Dear Democrats

Would you yawn and call him  "a modern Moses" if John Mitchell had subpoenaed the phone records of Woodward,Bernstein and their families during Watergate? 

Friday Music

What say we jump back to the 1980"s?

I saw this band live back in the day. Good show.

A$$holes and Alligators

Last week a bunch of Congressmen called in Apple execs to lecture them for -- following the law. Earlier this week Representative Keith Ellison said he was disappointed Apple Corp does not want to pay more in taxes.

Here is my question to all Democrats who think the rich people and corporations should want to pay more in taxes. I will address my question to Mr. Ellison, since he is so passionate. Mr. Ellison, when you filed your taxes last month did you take any deductions?  Did you exercise your exemptions?  Do you have a retirement account saving money in pretax dollars? Did you deduct from your taxes through claimed charitable donations?

Unless you put your money where your mouth is, Representative Ellison, unless you  looked at your total income and  went straight to the tax table and paid the maximum amount, you can just drink a big old glass of shut the fuck up you hypocritical asswipe.

Any of you class warfare 'pay your fair share" types who agree with Ellison take the same advice. Lecture me when you are paying the maximum. In fact, the IRS allows you to pay extra if you feel the need.

more

Over there, in the upper right of the home page

Vote on my poll, you slackers.

Monday II -- The Sequel

Good morning blog readers across the fruited plain.  We find ourselves on a Tuesday that feels like a Monday. Even though it is a short work week it is going to be a busy one. I have a big project due Friday, and since today is already Tuesday, as I already mentioned -- you have to keep up, dang it -- I am already a day behind.  Or so you think.  I actually worked hard last Friday and got much of it done, so take that doubters.

If I get my work done I am going to take a day of vacation Friday.  The wife is having a garage sale Saturday. I plan on helping her drag out some big stuff to get rid of.  Do you need a set of bunk beds, a curio cabinet? How about a bicycle? I have a 70cc dirt bike motorcycle if you are up to a thrill or two. Come on by Saturday morning.  Leave your cash, take away my junk high quality, slightly used merchandise.

Memorial Day

This is my Great Grandfather -- taken while serving in the Philippines circa 1900. He came home to raise a family.

Please remember all those who died for our freedom.

Rambling Sunday Nonsense With No Politics

If you like fast cars and basketball, today is a good day to be in the Indianapolis area. The Indianapolis 500 will go off as scheduled around noon; weather permitting.  Professional basketball playoffs continue tonight as the Pacers take on the Miami Heat at 8:00.

It is quite likely I will watch neither. I have never seen the Indy 500 live on TV.  It is blacked out in most of Indiana. I have been to the race twice, back in the 1980's. Lots of fun. Lots of people. The un-fun of getting in and getting out of the track far outweighed the fun inside, at least for me. The beginning of the race will make your hair stand on end.  The end is a thrill, especially if you are sitting near the start line.

I am not a basketball fan, never have been. I especially hate the NBA brand of hoops.  There should not be different rules for special players.  A foul is a foul, even if your name is LeBron or Michael. I am pretty sure the rules specify one is to dribble the ball, not run down the lane like the six year-olds in the winter league at the Boys Club.

I did some yard work yesterday and mowed the yard in anticipation of a raining afternoon today and Monday.It needed it in any case.

As I type these words, a cardinal is singing on a branch outside my office window.  The coffee is hot and Dire Straits is singing about "Guitar George". In the next room the boy is getting ready for work.

Have a good Sunday.

Memory Lane

Remember way back in early 2013 when there were some Second Amendment advocates who remarked that one of the reasons the Second Amendment was put into the Constitution was to protect the First Amendment? Remember how the Liberal-types thought that was a ridiculous argument?  After all, the Progressive admonished, the Government would never use its power to persecute and harass a citizen based upon his political or religious beliefs.

Ah, the good old days...

My Confusing Thursday

Yesterday evening I found myself muttering words I thought I would never say to my wife of almost 29 years. I had to tell her that I had let a man stick his hand up my ass. I am still not clear how a visit to the medico for lower back/kidney pain turned into a prostate exam.

Friday Music

RIP Ray

Lighten Up, Francis

The state of politics leaves me sickened and depressed in a way I have not felt since Watergate.

Time for a break.*

 Below the fold is a picture from our cruise a couple of months ago.  This is one of my favorite "posed" pictures.

Exactly

For the president to deny any knowledge of what was brewing and to claim to know nothing about the Benghazi cover-up or anything about anything White House-related lately, he’s either a liar or a hugely incompetent CEO. You decide.  source

 There is no third choice. 

At least the Administration recognizes the Fifth Amendment...

