President Trump has now triggered another important interest group

"Real Witches Offended Trump Keeps Using the Term 'Witch Hunt'".

Six of one, half a dozen of the other

Former federal and state prosecutor George Parry poses the question, "is it too much to ask that our FBI adhere to a slightly higher standard of conduct" than that observed by "mob hitmen"? Apparently, these days, it is asking too much.

Bogus investigations designed to undermine an incoming president, squeezing witnesses financially to compel admissions to process crimes, ignoring the rulings of federal judges, stiff-arming congressional committees...It can, and is, happening here. And if they can do this to a man with a long, public career of distinguished achievement like Michael Flynn, they can do it to you and me in pursuit of other aspects of the leftist agenda (probably without even troubling anybody above the grade of GS-14).

Update: More in the same vein from Kurt Schlichter.

Update II: And Mueller and his crew are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to prosecutorial abuse.

An almost comical exhibition of Chicago-style corruption

A young conservative politician runs up against the "Chicago way" and comes out on top (for now).

H/T: Friend and commenter Jeff.

Sunday funnies

Not a "real" commercial, but still funny.




From Powerline's "The Week in Pictures".




A very merry Christmas from The Guardian.

Boy, talk about ingratitude!

At last! A cure for the man bun.

Just like old times

Happy Feet Friday

Drummer and bandleader William Henry "Chick" Webb was up against it for most of his life, having contracted tuberculosis of the spine while a child, and ultimately dying from the disease at the tragically young age of 34 in 1939.

But his hardship never showed up in his music, which, like all great swing, was infused with an irrepressible joy. Here's a representative example from 1937 called "Harlem Congo". There are nice solos on trumpet and clarinet, but at the 2:28 mark, Webb, himself, jumps in and steals the show with a jaw-dropping solo on the drums (small wonder that he was greatly admired by Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich).

Random photo

Under the pier on Oak Island (click to enlarge).

Words our would-be overlords would be wise to remember

"Gun Quotations of the Founding Fathers".

Here's one I particularly like, from Thomas Jefferson: ""What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms."

Jennifer Rubin raves

Vichy conservative Jennifer Rubin is now mapping out Trump's administration, down to the last few minutes.

The link goes to HuffPo, so if you don't want to click on it, here's her prognostication in a nutshell: she thinks that, if Trump loses to the Democrat candidate in 2020, he'll resign in the last ten minutes of his term, hand the presidency over to VP Pence, and Pence will immediately issue a pardon.


"There she goes, Ben, poor Jen Rubin. She's suffering from stage IV Trump Derangement Syndrome, and there's no known cure."

Update

Bre Payton: So, what conservative principles do you still hold, Ms. Rubin?

Jennifer Rubin: Whoops! Look at the time! Gotta run!

Atta boy, Timmy!

A public service message from James Comey

We must use every breath we have to defeat President Donald Trump in 2020.

So, win or lose, you will have breathed your last come election time, Jim?

Sunday funnies

Fight or flight?




Dramatic flip-off!


From Powerline's "The Week in Pictures":




An oldie, but a goodie (and still true):

Congratulations, New Jersey

You've just turned a whole lot of law-abiding citizens into potential felons: "NJ Doesn’t Say How It Will Enforce Magazine Confiscation After Court Upholds Law".

BOLO

A dangerous new pest - the Asian longhorned tick - has made its way from Asia to the U.S. Here's a photo:



Dang! How did CNN's Jim Acosta get in here? Wait a minute...



There! We need to nip this in the bud.

Probably a nothing-burger

James Comey, that self-identified paragon of integrity and moral uplift, will be testifying in a closed-door session of the House Judiciary Committee today. I doubt anything will come of it. I mean, the man knows where the real threat lies...




Update: Yikes!!! I had always heard that associating with the Clintons was risky, but I had no idea it was this bad. The suicide rate, alone, seems...statistically unusual.

