Radio Shack kaput?

Say it isn't so Joe!

Birdbrains

Stageringly Stupid People

Birdbrains with very high standards of gravitas Ahem Was it only yesterday (2007) when David Brooks stared at Obama’s pants leg and decided he’d make a “very good” president? He became president, but with millions seemingly permanently out of the workforce, and American prestige at a historic low point, he hardly seems a good one. Christopher Buckley called him "a first rate intellect and a first rate temperament," giving the back of the hand to his father’s persuasion. But the first rate intellect was an inch deep; the temperament was that of a petulant narcissist, who preferred feeding snark to his fan base to the much harder job of uniting the nation. Was it just yesterday that Colin Powell and friends declared, more in sorrow than wrath, that the McCain-Palin pair fell woefully short of their very high standards of gravitas? It certainly seems that it was. And there was presidential historian Michael Beschloss, who couldn’t wait until Obama took office to call his IQ “off the charts” (he said nothing about which direction), and call him the most gifted world leader to ever draw breath. People who worried about Palin’s effect as vice president should look at what Obama has done to the world and his party and ask what she might have done that could have been more destructive. Culled from "Regretfully yours" by Noemie Emery.

O'Malley Farewell

Tata White Obama

MoSup

Whooooooooor

Getting my cat scanned here boss Gummint looking for  hidden loot

Goats

"Last night I was listening to a call-in program on WGN in Chicago. People were calling in, very upset, about the goat's head that was sent to Cubs owner Tom Ricketts at Wrigley Field. Then some guy called in from Indiana and said, "Why are you people so upset 'cause someone sent a goat's head to Wrigley Field? Aren't you Chicagoans the same guys that sent a horse's ass to the White House?" Evidently Tom Manly Mann

First Air Force One

Antique Road Show And yet I find something noble about a time when we didn't feel a need to bronze every thing.  Like maybe we were too busy looking ahead?  cuzzin ricky

Obama's SS

The Senate is Preparing to Investigate Ties between White House and IRS Golly, do you think there's anything to find? I mean— Inquiry Into I.R.S. Lapses Shows No Links to White House ... www.nytimes.com/.../house-irs-inquiry-shows-no-con... Lois Lerner Ahem

Goldonna, Louisiana R US

a major award

“ the sting of political correctness Approved Chances are you’ve never heard of Goldonna, Louisiana. Chances are you might not be able to pronounce the name of the Louisiana parish it’s in. But you can almost certainly believe they’ve felt the sting of political correctness in recent weeks. GOLDONNA –The recent 10-day suspension of a Natchitoches Parish school principal because of a student-led prayer during a Christmas program was the catalyst for 200 or more people gathering here late Monday afternoon for a prayer rally. [...] Natchitoches Parish schools Superintendent Dale Skinner, interviewed separately earlier in the day, expressed support for the rally, but said he hoped everyone understood his decision to discipline the principal was not “personal.” All Natchitoches Parish principals have been reminded on different occasions about the federal law that prohibits school officials from participating in or soliciting prayer at a school event. Skinner fell back on personal experience as the former principal of Natchitoches Central High when he was on the receiving end of a complaint of prayer there. The issue at hand is a Christmas program held at the Goldonna school, in which a student-led prayer was held and items that are symbolic in Christianity were displayed. School administators have been told repeatedly what they can and can’t do with regard to prayer in school. The key rule is that prayer must not be “solicited.” According to Skinner, the prayer was listed in the school program, and therefore violates the rule. See, these rules come up because groups who profoundly misunderstand the meaning of the First Amendment sue schools whenever a prayer is held. And they win. Under the banner of “Thou Shalt Not Offend,” these groups enforce their beliefs on those that they accuse of enforcing their beliefs on others. We have to be politically correct and not offend anyone, despite the overwhelming support for prayer in schools. This brings me to the kids at Vox (trigger warning: actual text from a Vox article): First things first: there’s no such thing as “political correctness.” The term’s in wide use, certainly, but has no actual fixed or specific meaning. What defines it is not what it describes but how it’s used: as a way to dismiss a concern or demand as a frivolous grievance rather than a real issue. [...] It’s understandable that Chait, and the many others who agree with him, find it so upsetting to be on the receiving end of what he refers to as “P.C.” criticism. These critiques basically accuse their targets of being oppressors, or perpetuating injustice, and that’s a deeply hurtful accusation. Indeed, that kind of criticism hurts most if you are someone who cares about social justice, or do think that discrimination is harmful when it’s implicit as well as when it’s explicit. But avoiding that discomfort by dismissing criticism as mere “political correctness” is no way to protect the marketplace of ideas whose fate so concerns Chait. At best, it replaces a relatively weak burden on free speech (Jonathan Chait has to listen to people scolding him on Twitter) with a similarly weak one (other people have to listen to Chait and his supporters scolding them for their “political correctness”). This writer, hilariously enough, proves Jonathan Chait’s point by shutting his argument down and claiming he is simply exercising privilege. Or, rather ... [continue] So much to do; so little time to do it. ”