I want to be very careful how I present the massage I want you to take away from this post. As a student of history, I have often wondered how people can sit back and watch events unfold and turn a blind eye. For instance, there were many who knew the extent of the Final Solution in Hitler's Germany, yet looked the other way. There were people who countenanced Mussolini's abuses.  After all, he made the trains run on time.

Progressives in Europe and America overlooked the brutal murders of Lenin's Soviet Russia because they agreed with basic political philosophies. !960's radicals were so against the war in Vietnam they supported the very regime that was torturing American POWs.

A perusal of liberal-leaning blogs shows little outrage over the IRS scandals. Often these are the very same people who were scandalized and outraged -- indignant even -- over provisions of the Patriot Act (and rightly so). Their vocal outrage over the imagined tyranny of the Bush administration held no bounds.  But these same supporters of the Democrat Party and President Obama are covering their eyes and ears to outrageous, un-American, activity by partisan hacks in the IRS. Clearly there were members of the White House staff that knew what was going on.

I do not posses the vocabulary or writing ability to express my utter disgust at your propensity to put politics over principle. Some of you routinely get on your soapbox proclaiming your support for Women's Rights or for Gay Rights. But you clearly have no such compulsion to support the First Amendment Rights of every American.  Clearly, you are only interested in preserving the interests of those who think like you do.  You tell us putting a cross in a jar of piss is OK, because that "artist" has a right to express his beliefs. You support the burning of the American Flag as a symbol of protest.

But when the full might and authority of the United States Government is turned on individuals in an effort to suppress their beliefs and political philosophy, you write about recipes or movies or go silent as a nuclear sub in enemy waters.

The next time you liberals and progressive bloggers get all in a dander and write about the right of this group or that group, I will know the truth.  You are just a hypocrite of the worst kind. At least the guy who gets drunk, cheats on his wife and goes to church on Sunday admits he is a sinner. You are worse.  You will stab a friend in the back, as long as you gain from the transaction. You have no loyalty.  You have no honor. You make me sick.

But hey, we got healthcare passed.  But hey, the trains run on time.

Things You Will Never See in the Obama White House

Somehow, someway, the IRS, AP and Benghazi messes have to be Bush's fault...

The law is irrelevant.

Let me get this straight.  According to one of Obama's Senior Advisers, Dan Pfiffer, it is irrelevant the IRS targeted conservative groups and released confidential donor information to Pro Publica:

"I can’t speak to the law here. The law is irrelevant. The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed so we ensure it never happens again." on ABC's This Week

As long as you are disgusted by an illegal activity and agree to stop, anything goes? Chester the Molester knows he should not have molested those kids. The law is irrelevant. The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed so we ensure it never happens again.

Robbin' Bob has stolen thousand of dollars from area convenience stores.  The law is irrelevant. The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed so we ensure it never happens again.

Here at Enron, we know we defrauded investors and made millions off of innocent citizens with faked financial reports.  The law is irrelevant. The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed so we ensure it never happens again.

I know my brother and I dropped a couple of bombs in the middle of the crowd near the finish line at the Boston Marathon.  The law is irrelevant. The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed so we ensure it never happens again.

When your government becomes tyrannical, when it breaks the law in spirit and in fact, when your Government violates the the First Amendment of the Constitution and passes it off as irrelevant, it is beyond inexcusable. Just hoping it will not happen again is not enough. You Democrats and liberals looking the other way, hoping this will pass like a bad burrito, better wake up.  The next time a politician uses the IRS to target groups and citizens based on political philosophy just may be a conservative or Republican administration.  Then will you accept the excuse [t]he activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed so we ensure it never happens again?

Quick Hit Monday

The boy is not happy.  He came home in the wee hours of the night, long after the wife and I went to bed. This morning, just before eight o'clock, a crew armed with a Bobcat-mounted jackhammer started tearing the concrete in front of the house. It looks like it is our cul-de-sac's time for pavement repair. The boy's bedroom is in the front of the house.he is not happy.

So, I put in a load of laundry very early this morning.  I was standing at the washer, waiting on the spin cycle to end when I felt something creeping along my arm.  I looked down and the tickle was a trickle of bright red blood.  My blood.  It was oozing from a long scratch on my arm that had not been there a few moments before.  How do you get scratched deep enough to bleed when standing still? How can a person not feel that scratch? Am  I turning into one of those paper-thin skinned  old men you see tottering through the grocery? Where do I buy one of those fishing hats anyway? I suppose I need me some high-waisted double-knit slacks.

Saturday I helped a friend roof his garage. It has been a long time since I spent a day swinging a hammer. Yesterday and today I am feeling the ache of seldom used muscles.  Not so much in the arm, but the back of my thighs, buttocks and lower back.  Getting up and down are a chore.

