Friday, May 31, 2013

A slight change to the Marine Corps slogan

The Few. The Proud. The Undernourished.
Marines at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan will lose a key daily meal starting Saturday, causing some to forgo a hot breakfast and others to work six-plus hours without refueling on cooked food, according to Marines at the base and Marine Corps officials.
Sorry, jar heads, but those star-studded White House galas don’t pay for themselves.

Seriously, Mr. Commander in Chief, you can deck yourself out in your tuxedo, and Mrs. O can drape herself in one of those costumes that looks like a hand-me-down from King Nebuchadnezzar’s favorite concubine , and you can both hang out with your Hollywood buds in the White House, dining on sumptuous fare, and you can let your troops go hungry, and you can do all this without hanging your head in shame?

Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s a rhetorical question. Still, I thought I’d ask it, just for the record.

Either Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe is a fanatical idiot…

…or his late father was. Personally, I think Junior, in the slimiest tradition of Democrat politicians seeking elective office, is making the whole thing up, and simply using the death of a family member to try and score cheap political points.

Gun…sell-back program?

Illinois, of course.
A police department in the Chicago suburbs said some of the guns obtained from a buyback program will be sold to a pair of licensed dealers.

St. Charles Police Chief James Lamkin said about 20 firearms obtained through a gun buyback program and seized by courts will be sold to the dealers, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday.

"There's value in these guns," Lamkin said. "They're not illegal guns. Quite honestly, it's a bottom line for us."
Ok, so, do-good nitwit, inflated with a sense of his own moral superiority, sells grandpa’s antique L.C. Smith shotgun to the police for pennies on the dollar; police resell to gun dealer – presumably making a profit (from which the taxpayers are unlikely to ever benefit) – dealer sells to, say, nitwit’s neighbor, also banking a profit; nitwit visits neighbor and sees his grandpa’s gun hanging on the wall, says, “Gawrsh, Mickey, I used to have one just like that! Those things are dangerous, you know; might want to do one of those gun buyback things, like I did.” And the great Cycle of Stupid continues.

Snowe job

Denatured Republican and former senator Olympia Snowe offers her recipe for a permanent GOP minority (article also includes a few feeble wheezes from that tattered old accordion, Bob Dole).

Happy Feet Friday

Here’s a dose of some of that sweet Mills Brothers harmony, as the fellows perform Till Then.


Thursday, May 30, 2013

Assortment

Eric Holder: I are, too, kompetant!

Kevin Williamson has written an interesting essay about booming Midland, Texas (where Mrs. Paco received her one and only speeding ticket).

Mr. G elaborates on the very special threats represented by the permanent bureaucracy.

Ace reporter, Jack Wiley Dithers, demands to know why he’s not on the administration's enemies list (dude, maybe you’re on Eric Holder’s super secret list; subpoenas to be issued on a future date TBD).

Miss Red reminds us of Enoch Powell's prescient words.

Donald Douglas highlights an important video, featuring Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, on the subject of the costs of amnesty.

Barack Obama: untrustworthy from the get-go.

Boy on a Bike encounters teenage bakers and their inefficient, er, biscuitry.

Best wedding photo of all time.


Wednesday, May 29, 2013

The love song of E.J. Dionne


"Say, did you catch 'Morning Joe' today?"



"Dude, you know I don't watch that left-wing crap."



"Neither do I, but some liberal sap put MSNBC on the TV in the waiting room of the shop this morning while his Chevy Volt was being repainted."



"Traffic accident?"



"Nah. Spontaneous combustion. Anyway, Joe had E.J. Dionne on the show and you should have seen the guy tying himself into knots defending Obama."



"E. J. Dionne? That's no surprise. He's been one of Barry's carnival barkers from the beginning."



"Yeah, but he really outdid himself this time. He compared the president to Kermit the Frog."



"Well, there's a grown-up analogy for you. Although, I dunno...he might be on to something. Obama is pretty slippery."


"No, no, he didn't mean it that way. Dionne placed the analogy in the context of Kermit's song, 'It Isn't Easy Being Green" - you know, the whole lonely-at-the-top-mistaken-through-no-fault-of-his-own vibe."



"Yuck! Listen, if I had an alimentary canal, you can bet I'd be gagging right about now."



"Oh, it gets worse. Dionne said that the political spectrum has shifted under Obama's feet, due to the propaganda of Republicans, unfairly making him look more left-wing than he really is."



"He said that? The political spectrum has shifted under Obama's feet? So, Obama's essentially just a freakin' earthquake victim? Come on. Dissing Israel, Fast and Furious, radicalizing the Department of Justice, ObamaCare, the Benghazi fiasco, using the IRS to target conservative groups, spying on reporters...Obama didn't have anything at all to do with any of it, right? Shit. Just. Happened. I mean, Barry's just an amiable do-gooder who likes to play a few thousand rounds of golf every year and ogle Beyonce's booty at those White House celebrity blow-outs. Is that what Dionne is saying? Man, and they call us tools."



