Please for the love of all that is good and sacred...make this madness stop!!!
Via The Blaze September 26, which fell on a Saturday this year, is one of those obscure holidays that most people probably don’t even know about — Love Note Day — and there was somewhat of an unexpected celebrator of that event this year. That being the National Security Agency. Yes, the very same NSA that has been accused of unprecedented spying activity since the revelations of Edward Snowden a couple of years ago created and published seven love-related graphics, writing on its website “NSA Celebrates Love Notes Day.” Below are the notes the agency created. Read the rest here.... Via The Federalist
So whose fault is it that Boehner is out? The obvious culprits are the meddlesome Tea Party or the pro-lifers or those members actually pushing the motion to vacate. There is a more subtle case to be made that it’s the weak sisters in the Republican conference who, even on an issue as core to the party’s existence as life, remained dead-set against using the Constitutional power of the purse to eliminate a few hundred million in taxpayer funding for an organization engaged in profiting from death. But the person to blame for Boehner stepping down ought to be absolutely clear – the actual target of far more conservative frustration than John Boehner: Mitch McConnell. Set aside the Planned Parenthood conversation, the silly talk about “messaging” and the like, and get back the Why of “Why are we here?”. Why are we dealing with the current CR-based shutdown conversation? It’s not because of Boehner’s actions, but because of McConnell’s decision about how to deal with recalcitrant Democrats. It goes back to when Democrats decided in June to filibuster the Defense appropriations bill, as part of their strategy to filibuster any and all appropriations bills until Republicans were willing to renegotiate the sequester. This was a golden opportunity for McConnell: Democrats weren’t filibustering just any bill, they were filibustering a bill that does things like, well, pay the troops. It was an extremely aggressive and perhaps unsustainable step. Democrats took it only because they were confident McConnell would gripe about it, but ultimately cave. To understand the missed opportunity here, consider what could have happened if McConnell was not so dedicated to keeping the Senate “open for business” and working with the president on other priorities. Imagine instead what would have happened if McConnell saw the opportunity to break Reid and isolate the president on spending. He could have canceled all other Senate business, canceled the recesses, and forced the Democrats to block the Defense appropriations bill every 72 hours until September 30^th. No weekends off, no holidays, keeping 75 year old men up all night for days, allowing no personal comforts until the filibuster is broken. In stark comparison to the media’s willingness to hide the ball on Planned Parenthood, Republicans would have been gifted with three months of messaging on “Democrats are so angry at the American people for taking away their majority, they are refusing to pay the troops.” Read the rest here... See if you can figure out what phrase is absent from this article on one Oregon town’sdeer problem:
A town in southern Oregon will hold a public meeting to discuss how to deal with droves of fearless deer that wander the streets, occasionally acting aggressively toward residents, state wildlife officials said on Tuesday. The “Deer Summit 2015″ will be chaired on Wednesday by Ashland Mayor John Stromberg as part of efforts to address deer that have stalked people, pawed at them with their hooves and even stomped on small dogs. “The deer have no fear of humans,” said Mark Vargas, District Wildlife Biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Read the rest here... Via The Jackson Press
Lots of outside voices who generally are not with House Conservatives are now challenging House Conservatives to put up their own candidate for Speaker. Conservatives need not bother and should not fall into the trap. Conservatives in the House are finally beginning to understand their role — they do not have power of initiation, they have the veto power. Conservatives do not have the votes to put up their own as Speaker, but they can block anyone else from being Speaker. In other words, conservatives are a bit like the Queen of England. They have three rights in the House of Representatives: the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. They also have one power: consent. By giving their consent, withholding their consent, or withdrawing their consent, they can steer the appointment of a Speaker, end a Speaker’s career, and force Republicans to side with Democrats, further exposing Republicans within primaries. Conservatives in the House need to use their rights and power wisely, as they have by ending the career ofRep. John Boehner (R-OH). They should also not feel the need to take up the challenges of their outside critics by vying for the Speakership themselves. Conservatives need to settle for being kingmakers in the House and not kings. That is power in and of itself to help shape an agenda and have a seat at a table thatRep. John Boehner (R-OH) took away. Read the rest here... Via D.C Closthesline
