The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

It’s Resignation Time

By

“We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al-Qaida, Hezbollah.”
(Adm. James Stavridis, NATO supreme commander for Europe, speaking about Libya’s rebel force to the Senate Armed Services committee in 2011)

 

 

If you think the Middle East is having a spontaneous, multi-national BBQ of American flags, embassies, consulates and Obama-in-effigy this week simply because of a film, I have a bridge for sale.

Sure, Muslims don’t like to see their so-called “prophet” denigrated; any more than Christians like to see images of Jesus tossed into a container of urine and called art.  But modern Christians no longer take the violent parts of their good book literally and go on a rampage to kill alleged “blasphemers”, instead following the example in the newer section that says to “turn the other cheek”. 

Muslims, on the other hand, remain in a state of hypertensive Old Testament barbarism and remain hell-bent on their millenium-old quest of world Islamic domination.  Free speech in the U.S. simply gives them cover, an excuse, to party like it’s 9/11.  Underneath their anger at so-called blasphemy of their so-called prophet is the goal of ridding the world of everything that doesn’t conform to Islam, to institute their mysoginist and violent culture of sharia.

This isn’t exactly rocket science so you’d expect those in the highest positions of leadership in the U.S. would remain vigilent, particularly on the anniversary of Islam’s greatest modern accomplishment:  the killing of some 3,000 Americans on U.S. soil in 2001.  Instead, what happened this week is that Hilary Clinton and her boss, Barack Obama, killed 4 Americans in Libya; much the same way as Eric Holder killed border patrol agent Brian Terry with Fast and Furious.  Whether through either sheer and utter incompetenance or the unforgivable sin of deliberate inaction, the buck stops at the empty chair behind the Resolute desk.

It was common knowledge that 9/11 anniversary attacks were being planned.  Statements were published all over various foreign medias talking about revenge for the recent assassination of Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi. The Jerusalem Post had an article on 9/9/12 referencing a letter written on 9/4/12 that warned that Sinai-based/Gaza-based “Global Jihad” cells were planning attacks on American and Israeli embassies in Cairo.   Sean Smith, one of the Navy Seals killed in Benghazi, had even posted to one of his gaming forums hours before the attack that “We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.”

If pressed, the answer to and meekly accepted by the lamestream media to pass along to the sheeple would most likely be that “policeman” was merely taking photos for his travel journal.

You’d not just hope but think these tidbits of trivia would be included in the president’s daily intelligence briefings.  You know, the ones our oh-so-brilliant composite president only needs to read while out on the campaign trail instead of attending in person.

Obviously President Composite didn’t read the memo.

As Secretary of State, the job of keeping safe our fellow citizens serving on foreign soils falls right into the ample lap of Hilary Clinton.  To the forever-sorrow of the families of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, she chose the Eric Holder path of national defense:  no bullets to be loaded unless necessary (geeze, Hil, not even bean bags?) and there were no orders issued to put extra security – U.S. military security, to be specific – anywhere in preparation for this year’s anniversary of 9/11. 

Our guess is that if she bothered to ask anyone anything, dear Hilary only checked in with her Muslim Brotherhood BFF, Huma Abedin, to get the latest taqiya about the real risks to our people in the Middle East on this year’s 9/11 anniversary.  Taking the easy way out, Hilary deliberately chose to leave our people under the dubious protection of Libyan nationals; Islamic loyalists all who ran away – right on cue – at the first sign of trouble.

And while Ambassador Stevens was allegedly being raped, tortured and killed and dragged through the streets in Benghazi (as reported by multiple Middle Eastern sources and later reported by UK papers but not by the U.S. lamestream media), Hilary’s people in Cairo were frantically trying to keep their own asses there safe by playing along with the the Islamic jihadist’s any-excuse-to-attack-Americans game through issuing a bassackwards – and later deemed “unofficial” – apology for an American exercising their first amendment right to free speech.  It didn’t keep “peaceful Islam” from burning their embassy, though, did it?

