Thursday, January 31, 2013

Nice work

The ATF screws up in Milwaukee.
But the effort to date has not snared any major dealers or taken down a gang. Instead, it resulted in a string of mistakes and failures, including an ATF military-style machine gun landing on the streets of Milwaukee and the agency having $35,000 in merchandise stolen from its store, a Journal Sentinel investigation has found.

When the 10-month operation was shut down after the burglary, agents and Milwaukee police officers who participated in the sting cleared out the store but left behind a sensitive document that listed names, vehicles and phone numbers of undercover agents.
But remember: only law enforcement personnel can be trusted with guns.

Patty Andrews, RIP

The last surviving member of the famous singing trio, the Andrews sisters, has died at age 94. Patty was the blond sister who usually took the solo turns.

In loving memory…







(with Bing)



H/T: Bob Belvedere

Gunny and Glock

Two more Glock commercials featuring Lee Ermey, here and here.

Elsewhere, yet another homeowner uses a gun to defend herself from a home invasion, and this young man takes on a knife-wielding robber at a convenience store.

Parody or irremediable imbecility?

You be the judge.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Obama Farm

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Four legs good, two legs bad.

“The best-looking contraction in GDP you’ll ever see”.

Guns don’t kill people

Climate change does.

From the Michelle Obama cook book

Eat dirt, proles!

H/T: Mrs. Paco

Update: Yeah, times are tough. But at least I've got more money than Zimbabwe.

The law of unanticipated consequences

Gun buy-back in Seattle turns into an impromptu gun show.

H/T: Captain Heinrichs

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Update

I wrote here about Yalumba winery's huffy decision to refrain from doing business with the NRA's wine club. Steve at the Pub has more (from the comments section of the original post):

This feller ain't representative of the Ozzie wine industry. He's a born-to-rule type, with fancily coiffured blonde hair, and he affects the mannerisms and suchlike of a central European count or something.

He's not only half a mile up himself, he's a bloody fool. He's just undone quite a bit of careful work in the North American market by the Australian wine industry.

Give him his wish - he wants his wines off wine lists, go ahead & do it!

He's off mine. The current lot of their stuff I've got in will be the last. Nor will I be again drinking Yalumba when I'm out on the town.

Furthermore I'll do my best to spread the word.

Most of all, he's wrong. The company was built into what it is by his grandfather, a man who was noted for extensive "wine selling trips" to India/Africa etc, which resulted in lots of big game trophy heads.

What a dickhead the grandson turned out to be.

Nothing succeeds like success

Although, if the government is involved, failure pays off pretty well, too.

And in other crony-capitalist news, Harry Reid continues to do his best to undermine our faith in the integrity of our elected officials (I know, that lode is pretty well played out; but still).

Calvin Coolidge

Hipster.

"Here, boys, let me show you how skeet shooting's done!"

Update: More on President Obama, gunman, from Wes Pruden.

Bait and switch

In the lobby of the federal agency where I work, a wide screen TV has been installed on the wall at the end of a bank of elevators. Quite aside from the curious decision to spend money on a television that people are likely to watch for perhaps four seconds while they wait for an elevator, the TV is almost always tuned to MSNBC – nothing surprising there, given the ideological bent of the current administration. But I just saw something that continues to stick in my craw. David Frum was on a talk show, and the helpful label at the bottom of the screen read, “Conservative Frum: Palin departure a ‘milestone’”.

Never mind whatever significance may attach to Palin leaving Fox; why is Frum still described as a conservative? He is, and has been for a considerable period of time, nothing but one of the left’s useful idiots, a so-called “moderate” whose views are practically indistinguishable from the Democrat party line. His most savage critiques have been reserved for the conservative base, and his relationship to traditional conservative values rather resembles the surgeon’s relationship to a tumor.

Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned here: how about if conservatives start self-identifying as “liberals” or some other leftist tag? I can see it now:

Liberal Mark Levin assails the president’s attack on the bill of rights.

Bolshevik Rush Limbaugh professes impatience at the slow pace of the withering away of the state.

Trotskyite Rand Paul denounces Obama’s reactionary, bourgeois, hand-me-down FDR policies.

Anarcho-syndicalist Paco condemns Obama's war on the working man.

High noon

Haw! Republican congresswoman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee calls Obama out, challenges him to a skeet shooting match.

Fed Chairman Bernanke comes clean

If only...

H/T: Zero Hedge

Monday, January 28, 2013

Mayor Bloomberg, horn dog

One reason I h8 NY is because they keep electing this fool.
Without even acknowledging the comment, Bloomberg gestured toward a woman in a very tight floor-length gown standing nearby and said, “Look at the ass on her.”
Wanna-be mayor, Christine Quinn, adds,
“He’s actually much more silly than people think. Sometimes in meetings he’s just telling stories and goofing around. And he’s got a potty mouth.”
No, Christine, no; I’m pretty sure he’s not “much more silly” than I think he is. Of course, that doesn’t make him any less of a liberal-fascist menace. For all I know, Joe Stalin slipped a whoopee cushion onto the seat of FDR’s wheelchair at Yalta, and Hitler employed a joy buzzer when he shook Von Hindenburg’s hand upon the latter appointing him Chancellor. There’s no reason you can’t be class clown and an architect of leviathan.

Also of interest: Bloomberg wants gun control for you, but you’d better not even try to ask him about his security arrangements.

Ironing out the irony

Does anybody see the irony of Democratic Senator Bob Menendez – currently being investigated for procuring the services of prostitutes in the Dominican Republic, including at least one who was only 16 – fronting the new drive to “reform” immigration laws? ABC News’ Martha Raddatz sure doesn’t. During an interview with Menendez on the network’s This Week program on Sunday, Raddatz didn’t ask him a single question about the investigation.

Paco World News Daily followed up with Ms. Raddatz by telephone today.

Brad Smilo: Ms. Raddatz, can you use the word “irony” in a sentence?

Raddatz: Irony? Sure. “I love traditional patio furniture; it’s so durable and irony.”

The Old Dominion

Welcome to Virginia! Via Moonbattery (click to enlarge).


Monday movie

Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham tangle for the last time in this scene from Robin and Marian.



Sunday, January 27, 2013

Pull!