"Brother, when it comes to being tools, we're not even in the same box with E.J. Dionne."

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Scarlett Johansson as Hillary Clinton?

Oh, sure, I’m absolutely buying that.

Maybe they can get Will Smith to play Bill.


"Cankles? What cankles?"

Governor Cuomo must have a lot of faith in the marksmanship of New York’s civilian population

He wanted to arbitrarily limit semi-automatic pistol magazine capacity to, I believe, seven rounds. In the real world, Wisconsin police Sgt. Timothy Gramins explains why he now carries an absolute minimum of 145 rounds:
Before the call that changed Sergeant Timothy Gramins’ life forever, he typically carried 47 rounds of handgun ammunition on his person while on duty.

Today, he carries 145, “every day, without fail.”

He detailed the gunfight that caused the difference in a gripping presentation at the annual conference of the Assn. of SWAT Personnel-Wisconsin.

At the core of his desperate firefight was a murderous attacker who simply would not go down, even though he was shot 14 times with .45-cal. ammunition — six of those hits in supposedly fatal locations.
Read the whole thing (and don’t forget to stock up on extra ammo and extra magazines).

Teleprompter-assisted speeches that are grammatically correct are not signs of superior intelligence

Or, to put it more succinctly, as P.J. O’Rourke does in this piece at the Weekly Standard, Obama is stupid.
Dopey stimulus, obtuse bailout, noodle-headed Obamacare, half-wit Dodd-Frank, damfool IRS Tea Party crashers, AP and Fox News beset by oafish peeping Toms and the Benghazi tale told by an idiot. One could go on. Stupid is a great force in human affairs. And the great force has a commander in chief.
Of course, stupid can be very dangerous.

Seems to me that the president hasn’t recently had any trouble getting the bird

Nonetheless, he chooses to call on the Fat Man.

Unless he’s shooting for the opportunity of becoming “Governor for Life”, I’m not sure what the benefit is to Christie, long-term. His man-crush on Obama has pretty much permanently damaged any presidential aspirations he might have had.


"There are those who are fat, and there are those who are simply hoggish. I'm sure I need not waste time on elaborating the distinction to a man of your superior perspicacity, Mr Spade."

"For your tomorrow, we gave our today"

The Kohima 2nd Division Memorial in Burma (via Captain Heinrichs).
The Kohima 2nd Division Memorial is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on behalf of the 2nd Infantry Division. The memorial remembers the Allied dead who repulsed the Japanese 15th Army, a force of 100,000 men, who had invaded India in March 1944 in Operation U-Go. Kohima, the capital of Nagaland was vital to control of the area and in fierce fighting the Japanese finally withdrew from the area in June of that year.

Outstanding question of the week

From Martha MacCallum.

Maybe as a booger in George Washington's nose, or a cold sore on Thomas Jefferson's lip

A handful of professors at GWU think Obama's mug ought to grace Mt. Rushmore someday.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Comic's edginess strangely blunted when it comes up against Islam

Unfunny funny man, Russell Brand, thinks deep thoughts about the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby by Muslim fanatics, comes across sounding like a COEXIST bumper sticker (among his more idiotic cogitations: "Blaming Muslims for this is like blaming Hitler’s moustache for the Holocaust.")

Tim Blair isn't having it.

Memorial Day



God bless the souls of our fallen heroes.

Here is a touching story of a woman reunited, decades after his death in WWII, with the loving spirit of her young Marine.

Update: John Solomon at the Washington Guardian has a nice Memorial Day tribute.

Monday movie

Friction between Clark Gable and his officers, in Run Silent, Run Deep.



Bonus video clip from Wake Island.


Sunday, May 26, 2013

Sunday funnies

The perils of pocket dialing.

Spain has designed and built a new submarine. There’s just one little problem…

Australian celebrates 110th birthday by eating a cake made of dead chickens.

How about Northern Pacovia?

From the Department of Weird, But True.

In the age of Obamanomics, you must seize job opportunities where you find them.

Time for another episode of Prometheus and Bob:





Saturday, May 25, 2013

A very different smell entirely

Hilaire Belloc said long ago ago that Europe was living on "the whiff from an empty bottle". And soon, even the whiff will be gone, replaced by the stench of permanent, pusillanimous serfdom, the people trapped between the soul-destroying pettiness and intrusiveness of the socialist state, and the aggressive, bloody-minded hatred of an alien culture against which that socialist state can no longer even muster an argument, let alone an effective defense.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Fool Britannia

Douglas Murray addresses the west’s bad case of myopia in facing up to the Islamic threat within. One particularly outrageous fact in the article highlights the cultural schizophrenia in the UK: Islamic rabble-rouser, Anjem Choudary, pulls down more money from British welfare than an entry-level soldier earns in salary.

Dear Brits: Are. You. Nuts? (I know we are; Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood jihadist, is still being paid his army salary, receiving $278 thousand since his murderous rampage).

Update: The End.

