Free Republic

Bluntly speaking, we don’t need these scandals to take down Obama.

What we need them to do is reset the debate on size scope and role of govenment onto out playing field.

They’re already doing that, if “Dead Intern Joe’s” sudden u turn on tn background checks is any indication. Gun control is effectively dead. And other second term agenda items like immigration reform and the ObamaCare implementation are going to be impacted in our favor.

Yup, equal protections applies regarding the murder charge.

He’ll get nailed on the prescription forgery and a variety of assault charges for dosing the woman. Probably a lot worse than what pranksters get for dropping ExLax into someone elses drink.

I think the Murder 1 charge is just an incentive to get him to quickly plead down to lesser charges.

Boehner wouldn’t be elevated to VP if Biden left. Obama would get to nominate a replacement, subject to Confirmation under the provisions of the 25th Amendment.

If Biden resigns then Obama follows suit without a VP in place, Boehner becomes POTUS.

Elliot Gould, IMHO.

No, they’re going in exactly the right order. Notice that the tough questions are being asked after there are no more Dems in the order. The Dems don’t have any more opportunities to rebut or lead Miller/George into giving the “right” answers.

The bike pin is because it’s National Bike to Work Day

Little Friday research project, for anyone who might be interested ( as I am ) and has the time.

There was a similar IRS scandal during the Clinton years. Tapered off, maybe overshadowed by Lewinsky ( or the gvt shutdown in the first term) At the time the IRS said that Conservative groups were being targeted only because IRS agents were picking out targets from groups named in the press. Since Conservative groups got more press coverage, they’d naturally end up being targeted more ...

The Times claims that there’s no evidence of tyrannical government on the rampage.

Unfortunately their arguments supporting that claim DO make the case for incompetent tyrannical government on the rampage.

Which may very well be worse.

Even if ( a very BIG if, given latest information ) there was no ideological bias in the targeting of Tea Party groups, you still have government flunkies who were completely tone deaf and oblivious to how their “non ideological” actions would be seen and taken. We’re talking about a breathtaking lack of common sense on their part.

It won’t get that far. The murder charge is probably designed to get the guy to quickly plead to a lesser charge like assault.

There’s no way that a murder conviction would survive an appeal. 14th Amendment and all that ...

I don’t know. I think that the Millenials are an increasingly target rich environment. There have been a number of good articles recently about growing anti-government cynicism in their ranks, and their support for Obama dropped about 10 points from 2008 to 2012.

Right now the Left wins by personalizing the scandals on Obama. It leads to the argument that Liberalism hasn’t worked because the right people haven’t led it’s implementation yet.

Keep the argument centered on how Big Government is always going to fail, no matter who tries it, and it won’t matter who the Left runs because they’ll still have to play ball on OUR field.

Good question.

It really needs to be everyone, a constant and repeated drumbeat from all quarters.

Otherwise it’s going to take someone of Reagan’s caliber. Reagan had the support and trust of Conservatives on tactical matters, so he could rise to the strategic level. There’ll never be another Reagan, obviously, but I also don’t see anyone in the pipeline (even Cruz or Paul) that would even begin to approach what Reagan was capable of.

Managerial incompetence works to Conservative’s favor here. It’s much better to convince the public that the Government is incapable of effective governance and is something to be feared, loathed and kept small and on a very tight leash ( the views held by the founders and framers ) then to have all the blame fall onto the lap of transitory leadership.

Undermining Obama is a secondary or even tertiary consideration here. Leveraging these messes to promote Conservative ideals about the proper size scope and role of government is the primary.

Oh, I think the Pope knows pretty well what money is.

If he didn’t, he would have ordered Roman Catholic Churches to immediately cease passing collection plates at services, as part of this speech.

Confirmation hearings would be great. Assuming that the GOP would use them to grill Patrick on the Black Panthers case and other violations of the 14th Amendment by the Civil Rights Division.

Not sure if Obama (or more correctly Obamas handlers) are dumb enough to give the GOP that kind of opportunity and platform.

The story will be that the two rogue employees kicked off the investigations and anyone else involved was unaware of the specific targeting and criteria.

