Congressman Jeff Duncan Explains Budget Debate to a bunch of bankers

I shared the following on Facebook:

Douglas V. Gibbs shared Congressman Jeff Duncan's status.

I received an "Update" from the American Bankers' Association's chief that said:

"I’m sure you have been watching -- with interest, dismay or perhaps even embarrassment -- the debate in Washington over federal spending."

I responded:

I am curious over what he (Frank Keating - ABA) thinks folks should be "embarrassed" about?

Is it the runaway spending with no plan to ever balance the budget, much less even have a budget?

Or is it the runaway federal debt now which is now close to $17 Trillion - with no plans by the government to reign in the things that are necessitating the US borrowing money?

No bank that I know would continue to loan money to a commercial client who acted in such a way.....a customer who couldn't tell you when they would be able live within their means or be able to show a plan for repayment of the loan......

Maybe he is just embarrassed that, for the first time in a long while, there are actually Congressmen who believe in limited government, more liberty for Americans and free enterprise / free markets - whom the press misses no opportunity to dis because these Congressmen are unabashed about exposing the situation in America for what it is....

There will be no default. The Administration can pay the nation's bills. It may have to prioritize which vendors get paid first, but any default would be of the Administrations doing as Congress debates raising the statutory limit on borrowing money.....

But, I must say, when the President states that government spending has nothing to do with the debt ceiling, I question his complete understanding of business, budgeting, borrowing, debt and simple economics.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Rewind: Let the Government Shut Down

I explained what we should do a month ago in my article titled: Let the Government Shutdown

Here it is again (in case you missed it). . .

Let The Government Shut Down

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The budget battle, and the GOP desire to defund Obamacare, has met at a crossroads in Washington. . . and it brings back memories of budget battles of the nineties, between the Republican dominated Congress and President Bill Clinton.  The conventional wisdom is that the republicans lost that battle, but the truth is not quite that.  The fear of the media misconstruing the facts regarding the shutdown, as they did in 1995, has the GOP nervous.  Should they shut down the government?  Will they lose the battle of "image with the public" through the eyes of the biased media?  Or should they grow a pair and do what needs to be done and let the government shutdown?

A Government Shutdown is not the ultimate desire, but a necessity to defund the defundable parts of the Affordable Care Act.  The democrats have already begun their attacks, claiming it is the republicans that want to shutdown the government over a silly little thing like "keeping healthcare away from Americans."

The GOP needs to turn that argument around.  They need to explain it is the opposite.  Obama and the democrats are willing to defund the entire government rather than sign a bill that does not contain funding for their precious government intrusion into the health insurance industry - despite the opposition of a majority of Americans.

Fascinatingly, Obama has been working to defund his own law, losing revenue by delaying the employer mandate, effectively losing revenue that would have materialized from the penalties.

Reducing the burden on employers, or at least that was their excuse, and the delay of the consumer cost cap until 2015, were not done for the reasons stated, but to delay the catastrophe of rising costs and rising premiums that would result when those provisions go into effect.  The law is designed to destroy the private health insurance industry so that the people will begin begging for "single payer" to save them from the mean ol' insurance companies.

A loss of revenue, and the rising cost of funding the law, poses a threat that could greatly increase the amount of funding.  That alone should make us realize the danger this law poses to our economy.  For the sake of slowing down our rapidly rising national debt, we must defund the whole failed monstrosity.  The drain on the treasury, the insidious nature of the law that combines the destruction of a private industry while allowing government to gain control of our lives through medical dictates, and the unconstitutional nature of the law from its establishment to the constant delay and modification of provisions by President Obama, is reason enough to do what can be done to defund it.

The republicans, however, in order for that to happen, have to be willing to stand behind their resolve, even if it means allowing a government shutdown. . .  because the democrats refuse to sign a budget without funding for Obamacare being in it.

By refusing to accept a budget with Obamacare defunded, Obama and his minions are willing to defund the entire government, shutting everything down, and if the GOP would just recognize it that way, and articulate that reality to the American people, they will win the battle of words over the impending budget battle.

As for the concern that a government shutdown will ruin the next election for the republicans, we must remember that despite conventional wisdom, the GOP did not lose last time this happened as we are being told.

Representative Mike Lee is one of the republicans that seems to have grown a pair.  He says we have to defund Obamacare.  This is the last gasp.  This is the last chance.  We must do it, even if it means allowing the government to shutdown because the democrats refuse to sign a bill without funding for Obamacare in it.

The delays the democrats keep putting into place is evidence that Obamacare damages the economy.  That is why they keep delaying everything until after the 2014 election.  They need the House, and if Obamacare is not revealed for the failure it is before the election, they think they can take the House of Representatives.

The Republicans are gun-shy because they have been convinced that they lost the 1995 budget battle, and the media is already saying the republicans will lose the House in 2014 if they let the government shutdown now.  Allowing the government to shutdown has the republicans scared out of their minds.  The 1995 budget battles, as far as the GOP establishment is concerned, resulted in a series of disasters.  They believe that because that is how the media portrayed it.  But after that battle, the republicans won seats in the Senate, and they held the House.  Not exactly evidence that it was a failure.

On paper, the budget battle in 1995 was not a disaster, but a big success.  The GOP was just too afraid to correct the media when they painted it otherwise.

The economy was not a disaster after the government shutdown in 1995, either.  It resulted in a slowdown of the growth of government.  Children didn't starve, the elderly did not eat cat food out of cans, and entitlement checks did not cease to be written.  Reductions in spending occurred, and the economy benefited as a result.

And remember, part of the problem was the republicans did not have any allies in the media, but now they have the new media.  Now the conservative blogs will go to bat for them.  The results should be even more favorable, because voters just want the GOP to act like the opposition party they claim to be.  Voters wish for them to stand up to the democrats, and actually have enough intestinal fortitude to follow through with whatever it takes to stop the liberal leftist madness that Obama and his minions have been inflicting on this nation's economy.

There is an entire conservative media that will battle the propaganda put out by the leftist media.  The fears of the Republican leadership is not totally unfounded, but those fears are not completely realistic, either.  Their fears are based on silly notions put out there by the democrats and their compliant press. The republicans must defund Obamacare, even if it means a government shutdown.  It is time for the republicans to finally stand up to the democrats and say, "Enough is enough.  We are going to fight this fight, and quit being afraid."

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Winning the Government-Shutdown Fight - Daniel J. Mitchell - National Review Online

Sen. Mike Lee Threatens Government Shutdown Over Obamacare - Real Clear Politics

How ObamaCare could cost Republicans the House in 2014 - Yahoo! News

Is ObamaCare a stepping stone to government-controlled health care? - Fox News

Hard Starboard Radio: Zero Hour

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A tornado in my junkyard; NBCCCP gives The One a week-long ObamaCare informercial, and it's all coming out of Brian Williams' Chuck Todd's pay; Here comes the O train; Is a shutdown a shutdown, or merely a shutdown?  Who knows?  But there's no confusion over who'll get stomped into chunky salsa over it, so why be civil on the way down?

Kickoff's at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific.  Buckle your seat belts, for whatever it'll be worth....

Gosar On Kerry Signing The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty

by JASmius

Cam Edwards spoke with Representative Paul Gosar, R-AZ4, about the impact of Secretary of State John Kerry signing the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty on NRA News.....