He’s just rubbing our noses in it now

“Obama Gives State Dept. Talking Points Editor a Promotion”.
The State Department spokeswoman who played a pivotal role in deleting portions of the Benghazi talking points has been tapped by President Obama for a plum new post, bagging a nomination to become assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

Slow Lerner


Via Legal Insurrection

Happy Feet Friday

Whoa! A pianist at a Hungarian boogie woogie festival pays tribute to Pete Johnson in this rendition of Death Ray Boogie.




Oh, goodie!

My agency has invited Secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sibelius, to speak at our Women's History Month celebration.

Perfect. This is almost as bad as inviting Al Sharpton to be a guest speaker during Black History Month (yes, that really happened).

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Drummer Lee Rigby, RIP

Good suggestion from Allahpundit: “If you’re going to spend time on this story today, skip the stuff about the attackers and read this instead.” The “this” to which he refers is a piece at Sky News which tells us something about the young soldier who was murdered in London yesterday by two savages – who will one day join their pig god in hell.
Lieutenant Colonel Jim Taylor, Commanding Officer of the Second Fusiliers, described [Drummer Lee Rigby] as a "true warrior" who served with distinction in Afghanistan.

"Drummer Rigby was a dedicated and professional soldier," he said. "He was a real character within the Second Fusiliers. Larger than life, he was at the heart of our Corps of Drums."

"Riggers was what every battalion needs," added Warrant Officer Ned Miller, Regimental Sergeant Major of the Second Fusiliers. "He was one of the Battalion's great characters - always smiling and always ready to brighten the mood."
May God bless his soul, and comfort his friends and family.

Unfair!

If domestic terrorists Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and others can trade on their violent pasts to snag cushy jobs as college professors, why is Joanne Chesimard being excluded from the hallowed halls of academe? Where is her deal?

I smell racism.

Smoke Bomb Barry

I believe R. Emmett Tyrrell is right:
Where are we now in this morass of Obama Administration scandals? We have the Associated Press imbroglio. We have the Benghazi imbroglio. We have the IRS imbroglio. Well, a synonym for imbroglio is confusion, and in all the above cases replace the word “imbroglio” with the word “confusion” and you will get a hint of where I am going. We have one massive cloud of confusion, and that is exactly what this embattled Administration wants, confusion. They think that if an event can be brought to confusion, at some point the journalists and the general public will throw up their hands and agree that it is just too difficult to penetrate. Perhaps the Nixon Administration was hoping for such an outcome back in 1972.
I’m not sure the preshizzle can create a sufficient quantity of smoke to mask the sins of his regime without burning down his administration – but he’ll try, lordie, but how he’ll try! And who knows? With a boost from his media fifth column, he might just get away with it.

If there were a J. Packington Paco LEGO man...

...he would probably look something like this.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Hey, Europe

How’s all that multi-culti, religion-of-peace stuff working out?

Related: Piers Morgan’s terminal beclownment.

Note to Congress

You are not exactly powerless to bring the IRS to heel. Take a gander at the 16th Amendment:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Do us all a favor: scrap this monster and start afresh. Government bureaucracies that have far-reaching power, almost unlimited resources and a culture of non-accountability inevitably attract petty tyrants whose management strategies, whether motivated by ideology or simply the desire for personal advancement, facilitate tyrannical excesses of a distinctly non-petty variety – a particularly destructive tendency when these excesses are in harmony with the political goals of a chief executive who sees America as a socialist laboratory. The IRS is not an independent fourth branch of government; stop letting it act as if it were.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Stonewalling

Lois Lerner, a high IRS panjandrum and one of the most important figures in the controversy over IRS targeting of conservatives, has announced through her attorney that she intends to plead the Fifth if she is called before Rep. Issa’s Oversight Committee.

Hey, this is shaping up to be almost as interesting as the Kefauver hearings - although the subject matter is different: one of these committees pertains to the investigation of a massive criminal enterprise and its corrupting influence on government and society, and the other pertains to the Mafia.


"We wuz just fruit-wagon goombahs next to dis crowd youse got."

Update: The Joseph Goebbels brigade to the rescue?

Haw!

Jay Carney, goalie for the White House dart team.

The stupid is strong in this one

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-bag, Rhode Island), tries to tie the recent terrible flurry of tornadoes to Republicans and their skepticism about global warming.

Testing the Tea Party

Virginia has a couple of strong Tea-Party-style candidates for governor and lieutenant governor in, respectively, Ken Cuccinelli and E.W. Jackson. Jackson is particularly interesting, because he is a conservative African-American (who, incidentally, disparages the label: he states that he is "not an African American, but an American”), and a graduate of both Harvard Law School and Harvard Divinity School.

Looks to be a fascinating election.

(H/T: the ever-vigilant Captain Heinrichs).