“Imagine this. The public is told a new disease is sweeping the world, threatening the global population with suffering and death. Millions and millions of words are spewed, detailing and reinforcing the threat. Every day, official reports are issued, blaring the new numbers of cases. Researchers are rushing to develop an effective vaccine. And then, suddenly, someone discovers there is no epidemic. It doesn’t exist. What would happen?”(The Underground, Jon Rappoport) Telling the truth, of course, must lead to publishing the truth. And then follow-up investigations would be done to flesh out the story further; to prompt people with inside knowledge to emerge from their closets and confess their complicity. I’m talking about a certain kind of truth, whereby a sacred cow is destroyed; the kind of cow everyone immediately believes is self-evident, universal, and vital, representing the best motives and impulses of people in power. That kind of sacred cow. A cow holding up the world, so to speak. Destroyed. There are many important lies that don’t quite rate that status. If they were exposed to the light of day, people would say, “Yes, it’s shocking, but we always had doubts.” And life would go on. A monumental sacred cow has the quality of being believed in the same way people believe the sun will come up in the morning. Read the rest here..._ Left the meeting early AGAIN!!! Commissioner Steve Basar, better known here as Darth Basar, left the meeting early today. He left the last commission meeting early after he didn't win the coveted chair position. He wasn't at the last county committee meeting last Wednesday. Sheesh! Thanks goodness they didn't elect him chairman. Perhaps he had more pressing things to attend to than the tedious job of doing the thing his constituents elected him to do. Maybe he should focus on doing the job and not so much on obtaining more power by getting elected chairman so he can enhance his resume. Or not, just sayin... Today's meeting was surprisingly uneventful but incredibly interesting and insightful. Kudos to the new chairman for a very professional and amicable meeting. Prior commissions are not known for being amicable. Let's hope this is a good sign. Just some housekeeping items to get out the way so we can get on to the meat of the meeting.... Around 4,000,000 dollars was approved for various causes that all have really neat and important sounding phrases like....asphalt surfacing of roadway segments, Criminal Justice Programs, expansion of the domestic violence team in the fugitive division of the Shelby County Sheriffs office. Which means lots of money will be spent. Lots of money will be wasted. The citizens will be none the wiser for the ineffificiency of government because well....most people know more about the Kardashians than they do their commissioners. Sigh. Yes I know that roads need to be paved and domestic violence programs are a good thing and so is criminal justice but when do the taxpayers ever see a return on their investment and have accountable oversight of the taxes so freely spent? I'll tell you when. NEVER! Because the people are the oversight and if the people aren't in touch with what their communities are doing, the players gonna play. Enough of my rants. On to business. Remember the 135,000 dollars that was going to be approved to transport inmates to the hospital/Dr. for non-emergency visits (a deal we wish our Vets could get) was supposed to be rubber stamped. Honestly, I did not see defeating this. It is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things but we are only talking about 52 inmates. You do the math. It's waste like this that adds up to the 1.5 billions dollars in debt the county has. Anyhow, some of us emailed questions about this expenditure. A funny thing happens when people start asking questions about money. I have seen this happen many times. Had there been no scrutiny, it probably would have passed. The light of day has a cleansing effect and so it was with this. The item was pulled from the agenda when someone discovered the proper bidding process had not been followed and so was not given to the lowest bidder. Well, well, well...now it will go through that bidding process and I bet they will find a company to do this for less than 135,000. If not, there's this thing called Uber. That was score one for the people today. Now, on to number two. Some commissioners wanted to change the commissions rules so that a simple majority could set aside the permanent rules of order when they felt like it instead of needing a 2/3 majority. Interesting since I bet if Basar or Bailey had won the chairmanship they would not be asking for this rule change. Two citizens spoke out about not increasing the power of the few and essentially usurping the power of the people by making the gridlock easier to overcome. Some don't understand that gridlock is a feature of our governing process and not a bug. It should not be so easy to change the rules, if it was, then why have rules? The discussion of the commission on this led one to believe the 2/3 majority issue was just about the commission being able to overrule the chairman. Either way. If Bailey or Basar had won the