COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, May 18, 2013

We need to rebuild a coalition of civil libertarians of the left and right who agree to some basics, on some bright red lines that no government should cross. We need to provide a unified, bipartisan front on behalf of individual liberties and against any official from any party who would trample them.



Obama’s Scandals Reveal the True Face of Government

Power and force are the name of the game.
Steven Greenhut | May 17, 2013
The Obama administration has gotten itself into a fix between its contradictory stories about the Benghazi incident, reports of the IRS targeting conservative groups, and the Justice Department’s grabbing of phone records from AP reporters. There are few things more fun to watch than arrogant political leaders -- folks who spend their lives bossing everyone around -- getting a comeuppance.
My favorite take wasn’t from any serious commentator but from comedian Jon Stewart, who noticed that the president routinely claims ignorance about embarrassing events by saying that he learned of them while watching the news: “I wouldn’t be surprised if President Obama learned Osama bin Laden had been killed when he saw himself announcing it on television.”
I take a bipartisan approach to Washington, DC’s political scandals and find myself savoring them all, regardless of the party that is in control of the White House. Any sane person would conclude that all administrations and bureaucracies essentially are corrupt given that they thrive on the exertion of power of other people. We know about the corrupting influence of power, and DC has become like ancient Rome that way. It’s a magnet for those seeking favor, money, or a big title administering some pointless program.
I visited DC last week and was astounded at the booming economy, the endless new construction, the astronomical prices, and garish displays of wealth everywhere -- not to mention the haughty attitudes of every pissant assistant to the whatever. That’s what Other People’s Money buys you. When Ronald Reagan talked about the Shining City on the Hill he was speaking metaphorically about America, but the new shining city is DC -- funded on the backs of all those Americans who blithely vote for people who promise to solve their problems.
That’s the main lesson from this latest mess: the federal government is an untamable beast. These superficial scandals are nothing compared to the things we will never learn -- i.e., the way the CIA conducts its business overseas.
Still, there are so many things to savor as President Obama circles the drain. Obama has always exuded an intellectual arrogance. Yet if he’s so smart, why would his Justice Department target reporters? The national media has fawned over the president, but the quickest way to end that love affair is to go after their personal records.
Unfortunately, many people insist on seeing every scandal in terms of partisanship. Conservatives are aghast, as they should be, at the thought of an IRS auditing groups based on their political views. That is eerily totalitarian. But where would they have been had a Republican administration done the same thing to liberal critics? I doubt the activist groups would be sending out the alarmist direct-mail pieces if the latest Bush were still president.
The best news from the ongoing drama is that people on the left and right see problems here. Let’s use that as a foundation for a renewed civil-liberties coalition that understands that there are many bright red lines in which the government -- regardless of who nominally is at the head of it -- does not cross. That’s easier to do when one realizes that our supposedly limited government is so limitless in its size, power, and taxing ability that no president can control it.
When pundits complain about excess partisanship, what they usually are really saying is they are tired of all the political fighting. Yet political fighting is good -- it’s a sign of differences of opinion and assures that important issues get debated, however clumsily, in the public.
In Sacramento, California, the Republican Party has imploded and there is little worry about partisanship. But the state’s Democratic Party is now engaged in policies so secretive that even liberal-oriented pundits are getting concerned. No one has the power to say no, so the Democrats are ramming through every manner of dangerous bill.
The new health-exchange law shields most contracts under a veil of secrecy so that public money can be dispensed to friends and cronies without the public learning about where it is going. Democratic leaders have embraced a gut-and-amend frenzy -- proposing dozens of bills with placeholder language that will be stripped away at the last minute with new and completely different language inserted. This circumvents normal debate and oversight.
This is not a Democratic problem per se, but a government problem. And local governments are arguably even more dangerous to our liberties. In Bakersfield recently, after Kern County sheriff’s deputies beat to death a young father (after being called to the scene for a minor incident -- public drunkenness), they grabbed the cellphones of bystanders who were recording the incident. That’s right out of a police state.
Government is about power and force. Many people charged with power over others will abuse it. That’s human nature. Unfortunately, the nation’s founding ideals -- limited, accountable government, with separated powers and checks and balances -- have been fading away. Government is so big that even the president and the attorney general claim they have no idea what their departments are doing. I almost believe them.
We need to rebuild a coalition of civil libertarians of the left and right who agree to some basics, on some bright red lines that no government should cross. We need to provide a unified, bipartisan front on behalf of individual liberties and against any official from any party who would trample them. Maybe we can learn that constructive lesson from the administration’s unreconstructed behavior.


Steven Greenhut is vice president of journalism at the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

90 comments:

  1. I am sure everyone saw the questioning of the IRS. Few have paid attention to the US claim under Obama to wage endless war anywhere at any time. This is the most extraordinary video that you will ever see on this site. It is the complete capitulation and collapse of the US Constitution.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Congress authorized The President to wage and endless war, anywhere at any time.
      They did so on 14SEP2001.

      The Federals made the claim under Bush, not Obama.
      Obama is merely fulfilling his Constitutional and Congressional mandate.

      War trump everything.
      And The Federals have declared war against whomever the President determines is an enemy of the US, that may harm US interests, anywhere at any time.

      Written, in English, plain as day.
      Passed the Congress in record time, giving President Bush just what he wanted.

      Until it came to Iraq, then he needed another Authorization, because even he and Mr Cheney did not have balls big enough to state that Saddam had anything to do with international terrorism against US interests.

      But they could have.

      Delete
  2. It is all related to tyranny. Real tyranny.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Look at boobie, he's finally seen the light.

      It is all about the 14SEP2001 AUMF.
      That gives the President "War Powers" 24/7/365

      Anywhere, any time, against anyone he determines is a terrorist targeting US interests.

      Determining that two pipe bomb are Weapons of Mass Destruction, what then is a Hellfire missile?

      Delete
  3. Congress can end it at any time by revoking the AUMF, and redoing it, or cancelling it altogether.

