Are You Ever Going to Stop?

I guest that's a stupid question.  No, they aren't.  Not ever.

In Fear and Voting on the Christian Right, Thomas Lake "reports" on the closure of a wedding chapel in Iowa.  His article adds nothing but insults to the conversation.

Lake's thesis is that evangelical voters:

• Are paranoid ("A growing number of fundamentalist Christians believe the government is singling them out for persecution.") 

and

• Having that paranoia stoked by conservative politicians ("... which is why a number of Republican candidates are playing to their fears.")

The article is complete with a sneering quote from a professor of political science, "Fearful and angry people vote," said Dennis Goldford.  A newsflash for the good professor:  fearful people are afraid to vote.  Hopefully, we don't have any of those.  The people who vote are the ones who are motivated to do so.  Hillary is trying to provide that motivation to people she is certain will vote for her, Republicans are doing the same. 

Ben Carson gently chided the CNBC Kangaroo Court last Wednesday about a biased question which assumed that his belief in traditional marriage made him homophobic.  Lake characterizes Carson's calmly stated response to CNBC's attack on him as yet another "appeal" to fundamentalists. The "moderator's" question did in fact assume that Carson's belief in traditional marriage was homophobic and therefore Carson was as well.  Carson disagreed with the unstated premise of the question.  He correctly characterized that premise as intended to shut down debate on the subject by tarring him as homophobic, but Lake isn't interested in any facts that don't support his thesis. 

Lake states, "White Christians have dominated the United States for centuries, often at a terrible cost to other ethnic and religious groups..."  He says that this happens "often", but does Mr. Lake provide any evidence to support that statement?  No, he does not.  Lake says the costs are "terrible.  Does he describe any such costs?  No, he does not.  Does Lake believe that no other ethnic or religious group has ever imposed a "terrible cost" on other ethnic or religious groups?  Apparently he does, because he mentions only one specific ethnic or religious group that alone among all such groups is uniquely guilty of "often" imposing "a terrible cost" on other such groups.

And just who are these white Christians who have dominated the US for centuries, often imposing terrible costs?  Might they be the Democrats in the Old South who fought to maintain slavery and, after they lost, imposed Jim Crow laws and terrorized black people with the KKK?  Are they the Democrats of the Wilson era who believed in eugenics as a method of family planning?  Are they the more modern Democrats of the FDR administration who locked up US citizens during WWII based solely on their ethnicity?  Perhaps Lake is referring to Bull Connor, the member of the Democratic National Committee who turned fire hoses and police dogs on peaceful civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama.  Such people are the antithesis of the people Lake criticizes in his article.

Lake continues, "But ...[the fears of evangelical voters go]... beyond the wedding industry, and it runs deeper than a wish to preserve tradition. They worry that rejection of the new cultural norms will cost them jobs, businesses, college accreditation, even tax-exempt status for their churches."  Hello?  Lake's story is about someone who lost their business because they refused to adopt the "new cultural norm".  Lake seems to have forgotten Memories Pizza,  Masterpiece Cakeshop , Elane Photography, Diana Medley, and many, many others.  So people who reject "new cultural norms" being imposed by our moral superiors might reasonably worry about their jobs and businesses, etc.  Google the word "Homophobic" followed by the profession of your choice.  You are almost certain to come up with a response showing that people's jobs and businesses are in fact at risk because they reject these supposed norms.

The "new cultural norms" Lake speaks of have not been adopted by consensus, as has traditionally happened in the US.  Rather, these new "norms" are being imposed by the government, through various means, including decisions of the Supreme Court, or adoption and enforcement of federal regulations.  It's called "lawfare" and the non-PC among us have been and will continue to be the casualties of a campaign being waged by the left, generally and gay activists in particular against people with whom they disagree.   Apparently disagreement is punishable.  And if one becomes the focus of an attack of this nature, a la Ben Carson, defending yourself is strictly forbidden as "pandering" or, in most cases, more homophobia.