Happy Feet Friday

Although the big bands dominated the music scene from the mid-30's to the mid-40's, there were a lot of popular small groups during that period that made a mark for themselves (even some of the big band leaders put together small groups assembled from their larger organizations for occasional recording sessions, e.g., Benny Goodman and his Quartet, Artie Shaw and the Gramercy Five, and Tommy Dorsey and the Clambake Seven).

One very distinctive outfit with a unique sound was the John Kirby Sextet, based at the Onyx Club in New York. During its peak, the band consisted of John Kirby on bass, Russell Procope on alto sax, Buster Bailey on clarinet, Billy Kyle on piano, O'Neill Spencer on drums and trumpet man Charlie Shavers, who was the principal composer and arranger.

Here they are with a little tune called "Kansas City Caboose".

The Weakly Standard

Bill Kristol's pet magazine, The Weekly Standard, quickly degenerated into a bunker of NeverTrumpist propaganda which attempted to promulgate the irrational notion that the best way to underwrite a return to true conservatism was to sabotage a president who actually has tried to push a mostly conservative agenda, and, furthermore, to accomplish this by aligning the magazine with Democrats and some of their mega-donors. John Nolte has some thoughts on the Standard's pending demise.

Looks like another case of a liberal outfit investing heavily in the Progressive Anti-Conservative Ordnance Smear Gun One, with the u-shaped barrels.

Assortment

Upper-class twits ain't what they used to be.

George H.W. Bush truly led a full and fascinating life. Here he is, as captain of the Yale baseball team, meeting Babe Ruth.

So, is Paris just experiencing the usual outbreak of car-b-q hijinks, or is something else afoot? More here.

While conservatives kept watch for government overreach, the left-wing billionaires crept up on us.

An extreme case of the fox being put in charge of the hen house: "Is the FBI Raiding Whistleblowers' Homes to Protect Robert Mueller?"

A bargain at half the price: "Tickets to Bill and Hillary’s Live Houston Show Sink Lower — Now at $6 – The Price of a Big Mac Meal".

Well, that's an interesting retirement option: "The Man Who Has Lived On A Cruise Ship For 13 Years".

Sunday funnies

This week's entry from the shallow end of the gene pool.


Hope you enjoy your fresh octopus, sir!




Classic scene from Kelly's Heroes, in which the unflappable Oddball takes a break from the heat of battle.




An inventor ahead of his time.




That'll be the day! "Caravan Of Liberal Americans Makes Way Toward Socialist Paradise Of Venezuela".

George H.W. Bush, RIP

Breitbart has a good summary of the man's life.

Bush had quite an eventful presidency: the first Gulf War, the incursion in Panama, a ringside seat at the fall of the Soviet empire. And he had accomplishments enough for two lives even before becoming president.

Kind of like watching rivals in the same drug cartel maneuvering for position

"Rebel Democrats regroup, vow to hold firm as Pelosi plots to outflank them".

Happy Feet Friday

Singer Ann Moore, with an assist from Count Basie's orchestra, hands her man his walking papers in "Meet Me at No Special Place" (from 1947).



Bonus song! I was delighted to find out that this tune had a life of its own (the only time I had heard it previously was in a shorter version used in the intro to the 1950 Tom and Jerry cartoon, "Texas Tom"). Here's Harry James and his band, with Art Lund on Vocal, with "I Tipped My Hat and Slowly Rode Away" (also from 1947).

Leading member of the Democrats' brain trust

Is he unusually large...

...or are his fellows on the small side? Knickers, the giant Australian steer.

The chins face of Antifa

Police arrested Tom Keenan on assault charges after he turned himself in. Described by some as the "leader" of an Antifa group in Philadelphia that attacked and robbed several Marine Corps reservists, it is unclear whether police have yet rounded up Spanky's pals, Alfalfa and Darla.


Mr. Big.

Maybe the best part of the Trump presidency...

...is watching the Hillary people come completely unglued.

Assortment

Larry Correia on gun control, confiscation and civil war.

Elsewhere, the bloodthirsty Alison Aires unwittingly makes a great case for the Second Amendment (in a nutshell, it protects us from people like Alison Aires).