In yet another attempt at misdirection, President Obama said, in an interview with the New Republic, that "I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations."

I will keep repeating it until they pull the keyboard from my cold, dead fingers: the Second Amendment is not about the right to hunt. In any event, the president also told what I suspect is a whopper: "at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time."

Does anybody believe this? Are there any photos? The only hint we have that there is even a germ of truth in this assertion is this video showing David Axelrod firing a shotgun:



Update: A thought just occurred to me: Obama knows that skeet is not a bird or other animal, right? He's not hunting when he (allegedly) does skeet shooting - he is aware of the difference, isn't he?

Sunday funnies

A little mishap with some arms drill.

If you're looking for a job in the Obama economy, you've got to be creative.

German soldiers are developing a secret weapon.

Distinguished Australian beats rap.

Looks like the guy picked the wrong diner.

When chickens show off.

Secretary to Psychologist: "Doctor, there is a patient here who thinks he is invisible."
Psychologist: "Tell him I can't see him right now."

A woman, being very upset that her husband had just died, paid a visit to the funeral home to view the body before the funeral. Upon seeing the husband laid out in the casket in a brown suit, she remembered he always hated the color brown. She told the undertaker of this and somewhat apologized for being such a pain but would they take care of it and put on the blue suit. The undertaker agreed and she left the building. Remembering she forgot her sunglasses, she returned to the building, and upon entering was just in time to hear the undertaker yell out: "Hey Joe, switch the heads in caskets 3 and 5! "

Q: What's the difference between a vacuum cleaner and a lawyer on a motorcycle?
A: The vacuum cleaner has the dirt bag on the inside.

Q: What's the difference between a tick and a lawyer?
A: The tick falls off when you are dead.

When dogs Skype.



Want a snack? How about some Crapola! (H/T: Hot Air).



Saturday, January 26, 2013

Australian winery looks with sniffish disdain on the NRA

The NRA has a wine club and, among other brands, has included vintages made by Australia's Yalumba winery.

Which wants the NRA to drop its stuff from their list:
“Philosophically, I’m not disposed towards the NRA, which runs counter to my family’s, and I would think all my employees’, positions on gun laws,” Yalumba founder Robert Hill Smith said. “We will act to withdraw our stock or at least not service the account any longer.”
On the other hand, Jim Barry Wines takes another view. Says the company's chief, Peter Barry, "No matter religion, colour or creed, I’m just happy people are drinking and enjoying Australian wine.”

Good for you, Peter! As for Yalumba, they're free to do whatever they want - just as I'm free to disclose their principal secret ingredient...



H/T: Ace of Spades.

Gosh, Wally, wouldn't it have been better if Speaker Boehner had figured out that his strategy stunk before he implemented it?

"Boehner full of regret over 'fiscal-cliff' moves".

Just a pommie git

Mike McNally has the inside skinny on the execrable Piers Morgan - who, incidentally, was just severely pasted by Newt Gingrich.

The armed homeowner

Here's a video of a citizen in Tucson defending himself against four home invaders - note that the first assailant seems to be carrying an "assault" rifle with a high capacity magazine. Yet there are those in government who think a five or six-shot revolver is all the protection you need.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Assortment

Yeah, I’ve always wondered about that. Here’s something related.

Man, nobody could have possibly foreseen that happening: Brazilian prison inmates given vacation furloughs, thousands fail to return.

Here, boy! C’mon back!

Finally. Somebody else figures out that Obama’s acting unconstitutionally.

A note on guns from Protein Wisdom.

Seraphic Secret asks, how’s that gun confiscation thing going in Australia?

Conservatives are doomed to irrelevance if they don’t stop ceding control of public education to the left.

Tim Blair flags another attempt to fix something that ain’t broke. Also via Tim: what if truck drivers wrote restaurant reviews?

“Turbo Tax” Tim Geithner is leaving the Treasury. Really, old fellow, stand not upon the order of thy going, but go.

I join with Stacy McCain in questioning the dubious bona fides of a conservative summit meeting that features a discussion of the subject, “What is wrong with the right?”, by a panel including Joe Scarborough and Ross Douthat. What, David Brooks wasn’t available?

Happy Feet Friday

Joe Lutcher and his Society Cats bring the post-war R&B with Rockin’ Boogie.


Thursday, January 24, 2013

Hillary gets the New York Post treatment

HAW!

I'm sure Plugs will want to hear from you

The Virginia Shooting Sports Association is trying to get up a crowd of Second Amendment supporters to "welcome" Joe Biden to Richmond, Virginia tomorrow. Looks like he'll be speaking at VCU (H/T: JeffS)

If you're going to be in the neighborhood, drop by and, er, say hi.

Update: Biden may not like "assault" rifles, but he loves him some shotguns!

Lord of the flies


I'm tellin' ya, man. Animals know.

H/T: Drudge

Update: Dang! I was afraid I wouldn't be the first.

B-r-r-r-r!

We've had record low temperatures here in Northern Virginia and Washington, and this morning there's a light blanket of snow on the ground.

But it could be worse.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Was Justice Scalia engaging in a subtle act of protest at the inauguration?

Could be.
The twitterverse is alive with tweets about Justice Scalia’s headgear for today’s inauguration. At the risk of putting all the fun speculation to an end . . . The hat is a custom-made replica of the hat depicted in Holbein’s famous portrait of St. Thomas More. It was a gift from the St. Thomas More Society of Richmond, Virginia. We presented it to him in November 2010 as a memento of his participation in our 27th annual Red Mass and dinner.
Read the rest of Ed Driscoll's post for the evidence.

Of course, this would have been w-a-y too subtle for your typical Democrat...

Biden: "Har! Look at Scalia, boss. He's wearing a top hat, and it's upside down!"

A reputation based on pure hype


Basically, I think the whole performance was scripted. To the extent the fit of pique was genuine, I think the animating factor was as indicated in the image above.

But to answer your question, Cankles: it doesn't make any difference to those who are dead. But to people who are living, and may find themselves on a perilous mission for their country in a dangerous part of the world at some time in the future, it matters a great deal whether or not their higher-ups are competent enough to understand the risk and prepare for it. And if it doesn't make any difference whether these Americans - your employees - died as a result of a spontaneous violent protest, or as the result of a carefully designed plan carried out by well-trained terrorists, then why did you and your boss and various other government talking heads spend nearly a week promoting the fiction that it was all because of a riot by random hot-heads who didn't like an anti-Islamic film trailer that probably none of them had ever seen? If it really doesn't matter, why did you and the president lie about it?