The Usual Suspects

“ The Usual Suspects 2016 yawn In quick succession these stories crossed my desk yesterday; a cosmic commencement of the  media battle to have their way with us in 2016.  Bloomberg's  "Walker Surging in Iowa Poll as Bush Struggles" was quickly countered by the WaPost's "Jeb Bush has become the GOP front-runner for 2016 — so now what?" Normally it's the New York Times's job to carry the GOP establishment's water by proclaiming a front runner nobody else wants, but someone the Democrats can defeat.  I'm guessing that the Times will try still to carry on in that capacity, but it's reputation by now is that of a 70 year-old crack whore and of little use beyond the city limits.  The newly burnished WaPost is ascendant. The Liberal Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News's "Sarah Palin's scorched-earth plan for the GOP: Governor challenges party to move sharply right" is of little consequence but will be quoted loudly by American Smugs. Sarah Palin, who now says she's definitely interested in "serving" as president next year, made a speech last weekend at a gathering of Republican White House aspirants in Iowa. It was somewhat coarser, and certainly more bitter, than her usual bundle of platitudes and jingoism. At one point she shouted "Screw the left in Hollywood!" And she complained about how even some Republicans are buying into "this unhealthy new obsession … about this subjective income gap that we're supposed to be so obsessed about right now." [...] Under the headline: "Sarah Palin slips into self-parody," Charles W. Cooke called it "the foreordained culmination of a slow and unseemly descent into farce," suggesting she stay out of the race for the good of her party. Charles W. Cooke writes for National Review, one of this country's premier conservative publications. Under another withering headline, "GOP faces its Sarah Palin problem," Byron York interviewed several dismayed audience members: "It was all quite petty," he concluded. [] The Boston Globe, which never forget backed for high office two of the most incompetent twats extant in Deval Patrick and Elizabeth Warren, does it's thing with "Jeb Bush shaped by troubled Phillips Academy years;" or as Powerline puts it-"JEB BUSH, POT-SMOKING BULLY!" The Boston Globe has a long article on Jeb Bush’s high school years at Andover. The Globe piece has been picked up by many other news outlets; the Hill’s headline is typical: “Jeb Bush was a pot-smoking bully, say former classmates.” What about the claim that Jeb was a bully? It is based on precisely two incidents. In one, Bush and some friends sewed another boy’s pajama bottoms shut. In the other, Bush lifted up another boy. That’s the “bullying” tally for his four years at Andover. Pathetic. This is reminiscent, of course, of the Washington Post’s long story about Mitt Romney’s high school days, featuring a decades-ago incident where Romney and others cut another boy’s hair. It’s remarkable: just when you think investigative reporting is dead, another Republican presidential candidate comes along to get reporters’ juices flowing again. Think what doggedness it requires to go back forty-odd years to research a politician’s high school days! I'm tired. ”

Super Ending

Beauty I didn't care who won as long as Seattle lost. Only turned the SB on when I saw NE had pulled to within three and saw the go ahead TD.  The rest was gold.  What an ending.

Killing McDonald's

— those miserable twats!

