Political Clown Parade

Please Help Oklahoma

2013-05-21T09:09:00.005-04:00

Image Credit: TulsaWorld.com

“When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.” —Dmitri Shostakovich

I was gripped by this image of two men, one holding the American flag, as they gazed upon the utter destruction left in the aftermath of the tornado that wiped out much of Moore, Oklahoma on May 20, 2013.

My pitiful attempt to comprehend how these two men must feel seeing their lives churned up by the forces of nature left me weeping for them. After I dried my tears, I went to the Red Cross site set up to help Oklahomans to make a donation and pray.

I hope you will do the same. They are our brethren. May God bless them and may He place His Hand upon their shoulders and give them comfort and the strength to carry on.

God bless Oklahoma.

Pray For Oklahoma

2013-05-20T22:06:00.001-04:00

As of 8:22PM Central Time, Reuters News Agency, reported that 51 people have perished in the massive tornado that laid waste to the town of Moore, Oklahoma. The death toll is expected to rise.

The photo provided by Paul Hellstern of The Oklahoman captures the terror of nature’s wrath in the face of the man who carried a little girl, a student from Briarwood Elementary School, to safety.

God bless him and may God comfort and protect all those affected by the tornadoes that have ravaged that area in recent days.

Armed Forces Day: A Prayer For Our Troops

2013-05-18T09:55:00.003-04:00

Our men and women in uniform are in harm’s way constantly from combat, car bombings, and rocket-propelled grenade and mortar attacks. Our worst day in America is so much better than their best day. Extremes of cold and heat and uncomfortable conditions, to say the least, plague these soldiers. They are sacrificing time that could be spent with spouses and children. Yet they continue to faithfully and bravely serve.

"Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. Please place a hedge of protection around each and everyone. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen."

He’s Going To Need A Bigger Umbrella

2013-05-17T07:35:00.001-04:00

With three scandals rocking Dear Leader’s regime, a dark cloud of dishonesty, corruption and ineptitude has descended over the White House in recent days.

The rain started pouring down when Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a joint press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House on Thursday, prompting the president to order Marines to hold umbrellas over them.

“I am going to go ahead and ask folks, why don’t we get a couple of Marines—they’re going to look good next to us,” Obama joked.

Obama vehemently denies abusing government power, while telling a US Marine to hold his umbrella. #CantMakeThisShitUp
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 16, 2013

Photoshop™ Of The Day: Drunk With Power

2013-05-16T07:38:00.001-04:00

And The Voices That Annoy Him Are Those Of The Founders

2013-05-14T05:58:00.001-04:00

Presented for your dining and dancing pleasure—“In IRS Scandal, Echoes of Watergate” by George Will:

The burglary occurred in 1972, the climax came in 1974, but 40 years ago this week—May 17, 1973—the Senate Watergate hearings began exploring the nature of Richard Nixon’s administration. Now the nature of Barack Obama’s administration is being clarified as revelations about IRS targeting of conservative groups merge with myriad Benghazi mendacities.

This administration aggressively hawked the fiction that the Benghazi attack was just an excessively boisterous movie review. Now we are told that a few wayward souls in Cincinnati, with nary a trace of political purpose, targeted for harassment political groups with “tea party” and “patriot” in their titles. The Post reported Monday that the IRS also targeted groups that “criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution.” Credit the IRS’s operatives with understanding who and what threatens the current regime.

Jay Carney, whose unenviable job is not to explain but to explain away what his employers say, calls the IRS’s behavior “inappropriate.” No, using the salad fork for the entree is inappropriate. Using the Internal Revenue Service for political purposes is a criminal offense.

It remains to be discovered whether the chief executive is guilty of more than an amazingly convenient failure to superintend the excesses of some executive-branch employees beyond the Allegheny Mountains. Meanwhile, file this under “What a tangled web we weave”:

The IRS official in charge of the division that makes politically sensitive allocations of tax-exempt status said Friday that she learned from news reports of the targeting of conservatives. But a draft report by the IRS inspector general says this official was briefed on the matter two years ago.

An emerging liberal narrative is that this tempest is all the Supreme Court’s fault: The Citizens United decision—that corporations, particularly nonprofit advocacy groups, have First Amendment rights—so burdened the IRS with making determinations about who deserves tax-exempt status that some political innocents in Cincinnati inexplicably decided to begin by rummaging through the affairs of conservatives. Ere long, presumably, they would have gotten around to groups with “progressive” in their titles.

Remember, all campaign “reform” proposals regulate political speech. And all involve the IRS in allocating speech rights.