By the way, I continue to find Senator Rand Paul increasingly impressive.

There are only so many times you can yank the football away from a kicker before he goes rogue

“Voice actor for Charlie Brown arrested in California”.

So, Bloomberg, Cuomo…

…how you gonna control the magazine capacity on these babies?

Obama doesn’t have to be evil to warrant vigorous opposition

Andrew Patrick writes a very thoughtful post on the subject. A sample:
Giving progressives a pass for their intent is a fool’s game. Of course progressives intend that there be liberty, equality, and brotherhood. But if they insist that this can only be accomplished by a happy-faced Leviathan pulling society up from its roots willy-nilly. And in their darkest heart of hearts, they enjoy the destruction of the old. They see it the way medieval monks saw scourging: as a necessary purification. For America to rise to great heights, America must first be unmade.

That is what Obama wants. This is not a debate about what in America needs reforming. Obama wants to reform everything about this country. He wants to change, utterly, the relationship of the citizen and the state. He has in mind some benevolent ant colony where all the good things in Julia’s life proceed from the wisdom of the enlightened ruling class. All things within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.
So it really doesn’t matter whether Obama is the anti-Christ, or just a schlemiel for whom we are a nation of schlimazels. He has done harm, and he will continue to do harm, and a prissy deference to his presumed “intentions” plays right into his hands and the hands of his party and media allies.

You know, I could probably forgive John Boehner much if he would start treating Obama like the leader of a gang of home invaders, instead of like the popular girl who keeps turning him down for a date; but I doubt that we’ll see any resolve from that quarter.

(H/T to Jeff Goldstein for the link to Andrew’s piece).

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

That 30s Show

To borrow from (and mangle) Orwell, I slept peacefully in my bed last night because rough men with strong stomachs were willing to wade through the inauguration festivities on my behalf - specifically, Obama’s big speech. And by “big”, I mean bloated with the gas of undigested, and undigestible, leftist imbecilities. Our president’s puerile intellect obviously never developed beyond the stage of young malcontent on the make, so, in lieu of new ideas, we get FDR’s hand-me-downs.

Based on what I’ve read, the speech was extraordinarily reactionary, a call for the return of big government (when did it ever go away, incidentally?), a demand for collective (read “statist”) action, and an inadequately-concealed condemnation of America as a nation of feckless dunderheads who, save for the ministrations of government, will always be just on the verge of drowning in their own bathtubs or impaling themselves on scissors or living out their wretched dotage in lean-tos under railroad bridges. In short, we’re all even more pathetic than the Joads, and since the New Deal was such a great success (I know, I know), then a New New Deal can only be more so.

But the president may have trouble fully implementing New Deal 2.0 as long as that annoying, pesky, hoary old piece of paper is in the way – that would be the United States Constitution to you and me. Jeffrey Lord sees its effective destruction as Obama’s ultimate goal, and it’s difficult to see how Obama can turn the U.S. into the Big Rock Candy Mountain* , otherwise.

So, note to all patriots: stay vigilant, stay involved.

*”Big Rock Candy Mountain” was a song first recorded back in the late 20s that sought to capture the hobo’s notion of paradise. One of the original verses, considered too obscene at the time for recording, nicely captures the difference between the dream and the reality, and is perhaps pertinent to a consideration of the folly of all utopian schemes:
The punk rolled up his big blue eyes
And said to the jocker, "Sandy,
I've hiked and hiked and wandered too,
But I ain't seen any candy.
I've hiked and hiked till my feet are sore
And I'll be damned if I hike any more
To be buggered sore like a hobo's whore
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains."
Update: Heh. Obama borrowed from Neville Chamberlain - probably unwittingly. Maybe I'll have a look at the transcript of that speech; if I search carefully, I might find that he stole "from each according to his ability..." etc., or maybe even "ein tausendjähriges Reich".

Given enough time, a room full of monkeys with typewriters might actually bang out Hamlet

But would a room full of David Brookses ever be able to create a non-treacly, non-obsequious essay about Barack Obama? One is overwhelmed by a sense of the statistical remoteness of the event. It is simply a given: the columnist is irretrievably committed to promoting the alleged wisdom and intellectual superiority of our current president.

Smitty has had enough of Mr. Brooks vainly trying to nudge that slinky up the staircase, and smites him hip and thigh in this vigorous critique.

Loser accorded warm welcome

Jimmy Carter received cheers at the inaugural festivities yesterday.

Dog haters!

Science on the march

German scientists claim to have mapped the Neanderthal genome.

Here is an artist's rendition of a typical Neanderthal, based on the latest knowledge.


...

...

...

...

...

...


Hmmm. Just barely humanoid.

Perspective

Michael Bloomberg doesn't have any.
“Most people I know don’t even have a gun,” Bloomberg said...
Well, most people I know aren't accompanied by half a dozen armed bodyguards everywhere they go. Dick.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know my two imaginary new weapons this weekend: a Ruger SR9c semi-automatic pistol (17-round magazine), and a Winchester Super X Pump Defender shotgun (12 ga, 5+1). Maybe sometime this week I'll take them down to the shooting range in my mind - where there's always plenty of ammo.


Monday, January 21, 2013

The police are not necessarily our allies in the fight to support Second Amendment rights

Take, for example, San Diego Police Chief William Landsdowne.
Lansdowne suggested the Newtown, Conn., massacre may have undercut the gun lobby’s power and opened the door for new gun control legislation. “We broke the NRA,” Lansdowne boasted in an off camera portion of an interview with San Diego 6 and the Washington Guardian. When asked to expound, he demurred [Yeah, I bet he did, because he was just showing his tail - Paco].

The White House plans to unveil its regulatory plan Wednesday for tightening gun controls, and Lansdowne threw his support behind President Barack Obama.