As the rest of the week played out, backlit by fiery protests and more deaths across the Middle East, instead of taking a good, hard look at the problem with forcing American-style freedoms upon those who are by long-standing culture unable and by ideology unwilling to handle it, the media wasted its breath and our bandwidth slamming Mitt Romney for calling any apology for free speech wrong and fell all over itself trying to figure out just who would have the audacity to create the really piss-poor film that sharia-lovers used as their cover to strike while they felt their chances of adding the deaths of more Americans to their body count was good.

If all of this doesn’t disgust you and even cause a shiver of fear, the LA Times reported that “Just after midnight Saturday morning, authorities descended on the Cerritos home of the man believed to be the filmmaker behind the anti-Muslim movie that has sparked protests and rioting in the Muslim world.”

They want you to believe the FBI overstepped its purview to investigate if this was some probation violation by the alleged filmmaker, but as has been pointed out in places that go unread by this administration, probation is a function of the courts, not law enforcement.  If there were questions that this Bacile character was using the internet in violation of his probation, his parole officer would have been the one to question him and, even then, what he did on the internet would not be the problem.  The FBI was sent by someone else. 

We’ll give you three guesses who and the first two don’t count.

That someone else is high in the political food chain and now finds themselves globally embarrassed because their 3-1/2 years of Islamic appeasement foreign policy just blew up in their face and they were caught very, very publicly with their pants down.  But what they are doing is sending a clear message to those who despise our freedom of speech that our free speech can and will be curtailed – through intimidation if not possible by outright mandate – if it hurts their widdle sensibilities.  All those who want nothing more than global sharia have to do is figure out how to kill a prominent American or two and we’ll cave to their demands to follow their ideology, even when doing so violates our Constitutional rights.

Bottom line:  Hilary Clinton must resign.  Barack Hussein Obama must resign.

The problem is they won’t.  And we don’t have a Congress with the balls to even pretend to force them to resign.  We’ll have to usher them out ourselves in the November election, along with all those pathetic and therefore equally culpable Congress critters.

The Dark Night

By

Thursday night a young man in Aurora, Colorado made manifest his insanity and when the smoke cleared inside the movie theater 12 eager Batman fans were dead and 58 others were on their way to the hospital.

The hysterical response by the media was immediate and, in stereotypical fashion, unerringly irresponsible.  ABC’s Brian Ross pulled a connection between the shooter, James Holmes, and the Tea Party out of his ass and let it fly on the air.  A short while later an apology was issued but that doesn’t help the innocent man named Jim Holmes who IS a relatively recent member of the Colorado Tea Party (and happens to be a former law enforcement officer who clearly understands the gravity of making false accusations).

The social media exploded in tweets and Facebook posts of real anguish and quickly descended into the inevitable arguments for and against the 2nd Amendment.  The vultures of the left are still circling the bodies of the victims, seeing another opportunity to swoop in to push for anti-gun legislation; blind to their freshest hypocrisy of 300 dead Mexican citizens and Brian Terry as a result of the government’s nefarious back-door gun-control attempt of Fast & Furious.  The armchair quarterbacks on the right tap out their claims that if more people were allowed to carry guns, someone could have stopped Holmes before so many died.

It’s all as insane as James Holmes.

The inconvenient truth remains that if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will carry guns (example:  Chicago).  Not to mention that the Century 16 theater already has a “no weapons” policy that obviously meant squat to James Holmes – in the same way all “gun free zones” mean squat to any criminal looking for an easy target.  By all accounts, Holmes is extremely intelligent and as such would have found a way to wreak deadly havoc no matter what anyone allowed him to purchase if wreaking deadly havoc on innocent others was his intention (examples:  Bulgaria last week; 9/11).

Another inconvenient truth is that the 2nd Amendment is to protect the people from tyrannical overreach of the government.  While it’s decidedly both good and appropriately responsible to be able to defend ourselves against home invaders and thugs on the street and to keep those we send to Washington respectful of the citizenry as a whole (ok, at least in some measure), not enough people carrying guns take the time for training that instills the appropriate reactive instincts required in a situation like the one in which those moviegoers found themselves.  Indeed, unless you served as a military sniper, Navy SEAL or spent your days clearing away insurgents for military convoys your first reaction will be wet pants, not the fondly imagined efficient killing of a random madman who has unexpectedly flung chemicals in your direction and promptly started shooting at anything that moves.