I'm totally clueless as to motive: guy named Mohammed Mohammed tries to run over Jews near synagogue.

First they came for the tuna fish sandwiches, and I said nothing because I don't eat tuna fish: "Hamburgers Are Going to Kill Us".

No, no, we can't "colonize" Mars, that simply won't do.

Professor Reynolds deplatforms Twitter.

Hilarious Portland, Oregon tourism video.

Paul Joseph Watson on Prime Minister May's sabotage of Brexit

He minces no words.

Sunday funnies

Farm kid writes letter home after joining the Marines (just a joke, son, but has a true ring to it).

Via a friend of mine (career Navy).


From Powerline's special holiday post, "Thanksgiving in Pictures".





Jigsaw puzzles just got real interesting.

Now, that's a war dance.

Did these three guys actually succeed in escaping from Alcatraz?

Unlikely but just barely possible.

Happy Feet Friday

From last week's jump blues stomper we fast forward to the sophisticated piano magic of Oscar Peterson, who performs his version of the Ellington standard, "C Jam Blues".

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for my loyal band of readers whom I look upon as old friends. May God grant you all peace and goodwill as you gather together to renew and strengthen your family ties.

And go easy on any knee-jerk liberals at the table; they know not what they are, let alone what they do.

Sorry, your honor, but it's a little late to be peddling that horse s**t

Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked President Trump, who, in a show of frustration at the routine trampling of executive authority by left-leaning justices, referred to one of Obama's black-robed henchman as an "Obama judge". You see, we don't have "Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” Just a bunch of non-partisan, ideology-free professionals, interpreting the law with transparent and inarguable fairness.

That's pretty rich, coming from Chief White Feather, who infamously changed his opinion on an important challenge to Obama Care in the face of a well-orchestrated campaign in the media led by Obama, himself. Ultimately, Roberts wound up treating a major flaw in the language of the law, which should have sunk Obama Care, as a mere scrivener's error, of no consequence whatsoever.

Leftists have been using friendly courts for decades to get the results they can't get through free elections, so Roberts is being either naive or dishonest. And, given his craven performance on the Obama Care issue, I'd say that Roberts' opinion on the matter of judicial non-partisanship, to borrow a line from the late Justice Holmes, is "a purely municipal idea, of no validity outside the jurisdiction".

Short on memory or long on hypocrisy?

I'm going with "long on hypocrisy", but he definitely was hoping that everybody else has a short memory.

Talking airhead Joe Scarborough recently invited Al Sharpton onto his program to decry President Trump's alleged racism; however, long ago, when Scarborough was a Republican (!) congressman, he actually introduced a resolution condemning Sharpton's anti-Semitism.

Elsewhere among former and/or fake Republicans, Max Boot apparently is still packing his steamer trunk.

Maybe he's waiting for a rousing sendoff. Ok, here you go Max...

Democrat voting math

Some strange results from Orange County, California.

Ma Paco, RIP

My mother, Vivian Davis Fletcher, passed away in the early hours of November 15th, at age 87, from a heart attack. Born near the outset of the Great Depression, the second youngest of seven children, the family was desperately poor, but to hear her talk about it, she had a wonderful childhood. Her four brothers fought in WWII and all came back alive (two Marines, one Navy, one Army); sadly, they have now also joined the majority. Two sisters survive.

She was married to her second husband for almost 40 years, and he was utterly devoted to her; he is nearly inconsolable, but I pray he will come to terms with her passing. She lived for many years on a parcel of land in Mann's Harbor, NC, located on the mainland across from the Outer Banks. Her love of all living things inspired her to turn the place into a veritable Garden of Eden, rich with flowers and shrubs and vegetables; her favorite neighbors were the deer and the bears who inhabit the vicinity.

She was committed to her faith, and I trust that the God she served for so many years will bless her soul.

Happy Feet Friday

I love Jimmy Liggins' gravelly voice and the killer rhythm section of his band, the Drops of Joy. Here they are from 1953 with a foot-stomper called "Drunk", in which Mr. Liggins expounds upon some of the unfortunate phenomena associated with intoxication (one or two of which make me wince from dimly recollected personal experience).