When did I turn into an old man?

Your freedom is at stake

If the IRS is willing to target groups and individuals based on their their political beliefs, will that same agency target conservatives under the ObamaCare enforcement policies? Will the Government deny health care to individuals who voice disagreement with the political philosophies of the administration?

When the government embarks in tyranny, there is no end.

I don't wanna go

We have to go to the funeral home this evening.  A friend of ours lost her mother. This same friend's  father died just 42 days ago.

What words of comfort can one offer that are not mere shallow platitudes at best? .

Hmmm

Think back on the various bosses you have had over the years.  Was there any worse manager than the one who blamed his workers when things went wrong and took all of the credit when things went right?

The current occupier of the White House sure seems to be a lot like that boss, doesn't he?

Evil Earworm

Now that is bouncing around in your cranium.

Enjoy your Friday.

'Xactly

Read this

She is as right as rain.

I especially love this passage:

Mostly, they reject values so that they won’t later have to answer to them. It’s sort of pre-paid hypocrisy credits. If I maintain that everything is normal, nothing is abnormal, everyone is okay and no one is a monster, then I can like myself better and sleep smugly, if not soundly, at night.

Does anything better capture the liberal mindset than those 52 words? She is talking about the MSM here, but it captures your average progressive in its essence. If you have a sliding scale of standards, or lack morals, then you can not be held to that standard or that morality. The linked post is nothing short of brilliance.

Living in the Past

I was once told I have an old soul.  I do not know what that means. I know I like to listen to my baseball on the radio. The pace and tempo seem best suited for an audio experience. A good radio announcer will tell you if the infield is in or if a shift is on.  The TV shows only the pitcher and hitter.

There is something about listening to baseball on the radio that brings a nostalgia for days I never lived. I am not so old-fashioned I try to tune in a static-filled weak signal from far off WGN in Chicago to catch the Cub games.  I do have the MLB At Bat app for my iPhone. The crystal clear digital signal is far better for my modern sensibilities.

On the other hand, you can't get the full flavor of this on the radio.  You can't get it on TV either, after all, Harry is dead.

I guess the buck really did stop with Harry Truman

As near as I can tell, this guy

"I know nothing..."

is in charge of things over at the White House. So far, according to Jay Carney, the White House knows nothing about Fast and Furious, who arranged the Benghazi cover-up, who at the IRS is targeting and leaking information about conservative groups, who ran the ad calling Mitt Romney a murderer, who is investigating the AP and anything else that might come up.

Is anyone in charge? Perhaps The Obama should take a break from golf and basketball and vacation and look into actually being President?

Lapdogs

No matter how loyal your dog is it will turn on you if you treat it badly. Come home and give it a kick, a random beating or three and that little puppy who wagged its tail with pure joy and love will become a slinking growling beast baring its fangs in your direction.

The media have long been Democrat lapdogs. They have jumped and wagged their tail every time The Obama glanced in their direction.  The media has ignored the unemployment and economic issues that plague the nation. They turned a blind eye to Fast and Furious and gleefully attacked the Republicans at every turn.They have ignored gaffs and policy disasters far worse than those committed by George W. Bush.

Now the usual second term scandals have descended on the Administration and the media is growling around the edges. Could it be the media dog pack is starting to turn on the Administration?

The Associated Press has long been one of the Administration's favorite lapdogs. Now we discover Eric Holder and the Obama Justice Department has been grabbing the AP's phone records. Digging into who called whom and such.  Will this attack on the press be the final kick? Will the AP puppy try and make nice with the Master or will it turn into a biting Hound of Hell, snarling and growling like Buck from The Call of the Wild? Will the AP and its pack of media dogs finally turn on the Regime, biting and nipping or will it slink off into the corner, tail between the legs like whipped cur?

Why hasn't someone been fired?

Someone in the IRS decided to use the taxing agency to focus on President Obama's political adversaries.

I do not care where you lie on the political spectrum, the idea the IRS could use the powers of taxation to target "political enemies" is repugnant. This is the stuff of third world dictators and banana republics. It is thug politics and it makes me sick.

It went on, the IRS admits it went on. Tea Party and conservative groups were singled out by the IRS, perhaps as early as 2010. The head of the IRS claims it was done by low-level employees.  Have they been fired? In the end, The head of the agency is responsible for what happens within the IRS. Some people need to be canned.

Now.

Today.

read and be sickened

The concept of "The Buck Stops Here" sure does not permeate this Administration.  The finger-pointer-in-chief clearly will take no responsibility.

I am not sure what I expect when a significant number of the Obama regime are admitted tax cheats.

Does typing "yawn" make you want to?