The bottom line is that everyone needs to take a deep breath and simply shut up.  This was horrible, this was a tragedy, and so many families will never be the same because of the actions of a single madman.  Such madmen have always and will always walk amongst us; their insanity will forever be unfathomable, unexpected and there isn’t a damned thing we can do about it.  At least there is nothing we can do without inflicting serious pain on everyone.  As the old Star Trek movie once said, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one”.  In America that translates to one thing:  trampling the Constitution is never the answer.

The More Things Change

By

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

While doing a bit of research, I came across this little gem from Norman Thomas, six-time Presidential candidate of the Socialist Party Of America:

“The old keenness of political discussion in the party has almost died, at least in so far as policy is concerned. (Criticism of administration is still allowed). A quotation from Stalin is a final answer to all argument. He receives the same sort of exaggerated veneration in public appearances, in the display of his picture, and in written references to him that is accorded to a Mussolini or a Hitler.” (Democracy versus Dictatorship pamphlet, 1937)

Substitute “Obama” for “Stalin” and remember that this is the man who tried to get the communists to join hands with his group.

 

 

 

Why They Didn’t Want It Read

By

Democracy “is an obstacle to the suppression of freedom which the direction of economic activity requires.”
(Friedrich Hayek)

 

As Americans await the Supreme Court’s decision on the legality of Obamacare, dissection of the monstrous behemoth and analysis of its dangers continues.  The most chilling and therefore most compelling comes from the Cato Institute, which takes a close look at the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).

This board is the reason the Democrats wanted the legislation passed before anyone read and digested its contents.  The IPAB is deliberately designed to shatter the Constitutional separation of powers, its checks and balances; effectively turning the United States of America into the USSA of Amerikka.

  • The IPAB will consist of 15 voting members, each earning upward of $165,000 per year, appointed by the president without any bipartisan requirements and confirmed by the Senate (subject to “recess appointments”).
  • IPAB proposals automatically become law.
  • There is no requirement for ANY input from anyone.
  • They have the power to regulate beyond just Medicare.  Including the laying of taxes as it alone sees fit.
  • Proposals may only be blocked by the House, Senate and president all agreeing upon a substitute.  There is no allowance for congressional action or oversight, no ability for a presidential veto, no requirement for any sort of administrative or judicial review.
  • Citizens may not challenge any proposal in court.
  • The only opportunity to get rid of the IPAB is one, single 7-month window in 2017 and then by a 3/5 majority in both chambers.  Miss that and nothing it ever does may ever be altered by Congress.
  • Even if Congress does manage to get rid of the IPAB during its designed, tiny window of opportunity, it still won’t go away for six more months.

 Some excerpts:

When the unelected government officials on this board submit a legislative proposal to Congress, it automatically becomes law: PPACA requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to implement it.  Blocking an IPAB “proposal” requires at a minimum that the House and the Senate and the president agree on a substitute.  The Board’s edicts therefore can become law without congressional action, congressional approval, meaningful congressional oversight, or being subject to a presidential veto. Citizens will have no power to challenge IPAB’s edicts in court. 

Worse, PPACA forbids Congress from repealing IPAB outside of a seven-month window in the year 2017, and even then requires a threefifths majority in both chambers. A heretofore unreported feature of PPACA dictates that if Congress misses that repeal window, PPACA prohibits Congress from ever altering an IPAB “proposal.”  By restricting lawmaking powers of future Congresses, PPACA thus attempts to amend the Constitution by statute.

 The IPAB “…is anticonstitutional.  Congress’s legislative powers do not include the power to alter the constitutional procedure required for the passage of laws.  Nor does it include the power to entrench legislation by preventing it from being altered by future Congresses.”