Now, I am not the least bit religious and I really don't give a rat's ass what goes on behind closed doors between consenting adults.  I don't think the state or federal governments should be in the business of regulating anyone's religion or private consensual behavior that harms no one. That's not what I worry about, though.  What I worry about is PC run amok.  What I worry about is a world in which some anonymous social justice warrior or some puffed up bureaucrat makes himself feel ever so superior by using the power of government to run off a teacher or put someone out of business because of their religious beliefs.  Before political correctness metastasized into a cudgel used by the morally superior to eliminate double plus ungood badthink, the holier than thou jerks now attacking religious people and religion in general all maintained, without exception, that violation of cultural norms was a good thing ... because they were the oh so brave souls doing it.  Think about every anti hero in fiction for the last fifty years: They were heroes because they violated cultural norms.

But my favorite part of the whole article is the contrast drawn by Lake between Republicans and Hillary.  Republicans pander to their base.  They have to, according to Lake, in order to get the nomination.  Rubio and Bush do it "delicately", so as not to be held to account by moderate voters.  Trump "awkwardly" waves the Bible and makes vague promises. Carson and Fiorina do it "straightforwardly", and Cruz and Huckabee make such pandering "the central strategy" of their campaign. 

Hillary, on the other hand, does none of the above.  Where Republicans are "playing to their fears" She "has used ...[their own] ... rhetoric against ... [evangelical voters] ... to motivate her own Democratic base."  Republicans prey upon the fears of their constituents, Hillary merely motivates hers.  Pandering to her own base because she "feels the Bern?"  Don't be silly.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.

WTF!!!!!!!!

Via Drudge: Breitbart is reporting that illegal aliens are being permitted to board US commercial flights without any identification other than the Notice to Appear received when they crashed the border.  Which Notice to Appear can be conveniently prepared on any home computer.

This is an exclusive report, so I can't find any confirmation yet, but if it is accurate, there should be absolute hell to pay.

The TSA practically hires a proctologist to examine US citizens before they board the same plane being used by some guy about whom they have no information whatever except that he broke the law in crossing our border?

Enough.

Enough with the immigration farce. 

Enough with the TSA/airport security farce. 

Enough with the rules supposedly applicable to everyone that only seem to ever apply to whatever group whose political support is not currently needed. 

Enough with the legislative farce where the House passes bill after bill after bill, none of which are given a vote in the Senate but Democrats rail against the Republicans for obstruction. 

Enough with using the IRS as a political weapon. 

Enough with the spinning of overseas events (and actually jailing people) to get past an election. 

Enough with "passing laws to see what's in them" only to delay the implementation to the other side of the election when your opponents will hopefully be blamed for the disaster. 

I am sure I have left out about twenty things that also need to stop.

No, I don't think Obama should be impeached.  Not because he hasn't done anything impeachable.  He may have.  But the votes to convict are not there in the Senate, and even if they were, CAN YOU SAY PRESIDENT BIDEN? 

Impeachment is not the answer.  Budget power is.  The Republicans in the House and Senate should grow a pair and shut this government down.

Now.  Right now.

Is it time, yet?

The following facts are indisputable:

In May, 2013, in response to a planted question put to her at a forum sponsored by the American Bar Association, Lois Lerner admitted that the IRS had targeted conservative groups based on their political beliefs. This was the conclusion of a then soon to be released report of the Treasury Inspector General. This targeting took the form of intense scrutiny of applications for tax exempt status received from such groups . That extra scrutiny resulted in extraordinary delays in processing those applications and the inability of the applicants to raise money to pursue their policy goals during the 2012 election cycle, as is their constitutionally protected right.

Later in May, 2013, when called upon to testify before a Congressional committee concerning her actions as a high level employee of the IRS, Lerner first stated that she had not violated any laws or regulations, and then declined to answer questions on the grounds that doing so would tend to incriminate her.

