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June 16, 2011

Thanks, Andy!


Weiner is gone. A hearty thanks is due to to Andrew Breitbart for breaking the story and tenaciously hanging on to it. From the National Journal:

Rep. Anthony Weiner’s decision to resign brings a scandal that consumed Washington for several weeks to an end—and no one benefited from it more than controversial conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart.

Breitbart, who first publicized the lewd photo that Weiner accidentally sent on his Twitter feed, achieved a measure of redemption from the episode—after being marginalized in the mainstream media for releasing videos maligning liberal figures and organizations that were misleadingly edited.

At Weiner’s first press conference on June 6 where he confessed to sending the photo, Breitbart declared, “I’m here for some vindication.” He received an apology from Weiner, but what Breitbart was looking for was vindication from his peers.

Now Breitbart is watching his credibility rise thanks to Weiner’s misdeeds. He provided the primary source material that made the story one of the most heavily covered on the cable newscasts over the past several weeks. He shared some of the more compromising pictures with a mainstream media organization (ABC), which ran with the story.

“One of the reasons I went to ABC, believe it or not, was to take this out of the partisan rancor realm,” Breitbart said in an interview with The New York Times.

On the other hand, he held back juicy information as insurance in case he needed to defend himself. "You know, I'm not thinking of it that way, but I certainly have it in my possession,” Breitbart told NBC’s Today, on the explicit photo of Weiner. “I guarantee you he would use this against me and the people on the left side of the blogosphere would have used this against me. I could have put it out there and his career would have been over today.”

Created Equal, Not Legislated Equal


Many years ago I read a sci-fi short story about a future America where the laws prohibited anyone from being smarter, or prettier or more athletic than anyone else. Everyone had to operate at the same level of achievement.

If you were a superior athlete, you were forced to carry heavy weights or other impediments to slow you down or hamper your abilities.

If you possessed a intellect brilliant, you were forced to wear earplugs that emitted horrendously loud noises to distract you so you couldn't develop a serious line of thought.

If you were beautiful or handsome, you had to wear a mask that disfigured you.

In this manner, America finally realized a society where every citizen was truly equal.

It was an amusing story because it was so patently ridiculous and so -- unlikely.
Not anymore.

From the American Thinker:

Our educational system is self-destructing because of a fraud known as the "achievement gap." One result of that fraud is that public school bureaucrats are taking away opportunities from good students in a misguided effort to help underperforming students.

When the mainstream media reports on progressive social policies, the results can be astonishing. A recent Washington Post "Metro" section featured a stunning educational policy: a school policy that ruins opportunities for bright students in order to help the less bright students ("Dumping honors classes for AP," May 22). The Post reports that honors classes are being abolished from the curriculum in Fairfax, VA, and many schools across the country. The purpose of abolishing the honors courses: to help "underrepresented minority students." With that article, the Post unwittingly exhibited the core of the problem with education in this country: The flawed system and students' low culture. Each factor combines in a downward spiral to give us the bad educational results we have today.

Schools across the country generally have three tracks of courses: basic, honors, and Advanced Placement courses. Honors classes are being removed because "traditionally underrepresented minorities" are not taking enough AP courses. You might wonder what on earth removing honors courses will do to encourage bad students to take AP courses. Fairfax's "assistant superintendent for instructional services" Peter Noonan helpfully explains: "We've found that traditionally underrepresented minorities do not access the most rigorous track when three tracks are offered. But when two tracks are offered, they do." This may seem like a silly social engineering effort, but there is a serious concept behind this laughable policy: the "achievement gap."

[...]Now, Fairfax is going to ruin an opportunity for bright and motivated students in order to make up for the less motivated, less capable students who are not inclined to take AP courses. This policy alone is bizarre and destined for mediocrity, at best. Yet, that bad policy is just the tip of the iceberg of error that liberal social engineers keep backing up and ramming into. The iceberg itself is made up of obsolete social theories and fallacious sociological schemes.

The pious fraud about the "achievement gap" is more than just bunk social science and bad policy; it is harming the interests of good students. "Underrepresented" students are not going to improve their performance in a way that justifies the cost imposed on good students.

By eliminating honors classes, schools are destroying something of value in a futile quest to produce results that some refuse to produce.

This is not funny at all. This is just another way to destroy the qualities that made America great, the unique capabilities of her people.

June 15, 2011

More On Operation Fast And Furious - Or Is It Morons?