In some cases, PPACA vests IPAB’s powers in just one individual. If there are 14 vacancies on the board, the Act allows the
sole appointed member to constitute a quorum, conduct official business, and issue “proposals.”  The greater danger, then, is not that a president might pack the board with multiple party loyalists, but that he might appoint only one. Or none:  if the president fails to appoint any board members (or the Senate fails to confirm the president’s appointments, or a majority of the board cannot agree a proposal) the Act authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to exercise the board’s powers unilaterally.  These powers include the ability to appropriate funds to her own department to administer her own directives.

The Board could propose, for instance, to require states to implement federal laws or to enact new state laws in order to receive federal funding. The Board need only demonstrate that its proposals and recommendations relate to Medicare in some undefined way.

There is [NO enforcement mechanism behind PPACA’s prohibition on taxes]. The Act exempts the Secretary’s implementation of IPAB proposals from administrative and judicial review, so no one could sue to block it. The president could not shelve it, because IPAB submits its proposals directly to Congress. If the Secretary submits a proposal in IPAB’s stead, PPACA requires the president to submit the proposal directly to Congress. The Act allows Congress and the president to block that tax increase by offering a substitute or by mustering a three-fifths majority in the Senate but that merely shows that IPAB’s tax increases and spending cuts are on an equal footing.  If Congress and the president fail to reject IPAB’s tax increase or to enact on a substitute, the Act requires the Secretary to implement it, with the help of funds that IPAB may itself appropriate.

The Act states that Congress may only repeal IPAB if it follows these precise steps:
1. Wait until the year 2017.
2. Introduce a specifically worded “Joint Resolution” in the House and Senate between January 1 and February 1.
3. Pass that resolution with a three-fifths vote of all members of each chamber by August 15.

The president must then sign that joint resolution.

Whereas Congress can repeal any other federal statute at any time with just a majority vote in each chamber and the president’s
signature, under PPACA Congress has only about 15 business days in the year 2017 to propose this joint resolution of repeal.  Otherwise, the Act forever precludes repeal.  Congress must then pass that resolution with a three-fifths supermajority by August 15, 2017, or the Act forever precludes repeal.  Even if a repeal resolution should clear these hurdles, IPAB would retain its power to legislate through January 15, 2018.  If Congress fails to follow these precise steps, then PPACA states the American people’s elected representatives may never repeal IPAB, ever.

 I don’t know anyone who would put their health care choices and decisions into the hands of only one person, let alone only one bureaucrat.  Yet that is what the Democrats cooked up with the IPAB and forced through their majority-controlled Congress.  And if it can happen, rest assured it will happen.  This group of people who believe it is perfectly all right to kill a newborn baby by calling it some variation of an “abortion” yet will defend the right to live of a convicted serial killer have serious mental health problems.  We simply cannot stand by and continue to let the insane run the asylum.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) must be repealed in its entirety.

Amnesty By Fiat

By

Thumbing his nose at the Constitutional requirement that immigration policy originates with Congress, President Lame Duck today announced he has decided that  he is suspending the deportation of most illegal aliens under the age of 31.  And he will give them forever-renewable work permits.

No matter that 20 million American citizens are currently unemployed.

No matter that the millions of young Americans graduating from high school and college this month can’t find work.

No matter that unemployment of black youth in particular is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50%.

No matter that this is a slap in the face to every person who came to America legally.

No matter that every attempt to pass some sort of DREAM Act has – rightfully – failed to make it through both House and Senate.

No matter that a majority of Americans do not want any more amnesty programs but instead want sane legal immigration policy and secure borders.

No, all that matters is pandering to the deliberate, pre-meditated criminal leeches who suck the lifeblood of the American taxpayer.  Leeches who can’t even legally vote (but in too many cases do) but who are seen as future Democrat victims…errr…voters by slavering progressive liberals.

Congress has the power to put a stop to this banana republic dictator-wannabe nonsense now.  The question is:  do they have big enough cojones to do it?