In November, 2013, Congress directed the IRS to produce documents concerning the actions of Lerner and others who were or may have been involved in the matter, including emails.

In March, 2014, the IRS Commissioner claimed that it would take "years" to comply with the committee's request, because the emails were taken off the individual employee's computer and "stored somewhere".

That statement is apparently no longer an operative statement.

The IRS now claims to have lost Lerner's emails for a large portion of the relevant period. It also claims to have lost the emails of six other individuals which had been requested by Congress to be produced. The explanation given for the loss of the requested emails is that no action was taken to preserve them, which resulted in the older emails being isolated on individual computers being used by each of the individuals, followed, in each of these seven instances, by hard drive failures causing the irretrievable loss of all data on each hard drive. Despite their own regulations and those of the National Archives and Records Administration requiring multiple backups, the IRS claims that no such backups exist, and, further, that the failed hard drives have been destroyed.

Conservatives find Lerner's admitted actions in targeting groups based on their political beliefs abhorrent. Those conservatives were, at least initially, joined in their disgust by liberals, from the President, to the Democratic Party's political leaders, to the chief of the legislative section of the ACLU to editorial boards across the nation. This is consistent with the outrage (on both sides of the aisle) when President Nixon tried and failed to use the IRS to punish his political opponents.

Over the course of the last year, however, things have changed, and it appears that those Democratic expressions of outrage and disgust are also no longer operative statements.

The President has announced (without the benefit of a completed investigation by the FBI or anyone else) that there is not a smidgen of corruption (February, 2014).  And yesterday, we were treated to the spectacle of Democratic members of the House Ways and Means Committee saying that the investigation into what only last year was "unacceptable behavior" (Obama, May, 2013) "about as troubling as it gets" (Michael Mcleod-Ball, ACLU, May, 2013) "an outrageous abuse of power" (Baucus, D. Montana, May, 2013) and "un-American" (Manchin, D., W. Va, May, 2013) is now a "phony scandal" (Treasury Secretary Lew, July, 2013) and "an endless conspiracy theory" (Doggett, D. Texas, May, 2014)  for which an apology is due not to the targeted conservative groups, not to the American people, but to the IRS.

And finally, a prediction, rather than a fact:

Both the nation and the Democratic Party will be hurt by IRS scandal. Democrats will be hurt because a the actions taken were intended to and did in fact benefit liberals (primarily if not entirely Democrats) by silencing conservatives through an egregious abuse by the IRS of its authority. The actions were taken while a Democratic President was in office, under an IRS Commissioner appointed by that President and confirmed by a Democratic controlled Senate.  The nation will be hurt because a perception that the IRS is politically biased will impair its ability to do its job (administration of the tax laws) and will reduce the voluntary compliance by taxpayers needed to make our tax system work.  The way to minimize and repair the damage to the nation is to present all of the facts to the people and punish those involved.  Do that and the reputation of the IRS as unbiased will be restored.  However, doing that requires investigations which will damage the political fortunes of the Democratic Party, on whose watch the scandal occurred.

To summarize:

The IRS admits doing something which everyone agrees is an abuse of its enormous power. A failed attempt to do the same thing was enough to credibly (and properly) threaten President Nixon with impeachment.

The investigation into the improper actions of the IRS, which will aid the nation but damage the Democrats, has not been completed due, in large part, to delays by the IRS itself in producing documents requested as part of the investigation. That can reasonably be characterized as stonewalling, which is a tactic used frequently by this administration when faced with requests to which it would rather not respond.

But John Lewis (D-Georgia), Richard Neal (D-Mass.), Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) don't think the scandal or the circumstances under which the missing emails were lost is worth investigating. They think the IRS is due an apology. That would be an apology for actions which have been characterized by people across the entire political spectrum as outrageous and un-American.