The two employees have probably been disciplined and put on paid administrative leave pending appeal by the AFGE (Union). In other words a paid vacation that doesn’t cut into their accrued leave.

The union will negotiate whatever discipline down to a letter of reprimand, slap on the wrist.

There’s an old saying in politics that when your opponant is in the process of destroying himself it’s best to stay out of the way

Good idea, but not always applicable. Sitting it out completely might give the opponant an opportunity to recover. I’d say its better to be cautious and use a light hand, keeping ready to exploit at the last possible moment.

I felt that the Wright “Damn America” revellation could have destroyed Obama had it been properly managed to achieve it’s greatest impact in early October 2008. Felt the same thing about the various Clinton sex scandals.

Conservatives need to appreciate the value of a drip drip drip scenario and restrain our impulses to charge in where angels fear to tread on this. We have a year and a half until the midterms, plenty of time to manage this in the most beneficial manner possible

I lived and worked in DC long enough to know that guys like Carney THRIVE on being able to get away with saying whatever they want.

It’s not serious, just a game to him. If I were a qualified mental health professional I’d probably diagnose him as a sociopath.

Standard political damage control tactics.

Admit nothing.

Deny everything.

Assign blame elsewhere.

Launch counter allegations.

Bump. From 2009 ...

There’s another interesting element as well. I noticed it in a few articles over the last several days but it really solidified with the article about Billy Graham Ministries being targeted.

A number of the Conservative organizations targeted have said the were after public expressions of support for traditional marriage.

Make me wonder if there’s a “gay mafia” within the IRS that was targeting enemies of their agenda.

I’d start looking at the names of the IRS officials involved (as they come out) and crossreference against homosexual activism and organizational membership.

People tend to forget that non ideological scandals were at the hearts of the 1994 GOP Congressional takeover (House Bank and check kiting) and 2006 Dem one (House Page scandal)

I agree, these are really going to motivate a GOP base that’s already agitated over gun control. My only concern is that these scandals are breaking a year and a half out, and may fade by next November.

The universal axiom : When they say Universal Background Checks, they mean Registration. When they say Registration, they mean Confiscation, period. It is just that simple.

Prescriptions (or at least some prescriptions) now require a patient to provide their Social Security Number in order to fill.

All the better to identify and track you with, my dear.

The Libs are taking a long-term view to societal gun elimination. Universal background checks WILL - eventually - be cross-referenced against the various Federal medical databases that ObamaCare sets up. If a person has EVER taken any sort of psychological-related drug (even low-level anti-depressants, ADHD, anti-anxiety ones) they'll be denied the ability to own, possess, etc a firearm (as we've seen in NY since their bill passed).

Which right now our country is literally AWASH in. Better living through pharmaceuticals, right? The goal is to prevent guns from ever being sold/passed down to future generations. Want to give your gun to your child or grandchild? Oh, well, they were on Ritalin as a kid ... guess you (or if its an inheritance your estate) just need to turn the thing over to the authorities for destruction.

I've never seen that many per hour, anywhere. I've seen a similar number of drinks for a big man to get to 0.08-0.10, but the rule of thumb is that the body processes one drink per hour (don't know if that varies on size).

Here's one of them

"Under current law, a 180-pound male typically will hit the 0.08 threshold after four drinks over an hour, according to an online blood alcohol calculator published by the University of Oklahoma. That same person could reach the 0.05 threshold after two to three drinks over the same period, according to the calculator."

There’s a kids TV show, on Disney about a gay alien even. It’s called Marvin Marvin. The alien kid isn’t “out”, but has all the stereotypical gay male manerisms and the focus of the show is on the difficulties of someone who is “different” fitting in.

It’s just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen on TV ( for the very brief time it was on before I turned it off and told the kids to go find books to read instead) but is clearly a desensitization effort targeted preteens.

This would seem to shed light on the “support” for gay marriage and homosexual acceptance (vice tolerance) that most people who support it to so in a passive or even apathetic way. They aren’t emotionally committed to actively support it, they just don’t oppose it.