Bob Woodward Slams Obama Over the Debt & Shutdown

by JASmius

Did that MSNBCCCP sub head really say "[Obama's] quiet leadership"?  Is that what churning up divot storms is called these days?  Wow, who knew?





And what's with Woodward wandering off the reservation again?  Did somebody spike his tap water with conscienceantium or something?  What would Bernstein say?

SNL's Obamacare Skit Features Hilarious Confusion Over New Law

by JASmius

The real road to defeating ObamaCare - since it can't be stopped, let O and the Dems REALLY own it....




Remember, Christ lay in Joseph's tomb for almost two days before He rose again.....

Sunday Meetings

By Douglas V. Gibbs

One of the things I have learned as the new election season approaches is that my message of grassroots conservatism and a return to the Constitution is a message folks like to hear. After I spend a few minutes with a person, they quickly come to the conclusion that I should be more than local Constitution teacher, and public speaker.  People are sick of the Republicans acting little different than the Democrats.    Having a constitutionalist in the mix is very appealing to folks. They want nothing more to do with professional politicians, and they are tired of the Republicans refusing to go toe to toe with the Democrats (save for a brave few like Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz).   The culture in Washington needs to change, and preferably back to what was originally intended by the founders.

The 42nd District is a new district, gerrymandered to protect Ken Calvert's slot in Congress. Corona remains the dominant city in the district, and nobody has been able to dislodge Calvert for twenty years.  Everybody loves Calvert, people say.

Voters love Ken because they have never had a viable choice.  Calvert is always the lessor of two evils.  They hold their nose and pull the lever for Ken Calvert because the alternative is much more repulsive than the prostitute-friendly member of the GOP who also uses his position for personal gain.

On Sunday I met with a friend who is helping me with a website.  He agrees with folks out there.  I need to infiltrate Washington.  Perhaps.

Stay tuned.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Hard Starboard Radio Weekend - Live!

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Continuing where Thursday's bluescreen attack left off....

The 2012 election made ObamaCare inevitable, no matter what Ted Cruz thinks; but that makes its collapse inevitable as well.  And that could not only make repeal and replace possible, but could boomerang against Medicare as well; plus Red Barry proves his multitasking abilities by strengthening Bashir Assad, the Muslim Brotherhood, and al Qaeda at the same time, and a golden opportunity for the GOP, if only the Tea Party would get out of the way.

Join the fun at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific.  Unless you really believe Carrie Underwood even knows who Al and Chris are.

Constitution Radio Re-Run. . . Sort of

Last Saturday during the San Jacinto Agriculture Festival, we broadcast live from the event.  The problem was, we were preempted by exciting University of Redlands Football, so we broadcast live on the Ken Pettigrew Show, saved it, and will now be replaying the show today on KCAA 1050 AM.

Listen on KCAA, or Online at KCAAradio.com, or with your Smart Phone App you got at KCAAexpress.com, or by calling 832-999-1050.

Meanwhile, I will take the day off, and return next Saturday with yet another riveting episode of Constitution Radio with Douglas V. Gibbs.

A Word To Rioting Muslims

by JASmius

We don't care if you're offended, and we never will. Get used to it.

UPDATE: This story seems a ready-made companion to the fiery vid above:

A shoe was thrown at Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's motorcade Saturday as he arrived home to a mixed reception after his historic call with Barack Obama, an AFP correspondent reported.

Iranian newspapers hailed the first contact with a US president in more than three decades as the ending of a long taboo.

Yes, because Shiite jihadists have no taboo against receiving verbal analingus from their infidel enemy before they behead him.

But his 15-minute conversation with the leader of a country long derided as the "Great Satan" was too much for some hardliners.

Nearly 60 gathered outside Tehran's Mehrabad Airport, chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" as his motorcade passed....

The shoe was thrown as Rouhani stood up through the sunroof of his car to acknowledge the crowd. It failed to hit its target.  

The throwing of shoes is regarded as an act of contempt or protest. The act gained notoriety in 2008 when a protester hurled shoes at President George W. Bush during a press conference with then Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Bush dodged the attack.

Really?  It's not a token of esteem, or a paen to Buster Brown?  Does this mean I get to wing one of my size 10 1/2's at whatever hack AP writer finagled a way to insert the adjective "historic" into yet another Red Barry story for the ten billion and third time?

Wait 'till "Tiger" takes Rouhani golfing.  They'll be hurling divots and dead gophers at him next.

Rouhani, too.

Best Seven Minutes On Gun Control You'll Ever See

by JASmius

In this segment of his Virtual State of the Union, the Virtual President talks about why politicians want to talk about gun control rather than crime control...

A Face Of The Enemy

by JASmius

....or, we must know not just why we fight, but who we're supposed to be fighting.

American Daily Review Radio: Disagreements?

Disagreements?  JASmius and I ain't got no stinkin' disagreements!

Okay, fine, maybe a few.

02:00

American Daily Review

"Your point, sir?" "It's what Romney said about better days," JASmius answered, adopting a surprising tone of respect as he talked about the former Massachusetts governor. "Even if we don't get enough votes here now, maybe... more

by ADR Radio

in Politics Conservative

Noon Pacific

"A New Lease - And A Warning - From The Landlord"

by JASmius

Yes, that post title is the closing line from 2010: The Year We Make Contact, in case any of you were flummoxed by the reference.  I am a walking repository of niche pop culture from the '70s and '80s, as followers of my podcasts and Constitution Radio are already aware, and love using their references to illustrate points.  Which only consistently works when my audience isn't below the age of forty or so; some time back I was explaining something to a youngster the tender age of 27 and made an Artie Johnson/Laugh-In reference ("Veeeeeerrry Interesting...").  He just stared at me like a gaffed fish.  Which is most of the rest of why I indulge in this pastime.  What's that saying?  "If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em."  Because as often as not, they're already pretty confused to begin with.

Anyhoo, since today is "Status Update Day" on Political Pistachio, I thought I would do my part to rip off Facebook in these hallowed environs.  Starting with the trap door that opened on Thursday afternoon about a third of the way through the Hard Starboard Radio podcast.  My blogcasting computer bluescreened and took my router down with it; I couldn't reconnect to Blog Talk Radio and spent most of the day yesterday procuring a replacement and hanging on the phone with a gentleman from the other side of the planet who sounded like his office was sublet from the QuickieMart getting it set up on my home network.  $120 later it's STILL not completely set up, but I'm back online where it counts.  Just didn't want anybody to labor under the misconception that I was tied up in Ted Cruz's basement or something.  While the Landlord may be "baaaaaaaack," I have, in fact, not departed.

In point of fact, I have technically been here for quite some time - several years, in fact.  I haven't posted much, or at all, until the past few weeks because until recently I, too, had an "incredible" schedule, which effectively shut down my own blog sufficiently that the hackers took down whatever was left.  The freeing up of my time coincided serendipitously with the congressman-in-waiting's embarkation on the road to high office, and I have been able, pleased, and honored to "keep the lights on," even if some of you can't always say the same.

But you know what?  That's okay.  Disagreements between friends, allies, and comrades happen all the time; that need not turn them into enemies, particularly when they, and those depending upon them, really need each other.  Or so I have always thought.

I would not classify myself as "establishment," as I've always been far more of an outsider than I've ever been a "joiner".  Nor do I consider myself "Republican Party," as, believe it or not, I've engaged in more than one anti-"establishment" rant over the years.  Which I'd be happy to regale any listeners/readers with upon request.