Walker Wins Wisconsin – Again

By

Despite their big mouths, strong-arming and literal Mickey Mouse petition signatures, the unions and progressive liberal Democrats have been given their walking papers by the voters in Wisconsin.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

With 65% of precincts reporting, it’s shaping up to be a rather embarrassing defeat:  58% (Walker) to 41% (Barrett). 

It makes the last year+ of headline news and handwringing about the dangers of allowing grownups to run state governments rather a waste of time; along with the reported $60+ million spent by everyone involved.

And since everything must always be about President Lame Duck, yes, Barack Obama, this is, indeed, a referendum about you and your supporters and everything for which you stand.  You might want to start getting estimates from moving companies to avoid the rush in November.

 

 

 

Another SWAT At A Brett Kimberlin Blogger

By

As the old saying goes, if you believe this is just coincidence, then we have a bridge for sale we’d like to show you.

Last Friday was “Everyone Blog About Brett Kimberlin” day and many, many stepped up to the plate to let a little more sunshine in on what this convicted felon has been up to since his release from prison.

Brett Kimberlin doesn’t like that his public record remains public, since his primary source of funds are from the non-profits he runs with the help of nice, fat grants from various organizations, including left-wingers like the Tides Foundation and The Streisand Foundation.  To show his displeasure with the truth being said…errrrrr…typed out loud, Kimberlin has been on a long tear filing lawsuits against those who mention his name at the same time as his past and highlight his financial support by the left.

Saturday, another high-profile blogger received a visit from his local sheriffs.  Erick Erickson of Red State and CNN political contributor reports:

“Someone called 911 from my address claiming there had been an accidental shooting.”

Yes, you read the right.  Just like the Patrick Frey spoof SWAT, someone called 911 from Erik’s own house to lie about a shooting. 

Not only does this deliberately put innocents at risk of grave danger since a mistake or a wrong move by either party could result in injury or even death, it is a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars.

And it is illegal to some degree everywhere.

Patterico said:

Of course, Erickson’s swatter could be a copycat.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: It was reported by Joe Gelarden that, when Kimberlin was incarcerated, he tried to have someone set off bombs with similar components to those set off in Speedway, to show that there was another perpetrator and that he therefore could not be guilty.

Of course, pigs often fly, too. 

BLAST FROM THE PAST:  The grandmother of Brett Kimberlin’s 14-year old alleged love obsession, Julia Scypher, was summarily executed by, it is believed though never able to be proven due to the death of the primary witness, one of Brett Kimberlin’s friends in 1978.

As a current victim of Kimberlin’s abuse of the legal system, Aaron Worthing summed up this latest incident succinctly:

“…if Brett Kimberlin or his allies really did this, they know nothing about the internet.  They just tried to put out a fire, with gasoline.”

 

They Didn’t Die For Islam

By

Religious freedom?  Religious tolerance?  Of course.  America’s very foundation is based upon it.

But religious law?  Never when it goes against the fundamental liberties and rights contained in the Constitution.

Yet there are those Muslims who think that because they have chosen to live in America they may practice every abhorrent and often misogynistic aberration of Sharia law.  For example:

    • Marriage between men and girls as young as 6 years old
    • Multiple wives
    • Strict dress code
    • So-called “honor” killings of those same wives and daughters
    • Rape
    • Animal cruelty (bestiality is acceptable, even how-to documented but for men-only, but walking Fido in public is a no-no since owning a dog is considered a sign of “moral” corruption)
      • Halal slaughter of animals for human consumption (trust us, it ain’t the least bit kosher)
    • Forced conversion

Many of those Muslims continue to insist it is somehow their right to do any or all of these things here in America and, using the same twisted logic that gave them the bright idea to erect a mosque where their more blatant brethren murdered over 3,000 people, the majority of them Americans, 15,000 Islamic supremacists are having a convention this weekend in Connecticut to learn how to counter the rising push in America against their extremist ideology.  They would like nothing better than to redefine Sharia law within the common lexicon as a simple “misnomer” and are trying to hide behind the American right to freedom of religion.  (A particular freedom, it must be noted, that does not exist within Islam and the practice of Sharia as partially noted above.  But if you don’t believe us,  just ask Christians still living anywhere with a Muslim majority or close to it.)

