Opening today's Drudge Report this morning I noticed there
were two hit pieces targeting Rand Paul.
The first... a Weekly Standard piece.
Ahh... the neocons... the chicken-hawks... Bill Kristol and
company!
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
The second... those damn right-wingers over at the
Washington Post...
(What's that? The Washington Post is LIBERAL... not
conservative? Oh... now it makes sense...)
(*SNORT*)
Folks... I don't worship Rand Paul. I like him... I
respect him... I agree with him most of the time... but when we disagree -
when, in my rarely humble opinion, he's wrong (sticking by McConnell as the #1
example) - I'm first in line to blast him.
Folks... Chris Christie... Marco Rubio... I'm pretty good
at seeing through the phonies.
What the two articles I provide links to up top have in
common are that they attempt to slime Rand Paul.
Here's what I advise: If you want to know what Rand Paul
believes, read his own remarks. Read his op-eds. Read interview transcripts.
Get it from "the horse's mouth," so to speak!
Understand, folks... both the RINOs and the Democrats are
desperate to destroy Rand Paul and discredit Tea Party philosophy. (Which means
discredit the Founders... the Constitution... the Republic itself!)
Don't allow yourselves to be led by the nose by "journalists"
who - far more often than not - have their own agendas.
As for my agenda... well... I'm big on the truth. Most
people will simply lie if it serves their agenda. I won't.
Hell...
Just... read... my... posts! Just... read... my...
newsbites!
9 comments:
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://online.wsj.com/articles/covering-for-the-irs-1410729249
The IRS targeting of conservative groups has now become a story about the cover-up. More than a year after the scandal became public, the most transparent Administration in history has done everything in its power to spin the story, stymie Congressional investigators and run out the clock.
Take the latest moment of hilarity, er, clarity from the Justice Department, in which a communications aide to Attorney General Eric Holder mistakenly called Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee when he meant to call Democrats. The aide, Brian Fallon, told staffers he was calling to see if they could leak information to friendly reporters and give the Justice Department a chance to comment before the majority got their hands on it.
* WHY HASN'T BRIAN FALLON BEEN ARRESTED...??? (WOULDN'T IT BE NICE IF THE WSJ EDITOR IN CHARGE OF THIS STORY HAD TOLD THE REPORTER TO INCLUDE THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WITHIN THE STORY...?!?!)
When he realized his error, committee staffers say Mr. Fallon came back on the line to say, oh, sorry, there has been a change of plans and Justice wouldn't share the information after all. Mr. Fallon has since said it is perfectly normal to call Congressional Republicans and Democrats, though he does deserve a place in the dimwit government hall of fame.
* IMAGINE THIS WAS YOU - NOT FALLON. IMAGINE THIS WAS A REPUBLICAN - NOT A DEMOCRAT. FALLON SHOULD BE ARRESTED AND TRIED. IF HE ESCAPES CONVICTION... DO BE IT. BUT HE SHOULD HAVE TO FACE THE JUSTICE SYSTEM. THERE'S CERTAINLY A PRIMA FACIA CASE THAT FALLAN ENGAGED (FAILED... BUT ENGAGED! TRIED! ATTEMPTED! ATTEMPTED TO CONSPIRE!) IN SOME SORT OF ILLEGAL ACTIVITY.
* AT THE VERY LEAST... TOTALLY UNPROFESSIONAL. THE MAN SHOULD AT THE VERY LEAST BE FIRED!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Mr. Fallon wanted to leak something about Andrew Strelka, the former Justice Department lawyer who was assigned to a case brought against the IRS by Z Street, a pro-Israel group that says its application for tax-exempt status was delayed in 2009 because of a policy giving special scrutiny to groups whose missions conflicted with the White House line.
Before becoming the Justice Department's lawyer on the case, Mr. Strelka was a presidential management fellow working in the IRS office that handled the case, presenting a conflict of interest. To wit: Mr. Strelka is likely to be interviewed as a witness in the discovery phase of the trial he was previously litigating. Mr. Strelka has since resigned from the case and left the Justice Department, but the department has provided Congressional investigators with no forwarding address.
The cloak and dagger operation also raises questions about the Administration's attempts to delay the Z Street case from moving into discovery after federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ruled it could proceed. +
First the Justice Department waited until the last hour to file a motion to appeal, then it failed to check a box (literally) when it withdrew its appeal to note that the withdrawal motion was uncontested, a technicality that left the case to moulder for another month before discovery can get underway.
