Open thread for Sunday, June 29th: Heartache
Here is the open thread for Sunday, June 29th; please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
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This week’s musical selection is Gene Loves Jezebel performing ‘Heartache’ live on the Late Night Joan Rivers Show. (Who knew?)
Enjoy.
Since Barack Obama pulled our troops out of Iraq without signing a status of forces agreement we have seen that country devolve into violence. The left, eager to place the blame anywhere other than on the shoulders of the president, is now looking for another scapegoat.
The obvious scapegoat would be George Bush of course. The left is claiming that if the former president did not go into Iraq in the first place none of this would be happening now. This of course is true but it does not fully absolve Barack Obama for a poor decision. He knew the possibilities when he made his decision and it really does not matter at this point whether we should have invaded Iraq or not. (By the way, now that we are out can we please stay out?)
Even if we concede the point that George Bush should never have gone into Iraq in the first place a poor decision by the former president does not negate a poor decision by the current president. You know, that whole two wrongs thing…..
Before Obamacare was passed one of the questions many of us had who oppose the idea that the government can force a person to buy a product (and still oppose this idea) was where does this idea stop? Could the government eventually tell you what to eat, what you cannot eat, and force you to join a gym? Of course, this was laughed off by supporters of the healthcare reform law as tinfoil hat material.
Now it appears as if this scenario might be getting one step closer to reality. According to this story hospitals in North and South Carolina are beginning to compile profiles on patients by using their credit card information to identify high risk people.
A Mexican military helicopter flies into the United States and fires on Border Patrol agents
It is being reported that a Mexican military helicopter flew into United States airspace and fired on two Border Patrol agents.
Border Patrol agents in Arizona were reportedly fired upon by a Mexican military helicopter that traveled across the border.
Mexican authorities were conducting a drug interdiction operation when the incident happened early Thursday morning on the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation. The Mexican chopper fired at the agents and then flew back into Mexico.
According to this article the Border Patrol has confirmed an incident did indeed take place:
Barack Obama claims he can relate to struggling Americans because he and Michelle once lost their nanny
The left loves to claim the Democrats are the party that cares about the lower classes in America but while they rail against the rich, and the unfairness built into the system, they conveniently forget to mention that in many cases they are also very well off.
So when the issue comes up they have to justify their wealth while also trying to distance themselves from it in order to prove they understand the plight of the ordinary American. See, they are not part of the evil rich capitalists–they are better than that.
Firewall with Bill Whittle: Get to Work
Here is the latest ‘Firewall’ video from Bill Whittle entitled ‘Get to Work.’ He is in rare for in this one as he talks about the envy-mongers and the clown car cavalcade of incompetence.
Enjoy!
CNN admits latest Lois Lerner email revelation makes it appear as if the IRS was involved in a conservative witch-hunt
A CNN panel admitted today that the newly released email which showed Lois Lerner inquiring about auditing Charles Grassley makes it appear as if the IRS was involved in a witch-hunt against political opponents.
Here is part of that discussion:
Host John King stated that the revelation “does not help [Lerner’s] case, which is already pretty bad to begin with,” and “makes it hard for the White House saying this is Republicans trying to make a big partisan issue out of a mistake.” Politico’s Manu Raju argued that the news “fuels the suspicion that there that there’s a political witch-hunt motivated by politics,” and is “exactly what the administration does not want, which is more evidence showing that there was some political mess going around going after Republican groups.”
And now they are even questioning what is in the emails which conveniently disappeared:
The Associated Press’ Julie Pace added that the new evidence “raises the question of ‘if this is something in the e-mails that we have, what’s in the e-mails that have disappeared?’”
Really? You don’t say? You guys are a little late to the party, but welcome anyway.
We had two more unanimous Supreme Court decisions today and in my opinion, like yesterday’s decision, these were no-brainers. First the Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts law which disallowed protests within 35 feet of abortion clinics. The whole idea of this, as well as free-speech zones which we see politicians implementing at events, is something which while well-intentioned is obviously unconstitutional as long as the protests are peaceful. But I want to focus on the other decision today.
You may remember in 2012 the Senate used a parliamentary gimmick called pro forma to keep the Senate in session. This is a trick which has been used by both sides of the aisle to stop a president of the opposing party from making recess appointments which failed to pass the Senate, however Barack Obama did something that no other president tried to do–he declared the Congress to be in recess and made three appointments.
Believe it or not the EPA is also claiming it cannot produce emails which were requested by the Oversight Committee because…..you guessed it, a computer crashed and the emails are not recoverable.
Here is more:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the IRS share a problem: officials say they cannot provide the emails a congressional committee has requested because an employee’s hard drive crashed.
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy confirmed to the House Oversight Committee Wednesday that her staff is unable to provide lawmakers all of the documents they have requested on the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska, because of a 2010 computer crash.
“We’re having trouble getting the data off of it and we’re trying other sources to actually supplement that,” McCarthy said. “We’re challenged in figuring out where those small failures might have occurred and what caused them occur, but we’ve produced a lot of information.”
Seriously?
Darrell Issa subpoenas 28 years worth of Lois Lerner’s communications, dating back to her time with the FEC
Lois Lerner’s inter-agency emails regarding the IRS targeting scandal may have conveniently been lost but if this story is true she has a long, sordid history with targeting political opposition–so much so that Darrell Issa has subpoenaed 28 years worth of her communications dating back to when she was with the FEC.
More than a decade before his 2010 letter to IRS officials urging the agency to target conservative organizations, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin’s political career crossed paths with Ms. Lerner when she was head of the Enforcement Division of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and directly involved in the 1996 Illinois U.S. Senate race.
Soon after the IRS story broke, Al Salvi told Illinois Review that it was IRS official Lois Lerner who represented the FEC in the 1996 Democrat complaint against him. According to Salvi, Lerner was, without question, politically motivated, and went so far as to make him an offer: “Promise me you will never run for office again, and we’ll drop this case.”
Salvi declined her offer. In fact he ran for Illinois Secretary of State in 1998.
But when he saw Lerner plead the Fifth Amendment before Congress last week, he recognized her. “That’s the woman,” Salvi said. “And I didn’t plead the Fifth like she did.”
The case against him was eventually dropped. Now, as I wrote above, Darrell Issa has subpoenaed 28 years of Lois Lerner’s communications.
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