This story has been brewing for quite some time. Only now is the media picking up on it with any regularity. No, it's not from a guilty conscience even though US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed because of bumbling bureaucrats and it isn't from sudden revelations.

No, they smell blood and the pack is forming. Federal agents who were distressed with the slipshod handling of this operation are testifying, and their testimony is making liars out of high government officials.

From Reuters:

U.S. firearms agents told lawmakers on Wednesday they were instructed to only watch as hundreds of guns were bought, illegally resold and sent to Mexico where drug-related violence has raged for years.

Agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Arizona told the House of Representatives Oversight Committee they were told not to arrest the so-called straw buyers and instead see where the guns went.

Republicans and Democrats on the panel expressed outrage about the ATF program -- "Operation Fast and Furious" -- and demanded answers from the Obama administration about why arrests were secondary to tracking the firearms.

"We monitored as they purchased handguns, AK-47 variants and .50 caliber rifles, almost daily at times," John Dodson, an ATF special agent in Phoenix, told the committee.

"Rather than conduct any enforcement actions, we took notes, we recorded observations, we tracked movements of these individuals, we wrote reports but nothing more."

Dodson said agents were never given reasonable answers why their activities were limited.

An ATF supervisor in Phoenix, Peter Forcelli, said some tried to raise concerns with supervisors but were rebuffed.

I am keeping Agent Terry's photo on the top of every update. There is a cost to government incompetence, sometimes a very terrible one.

Fluorescent anybody?

Left Behind - Now It's Just Americans

What if 20 Million Illegal Aliens Vacated America?

I, Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote a column titled, "Mexican Visitor's Lament".

I interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while visiting Denver last week. Hernandez said, "illegal aliens pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes. What Happens to your country's economy if 20 million people go away?" Hmmm, I thought, what would happen?

So I did my due diligence, buried my nose as a reporter into the FACTS I found below.

It's a good question it deserves an honest answer. Over 80% of Americans demand secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million or more vacated America ? The answers I found may surprise you!

In California , if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupt hospitals and overrun prisons. It would leave highways cleaner, safer and less congested. Everyone could understand one another as English became the dominant language again.

In Colorado , 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids and grandchildren would move back 'home', mostly to Mexico . That would save Colorado an estimated $2 billion (other experts say $7 billion) annually in taxes that pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incarceration costs. It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone.

Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and the terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens. Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegals.

Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67% dropout/flunk rate because of thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41 different languages. At least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from our grid locked cities in Colorado . Denver 's 4% unemployment rate would vanish as our working poor would gain jobs at a living wage.

In Florida , 1.5 million illegals would return the Sunshine State back to America , the rule of law, and English.

In Chicago, Illinois , 2.1 million illegals would free up hospitals, schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime-free experience.

If 20 million illegal aliens returned 'home', the U.S. Economy would return to the rule of law. Employers would hire legal American citizens at a living wage. Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they wouldn't be working off the books. That would result in an additional $401 Billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for local, state and city coffers.

No more push '1' for Spanish or '2' for English. No more confusion in American schools that now must contend with over 100 languages that degrade the educational system for American kids. Our overcrowded schools would lose more than two million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL and free breakfasts and lunches.

We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country.

In cities like L.A. , 20,000 members of the ' 18th Street Gang' would vanish from our nation. No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans! No more foreign rapists and child molesters!

Losing more than 20 million people would clear up our crowded highways and gridlock. Cleaner air and less drinking and driving American deaths by illegal aliens!

America 's economy is drained. Taxpayers are harmed. Employers get rich. Over $80 billion annually wouldn't return to the aliens' home countries by cash transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money untaxed, which further drains America 's economy which currently suffers an $8.7 trillion debt. $8.7 trillion debt !!

At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our country, costing us $109 billion per year per cycle. At least 86 hospitals in California , Georgia and Florida would still be operating instead of being bankrupt out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act.

Americans wouldn't suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our country-brought in by illegals unscreened at our borders.

Our cities would see 20 million less people driving, polluting and grid locking our cities. It would also put the 'progressives' on the horns of a dilemma; illegal aliens and their families cause 11% of our greenhouse gases.

Over one million of Mexico's poorest citizens now live inside and along our border from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California in what the New York Times called, 'colonias' or new neighborhoods. Trouble is, those living areas resemble Bombay and Calcutta where grinding poverty, filth, diseases, drugs, crimes, no sanitation and worse. They live without sewage, clean water, streets, roads, electricity, or any kind of sanitation.