    Senator Graham for his part doesn't seem to want to do that, and the Democrats, at least up to this point, haven't either.

    Good article, great really, though it seems a foreign policy theme has been attached to it here via the video which the article itself doesn't really mention. It references Benghazi once, and then - >the way the CIA conducts its business overseas.<

    Your point gets through. A people that will allow tyranny at home certainly won't be caring much what happens overseas.

    >>>I visited DC last week and was astounded at the booming economy, the endless new construction, the astronomical prices, and garish displays of wealth everywhere -- not to mention the haughty attitudes of every pissant assistant to the whatever.<<<

    Who hasn't experienced this?

    The writer stresses human nature. Rightly.

    Making a hopeful yet realistic appraisal of our condition to be: 'Pessimistic about this world, optimistic about the world to come.'

    :)

    I hope Obama falls over all of this. He might too. If somebody(s) come forward and it is found out he authorized the IRS stuff I think he is through. And/or if it is shown he gave a stand down order about Benghazi, after telling us he ordered 'to do everything possible'.

    That lesson should last at least a while for the politicians to come.

    Here's hoping.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Along the same line -

      When Governments Go Bad

      By DAVID BROOKS

      Published: May 16, 2013

      >>>Government, Clinton Rossiter once wrote, is something like fire: “Under control, it is the most useful of servants; out of control, it is a ravaging tyrant”.....

      ..... And what are we to make of financial regulatory reform and the new health care law? In a culture of unrestraint, will federal regulators use these rule-writing opportunities to expand their reach beyond anything now imagined?

      People can only have faith in a government that self-restrains, and there’s little evidence of that now.<<<


      http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/opinion/brooks-when-governments-go-bad.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=1&

      The health care law is a perfect set-up for tyranny.

      Delete
    2. Shakespeare on Tyranny -

      http://www.inspirationalstories.com/quotes/t/william-shakespeare-on-tyranny-despotism/

      >>A foe to tyrants, and my country's friend.<<

      >>Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
      Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.<<


      Nemesis rules.

      But takes her time.

      Delete
    3. Higher-Ups Knew of IRS Case
      Hearing Shows Obama Administration Officials Were Told in June 2012 of Probe Into Tea-Party Targeting


      By JOHN D. MCKINNON, SIOBHAN HUGHES and DAMIAN PALETTA

      >>>The Internal Revenue Service's watchdog told top Treasury officials around June 2012 he was investigating allegations the tax agency had targeted conservative groups, for the first time indicating that Obama administration officials were aware of the explosive matter in the midst of the president's re-election campaign.


      An IRS watchdog says he informed Obama administration officials last June that a probe was underway over the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.


      The disclosure to the Treasury general counsel and the deputy secretary was a cursory one, according to J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. He said he didn't reveal conclusions of the probe, which was in its early stages, and his disclosure came as part of a routine update to Treasury leaders. At the time, Republican lawmakers were complaining publicly about alleged IRS targeting of tea-party groups.


      The revelation nonetheless raised a fresh set of questions about who was aware of the problem within the Obama administration. It was one of several new details that emerged during a contentious four-hour House committee hearing Friday, held one week after an IRS official revealed at a legal conference that the agency had taken "absolutely inappropriate" actions in targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for often heavy-handed scrutiny.<<<

      http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324767004578488833834357540.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

      But of course Obama knew. And if by some wizardry he didn't authorize it, he should have nixed it.

      Impeach Obama

      Delete
  4. So, tyranny is helping the poor, and the sick, get healthcare.

    I can't believe that I never saw that before.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Stupid comment.

      Really, really dumb.

      Missing the whole point again.

      Obama is trying to artfully impose tyranny by appealing to numbskulls like you.

      There is always some reason given for tyranny, a threat from without, conditions at home, the wizardry of creating a big health care crisis that doesn't really exist, but will be created by the proposed 'solution', the issue of 'fairness', racism.....blah,blah,blah

      Delete
    2. 50 Million w/o Healthcare

      Just another of them "nonexistent crisis," eh?

      The art of achieving tyranny through healthcare - pure genius

      Delete
    3. Most of those people are young and chose not to buy health care insurance.

      I didn't until I got married.

      Now they have to, and don't like it.

      Delete
    4. The point is, Rufus, people opposed to these policies were targeted by the IRS.

      Whether the policies are good or bad policies is not the point.

      The targeting, harassing, intimidation is the point.

      Delete
    5. "The health care law is a perfect set-up for tyranny."

      From your 01:33 comment

      Delete
  5. Expand that to Syria, Libya and Iraq, por favor.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What, healthcare reform? Or Bank Regulation?

      Delete
  6. I hope Obama holds the line on Syria and keep us out. I’ll let you and Bob fight the other battles.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll let Doug take on Rufus.

      I'm going to the Preakness via the Big Screen tomorrow. Need to go to bed soon.

      Doug is blunter than I am, an added attraction.

      Delete
  7. The video has nothing to do with healthcare or bank regulation. What are you drinking?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Budweiser and cheap gin.

      Delete
    2. Paragraph 11 of your post, and Bob's 01:33 AM.

      Delete
    3. Process

      The new health-exchange law shields most contracts under a veil of secrecy so that public money can be dispensed to friends and cronies without the public learning about where it is going. Democratic leaders have embraced a gut-and-amend frenzy -- proposing dozens of bills with placeholder language that will be stripped away at the last minute with new and completely different language inserted. This circumvents normal debate and oversight.

      Delete
    4. >>so that public money can be dispensed to friends and cronies without the public learning about where it is going<<

      Exactly.

      And one has lost control of one's own health care, one's own body, and one's finances and personal history are now the government's property.

      The government owns you.

      Delete
    5. The first statement requires Proof.

      I would say that you have "lost control of your own healthcare" when you don't have any healthcare.

      And, so what? The government has Always "owned you." They have had the power to Tax you, and Draft you from the first day. What's new?

      Delete
    6. The "Right to Your Life" is one the sovereign has always had.
      To your life, all your property.