Update: Ross Kaminsky has a considerably different take.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Obama's getting pummeled

And so is his lap dog, MSNBC (which is an acronym for Monomaniacally Sustaining and Nurturing Barry's Career).
The scandals of the Obama administration seem to be hurting not just the White House but MSNBC as well while Fox News Channel scored its second-best week of the year. After double-digit gains during last year’s presidential election, May 13-17 saw the progressive-aligned “Lean Forward” news network hit new lows as the IRS scandal erupted and revelations that the Justice Department secretly obtained AP records became public.
"Lean forward", indeed.


"C'mon, boy, let me hear yew squeal lack Chris Mathyooz!"

Assortment

Boy oh boy, I am really looking forward to Robert Redford’s crocumentary on Chicago and its “visionary mayor” (now, what would make the film truly interesting would be if they let Bob Belvedere write the script; of course, then Redford wouldn't touch it).

If you don’t know genocide when you see it, it comes as no surprise that you can’t identify an act of terrorism, either (neither of which failing, of course, will bar you from becoming a national security advisor in this administration).

Fishersville Mike spots a problem with the anti-IRS protests scheduled for noon tomorrow.

The ever-alert Swampy catches Janet Napolitano in a lie (yet another one).

Piers Morgan: wrong again.

How dishonest is Lois Lerner? Kevin Williamson counts the ways.

Rep. Mike Kelly rakes IRS flunky, Steve “Brillo Pad” Miller, over the coals.

Heh. President Obama adopts the Sgt. Schultz strategy (H/T: Legal Insurrection).

“Customer” service: “A new USCIS computer system to screen applications known as ‘Transformation’ has proven to be a disaster as the agency has spent upwards of $2 billion for a system that would eventually allow an alien--now referred to as a ‘customer’ under current USCIS policy--to upload their own information via the internet for adjudication purposes,” Palinkas said. “To date, only one form can be accepted into the program that has been in the making for close to 10 years.”

Nixon: I am not a crook.
Obama: I am not Nixon.

I don’t agree with all of the assertions made by John Avlon in this article at the Telegraph web site; for one thing, he is far too dismissive of the probability of Obama’s direct involvement in, and the near-certainty of his at least countenancing, the frauds and abuses committed by people under his authority. However, I am willing to pardon much in return for his coining of the word “scandalabra” to describe the Obama administration’s multiple infamies.

Obama stooge Dan “Beadle” Pfeiffer: the law is a ass!

D.C., with its highly restrictive gun laws, sends an ominous message: You saved someone’s life with an unregistered gun? That’ll be a thousand dollars, please.

Lost and Found Dept: John Boehner, call your office.



You make the call!

Jon Gabriel introduces the Obama Scandal Bracket.

Monday movie

The dream sequence from Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Spellbound.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Sunday funnies

Probably the strangest headline I’ve read this week: “Bieber to lose monkey to Germany at midnight”.

Just-as-good substitute products from Paco Enterprises!

And, in another burst of marketing genius, we offer the watermelon stroller fridge.

Australia should do something about these things (I mean, really: startling a poor kangaroo that way).

Lost in translation…


Closely related

Mr. Bingley points out the perils of bad editing.

Burglar locks victim in closet – the gun closet.

Some royal monarchs manage to hold their own umbrellas...


(H/T: Gateway Pundit)

TimT boldly defends the sky whale.

Friday, May 17, 2013

See, everybody? It wasn’t dishonesty…

…it was just idiocy. Hey, what a relief that is!

By the way, with old scandals gathering steam, and new ones blossoming like a garden of corpse flowers (Amorphophallus titanium), Obama’s need for under-the-bus space is expanding exponentially. I suggest he consider one (or, to be on the safe side, several) of these.

Ok, I think I’ve finally received some spam that is comment-worthy

I have deleted the original comment (it appeared in connection with the “Happy Feet Friday” post), but it is a veritable petri dish for the generation of stimulating conversation, so here it is:
We need to talk honestly about the ways that violence shows up in our Detox Foot Pad.
Detox Foot Pad? Sounds like an exciting new product from Paco Labs.

Consider this your spam open thread.

Happy Feet Friday

Tiny Bradshaw and his band knock out some fine R&B with “The Train Kept A-Rollin’”.



Thursday, May 16, 2013

"Sharia is incompatible with civilized behavior"

Period.

Update: Of course, if you're the Department of Homeland Security, your mileage may vary.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Junius: An Open Letter to President Obama



Sir:

One need not possess extraordinary powers of discernment to observe that a maelstrom of scandal has caught the ship of state in its whorls, and threatens to smash its timbers in a riot of mendacity, power-lust, pusillanimity and Homeric malfeasance. That the captain of our noble vessel is discovered to be the author of the very cataclysm that may well devour it is a phenomenon of unprecedented and tragic moment.

The tally book of your offenses against the honor of a free people and the fabric of their just society fills up apace, and the acceleration of your administration’s infamies prompts the question as to whether there is a sufficiency of ledgers in stock in which to record them all, and an adequate complement of auditors to make the entries. Doubtless we can surely muster the necessary resources to document at least two recent episodes of political sordidness.