No, friends, I am a Reagan/Buckley conservative - and, from what I can see, perhaps the last one.  Reagan in the sense that I am an across-the-board, rock-ribbed right-winger, but have learned not to take life too seriously (...."or you'll never get out of it alive," as Bugs Bunny used to say) or to underestimate the need to cultivate, recruit - and convince - allies if the Cause is to ultimately succeed; Buckley in the sense that "Standing astride history, yelling, 'STOP!'" is but the first step in a very long counter trek, the corollary being, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, it doesn't consist of one" - and doesn't justify breaking one's own legs for not being long enough.

I am also "the twenty-first century Jeremiah".  Like the ancient Jewish prophet, it has become my lot in life to dispense unhappy truths to countrymen who don't want to hear them.  I haven't been thrown down a cistern yet, so to that extent "gentleness" would be appreciated.  But otherwise it makes no nevermind to me how spirited any of y'all want to get when I take the Tea Party to well-deserved task.  It's the pioneers who take the arrows, after all.  And being a long time veteran of many a message board war with the worst flying monkey brigades the Left has to offer, I can say with unshakable confidence that no TPer would ever conceive of the kind of profane, obscene, depraved ripostes that have oozed and seeped across my monitor screen.  Which is the actual definition of "tripe," by the way.

"I am large, I contain multitudes" - but I never contradict myself.  That I let myself remember, anyway.  If I do, blame it on Walt Whitman, the filthy RINO.

Seeing as how it's highly doubtful that Mr. Gibbs will get less busy any time soon, I'll still be a regular contributor here.  Perhaps cross-posting once I set up new digs of my own, but posting here nonetheless.  For, to quote Ambassador Spock, "Nowhere am I so desperately needed as among a shipload of illogical Tea Partiers."

Besides, if Doug wins, he just might wind up as my boss.  If that isn't incentive enough for y'all to bust a spleen to cashier Ken Calvert, nothing is.

I'm Baaaaaaack to post on Political Pistachio. . .

By Douglas V. Gibbs

My schedule has been incredible.  I have been working so many hours, and performing so many tasks regarding my efforts on the Constitution, that I haven't even had time to open my computer, much less write.  My friend, JASmius, has been holding down the fort while I was away.  He is as conservative as I am, though we differ on some of the political strategies. He's more "Republican Party," and I am a little more "TEA Party."

While he searches for a new blog to create, and knew ways to proclaim his belief that the TEA Party is destroying the GOP, he is still always welcome to write here.  For those of you that were ready to string him up, tar and feather him, be gentle, he is still a good friend of mine.  And he knows to begin his establishment rants with "By JASmius" so that you know it ain't me saying that kind of tripe.

I am not expecting to get back to full throttle any time soon when it comes to my own writing, but I should be able to begin putting a post on this site here and there.  The worst of the late-nights at work should be over (though I haven't gotten home before 7:30 PM, or awakened later than 3:30 AM, all week - I even woke up at 3AM this morning), giving me more time to write, speak, teach, host, and campaign.

Busy is good.  Good things are never easy to obtain.  Hard work garners results.

Oh, by the way, that full plate of stuff I do?  I threw on "running for Congress," just to make things interesting.

:)

Blessings,

Douglas V. Gibbs
www.politicalpistachio.com

President Twink

Fair Tax? Okay, Wild Bill, I like your exuberance, but how about we just repeal the 16th Amendment? -- Douglas V. Gibbs




-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

first Douglas V. Gibbs For Congress meeting

Good morning.  The Douglas V. Gibbs For Congress campaign is in its infancy.  We are just getting started.  We are working on the paperwork, we should have the campaign website up by next week, and we are forming the infrastructure of the organization now. Volunteers are needed. Leaders are needed. Fundraisers are an absolute necessity.

If you wish to volunteer for the campaign, Saturday night's meeting in Temecula urges your attendance.   We will be at the Lake Village Clubhouse at 4:00 pm.  The address is 30151 Rancho Vista, Temecula - across from Vail Elementary school.

I hope to see you there.

Blessings,

Douglas V. Gibbs

Temecula Constitution Class: The Emancipation Proclamation Did Not End Slavery

In a brilliant strategic move to get Europe out of the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln devised the Emancipation Proclamation to make the war all about slavery.  This put Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who owned no slaves, at a disadvantage - and set Union General Ulysses Grant, who owned slaves, up for a heroic victory.

But Lincoln's War of Northern Aggression was not done. Military occupation forced the Southern States into submission, and Amendments 13, 14, and 15 were proposed and ratified under duress.

Join us at 6:30 at Faith Armory Gun Store on Winchester Rd. in Temecula for tonight's incredible discussion.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Hard Starboard Radio: Let ObamaCare Collapse

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The 2012 election made ObamaCare inevitable, no matter what Ted Cruz thinks; but that makes its collapse inevitable as well.  And that could not only make repeal and replace possible, but could boomerang against Medicare as well; plus more on Airsoft-gate, and Red Barry proves his multitasking abilities by strengthening Bashir Assad, the Muslim Brotherhood, and al Qaeda at the same time.

Join us at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific, and let Ted rest his tired feet.

Obama Claims Health Care is A "Right"

by JASmius

Rather ironic given that OCare is designed to take that "right" away from us.  But then he's not claiming that health care is a right; he's decreeing it as a right.  He's saying that he has given us this right.  And what King Hussein giveth, King Hussein can taketh away, if we don't live our lives "responsibly"....



It's rather heartening to see O out on the stump giving that same dumbass speech again.  He's doing more to harm OCare in those few brief remarks than Ted Cruz could have in a week-long filibuster.

Boehner To The Rescue

by JASmius

Another voice of reason joins the fray:

The Republican base must not require its representatives in Congress to run off a cliff and commit suicide as the price of avoiding a primary challenge in 2014. The Tea Party must not eat its young.

Polling shows that there are nowhere near the pre-conditions in place that would be necessary for a government shutdown over defunding ObamaCare. Americans oppose defunding it by 44% to 38%, according to a recent CNBC All-America Economic Survey -- and when it comes to shutting down the government to force its defunding, opposition swells to 19-59.

To force Republican congressmen to side with the 19s against the 59s is to endanger the gains the party made in 2010 and hasten the day of Democratic control of the House.

Predicted Tea Partier response: "Oh, come on, Dick Morris worked for Bill Clinton!  You and he are just part of the "GOP progressive conspiracy!"  Only they'll probably use more exclamation points.

Anybody who has read my blogs and listened to my podcasts knows my dubiousness regarding media polling.  But bias cannot account for a forty-point polling deficit on public opposition to a government shutdown.  Is it really that lopsided?  Probably not; I've seen other polls that are a lot closer; but they all still show net public opposition to shutting down the government for any reason, including (nominal) defunding of ObamaCare, and that the Republicans would bear more of the blame for it.

And yes, I remember the 1995-96 shutdown showdowns between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich.  Newt won the first one, Sick Willie won the second one.  He used that win to secure his own re-election, which is why it didn't also redound to the benefit of congressional Dems.  And yes, Republicans only remember the second showdown and not the first.  But remember two things: (1) in politics, perception is nine-tenths of reality, and guess who defines reality to the LIVs and NIVs?;  and (2) in the 1995-96 shutdown showdowns, Republicans controlled the Senate as well as the House, so it was a direct confrontation between Congress and the White House; here it's between the House on one side and the White House and Senate on the other, so O won't even be directly involved.  And with the media propaganda juggernaut in full crucifixtion mode, 'Pubbies can't count on congressional Dems not benefitting from shutdown fallout.