      They can, and will, force you to sacrifice, if the sovereign so desires.

      Delete
    7. Haven't you heard, nitwit, we don't have a sovereign. George Washington might have been a sovereign if he had so chosen, but he turned it down.

      We have elected public servants.

      We have one now who would love to be sovereign.

      But he won't be.

      Delete
    8. Pretty weak drool there Rufus.

      Delete

    9. .

      And, so what? The government has Always "owned you."

      The "Right to Your Life" is one the sovereign has always had.
      To your life, all your property.


      What can one say?

      Rufus, is willing to give up every right, not only for himself but for everyone else just so a relative can have free health care.

      The rat sits in AZ plays with his horse and says, "Thank you sir, may I have another."

      The theme of the day, trinkets for the natives.

      .






      The "Right to Your Life" is one the sovereign has always had.
      To your life, all your property.

      Delete
  8. Not for going into Syria here.

    I'm almost starting to root for Assad, for the sake of the Christians.

    I can't imagine Obama going into Syria now with all this shit raining down on his Marine held umbrella.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Looks like Sarah Ingram was getting bonuses for harassing conservatives -


    Culture of Corruption, Obama pays Sarah Ingram extra for her harassment of conservatives
    Catholic Online·15 hours ago A new report from the Washington Examiner reveals that Sarah Ingram, in particular, received massive bonuses after using her power to persecute conservatives.…

    391,000 results
    News about Sarah Ingram

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The folks on The Five at Fox were just thinking this must have been approved by the White House.

      Delete
    2. Why?

      Ms Ingram was tasked with making sure that political organizations dis not abuse the expansion of the Social Welfare tax exemption per the directive from the SCOTUS and Congress.


      It would be safe to say, even assume, that an Organization with "Tea Party" in its name was primarily a political organization and not a soup kitchen.
      Which would be a dot needing connection, perhaps even probable cause, for greater scrutiny from the IRS before granting a social welfare tax exemption.

      These Tea Partiers WERE trying to abuse the tax system, looking for tax exemptions for their political activities.
      I saw boobie's pictures, pure politics at that meeting, not a soup kitchen or community health clinic in sight.

      Delete
    3. .

      Rat, has decried both sides in D.C. as the 'national socialists' but in reality he is apparently either a tool for the Dems and Obama, excusing abridgment of rights under the constitution and arguing for every Dem initiative, or he is merely a doofus.

      To argue for strict enforcement of the rules over who gets tax exempt status is a reasonable position, but to argue that it's ok for the IRS to target only conservative groups, a political decision that is clearly illegal, is at best partisan.

      It is the same type of faux argument the other Dems used in arguing that lax security in Benghazi was the result of GOP cost cutting.

      Absurd, Bizarre, Typical.

      .

      Delete
  10. Ruf's a crafty old coot. Maybe he saw the shit coming down the river, and decided to avoid the trouble by joining Team Obama.

    :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe he didn't want to be interrogated about the content of his prayers.

      Delete
    2. Stranger things have happened.

      Delete
  11. Direct from The Five -

    Home owner was held up by home invader, who forced him into a closet.

    His gun closet.

    Bang.

    Scratch one home invader.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Lady Tyranny -

    >>May 18, 2013
    This Is What Tyranny Looks Like
    Bryce Buchanan

    Here is a woman we will need to learn much more about in the coming weeks. Sarah Hall Ingram is a highly valued employee at the IRS. In the last three years she has received $103,390 in bonuses for her excellent work. She was the Commissioner of the Tax-Exempt and Government Entitles Division. Under her leadership, groups that expressed a fear of large, out-of-control government were systematically crushed by her branch of our large, out-of-control government. They were specifically singled out for harassment for political reasons. Secret information about the conservative applicants was leaked to leftist opposition groups to facilitate further harassment.

    This was an organized political operation using State power to silence opposition voices. It is part of every tyrant's playbook. It tells you everything you need to know about the current state of our country to see that those who favor a limited government, the explicit goal of our founding documents, are now considered enemies of the State.

    In a 2009 speech, Ms. Ingram explained her approach:

    As a practical matter, we cannot subject every application for tax-exempt status to a painstaking, leave-no-rock-unturned review. Nor can we audit every organization's 990 every year. Nor would you want us to do so, right? To govern is to choose, and we must choose appropriately which applications or 990s to focus most attention on.

    It is clear now that by "choose appropriately", she meant to harass the limited-government groups endlessly and let liberal and Islamic groups sail right through the approval process.

    The good news is that this woman is no longer in charge of that department. The bad news is that she has been promoted and is now the head of the IRS' Affordable Care Act office. She and her comrades could have access to all your medical records. They will "choose appropriately" who has trouble with the state-controlled medical system and who sails right through. They will decide if it is appropriate to share your medical history with others.<<

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. >>But don't worry. I heard the outgoing IRS Commissioner say in Friday's congressional hearings that he has reviewed the situation and found that there was "no partisanship" in the years-long practice of singling out conservative groups for IRS harassment. None at all. There is just no reason to think that specifically targeting one side of the political spectrum had anything to do with politics.

      And when Commissioner Steven Miller was asked why conservative groups were targeted for prolonged scrutiny, he said that it just happened because people were trying to be efficient. Sure. Months and months of delays with endless demands for more paperwork is the efficient way to go.

      Miller was forced to admit that secret information gathered from certain conservative groups was passed along by the IRS to their leftwing political opposition. So the IRS illegally gathered information and illegally passed it along for political reasons. Mr. Miller said that these actions were "inadvertent".

      There is more evidence of direct lies from IRS officials in Kevin Williamson's column, "The Nine Lies of Lois Lerner". One thing we learn from Williamson's article is that the current campaign by some officials to act surprised and disappointed by the news of IRS criminality is just a scam to deflect their own culpability. Everyone knew the Inspector General's report on the IRS was about to be released. The IRS needed to jump ahead of the report and act concerned. They were not concerned for years prior to being caught.<<


      See picture of lovely Lady Tyranny here -

      http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/05/this_is_what_tyranny_looks_like.html

      Delete
    2. Ms Ingram was tasked with making sure that political organizations dis not abuse the expansion of the Social Welfare tax exemption per the directive from the SCOTUS and Congress.