Liberals, whose unvarying agenda is enlargement of government, suggest, with no sense of cognitive dissonance, that this IRS scandal is nothing more sinister than typical government incompetence. Five days before the IRS story broke, Obama, sermonizing 109 miles northeast of Cincinnati, warned Ohio State graduates about “creeping cynicism” and “voices” that “warn that tyranny is . . . around the corner.” Well.

He stigmatizes as the vice of cynicism what actually is the virtue of skepticism about the myth that the tentacles of the regulatory state are administered by disinterested operatives. And the voices that annoy him are those of the Founders.

Time was, progressives like the president 100 years ago, Woodrow Wilson, had the virtue of candor: He explicitly rejected the Founders’ fears of government. Modern enlightenment, he said, made it safe to concentrate power in Washington, and especially in disinterested executive-branch agencies run by autonomous, high-minded experts. Today, however, progressivism’s insinuation is that Americans must be minutely regulated because they are so dimwitted they will swallow nonsense. Such as: There was no political motive in the IRS targeting political conservatives.

Episodes like this separate the meritorious liberals from the meretricious. The day after the IRS story broke; The Post led the paper with it, and, with an institutional memory of Watergate, published a blistering editorial demanding an Obama apology. The New York Times consigned the story to page 10 (its front-page lead was the umpteenth story about the end of the world being nigh because of global warming). Through Monday, the Times had expressed no editorial thoughts about the IRS. The Times’ Monday headline on the matter was: “IRS Focus on Conservatives Gives GOP an Issue to Seize On.” So that is the danger.

If Republicans had controlled both houses of Congress in 1973, Nixon would have completed his term. If Democrats controlled both today, the Obama administration’s lawlessness would go uninvestigated. Not even divided government is safe government, but it beats the alternative.

For your ironic reading pleasure: the Nixon Articles of Impeachment watergate.info/impeachment/ar…
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 14, 2013

AP Condemns Unprecedented Intrusion By DOJ

2013-05-14T00:10:00.000-04:00

“The habits and language of clandestinity can intoxicate even its own practitioners.”--William Colby

WASHINGTON (AP)—The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.

In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.

Derek Mead at Motherboard opines, “It's an almost unfathomably arrogant move. Right in the middle of a growing privacy shitstorm in Washington—which includes the IRS, NSA, and every other TLA you can imagine—the DoJ decided to notify one of the largest press agencies in the world that it had been spying on it.”

Ace asks, “But was this about national security—or was it about political embarrassment? Did the Administration take extraordinary steps to protect national security secrets, or to cover up yet another Benghazi-like massaging of talking points?”

One must assume the AP is sufficiently infuriated given the fact that they found out about the seizure on Friday but waited until Monday to release the story. Can you say “maximum impact?” Yep. They. Are. Pissed.

Maybe now the MSM will finally decide the Obama administration is worth investigating.

Truth is suppressed, not to protect the country from enemy agents, but to protect the government against the people.

Jay Carney says WH had no knowledge before today's press reports of Justice Dept attempt to obtain seek phone records of the AP reporters.
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) May 13, 2013

DOJ secretly spying on AP? Gee, imagine what they do to journalist who don't regularly fellate them.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 13, 2013

Rot In Hell Kermit Gosnell

2013-05-13T17:13:00.000-04:00

Don't think of it as a 'death sentence.' Think of it as a 280th-trimester medical procedure. #Gosnell
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 13, 2013

Imagine how Dante would have described Gosnell's place in Hell.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) May 13, 2013

Obama: I Heard About The IRS Through The Grapevine

2013-05-13T15:52:00.005-04:00

Clearly, the nation may witness the appointment of a special prosecutor in the IRS scandal that erupted on Friday, May 10, 2013.

From the New York Daily News, “On Friday, the IRS apologized for what it acknowledged was ‘inappropriate’ targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if those groups were violating their tax-exempt status.

According to Reuters, “When tax agents started singling out non-profit groups for extra scrutiny in 2010, they looked at first only for key words such as ‘Tea Party,’ but later they focused on criticisms by groups of ‘how the country is being run,’ according to investigative findings reviewed by Reuters on Sunday.

“Over two years, IRS field office agents repeatedly changed their criteria while sifting through thousands of applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status to select ones for possible closer examination, the findings showed.”

“At one point, the agents chose to screen applications from groups focused on making ‘America a better place to live.’”

Obama said he first learned about the IRS actions from news reports Friday. He said those responsible for the practice should be held "fully accountable."

The president added that his administration will get to the bottom of what happened at the IRS. "I have no patience for it. I will not tolerate it."