Morris echoes my argument thusly:

Republicans should pass enough of a debt-limit expansion to accommodate debt service payments for thirty days and then demand that any further expansion be subject to spending cuts. Eliminating the medical device tax, scaling back ObamaCare, capping means-tested entitlements like Medicaid and food stamps and even basic tax reform should be on the agenda. Having cut discretionary spending to very low levels, Republicans should turn to entitlements -- not Social Security or Medicare, but to welfare spending, and insist on caps.

If the Democrats stand firm and demand a clean debt-limit expansion, Republicans could then force a government shutdown by refusing to raise the debt limit (except to pay debt service already owed). While this will be the same battle as the one that ensued over the continuing resolution, it would be on very different and much more advantageous terrain. Voters would see the link between spending cuts and the debt limit and would heartily approve of the Republican position. President Obama, on the other hand, would find himself begging to be allowed more borrowing -- not a good message to have to sell. [emphasis added]

A much better hill to die on, indeed.  And look who's coming to Ted Cruz's rescue:

Speaker John Boehner said Thursday the GOP-controlled House will not accept a temporary spending bill from the Democratic Senate if it is shorn clean of a tea party plan to "defund Obamacare."

"I don't see that happening," Boehner told reporters.

At the same time, the Ohio Republican said House GOP leaders would unveil legislation to lift the government's borrowing cap, but only if the new health care law is delayed for a year. He defended that measure's relatively modest spending cuts even as some rank-and-file conservatives pressed for more.

IOW, resistance, my friends, is not futile; but let's do so with our heads, not our hearts.

UPDATE: Is Tom Coburn a "RINO"?  Or Rick Perry?  Are we really supposed to believe that Ted Cruz and Mike Lee (oh, sorry, and Sarah Palin) are the only "True Conservatives" left, and that entitles them to be the sole arbiters of same?

Kerry Signs UN Arms Treaty - or "There Go Our Guns"

by JASmius

Global Marxists are trying to impose global slavery on ALL of us! To do this they MUST first disarm us!

First of all, chill out, dude.  You hasten that endgame by so shrilly warning of it in such a silly, overheated manner, because the LIVs and NIVs will just roll their eyes and launder their prayer rugs.

As to Lurch signing the UN Arms Treaty, which has as its dual aim (1) surrendering the Second Amendment to Turtle Bay and (2) barring the U.S. from providing military aid to key allies such as Taiwan, South Korea, and most especially, Israel, while the Russians and ChiComms continue arming Iran, Syria, and North Korea willy-nilly, "international law" be damned, remember that Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Treaty global warming treaty back in the mid-90s, too. It died in the Senate. So will this one, unless you really believe, as Ted Cruz doubtless does, that half the GOP Senate caucus will vote "aye" to get to the two-thirds need for ratification.

The difference here, of course, is that O will implement it anyway, by force.  Leaving the question of whether We, The People, are heavily armed enough when that day comes.

Common Core Forces Unlawful Conduct Endorsement in Mississippi

by JASmius

Three observations to see

1.) Parents want their questions answered to why United Nations' Declaration, favoring Gay Marriage, is being endorsed, promoted, and discussed in ELA class when it is unlawful in MS.

2.) A former Dean of the College of Education, now Dr. Lynn House Interim State Superintendent of Education, has never heard of the U.N.? UNESCO? The U.N. Declaration of Human Rights that includes a heavy homosexual bias in Common Core curriculum? Hasn't heard from previous nights of lectures from parents who disapprove of teacher's authoritative approval of what is unlawful in our state? Dr. House gives the impression of being either incompetent with inexcusable ignorance or a liar.

3.) Something called Delphi Techniques (to control you) used at this meeting to frustrate parents so they'll give up.

Watch for:

A. No time for parents to ask questions to correct/confirm misconceptions.

B. Signal to Security on stage to sound the disruptive noise.

C. MDOE Staff member tells moms " WE HAD OUR DISCUSSION WE'RE DONE! WE'RE DONE"! Proving it was their discussion not a forum as promoted.

D. Dismissing, even turning away from, and ending conversation with anyone who fails to fully support common core, parent seen now as a waste of their time.

E. Answering questions, that every parent wanted to hear, in crowded, noisy setting, where Dr. House was seen even talking very quietly so no one could hear.

F. Dr. House stalling asking mom to send her something in writing but only after being pressed. Clearly Dr. House did NOT want to be "involved."

E. House selectively passing out her business cards and not even keeping them on her person to waste a little time.

Ted Cruz Declares War On Math & Reality

by JASmius

Senator Cruz appears to be the only person in Obamerika who didn't get the memo on the results of the 2012 election:

Slightly more than an hour after speaking nearly a full day on the Senate floor, Texas Senator Ted Cruz continued his battle against Obamacare on Rush Limbaugh's radio program on Wednesday, charging his fellow Republicans with a "defeatist attitude" that manifested itself through empty "show votes" that deceive constituents.

"Part of what's so problematic with Washington is how many Republicans want a show vote to pretend to their constituents they're fighting for what they say they're fighting for, rather than actually fighting for it and actually winning," the freshman Republican senator told Limbaugh.

"In both parties, you've got entrenched politicians who have barely veiled contempt for the American people," Cruz said. "They think their voters are gullible rubes — and you give them a little 'show vote,' you tell them, 'Hey, I'm totally with you,' then they go to Washington and they don't actually do what they say."

It's not "defeatism" when you actually did lose last November, Senator.  If we had a Republican majority in the Senate and Mitt Romney in the White House and there was GOP foot-dragging about getting rid of ObamaCare, I would not only concede your point but would have beaten you to the punch by a wide margin.  But that's not the case.  The other side still has the presidency, still has the Senate (by a wider margin) and holds the House (by a narrower margin).  That plainly and simply limits what your party can do, and that much less so about an ambition, an infernal dream, that the American Left pursued for over seven decades and will not give up anywhere near as easily as you seem to think they will.  That's not defeatism, Senator; it's a rational recognition of reality.  It majorly sucks, but the fact that we don't like it doesn't change it.

Otto Van Bismarck once said, "Politics is the art of the possible".  Defunding ObamaCare is not possible, because most of the funding is statutory, not discretionary..  And eliminating the discretionary part is functionally impossible as well, because your party simply doesn't have the numbers, and therefore the clout, to do it.  The vexing thing is that you seem to believe that that can be changed if Republicans just try hard enough, as though it were nothing more than a function of effort and virtue.  To quote one of Murphy's Laws, "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong - but that's the way to bet."  Or, as Narnian High King Peter Pevensie replied when his Centaur lieutenant said of Jadis The White Witch's much larger army, "Number do not win a battle," "No; but I bet they help."  This is not a battle that Republicans don't want to have; it's a battle that seemingly every Republican but you can plainly see isn't winnable.