Off the rails

So simple, even Jim Acosta should be able to understand it

Kelly B draws a picture for the rogue reporter.

A heartfelt thanks to all of our veterans

Sunday funnies

Chopping cinder blocks...with your mind.


Congratulations to Milton, who's just completed 20 years of service as manager of the Paco Enterprises complaint desk!



Funny pitch for the movie Halloween.



Project for the weekend (via David Thompson).



You can combat evil with goodness...or, in the case of the Addams family, with sheer weirdness.



From Powerline's "The Week in Pictures".



Democratic Nazism (totally not like the old Nazism).

Happy Feet Friday

Billy Eckstine provides a good example of scat singing, topped off with a fine tenor sax solo by Gene Ammons (Gene's father, Albert, was one of the original "Big Three" of boogie-woogie, the other two being Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis).

Democrats win elections the old fashioned way

They steal them.

Bummer (with some upside)

By now, everyone knows that the Democrats have recaptured the House of Representatives, and I suppose in the not too distant future we'll be seeing Nancy Pelosi and her criminal gang marching toward the Capitol, Pelosi clutching that big-ass gavel she's so fond of (Where did she ever get that thing, anyway? It looks like a ginormous bung starter).

So, not good. But far from what the Democrat faithful were hoping for. It is typical that the party out of power in the White House makes congressional gains in a non-presidential election year, and the Democrats' gains were far less than half what the Republicans achieved in 2010. Plus, the Republicans increased their lead in the Senate, which, at a minimum, will help President Trump in his court and Cabinet nominations. And Republicans won some of the most contentious gubernatorial elections, turning back left-wing zealots in Georgia and Florida. Let us savor, as well, the defeat of Robert O'Rourke ("Beto", as he was known to his would-be constituents) in Texas (Ted Cruz rides again!)

The big question is, have the Democrats learned anything in the last couple of years? Will they now start to exercise some restraint and reign in their sociopathic impulses, or will they continue spraying the country with their rhetorical flamethrowers and, once again, wildly overplay their hand?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Well, whenever the political news looks bad, I always do something to cheer myself up, and nothing cheers me up like adding to my collection of Hummel figurines. Pardon me while I do some shopping!

Today's the big day

I'll let Kurt Schlichter have the last word. A sample:

They would rather burn this country down than allow it to prosper without them in charge. Why? Because the only thing that matters to them is their power. The only thing that matters to them is their position. That, and crushing you under their heels. They enjoy that.

Don't allow yourselves to be crushed. Vote!

Assortment (election edition)

Why is it that feminists, who are constantly decrying the sexual objectification of women, can't think of anything better to get out the vote than taking their clothes off? Chelsea Handler is the latest example (Caution: You might want to employ the R-man policy of not clicking on photos of semi-nude liberal women. On the other hand, if you happen to be turned on by bunions, click away).

Roger Simon says that "This Tuesday America Takes an IQ Test". So, tomorrow night we'll find out if a few watts have been shaved off the collective light-bulb.

Hillary Clinton is now the official Harold Stassen of the Democrat Party.

I think this is what they mean by "cognitive dissonance": Black Panthers appeared in public carrying "assault" rifles, campaigning for Democrat Stacy Abrams - even though she wants to take those rifles away from them.

And this is what's known as "projection": Maxine Waters claims that Trump is placing a target on her back.

I don't know what that smell is, but it ain't pork chops.

Special good luck wishes to Martha McSally in Arizona tomorrow. Question: how is her opponent, left-wing nut-job Kyrsten Sinema, even polling in double digits? Please don't tell me that the people of Arizona are looking for another freakin' "maverick"!

Sounds like science to me

You'd think that stupidity would die out, since it tends to be a non-beneficial phenomenon of human evolution.