“ Is the Left slowly killing off McDonald’s? Dan Thompson is on his way out the door as CEO of fast food giant McDonald’s. This is not terribly surprising, since the Golden Arches have turned in some poor numbers compared to their competitors for a while now. There are a few reasons for this, some of which came as a surprise to me, as outlined by my friend Stephen Green (a.k.a. Vodkapundit). One big factor which doesn’t seem to make a lot of news is that the primary component of burgers is beef, and the cost has been on the rise. The biggest example on that front is when they abandoned beef tallow in the fries to satisfy the demands of the vegans. Those fries used to be addictive! It was the highlight of a visit to their establishment. After the change they were just not the same. ..... But that particular surrender was only one element of a larger war that McDonald’s was losing, as Stephen explains. The Left has been waging a cultural war against McDonald’s for decades now, and the results are telling. It won its fight against the chain in the early 1990, forcing McD to remove the beef tallow from the french fries, in order to avoid offending the tender sensibilities of vegetarians. The company’s troubles began in earnest with the emasculation of its world-class fries, but the trend has accelerated with the ascension of Michelle Obama to First Lady. She rails tirelessly against affordable and wholesome-but-bland food which parents can actually get their kids to eat, because buttinskies can’t be happy without buttinsking. McDonald’s has tried to comply by offering healthy apple wedges in place of french fries in children’ Happy Meals, but it’s obvious that the Left won’t be happy with anything short of the chain converting to McTofu & Gruel. McDonald’s is feeling the squeeze on its core customers: undiscriminating children and hurried adults on a budget. Most everyone else abandoned McD for the likes of Five Guys or Panera, and the chain has so far shown no talent for winning them back. It’s going to take much more than just a new CEO if McDonald’s is going to have a chance of victory on any of these three fronts — it’s going to take a reimagining of the company — or a return to serving its core customers, and serving up a super-size middle finger to the Left. [Is the Left slowly killing off McDonald’s?] Funny, I was gonna ask the same question as that kid. ”

Real Science and AGW Science

and other lying  bastards

“ Scientists abandon highly publicized claim about cosmic find Brian Keating-Real Scientist NEW YORK- Scientists who made headlines last March by announcing that they'd found long-sought evidence about the early universe are now abandoning that claim. "It's disappointing," he said in a telephone interview Friday after the European Space Agency publicized the results. "It's like finding out there's no Santa Claus. But it's important to know the truth." That signal is what the researchers claimed they had found in observations of the sky taken from the South Pole, in a project called BICEP2. But now, in a new paper submitted for publication, "we are effectively retracting the claim," said Brian Keating of the University of California, San Diego, a member of the BICEP2 team. Read more here: “ Phony climate scientists trade empirical processes for cash and communism. Phony scientist Michael Mann and another liar Climategate Files Climate Fail Files Climate Liar Files Climate Reference Files ” ”

TOILETGATE

Democrat Big Brother Follows Reporters to Bathroom “ Reporters covering the House Democrats' retreat in Philadelphia this week are having a much different experience than when they’re on their home turf on Capitol Hill. Reporters are being escorted to and from the restroom and lobby and are being barred from entering the hotel outside of scheduled events, even if they've been invited by a member of Congress. During Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks at the retreat Friday, reporters were required to have a staff member, usually a junior member of the press team, escort them when going to the bathroom or to the lobby. The filing center for reporters was at a separate hotel from where the retreat was taking place, so access was limited to members of Congress specifically made available to the press. - See more You can't make this stuff up .... ”

We're about to be Lynched

Holder's Mustache

“ Loretta Lynch & Holder’s Wife President Obama’s Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch was a charter member of an all-black Harvard sorority — and so was Eric Holder’s wife. Lynch will face the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday in her first confirmation hearing in her bid to succeed Holder as the nation’s leading law enforcement official. But can Lynch as an investigator really be objective when it comes to her predecessor, who is currently in contempt of Congress over Fast and Furious scandal document obstruction and would probably warrant investigation from an unbiased successor? After all, Lynch goes way back with Holder’s wife. [etc] "... can Lynch as an investigator really be objective when it comes to her predecessor..." Get real. In this theater of the absurd  administration?  ”