Connecticut was one of the original 13 colonies and sacrificed much to give us the country in which we live today.  To say it is a slap in the face to see it overrun with supporters of terrorism this weekend is an understatement.  The brave military men and women of the United States have fought for over 200 years for liberty, not for its denial through the brutalization and slavery that is Islam and Sharia law.  Americans honor them this weekend; every one of them who have fought and especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

 

Don’t Believe The Left’s Lies About Intolerance

By

For those of you who have “friends” on the left who remain steadfast in their belief that Conservatives are the ones who “hate”, are “racist” and “intolerant”, here are some facts you can share with them.

Investors.com, March 2012:

Not exactly shocking news for those exposed to them for years, but the respected Pew Research Center has determined that political liberals are far less tolerant of opposing views than regular Americans.

In a new study, the Pew Center for the Internet and American Life Project confirmed what most intelligent Americans had long sensed. That is, whenever they are challenged or confronted on the hollow falsity of their orthodoxy — such as, say, uniting diverse Americans — liberals tend to respond defensively with anger, even trying to shut off or silence critics.

The new research found that instead of engaging in civil discourse or debate, fully 16% of liberals admitted to blocking, unfriending or overtly hiding someone on a social networking site because that person expressed views they disagreed with. That’s double the percentage of conservatives and more than twice the percentage of political moderates who behaved like that.

The proportion jumps even higher when someone on a social site disagrees with a liberal’s post. Only 1% of moderates would block or shut out someone who dared to disagree with them, compared to 11% of liberals, whose rate was nearly three times that of conservatives.
nytimes.com, Nicholas Kristof, December 2008:

This holiday season is a time to examine who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but I’m unhappy with my findings. The problem is this:  We liberals are personally stingy.

Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.

Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.

Other research has reached similar conclusions. The “generosity index” from the Catalogue for Philanthropy typically finds that red states are the most likely to give to nonprofits, while Northeastern states are least likely to do so.

“When I started doing research on charity,” Mr. Brooks wrote, “I expected to find that political liberals — who, I believed, genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did — would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. So when my early findings led me to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views.”

According to Google’s figures, if donations to all religious organizations are excluded, liberals give slightly more to charity than conservatives do. But Mr. Brooks says that if measuring by the percentage of income given, conservatives are more generous than liberals even to secular causes.

Conservatives also appear to be more generous than liberals in nonfinancial ways. People in red states are considerably more likely to volunteer for good causes, and conservatives give blood more often. If liberals and moderates gave blood as often as conservatives, Mr. Brooks said, the American blood supply would increase by 45 percent.
Dailycaller.com, March 2011:

Social scientists usually measure traditional racism against African Americans by looking at the survey responses of white Americans only. Among whites in the latest General Social Survey (2008) [conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago], only 4.5% of small-government advocates express the view that “most Blacks/African-Americans have less in-born ability to learn,” compared to 12.3% of those who favor bigger government or take a middle position expressing this racist view.

[A]mong whites, Republican advocates of smaller government are even less racist (1.3% believing that blacks have less in-born ability) than the rest of the general public (11.3% expressing racist views). Thus, in 2008 Republicans who believe that the government in Washington does too much have 10 times higher odds of not expressing racist views on the in-born ability question than the rest of the population (79-to-1 odds v. 7.9-to-1 odds).

In 2008, only 5.4% of white conservative Republicans expressed racist views on the in-born ability question, compared to 10.3% of the rest of the white population. [T]his same pattern holds for white Democrats compared to white Republicans: in 2008 12.3% of white Democrats in the U.S. believed that African Americans were born with less ability, compared to only 6.6% of white Republicans.

In sixteen surveys from 1977 through 2008, overall white Republicans were significantly less racist on the in-born ability question than white Democrats (13.3% to 17.3%), and white conservative Republicans were significantly less racist than other white Americans (11.7% to 14.7%)…

[O]verall white Democrats were significantly more likely to support segregated neighborhoods than white Republicans (30.4% to 26.3%).