, Chief Spence’s “hunger strike” has far outlasted the 21 days that Ghandi never exceeded and the 26 days it took for the IRA strikers to look like walking skeletons.. And in true sacrificial mode, Chief Spence has a chauffeured car pick her up from the tepee every day to drive her to a hotel so she can shower and rest.

 

In a moment of what can only be explained as Christmas madness, Stephen Harper has agreed to meet with Spence on December 11, 2012.

 

Chief Spence announced today that she will not attend the meeting.

 

Another Billion Down The Crapper

This time the wealth distribution goes UP to the ruling class from the middle class.

"The Obama administration unveiled plans Wednesday to create an elite corps of master teachers, a $1 billion effort to boost U.S. students' achievement in science, technology, engineering and math.

The program to reward high-performing teachers with salary stipends is part of a long-term effort by President Barack Obama to encourage education in high-demand areas that hold the key to future economic growth — and to close the achievement gap between American students and their international peers.

Teachers selected for the Master Teacher Corps will be paid an additional $20,000 a year and must commit to participate multiple years. The goal is to create a multiplier effect in which expert educators share their knowledge and skills with other teachers, improving the quality of education for all students."

Wow, and extra twenty grand to members of an incompetent and failed trade? Awesome. Something tells me most rank-and-file teachers won't be too impressed with this vote-buying gimmick. They'll know that the money will not be awarded to the brightest and the best, but rather to the politically-connected and "minorities", regardless of ability.

I enjoyed reading the comments on this article. I'm seeing a backlash to the Obama regime's stupidity; it's about time.

Here's a linky to the article at HuffPo.

Tarnished Silver Eagle

This story of an Army colonel run amok will drop your jaw.

Col. James Johnson, convicted of fraud, bigamy, and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, was sentenced Thursday to a reprimand and a $300,000 fine.

The court-martial panel also imposed a sentence of five years’ confinement if Johnson, the former commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, fails to pay the fine. He was not dismissed from the service and was not sentenced to forfeit his pay and allowances. His convictions all had to do with an affair he had with an Iraqi woman he met while deployed and his efforts to help her family.

Well, there's a bit more to it than that....read this article too.

It's crazy that the court-martial panel slapped this guy on the wrist, and even let him retain his job. He's a criminal and a liar, and a sleazeball too.

Johnson's father is a retired brigadier general and the court marshal was presided over by five colonels.

Oh. That might have something to do with it. I have a sneaking suspicion that Johnson will have no problem paying the fine.

The smirking guy on the left is James Johnson with his lawyer.

WTF?

Someone please tell me it's April 1st because this can't possibly be true.

And Speaking Of Schools...

...here's a bit of gobsmacking idiocy.

"The Chicago Teachers Union is asking for raises amounting to 30 percent over the next two years, the opening salvo in heated contract negotiations with school officials who are implementing a longer school day across Chicago Public Schools next school year."

A Canadian Perspective On How To Lose Friends and Piss Off People.

Ezra Levant is a Canadian conservative. He, along with Mark Steyn, was lynched brought before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal a couple of years ago for speaking the truth racial bigotry.

Here is his take on Obama's oil pipeline decision this past week.



The truth shall set you free.

Far-Left Shenanigans

Why? Why would labor unions spend huge piles of their money to support ObamaCare, only to turn around and ask for exemptions for their members?

Labor unions continued to receive the overwhelming majority of waivers from the president’s health care reform law since the Obama administration tightened application rules last summer.

Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obama‘s signature legislation since June 17, 2011.

By contrast, private employers with a total of 69,813 employees, many of whom work for small businesses, were granted waivers.

There is obviously a power-play on an enormous scale playing out right before our eyes, but what is the end game for the unions?

The article also pointed out a tasty little tidbit about how deep Nancy Pelosi's corruption runs:

...nearly 20 percent of last May’s waivers went to businesses in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s district in California.

Targeted Taxation

Surely this can't be legal?