“Religious Freedom Restoration Act" Amok

a major award

“ TRUTH ALA CARTE Hostility to Tradition In the nineties, the Clinton Administration formed a bipartisan coalition to pass the federal “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” or “RFRA.” Nineteen states followed suit. The legislation came in response to a Supreme Court decision that had seen an American Indian suffer legally for having used a drug during a well established American Indian religious ceremony. Religious freedom is enshrined in the first amendment to the American constitution. The American left, increasingly hostile to any values, has made a decision to impose their lack of values on America. Dissent was patriotic when George Bush was President. Now that the left feels completely in control all dissent must be stamped out ruthlessly. RFRA’s framework was common sense. “Under RFRA the government may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion unless it can demonstrate that the burden is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest, and it is the least restrictive means of advancing a compelling interest.” See Perez v. Paragon Contractors (2014, Dist. Ct. Utah). The standard was hailed as fair and appropriate by Democrats and by Republicans. Nineteen states followed the federal government. From Connecticut to Florida to Arizona, states found a bipartisan consensus that the sincerely held faith based beliefs of individuals deserved encroachment from the federal government. This bipartisan consensus has rapidly collapsed in the United States. It began with Hobby Lobby. The company is a closely held corporation run by a family. The family intended to run its business based on its Christian values. The employees are paid more than employees at competitors. The store hours are not as long so employees can go home to their families. The store closes on Sundays to honor the Sabbath and give employees a day off. But Hobby Lobby also designs its healthcare plans to reflect its values. It covers birth control for female employees, but its health care plan would not cover the costs of drugs classified as abortifacients, or drugs that induce an abortion. It would not cover the cost of abortions. The Obama Administration ordered the company to do so and then, as a compromise, ordered the company to give money to other organizations that would then provide the abortifacients. Hobby Lobby sued and won in the United States Supreme Court. The Court held that under RFRA, the Obama Administration had already shown through various exemptions and alternatives that it had not used the least restrictive means to accomplish its goals. Where RFRA once had bipartisan support, it is now opposed by the left. Compounding the problem is the march for gay marriage. In multiple states around the country, gay activists have tried to force Christian bakers, florists, photographers, wedding planners, and others to provide goods and services against their religious convictions to gay weddings. In states without RFRA, the Christians who have refused have been dragged before courts and punished. Some will be driven from business. Liberals were happy with religious conviction when it allowed drug use.  [continue] “Our acceptance of lies becomes a cultural cancer that eventually shrouds and reorders reality until moral garbage becomes as invisible to us as water is to a fish.” ― Stephanie Ericsson ”

Scott Walker's Roosting

Scott Walker, Presumptive 2016 Favorite

“ Forget what the polls say. Polls this far out are notoriously worthless in predicting Presidential nominees. Right now Scott Walker is sitting in the catbird’s seat for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination. Virtually everyone who is contemplating running for President in 2016 or who has ever contemplated running for President in their life went to Iowa last weekend but unless you were a regular reader of RedState you would have no idea that anyone other than Scott Walker delivered a speech. This is just one indication of how thoroughly and completely Walker has stolen the early show from the other nominees and sucked all the oxygen from the room. But Walker’s domination of the first 2016 cattle call isn’t the reason that he has to be considered the favorite right now. The simple fact is that Walker is the only candidate in the field who has already won what could be considered two national elections. Much has been made of the fact that Walker has already won essentially three tough elections. This is true, but it undersells how Walker’s electoral experience differs even from other candidates in the field who have successfully won bruising statewide elections like Chris Christie or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)82%. Running for elective office involves successive levels of difficulty – and more importantly, scrutiny – especially in terms of the media. A hard fought state legislature race involves less media poking and prodding than a tough U.S. House race, which involves less than a Senate race, and so on. As Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich so ably demonstrated in 2012, no one who hasn’t won office at least statewide should really attempt to run for President because the increased glare of a national race tends to wilt those who are not prepared for it. Walker, on the other hand, has not just won statewide races in a blue state. He has already been through the gauntlet, at least twice, of being the number one national target of the Democrat apparatus. He has already felt the full fury of having Democrat and union operatives trail him around to every campaign stop, recording every word, and digging up every detail on his life possible. His recall election was especially impressive because he was, nationwide, the only Republican target on the ballot at the time it occurred. He has already faced bogus prosecutions by politically motivated prosecutors and every other government hack under the sun. [Full] Of course it's not a question of good versus evil, because evil in this instance believe they have a moral imperative to be evil, which in their minds make them the good.  And, of course, there are the GOP cross-dressers to contend with, but for now I'm exultant that Walker is  cock of the walk.  ”