It brings to mind the old saying that the love that dare not speak it’s name is now the love that can’t keep quiet about itself. People seem to want to tolerate (again, different from accept). They’re ok with the cute professional gay couple down the street that wear polo shirts and chinos and go antiquing and to artsy plays on the weekend. But they don’t appreciate homosexualty being shoved in their face. And would sing a completely different tune about the couple down the street if it were two guys doing yard work in leather spiked vests and a$$less chaps, or a couple of hefty bettys out in the driveway working on their Harleys while shirtless.

Yup, revenue enhancement for local governments and lawyers

In the 80s, when I learned to drive, we were told that 2 drinks per hour was the “safe” zone for a .10 limit.

The articles I’ve seen on the today mention 4-5 drinks per hour. Something isn’t right, reducing the BAC level won’t change various laws of biology, chemistry and physics.

Either the 4-5 drinks is a fake number being used to generate acceptance for a 1-2 per hour safe zone, or they’re deliberately creating the impression of a higher limit to trick people into drinking to the point at getting caught. And fined.

This is going to stop me from drinking while out. Period. Not worth the risk.

Yup, it was just a night or two ago when he told a Dem audience at a high dollar fundraiser that he hasn’t been able to break the GOP. Yet ...

Gallery-Place/Chinatown is very much a crossroads for DC, given that the Red/Yellow/Green lines run through it and the Blue/Orange lines are just a stop away at Metro Center.

There have been LOTS of problems there in the last couple years. Including Black-on-Gay attacks, information about which have been suppressed.

A few years back there was an experiment with an anti-loitering device called the “Mosquito” that played a sound that would cause, under prolonged exposure (measured in a few minutes plus) discomfort to the teenagers and early 20-somethings that are causing the problems. (Sensitivity to that part of the audible spectrum declines with age - when I went down to see what the fuss was about I could barely hear it, but younger people were complaining about how much it bothered them).

Unfortunately, although predictably, various civil liberties/civil rights groups went ape ... feathers ... over the thing claiming it was bigoted and discriminatory and it was quickly removed.

Yes, I agree also. There were many things that could have been done to entice the South to voluntarily give up slavery. The Industrial revolution and mechanization were evolving rapidly anyway.

The mechanization at the time actually helped perpetuate slavery.

The cotton gin, for instance, revolutionized the processing of cotton. But (as has been mentioned), mechanization of harvesting didn't happen for almost another hundred years. The gin allowed a massive jump in output, but only when plantation labor was shifted almost exclusively to harvesting - something that had to be done by hand.

Since your talking about Jackson. This one came out earlier in the week, I was gonna post it, but my usual laziness is in charge.

Astronomer Sleuths Solve Civil War Mystery of 'Stonewall' Jackson's Death

I read that earlier this morning. I never really knew it was a "mystery". I thought it was pretty well accepted (not mentioned in that article tho) that Jackson was already sick with some kind of bug at Chancellorsville. While it had been raining (something that suppressed the dust and helped mask his flanking attack), he was shot while wearing a very heavy rubberized leather rain-coat - a coat that was way too heavy for the relatively warm temperatures at the time. Leading to the conclusion that he was sick, feverish with chills, and trying to bundle up.

Certainly the blood loss from the wounding and subsequent trauma (being dropped repeatedly on his way to a field hospital, then the amputation) contributed to the pneumonia. But I never knew that anyone doubted that it was the pneumonia that killed him.

Sherman, fairly or unfairly, will always be known for his “scourge the earth” tactics...
Lee refused to allow this type of warfare against civilians and expected his generals to honor his wishes...
It probably doomed the South’s efforts from the start....

Both sides were pretty pragmatic in how they fought. Lee was fighting the war from the perspective of trying to establish the Confederacy as a separate and independent country. The North was fighting the war from the perspective of holding the union together at all costs.

Those each require completely different types of warfare. Lee actually wanted the Northern citizenry on his side (for the Antietam campaign, which was partly designed to flip Maryland) or at least to take a stance of neutrality (Gettysburg - where a big objective was to feed his Army and allow the Shenandoah valley a respite to replenish). Lee was looking to a situation where two separate countries would share a LONG border following a Confederate victory, and he would have been very sensitive to post-war Northern public perceptions.