chairmanship, I doubt they would have wanted to remove power from themselves eh? Common sense prevailed and it will take a super majority to overrule the chair and a super majority to change the rules. This is what self governance looks like. If you do don't hold your public officials accountable, who will? I'll tell you who...Dierdra Malone who received a 900 million dollar contract for the body cameras the MPD are getting. She's only Wharton's campaign manager. That's purely just a coincidinc eh? Bear with me one segment longer. Josh Whitehead, the Director of the Office of Planning and Development was amending the Unified Development Code to clarify some things in the UDC. Several items which will bore you to tears I won't mention but the clarification on private sex clubs will pique your interest I think. Adult oriented clubs (i.e. Sex Clubs) can get very creative when trying to get their applications and permits approved like claiming to be a place of worship or some other crafty but misleading title. These types of clubs tend to bring down whatever area they are in so you don't want them to be able to exist just anywhere. All was going well for Josh until something awoke the 36-years-a-commissioner Bailey. I believe it was the term "private sex club". He objecting to calling these private sex clubs "sex clubs" because legally they cannot exist. Ummmm dude...isn't that the whole point? Anyways he was seriously bothered by the classification and one can only wonder if that's because...perhaps...he knows someone very well that frequents the club which shall not be mentioned??? I dunno but very interesting the things that can awaken the longest serving commissioner in the history of the world. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. When people know their leaders like they know their favorite athlete, that's when the game will change. I have hope that this will happen. Been to a meeting yet? There always next time. Tomorrow is the Memphis City Council. Arghhhhh!!!! Oh look. Chairman Roland is giving ex-chairman Ford an award for being last years chairman while the wannabe chairman looks on in the background. If pictures paint a thousand words there would a bunch of swear words in this one.... Check out the gentleman to the left wearing a cowboy hat and remember this...you the taxpayer are paying his way. Sheriff Oldham got rid of 3 detective positions so Chism could be appointed to be the public relations specialist for the low low low salary of $60,000. I challenge anyone to find out what public relations work he is doing. Even the sheriffs department is political. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Guess Oldham will be running for county mayor...remember this in the next election. Via Ace of Spades
Not content with helping in usher permanent liberal majorities through mass amnesty, Marco Rubio has a proposal to advance the ball on paid family leave. "Our policies should help workers, not cost them their jobs," the Florida senator will say, according to excerpts provided by his campaign. "I believe we can fix this problem by creatively applying our free enterprise principles in a way that encourages businesses to choose to offer more paid family leave."... "They say the only way to solve this problem is to raise taxes, grow government, and place crippling requirements on private companies," Rubio will say, per his prepared remarks, referencing Obamacare. "I believe we can fix this problem by creatively applying our free enterprise principles in a way that encourages businesses to choose to offer more paid family leave." And what's the "free enterprise" solution to this problem that's none of the government's business? Why another tax credit of course. Companies will get a credit for 25% of the wages they spend on an employee up to $4,000 over 12 weeks. The left is naturally embracing this compromise position. No wait. They are doing what they always do...say it's not enough. Read the rest here... The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has allowed its employees to stay on the job despite internal investigations that found they had distributed drugs, lied to the authorities or committed other serious misconduct, newly disclosed records show. Lawmakers expressed dismay this year that the drug agency had not fired agents who investigators found attended “sex parties” with prostitutes paid with drug cartel money while they were on assignment in Colombia. The Justice Department also opened an inquiry into whether the DEA is able to adequately detect and punish wrongdoing by its agents. Records from the DEA’s disciplinary files show that was hardly the only instance in which the DEA opted not to fire employees despite apparently serious misconduct. Of the 50 employees the DEA's Board of Professional Conduct recommended be fired following misconduct investigations opened since 2010, only 13 were actually terminated, the records show. And the drug agency was forced to take some of them back after a federal appeals board intervened. Read the rest here... |
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Yvonne Burton...there is no collection of writers...it's just me. Archives
November 2022
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