"I could not be more supportive of the president for taking the position he has," he told KPBS in a separate interview. "I think it's courageous with the politics involved in this process. But I think it's going to eventually make the country safer and certainly safer for my officers that have to respond to these calls [emphasis mine - Paco]."
There is a certain type of policeman - Britain is rife with them, as are many of our own big cities - who is really just a bureaucrat in uniform, more concerned with making his own life easier than in living up to the sometimes difficult, messy challenges of upholding the law in a genuinely free society - after all, a society that is cowed is easier to police, and there is no population more cowed than one that is disarmed. Not all policemen - perhaps only a minority - share Landsdowne's smug, self-serving attitude. But it's a factor that has to be borne in mind in case the left's gun-control mania ever gets real traction.

Inauguration festivities

Meh. Not interested.

But the beginning of Obama's second term did inspire me to look up the speeches of other heavy-handed government types. I thought this one by Lenin was interesting (it is on the subject of the "middle peasants", and includes the comical assertion that the Communist Party's mission was only to give "advice" and "suggestions" to the peasants).



Here's the left's favorite hirsute dictator telling some typical whoppers.



And for sheer theatricality, it's tough to beat this guy.

Brave school administrators in Pennsylvania thwart shooting

Or rather, not exactly. "Kindergartner Suspended Over Bubble Gun Threat".
A 5-year-old girl was suspended from school earlier this week after she made what the school called a "terrorist threat."

Her weapon of choice? A small, Hello Kitty automatic bubble blower.

The kindergartner, who attends Mount Carmel Area Elementary School in Pennsylvania, caught administrators' attention after suggesting she and a classmate should shoot each other with bubbles.
The wonderful thing about zero-tolerance policies is that they relieve school administrators of the responsibility for exercising any kind of personal judgment at all. Kind of makes you question why you even need these lumpen-bureaucrats.

Welcome to Mt. Carmel Elementary School - and please observe that it's a "wisdom-free zone".

Monday movie

Alec Guiness plays the role of a cardinal in an unnamed central European communist country, arrested and subjected to psychological torture by a former comrade. From 1955’s The Prisoner.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

I'm ok with taking this guy's gun away

Joseph Morrissey, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, and an anti-gun dolt, brandished a borrowed AK-47 on the floor of the House on Thursday. His profile makes one wonder if he'd pass a background check.
But while Morrissey introduced a gun-control bill Thursday aimed at reducing criminal violence in Virginia, he has a history that involves physical violence of another kind.

Morrissey paid a man $500,000 in 2007 to settle a 2002 court judgment against him, related to a 1999 physical assault.

According to legal brief filed by the victim’s attorneys, Morrissey shouted, “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to beat your head in,” before beating the victim and “smash[ing] his head into the corner of a brick wall.”

The 2003 revocation of Morrissey’s law license followed that courtroom reckoning, but by then his disciplinary record in the legal profession was already a lengthy one.
Read on! It looks like this d-bag wants to ban guns because he's afraid a law-abiding citizen might one day legally use one on him.

"You lookin' at me? You lookin' at me?


Update: Good lord! This clown even has an Australian connection.


Obama takes the oath of office for a second term today

Yeah, that's nice. More importantly, yesterday was Gun Appreciation Day, and I celebrated by purchasing two new firearms - in my imagination.

Nice Deb has a roundup of Second Amendment rallies around the nation.

RIP

Cardinals superstar Stan Musial has died, at age 92.

Orioles long-time manager, Earl Weaver, at age 82.

Sunday funnies

Great moments in the history of bad advice: “Stand closer to the rhino”.

Saw a funny bumper sticker today: "Keep honking, I'm reloading".


We've all heard of the Wienermobile. But this is is the first I've heard of the Zippo Lighter Car:

( From Black and WTF, a great source for old black and white photos)


Saturday, January 19, 2013

The government has met the enemy...

...and it is us. John Fund at National Review:
The world is beset by terrorists — witness the American hostages taken in Algeria this week — but portions of our federal government continue to obsess about alleged home-grown threats from the “far right.”

The Combating Terrorism Center, which is based at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, has issued a new report on its website entitled

“Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right.”

Normally, the center’s activities are focused on al-Qaeda and other violent Islamic groups seeking to topple governments around the world. But the latest report looks inside America itself, and if the center is to be judged by the quality of its analysis in this report, it might be wise for all of us to be skeptical of its other work. The Center’s report lumps together entirely legitimate tea-party-style activists with three groups it says represent “a racist/white supremacy movement, an anti-federalist movement and a fundamentalist movement.”
Hey, as the saying goes, call me anything you like, just don't call me late to dinner.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Biden's mind

Like a box of firecrackers into which someone has carelessly dropped a lighted match.

Hey, and where is New Jersey governor Chris “Weather Balloon” Christie on the issue of knife control?

Now why would he do that?

"Holder Begs Court to Stop Document Release on Fast and Furious"

Happy Feet Friday

Probably won’t be too long before we all join Jack McVea in singing the Inflation Blues.


Thursday, January 17, 2013

I'll settle for a lessening of the "Bidenicity"

Plugs Biden appeals for a lessening of the "coarsity" of our culture.

Perhaps improving the literacy of our elected officials would help.

"Put my hands up, I'm under arrest!"

New York governor Andrew Cuomo demonstrates the truth of the old adage, measure twice, cut once.

Really, aren’t dishonest ideologues and political hacks already overrepresented in the Obama administration?

Senator Jeff Sessions takes on another atrocious Obama nominee: Jack Lew, presumptive Secretary of the Treasury. His specialty seems to be the telling of budgetary whoppers:
By presenting a plan that deliberately ignored our nation’s debt problem — while falsely claiming that it did the opposite — the White House was able to cloud the issues, stall progress, and avoid any meaningful discussion of spending and entitlement reform. It also allowed them to spend two years on the political offensive while escaping responsibility.

Not only was Lew the architect of two failed budgets, but he was the point man in the White House for its campaign of financial deception. For instance, he was the budget director and was present when President Obama notoriously gave an address outlining a framework to save $4 trillion (a complete fantasy) while decrying Paul Ryan’s very real plan to save trillions as an attack upon the weak and vulnerable.
Just what we need: another Obamunist smelling up the place with smoke from the conflagration of his pantaloons.

Is Barry ready for Mt. Rushmore?

Randy says “Yes!”

Message to red-staters

"Conservative" Democrats will let you down, every single time (in that, they're much like RINOs).