For decades, Jack Daniel's whiskey has celebrated its small Tennessee hometown of Lynchburg with folksy, black-and-white advertisements urging folks to slow down and have a sip.

Now local officials want the maker of the world's top-selling whiskey to pay a bigger bar tab as they struggle with their budget. How does up to $5 million sound?

A measure approved by the Moore County Council asks the Tennessee legislature to authorize a local referendum on whether the distillery should pay that much in new taxes on the 500,000 barrels it fills with whiskey each year.

The 145-year-old distillery, tucked away on 1,700 hilly acres down the road from Lynchburg's quaint town square, now pays $1.5 million in local property taxes.

If the barrel tax is approved, it would be a huge help to the local government, whose annual budget is $3 million and would get every last drop, so to speak, of the money.

The people of this community have lost their minds. They should be ashamed of themselves. This company employs 450 people in a county with an unemployment rate of 10.6%.

"We're paying our part, our fair share," said Tom Beam, senior vice president and general manager of production at the facility. He said the distillery has already helped the area in several ways, including assisting with renovations at the courthouse and a swimming pool.

The senior vice president of Jack Daniels is Mr. Beam? Really? I wonder if the senior vice president of Jim Beam is Mr. Daniels...okay, enough silliness. There's another disturbing part of this story:

The Tennessean newspaper reports that the distillery's owner, Brown-Forman Corp., is ready to make political contributions as a possible fight looms: The company's political action committee has $278,000 heading into the 2012 elections.

Groan. The distillery has two choices; allow the local citizens to rob them of their profits through targeted selective taxation, or pay extortion money to state politicians.

Our system has rotted from greed and neglect. If the fine folks at the Jack Daniels distillery are smart, they'll lock the doors, board up the windows, and move their operation far from Lynchburg, Tennessee. Very far.

I'm sure the Canadians would welcome Old No. 7 with open arms.

Crooks, and Damned Crooks

Here's a half a billion dollars of your hard-earned money flushed down the "green" commode, while you struggle to keep clothes on your back and pay the mortgage:

House investigators said they have uncovered evidence that White House officials became personally involved in an Energy Department review of a hot-button $535 million loan guarantee to the now-failed California solar company Solyndra.

The allegation surfaced in a letter House Energy Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) sent to the White House Thursday night, saying he planned to accelerate efforts to understand an investment deal that may have left taxpayers out half a billion dollars.

Un-frickin'-believable. The whole "green" business structure is nothing but a huge con, and a few select people are getting filthy rich at our expense. When we once again have a functioning Justice Department that represents ALL Americans, they need to follow the money, as high up the Obama ladder as it goes, and put ALL of these criminals in jail for a long, long time. And not a country club jail either! I'm thinking Angola or Huntsville.

H/T: Weasel Zippers

More Wasteful Spending

When I read this story in the newspaper about an airport I'd never heard of, I had to investigate further. From the paper:

U.S. Rep. Mike Ross and U.S. Sens. John Boozman (BOHZ'-man) and Mark Pryor say Grant County will receive more than $312,000 to make improvements at Sheridan Municipal Airport.

The men announced Friday that the $312,607 grant is from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The money will be used to deter unauthorized persons and vehicles from entering onto the airfield.

Ross says the investment at the airport will make it safer and stronger for its passengers and the surrounding communities.

Boozman and Pryor both say the improvements are important for economic development.

We need to deter unauthorized persons and vehicles from THIS airfield? Really? Should people from Idaho and North Carolina and Michigan shell out $312,607 of their hard earned money for THIS?

Stats:

Control Tower: No
Wind Indicator: Yes, Not Lighted
Lighting Schedule: DUSK-DAWN
Single Engine Aircraft Based on Field: 11
Multi-Engine Aircraft Based on Field: 1
Jet Aircraft Based on Field: none
Helicopters Based on Field: none
Military Aircraft Based on Field: none
Annual Commercial Operations: none
Annual Commuter Operations: none
Annual Air Taxi Operations: none
Annual Military Operations: 400
Annual GA Local Operations: 3400
Annual GA Itinerant Operations: 5000

I thought the "powers that be" were going to crack down on these idiotic airport expenditures? It looks to me like politics as usual.