The success of arms enjoyed by fanatical Mussulmen against our diplomatic personnel in Libya remains unavenged, and the circumstances that led to this disgrace you have veiled in a cloak of lies for the purpose of disguising your own fecklessness and that of your party’s heir (or rather, heiress) presumptive. And no sooner does Congress begin to breach the wall of deceit that you and your myrmidons have constructed to blind us to the truth of this ugly affair, than we learn of the secret war waged by your revenue officers against duly-organized associations of patriots whose love of country you curiously contrive to view as treason to yourself. That every night brings surcease to your anxious days in the form of slumber untroubled by the most miniscule vestige of remorse or moral qualm is a sign of utter shamelessness. In comparison to you, sir, Narcissus is the model of self-loathing.

We add the aforementioned condemnations to a portrait whose crowded canvas already includes the arming of Mexican brigands, the conversion of public moneys for the benefit of political supporters, criminal profligacy in the accumulation of public debt, and the insidious enervation of the nation’s spirit of individual liberty by means of a creeping paternalism that seeks to transform independent citizens into witless calves suckling at the national udder. There is not a whiff of honor that can be detected in even the remotest corner of your government, Mr. President, above the stench of partisan zealotry and thrusting ambition that pollutes its endless halls.

You see yourself as a modern Prometheus, who comes bearing the enlightenment of state-directed communitarianism to your benighted countrymen, whereas those of us who still possess reason, and the willingness to employ it, descry in you, to the contrary, a jejune Procrustes who would bend and break the citizenry to fit the iron bed of your alien and inhumane philosophy. On the outcome of this conflict of visions may well hinge the future of the Republic, which God, in His infinite mercy, save and prosper.

The IRS may not have been the only government agency that was targeting conservatives

Brandon Darby at Breitbart discusses the case of Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote.
“They [FBI] contacted us, asked questions about one of the people who attended a program," Engelbrecht told Breitbart News. "They asked for us to call if he ever showed back up. They repeated [their calls] over time, but no longer about that individual. They said they were just calling to check up with us. They called to check up with us a great deal and said it was ‘routine."

Engelbrecht added: "We support law enforcement and the FBI beginning to call wasn’t such a big deal in itself, but it came as the IRS was probing us and auditing everything. It came as the ATF began surprise visits and audits of our business."

She added: "Not only were the IRS, ATF, and FBI now in our lives, but OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] and a governmental environmental entity started auditing us in surprise visits as well.”

A monster and his enablers

Kermit Gosnell has been convicted on three counts of murder, and one count of involuntary manslaughter, as a result of his horrific practices as an abortionist. Sadly, his barbarous actions were indirectly facilitated by others, including former Pennsylvania governor (and establishment Republican) Tom Ridge.

I believe Ridge once entertained presidential ambitions; that is at least one bullet conservative Republicans managed to dodge.

This is what gun control looks like

A short, but dramatic, video by the Never Again campaign, courtesy of the Classic Liberal.

Whazzat?

The existence of this monstrosity first came to my attention through the good offices of Tim Blair, who describes it, accurately, as a "mega-breasted flying turtle whale".

Is it intended to represent anything else besides a typical taxpayer-funded sinkhole, created through the corrosive process of mixing public funds with artists on the make?

Monday, May 13, 2013

Mindless


"Say, did you hear of the President's latest attempt to blame conservatives for his own incompetence in the art of governing?"



"No, what did super genius do now?"



"He blamed - get this - Rush Limbaugh for gridlock!"



"Man, that's just plain stupid! In fact, it's dumber than...than..."



"Hi, guys, what's up?"



"Exactly!"

Boy, those must have been some really rogue local IRS agents

Update and bumped to top -
Henhouse: fox, in charge of...
Democratic Montana Senator Max Baucus is leading an investigation into why the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny despite the fact that Baucus once wrote a letter urging the IRS to do exactly that.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Targeting of conservative groups continued even after the then-acting Commissioner for Services and Enforcement issued a written directive to back off of examinations of 501(c)4 organizations.
Ms. Lerner told an American Bar Association conference the IRS practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. Ms. Lerner said that Agency officials found out about the practice last year and moved to correct it: “That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review....The IRS would like to apologize for that.”

Yet the hand-signed July 7, 2011 memorandum from Miller suggests that IRS management and employees understood in March 2011, just four months after the 2010 Congressional elections, that they were to suspend the examinations of gift taxes to 501(c)4 organizations until the policy towards these groups had been resolved.

The targeting of Tea Party and conservative 501(c)4 groups continued regardless--either because employees chose to ignore a direct instruction from senior management, or because they received contrary instructions from elsewhere.
Look, I work for a government agency, and no matter what the party affiliation of employees, mid-level bureaucrats rarely undertake, on their own initiative, dramatic action that might be politically explosive. I’m willing to bet that these agents had reason to believe that what they were doing was under orders from somewhere higher up.