Even allowing for dimwits, count us skeptical that this legal slow-rolling is any more coincidental than the congressional version. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton says that when federal Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the IRS to produce documents in Judicial Watch's FOIA lawsuit against the agency, the IRS produced them in reverse chronological order — the better to withhold the most sensitive for as long as possible.
Judge Sullivan has been riding herd on the government's gamesmanship, calling the IRS responses to questions about former Treasury official Lois Lerner's missing emails deficient and ordering the agency to provide more complete information. When long-withheld documents do surface after long delays, they are invariably pertinent to the questions conservatives have been asking for more than a year. It was after one such request by Judge Sullivan that the IRS fessed up to wiping Ms. Lerner's Blackberry after the investigation into IRS targeting had begun.
* AFTER...! AFTER...!!!
Another such moment happened earlier this month, when the Judicial Watch lawsuit produced a document that raises questions about an IRS "secret research project" related to donor names. In a heavily redacted email chain from May 2012, Ms. Lerner asks how to return some donor lists that the IRS should not have had.
(*SNORT*)
* AND THE AMERICAN SHEEPLE AVERT THEIR EYES. THEY DON'T DEMAND JUSTICE. IT MAKES ME SICK!
In a June 2012 email to IRS official Holly Paz, IRS Acting Director of Rulings and Agreements David Fish wrote that " Joseph Urban [IRS Technical Advisor, Tax Exempt and Government Entities] had actually started a secret research project on whether we could, consistent with 6104, argue that [REDACTED] Joe was quite agitated yesterday when I told him what we were doing." The email continues: "At one point he started saying that this was a decision for Steve Miller . . . Would not be surprised if he already started working on Lois." Mr. Miller is the former IRS Acting Commissioner who resigned shortly after the scandal broke.
* MILLER SHOULD PROBABLY BE IN JAIL AS WELL...
Another batch of emails from the FOIA lawsuit also showed that Ms. Lerner was talking to the Justice Department in 2013 about the possibility of prosecuting some of the same politically active groups that the agency had been targeting.
This is the same Justice Department that is now conducting what by all available evidence is its non-investigation into the IRS's behavior in the scandal. Your tax dollars at work.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/15/us-usa-louisiana-election-idUSKBN0H800H20140915?feedType=RSS
Louisiana U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu's campaign has paid back over $33,000 to the federal government for political travel wrongly billed to her Senate office over a 12-year period, her campaign said on Friday.
* TWELVE FRIGGIN' YEARS...!!!
The disclosure comes as Landrieu seeks re-election in a hard-fought race for a seat that is a top target of Republicans hoping to retake the Senate.
"The review I ordered last month...
* LAST... MONTH...?!?!
...found these mistakes stemming from sloppy book keeping," Landrieu said in a statement.
* SLOPPY BOOKKEEPING...?!?! YOU'RE A U.S. SENATOR! TWELVE YEARS OF SLOPPY BOOKKEEPING?! YOU'RE ONE OF 100 SENATORS WHO WITH YOUR HOUSE COLLEAGUES CONTROL THE PURSE-STRINGS OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT!
"I take full responsibility. They should have never happened, and I apologize for this."
* TAKING "FULL RESPONSIBILITY" WOULD BE TO RESIGN! YOU'RE APOLOGIZING. AFTER GETTING CAUGHT! AFTER 12 YEARS OF ABUSING THE TAXPAYER!
A spokesman for U.S. Representative Bill Cassidy, Landrieu's most prominent Republican challenger, criticized her campaign for releasing records dating only to 2002, and not to 1996, when Landrieu first won her seat. "No matter how Senator Landrieu spins it, she billed taxpayers for dozens and dozens of private jet flights since the turn of this century," John Cummins, a Cassidy spokesman, said in a statement.
* LANDRIEU IS A PIECE OF SHIT...
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-islamic-state-threat-is-overstated/2014/09/12/acbbebb2-33ad-11e4-8f02-03c644b2d7d0_story.html
The Islamic State represents “a clear and present danger” to the United States, wrote Gen. John Allen, a former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, one that affects “the region and potentially the world as we know it.”
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
It has become the consensus view in Washington that the militants are poised to bulldoze through America’s Middle East allies, destabilize global oil supplies and attack the U.S. homeland. ... Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the group as having “an apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision.”
* SO...???
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel characterized it as “an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it’s in Iraq or anywhere else.”
* NORTH KOREA...? CHINA...? (HEY... WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO IRAN?!) RUSSIA...? (HOW'BOUT MEXICO - FACILITATING THE INVASION - THE LITERAL INVASION - OF THE UNITED STATES EVEN AS I TYPE?!)