      It would be safe to say, even assume, that an Organization with "Tea Party" in its name was primarily a political organization and not a soup kitchen.
      Which would be a dot needing connection, perhaps even probable cause, for greater scrutiny from the IRS before granting a social welfare tax exemption.

      These Tea Partiers WERE trying to abuse the tax system, looking for tax exemptions for their political activities.
      I saw boobie's pictures, pure politics at that meeting, not a soup kitchen or community health clinic in sight.

      Delete
    3. .

      Rat, has decried both sides in D.C. as the 'national socialists' but in reality he is apparently either a tool for the Dems and Obama, excusing abridgment of rights under the constitution and arguing for every Dem initiative, or he is merely a doofus.

      To argue for strict enforcement of the rules over who gets tax exempt status is a reasonable position, but to argue that it's ok for the IRS to target only conservative groups, a political decision that is clearly illegal, is at best partisan.

      It is the same type of faux argument the other Dems used in arguing that lax security in Benghazi was the result of GOP cost cutting.

      Absurd, Bizarre, Typical.

      .



      Rat, you like Rufus, have thoroughly drunk the Kool-aid.

      .


      Delete
    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    5. I am not the one who decided that social welfare organizations could engage in politics.
      I am not the one that assigned an 'acceptable' level of political action by a social welfare organization could engage, before the tax exemption was lost.

      I would remove the tax exemption from ANY social welfare group that engaged in political action work. They have a right to engage in politics, but not be subsidized by the taxpayers, to do it.

      This the Congress did, or was an authority they assigned, to the IRS.

      No organization with Tea Party in the name is primarily a social welfare organization, by the very nature of the name. It is by the name the organizers chose, that of a political action organization, that raised a flag that the Partiers were trying to abuse the tax code, the sovereignty of the people disregarded by the Tea Partiers.

      The Tea Party tax scammers are an example of how the tax code distorts reality.
      There are no Tea Party soup kitchens.
      It is not the Salvation Army.

      Q wants to say the IRS is bad, well, it is.

      How do we fix it?

      Eliminate tax exemption for political action

      Delete
    6. .

      Lord, quit your constant pettifogging, rat. When called on a subject, it's your standard MO and it quickly grows tiresome.

      You argue the party line, the same as Miller and the rest.

      You try to obscure the subject by stating that there whould be strict control over who is granted tax-exempt status. But that is not the issue and you know it.

      The issue is the singling out of specific groups, in this case conservatives, for harrassment and abuse on political grounds.

      The issue isn't about a strict or lax IRS policy. It's about the law.

      .

      Delete
    7. The argument is just, the IRS was tasked with gauging the amount of political activity engaged in by the applicants for social welfare tax exemptions.

      Did the agents of the IRS "go to far", I would say so.
      Questions regarding prayer and such, a bridge to far, IMO.

      The FBI is on it.
      If there was criminal activity, we'll know soon.
      If anyone's rights violated, some court will decide.

      But replacing the people at the levers, will not fix the system.

      We agree the system is bent.

      But you offer no program for change.
      Advocate no alternative.

      As for Benghazi, you bought into the cover story.
      The cover story fell apart, upon close examination.

      You want to blame "some one" for the cover story being kind of inept, but never ask what the INITIAL story was covering up.

      You focus upon the cover up of the cover story.

      Dig deeper, you'll recognize the gold, when you see it.

      Benghazi was, for US, a CIA town.



      Delete
    8. .

      The argument is just...

      Only in rat-world.


      But replacing the people at the levers, will not fix the system.

      No chance of that unless the FBI does its job. Obama's solution so far, allow a 'temp' whose job was up in six months to resign with full retirement benefits.

      But you offer no program for change.
      Advocate no alternative.


      You dumb shit, what is it about 'against the law' you don't understand? It's not the system that is corrupt. It's the people running the system who are corrupt.

      As for Benghazi, you bought into the cover story.
      The cover story fell apart, upon close examination.


      Another example of the pettifogging and distortion on the subject at hand, may I again say of changing the subject. Rather than the anology I provided of another example of the faux excuses the Dems and this administration use to cover their impropriaties, you switch over to a discussion of the Benghazi cover story.

      .


      Delete
    9. .

      As for Benghazi, you bought into the cover story.
      The cover story fell apart, upon close examination.


      You brought this up early on in the Benghazi affair. But it was hardly new news. Everyone knew that the CIA was in Benghazi, their story being that they were trying to round up loose arms caches to keep them out the hands of the jihadists. As I recall, one of the three guys with Stevens was CIA and his job as reported in some of the stories at the time was to help in rounding up those loose arms. There were dozens of stories with this info in them as well as stories that suggested that the CIA might also be working on arms transfers. This is old news. There is nothing new. It was never ignored. That the administration might be covering up a different reason for the Benghazi facility is hardly surprising.

      However, while in your imagination is might provide some type of excuse, it ignores the reasons people are keeping this story going. Four Americans were killed because of inadequate security at a U.S. facility even after there had been numerous attacks and threats prior to the incident. People on the ground had been calling for more security for both Benghazi and Tripoli for months. Not only was additional security denied. It was cut. It doesn't matter if the four were diplomats, secretaries, Seals, garbage collectors, or CIA operating under a seperate cover story. They were Americans hung out to dry by their government for apparently political reasons.


      You want to blame "some one" for the cover story being kind of inept, but never ask what the INITIAL story was covering up.


      My reasons for being upset are stated above under the 'hung out to dry' theme mentioned. The hearings in Congress are concerned with the cover up. They mean little to me except as they throw light on the culpability of those in the administration who willfully contributed to the 'hung out to dry' scenario. Of course, it is always pleasnt to see lying liars publicly identified as lying liars.

