Archive for February, 2010

Bunning Blocks Benefits

Posted in Politics on February 27th, 2010

Late last night, February 26, 2010 Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) highhandedly and successfully blocked a bill to further extend a number of federal subsidies including, among other things: expanded unemployment benefits; surface transportation programs; the compulsory copyright license used by satellite TV providers; the federal flood insurance program; and health insurance subsidies for the jobless.

Senator Bunning’s objection to the Democrats’ proposed legislation was that the Democrat’s had made no provision for paying for it and it would therefor just add to the already crushing weight of the federal deficit.

Everybody in this chamber wants to extend unemployment benefits, but if we can’t find $10 billion somewhere for a bill that everybody in this body supports we will never pay for anything.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY)

To be clear, Sen. Bunning had no stated objection to the bill in question other than the funding of it. He wanted some of the large amount of still unused Stimulus funds to be used to pay for the extension of the programs but his amendment to the bill to that effect was rejected by the Senate Democrats several times.

Sen. Bunning’s actions don’t surprise me. He’s a true fiscal Conservative who previously voted against both TARP and the Auto Bail Out, so this is consistent with his economic views.

So who really blocked this legislation and allowed these various programs to sunset tomorrow, the one Republican Senator who wanted the programs to be paid for or the numerous Democrat Senators who didn’t want to pay for them?

The Healthcare Show

Posted in 2010 Election, 2012 Election, Politics on February 26th, 2010

On Thursday, February 25, 2010, President Obama and a select group of both Republicans and Democrats gathered together for the titular purpose of working out at least a framework for a bipartisan Healthcare Reform Bill.

Of course Obama chose to have this event televised unlike much of the previous, substantive meetings involving ObamaCare.

As anyone with a working brain could expect, this was far more about politics – specifically the upcoming 2010 Congressional Midterm Elections and Obama’s bid for reelection in 2012 – than it was about legislation or building consensus or bipartisanship. It was a many hour long series campaign ads paid for by we, the People.

From the reactions to it that I’ve seen today, I’d say that it was a failure and one that hurt the Dems more than the GOP since the Dems have more incumbents in the 2010 elections than the GOP does. Oh well, perhaps they’ll learn something from this – but I doubt that, on the off chance that they do, it’ll be the right lesson.

Hot Chocolate (NSFW)

Posted in Books & Reading, Food & Drink, Humor, Society on February 25th, 2010

I live in NYC and we’re experiencing yet another snow storm. This one promises to be interesting since it will supposedly involved “mixed precipitation” – that would be rain, sleet, and snow all together – and increasing winds throughout the day and evening.

A hard day for any us who had to go into work and a hard day for any of us, et al, to stay warm. That being the case, I’d suggest that as many of us as possible enjoy some hot chocolate today.

Heidilicious Hot Chocolate!

In my personal and rarely humble opinion I’d say that the above constitutes some truly hot chocolate and would keep just about anybody warm on a day like today. 😉

These absolutely delicious images of Heidi Klum are from her and the renowned photographer Rankin’s 2009 book, Heidilicious which they created during Heidi Klum’s pregnancy.

And, if hot chocolate doesn’t work for you or if it just isn’t quite enough, you could always try some Warm Milk. 😛

Scattering ACORN

Posted in Politics on February 24th, 2010

ACORN has decided to begin the process of dissolving it’s national hierarchy. An official who is close to the group claims that the numerous state and local-chapters are beginning split off from national group. These newly “autonomous” groups will re-brand themselves under one or more different names, charters, and corporate filings within the stats that they will conduct their operations within.

From Politico on February 22, 2010:

The embattled liberal group ACORN is in the process of dissolving its national structure, with state and local-chapters splitting off from the underfunded, controversial national group, an official close to the group confirmed.

“ACORN has dissolved as a national structure of state organizations,” said a senior official close to the group, who declined to be identified by name because of the fierce conservative attacks on the group that began when a conservative filmmaker caught some staffers of its tax advisory arms on tape appearing to offer advice on incorporating a prostitution business.

The videos proved a rallying point for conservatives who had long accused the group of fomenting voting fraud. Though the videos did not produce criminal charges, they appear to have been fatal to the national organization.

“Consistent with what the internal recommendations have been, each of the states are developing plans for reconstitution independence and self-sufficiency,” said the official, citing ACORN’s “diminished resources, damage to the brand, unprecedented attacks.”

The new organizations, he said “will be constituted under new banners and new bylaws and new governance,” he said, consistent with the recommendations of an outside panel.

Much of the group’s strength lay in its local chapters in places like New York, which appear to be continuing to operate as normal. New York’s City Hall News reported today that the local group there had re-emerged under the name “New York Communities for Change.”

Ben Smith

At first read this definitely seems to be a great victory for the American people. Anytime a nationwide criminal, racist, thuggish, and anti-American organization is broken by the will and efforts of we, the People, the first instinct is to rejoice in our victory, to celebrate it, and to move on to the next challenge facing us.

Americans must not do that this time!