Friend and commenter Jeff, I believe, may have nailed the reason for stupidity's stubborn resistance to eradication:

Stupidity flaunts the Third Law of Thermodynamics through behaving like the mythical perpetual motion machine. I suspect that there is a hidden energy source, but finding and stomping it to death has proved elusive for generations of genuine truth seekers.

Hmmm...hidden energy source...Let's see if we can find it...


"Ok...brain mass measured in milli-bidens times the speed of fake news dissemination divided by Hillary Clinton's average post-election blood alcohol level...Eureka! I think I've found it!"

Sunday funnies

Chicken shaming...







About time: "Decaf Coffee Condemned As Heresy".


Trick or Treat! From Powerline's "The Week in Pictures".




Naming the new lands, with Mitchell and Webb.




From the TV series F-Troop: how the Hekawi tribe got its name.




This is what you call an unwelcome mat.




You may be a redneck if...

1) Your dad walks you to school everyday because you're in the same grade.
2) You've been married three times and still have the same in-laws.
3) You think the stock market has a fence around it.
4) Your kids are going hungry tonight because you just had to have those Yosemite Sam mudflaps.
5) You own a home that is mobile and 5 cars that aren't.
6) Your stereo speakers used to belong to the Drive-in Theater.

Astoundingly bad marketing

Women remove clothes in inscrutable campaign ad (well, not totally inscrutable; you know they're not endorsing the MAGA movement). CAUTION: We are NOT talking the Swedish Bikini Team, here.

As one commenter in the thread notes: "A bunch of liberal women, who are mad at Trump for objectifying women and using crass language, decided to grab attention and encourage people to vote BLUE … by taking their clothes off."

Ace (as usual) has the funniest take: "Well you've inspired me into homosexuality so, halfway to Democrat I guess!"

Much more interesting than what I've found digging around my yard

"Miner finds giant 5,655-Carat emerald in Zambia worth up to £2m".

In the process of planting flowers and shrubs in my yard, I have dug up:

1) Four pieces of rebar;
2) A rusty bicycle taillight;
3) A giant dead magnolia root

The Paco Mines are not looking too promising right now (which, naturally, should have little or no impact on our ability to move Class C Non-Voting shares. Each certificate features an engraving of a pulchritudinous lady prospector, suitable for framing!)

Anthropomorphic Jersey barrier endorses "Beto" O'Rourke

Somehow, I'm not seeing John Brennan's endorsement of the Democrat candidate as being a big plus for O'Rourke's chances. Inmates within the confines of that giant leftist concentration camp known as Austin, Texas are going to vote for O'Rourke, anyway, and I fail to see how Brennan's well-established left-wing bona fides are going to carry much weight with normal voters.


"Beto O'Rourke! Like Gus Hall, only dreamier!"

Update: Response from Gus Hall to John Brennan -


"Hey, you ain't exactly eye candy, yourself, walrus boy!"

Happy Feet Friday

Glenn Miller had a #1 hit with "Tuxedo Junction" in 1940, and his version is the best known; however, the tune was written by band leader and trumpeter Erskine Hawkins and two of his saxophonists, Bill Johnson and Julian Dash, and was recorded by the Hawkins band in 1939 (it was a hit for them, also, ultimately rising to #7 on the charts). Here's Hawkins and his orchestra with the original:

I think we need a new paradigm of dumbness

"Say, did you hear that Don Lemon on CNN says that the greatest terror threat in our country is white men? Pretty idiotic, eh?"




"I can top that. Former CEO of King Broadcasting, Steven Clifford, says that the federal government should disenfranchise all straight white males."



"Whoa! That's some lab-quality stupid right there! Um, just how does this genius propose to take the vote away from, what, a quarter to a third of the U.S. population?"



"Good question. I suppose force would have to be used. I'm sure all of those straight, white male cops and soldiers would be happy to enforce a law that deprives them of one of their fundamental rights."




"Well. that's got to be the dumbest thing we'll hear today."



"Hey, guys! Guess what; some Democrat state senator in Missouri just posted a comment on Facebook calling for Trump's assassination."



"Ok, maybe the second dumbest thing we'll hear today."