In his prime-time address Wednesday, President Obama said that U.S. airstrikes targeting militants in Iraq over the past month “have protected American personnel and facilities, killed [Islamic State] fighters, destroyed weapons, and given space for Iraqi and Kurdish forces to reclaim key territory. These strikes have also helped save the lives of thousands of innocent men, women and children.”
A more accurate assessment would be that U.S. military intervention has tremendous propaganda value for the Islamic State, helping it to rally other jihadists to its cause, possibly even Salafists...
* I KNOW... I KNOW... GOOGLE IT... GOOGLE IT NOW AND THEN COME BACK TO READING...
(*TWIDDLING MY THUMBS*)
* OH, GOOD! YOU'RE BACK!
...who have so far rejected its legitimacy. Moreover, to the extent that the group poses any threat to the United States, that threat is magnified by a visible U.S. military role.
* WE'RE... OVER... THERE...
* BOMBING AWAY...
* NO DOUBT CAUSING QUITE A BIT OF COLLATERAL DAMAGE... (AND KILLING THE INNOCENT ALONG WITH THE GUILTY; ALL WITHOUT BENEFIT OF DECLARATION OF WAR... ALL WITHOUT A FULL-SCALE COMMITMENT TO ACTUALLY WIN THIS... er... "WAR" THAT ISN'T A WAR.
Obama’s restraint in the use of military power in recent years...
* AGAIN, FOLKS... 90% OF THE TIME EVEN WHEN THEY'RE CRITIQUING OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY... THEY'LL TRY TO PROVIDE COVER - EVEN IF IT MEANS SPOUTING OUTRIGHT LIES.
* FOLKS... OBAMA GOT US INVOLVED IN LIBYA - EVEN AFTER CONGRESS VOTED NOT TO SUPPORT U.S. INTERVENTION! WE'RE CONSTANTLY BOMBING AND DRONE-ATTACKING TARGETS IN YEMEN! WE INTERFERED IN THE EGYPTIAN CIVIL WAR (ON THE SIDE OF THE FRIGGIN' MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD!) AND IF IT WEREN'T FOR THE EGYPTIAN MILITARY AND LARGE SEGMENTS OF THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE EGYPT WOULD HAVE BECOME AN ANTI-WESTERN ISLAMIC STATE! IF THAT'S THE AUTHOR'S IDEA OF "RESTRAINT..."
(*HEADACHE*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
The United States has a tradition of misinterpreting the Middle East. President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 with misplaced certainty, misconstrued assumptions and poor foresight. After the Arab revolts began in 2011, Washington misdiagnosed the problems and opportunities, and overestimated its influence to steer outcomes in its favor. Now, as the United States prepares to escalate military action against the Islamic State, misinterpretation is leading to another tragic foreign policy mistake.
The barbaric beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff were intended as retaliation for U.S. airstrikes in Iraq. Instead, Washington has interpreted those events, along with the fall of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, to Islamic State militants in June, and the siege of Yazidis in northern Iraq last month, as evidence that the group poses a threat of terrifying proportions to U.S. interests.
* OBAMA POSES A THREAT OF TERRIFYING PROPORTRIONS TO U.S. INTEREST; THAT'S WHO!
It has become the consensus view in Washington that the militants are poised to bulldoze through America’s Middle East allies, destabilize global oil supplies and attack the U.S. homeland. ... According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 90 percent of Americans view the Islamic State as a serious threat to vital U.S. interests.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
But Americans are misreading the recent Islamic State successes, which speak less to the group’s invincibility and inevitability than they do to external factors beyond its control. Despite its territorial gains and mastery of propaganda, the Islamic State’s fundamentals are weak, and it does not have a sustainable endgame. In short, we’re giving it too much credit.
Consider the fall of Mosul, which catapulted the impression that the group is a formidable force able to engage on multiple fronts simultaneously and overpower a U.S.-trained army that dwarfs its size. In reality, it was able to gain such vast territory because it faced an impotent opponent and had the help of the broader Sunni insurgency. The Iraqi army, lacking professionalism and insufficiently motivated to fight and die for Sunni-dominated Mosul, self-destructed and deserted. The militants can be credited with fearlessness and offensive mobility, but they can hardly be said to have defeated the Iraqi army in combat. At the time, Islamic State militants represented less than 10% of the overall Sunni insurgency. Many other Sunni groups helped to hold territory and fight off Iraq’s Shiite government and Iranian-backed militia forces.