“Politicizing the IRS was one of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon,” noted Doug Schoen, who handles polling for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “That being said, we are still a very long way from that point.” But, Schoen added: “The allegations are very, very serious, and it is simply impossible to believe that it was just Lois Lerner and some low-level employees in Cincinnati who came up with this scheme to systematically focus on Tea Party and ‘patriot’ groups.”

According to Chris Cillizza and Sean Sullivan writing for the Washington Post:

“What became clear in the first 72 hours of the story was that this (a) wasn’t an isolated, dumb incident by some random field office, (b) was something high-level officials were aware of, and (c) was going to be in the news cycle for quite some time.”

“The problem for Democrats is that the IRS’s targeting of conservatives plays directly into a long-held belief by many Republicans (and even some independents) that official government arms are being used to carry out political agendas.”

“’Any political scandal that begins by validating previously held contentions of a political opposition is bound to be trouble,’ said one senior Senate GOP operative. ‘When it includes denials that have been proven false, it gets much worse.’”

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) to hold a hearing Friday investigating the IRS scandal.
— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) May 13, 2013

We Change The World A Little Each Day With Our Kindness

2013-05-10T10:17:00.003-04:00

I have a lot to be thankful for and that thankfulness came full circle when I learned of Amusing Bunni’s passing. Please let me explain what I mean.

Bunni lived alone. When she received her fatal diagnosis she found herself in dire financial straits. I live alone as well. Knowing that Bunni faced her own mortality alone is heart-wrenching. I am fortunate in the fact that I have taken care of all of my final expenses.

When I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in March of 2006, I did not want my friends to face dealing with my affairs. You see my parents are both gone and most of my extended family are also gone. Knowing that most of my friends are in no position financially to assist in such things, there was a sense of urgency that before my diagnosis did not exist.

I have worked hard to become debt-free. I’m one year away from retirement. Bunni was not so fortunate. Perhaps that is why I have cried and cried and cried since God called her home and her plight brought me to my knees. It breaks my heart that she had to worry about her mortgage, her health insurance and even food.

On the other hand, Bunni had amazing friends in the blogosphere who sent what they could afford when she made her plea for financial assistance. She was a proud woman. She accepted the prayers, well-wishes and gifts of money with extreme grace and unending gratitude.

One of her close friends, Opus #6 posted this on her blog:

“I would like to thank you again for the donations you gave to Carol when she was alive and after her death. You literally made the end of her life a time of contentment instead of misery. Without you she would have lost her home and her health insurance. These possibilities weighed on her mind a lot, and the donations enabled her to stave off those events. Comforting the sick and grieving like you did, besides being a wonderful thing to do, has GOT to be worth big points in God's book. I can't imagine it any other way. My heart swells to think of the good, lovely people that I share this world with. God Bless all of you.”

Her words beautifully describe what I wanted to say. If you didn’t know Bunni you missed a true blessing. She was one of the bravest people I have ever known. She touched so many hearts. Her true nature was to help others, to protect and love them.

There’s an old axiom that says, “What I spent, I had; what I saved, I lost; what I gave, I have.”

There is a dedicated PayPal donation button on the right-hand sidebar. It has been set up to help defray Bunni’s final expenses. I hope you will consider giving whatever you can afford even if you didn’t know our dear, sweet Amusing Bunni.

There but for the grace of God, go I.

Farewell My Friend

2013-05-08T09:20:00.004-04:00

Today, everybody’s Bunni Buddy will be laid to rest. Bunni’s Funeral Mass will be held at 11:00AM at Transfiguration Catholic Church in Chicago followed by a procession to Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Evanston, IL where she will be buried alongside her beloved mother.

Remembering is an act of resurrection and I encourage everyone to visit Bunni’s Legacy Guest Book to add your message or memory of her.

Opus #6, Bunni’s friend, has flown from California to Chicago to attend her funeral. On her website, she has placed a dedicated PayPal donation button to take care of Bunni’s final expenses including her funeral, priest and cemetery costs. It is located at the top of the left-hand sidebar. She had no family. I hope that everyone who reads this post will consider giving a token of your love for her.

Bunni, it broke our hearts to lose you, but you didn’t go alone. A part of us went with you the day God called you home. From this day forward we’ll look for you in rainbows high up in the sky.

Amusing Bunni: Now Safe In God’s Hands

2013-05-05T21:44:00.004-04:00

Carol Mackie, known in the blogosphere as Amusing Bunni, is now safe in God’s hands. He saw her getting tired; He put His loving arms around her and whispered, “Come to Me.”