Which is why I question your motivations, sir.  Whatever else you may be, Senator, you are not a stupid man.  Quite the opposite; from your Princeton education to your clerking for federal appellate court judges and Chief Justice William Rehnquist to serving as Texas's solicitor general, you have amply demonstrated your mental wattage.  So I simply cannot believe that you don't see what a fool's errand your crusade is.  But my cranial capabilities aren't inconsiderable either, and it isn't difficult to see how you've laid out your pieces on the old Klin zha board.  Your ambitions for higher office aren't exactly a secret.  By launching this one-man blitzkrieg, you raise your national profile and get a leg up on consolidating the entire Tea Party wing behind you, and rev them up all the more by smearing your own party as "squishes" and "sellouts" and "part of the problem" - hence your obnoxious "Washington establishment" mantra when you should be railing at Red Barry and the Democrats, who did, after all, foist ObamaCare on the country over unanimous GOP opposition.  The hype and momentum build through 2016, when you sweep, Reagan-like, to the nomination, and the burgeoning tsunami sweeps you into the White House.  Where is OCare in all this?  Why, still in place and, by that time, entrenched forever.  But you figure we'll all forget that little detail.

Of course, there are some flaws in that scenario.  For one, the media that put Barack Obama in the White House years, decades before he would ever have been ready (if ever) will, to put it outrageously mildly, not do you that same favor.  But you also grievously misperceive President Reagan as well.  When his bid for the 1976 GOP presidential nomination against President Ford fell agonizingly short, the Tea Party of his day, enraged and embittered at the so-called "GOP establishment," urged, nigh begged, him to run a third party candidacy in the general campaign, for no other reason than to screw Ford.  He easily could have; but he didn't.  Instead of rivening the party and handing Jimmy Carter a huge landslide, Dutch instead loyally supported and campaigned for Ford that fall.  After the president's narrow defeat, the way to the '80 Republican nomination was open.  Because it was Reagan's "turn," and because he hadn't burned his bridges behind him, he won the nomination and defeated Jimmy Carter, and the rest is history.

What President Reagan understood, and you quite evidently do not, Senator, is that (1) ideas do not sell themselves; they need a viable candidate to serve as their vehicle; and (2) candidates do not get elected without a viable national platform from which to run - i.e. political parties.  If the Gipper had taken the advice of the TPers of his day, it might have been cathartic, but it would also have doomed the cause in which he believed, and the country right along with it by guaranteeing Jimmy Carter a second term.  He knew he needed the Republican Party as the vehicle for his candidacy in order to actually have a chance of getting elected; just as he knew that only by winning the election could he get in the position to implement his ideas into public policy.

Senator Cruz, I remember Ronald Reagan; Ronald Reagan was a friend of mine; and you, sir, are no Ronald Reagan.  You demand the ends but sabotage the means; you want to become president, but you seek to do so by alienating large swaths of your own party instead of reaching out to them, appealing to their "better natures," bringing together and unifying them against the real enemy.  You're not willing to listen, but instead insist that it's your way or the highway, and anybody who differs with you to the slightest degree on anything is a "defeatist" worthy of only your dripping, abject contempt.

Senator, it is you who isn't listening to the American people, because while they are nominally against ObamaCare, most also know little or nothing about it; it's an abstraction to them, which is why that opposition is a mile wide and an inch deep - how else to explain their re-electing Red Barry a year ago?  Nor are more than a small fraction even paying attention to your conspicuously herculean efforts to force an unwinnable government shutdown showdown.  The only thing that will decisively turn them against OCare is its taking effect - a fact of which you are clearly aware since you are doing everything you can to get out in front of that wave so as to take credit it for it when it comes and use it as a cudgel to further bludgeon your own party.

Ever hear of the "Eleventh Commandment," Senator?  It says, "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican".  Know who originated it?  Ronald Reagan.  And he did so in a time when there really wasn't a dime's worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats, and the former were saying mighty unkind things about him.  Because of the Reagan Revolution, and later the Gingrich Revolution in Congress, the GOP today is far more conservative than it was when the Gipper came to Washington.  You would take a big step towards restoring your honor by acknowledging that, and remembering that we really are all in this together.

Exit question: Is Krauthammer now a "defeatist" too?

Dork Tossing

by JASmius

This Brazilian store owner has got to get a surveillance camera inside his establishment as well.  I think we missed the best part of this vid....

Hard Starboard Radio: Vanity & Wind

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Ted Cruz spends twenty two hours raising his profile, his Republican colleagues' blood pressure, and very little else; and, oh by the way, voted to bring the House continuing resolution he just spent a day stalling to the floor, where Harry Reid will gut it of OCare defunding right on schedule; New York City prepares to elect a Sandanista mayor; John Kerry turns the Second Amendment over to Turtle Bay; and we do our small part to unembargo an untold story.

Join us at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific.  Because we are the droids you've been looking for.

ObamaCare Sticker Shock

by JASmius

The lowest current and Obamacare premiums for an unmarried, 27-year-old in select metro areas in 36 states where the federal government will oversee exchanges: 

State	City	Exchange  Premiums	Current  Premiums
Alabama	Birmingham	$170	$80
Alaska	Anchorage	$254	$79
Arizona	Phoenix	$139	$50
Arkansas	Little Rock	$190	$31
Delaware		$203	$51
Florida	Miami	$163	$66
Georgia	Atlanta	$166	$43
Idaho	Boise	$145	$59
Illinois	Chicago	$125	$74
Indiana	Indianapolis	$204	$84
Iowa	Cedar Rapids	$132	$70
Kansas	Wichita	$121	$43
Louisiana	New Orleans	$170	$39
Maine	Portland	$192	$122
Michigan	Detroit	$138	$55
Mississippi	Jackson	$199	$58
Missouri	St. Louis	$147	$64
Montana	Bozeman	$147	$66
Nebraska	Omaha	$162	$26
New Hampshire		$186	$149
New Jersey		$219	$162
New Mexico	Albuquerque	$126	$38
North Carolina	Charlotte	$183	$35
North Dakota	Fargo	$175	$47
Ohio	Columbus	$205	$47
Oklahoma	Oklahoma City	$105	$54
Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	$195	$73
South Carolina	Columbia	$166	$55
South Dakota	Sioux Falls	$196	$89
Tennessee	Nashville	$114	$41
Texas	Houston	$138	$63
Utah	Salt Lake	$143	$72
Virginia	Fairfax County	$144	$44
West Virginia	Huntington	$176	$96
Wisconsin	Milwaukee	$200	$69
Wyoming	Cheyenne	$271	$82

This will do more to genuinely turn the American people growlingly against Barack Obama's infernal masterpiece than weeks of Ted Cruz's windy grandstanding.  The 51% voted to keep King Hussein and a Democrat Senate in power; now they will have to accept the consequences of that apocalyptic foolishness - or demand its total and complete overthrow.

Making Waves

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The last couple weeks my presence on Political Pistachio has been anemic. Thankfully, JASmius has kept the site active and informative. I am grateful for his assistance on my blog.

On my already heaping plate we are piling on everything we can as a part of our effort to change the culture of politics back towards the principles of the U.S. Constitution.   These efforts include Constitution classes, the radio program, events, articles, and any chance I can get public speaking.

And now we have added just a bit more.

To change the culture in Washington, my efforts need to shift to "within".

Perhaps we should run for office.

Just thinking aloud.