Even some of the Democratic Party’s media auxiliaries are starting to balk over defending this latest instance of Obama-administration thuggishness (Not, of course, the New York Times, which continues to play the role of Master of the Democrat Chamber Pot). And quite aside from the targeting of conservative groups’ applications for tax-exempt status, there’s still the matter of election-year tax-information leaks pertaining to some high profile Republican donors – notably, Mitt Romney.

Quick, Mr. President! Find an offensive Tea Party video on You Tube. That ought to save the day. After all, that tactic worked so well with the Benghazi disaster.

Oh, wait…

Monday movie

Donald Crisp discusses his ominous recurring dream with Jimmy Stewart in The Man from Laramie.

Amen



Via Moonbattery.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Just forgive and forget, eh?

The IRS has apologized for targeting conservative groups.

Hey, let's be big about this, shall we?


"Apology accepted."

Courage of the "heading out the door" variety

I'm glad retiring Senator Baucus is expressing his dissatisfaction with ObamaCare, but, since he was one of the bill's authors, his complaints are coming a little late to do the rest of us any good.

Happy Mothers' Day!

Hope all you moms have a great one.


Check out the history of this famous mom.

John Kerry, er, lurches from success to success

Russians not impressed.
Here’s an early sign of how successful the Obama administration’s plan to get Russia on board vis-à-vis Syria: Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, told the press today that Moscow will send air defense missiles to Syria after all.

Sunday funnies

Happy birthday, Doctor!

Before you hire an architect, make sure he's completed his drug rehab program.

Yeah, sure, I'd love to know what it's like to have my head lopped off with a guillotine.

The sea is full of lovely things - like the bone-eating snot-flower.

Out of the frying pan...

My guess is, they were working for Michael Moore.

Bob Newhart defuses a bomb.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

What busy little bees they've been

The IRS has been caught with its partisan pants down, having targeted tea party organizations and certain Jewish groups.

Kudos, incidentally, to Mark Levin for his role in exposing this scandal.

My apologies

I was trying to get rid of spam comments, and it looks like I accidentally got rid of everybody else's, going back a couple of weeks. Sorry about that, guys.

My blog drone obviously needs some work. Too much collateral damage.

The right to bear arms shall not be infringed



Friday, May 10, 2013

What is truth?

Obama administration flunkies, in the manner of Pontius Pilate, ask this question, and then (to borrow from Kierkegaard) proceed to crucify it.
CIA director David Petraeus was surprised when he read the freshly rewritten talking points an aide had emailed him in the early afternoon of Saturday, September 15. One day earlier, analysts with the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis had drafted a set of unclassified talking points policymakers could use to discuss the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. But this new version—produced with input from senior Obama administration policymakers—was a shadow of the original.
Read it all. Also, see Wes Pruden’s take:
This is a very different White House than any the country ever had before. We’ve left Americans to die before, when there was no alternative. The defenders at Wake Island and Corregidor were left to the tender mercies of the enemy, but no president before this one left Americans to die, begging for help, just to save an election. Benghazi was a brutal betrayal, writ large with the blood of innocents. The perfidy of the guilty, including any someone who may be dreaming up a campaign for 2016, won’t be forgotten.
I hope not, I really do. One thing I know for sure: this is a cynical, sociopathic administration whose key players will let you die and then sleep like babies, dreaming sweet dreams of political power. In the view of Obama and Clinton, it’s their world and they just let all the rest of us live in it – and if we happen to die in it, through their own actions (or inaction), that’s a small price to pay for the privilege of being governed by people of such nonpareil, self-evident awesomeness.

Truly, it becomes more difficult everyday not to positively loathe the system and the culture that gave rise to the successful careers of these execrable frauds.

Happy Feet Friday

Virginia O’Brien gives a unique interpretation of In a Little Spanish Town, with an assist from Bob Crosby and his band.


Thursday, May 9, 2013

From the Department of Stories to Dine Out On for the Rest of Your Life

"River guide swallowed by hippo, lives to tell tale".

Hey, here's one bullet our troops have dodged

"Pelosi: I Can't Travel To Thank Our Troops Because Of Sequestration".

No biggie, Nancy. I mean, it ain't like you're Ann Margret.

Or KISS.

You can’t make this stuff up

In spite of the revelations coming out of the Benghazi hearings, Hillary Clinton received a public service award, and Susan Rice has been identified as a Great American.

In related news, the Professional Association of Corporate Oligarchs has named me the Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard dodges bullet

Or rather, sandwich.

Missing from the shelves of the Paco library

I am woefully remiss in doing book posts, but offer, in lieu of my own stuff, this fascinating article by J.R. Dunn on Philip K. Dick, the well known science fiction author (he's not well known to me, frankly, but the essay makes me want to read him).

Good grief!

"The man who was the original voice of Charlie Brown in "Peanuts" television specials was sentenced Wednesday to a year in jail for threatening his former girlfriend and stalking her plastic surgeon, then immediately released to a residential drug treatment center."

How long before Redford is reduced to posting his films on YouTube?