There’s a lump in my throat and sorrow is tugging mightily at my heart as I try to fashion a fitting tribute to such a kind and gentle woman.

The news in November of 2012 that Bunni had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had only a few months to live was a gut punch to those who knew her. Living alone, Bunni was more fearful of dying destitute than anything else.

Her friends encouraged her to use the power of the Internet to reach out for help. She was amazed at the outpouring of love, prayers and financial support. She was so appreciative of the prayers and well-wishes that were sent her way. She was especially thankful for “the wonderful emails from PayPal saying ‘a donation has been made.’”

Sadly, in mid-March, Bunni wrote on her blog, “…I haven’t been getting any of those in quite a while. You know I don't like to ‘beg’, and never ask you to ‘hit the tip jar’ and all that other stuff. I just have my medical donation button at the top right of the Blog, and I hope and pray that you can find some extra money to help me out when you can. Well, I'm asking again now because after over 4 months without any money coming in at all, things are REALLY tight around here. Unlike some people, I am not married, so I can't depend on anyone else's income. If you are married and have a supportive partner, you are TRULY BLESSED by God and go and give them a kiss & a hug RIGHT NOW.”

You could plainly tell that Bunni was scared.

We all have lives that must be led and, often without meaning to, we forget about others who are in trouble. I decided to see if I could reinvigorate the Good Samaritans who had so graciously helped with her medical fund when she first told us of her grave situation.

Even in her terribly weakened state, dear Bunni would send an email thank you note demonstrating her gratitude. They were never a “form letter” thank you. Each one was personalized for the donor.

From March 11, 2013 Bunni wrote:

“Thank you for your generous donation to my Medical fund! What a nice gift. I thank you SO, SO MUCH for helping me. That was extremely giving of you. I am trying to be brave, and your lovely gift will definitely make my plight easier during this time.”

“God Bless you, I am so lucky to have such loyal and giving friends, and people who read my plight and enjoy my blog. And, when a fellow blogger or reader is in need, they are the FIRST people to come to their aid. It renews my faith in humanity. My Easter Season will be happier, and I thank you for your kindness.”

“Have a great week; you’ve made mine happier than you'll ever know. Again, best wishes from the bottom of my heart, and you are an angel to think of me and want to help in such a big way. I know your kindness will be rewarded by God. I hope your Spring Season is wonderful. Mine is made brighter by nice people like you.”

Huggs, Bunni and her Kitteh ;-)

Opus #6 wrote: “[She] never had enough income after that to make ends meet without your help. Your generosity allowed her to live her days at home, without losing her home, and to be able to purchase nutritious food and some small comforts. I pray that God blesses all of you for your kindness.”

The true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul and Bunni’s kindness and generosity was like that which one might find in the soul of a child. Faced with her own mortality she taught us all how to be brave and true.

It is said that when the great philosopher Aristotle was asked, “What is a friend?” he replied, “A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”

Barking Spider and Bunni developed an online friendship years ago. In one post, “Spidey” as his friends call him wrote, “I first met Bunni some years ago shortly after I finally gave in and got myself online. She was one of the very first people I met and we clicked immediately. I quickly grew very fond of little Bunnikins and eventually came to love her like the sister I never had—that love has only grown over the years.”

Bunni loved Spidey and the feeling was mutual. When he heard the bad news about her, his plans to travel from London to Chicago to visit her took on a sense of urgency. He shared his thoughts about his visit. It was a touching story from which one could easily glean the love he felt for her.

After he learned of her passing, your heart broke for him as you read his post “Our Darling Little Friend.”

“I truly hope she's with her mother again—that was her dearest wish—it was that one thought that gave her the strength to carry on these last few months. She certainly deserves to be with her again after all these years, (she lost her mum when she was only five years old), and that she's once again, surrounded by love, warmth, completely free of pain and at total peace.”

“I hope Bunni and I get to meet again someday—and, of course, when we do meet, I also hope that her mom actually approves of me as being suitable company for her darling daughter.”

Bunni’s mother would surely approve of so giving and loving a man who would travel hundreds of miles, crossing an ocean to comfort a friend and write such endearing words about the daughter they both loved. Oh yes, Spidey, you will make suitable company for your darling Bunni.

The words of Henry David Thoreau come to mind. “On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.”

A golden heart stopped beating. God closed your weary eyes and whispered “Peace by thine.”

Bunni, it broke our hearts to lose you, but you didn’t go alone. A part of us went with you the day God called you home.

The graphic I created for this post incorporates the banner from Bunni’s blog, the picture that Spidey chose to display with his loving tribute to her, a bunny with a tear in its eye and a golden crucifix to represent the faith she had in God.