Sharyl Attkisson:Enemy of the State

Police State          ENEMY OF THE STATE

Word Salad

MSNBC ALL-STARS and ilk ... is worth 1000 words

“ "This ‘toon neatly take his acolytes to task on his insistence in calling a spade an excavation tool:" Parsing of words.   Like a buncha fledgling linguist professors with their brandy-new degrees.  Sheeesh!  Watching Earnest and Schultz (not me, the shithead on MSNBC- Ed) tapdance their way out of calling Taliban terrorists terrorists is like watching a wannabe-engineer explain to a kindergartner the basic difference between a rock and a stone.  All I could think of is what the rest of the world must think of us when the human delivery system for PotUSthink gets his merds all wixed and strumbles over the semaphoric features of his anatomy while making absolutely certain not to call a terrorist organization a terrorist organization.  Schultz was carefully prepped by close advisors to Soetoro and made to memorize the euphemism du jour for terrorist groups.   But his humanity and common sense almost got the better of him when he tried desperately to say that the Taliban is an armed insurgency which merely performs acts similar to terrorism and only in Afghanistan while a true terror group such as Al Qaeda performs precisely the same acts but on wider scale, those acts being killing children, bombing buses, murdering innocent civilians, persecuting Christians, hating Jews, and so on.   Poor guy’s gag reflex almost got the better of him, but he finally managed to re-swallow the mouthful of vurp and chant the mantra, like a 3rd grader reciting his lines on stage in the obligatory Thanksgiving skit.  I got to thinking what derogatory nouns and adjectives I can use to describe the incumbent quack.  Came up with some doozies, too, such as poltroon, dastard, libertine, miscreant, enfant terrible, and two I’ve used before that for some reason don’t get much attention, even from FoxNews:  jackanape and popinjay.  The creep is indeed a bête noir, a dabbler, even after 6 years of on-the-job training.  He’s a trifler, a stagnant neophyte, a still-rank amateur, a business buffoon, a diplomatic dud, and a domestic debacle.  Aside from the standard descriptors I’ve used on him for several years now, such as arrogant, incompetent, unqualified, inept, intransigent, ineligible, and all those, he’s also pompous, pretentious, insolent, vengeful, bombastic, obdurate, disdainful, and downright supercilious.  He’s a proselyte, a dilettante, a jerk, and a klutz.  He’s a liar, a menace, and a Muslim dressed up in taqiyyah.   Metzger ”

Home Runs

Battered Bastards of Baseball

“ When Portland, Oregon, lost its longtime minor-league affiliate, Bing Russell-who briefly played ball professionally before enjoying a successful Hollywood acting career-bought the territory and formed a single-A team to operate outside the confines of major-league baseball. When they took the field in 1973, the Mavericks-the only independent team in America-started with two strikes against them. What did Deputy Clem from Bonanza know about baseball? Or Portland, for that matter? The only thing uniting his players, recruited at open tryouts, was that no other team wanted them. Skeptics agreed that it could never work. But Bing understood a ballplayer's dreams, and he understood an audience. His quirky, unkempt castoffs won games, and they won fans, shattering minor-league attendance records. Their spirit was contagious, and during their short reign, the Mavericks-a restaurant owner turned manager, left-handed catcher, and blackballed pitcher among them-brought independence back to baseball and embodied what it was all about: the love of the game. (C) Netflix Rotten Tomatoes Rating 5 STARS This is a real gem.  As an aside; Bing Russell's son is actor Kurt Russell who is married to Goldie Hawn, both of whose movies I like.  When all of Hollywood was dumping on Bush 43 after 9/11, he and Goldie had the guts to appear on O'Relly's show in debate.  Both came across as honestly concerned, and both were amenable to considering other points of view.  Later I discovered that Kurt is (or became?) a Libertarian who, he said,  was "told by people that there are people who wouldn't work with me because they were afraid of my politics."  All that aside—boy, girl, man or woman—you will really like this film. ”

Baby Killers and Consequences

Liberal Culture

“ The Elimination of Christianity in the West Brings Disrespect for Life Warner Todd Huston  Abortion activists are taking the next, logical step in their justification of abortion by agreeing that, yes, abortion kills a human baby, but… “so what?” It is just the next logical step in abortion apologia that results from the end of the Christian philosophical influence in society. But we don’t see that end affecting just abortion. We see it throughout society. Whether leftists like the idea or not, the United States of America was conceived as a Christian nation. Not a Catholic one, not a Muslim one, not a Jewish one and not a secular one, but a Christian nation built solidly on the Christian ethos. Every state initially formed with a particular flavor of Protestantism as a state sanctioned religion and our entire culture was fueled by the twin influences of Christian philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment. It is certainly true that our form of government is essentially secular in that it is not guided or controlled by any particular religion, but the ethics underlying those governments where heavily informed by Christian ethics. The left, though, has been angling to destroy the underlying Christian ethos since the turn of the last century as academia and the left became imbued with communist and socialist propaganda. The efforts to destroy the bedrock principles upon which the nation was built began under the destroyer of our education system, John Dewey, who, along with famed “History” professor Charles Beard, worked to tear down America’s founding principles and replace them with socialist-inspired anti-American ideals. (And they succeeded, by the way.) [Continued] A regular theme of mine.  It is, or ought be, a no brainer that nations which share a common language and religion are more stable.  In our case it was English and Christianity.  Din't matter if you were agnostic, atheist or just going along to get along; everyone gained by the common dialectic and guardrails by osmosis.  Agent provocateurs like Madalyn Murray O'Hair, to name just one,  who argued "tyranny of the majority" have won.  So now it's tyranny of the minority.  How's that working?  ”