Yes, we have exposed the plethora of ever devolving and ever more disgusting crime, corruption, and sickening behavior that ACORN commits, endorses, and even revels in. The results of that exposure has been: a long series of criminal charges being filed against ACORN, their loss of sources of funding from the private sector, and the loss of much of their previous influence over Congress. This has caused the long overdue collapse of ACORN’s national structure.

ACORN is still ACORN, even under new aliases and a decentralized organizational model. They are still villains as they have always been and they will not change their course or ways.  All that has happened is that ACORN, in response to being exposed and attacked, has adopted a new model of business, one with a long history of success for those who operate in aggression against a larger body.

They have broken apart into separate cells, each officially autonomous and with only limited traceable communications with each other and/or knowledge of each others’ whereabouts and activities.  Such a move on their part will make it easier for ACORN to continue their evil since make it far harder for Americans to curtail their operations and to prevent them from receiving both private and public funding. Even if and when a group is caught, the other groups will be untouchable by the law due to their ability to maintain plausible deniability.

This decentralized network of cells worked for the Mafia, the French Resistance in WW2, and continues to this day to work for terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

No – While America has won a victory, it was only a victory in a single hard-fought battle. Our war is far from over and, if we are are to prevent ACORN from winning in the end, we must remain ever vigilant and ever willing to take whatever steps are needed to wreak complete, utter, and final destruction upon ACORN, its membership, and its supporters.

Keep your eyes open. Travel light but load heavy, and always put another round in the enemy after they’re down. 😉

Big Brother Is Watching

Posted in Politics on February 23rd, 2010

In August of 2007 Johnny Logan Spencer Jr. posted a poem – well, it was semi-lyrical prose – entitled The Sniper on the neo-Nazi website, New Saxon. Last week federal law enforcement arrested the 27 year-old Kentuckian over the subject matter of that poem.

Johnny Logan Spencer Jr. aka pain1488

After 28 months of the poem being posted on the internet and  18 months of the Secret Service being aware of it Mr. Spencer has been charged, after an investigation that lasted under a week, with federal crimes pertaining to threatening President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

Below is the poem, if one can truly call it that given its broken meter and piss-poor rhyme, in its entirety:

THE SNIPER

As the tyrant enters his cross hairs the breath he takes is deep
His focus is square on the target as he begins to release
A patriot for his people he knows this shot will cost his life
But for his race and their existence it is a small sacrifice

The bullet that he has chambered is one of the purest pride
And the inscription on the casing reads DIE negro DIE
He breathes out as he pulls the trigger releasing all his hate
And a smile appears upon his face as he seals that monkeys fate

The bullet screams toward its mark bringing with it death
And where there was once a face there is nothing left
Two blood covered agents stare in horror and dismay
Looking down toward the ground where their president now lay

Now the screams of one old negro broad pierces thru the air
Setting off panic from every eyewitness that was there
And among all the confusion the hero calmly slips away
Laughing for he knows there will be another negro holiday

—  Johnny Spencer

Much like the previous poll on Facebook about assassinating Obama I am maintaining and publishing this for the sake of posterity and the integrity of our 1st Amendment.

For anyone who is terrified of anyone who would post such material and who wishes to do something about it, my local US Secret Service Field Office can be contacted at (718) 840-1000.

Please feel free to report me. 😉

So what we have here is a very poorly crafted attempt a poetry that paints a racist’s fantasy about assassinating a Black POTUS – presumably, given the nature of New Saxon and the use of “tyrant” as a descriptor, one of authoritarian bent who is forcing the “Black Agenda” upon America by fiat.

What we do not have is a direct reference to the Obamas – though we have to assume they’re who he was writing about, a direct threat to their lives, or a direct call for violence against them. Some combination of these things have, until Obama’s regime, been required before such speech was criminalized and federal law enforcement sent out to arrest and imprison the people involved.

Even with some combination of direct reference and overt or explicit threat or call to violent and/or criminal action, in the past plenty of people were allowed to speak as they wished to without fear of reprisal from the White House or its federal law enforcement agents.

No, these people were not arrested by either local, state, or federal officers for threatening President Bush.  But that was then and this is now, and apparently vastly different rules apply under President Obama.

Some will stridently claim that there is an inherent difference between the images displayed by the Liberal and Black protesters against President Bush and the poem by Spencer about presumably assassinating President Obama in front of his wife – and they’re right; there is a vast sea of difference between protesters gathering in large groups and calling for the murder of a POTUS – or anyone else for that matter – and the rancid masturbatory fantasies of a White Supremacist about assassinating a President who hadn’t even won his party’s nomination as of yet.

It is sadly ironic – and not in a remotely humorous way – that President Obama and his federal agents, upon identifying Spencer, acted in manner consistent with a Tyrant, which is exactly how Spencer described him in The Sniper.

One wonders if this is based upon an actual fear of Mr. Spencer, who had done nothing to realize his fantasy and was not found to have any weaponry or even links to weaponry, or if it is just more race-baiting for the sake of political expediency during the lead up to Obama’ healthcare summit and the November Congressional midterm elections.