March12.

That was the last date I turned in expense reports. Today is catch-up day. I have two months of receipts for gas, food, hotel, airlines, office supplies and company car repair to sort by date and enter into the laborious forms required by my company. I traveled extensively in April. May has been equally as busy.  For example, I have 29 separate receipts to enter for the period of April 15 through April 30.  Every receipt requires a separate line item and explanation on the form.  If the receipt is for a business meal, I have to detail who, what, where,  and why for the expense.

It is my own fault I have such a pile of receipts. If I would stay on top of the task, it would not be so overwhelming. I promise myself every time I do my expenses to keep up on a bi-weekly basis. I have vowed to do so going forward as well.

I know I will sit here in early July, bitching about how many expenses I have to report. Some of those will be in foreign currency too.  That is a real headache. I can't read tic tac toe board, house, swirl worth a damn.

Best Wishes

...for a Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there.

And the award goes to

This guy gets credit for writing the most creative spam comment on the interwebz:

Do you have a spam problem on this website; I also am a blogger, and I was curious about your situation; many of us have developed some nice methods and we are looking to swap strategies with others, why not shoot me an e-mail if interested. Also visit my site...

Not so many kudos that I will give him his link, but still, one has to love the balls behind that spam.

Friday Music

You are welcome.  Now that can rattle around in your skull for a while.

Big News -- the ABBA Museum opens this week!  The next first time I am in Sweden I am there.

As a 13 year old bag of raging hormones in 1975, that spandex about did me in. And what teenaged boy did not have fantasies about those white mini skirts and knee high boots? I still remember their performance on SNL.

www.abbaupdate.com

What difference does it make?

At the height of Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign, individuals broke in the Democratic Party headquarters located in the Watergate complex in Washington DC and planted listening devices. They copied documents. The burglars got away with the break-in for weeks. It was only after they made a mistake while retrieving the bugs that they were caught.

Over time, the caper was discovered and the ensuing cover-up resulted in the resignation of the President of the United States. Several of Nixon's top aides, including the Attorney General, head of the Committee to re-elect the President, The President's Chief of Staff, the President's Counsel, and a whole gaggle of assistants, advisers, and aides were convicted of crimes.

Nixon won the 1972 election handily. There is no evidence the information gleaned from the break-in contributed to the election results. By the time the cover-up and scandal hit the press, the event was long past.

Hillary Clinton was an aide in the subsequent Congressional investigation of Richard Nixon and the Watergate affair. Do you think at any time Hillary Clinton or the Democratic Party would have accepted a terse "It is over, what difference does it make?" from Mitchell, Haldeman, Erlichman, Liddy, Hunt, Colson, Dean, or Nixon?

Watergate was a botched, third rate burglary. No one was hurt, no one died. Mrs. Clinton and President Obama can not make the same claim about Benghazi.

Twenty Million Dollars and a Free 14 Day Cruise

...will contribute greatly to my pursuit of happiness, and by implication, is a guaranteed Constitutional Right.

I don't think leading Democrats could disagree. A nice new car in my driveway is also my Constitutional prerogative. 

Hell, if the rich could just pay their fair share, we would all have a chicken in every pot and a mule in the backyard.

Is there even one Democrat alive who is not economically illiterate, Constitutionally challenged, and historically ignorant?

I'm Going to be Sick

Read this.

Is there a more despicable human in the US?

...But what did happen is, on that same day John McCain murdered civilians. Do we have any responsibility for that? Should there be any reconciliation for that? Should he tell the truth about it?”

John McCain was being tortured in a North Vietnamese prison the day a Weather Undergound bomb destined for a dance at Fort Dix blew up the bomb builders in New York, but why let facts get in the way of a good lie?

I thought I was through with this piece of shit blog, but this kind of stuff makes me so ill, I have to vent.

Want some more?:

 “To conflate a group of fundamentalist people [in Boston] who are nihilistic in some way with a group of people who spent their lives trying to oppose the murder of 6,000 people a week … and still the killing went on. And still the killing went on. What would you have done?” Ayers said. “There’s no equivalence [with Boston]. Property damage. That’s what we did.”

That, and kill a few cops. This logic makes as much sense as the dumb fucks who bomb abortion clinics to save babies. This is the guy who helped kick off Obama's political career.  The good news is the living Boston Bomber can be a "respected" college professor in 30 years.  As long as he is a Democrat anyway.

h/t Weasel Zipper via Doug Ross

I was never as cool as the Fonz

This blog jumped the shark a long time ago.

Today's Earworm

My favorite band recorded live

Right Wing Terror

Check out reports of the violence in Seatle yesterday.  Now explain why our government and the media are so concerned about non-existent "tea party" violence.