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Arrogance bordering on mental illness

Obama says Israeli prime minister Netanyahu is a "political coward", and simply doesn't know what's good for Israel.

The "political coward" line is probably just a huffy insult designed to assuage Obama's own sense of inferiority (Netanyahu has made Obama look foolish on more than one occasion; or perhaps it's more accurate to say that Obama has made himself look foolish in Netanyahu's presence on more than one occasion). Anyhow, it's good to know that Obama hasn't just singled out Americans as being mentally deficient; the whole world teems with helpless dumbasses, who would benefit enormously from his leadership, if only they would consent to be led.

As usual, a sweeping doff of the cavalier's hat to Captain Heinrichs.

Update: Don't worry, preshizzle; there's always Bob Schieffer.


Not learning from past mistakes

Former D.C. criminal prosecutor Jeffrey Scott explains why draconian gun-control laws don’t work, citing, as an example, our nation’s capital.
The gun ban had an unintended effect: It emboldened criminals because they knew that law-abiding District residents were unarmed and powerless to defend themselves. Violent crime increased after the law was enacted, with homicides rising to 369 in 1988, from 188 in 1976 when the ban started. By 1993, annual homicides had reached 454.
Criminals are, above all else, opportunists. They like easy pickings, and the more defenseless the population is, the broader their scope for action.

Elsewhere, Jeff Goldstein – one of the most articulate and passionate defenders of our constitutional liberties writing today – pours a bottle of clarity over the Democrat auxiliaries at NBC:
We the People have families as well. What we don’t have is the ability to sign into law permanent armed protection for the rest of our lives paid for by taxpayer money. Politicians in a constitutional republic are servants of the people. They aren’t our betters.

This President and any temporary Congress has no authority to take away our 2nd Amendment rights. The amendment doesn’t exist to allow for hunting or target shooting, or even home protection: those are useful appendages to what the amendment as written and ratified does provide for: an armed and prepared populace set up as a deterrent to foreign invaders or a tyrannical turn by their own government.

This may prove unpalatable to some, but that is beside the point: the amendment is what it is and does what it does. If progressives wish to change that, they can try amending the Constitution. Otherwise, they lack the authority. And we mustn’t allow them to chip away at our rights and consider the “compromise” worth the ending of the headache.
By the way here are the 23 executive orders. Taken all together, these orders have the appearance of a nothing burger; however, we should never discount the ability of government bureaucrats to abuse the stated scope of their mission through the magic of “interpretation”. Obama’s big proposals – a scary-looking-rifle ban, and limits on magazine capacity – would need congressional approval. I’m thinking that won’t happen – and I personally pledge financial support to any candidate who primaries a Republican representative or senator who does support Obama’s more toxic legislative recommendations.

I had a dream last night that I ordered a Ruger SR9c 9mm semi-automatic pistol with a 17-round magazine, and a Winchester Super X Pump Defender 12 ga. shotgun, having a capacity of 5+1…just in case.

Only a dream, of course, only a dream.

Truth in labeling

Mary Katherine Ham over at Hot Air’s Green Room links to a refreshingly honest cover letter from a college student seeking an internship on Wall St

Good luck, Colonel!

Allen West joins PJ Media.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

I agree with James Feehery

The Republican Party should begin a purge – starting with any elected Republicans at the national level who share James Feehery’s views.
Boehner should invite the 12 who voted against him to leave the GOP. He should bar them from attending any Republican Conference meetings. He should strip them of all committee assignments. He should instruct the NRCC to view those seats to be held in the hands of non-Republicans, and find candidates to run for them. He should instruct Republican allies on the outside — business groups, corporate PACS, trade associations, the Chamber of Commerce — to cease to give these members any campaign contributions. The Speaker should instruct the Appropriations Committee to deny all spending requests made by any of these 12 members. These members shouldn’t be allowed to travel on any congressional delegation trips.
Nor to join in any congressional games, I suppose. This is pure establishment crap, the kind of world view that sees the main function of congress being to “get things done”, to serve as an assembly line for legislation, that measures success in the quantity of bills approved and in the extent of adherence to the spirit of (one-way) compromise, that values loyalty to the Party leadership above fidelity to principle. People like Feehery lack the vision, or even the basic native wit, to see that the struggle between those who support traditional constitutional rights, individual liberty and limited government, and those who want to transform America into a soul-destroying nanny state, is reaching a critical historical stage, and that it is a battle that cannot be won by focusing on insignificant tactical machinations that garner virtually meaningless concessions from the Democrats in return for wholesale betrayals of those great ideals that the Republican Party used to stand for. Establishment hacks like Feehery just want to sit up there in the howdah on top of the elephant and admire the view – all the way to the elephant graveyard.

A second look at gun-free zones

From Grouchy Old Cripple (via the ever-vigilant Captain Heinrichs).

Monday, January 14, 2013

If Colin Powell can call himself a Republican...

...then I can call myself a Sioux chief.

Goodbye Paco, hello Chuckling Bear! And if you happen to be in the neighborhood, stop by for some mad slot machine action and cheap cigarettes.

(H/T: Captain Heinrichs)

One last car photo from Bubba's


The red and black interior is a nice touch.

How about a Bloombergocracy?

That seems to be what the mayor of New York – whose name is, not coincidentally, Bloomberg – really wants. He’d like to start out by changing the GOP:
“Somebody got them the way they are now,” the mayor of New York said in a recent interview as he sat in the bullpen offices of City Hall, surrounded by a buzzing staff, blinking Bloomberg terminals and clocks telling the same time in each of the five boroughs. “Why can’t you change them?”
I’ll tell you, your honor, it all has to do with the fallacy of the perfectibility of human nature, especially through the agency of heavy-handed government, and very particularly when “perfectibility” is defined essentially to mean “tractability”. One reason we’re the "way we are" is because we resent having overprivileged idiots trying to micromanage our lives. Another reason is that we believe those idiots, in insisting on the self-evident truth of their prejudices, are actively undermining republican government by attempting to exclude genuine debate from the public forum of ideas.

Oh, and one other reason we are the way we are - perhaps not the most important, but nevertheless significant - is that you are an arrogant, preening, hypocritical ass. Good enough for the masochistic swarms of New Yorkers who keep electing you, I suppose, secure in the delusion that their celebrated brashness makes them riotously independent, when, in fact, they are nothing but sheep with an attitude; but of no use whatsoever outside your present jurisdiction.