Blessings,

Douglas V. Gibbs

Meghan McCain: "I'm, Like, Y'Know, Done With Chris Christie'n @#$%"

by JASmius

I can just picture the big man going down his to-do list between double quarter pounders: "....count my moles, perm the hair on my back, ah, here it is, give a rat's ass what Meghan McCain thinks...":



M&M is only over Double-C if she's been devouring triple quarter pounders with a backhoe, and I'm pretty sure McDonalds doesn't offer those, or they wouldn't have killed the Angus Third Pounder, the bastards.  Although it does appear that she's been living on the dollar menu, at the very least.

I'd love to see if Piers Morgan actually asked Darth Queeg's Failure To Make A Run To The Drug Store just exactly how "pushing one's agenda" is automatically mutually exclusive from "supporting one's party," except for, you know, Piers Morgan.  He probably spent the whole interview attempting his "Davie Jones in the Monkees era" impression.  Because, you know, unlike British women, M&M doesn't have Ferengi teeth.

Okay, I can't completely bury M&M (unless I can borrow the governor's backhoe); her January 2011 crack to Lawrence O'Donnell about Michele Bachmann being a "poor man’s Sarah Palin" (and even more annoying) was pretty good.  So much so that I'd be reluctant to break it to her that there won't be a 2016 election because Barack Obama is never leaving.  Maybe just an urge to grab some Angry Whoppers while she still can; you can get those in triples.

Hard Starboard Radio: Zombie Control

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Airsoft control; if the truth doesn’t serve social justice (and it rarely if ever does) — well, tell a noble lie, or ANY lie, as long as The Narrative is advanced; President Red Lines discovers a tactic to use against the Iranian nuclear weapons campaign that nobody, NOBODY had ever conceived of before - time-wasting, circle-jerking diplomacy!  See, THAT's why we have a demigod in the White House; Cruz & Lee's too-clever-by-a-bunch "filibuster the OCare defunding continuing resolution we demanded the House pass" gambit plays to a chorus of crickets; Thomas Sowell joins the camp of reason; and here come the true way out of ObamaCare - the wave of "trainwrecks" to come.

Login at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific, and listen to Internet Explorer get its turn.

Obamacare Glitch Could Leave Out Thousands Of Kids

by JASmius

No amount of self-righteous posturing and dubious, self-defeating last stands can even slow down ObamaCare at this point.  The only thing that will truly turn the American people against it and make actual repeal politically possible  - not likely, but possible - is for it to take effect.  Which is why the Regime keeps delaying more and more of it.

Here's another case in point:

Hundreds of thousands of children could be left without health insurance due to an oversight in the Affordable Care Act.

Obamacare caps the cost of affordable coverage at no more than 9.5 percent of family income. Individuals with employer-provided coverage and their families cannot get subsidized coverage through state health exchanges, USA Today reports.

But due to an oversight, the section of the healthcare law dealing with employer-mandated coverage only applies to the employee. If a company chooses not to offer family benefits, millions of children and families would be forced into the exchanges but would be ineligible for subsidies.

By one estimate, 500,000 children could be affected, USA Today reports.

The alternative, which is to purchase a plan privately, might be a financial impossibility since it costs an average of $15,700 per year, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation estimate.

"We saw this 2½ years ago and thought, 'Has anyone else noticed this?'" Kosali Simon, a professor of public affairs at Indiana University who specializes in health economics, told USA Today. "Everyone said, 'No, no. You must be wrong.' But we weren't, and that's going to leave a lot of people out."

This is just one of the PR time bombs waiting to blow up in The One's face.  Jim Geraghty highlights three more today.

Of course, we have to remember that the White House doesn't look at these as bugs, but as features designed to panic Da Peepul into stampeding towards Single Payer.  That will be the moment of truth for Republicans, when they will need to be ready with a united front behind full repeal and replacement of OCare with genuine, market-based health care reform that most Americans will be ready, willing, and able to full-throatedly get behind.  It will be a moment that will never come again.

It'd be a criminally negligent shame if the Tea Party-instigated GOP civil war was raging so loudly that no Pachyderm noticed.

Woman Arrested For...Letting Her Children Play Outside

by JASmius

I'm noticing a trend here....:



Did I say "busybodying" earlier this morning?  My apologies, I was too kind; this is Obamunist drones following the example set by their infernal lord and master by butting into the private business of innocent neighbors to persecute them for not living the way the drones have been propagandized by the Regime to believe EVERYBODY should live.  This bulldyke considers allowing one's children to ride their scooters around the cul de sac while one looks on from one's front yard to be "child endangerment," and rather than just shaking her head or grumbling to herself and going the bleep back inside her own home, she decides that, by Barack, NOBODY is going to raise their kids any different than SHE decides they will, and so calls the cops.  And the arresting officer doesn't do any inquiring as to just exactly what took place that prompted the call, but instead dutifully frog-marches the incredulous mom in chains to the slammer for the "crime" of letting her kids play outside as countless other moms have done since long before scooters were invented.

Good for the mom that she's suing the town clowns and old biddy into the poorhouse.  I hope her legal eagles don't leave a scrap of flesh still attached to their worthless carcasses.

Virginia Student Suspended For Playing With Toy Gun...At Home

by JASmius

In the past, some schools have been rather strict about discouraging gun violence facsimiles to some ridiculous lengths, but at least these incidents occurred on school property. But a seventh grader in Virginia and his friend have now been suspended from school for shooting an airsoft gun... in his front yard.

The two boys were waiting for the bus. They did not bring the toy gun to school, let alone on the bus. It stayed on private property. But that was apparently enough for the Virginia Beach City Public School System to suspend Khalid Caraballo and Aidan Clark and even "recommended to be expelled for a year."

Interestingly enough, the school was not the instigator of the complaint, it was a neighbor who was concerned about the boys playing with the fake gun.

A neighbor saw Khalid shooting the airsoft gun in his front yard. She told the dispatcher, "He is pointing the gun, and it looks like there's a target in a tree in his front yard".

WAVY.com located the 911 caller and spoke to her. She confirmed Khalid was taking target practice using a zombie hunter airsoft gun to kill the zombies. There was also a net behind the target to catch the plastic pellets.

The caller also knew the gun wasn't real and said so, "This is not a real one, but it makes people uncomfortable. I know that it makes me (uncomfortable), as a mom, to see a boy pointing a gun," she told the 911 dispatcher.

The middle school principal was concerned enough about this violent, inhumane rampage to conduct an actual investigation into this, claiming the boys shot at people near the bus stop.

Caraballo's mother admitted he disobeyed her by playing with the gun in the first place, but said any punishment should come from her, not the school.

My, my, my, what a witch's brew of police state idiocy bubbles in this cauldron.

We've got the nosy, busy-bodying neighbor who is as lacking in common sense as she is the ability to comprehend the concept of minding her own damn business.  There's the 911 operator who, instead of reaming the busybody for wasting his time and tying up the 911 when real emergency calls might be trying to get through, dociley passed on her abusively risible call to the cops like a good little drone.  And lastly Mr. Caraballo's principal, who (1) didn't seek to confirm the report (which by that time made the lad sound like the Terminator with an Uzi mowing down every Sarah Connor in the Yellow Pages) by, oh, I don't know, calling Mrs. Caraballo and speaking with her, perhaps?; and (2) remembering his jurisdiction and the limitations of his authority, which do NOT extend to the Caraballos' front yard, which is private property, last anybody checked.