Spidey, I hope you find it a suitable tribute to your friend.

Mark Twain Also Said…

2013-05-03T11:02:00.002-04:00

At Tuesday’s White House presser, ‘Ol Jug Ears quipped when asked by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl if he still had “the juice” to get the rest of his agenda through Congress, “I think it’s a little, as Mark Twain said, “Rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point.”

Mark Twain also said quite famously, “He’s an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite a picturesque liar.”

In The Land Of Bleating Sheep And Braying Jackasses

2013-05-02T05:26:00.003-04:00

Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa is not impressed.

There Are Monsters Out There

2013-04-29T21:10:00.004-04:00

I will not apologize for the macabre use of a mangled, aborted infant in the Photoshop™ of “President Infanticide”. The image of the child is but one of thousands of such grisly examples of late-term abortions. It is intended to shock the senses.

I chose to juxtapose the two images seen here because I am weary of the cold-bloodedness of America’s president. You will remember that on the campaign trail in Johnstown, PA in early 2008 Senator Barack Hussein Obama addressed a woman’s passionate plea to “stop the abortions” with:

"Look, I got two daughters—9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.” [Emphasis mine.]

And I am weary of the legion of men and women who comprise Gosnell’s pro-abortion allies in the media and in government who allowed this butcher to act with impunity. In my view, even the eyewitness accounts of Gosnell’s barbarism is not enough to make this president stop his obstinate defense of Planned Parenthood.

Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser reasons, “So committed to every abortion, this President is committed even to the failed ones…He would allow only the abortionist, the one who guaranteed a dead baby, to provide intensive care to the most vulnerable babies imaginable. Why? He explained it would threaten abortion rights generally. This is uncommon heartlessness.”

At the conclusion of Obama’s speech to Planned Parenthood last week he said, “As long as we’ve got to fight to make sure women have access to quality, affordable health care, and as long as we’ve got to fight to protect a woman’s right to make her own choices about her own health, I want you to know that you’ve also got a president who’s going to be right there with you, fighting every step of the way. Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.”

This is who sits in the Oval Office.

The following is excerpted from District Attorney R. Seth William’s Report to the Grand Jury:

“This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy—and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels—and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it.”

“The clinic reeked of animal urine, courtesy of the cats that were allowed to roam (and defecate) freely. Furniture and blankets were stained with blood. Instruments were not properly sterilized. Disposable medical supplies were not disposed of; they were reused, over and over again. Medical equipment—such as the defibrillator, the EKG, the pulse oximeter, the blood pressure cuff—was generally broken; even when it worked, it wasn’t used. The emergency exit was padlocked shut. And scattered throughout, in cabinets, in the basement, in a freezer, in jars and bags and plastic jugs, were fetal remains. It was a baby charnel house.”

According to the timeline cover-up, the Pennsylvania Department of Health granted approval for the accused baby butcher to provide abortions in December 1979.

On November 25^th, 2009 the butcher of Lancaster Avenue submitted an application to become a member of the National Abortion Federation. The NAF evaluator found deplorable conditions and rejected his application, but failed to report the clinic’s abysmal conditions to any oversight agencies.

On March 12, 2010 the Department of Health filed papers to begin the process of shutting down the clinic.

In the documentary 3801 Lancaster, “Makeda”, a former Gosnell patient whose identity is shrouded in darkness in the film says, “There are monsters out there.”

Makeda is right. Gosnell cannot be the only sociopathic doctor left willing to hack alive innocents; to snip their spinal cords or leave them to drown in a toilet or store their dismembered body parts in jars.

These women were seeking a “medical treatment” that involved the murder of babies under the guise of “reproductive freedom”.

Gosnell profited $10,000 to $15,000 a day at his late-term abortion clinic—not including the $200,000 he made from writing 2,300 illegal prescriptions for Oxycontin and other addictive drugs. What we have here is a monster in a major American city running a slaughterhouse.

That’s some freedom you got there ladies.

Bush Presidential Library Dedication

2013-04-25T05:18:00.002-04:00

A note from our attorneys: This is not a real quote.

UNIVERSITY PARK—The journey starts simply enough.

"The presidency is more than an honor. It is more than an office. It is a charge to keep and I will give it my all."

Those words written on an entryway wall—first spoken by George W. Bush on Dec. 13, 2000 in Austin—greet visitors as they walk into the museum at the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

A brief history of Bush, and his family life, is on display before the key moments of the Bush presidency are detailed in photos, news articles and video clips throughout the 14,000-square-feet of exhibit space in the center that will officially be unveiled during an invitation-only ceremony today.