The New York Times reported them to be America's new ' Third World ' inside our own country. Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect 20 million residents of those colonias. (I've seen them personally in Texas and Arizona ; it's sickening beyond anything you can imagine.)

By enforcing our laws, we could repatriate them back to Mexico . We should invite 20 million aliens to go home, fix their own countries and/or make a better life in Mexico . We already invite a million people into our country legally more than all other countries combined annually. We cannot and must not allow anarchy at our borders, more anarchy within our borders and growing lawlessness at every level in our nation.

It's time to stand up for our country, our culture, our civilization and our way of life.

Interesting Statistics !

Here are 14 reasons illegal aliens should vacate America, and I hope they are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them:

1. $14 billion to $22 billion dollars are spent each year on welfare to illegal aliens. (that's Billion with a 'B') http://tinyurl.com/zob77.html

3. $7.5 billion dollars are spent each year on Medicaid for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 billion dollars are spent each year on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they still cannot speak a word of English!http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

5. $27 billion dollars are spent each year for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6. $3 Million Dollars 'PER DAY' is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. That's $1.2 Billion a year. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7. 28% percent of all federal prison inmates are illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

8. $190 billion dollars are spent each year on illegal aliens for welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 billion dollars per year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US . http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year 2005, there were 8 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our southern border with as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from other terrorist countries. Over 10,000 of those were middle-eastern terrorists. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin, crack, Guns, and marijuana crossed into the U.S. from the southern border.http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National Policy Institute, estimates that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion, or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period and nbsp; http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/publications.php?b=deportation

13. In 2006, illegal aliens sent home $65 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin, to their families and friends. http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14. The dark side of illegal immigration: Nearly one million sex crimes are committed by illegal immigrants in the United States ! http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

Total cost a whopping $538.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR!

H/T to Charlie

June 14, 2011

Beauty And The Near Deceased


Not that I really give a hoot, but why was this man, who is 85 years old, going to marry a woman 60 years his junior when he could drive the car, so to speak, without leasing or buying it? Or for that matter, why would a beautiful 25 year old woman want to mar... Uhhhh, never mind.

From the Daily Mail:

  • Crystal Harris reportedly dating Dr. Phil's son Jordan McGraw

  • 300 guests were invited to the nuptials at the Playboy Mansion

  • Hef, 85, tweeted that Crystal 'had a change of heart'

  • Hugh Hefner is going to be a free and single Playboy for a bit longer.

    Less than two weeks ago after he and fiancée Crystal Harris put on a public display of love and affection at the new Playboy Club in London, the couple have called off their wedding.

    The weekend nuptials have been cancelled after they reportedly had a huge argument.
    After the dust settled Crystal moved out of the Playboy mansion on Sunday night.
    Apparently Hugh accused Crystal of hiding his teeth and the Viagra.

    AND while we're on the subject of idiots, why did Martin oops! Charlie Sheen leave his gorgeous wife and two beautiful daughters to shack up with a babysitter and a porn actress?


    Okay, I'm done with this crowd. Back to mainstream media madness, sleazy pols, and crazy dictators.


    h/t IOTW

    And who's your favorite Weiner?



    THE MOST EVIL RULERS OF ALL TIME:
    5. The Emperor Nero. In A.D. 59 he murdered his mother and in A.D. 62, his wife Octavia. He later married Poppaea. When half of Rome was burned in a fire (A.D. 64), Nero accused the Christians of starting it and began the first Roman persecution. In A.D. 65 there was a plot to make Caius Calpurnius Piso emperor. The detection of this plot began a string of violent deaths, e.g., of Seneca, Lucan, and Thrasea Paetus. Nero had ambitions to be a poet and artist. In A.D. 68 a series of revolts, including one by his own Praetorian Guard, caused him to commit suicide. Among his last words were, “What an artist the world is losing in me!” His memory was publicly execrated.

    4. Maximillien Robespierre. Robespierre was the mastermind of the Reign of Terror (1793–1794), the dark underside of the French Revolution that perverted its lofty ideals of democracy with fanaticism and inhumanity. Robespierre, leader of the infamous Committee of Public Safety, turned France into a police state, sending "enemies of the nation" to the guillotine without benefit of a public trial or legal representation. About 40,000 French men and women were executed or died in prison, and another 300,000 were imprisoned. Only Robespierre's own beheading ended the slaughter.