All those billions, and still just a twerp.

Update: By the way, looks like you almost missed one, slick.

Monday movie

Michael Caine, as Oberst Kurt Steiner, challenges the SS in a scene from The Eagle Has Landed.


Assortment

Tree Hugging Sister has the story of a Revolutionary battle in North Carolina that I am embarrassed to say I hadn't heard of before (delighted to finally learn of it, though).

Swampy, hard-pressed, soldiers on.

Odysseus was a jerk.

Mayor Bloomberg's safety tips.

Polyphemus has a very good eye, indeed.

The Classic Liberal has an extensive and highly instructive post on the Year in Review.

The Walla Walla Tea Party Patriots take a shot (so to speak) at David Gregory.

Those Burri genes are strong.

Liberty at Stake on "class warfare roulette".

Lance Burri finds, er, a rather unique metaphor.

The lightning in Australia is apparently very discriminating in its taste.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Back off!

Want to let your elected officials know that they'd better keep their hands off your guns? Ruger is happy to help (H/T: Instapundit).

More pictures from Bubba's

Number One son sent me some of the photos he took when we were over at Bubba's East Coast Rod Shop the other day, which are somewhat better than the ones I snapped (click to enlarge).

Here's that Packard Patrician, again, with some details.





Mmmm, that red T-Bird!



And I'm really diggin' the back window on this Mercury Montclair.


Sunday funnies

(Via Dan Mitchell at International Liberty)


Ghost driver.

The latest in home security options.

"The dog ate my passport".

OREO art.

Perhaps, under new ownership, Current TV might start to look something like this (H/T: Captain Heinrichs).

Smitty's corollary to Godwin's Law.

Senator Diane Feinstein never registered her own domain name, so a gun store did, and is now using the site to promote gun rights. Be sure to visit the site; there's some good stuff there - for example, act now to buy a tactical assault rock from CroMagnum Arms.




Saturday, January 12, 2013

Wheels

Number One son, the eminent Virginia tattooist, came to visit Mrs. Paco and me on Wednesday, and, in addition to going to the NRA range, where we spent a pleasurable hour shooting (with guns, alas, stolen from my home in the wee hours of Thursday morning), we dropped by Bubba’s East Coast Rod Shop to see what was out in the parking lot, awaiting restoration. To my surprise and delight, on deck was a 1956 Packard Patrician.



There were also a couple of sweet-looking T-Birds in the offing.



Friday, January 11, 2013

Dear CNN

Our little book trumps your little schnook, any day.

[Note: link fixed]

God apparently went on vacation and left Michael Bloomberg in charge

Or so hizzoner thinks. His latest diktat involves a directive to city hospitals to limit the availability of painkillers.

I guess New Yorkers who use the services of city hospitals will just have to bite on a bullet. Oh, wait…

Joe Biden's "conversation" with the NRA

Here's how it went, according to the NRA's press release:
Fairfax, Va. – The National Rifle Association of America is made up of over 4 million moms and dads, daughters and sons, who are involved in the national conversation about how to prevent a tragedy like Newtown from ever happening again. We attended today's White House meeting to discuss how to keep our children safe and were prepared to have a meaningful conversation about school safety, mental health issues, the marketing of violence to our kids and the collapse of federal prosecutions of violent criminals.

We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment. While claiming that no policy proposals would be “prejudged,” this Task Force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners - honest, taxpaying, hardworking Americans. It is unfortunate that this Administration continues to insist on pushing failed solutions to our nation's most pressing problems. We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen. Instead, we will now take our commitment and meaningful contributions to members of congress of both parties who are interested in having an honest conversation about what works - and what does not.

Chuck Hagel: Iran’s useful idiot

Senator John Cornyn has written a brief article which appears on the CNN web site, entitled “Why I can’t support Chuck Hagel”. A sample:
In July 2001, 96 U.S. senators voted to extend sanctions against Iran. Chuck Hagel was one of only two senators who voted against sanctions. A year later, he urged the Bush administration to support Iranian membership in the World Trade Organization.

Even more disturbing, Hagel voted against a 2007 measure that called for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to be designated a terrorist group. (At the time, the IRGC was aiding and equipping Shiite militias that were murdering U.S. troops in Iraq.) A few weeks after this vote, Hagel sent a letter to President George W. Bush asking him to launch "direct, unconditional, and comprehensive talks" with the Iranian government, which the State Department has labeled a state sponsor of terrorism every year since 1984.

In July 2008, Hagel recommended that Washington go beyond direct talks and establish a U.S. diplomatic mission in Tehran. Later that month, in a Senate Banking Committee vote, he was one of only two senators to oppose the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act. (Obama signed a subsequent version of this bill in July 2010.)

Finally, in his 2008 book, "America: Our Next Chapter," Hagel appeared to suggest that the United States could live with a nuclear Iran, writing that "the genie of nuclear armaments is already out of the bottle, no matter what Iran does."
I don’t know whether Obama nominated this guy as a calculated affront to Israel (and, for that matter, an affront to anybody who believes in a strong America), or whether it was the president’s idea of a practical joke, or whether, as some have argued, because of Hagel’s obvious utility as a means of enabling the president to reduce the U.S. to the status of a third-rate power. I frankly don’t care about the motive. I just know that this is a deliriously wrong-headed move.

Happy Feet Friday

How about a little blond boogie-woogie, with Elena Tourbina?

Thursday, January 10, 2013

First, they want to confiscate our guns

Next, it will probably be our gold.

In the same way that Obama will be remembered as one of our finest presidents

“Tim Geithner is going to go down as one of our finest Secretaries of the Treasury.”

Even soda-pop machines won’t accept it

I’ve been reading off and on over the last few days about the notion of the government issuing a trillion-dollar coin. I thought the whole thing was a joke, but apparently a few people are taking the proposal seriously.

Here’s the thing: unless the coin is freely convertible into gold, silver, platinum or some other asset that has genuine market value, it’s worth nothing but whatever value one normally associates with an empty promise given by the federal government – which means we’re talking about a coin freely convertible into, at best, b.s.