However, being the big-hearted, reasonable fellow that I am, I'm willing to make the gun confiscation lobby a deal: We'll sign off on brownshirt nonsense like the above if y'all agree to the same maniacal crackdown on abortion.  Let Mr. Caraballo and his friend be joined in middle school exile by every little proto-menstruating trollop that sits under a front yard tree and smooches with her hormone storm boyfriend (him, too, BTW).  After all, that's first base, and they could be jumping up and down on home plate in mere moments, right in front of the approaching school bus; can't have the little slut contributing to the infanticide industry; that's why we need Loin Control, after all.  Deal?

C'mon, you don't want to wind up staring down the barrel of an Airsoft, do you?

The Gospel According To Charlie

by JASmius

Because everybody knows that moral advice from a tax cheat is like it came from False Messiah himself:

"Anyone who is familiar with the Bible," Rangel said, should know that "Jesus said you're going to Hell if you don't treat the lesser of his brothers and sisters" with compassion. Republican believers, he explained, will be assessed by a "higher authority" for attempting to thwart government programs that help the poor: "He said he was hungry, you didn't give him food stamps ... He was thirsty, you didn't purify the water ... he said he was naked, you didn't give him Social Security."

NOTE from D[ouble] D:

First of all, God will not judge me based upon how much care my government doles out to people or lack thereof. He will judge me on what I gave above and beyond what is TAKEN from me by Caesar! Jesus said to Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's and Give to GOD that which is God's.

Therefore, We taxpayers give what is required by law to give (Caesar's) and God still expects us to give to HIM (through ministry/churches, feeding programs, helping on an individual and financial basis through our tithing etc...).

Rangel is rewriting the Bible to fit his agenda.

Well, you know the old saying about the devil quoting Scripture to his own ends.

For the record, the passage Rangel is twisting into hemp Twizzler is from Matthew 25:31-46.  Better known as the Olivet Discourse, Matthew 25 is an overview Jesus gave His disciples of "the last days," the times just before Christ's Second Coming.  Verses 31-46 depict the judgment of Tribulation survivors after the risen, glorified LORD has returned to Earth (as opposed to the Great White Throne Judgment, where the resurrected dead of all time will be judged a thousand years later).  These survivors will be judged based on how they regarded and treated Tribulation believers (those who accepted Christ after the Rapture of Church-era believers before the Tribulation period began).  As Revelation illustrates, to be a Christian during these seven years will be a functional death sentence; since they will be forbidden from buying or selling as a consequence of their refusal to accept "the mark of the Beast (AntiChrist)," they will unable to either work or to procure the barest necessities of life - food, clean water, clothing, shelter, medicines, etc.  Their only means of survival will be the charity of what might be termed "the Christian Underground," fellow believers who have eluded AntiChrist's "dragnet"; for these people, doing so will risk the same terminal fate.

Here is the passage, de-Rangelized:

31  “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.  ³² All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; ³³ and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; ³⁶ naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ ³⁷ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ³⁸ And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ³⁹ When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ ⁴⁰ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ 

⁴¹ “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴² for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; ⁴³ I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ ⁴⁴ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not ^[a]take care of You?’ ⁴⁵ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ ⁴⁶ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

In short, Jesus is not referring here to treatment of the poor in general, but treatment of a viciously persecuted minority - Christians - during a specific future period of time - the seven-year Tribulation - at the end of which He will return.  It is also a description of personal charity that has the ultimate risk attached to it, not regime mass theft and welfare enslavement.

As for Good Time Charlie, I'll start lending him an ear when he ponies up my share of his vast "stash".  After all, when he does, he won't just be doing so to me.

IRS Oberfuehrer Lois Lerner Retires

by JASmius

....with full non-ObamaCare healthcare and pension benefits, no doubt:

Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the tea party targeting scandal, has retired, the agency confirmed Monday.

The IRS said in a statement that due to privacy reasons, it could not say any more about Lerner's announcement to retire....

A Democratic aide told Politico that the IRS completed an investigation into Lerner's role in the scandal and was beginning the termination process.

It was concluded that Lerner was "neglectful of duty" and mismanaged her department, but the agency did not find political motivation for the targeting, the aide added.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-CA49, said in a statement that the committee will still most likely need her to testify.

Lerner's retirement "does not alter the Oversight Committee's interest in understanding why applicants for tax exempt status were targeted and inappropriately treated because of their political beliefs," Issa said.

"Her departure does not answer these questions or diminish the Committee's interest in hearing her testimony," he added.

Doesn't change much, other than making a grudging nod to symbolism and covering the IRS' keister.  Eeyore has the punchline:

Thankfully, she’ll no longer be in a position to affect policy as a government employee. Unfortunately, she’ll likely soon be back in a position to affect policy as a government lobbyist, making several times the salary she made before.

And yes, she is getting her pension and taxpayer-provided goodies, for a gestapo-esque job well done.  What, you thought my cynicism was in jest?

Judge Napolitano: Think Twice Before Giving Apple Your Fingerprint

by JASmius

Think twice before giving Apple your fingerprint in light of the NSA admitting that they are stealing information from phone companies...

Hard Starboard Radio: Cruzin' For A Bruisin'

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"The argument I hear most from people boils down to a bunch of epigrams about the importance of fighting. If conservatives don’t fight on ObamaCare where will they fight? If you never fight you’ll never win. Etc. etc.  But conservatives have been fighting ObamaCare for years. And while it’s true that if you never fight you’ll never win, it’s also true that charging into battle when defeat is all but assured is not all that advisable either. Picking your battles isn’t “surrender.” It’s wisdom. I want to get rid of ObamaCare as much as anyone. But I believe the only way to do that at this point is to win back the senate in 2014 and probably the White House in 2016. Even so, I would whole-heartedly support the Defund movement if I didn’t think a government shutdown would hurt those chances.

"Now I know there are all sorts of elaborate and heartfelt theories about why such skepticism is wrong. Fine. But why such skepticism should elicit cries of cowardice, RINOism, and betrayal is beyond me. Disagreements over tactics shouldn’t amount to heresy. We’re not Bolsheviks."

Leading to the question of the day: Is Ted Cruz a Democrat mole in the very inner sanctum of the Tea Party movement?  Find out at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific.

UPDATE: Make that 7PM Eastern/4PM Pacific, due to Skype difficulties.  Further bulletins as they happen....

Ted Cruz Gets Hoisted On His Own Petard

by JASmius

....or, in plain, non-Tea Party English, his Senate Republican colleagues gave him a taste of his own medicine:

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace says Republicans are turning against anti-Obamacare crusader Ted Cruz in a big way.

Wallace, saying this past week has been one the "strangest weeks" he’s ever had covering news in Washington, revealed Sunday that top-level Republicans are besieging him with all kinds of information to use against the Texas senator prior to his appearance on the show.

"As soon as we listed Ted Cruz as our featured guest this week, I got unsolicited research and questions, not from Democrats but from top Republicans, to hammer Cruz," Wallace said, addressing Karl Rove, a member of the show's panel.

Is this a good thing?  Not at all.  President Reagan invented the 11th Commandment - "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican" - for a reason, after all.  The same reason I've been touting for months, going back to the disaster of last November: Now is not the time for conservative division.  To the contrary, now, when we're under siege as never before, and when the comeback opportunities have never been better, is when unity is utterly and absolutely vital and imperative.  Ben Franklin's version was, "Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or we shall surely all hang separately."  Or as the True Messiah said, "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand."