    3. Ivan the Terrible. On January 16, 1547, Ivan became the first czar of Russia, ruling until 1584. His early reign was primarily spent in battle in an effort to expand Russian land. His tyrannical cruelty only developed later in life, when he turned increasingly paranoid and vindictive—historians suspect mental instability. In 1570, Ivan formed a troop of personal bodyguards called oprichniki, who answered only to him and became the vehicle for massacring his perceived enemies over a seven-year period (1565–1572). The landed gentry was Ivan's particular nemesis, and he unleashed his oprichniki upon thousands of them. He was equally guilty of domestic violence, killing his son and heir, Ivan, in a state of fury, as well as several of his wives—he is believed to have had seven of them.

    2. Joseph Stalin. Totalitarian leader of the U.S.S.R. from 1929–53, Stalin crushed the Soviet peoples with his megalomania and repressive version of communism. His adopted name meant "man of steel," and the term Stalinism has become the definition of a cruel, draconian socialism. He sent millions of Soviets not conforming to the Stalinist ideal to forced-labor camps, and he persecuted his country's vast number of ethnic groups—reserving particular vitriol for Jews and Ukranians. Soviet historian Roy Medvedev estimated that about 20 million died from starvation, executions, forced collectivization, and life in the labor camps under Stalin's rule. Another 20 million survived imprisonment and deportation.

    1. Adolf Hitler. History's most chilling tyrant, Hitler controlled Germany from 1933–45. His fascist maneuverings for world domination, his dream of a Teutonic master race subjugating all non-Germanic peoples, led to a criminality unmatched by any leader this millennium. Responsible for the genocide of six million Jews, the slaughter of Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, Communists, and other "undesirables" and "decadents," as well as the invasion of Europe and the preposterous ambition to rule the world, Hitler defies any more sophisticated explanation than categorical evil.

    June 13, 2011

    Operation Fast And Furious - Agent Brian Terry

    I am continuing the series on the death of US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and the role that the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms played in his murder last year. In a nutshell, BP Agent Terry was killed in a shootout in the Arizona/Mexico border by armed illegal aliens. At least two of the weapons used to murder Agent Terry and to fire on other Agents were obtained from legitimate Arizona arms dealers who were explicitly instructed by ATF agents to sell weapons to people that the dealers did not trust and who would have refused their business but for the insistence of the local ATF supervisors.

    In this latest development, the House is slowly working toward holding the US Department of Justice in contempt for withholding documents related to "Operation Fast and Furious," the ill-fated ATF operation that supplied thousands of firearms to narco-terrorists and ultimately killed Agent Terry.

    Since Watergate, Congress has held just 12 senior U.S. government officials in contempt for failure to produce subpoenaed documents. On Monday, that process begins again.

    A hearing in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is laying the groundwork to compel U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to turn over documents related to "Operation Fast and Furious," a secret Obama administration program that put thousands of guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

    Fast and Furious aimed to track gun sales to Mexico, allegedly, say critics of the program, to build up evidence to publicly blame cartel violence on U.S. gun store owners and lax American gun laws.

    In the past two months, the Department of Justice, on behalf of ATF, has ignored subpoenas and seven letters demanding details of the program. It has refused to provide a single document to the oversight committee, according to chairman Darrell Issa.

    "Now the question is will DOJ give us the documents or will law enforcement officials, little by little, as whistleblowers give us what we want to show this problem goes to the highest levels," said Issa, R-Calif. "What we would like to do is get the truth out quickly, that it's the judgment of the people involved that Congress needs to question."

    Right now it's Ignore and Delay for Holder and the Justice Department. Let the subpeonas come fast and furious until the information documenting bureaucratic incompetency and recklessness is released.

    I hold Eric Holder personally responsible for this


    Arrogant prick. A few years in solitary will cure that.

    June 12, 2011

    No Newts Is Good Newts


    The first time I ever seriously considered Newt Gringirch as a politician was in 1994when the Repubicans initiated the Contract With America. I thought to myself, too bad his name is Newt.

    Now I think, too bad he's Newt.

    I never seriously considered Newt as presidential material. Neither do his campaign staff who up and quit on him last week. Newt's loyalty to those closest to him is questionable as his actions regarding his battery of former wives attest to.

    Now Newt's daughter has aready laid to rest the false story about Newt divorcing his first wife while she was in the hospital being treated for cancer. However, his long term affair with a Congressional staffer 23 years his junior does grind me a bit. I don't care if he did eventually marry the harpy. And for Heaven's sake, someone teach that woman how to blink.