Fresh from his nostalgic look at the domestic terrorism college hijinks of Bill Ayers and his pals, Robert Redford has agreed to do a documentary on Chicago called Chicagoland.

What can we expect? Need you ask?
In a statement, Redford praised Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel: “The vibrant culture and opportunities inherent in this 21st century, world-class city run alongside profound daily challenges. Much of it [Question: what does "it" refer to? - Paco] falls on the shoulders of its tough, visionary mayor, his team and people doing heroic work in neighborhoods throughout the city. Chicago has always had a rhythm all its own. It’s a city that wears its heart on its sleeve and I am honored to be a part of telling this story.”
Perhaps the title should be Rahm Emanuel for U.S. Senate (or maybe, President) because if this isn’t political propaganda designed to boost Twinkletoes’ political career, my name is Teddy Roosevelt.

And it ain’t.

P.S. Has anybody noticed that, in spite of Redford’s undoubted self-image of being hip and cutting edge, his productions are characterized by the rankest kind of sentimentality? You can tell that this is a guy who really wants to believe in leftist twaddle, and his almost religious zeal for propagating the faith, his dreary earnestness and humorlessness, mar many of his artistic efforts beyond redemption. Tragic, really. So much passion, so clearly misplaced. If only he had channeled it into something more in keeping with his intellectual capacity – collecting Hummel figurines, for example, or salt and pepper shakers – how much better off he, and we, would be.

"What difference does it make?"

Update and bumped to top - Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, at the Benghazi hearing today: "Death is part of life".

And stupid is part of Elijah Cummings (a substantial part).

I guess we'll begin to find out today, as the House Oversight Committee hears testimony from various "whistleblowers" on the Benghazi disaster.

I think the short answer to Hillary's notorious question is that the truth always matters. Longer answer: we need to know precisely what went wrong so that when the government sends other Americans into harm's way, they can have confidence that everything possible has been done to provide them with appropriate security. The evidence, so far, supports the conclusion that, when the metaphorical "3 am phone call" came, both Hillary's telephone, and the president's, were off the hook.

Finally, it makes a difference as to whether this disgraceful episode was the result of massive incompetence or of something more...complex, let us say. The unvarnished truth is the only way to discover the right path to remediation.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Ray Harryhausen, RIP

I'm embarrassed to admit that I thought Ray Harryhausen was already dead. He did finally pass away today, at age 92.

I believe I can say honestly that there are few people who have brought more pleasure into my life. Harryhausen's work in special effects was amazing, and his movies provided me with some of my most memorable childhood entertainment.

Check out this video from Jason and the Argonauts, in which the hero and his men fight against a band of skeleton warriors. And from the same movie, the awakening of Talos, a giant statue bent on avenging the theft of the treasure left in his keeping. Finally, there's this scene from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (that one still give me the willies. Hey, law enforcement officers, important safety tip: don't go up against a dinosaur with a .38).

Bad company

Jim Treacher points out that Robert Redford's paen to the Bill Ayers school of domestic terrorism, The Company You Keep, is turning out to be something of a box office, er, bomb.
If Hollywood only cared about making money, they’d stop cranking out these stupid leftist fantasies that bomb at the box office. But they’re not making these movies for us. They’re making them for themselves. We’re just not intelligent and sophisticated to appreciate the pearls cast before us.

Their egos are satisfied, and my money stays in my pocket. Works for me.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Question

How many of Obama’s other policy “commitments” were actually just poorly thought out, off-the-cuff asides?

Monday movie

Dorothy McGuire has a close call in The Spiral Staircase.


If he'll make me a full-size one, we might do some business

Ernie Adams and his dwarf classic cars.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Well, yes, he would say that, wouldn't he

In a commencement speech to the Ohio State graduating class, the president uttered the following self-serving words:
Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted.
Riiiiight. The Obama administration, which is a metastasizing tumor of centralized government control over every aspect of our lives, is exactly what the founders had in mind - or would have had in mind if they hadn't been a bunch of racist white guys in tight powdered wigs.


"Pay no attention to the little tyrant behind the curtain!"

Sunday funnies

The Tong wars. Al Capone vs. Bugs Moran. The Crips and the Bloods. And now, the greatest rivalry of all: Sno Cone Joe vs. Mr. Ding-A-Ling.

Er, what do you do if you get fired?

Ahhh...imperviousness to pain, the ability to live in a low-oxygen environment, and resistance to cancer. It must be wonderful to be a mole rat.

Tequila: miracle drug?

Dressing for the occasion.

Homo bureaucratus.

Where there's smoke, there's a ...dog's water bowl?


Saturday, May 4, 2013

Tom Knapp, RIP

Expert marksman, and spokesman for Benelli shotguns, Tom Knapp has died at age 62. There is a video embedded in the linked article which showcases his amazing prowess with a shotgun.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Barry “Fast and Furious” Obama redlines on the hypocrisy meter

I would think that the preshizzle would want to keep a low profile on guns crossing the border into Mexico, since it was, you know, the U.S. government under Obama’s own administration that was responsible for so much of that weapons trafficking. But, no, Obama has assumed – and I honestly can’t say he’s mistaken about this – that nobody remembers, so he’s out there blaming violence in Mexico on the U.S., particularly U.S. guns.