But it's also true that, to quote another old saying, "sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," seeing as how Senator Cruz has been grandstanding through the media at his fellow Pachyderms' expense all year long:

"This was a strategy laid out by [Utah Republican Senator] Mike Lee and Ted Cruz without any consultation with their colleagues," Rove said, referring to pair's well-broadcast efforts to defund Obamacare.

"With all due respect to my junior senator from Texas, I suspect this is the first time the end game was described to any Republican senator. They had to tune in to listen to you to find out what Ted's next step was in the strategy."

Rove stated that Lee and Cruz chose a wrong road when they bypassed the inclusion of their fellow House Republicans.

"You cannot build a congressional majority, in either party, for any kind of action, unless you are treating your colleagues with some certain amount of respect, and saying, 'Hey, what do you think of my idea?'" Rove said.

"Instead they have dictated to their colleagues through the media and through public statements, and not consulted them about this strategy at all."

I know the rote TPer retort to the Architect - some variation of, "Those RINO sellouts wouldn't have listened to Cruz and Lee anyway, and would have obstructed them every step of the way because they're Obama's poodles," or some such rotgut.  But I am forced to challenge the assumption underlying that tiresome, fratricidal posturing: ALL of them are "RINOs"?  Really?  Sure, there are still a few - John McCain and Lindsey Grahamnesty come instantly to mind - but there are actually considerably fewer than there used to be in the old days, to say nothing of when Ronald Reagan first came to Washington.  And need I remind y'all that not a single Republican voted for ObamaCare in the first place?  That the House has voted to repeal that atrocity over forty times in the past two and a half years?  And that the Senate would have as well if Republicans were in the majority there?

But here's another reality check, folks: The same public that allegedly opposes OCare by a significant margin also knows little or nothing about it by an even bigger margin; which does much to explain why that same public kept Red Barry in the White House, expanded the Dem Senate majority and shrank the GOP's margin in the House a year ago.  And no, vote fraud can't explain all of it.  The unpleasant truth is that a majority of American have become so corrupted and dumbed down that they will believe whatever The One's media propagandists tell them.  If they REALLY opposed ObamaCare, it's just not believable that they would have re-elected its namesake.

This is the same public that Ted Cruz has similarly been conning TPers to believe can be swayed to the defund/repeal cause if Republicans launch this banzai charge into the gates of government shutdown hell, and insulting any who simply question the wisdom of such an all or nothing, frontal assault strategy as "the surrender caucus".  Cruz said back in the summer that ObamaCare could be completely defunded without a single Democrat vote in the Senate.  He bullied the House into taking the shutdown bait and attaching the OCare defunding rider to the continuing resolution and then, after they'd passed it, finally, almost tauntingly, admitted the obvious, that there weren't the votes in the upper chamber to pass it.  Which, not surprisingly, royally pissed off House 'Pubbies - including his fellow TPers, who stuck out their necks to exhibit the "courage" he mockingly claimed they lacked and then left them twisting in the wind.

My only critique of Cruz's GOP colleagues is that they leaked to Chris Wallace anonymously, when they should have been tearing the Texas junior senator multiple orifices in full public view - as, in multi-layered irony, Sarah Palin agreed, predictably topping Cruz's divisive grandstanding by demanding that Wallace reveal his sources, which is not just an affront to press freedom but is roaringly retarded as well, as she knows he'll never do that.  But she has her own self-interested, politically ambitious reasons for doing so, just as Cruz does.

Tea Partiers can stick their fingers in their ears and hum at Century Link Field volume, but facts are facts: Ted Cruz is - as is Sarah Palin - an ambitious professional politician with, yes, presidential ambitions.  Cruz wants to be the Republican Obama - a wet-behind-the-ears, ideologically driven freshman senator riding his ethnicity and a tidal wave of hype to the White House.  The difference is that Cruz, for a number of different reasons, doesn't have a prayer in a coven of pulling it off, and frankly doesn't deserve to.  And he gives every appearance of being willing to bring down the Republican Party if he doesn't get his way.  One could almost wonder if Cruz is a Donk mole, snuck into the very inner sanctum of the Tea Party movement for the purpose of bringing about the implosion of the GOP from within, and with it any chance of stopping ObamaCare or the rest of O's communization plans.

Not that it isn't already too late, you understand.  But like with ObamaCare itself, Americans will have to learn that bitter lesson the hard way.

In the mean time, I would settle for less gullibility and more healthy skepticism on TPers' part toward any pol that comes along, spouting everything they want to hear, and calling them to foolish, suicidal crusades that will do nothing but ludicrously raise and then brutally crush their hopes and expectations.

To correct Thomas Jefferson, "One man with courage....is a dead man walking."

UPDATE: Cruz and Lee have rummaged up a way around Dirty Harry's "no filibuster" rule regarding continuing resolution amendments: filibuster the House CR itself.  Supposedly this will give Senate Republicans the "leverage" to "force" Reid to "negotiate" away his no-filibuster rule.  Why the Senate Majority Chisler should give a frog's fat leg if the GOP kills the CR he was going to gut anyway, leading to the same shutdown showdown he and his party welcome with open arms, is anybody's guess.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Uh-oh; looks like another Tea Party hero has gone RINO:




Or will TPers now embrace the very "compromise" they've been excoriating at Ted Cruz's behest, just because Rand Paul - Rand Paul!!! - now endorses it?

Egypt Bans Muslim Brotherhood

by JASmius

In Egypt there's been a dramatic turn in the crackdown on Islamist supporters of the ousted President Mohammed Morsi. A court has ruled that all activities of the Muslim Brotherhood are now banned and ordered a confiscation of its assets.

 

Is this a dramatic escalation that will cause Egypt to slide into (even) greater chaos?  Hard to see it.

Remember first that the people there supported the Army-led coup that toppled Mohammed Morsi from power.  In our political terms, the Brotherhood's "brand" that they had built up for eighty-five years in the wilderness was flushed down the midden hole in only two years in power.  Incitements to sharia and holy war and crushing the infidels are fine and dandy as long as you can make the trains run on time - or run at all - or even HAVE trains.  When you're starving to death, the glory of Allah is difficult to hear over all that gastric yodeling.

Then there's the fact that Egypt is already in chaos as the Brotherhood is already battling the current Egyptian government.  Sending them back underground officially may be salt in the wound, but it seems to me that the coup itself was the sticking point.  This is just t-crossing and I-dotting.

Bet it was fun, though.  I do enjoy a good end zone celebration.

The Other Side Of Gun Control

by JASmius

Crime Increase In Chicago Governor Open To Putting National Guard On Streets - Martial Law?

And there it is: "If you're a parent, and you're facing kids going to school and you're worried about [their safety], I don't think your really care where the help comes from..."  Never mind the Constitution, never mind the evisceration of the Second Amendment in Chicago that has made the "Windy City" Murder Central, never mind the Donks' deliberate undermanning of the Chicago PD under the excuse of [snicker] "budget constraints" while their public employee union bread & circuses party on untouched - We can't scrap our anti-gun, race war-inciting policies, no, no, we must impose martial law instead, for the children (that we allow to be born).

Chicago is the testing ground, folks.  If Governor Quinn sends in the troops, another Rubicon will have been passed, for which Illinois is O's coal mine canary.

Tools Of Violence

by JASmius

The operative term being "tools"....

In "Violence," Billy Johnson argues that our political leaders focus on the tools of violence rather than the logic of violence, and this inevitably leads to bad policy.