      I have no doubt that the GOP is pursuing the cover up for mainly political purposes. Also, as we all know, Congress gets especially irate when they are lied to. They even pass laws against it. However, beyond all that if hard to deny they are pursuing their oversight responsibility as defined by the Constitution.

      .

      Delete
    10. .

      You focus upon the cover up of the cover story.

      As noted above it is the lesser of my concerns related to Benghazi.


      Dig deeper, you'll recognize the gold, when you see it.

      Benghazi was, for US, a CIA town.



      Gold? I've asked you for a clarification on this before. What is the gold? What are you asserting? Give us a clue.

      Are you asserting that Benghazi was a center of CIA activity? Hell, we've know that since day one. Old news.

      That the State Department and CIA may have been involved in a joint operation? Again, nothing unusual.

      That the CIA wasn't doing their jobs, the jobs they are hired for, trained for, and deployed for? That Stevens wasn't doing his job?

      That this was some kind of a rogue operation similar to WiO's alleged NSA takeover of the Liberty? That higher ups in the CIA, State, and the White House weren't aware of what was going on in Benghazi?

      Give us a clue as to your thinking, rat. You throw out shit shit like "Who leaked ambassador Stevens location" with no follow-up explanation and we are supposed to figure out what you mean. The only thing I am sure about in reviewing your posts is that it has something to do with the CIA.

      Stevens was our ambassador. From the hearings we have testimony from people on the ground as to why he was in Benghazi on 9/11. To date, no one has denied that testimony. However, if it's all a lie, if for example Stevens met with the Turkish ambassador and all they were talking about is the transfer of Libyan arms to militants in Syria, so what. He was our ambassador and he was hung out to dry on the security issue. There were other State Department personell in Benghazi and they were hung out to dry on security. Even if there was only one employee there, a secretary for instance, and he/she was hung out to dry on security, it would have been wrong.

      .





      Delete
  13. May 18, 2013
    You Don't Know Shakespeare: Seven Sexy Scenes
    By Bruce Deitrick Price

    Shakespeare does everything at once: tells a story, develops characters, writes beautifully, teaches history, and -- oh yeah -- startles us with randy humor.

    Elizabethan England was a raunchier time. If you were witty, there were no limits.

    One critic says the great dramatist wrote more than 1,100 puns on sex and genitals.

    Shakespeare's bountiful gifts have been a problem for prudes and teachers ever since. Shakespeare is often taught with a hope and a prayer that students won't get it. Best example of all: "Much Ado About Nothing." (Men have something, so to speak, women have "nothing." I know what you're thinking: OMG.)

    Shakespeare's audience didn't need anything explained. They got it. (A lot of Shakespeare is like a high-class version of "Who's on First?")

    Assume he wants you to be uproariously entertained, he's working on lots of levels, and if it sounds risqué, it is.

    1. Romeo and Juliet (Act I, Scene 1)

    GREGORY: The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.

    SAMPSON: 'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the maids, and cut off their heads.

    GREGORY: The heads of the maids?

    SAMPSON: Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense thou wilt.

    GREGORY: They must take it in sense that feel it.

    SAMPSON: Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: and 'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.

    (Sampson is a military stud, dispatching enemy soldiers and virgins with equal abandon. While he is able to stand. Cocky self-esteem has rarely been so well expressed as in "'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.")

    2. Comedy of Errors (Act III, Scene 2)

    ANTIPHOLUS: Then she bears some breadth?

    DROMIO: No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip:

    she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her.

    ANTIPHOLUS: In what part of her body stands Ireland?

    DROMIO: Marry, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs.

    ANTIPHOLUS: Where Scotland?

    DROMIO: I found it by the barrenness; hard in the palm of the hand.

    ANTIPHOLUS: Where France?

    DROMIO: In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war against her heir.

    ANTIPHOLUS: Where England?

    DROMIO: I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.

    (Ireland is in her buttocks, out by the bogs. Shakespeare seems to be saying the Irish live in an unpleasant place. I'm betting the London audience roared. "Barrenness hard in the palm of the hand" must be the mons Veneris. "Making war against her heir" might seem a lightweight pun but surely references the civil war in France still going ten years before play was written.)

    3. Hamlet (Act III, Scene 2)

    HAMLET: Lady, shall I lie in your lap? [Lying down at OPHELIA's feet]

    OPHELIA: No, my lord.

    HAMLET: I mean, my head upon your lap?

    OPHELIA: Ay, my lord.

    HAMLET: Do you think I meant country matters?

    OPHELIA: I think nothing, my lord.

    HAMLET: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

    OPHELIA: What is, my lord?

    HAMLET: Nothing.

    (Lap and country matters are definite salacious puns. Country matters is a well-known term for what peasants and farm animals do in the haystacks. Country is what it sounds like. Nothing? Probably also a pun, which means the opposite of what it seems to say. Oh, nothing, and as well that other nothing in Much Ado About Nothing.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 4. Macbeth (Act II Scene 3)

      MACDUFF: Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, that you do lie so late?

      PORTER: 'Faith, Sir, we were carousing till the second cock: and drink, Sir, is a great provoker of three things.

      MACDUFF: What three things does drink especially provoke?

      PORTER: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep and urine. Lechery, Sir, it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to: in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him the lie, leaves him.

      MACDUFF: I believe drink gave me the lie last night.

      (Just a fancy riff on how booze makes a man hot and then not.)

      5. Anthony and Cleopatra (Act I, Scene 2)

      IRAS: Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?

      CHARMIAN: Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it?

      IRAS: Not in my husband's nose.

      (She wants another inch farther down.)

      6. Henry IV / Part I (Act III, Scene 3)

      MISTRESS QUICKLY: ... I am an honest man's wife, and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.

      FALSTAFF: Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.

      MISTRESS QUICKLY: Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?

      FALSTAFF: What beast? Why, an otter!

      PRINCE HAL: An otter, Sir John! Why an otter?