Which gives me an idea: instead of a coin, how about a lacquered cow pie with Obama and his s**t-eating grin stamped in bas-relief on one side, and Lady Liberty holding aloft, say, a pooper-scooper on the other (perhaps while sitting on Joe Biden’s lap)? That would serve as the perfect exclamation mark for the monstrous irresponsibility of this administration.

Well, he wouldn't have been my first choice

Bill Clinton named Father of the Year.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

More criticism of the Society of Rich D-Bags Who Know Better Than You


H/T: Moonbattery

Update: A must-read open letter, from former SEAL and novelist Matt Bracken, to federal security agents.

H/T: Jill J

Update II: In post-War McMinn County, Tennessee, citizens exercised their right to bear arms to overturn a corrupt and vicious local government: "This is why we have the second amendment".

H/T: Doug Ross

Another instance of the ideological evanescence of moderate Republicans

Formerly known as the Republican Main Street Partnership, the group is now dropping the word “Republican” and opening its doors to Democrats.

And this is the problem with moderate Republicans: the emphasis is on “moderate” as opposed to “Republican”. Yes, there’s a lot of happy talk about bringing together middle-of-the-road Republicans and Democrats – “to find the path forward”, in the words of President Steven LaTourette, “to getting things done and compromise”. But as I scan the horizon, I don’t see too many moderate Democrats out there, and compromise more often than not means simply slowing down the pace of our evolution into a European-style social democracy.

Hey, but good luck with that, Steve. I’ll be following your pursuit of middle-of-the-road solutions with great interest.

(And a shovel).

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Role model

Marc Thiessen says Republicans should be more like Obama. The money quote:
Republicans should take a page from Obama’s playbook, do what they think is right, use all the leverage at their disposal and stop worrying about the electoral consequences. If they learn anything from Obama’s victories, it should be this: Voters reward conviction politicians who fight for what they believe in — even when they disagree with them. Pandering does not work.
I think the article overlooks two important facts: (1) the lamestream media has provided Obama with a smokescreen for the last four years, which has, at critical moments, hidden his true intentions, the likely (and unpleasant) results of his policies, and his ideological radicalism; and (2) pandering, of one kind or another, was an important component of Obama’s victorious campaign. Nonetheless, I believe Thiessen is correct in the overall thrust of his argument: Republicans should start standing their ground, defiantly and noisily, and stop wasting time and undermining their own position by playing small ball. Of course, for Republican politicians to be able to do this, they need to believe passionately in America’s tradition of individual liberty and limited government – which means the Party needs a considerable transfusion of new blood.

General McChrystal, Tory

We can scratch this fellow off the list when the revolution comes.
"I spent a career carrying typically either an M16, and later an M4 carbine," he said. "And an M4 carbine fires a .223 caliber round, which is 5.56 millimeters, at about 3,000 feet per second. When it hits a human body, the effects are devastating. It's designed to do that. And that's what our soldiers ought to carry."

The general added, "I personally don't think there's any need for that kind of weaponry on the streets and particularly around the schools in America. I believe that we've got to take a serious look. I understand everybody's desire to have whatever they want, but we’ve got to protect our children, we’ve got to protect our police, we've got to protect our population."
The population can defend itself, my dear General, but not if it’s disarmed. And if the M4 and its variants are good enough for our soldiers, then they are good enough for law-abiding private citizens, who should be trusted to determine their own security needs and act accordingly and responsibly – which is to say, that our citizens are good enough for those types of weapons.

We must protect our children, our police and our population? Why, yes, but the occasional crazed gunman isn’t the only threat. There’s also the little matter of a tyrannical government which seeks to usurp our freedom – a danger that is becoming less hypothetical with every passing day, and the precise danger that the Second Amendment was intended to guard against.

The issue is not whether the government should trust the people with guns; it's whether the people should trust the government without them.

But continue, by all means, to express your opinion as a private citizen – one whose views on gun control do not, I am bound to say, carry any special weight simply because of your military service.

Monday, January 7, 2013

I feel for ya, man

Craig Benavidez' new year doesn't seem to be much of an improvement over the last one: "Man shocked by power line on Monday was previously attacked by Africanized bees".

From the shelves of the Paco library


Last year’s cable miniseries, The Hatfield and McCoys, provided a vivid dramatization of what is probably the best-known feud in American history; however, as brutal as that conflict was, the two families were pikers when it came to the sheer volume of bloodletting, compared to several other feuds that occurred in the same region. John Ed Pearce, in his fascinating history, Days of Darkness: The Feuds of Eastern Kentucky, has put together a detailed history of half a dozen feuds that raged in the 19th and early 20th centuries in that violence-prone area, and the carnage was, indeed, extraordinary.

There is no single theme that underlies the conflicts. Some of them stemmed from resentments lingering from the Civil War, some of them were rooted in commercial rivalries, others involved the clash of big business and small land owners. One thing that does seem to seem to be common to all of the feuds was the distrust, by many of the participants, of local and state governments that were seen (correctly, in far too many cases) of being infested with corrupt officials, overly-ambitious politicians, and rank favoritism, based on both party affiliation and family connections. Add to this mix the long-standing spirit of fierce independence that animated the denizens of eastern Kentucky, and you get a series of truly explosive situations.

The book documents feuds that occurred in Pike, Rowan, Perry, Breathitt, Harlan and Clay counties, with Clay County taking up about a quarter of the volume. The Clay County War went on sporadically for nearly a hundred years, and the final body count, although conjectural based on the incomplete and inaccurate newspaper reports of the time and the embellishments of personal memories, appears to have easily ranged between fifty and a hundred dead. It is an enthralling tale of hostilities that began in the 1840s, when crazy Abner Baker, Jr., convinced that his wife, Susan White, was fornicating with every man in town (including her own father), went completely around the bend and shot his brother-in-law in the back. After fleeing the vicinity, he unaccountably returned, and was arrested. The Baker family strove to prove insanity, but a court disagreed, and sentenced him to hang (on the gallows, Baker shouted, “Go ahead! Finish the whore’s work!”). Although hostilities died down for a while, they cropped up periodically, reaching a new height of violence when, in 1898, Bad Tom Baker and his sons bushwhacked a member of the Howard family and some of his friends after a dispute over timber rights (the Howards were allied with the Whites). The situation grew progressively worse, until eventually the Kentucky state militia had to be called in. Bad Tom was assassinated by a sniper while he was in the custody of military authorities; the murderer was never found.