Absolutely epic shamelessness.

What could possibly go wrong?

Joe Biden seems poised to go off half-cocked again, as he mulls over a new gun-control initiative, the details of which he has not yet discussed with his boss.
Vice President Joe Biden is planning a new gun control offensive — he just hasn’t told the president yet.

Biden told a group of law enforcement officials Thursday that he is planning even more travel, with trips around the country to stump for a renewed push on expanded background checks and gun-trafficking laws that failed to pass the Senate last month.

But Biden volunteered that he “hasn’t really discussed” his plans with President Barack Obama and plans to lead the gun control charge on his own, according to two law enforcement officials who attended the meeting. The 90-minute meeting in Biden’s office was an attempt to move forward after the failed effort on background checks.
I imagine that Biden’s new “offensive” will be a combination of gaffes and dubious commentary on the superiority of the blunderbuss as a home-defense weapon. He ought to really spice things up by accepting Senator Ted Cruz’s challenge to debate the issue. What a duel that would be! It would be fascinating to watch the principled and articulate Texas senator go up against the, heh, papier-like wit of the vice president.

The sanest man in North America

Mark Steyn laments the “collapsing of the American skull”.
There is a stupidity to this, but also a kind of decadence. Until the 1960s, it was assumed by all sovereign states that they had the right to choose which non-nationals were admitted within their borders. Now, to suggest such a thing risks the charge of “nativism” and to propose that, say, Swedes are easier to assimilate than Chechens is to invite cries of “Racist!” So, when the morgues and emergency rooms are piled high, the only discussion acceptable in polite society is to wonder whether those legless Bostonians should have agitated more forcefully for federally mandated after-school assimilationist basketball programs.

Another government trough licker, tax loophole wrangler and Obama campaign bundler joins the administration’s team

Billionaire Penny Pritzker has been appointed as the richest Secretary of Commerce in history. And speaking of history, there is a strong whiff of the unsavory in hers.

Gosnell is only the tip of the iceberg

Dr. Alexander's grisly handiwork.

Has your mutton been tasting a little funny lately?

"Chinese police have broken a crime ring that passed off more than $1 million in rat and small mammal meat as mutton, authorities said."

Happy Feet Friday

Mahalia Jackson and Nat King Cole collaborate in this performance of Steal Away.



Bonus video! The incredibly smooth Nat King Cole sings Unforgettable.


Thursday, May 2, 2013

Assortment

Is Kermit Gosnell an aberration? Not at all, says actress and pro-life activist Patricia Heaton.

Stacy McCain argues that the liberal takeover of public schools and mainstream journalism is pretty nigh irreversible.

It’s difficult to keep up with the sheer volume of Obama’s wretched political appointments, so it’s good that bloggers like Randy are focusing on the issue.

Liberty at Stake comes up with a brilliant plan to boost his blog traffic.

If congressional legislation is so great, why are congressmen always trying to exempt themselves from its consequences?

Boy on a Bike, who writes wonderfully on all subjects, assumes the mantle of restaurant critic.

There’s something rotten good in Denmark (H/T: the Classic Liberal).

Ahhh, so that’s who Obama prays to.

The all-seeing Eye of Polyphemus has hit upon the ideal mix of male blog material, IMHO: babes plus mini-reviews of the Three Stooges’ film shorts.

Courtesy of Mr. Bingley, one of the blogosphere’s merriest boulevardiers, we see Pat Sajak getting in Mayor Bloomberg’s face.

Pat Austin opines on the “indispensable” Mary Landrieau.


So, whose side is our army on?

How has it come about that the execrable Mikey [sic] Weinstein is a consultant to the U.S. Army on religious tolerance, of all subjects?
Weinstein is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and says Christians--including chaplains--sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military are guilty of “treason,” and of committing an act of “spiritual rape” as serious a crime as “sexual assault.” He also asserted that Christians sharing their faith in the military are “enemies of the Constitution.”
Odd. He seems strangely silent on Muslim proselytizing.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Long ago, in a country far, far away…

White House mouthpiece Jay Carney, in dodging a question about the terrorist attack in Benghazi, says “it happened a long time ago”.

You know, I hate like hell to say this, but I bet, come 2016, the whole Benghazi disaster will wind up having almost no impact on Hillary Clinton’s election chances. It should, of course; in fact, it should have led to the termination of her job as Secretary of State. But I can see the same old lamestream media working hand-in-glove with the Democratic Party to turn Clinton into Wonder Woman, and our ominously large number of low-information voters simply lapping it up (add Jeb Bush, or someone similar, as the Republican presidential candidate, and her victory will be assured).

All in favor?

Obama: "Maybe I should just pack up and go home."