      FALSTAFF: Why, she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.

      MISTRESS QUICKLY: Thou art an unjust man in saying so: thou or any other man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou!

      (This is just ruthless, zany insults flying. Falstaff wants to provoke her. He says she's a big blob a man wouldn't know what to do with. She insists that a man most certainly would.)

      7. The Taming of the Shrew (Act II, Scene 1)

      PETRUCHIO: Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.

      KATHARINA: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

      PETRUCHIO: My remedy is then, to pluck it out.

      KATHARINA: Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.

      PETRUCHIO: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.

      KATHARINA: In his tongue.

      PETRUCHIO: Whose tongue?

      KATHARINA: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.

      PETRUCHIO: What, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.

      KATHARINA: That I'll try. [She strikes him.]

      (Tongue, tail, sting, clitoris -- all tangled together. Who's on first?)

      Delete
    2. Apologies for putting this in here - got to laughing right before bed. Was on the hunt for something in the Bard, but found this instead.

      Delete
  14. Mark Sanford is now a member of Congress two years after he stepped down as governor of South Carolina following a highly publicized extramarital affair.

    Anthony Weiner appears poised to run for New York City mayor not even two years after scandalous photos of the ex-representative hit Twitter.

    Perhaps, then, it should be no surprise to learn that disgraced former presidential candidate and North Carolina senator John Edwards is plotting his own comeback.

    The wealthy lawyer has reactivated his law license and also is hitting the speaking circuit, The Associated Press reported.

    Mr. Edwards is scheduled to speak at a private retreat in Orlando, Fla., on June 6, where he’ll address fellow attorneys and marketing gurus.
    An itinerary for the event says the highly successful trial lawyer will speak as part of a program titled “Historic Trials of the Century.”
    Meanwhile, his law license, dormant for more than a decade, has been resuscitated, AP reported. It’s unclear whether he plans to return to the courtroom.

    Mr. Edwards has remained in the shadows for the past year following his acquittal on one charge of campaign finance fraud in May 2012. Other criminal counts were dismissed after a federal judge declared a mistrial in the case.

    He had been charged with using about $1 million in campaign funds — he ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2004 and 2008 — to care for his mistress, Rielle Hunter, during her pregnancy.

    Around the same time, his wife, Elizabeth, battled breast cancer. She died in late 2010, less than a year after her husband admitted he had fathered a child with Ms. Hunter.

    Despite how suddenly his political career and personal life fell apart, Mr. Edwards believes he still has something to offer.
    “I don’t think God’s through with me,” he said last year. “I really believe he thinks there’s still some good things I can do.”


    Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/17/john-edwards-re-emerges-begins-public-comeback/#ixzz2TdtuJ1PW
    Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

    ReplyDelete
  15. desert ratSat May 18, 08:51:00 AM EDT

    The "Right to Your Life" is one the sovereign has always had.
    To your life, all your property.

    They can, and will, force you to sacrifice, if the sovereign so desires.
    ....

    General Bunk thinks we have a King.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Perfect example of the bunk shoveled out by General Bunk day after day.

      Delete
    2. Obviously, boobie, you never were registered for Selective Service.

      You avoided being selected.

      You Tea Partiers are always on the hunt, for an exemption, aye.

      Delete
    3. Did you ignore the law?

      Or get that exemption from service to the nation?

      Self service being better than community service, in the "Boobie Book of Citizenship"

      Delete
    4. .

      Another of the rat's favorite ploys, changing the subject.

      I love the 'community service' part. After years of playing butt boy to Obama and as he would call it the 'national socialists' he is finally starting to pick up the language.

      .

      Delete
    5. I've always had the language, Q.

      It's in knowing when to employ it.

      In the United States, we replaced the King, with representatives of the people.
      We thought, from the beginning, that limited government would be difficult to maintain.

      Ben Franklin voiced that, early on.
      “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”

      “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

      I recognize the dangers of expanding government, but you offer no other options than what we have, perfectly managed. Which will never happen.

      I offer, advocate for, changes I think would improve the system.
      You want to tear it down, but offer no alternatives.

      Delete
    6. As for changing the subject, what the fuck talking about.

      You may want to limit conversation, limit debate.
      Maintain control of the agenda.

      I march to the beat of a different drummer.

      It is all interconnected.
      No issue an island.

      Delete
    7. .

      I, like Bob mentioned today, think the gears turn slowly in our Republic and while some abuses, due to the nature of man, have been with us from the beginning and will continue, others like the abridgement of basic constitutional rights under this president will eventually be reversed by the system.

      I would be open to hearing the changes in the system you advocate for. I might even agree with some of them. However, unless by 'tear it down' you are suggesting revolution, I strongly suspect that the only way you can achieve your goals is by operating through the current system to bring about those changes.

      .

      Delete
    8. That is correct, Q.

      I do not favor revolution.
      It'd fail.

      I do favor the concept of limited government, but that too, has never succeeded.

      So, if you want to reduce the War Powers of the President, end the war.
      I suggested that, you thought it a tad to difficult a project, considering your age.

      You want to limit the IRS intrusion on peoples' lives ...
      Limit their authority.
      End the numerous tax exemptions permeating the tax code. Make the tax code fairer.

      Eliminate the numerous deceptive and regressive taxes, paid at differing rates and income levels. And replace it with a single Federal tax, graduated by design, but one that ends the systematic FICA fraud that has been perpetrated on boobie.

      We could go, on and on.

      Want to end US involvement in the affairs of foreign lands, bring the boys home ...
      Withdraw the US Army and Marines from Korea, Japan, Germany, Italy, England, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and the Emirates. In Afghanistan, the US should follow the Iraq model, post surge, leave.
      Decommission 3 or 4 of the carrier battle groups.



      Delete
    9. Health Care ...

      End the income tax exemption on company paid health insurance.
      Make that insurance premium part of the employees taxable income.

      Do not subsidize health care for SOME, but not others.