Bush will be joined by President Barack Obama and the three other living ex-presidents—George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter—during an exclusive, 1 1/2 hour dedication ceremony marking the completion of the library, museum and political institute commemorating the 43rd president's eight years in the White House.

Via Star-Telegram

David Sirota: In The Snakepit

2013-04-22T11:04:00.004-04:00

In January of this year, David Sirota announced via his Facebook account that, “After almost four years of working in radio, I no longer work at Clear Channel Denver.”

The folks at TalkRadio 630 KHOW did nothing to assuage the notion that he was fired.

In early 1999, an “overzealous” Sirota was fired for racially charged and dishonest “dirty tricks” in a Philadelphia mayoral race.

The day after the Boston Marathon bombings this ~~ultimate badass~~ coddled pussy penned a 1,026 word screed at Salon, which I refuse to link, bearing the headline: “Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American.”

It reads in part:

“…if you care about everything from stopping war to reducing the defense budget to protecting civil liberties to passing immigration reform, you should hope the bomber was a white domestic terrorist. Why? Because only in that case will privilege work to prevent the Boston attack from potentially undermining progress on those other issues.”

How contemptible, despicable, shameful and disgraceful.

Not satisfied at ginning up ire over that loathsome screed, Sirota marshaled his lexicon of deceitful bile for a second column which he titled, “I still hope the bomber is a white American.”

The last paragraph reads:

“The reason to hope that the bomber is a white American is because in a country where white privilege and double standards so obviously affect our national security reactions, that outcome will better guarantee that the reaction to Boston is a bit more measured.”

Poor little, heartbroken David. The Boston bombers were, indeed, Muslim.

Sirota is an attention whore desperately seeking gainful employment. I don’t know how much Salon or the Puffington Host are paying him, but those sites are snakepits and Sirota has emerged as the viper du jour.

The cocooning of our betters (academics and liberals) regarding Islam and Islamist extremists breeds colossal ignorance and a stalwart conviction that they are never wrong and never at fault.

The Left's and the media's reflexive search for right-wing perpetrators is not unique to this attack; i.e.: NPR’s “All Things Considered”, James Kitfield, Tim Lister and Paul Cruickshank, Jessica Stern, and Adam Lankford. I’m adding Megan Garber to the list of stupid liberals.

As James Taranto noted, “What the hope-they're-white crowd really wishes for is a reason to treat their domestic political adversaries as enemies of the state.”

Gabriel Malor succinctly notes, “The media’s habitual blaming of the political right is endemic and incurable. Media figures sincerely believe the right wing is violent, so naturally assume that violent people must be right-wing. This won’t be the last time they make that mistake.”

Sirota must be cramping up by now. The bombers who shot beloved MIT campus policeman Sean Collier in cold blood didn’t have gun permits.

The Boston police commissioner, Edward Davis, said the authorities believed that the Tsarnaev brothers had planned more attacks beyond the bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon and the FBI is hotly pursuing a 12-man terrorist “sleeper cell” linked to them.

Sirota has subsequently been mocked to within an inch of his manhood because his Twitter account featured an avatar of him poorly making a fist and appearing to be terrified a throw a punch. So the Twitterverse lit up with #siroting. The resulting scorn forced him to change it.

The primary criticism of my @salon article is my Twitter photo. So funny. OK, so I changed it. You win! LMFAO.
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) April 17, 2013

As you can see, I joined in on the fun with the Photoshop™ featured with this post. I thought showing Krusty the Clown about to throw a punch in David’s direction was great editorializing.

By the by, have you joined the rapidly growing #BlockedByDavidSirota Club? Go ahead. You know you want to.

The Word Most Linked To “Chechen” Is “Terrorist”

2013-04-20T08:15:00.004-04:00

CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody.
— Boston Police Dept. (@Boston_Police) April 20, 2013

Born into a Chechen family, the bastard who was apprehended while cowering inside a dry-docked boat in Watertown has been brought to justice. All we know at this point is that Chechnya has always been a place of violence, abductions, widows, orphans and rape.

Daniel Greenfield writes that Beslan has come to America. I applaud Mr. Greenfield’s truthfulness.

There has been too much sympathy in some circles for Chechen terrorists. After the Beslan Massacre, Time Magazine asked, “Does Russia Share Blame for Beslan?” The London Times reported that the mastermind of the massacre was “is in a state of shock over what happened, but blames the Russians.”

This was Beslan.

