Seriously, now, if you’re going to name a Navy ship after U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, whose only claim to fame (let alone heroism) was surviving a bullet to the head, it makes perfect sense: Name another one after the pugnacious punk thief and drug-dealer who was puffed as a racial victim by the lying Democrat news media and the president they helped elect and have covered for ever since.
Via Instapundit.
Posted in Obamalot, Obsessions, The Culture
“The city of Portland, OR will empty a 38-million gallon reservoir after a teenager allegedly urinated in it, according to the Associated Press. It’s the second time in three years that Portland is flushing its [open-air] Mount Tabor reservoir after a urine-related incident.”
ArsTechnica says it shows a “tenuous grasp of science.”
That’s diplomatic.
Via Instapundit.
Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, The Culture
Tagged airhead central, ArsTechnica, Instapundit, Portland urine case
The Democrats may be cutting the defense budget and downsizing the official military but the militarization of the rest of our big, growing and greedy federal government continues.
“Dozens of federal agencies now have Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams to further an expanding definition of their missions. It’s not controversial that the Secret Service and the Bureau of Prisons have them. But what about the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? All of these have their own SWAT units and are part of a worrying trend towards the militarization of federal agencies — not to mention local police forces.”
Get in their way at your own risk. Officer Friendly is a child’s fable. They are not armed to the teeth to help you.
Wormtongue has proven to be a great divider, instead of the uniter his supporters claimed he would be way back in the (relatively) low-unemployment days of 2008, before his party got both their hands on taxation and business regulation. While his political bashing of the “rich” and other “class warfare” games may appeal to some who should know better, it’s a perilous temptation:
“Voters who will [this fall] hear the Obama call for envy and redistribution should ask themselves and others: Would you prefer to live in an America where the market is dynamic and opportunity abounds, or in France, where unemployment is high and tax rates are crushing? Don’t you prefer opportunity to envy?”
You’d better. Because the Worm’s peddling of envy is just another of his many lies. He knows, as Charles Murray and others have said that the U.S. increasingly is becoming an oligarchy whose government is run mostly for the benefit of the rich and powerful who can afford to grease the palms of the bureaucrats and the pols who do the running. Politicians like the Worm depend on the “rich” for campaign contributions and, indeed, for their political futures.
And the “rich” don’t worry about his threats. They know they’re empty. They know he wouldn’t dare cross them. Even if he really tried to, they could shelter their investment income from his proposed taxes while what’s left of the dwindling American middle class takes the hit in their payroll checks.
Murray and others say the only way to reverse this oligarchy is by a cultural shift in which the pols stop looking for bribes and other graft and start really serving the people. The only way to get pols like that is to be careful who you vote for and, for starters, ignore the ones who peddle the phony rhetoric of envy and redistribution.
Via Instapundit
Why does Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy deserve our support? Asks PowerLine. As you might ask, as well. Here’s why:
“To begin with, his family has been ranching on the acres at issue since the late 19th century. They and other settlers were induced to come to Nevada in part by the federal government’s promise that they would be able to graze their cattle on adjacent government-owned land. For many years they did so, with no limitations or fees. The Bundy family was ranching in southern Nevada long before the [federal Bureau of Land Management] came into existence.”
We know what federal promises are worth. And the settlers soon found out. Federal fees were imposed and “environmental” regs proliferated and the BLM has been trying to drive Bundy and other Nevada ranchers out of business ever since: “Formerly, there were dozens of ranches in the area where Bundy operates. Now, his ranch is the only one.”
These M-4 armed feds are supposed to be for us, the people. Instead, they’re for themselves. And, of course, their political masters like Democrat Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada who want Cliven Bundy prosecuted.
“The new head of the BLM is a former Reid staffer. Presumably he was placed in his current position on Reid’s recommendation. Harry Reid is known to be a corrupt politician, one who has gotten wealthy on a public employee’s salary, in part, at least, by benefiting from sweetheart real estate deals…If you need federal authority to conduct business in Nevada–which is overwhelmingly probable–do you need to pay a bribe to Harry Reid or a member of his family to get that permission?”
Do stars shine at night? Does the bear poop in the woods? Is the Pope Catholic?
UPDATE: All of us supporters of Cliven Bundy are terrorists, says the thief Harry Reid.
MORE: Some of Reid’s “terrorists” are in state legislatures and governor’s mansions and they’re not backing down anymore than Bundy is.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 