Despite being in its infancy as a declared caliphate, the Islamic State’s extreme ideology, spirit of subjugation and acts of barbarism prevent it from becoming a political venue for the masses. It has foolhardily managed to instill fear in everyone, thus limiting its opportunities for alliances and making itself vulnerable to popular backlash. For example, between late last year and early this year, its militants lost territory in the Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Idlib because of grass-roots resistance and insurgent competition.
On the Islamic State’s western frontier, Jordan’s border is impenetrable to militant invasion. And even should the group find a way to conduct a terrorist attack inside the Hashemite Kingdom, the population (and the region’s Sunni Arab states) would rally to support the Jordanian monarchy, while its highly capable intelligence directorate and armed forces would go on the offensive against the perpetrators.
The fear that the militants somehow threaten the stability of Israel’s eastern front is far removed from reality.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
After Mosul, the Islamic State has also been more prone to resistance from within. As its acquisition of new territory has slowed, much of the group’s focus has shifted toward consolidating power inside territory already acquired. Hence, before the United States intervened with airstrikes last month, the insurgency in Iraq had already begun fragmenting over power, prestige and resources.
This doesn’t suggest that the Islamic State poses no problem, nor that the United States should ignore it. However, any strategy that involves U.S. airstrikes to contain the group is like searching for a beehive to swat, then assuming that the threat of being stung is somehow mitigated.
While some military action is necessary to defeat the Islamic State, that effort should be driven by regional actors, not a Western power.
The United States is far better positioned to assume an active diplomatic role, facilitating consensus and cooperation among local and regional players. If the common threat could compel these actors toward local collaboration, national compromise and regional rapprochement, there may emerge an opportunity to bring them together to finally settle the civil wars plaguing the Middle East.
* FOLKS... BELIEVE IT OR NOT, THIS IS ONLY ABOUT 2/3rds OF THE ARTICLE! SO IF YOU FIND IT INTERESTING... BY ALL MEANS... FOLLOW THE LINK AND READ THE FULL ARTICLE!
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/46496145-food-stamp-recipients-can-fill-yankee-stadium-925-times
In June 2014, there were 46,496,145 recipients of the food stamp program, which is enough to fill the Yankee Stadium 925 times, according to data from the Department of Agriculture (USDA).
* AND THAT'S JUST FOOD STAMPS; THAT DOESN'T INCLUDE ALL THE OTHER GOVERNMENT "NUTRITIONAL" PROGRAMS! IN FACT, OVER ONE HUNDRED MILLION AMERICANS RECEIVE SOME SORT OF FOOD AID/SUBSIDY. THAT'S INSANE!
The Yankee Stadium is equipped to hold 50,291 persons, meaning that the 46,496,145 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients in June 2014 could fill the stadium 925 times. The number of recipients was up 270,999 since the previous month in May 2014 when there were 46,225,146 individuals participating in the program.
* UP.
* UP!
* UP...! NOT DOWN! (SO MUCH FOR THE "IMPROVING" ECONOMY...)
Similarly, the number of households participating in the SNAP program has increased as well from the 22,590,393 participating in May 2014 to the 22,713,934 participating in June 2014, an increase of 123,541 households.
* AN... INCREASE...
Participation in the SNAP program peaked for individuals in December of 2012, when there were 47,792,056 persons participating. Since this peak, participation for individuals has declined by 1,295,911 individuals.
* I'D LIKE TO SEE A DECLINE OF 90%!
Historically, since the beginning of the data that appears on the USDA website, participation has increased 7.6%. In October 2010, there were 43,201,052 recipients of SNAP benefits. Since then, the number of beneficiaries has increased by 3,295,093 persons, or 7.6%.
* BOTTOM LINE: TOO MANY PEOPLE. FAR TOO MANY PEOPLE.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/09/hillarys-return-iowa
Mrs. Clinton was the guest star at the 37th and final “Harkin Steak Fry”, a combined outdoor picnic, political fundraiser and gathering of the clans for Iowa progressives, hosted by the state’s outgoing Democratic senator, Tom Harkin.
While a crowd of several thousand Democrats waited on a sloping, grassy field below, Mrs. Clinton, her husband and Senator Harkin staged a mini-grilling of steaks for the press at a single barbecue grill in a fenced-off enclosure, framed by a handsome tree and a picnic table filled with some patient Iowans.
Mrs. Clinton gamely posed, pretending to grill a steak that had been pre-cooked for her.
* FOLKS... DOESN'T THAT JUST TELL YA EVERYTHING YA NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS WOMAN?
Foodstamps ARE contributing to increased food prices...it's just common sense. And frankly, I think that's the goal...price out the middle class. It's ridiculous...
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