“Other survivors told how screaming teenage girls were dragged into rooms adjoining the gymnasium where they were being held and raped by their Chechen captors who chillingly made a video film of their appalling exploits. They said children were forced to drink their own urine and eat the petals off the flowers they had brought their teachers after nearly three days without food or water in the stifling hot gym.”

These are the types of savage monsters who could place a bomb next to an 8-year-old boy.

Beslan has come to America and it should be a wake up call. There should be no more sympathy for Chechen terrorists. Or for that matter any Muslim terrorists.

And we need to stop bringing refugees from Muslim conflicts to America. That goes for Chechens, Afghans, Syrians and all the rest. All we’re doing is importing bloody wars from around the world here.

Events like the Marathon Massacre are inevitable if we keep maintaining an immigration policy that invites the people responsible for atrocities such as Beslan to repeat them in this country.

POUTUS: His Face Set With Rage

2013-04-18T10:19:00.000-04:00

The first paragraph of Jennifer Steinhauer’s “news analysis” at the New York Times reads:

“President Obama, his face set with rage, stood in the Rose Garden surrounded by the families of Newtown and former Representative Gabrielle Giffords and asked how a measure to expand background checks for gun buyers—one supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans and a bipartisan majority of the Senate—had slipped away.”

They may support strengthening background checks, but a recent Gallup Poll shows only 4% of Americans think gun control is the most important problem facing the nation.

Where have we seen this kind of ugly face-making before? In the pouts of our sons and daughters when they failed to get their way.

And his chiding of Congress? His hissing was as good as any cat’s.

Poor POUTUS.

See the pictures of Obama pouting today? That's his lame duckface.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) April 17, 2013

Chris Matthews And His Spittle-Filled Rantings

2013-04-16T10:33:00.004-04:00

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews “leaned forward” into clinical insanity last night as he presupposed that the bombing in Boston on Monday may have been the result of a Tax Day protest.

Go to Newsbusters to watch as he beclowns himself once again with his spittle-filled rantings.

Have they issued an arrest warrant for the Tea Party terrorists in Chris Matthews' head yet?
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) April 16, 2013

Today We Are All Bostonians

2013-04-16T01:31:00.000-04:00

Patriot’s Day in Boston, normally a day when the historic city of Boston gushes with life, will never be the same.

Special thanks to my friend at The Looking Spoon for this beautiful prayer for the people of Boston and those tragically affected by the explosions that occurred during their beloved marathon.

Little Bodies And The Conscience Of A Nation

2013-04-16T00:35:00.001-04:00

“The deafening silence of too much of the media, once a force for justice in America, is a disgrace.”

Who wrote this?

It was part of an opinion piece at USA Today, written by Kirsten Powers. Yes, that Kirsten Powers.

“A Lexis-Nexis search shows none of the news shows on the three major national television networks has mentioned the Gosnell trial in the last three months. The exception is when Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan hijacked a segment on Meet the Press meant to foment outrage over an anti-abortion rights law in some backward red state.”

“The Washington Post has not published original reporting on this during the trial and The New York Times saw fit to run one original story on A-17 on the trial's first day. They've been silent ever since, despite headline-worthy testimony.”

Then PhillyBurbs.com columnist J. D. Mullane tweeted a photo of the empty seats in Courtroom 304 for the media in the “house of horrors” trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell.

Suddenly, the “Gosnell Media Blackout” was broken and the ensuing uneasiness of publishing a story that brings shame and disgrace on the Fourth Estate and proponents of abortion rights began in earnest.

The baby butcher’s trial received no mentions on NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC and PBS programming until last week. Until Friday, CNN had aired only 76 words on the trial when host Jake Tapper mentioned it March 28. The Washington Post hadn’t reported a word on the trial until Friday.

On April 11^th, the same day Mullane tweeted the photo of the empty media seats; Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) “delivered a series of special-order speeches” on the floor of the House asking, “When will the media blackout stop? Will America ever be told about the brutality of abortion and the violence that is commonplace inside the abortion industry? Or will the media continue to censor this trial of the century, because it exposes an all too inconvenient truth that not only are unborn children destroyed in these killing centers, but that even babies who survive the abortion can’t escape the deadly hand of the child predator.”

The defiance of the liberal narrative about abortion is bound to explode. They insist that the Gosnell story makes their case for guaranteeing decent medical care. The heinous acts of which he stands accused are depraved and the good doctor is their worst nightmare.

USA Today reports today that “President Obama is keeping abreast of the ongoing murder trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, but the White House is steering clear of delving too deeply into the case.”

"The president does not and cannot take a position on an ongoing trial, so I won't as well," said White House press secretary Jay Carney.