Forty Years Ago Today... er, Yesterday...

Don't let anyone ever tell you the United States has never defaulted on its obligations. It has, and it did so forty years ago today yesterday.

Cash Is King

Banks everywhere are groaning under the weight of raw reserves of cash. Individuals and businesses have fled the market for the negative-return (penciling in almost zero interest and inflation) of bank-vaulted paper. The wealth of our nation is bleeding away beneath the cobwebs of piles and piles hoarded greenbacks:

The toll low rates are taking on savers is very real. The same cash account that was paying $500 on every $10,000 four years ago barely ekes out $100 today. That, says Morningstar analyst Michael Wong, is a negative real rate of return, considering inflation of about 2 percent. “Because investors are so risk averse lately,” he says, “many would rather earn nothing on their cash than risk losing it by putting it into equities or bonds.”

I can't blame businesses or individuals for not investing; who would, with this crazy volatility and uncertainty? The leader of the free world is a clueless milquetoast, the chairman of the Fed can't even figure his own tax return, and the banks in Urp are about to go down like carefully laid dominoes. And our banks?

Banks are not putting deposits to use because they don’t see enough compelling loan-making opportunities in an uncertain economy. The Fed reported that deposits at U.S. domestically chartered commercial banks climbed 16 percent in the past 31 months to $7.38 trillion, while loans fell 6.4 percent. That has forced many banks to shovel money into short-term securities that yield next to nothing.

Wall Street has effectively broken our system with their financial tricks and their razzledazzle. Oversight and regulation have been a joke for decades. So here we are, sitting on our mattresses stuffed with cash and waiting for The Big Boys who destroyed our markets to "fix" them. Good luck.

Bye Bye Blago

Poor Blago.  A jury has convicted the Illinois Sad Sack on 17 of 22 counts.  Will they lock him up and throw away the key?  Will he skip the country and live on the lam with the millions he stashed in an offshore account?  Was he smart enough to stash away millions?  Can he even spell the word "million"? 

If he receives a stiff sentence, he'll sing like a canary about The Chicago Way.  So...I'm betting six months in a country club prison, tops.

Obama:  I got your back, bro!

Blago:  You'd better!  Tweet, tweet, tweet...

Teaching FAIL

The term "racism" has been overused to the point of redundancy lately, but this is a stark reminder that racism DOES still exist in our country, and it's perpetrated by none other than unions and the universities writing our education models.

In a major United States city, Detroit, which is predominantly a black community, over HALF of the residents are functionally illiterate. Gobsmacked?  There's more:

Shockingly, virtually the entire illiterate population had completed elementary school – the level at which reading is theoretically taught.

The report noted that half of the illiterate population had either a high school diploma or a GED.

Even though these kids cannot read, they are passed up until they receive a diploma.  The soft racism of diminished expectations isn't so soft when you look at the incredible damage that has been done to an entire population.  The teachers, and their good-for-nothing union leaders, have lined their pockets with greenbacks, benefits, and protections while utterly failing at their mandate.

The fact that many of the administrators and teachers are also black allows the entire sordid mess to be swept under the rug, and is the Seal of Approval coveted by the union bosses, the government, and the media.

Detroit is currently embroiled in an eye-gouging, hair-pulling slapfest to break the collective bargaining union stranglehold crippling the school districts, and move towards charter schools.  However, even this move is rife with corruption and money grubbing.

What has happened in Detroit is criminal.  Shouldn't there be an investigation into this catastrophic failure of the education system and the unions?  Where is our Attorney General?  Heads should roll, and lengthy jail sentences imposed.  This is fraud perpetuated on a appalling scale, and ultimately all Americans are damaged when we allow our neighbors to be kicked in the teeth and victimized by a bunch of no-good thugs.