Going scorched earth was directly contrary to those goals. In the case of Sherman and Sheridan scorched earth served their goals. It both denied the Confederacy food (Sherman actually leveraging Confederate food stocks to feed his troops on his March to the Sea.) and created a populace that (it was felt anyways) had lost its taste for war.

Turnout matters too.

Quite a bit has been made recently about how blacks had a higher turnout % than whites in 2012. I’d like to see the turnout numbers from this election because they might be the only thing from it that points the way to what 2014 will look like.

At first the fine may be cheaper than buying the insurance, but if Massachusetts is any predictor, then the fines will increase until pretty much everyone joins.

Well, the fines are set by law, aren't they? Or does HHS have the statutory authority to jack up the fines as they feel necessary (and if they do, wouldn't that be a violation of the Constitution and Sep of Powers, given that the fines have been defined as "taxes" by our beloved Chief Justice?)

My understanding is that while the fines are on a graduated scale for the first couple of years, they are capped. And there's a threshold where the number of people choosing fines over insurance no longer generates enough revenue flow into the system to keep it afloat.

One thing that I've wondered is if it would be possible to crash ObamaCare though what amounts to a medical denial of service attack: flood the healthcare system past the point of saturation by making an appointment to see doctors for every little thing. There's going to be rationing regardless. Going to see a doc for every bruise and scrape (even demanding tetanus shots?) is going to add the kind of burden on the entire system as the uninsured current add to going to hospital ERs for minor ailments ...

Why does it matter?!?!??

Death is a part of living ...

I think it’s high time the Japanese started having their own aircraft carriers again. They can do what the IJN did with it’s early battleships: adopt Brit designs (so build variants if the QE/PoW class, preferably with the cat/arrestor gear configuration).

They can top them off with the names Akagi and Kaga.

And then sit back and let the ChiComs freak.

excluding gun buyers in rural areas

Violation of the 14th Amendment's equal protections clause, if I'm not mistaken ...

There are two important differences between this and Watergate.

First, in Watergate the Media was really pushing the matter and screaming for Nixon’s blood. There’d been a couple decades worth of bitter feuding between the two leading up to it, and they saw it as their moment to “get” Nixon.

Second, in Watergate a few senior GOP Senators (Baker, Goldwater, and I think one or two others) went to Nixon and told him that they were prepared to vote to remove him from office if he didn’t leave on his own.

NEITHER of those things exist here. The Media has been actively promoting Obama, and are heavily invested emotionally, professionally and politically in him and his Administration. And there are NO senior Democrat Senators who would even consider (let alone actually do it), taking an evening trip to the White House to tell Obama he had to go.

Bad night for the dems. They blew a lot of money on this one...

Yup, they sure did. And their bitterness is already showing over it: “House Republicans’ outreach to women voters now has Mark Sanford as the face. Republicans now have to defend him and stand with him until Election Day,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel of New York.

Howabout this: we'll have to take Sanford, but they have to take Dr. Gosnell ...

yet again the elitist establishment refused to help him and just sat there not bothered seeing a socialist win the seat.

I think, had I lived there, I would have very reluctantly voted for Sanford.

However, I'm not going to criticize those who decided to sit it out. There's an added benefit that he basically won on a shoestring budget, while the Dems and their auxiliaries (Unions, other activist groups) poured an ENORMOUS amount of $$$ into trying - unsuccessfully - to defeat him.

Even if Colbert-Busch won, the costs involved wouldn't have been worth the return on investment (one House seat that would likely go back to the Republicans in 2014). However in losing (and by close to 10 points) all they really did was flush their money down the drain.

Without Remorse was my first thoughtas well. Pressure chamber treatment.

On the bright side the psych counseling means she’s forever lost the right to buy, own or possess a firearm ...

Let’s see if I can avoid a spoiler here ...