For babies utterly alone on a cold stainless steel table in some abortion mill, the president has already made his position known. For those few frail breaths they take before having their spines snipped he said:

“I just want to be clear because I think this was the source of the objections of the Medical Society. As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they were performing this procedure, that, in fact, this is a nonviable fetus; that if that fetus, or child—however way you want to describe it—is now outside the mother's womb and the doctor continues to think that its nonviable but there's, let’s say, movement or some indication that, in fact, they're not just out limp and dead, they would then have to call a second physician to monitor and check off and make sure that this is not a live child that could be saved. Is that correct?”

Photoshop™ Of The Day: Pyongyang’s Pillsbury Doughboy Threatens “Merciless Strikes” Against U.S.

2013-04-10T08:19:00.000-04:00

Margaret Thatcher: A Giant Among Leaders Has Died

2013-04-08T21:23:00.004-04:00

Today, a towering giant among leaders passed away. Baroness Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister who led her country for eleven years died at the age of 87. She was the only woman ever to lead Great Britain’s government.

Thatcher was unshakable. Many say that her “clarity of mind unequalled in a politician since Winston Churchill changed the face of Britain and, to some degree, the world.”

When I saw the coverage of her death early this morning, I was immediately swept up in deep sorrow. The first images on the television screen were of a frail woman being helped out the door of her home by her lifetime housekeeper Kate.

That unsettling image brought to mind the utter grief on Mrs. Thatcher’s face when she gently touched the flag that draped President Reagan’s coffin as it lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda.

The bitter irony is that in her pre-recorded eulogy of Reagan she said, "For the final years of his life, Ronnie's mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. He is himself again—more himself than at any time on this earth. For we may be sure that the Big Fella Upstairs never forgets those who remember Him.”

"And as the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven's morning broke, I like to think—in the words of Bunyan—that all the trumpets sounded on the other side.”

"We here still move in twilight. But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had."

"We have his example. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God's children."

I think it is fitting to say that her razor-sharp intellect and powerhouse memory have now been returned to her. The cloud has been lifted. She is herself again.

Requiescat in pace, Mrs. Thatcher. Godspeed. Your dear friend Ronnie awaits you in Heaven.

Richard Fernandez puts a fine point on this day:

“She passes in an uncertain hour, the story of her life and times a pointed reminder of how far we have fallen from those days. Yet if we understand her life aright, the principal lesson is that the ordinary is extraordinary. The world is not made by the Great and the Good. Rather it is made by ordinary folk striving to be better. Therefore the greatest aspiration of a statesman was to represent what we were—and still could be.”

Daniel Greenfield eloquently pays homage to Thatcher and Reagan:

“Thatcher and Reagan convinced millions that they were fighting for the good life. And they delivered. The damning sin that the left cannot forgive them for is that their policies, at home and abroad, succeeded more often than they failed. But they didn't convince with mere empty words, with the same tired slogans that stood for nothing and opposed nothing and advocated nothing. They did not skulk in on the heels of consultants who made them seem as nonthreatening as possible. Instead they made it clear that they were here to fight against the forces of decay, the ideologies of terror and the sense of morality that to every great nation in the hour of its decline.”

“Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan are dead now, but in life they won a victory over the seeming deaths of their nations. They came in the hour of twilight and they stepped down with the sunrise. Their victories were temporary but they showed that leaders can stand against decline and breathe new life when most of the experts believe that all is lost and that we must learn to accept that. They showed us that with conviction and courage we can resist the inevitable.”

Obama: “I Am Constrained By A System That Our Founders Put In Place”

2013-04-05T06:43:00.000-04:00

The day has finally arrived my fellow Americans. I refer to the comments that our perfumed potentate made in Denver.

In a stunning moment of honesty, the president, who has been very effective in cloaking his socialist agenda, was seen climbing Mount Ego.

To say that he is “constrained by a system that our Founders put in place” points to his pig-headed belief that he is encumbered by flawed documents known to Americans as the United States Constitution and The Bill of Rights.

Just remember that the errand boy sent by grocery clerks stated for the record in September 2001 during a Chicago Public Radio program, “I think we can say that the Constitution reflected an enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day, and that the Framers had that same blind spot. I don’t think the two views are contradictory, to say that it was a remarkable political document that paved the way for where we are now, and to say that it also reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.”

Obama’s 2001 interview provides a clear statement of a judicial philosophy that displays little interest in the original intent of the Constitution and his honeyed words are meant to persuade the mob.

I resurrect the powerful words of Edmund Burke, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”