      Why should the self employed pay for health insurance with after tax dollars, but the corporate employed get it, in untaxed dollars?

      Basic inequity in the pre ObamaCare system, that was never addressed.
      Not by ObamaCare
      Nor by any of the thirty some votes in the House to repeal.

      Delete
    10. End payroll deductions.

      Let each taxpayer pay the tax man. Directly.

      When I realized that as an employer I was responsible for collecting taxes from my employees, for the government, I quit being an employer.

      Watched that uncompensated for Governmental responsibility wipe out a number of people that I knew.
      IRS seized homes and personal property.

      Easy to make bad decisions, with other peoples money.

      Delete
    11. .

      So, if you want to reduce the War Powers of the President, end the war.
      I suggested that, you thought it a tad to difficult a project, considering your age.



      If you remember the context of the discussion, what you really said, as I recall, was that "you should change the AUMF" which I took as a challenge for me personally to do my part in changing the AUMF. I responded that I had done what I thought I could in that regard. However, the fact that mine and others' efforts have been unsuccessful to date in bringing about the desired change does not negate the need (I would say obligation) for those who oppose Obama's use of the AUMF as an excuse for unconstitutional overreach to voice their disaproval.

      I also recall mentioning that those who see nothing wrong in Obama's actions need to re-read the Constitution and that those who do see problems and fail to disassociate themselves with his actions can rightly be called the sheeple.

      .

      Delete
    12. .

      My second paragraph in my post at 11:31 was the result of a misreading of the last two lines of your post at 11:16. I took it to say you wanted to tear down the system.

      I offer, advocate for, changes I think would improve the system.
      You want to tear it down, but offer no alternatives.


      Sorry, for the mistake.

      However, on rereading it, I have to point out you are still in error. You are wrong in saying I want to tear the system down. The exact opposite is true. I merely want the system run within the rules set by the Constitution.

      I object to Roe v Wade for a number of reasons. I also object to Citizens United. However, I do not call either of these illegal or unconstitutional. They will remain both until they are changed either through the legislative or constitutional amendment processes or a change in the Supreme Court ruling. It's the process we live under.

      I also object to the AUMF mainly for its vagueness which leaves it not only open to interpretation but also open to the expansion of its original intent by both Bush and Obama. However, I don't call the AUMF law illegal. I do, however, object to what I consider 'unconstitutional' some of the powers Obama has assumed under the guise of the AUMF such as denying habeas corpus rights to Americans. Likewise, what I object to on moral grounds and consider consider illegal given our treaty obligations as sinatories to the Geneva conventions are practices such as double taps and signature assassinations that are again carried out citing AUMF as authorization.

      .

      Delete
  16. Who is the Sovereign in the United States, boobie?

    Why, "The People", of course.

    Who represents "The People"?

    The President and Congress.

    They own you, dimwit.

    You want to argue about the percentages you have to pay, to high, to low, but never about the sovereigns' right to that authority to take your stuff.

    You ague about ObamaCare, but never that the Sovereign does not have the legal and practical power to force you to participate

    It is power inherent to the government, even in a Republic.

    The "Draft" trumps all your huffing and puffing protesations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      In a complete reversal of the American ethos, the rat states the government owns you rather than you own the government.

      He picks up the theme of Obama's Ohio State graduation speech, folks you are the government, don't be hating on it. If the government does something immoral or illegal, it's actually you doing it.

      He talks of Obama as the 'sovereign', thus implying that when Obama chooses to repudiate basic constitutional rights rather than tyranny it instead merely confirms with the principles of the divine right of kings.

      It is more of the rat pettifogging yet, this time, with a more perverse turn.

      The theory of the Divine right of kings being espoused by the Prince of Sheeple. It just gets better and better.

      .

      Delete
    2. Ahhh... Q.
      The citizen owns a piece of the government, true enough.

      But the government owns all of you.

      Or the US may well of lost WWII.

      Induction Statistics for WWII

      Total number of inductees for WWII (1940-1946)
      including draftees before Pearl Harbor
      10,110,114

      By Year:
      1940 - 18,633
      1941 - 923,842
      1942 - 3,033,361
      1943 - 3,323,970
      1944 - 1,591,942
      1945 - 945,862
      1946 - 183,383


      Total number of draftees, those whose lives were conscripted to service to the sovereign ...

      TEN MILLION

      Who owned those lives?

      The total population, that those ten million lives were drawn from ...
      according to the US Census figures. In 1945, it was about 139,928,000

      So, it seems about 8% of the population was conscripted to serve the interests of the other 92%.

      That's the reality of who owns what.
      It has nothing at all to do with Obama.

      Delete
    3. .

      Ahhh... Q.
      The citizen owns a piece of the government, true enough.

      But the government owns all of you.



      A silly argument. The U.S. government is a society formed for the collective benefit of "We the people". It can't be divided severaly in pieces that each of us own. It's a nation of laws and we are obligated to act within the constraints of those laws if we want to continue the privileges of citizenship.

      To say we are owned by the government implies a master/slave relationship which is absurd on it's face. We are not owned by the government but we choose to live under the rule of the Constitution that we have collectively agreed to. And as a republic, we have chosen leaders to govern for us, but we restrict that governance to the rules and checks and balances inherent and identified in the Constitution. Defense of the nation is one of the main responsibilities of government and the draft has been ruled constitutional by the SCOTUS.

      Any time you want to opt out, merely give up your citizenship.

      .

      Delete
  17. Your property is "Owned" by the government.
    It holds ultimate title.

    Don't pay the property taxes, the property will revert to the owner.

    Arlington National Cemetery exemplifies that reality.

    ReplyDelete
  18. General Bunk made a fool of himself, again, and now he is frustrated.

    Even used the 'F' word to Quirk.

    A rarity, that.

    Bunk didn't know that the powers we have not granted to the federal government we have retained to the states, or to ourselves.

    Aye.

    He has forgotten about the Bill or Rights. Aye.

    General Bunker, he doesn't really know much. Aye.