The book is alive with colorful (and often frightening) characters: “Devil” Anse Hatfield, the murderous patriarch of the Hatfield clan; Frank Phillips, the sometime detective and lawman who was the most effective of the McCoy faction’s gunmen; Fulton French, the ruthless agent of big eastern land companies who, with his partner, gunslinger “Bad Tom” Smith, provoked the wrath of the Eversole family, resulting in a spiral of violence that almost destroyed the town of Hazard, seat of Perry County; there is even a Methodist minister, the Reverend John Jay Dickey, a kindly, but brave, man who attempted, unsuccessfully, to bring peace to the troubled region.

With the passage of time, and the dying off (or killing off) of the original participants, the feuds finally abated. Pearce writes:
Trouble did not end with the feuds. For another half century Eastern Kentucky remained the victim of violence. Strife tore the mining towns, just as worsening floods tore the valleys. For many years the region’s homicide rates remained among the worst in the nation. But roads and colleges and parks have come to mark the mountains. The reputation for violence left by feuds is now like old scars from some long-past, seldom-remembered accident of youth. Gradually, even the scars are forgotten.

Yet there must be moments even now when in the mists of twilight the ghost of Wilse Howard rides once more the roads of Harlan; when Bad Tom Baker stands, defiant and doomed on the courthouse lawn; when Big Jim Howard strides the streets of Manchester with his sample case, remembering; or when little Cal Tolliver, in his fourteenth year, stands before the America Hotel of Morehead, a little boy facing death, in each hand a blazing .44.
Days of Darkness is a gripping story of a region that remained something of an internal frontier, even as the wild west was succumbing to the blandishments of civilization. Pearce, in filtering and synthesizing mountains of newspaper articles, court documents, personal letters and family histories, is to be commended for his thoroughgoing research and very readable history.

The Palestinians and the soft bigotry of low expectations

Pat Condell, once again, telling it like it is.

Another atrocious Obama appointment

Chuck Hagel for Department of Defense. Why? Jim Geraghty at National Review collects some opinions from various politicians and op-ed people, none of which strike me as fully explanatory (although Lindsey Graham’s comment that this is an “in your face” nomination is probably pretty close to the truth – which further underscores this president’s temperamental unfitness for the office he holds).

People at the agency where I work – in a state of near-despair from four years of working under Obama’s political appointees here – complain that there’s nowhere to run: word on the street is that practically all of Obama’s political appointees are (I am quoting) “assholes”. Perhaps the president’s main criterion for choosing agency personnel is as simple as this: he wants people around who resemble him.

DrewM at Ace of Spades has more. Drew draws attention to something about the nomination that also bothers me a great deal: quite aside from Hagel’s open hostility to Israel, what evidence is there that he even has the competence to manage such a huge federal agency? (answer: precious little evidence).

Well, what do you expect?

In response to government assistance, Obama's crony capitalists are expected to kick in with a little solidarity, now and then.

Bank of America is now messing around with at least one gun manufacturer's deposits.

I dumped Bank of America years ago. You should, too.

Update: the Daily Caller has a roster of gun-control proponents.

Monday movie

The final showdown from Ride the High country.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Sunday funnies

Newspaper prints a map of Texas gun owners (H/T: Ed Driscoll).

If you're not allergic to cats, this may be the job for you.

Our debt to comics.

Think the zombie apocalypse can't happen? Think again.




Friday, January 4, 2013

Tell it to the Marines, Diane!

A Marine corporal informs Senator Feinstein what he thinks of her gun-grabbing ways.

On the subject of our government, in general, Andy at Ace of Spades has this sterling quote from H.L. Mencken:
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.

A new scandal at EPA

Hint: if the allegations prove to be true, the affair is far worse than secret email accounts.

Bread and circuses

And clowns. Don't forget the clowns.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Happy Feet Friday

A true rarity: Perry Como teams up with Martha Davis.


Ah, but here’s the problem, Don

You want to drag Boehner and McConnell behind a truck, repeal the Second Amendment (“it’s confusing”), make membership in the NRA illegal, and kill people who refuse to give up their weapons. But, you see, the people you’re targeting already have weapons, and, well, you and your ilk generally don’t (except for the monumental liberal hypocrites who own guns themselves, but don’t think the public, at large, should). So, what are you going to do, exactly? Overwhelm them with your high dudgeon? Intimidate them with your bristly little goatee? Oh, right: the state will do your dirty work. Millions of people – including current and former policemen, current and former military personnel, independent, self-reliant sons and daughters of the soil, and hard-bitten denizens of the cities who rebel at the notion of helpless victimhood – they’re all going to meekly hand their guns over to a government run by people whose sensibilities mirror your own. Is that it?

Not seeing it, Don. Just not seeing it.

Update: What right-wing, racist, pointy-hood-wearing Republican said this?
Certainly, one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. … The right of the citizen to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible.
Check Protein Wisdom for the answer.

Update: Efforts by Democrats in Illinois to ram through gun control probably violate the Constitution. But, hey, who cares about that old, yellow rag, anyway? Especially now that we’ve got a hipster lightworker who’s willing to down golf clubs whenever necessary in order to sweep that autopen over a steady stream of executive orders that are simply chockfull of hopey-changey, extra-constitutional, it’s-good-for-what-ails-ya secular commandments. Ain’t that right, Preshizzle?

"You said it, Pops!

Out: Dead and white.

In: Fly-by-night."




Assortment

Moonbattery presents a liberal's New Year's resolutions.

Michael Walsh stomps all over Louis Michael Seidman's idiotic dismissal of the Constitution.

In Vietnam, the times, they are a-changin'.

Closer to home, Victor Davis Hanson looks at these "very, very scary times".

ObamaCare is bad for the economy - not that there's anything wrong with that.

While we're heaping abuse on John Boehner, Dad29 reminds us that Senator Mitch McConnell also has a a lot to answer for.

Choose wisely, Mr. Commissioner.

A truly outrageous green energy scam.

The ultimate nadir of British gun control: you now run the risk of getting your ass kicked by Oompa Loompas.

Astronomers discover...the eye of Sauron?!?

Bicycle and tree combine to create roadside art.