My conclusion is this:

What was once an impeachable offense if merely attempted is now, when fully implemented, nothing but a crackpot conspiracy theory according to Messrs. Lewis, Neal, Becerra, Doggett and Blumenauer.

I have a question based on that conclusion:

Are Lewis, Neal, Becerra, Doggett and Blumenauer putting their political party's interests above those of the nation?

And just to remove any doubt, yes, I think it might well be time to question their patriotism.

"Grandfather" Them All

Liberals should face up to the fact that they've been had. The LAW OF THE LAND! (tm) that only terrorists and suicide bombers wanted to change six weeks ago, is now in tatters. Why? Because, except for the website, it is functioning precisely as intended. The law's supporters now desparately seek a method of changing that which they so recently said could not be changed. The new campaign slogan for every Republican should be:

If (insert name of Democrat here) likes his seat, I think you should vote to allow him to keep his seat. He should be grandfathered in, the same way he voted to grandfather your your health insurance policy and your doctor. But I don't think he really needs to know that the seat he will be keeping does not exist. The same way he didn't think you needed to know that the policy you were to be "allowed to keep" did not exist.

Don't let any of the arrogant little pissants squirm off the hook. Remember: each and every one of the bastards was the deciding vote in enacting the Big Fucking Deal.

Oh how they cheered! Yay! We did it! One hundred years of liberal dreams are now the law! Everyone will love us (eventually)! Every single one of them either lied or uncritically bought Obama's lie. There are no other possiblities.

And, to top it all off, they then voted to allow regulations, issued pursuant to Obamacare, in which that agency PREDICTED that between one and two thirds of all individual AND EMPLOYER policies would be cancelled.

I can't get the chart showing that estimate to load onto Blogger. It is here.

Again, every Democrat in the Senate and the House voted in favor of allowing those regulations with that estimate. Every. Single. One.

None of them, not one, deserves to retain their position. They are either too stupid or too mendacious. Either of those should disqualify them for office. We should send all of them home as soon as possible. It's the only possible "fix".

The Question

President Obama claims not to have known about Fast & Furious.

He says he didn't know about Benghazi.

He says he didn't know about the IRS dumping on Tea Party applicants for exempt status.

Sebelius says he didn't know about the Obamacare website debacle.

He will soon say he didn't know that his signature law was predicted by his own administration to prevent millions from keeping their health insurance policy if they like it. (Period!)

He says he didn't know that the spies at the NSA were actually doing spying. On us.

He says he didn't know that the spies at the NSA were actually doing spying. On our allies.

He says he didn't know that there was no such thing as a shovel ready job (at least as far as government bureaucrats are concerned).

He didn't know that making loans to "green" companies like Solyndra was throwing money away.

That is a truly astonishing level of ignorance being professed by or about the most powerful man in the world.

Nixon's presidency ended when the question being asked was "What did he know and when did he know it?" I think Obama's presidency will end with the question "What didn't he know and when didn't he know it?"

Will you have a chair?

From Power Line:

There were 108,592,000 people in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2011 who were recipients of one or more means-tested government benefit programs, the Census Bureau said in data released this week. Meanwhile, according to the Census Bureau, there were 101,716,000 people who worked full-time year round in 2011. That included both private-sector and government workers.

That means there were about 1.07 people getting some form of means-tested government benefit for every 1 person working full-time year round.

This cannot continue, and Reynolds Second Law states that something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

The only question is what happens when the music stops.

Schrodinger's President

From Richard Fernandez:

And so Chavez can rule for so long as he lives. And he lives for as long as Castro says he does. Since no one is allowed to examine Chavez without the permission of the Cuban officials no one can gainsay the continued existence of the virtual Hugo Chavez except Fidel Castro.

Chavez is in a box. There are only two possibilities: He is alive or he is not. The likelihood of him being alive cannot be determined, so I am going to arbitrarily assign it a probability of precisely 50%. Therefore, according to Schrodinger, until the box is opened, Chavez is both alive and dead.