“Neat inversion of plot canon”? So that’s what they’re calling it? Knowing what the “inversion” is, and how it’s resolved (and being exceptionally disappointed with it) I will say that it has the benefit of allowing them to jump directly to saving “George and Gracie” in the next movie.

How’d I do?

Hey...where are all the pro chOice Libs? and the Feminists?

I've always felt that, in the absence of having the political ability (Court or Constitutional Amendment) to overturn Roe v. Wade, holding the Libs feet to the fire on the "Safe" and "Rare" part of their "Safe, Legal and Rare" mantra was a winning strategy.

This seems to be a perfect opportunity to do just that. Democrats are spread out much further across the issue than Republicans are - I don't know a single Republican who supports 3rd trimester abortion (except under very extreme circumstances) while there are plenty of leaders and leading activists in the Dem Party who not only support late-term/partial birth abortion "on demand" but also think that post-birth infanticide (up to several months after a term birth) should be acceptable.

Time to start doing the divide & conquer thing by calling out the extremist Lib fringe on this issue for what they really are, and alienating the center-left from them.

I think Sanford is a clown and an embarassment. But if he wins it’s going to be a ROTFLMAO moment.

The really important line in this is the “goal ... trying to solve” one.

She doesn’t just admit that the bill wouldn’t have stopped Newtown, she admits that Newtown is being cynically exploited and leveraged to push through different “goal(s)”.

That’s a pretty huge admission to make.

Aren’t those things supposed to have antlers?

The problem is, here, that he’s very very wrong.

There’s a threshold out there, a tipping point, where The People will rise up against tyranny. Waco wasn’t it (small group of loons) and neither was Boston (very specific, temporary and isolated incident involving a massive perception of potential threat to the public).

Gun confiscation could be it. The one thing that, in my experience, stops gun-control supporters in their tracks is to point out that if 1% of 1% of the 80 million gun owners in the US were to do the “Molon Labe” thing in the face of confiscation there’ll be 8,000 separate instances of armed response to tyranny.

Local, state and Federal law enforcement will be quickly overwhelmed by that kind of response ... requiring either a backing-down, or an escalation (call in the National Guard and the military). Which then may provoke ANOTHER 1% of 1% to start standing their ground (so another 8,000 incidents of armed response).

Leading up to Pearl Harbor Admiral Yamamoto - who was trying very hard to reign in the Japanese Army nutters who were taking their nation to war against the US made comments along the lines of it being insanity to try to invade the US (which he said was the ONLY way Japan could actually win) because there’d be a “rifle behind every blade of glass”. There was a Russian back in the 50s (not Molotov - that would be way too ironic) who said the same thing but used the example of Coke bottles and gas stations ...

Dipsh*ts (Admin/Mods, pls excuse that one) like Maher - who have lived privileged and affluent lives in very sheltered and protected environments, just think that if the Government pushes The People will cave in, and for those who don’t cave in the Government has the means to put them in their place.

That kind of clueless thinking scares the cr*p out me. Especially if he’s reflecting the thoughts/opinions of real decision-makers.

I feel a satisfying sense of peace with a loaded .357 mag resting snugly on my hip. Very comforting.

I used to think the same way. After George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin, not so much.

Even in a decidedly Red state. It doesn't take much to have Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton parachute in and make the rest of your life a living hell.

There should be the realization that the ONLY thing that matters in a situation like this is avoidance. Lack of proximity to areas where it may happen. I don't see myself (or my $$$) going to Chicago again. Ever. Stay as far away as you can, and if you do HAVE to go into high-threat areas use good planning and situational awareness ... not a firearm ... to keep yourself safe and away from trouble.

I never expected an astronaut to turn into a total bitch.

Does the name "John Glenn" happen to ring a bell?

Kelly is only doing this to stay in the public eye and increase his little organization's fundraising take for the month. He doesn't think the NRA will actually do it, but rather that his fellow travelers will see him as an outspoken public critic of the NRA and be willing to write checks to him.

Probably trying to drive up turnout. And fundraising. Perception = reality. Will Conservatives be better motivated by the prospect of Waters in that position than Dems will?