    He doesn't even know property law.

    If you don't pay your taxes, the property goes to a tax deed sale to someone else.

    Not the government.

    And, property taxes are instituted by the people themselves.

    Through the legislature, or through bond issues.

    Then Bunk got personal too. Alleges I didn't have a draft card.

    I would have wished.

    Poor Bunk.

    Aye.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. >>It is more of the rat pettifogging yet, this time, with a more perverse turn.

      The theory of the Divine right of kings being espoused by the Prince of Sheeple. It just gets better and better.<<

      Very good, Quirk.

      I am off to the horse races.

      This might be a good race today, smaller field.

      Have a good day!

      Delete
    2. And, Bunk doesn't realize it was the people through their representatives that created the draft, and the people that got rid of it.

      ......

      May 18, 2013
      Phone call between Hillary and Obama may be 'genesis' of anti-Muslim video lie
      Rick Moran

      Andrew McCarthy makes the case that the 10:00 PM phone call on September 11 last year between Hillary Clinton and President Obama may be the conversation that led to the bogus story of an anti-Muslim video setting off "demonstrations" in Benghazi that led to the deaths of Americans.

      ((((((Fraud flows from the top down, not the mid-level up.)))))) Mid-level officials in the White House and the State Department do not call the shots -- they carry out orders. They also were not running for reelection in 2012 or positioning themselves for a campaign in 2016. The people doing that were, respectively, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.

      Obama and Clinton had been the architects of American foreign policy. As Election Day 2012 loomed, each of them had a powerful motive to promote the impressions (a) that al-Qaeda had been decimated; (b) that the administration's deft handling of the Arab Spring -- by empowering Islamists -- had been a boon for democracy, regional stability, and American national security; and (c) that our real security problem was "Islamophobia" and the "violent extremism" it allegedly causes -- which was why Obama and Clinton had worked for years with Islamists, both overseas and at home, to promote international resolutions that would make it illegal to incite hostility to Islam, the First Amendment be damned.

      All of that being the case, I am puzzled why so little attention has been paid to the Obama-Clinton phone call at 10 p.m. on the night of September 11.

      Even in the conservative press, it has become received wisdom that President Obama was AWOL on the night of September 11, after first being informed by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in the late afternoon, that the State Department facility in Benghazi was under attack. You hear it again and again: While Americans were under attack, the commander-in-chief checked out, leaving subordinates to deal with the crisis while he got his beauty sleep in preparation for a fundraising campaign trip to Vegas.

      That is not true . . . and the truth, as we've come to expect with Obama, is almost surely worse. There is good reason to believe that while Americans were still fighting for their lives in Benghazi, while no military efforts were being made to rescue them, and while those desperately trying to rescue them were being told to stand down, the president was busy shaping the "blame the video" narrative to which his administration clung in the aftermath.

      Jay Carney first revealed the existence of the phone call and the time in February. Hillary Clinton confirmed she spoke to Obama "later that evening." What was said between the two?

      We now know from the e-mails and TV clips that, by Sunday morning, the White House staff, State Department minions, and Susan Rice were all in agreement that the video fairy tale, peppered with indignant rebukes of Islamophobia, was the way to go.

      How do you suppose they got that idea?

      The theory makes sense. What's more, there may be a phone log of the conversation and what was discussed in the records of both principles.

      That would be a fascinating document to discover.

      Hat Tip: Ed Lasky


      Delete
    3. That the Sovereign decides not to exercise its power, does not, boobie, mean it has renounced the power.
      .
      The Sovereign can reinstate the draft, whenever it feels the need.
      It still retains the "Right" to use any life.

      The Federals have not renounced the power to force involuntary servitude to the sovereign, they just deem it unnecessary to exercise it at this time.

      Delete
  19. The only King we've ever had was Elvis.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Tell me, boobie, is Israel a Sovereign state?

    If so, does it have a King?

    ReplyDelete
  21. The word "country" is often colloquially used to refer to sovereign states, although it means, originally, only a geographic region, and subsequently its meaning became extended to the sovereign polity which controls the geographic region.

    Sovereign polity, it is not limited to Kingdoms.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Definition of SOVEREIGNTY

    One that is sovereign; especially : an autonomous state

    ReplyDelete
  23. I'd been hoping you could give quot some off-site instruction in the use of English, obviously though that would be beyond the limits of your lingual comprehension.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Once again, you ignore context rat.

      You used the word 'sovereign' in the same context you stated They own you, dimwit. as if this was a nation of serfs and the devine right of kings were in play.

      From the Free Dictionary

      sov•er•eign (s v r- n, s v r n)
      n.
      1. One that exercises supreme, permanent authority, especially in a nation or other governmental unit, as:
      a. A king, queen, or other noble person who serves as chief of state; a ruler or monarch.
      b. A national governing council or committee.


      From the context of your message and word choice, one could only assume you were using the word 'sovereign' in terms of either (1) or (2) above.

      Since "We the people..." have the ability to turn any of these bozos out through elections and/or, using our representives, impeachment, your word choice was either absurd or sloppy.

      .



      Delete
    2. .

      Should have read, ...as in (1a) above

      .

      Delete
  24. California continues to obtain approx. 21% of its electricity from non-large hydro Renewable sources.

    CaISO

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Figure at least 10% of their fluid energy is ethanol, that'd be the baseline.

      Wonder how much higher it really is.

      Delete
    2. 10% will just about catch it. Rather on preparing to expand their use of biofuels, the oil companies bet big on Romney - and lost. Now, they're bumping up against the blend wall (not much invested in E15 or E85,) and stuck buying expensive RINS (Renewable Identification Numbers) from those Midwestern retailers such as Kum and Go, and Speedway that did invest in higher ethanol sales.

      Delete
  25. I see General Bunk is still b.s.ing.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Even though many direct The Student Loan People
    techniques with digitally. Publicans have been advised that blackboards advertising
    live TV coverage must not refer to the business are dealt with here.

    ReplyDelete