Lois Lerner, the epitome of a sleazy, corrupt DC bureaucrat

Lois Lerner, the corrupt IRS goon who personally oversaw the railroading of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, announced her retirement from the IRS today......that would be following the 5 months of paid vacation she's been enjoying at taxpayer expense since May.

Why do these criminally mischievous bureaucrats get to simply walk away from their crimes with fabulous cash and  retirement prizes from government jobs where they abused the power of their offices, while screwing over the very taxpayers from whom they've looted hundreds of thousands in undeserved paychecks and bonuses?

It wouldn't surprise me if Obama promised her a fat severance and a pre-retirement promotion if she would go quietly away and let the administration blame the IRS corruption on her. That's how DC politics works.

The US military reflects the pernicious creep of political correctness in society

My good friend and regular reader David alerted me to this nonsense out of our military. They are having Disability Awareness Month at Wright/Patterson AFB in September apparently, as well as force wide. To become fully aware of disabilities at the museum at W/P.....

Base volunteers will simulate various disabilities while touring the museum, enabling them to experience the challenges associated with both visible and hidden disabilities.  The activity will end with a discussion of reasonable accommodations in the workplace.

Why can't they just install wheelchair ramps, bathroom stalls for the handicapped, and braille signage and be done with it? What other disabilities need to be accounted for? Besides, you cannot be disabled much, and be in the military. 

All this focus by our military on sensitivity, diversity, and inclusiveness seems to preclude focus on killing those who would kill us.....and isn't that the primary mission, hell, only mission, of the military? 

You can really tell that the politically correct class has risen to leadership roles in the military when the rules of combat engagement actually endanger our troops and every effort is made NOT to kill our enemies on the battlefield, soldiers are disarmed and defenseless when on base, and known threats, like the Islamic Ft. Hood shooter, are overlooked by superior officers because they are afraid of being labeled racist or anti-Islamic and having their careers terminated for it. 

The US military isn't what it used to be, nor is the US any longer the country I used to be proud of. 

Lucky Syrian rebel group wins the Obama-weapons lottery

For all Obama knows about which factions in Syria are rebels and which are terrorists, he might as well be playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. By unilaterally invalidating the prohibitions in sections 40 and 40A of the Arms Export Control Act,  to suit his political needs today, Obama will almost certainly be arming the very terrorists who'll use those weapons against us tomorrow.

Additionally, the 300tons of chemical weapons Assad has amassed over the years, probably from Saddam Hussein's stockpile in Iraq, are littered in small piles all over the country....at least according to our own intelligence reports.

If Assad falls, we are told, all those stockpiles of weapons could fall into the hands of who knows how many competing groups, some friendly to the US, but most probably not at all. Isn't it in the best interests of the US for Assad to remain in power and in control of the chemical weapons? Why then is Obama insistent on arming what the rebel group du jour? How does he know who he's really providing with US weaponry?

The answer is, he doesn't have a clue. He's been told by political advisers the he needs to do something alpha-male-like now that Putin has stolen all his thunder and humiliated him. So he stuck his hand in a hat and drew out the lucky rebel group who'll receive our weapons.

Boy, that's some brilliant foreign policy right there.

Ed's book club book review

The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin.

Imagine if you will if Ayn Rand wrote a sci-fi novel. It's 300 years in the future. The solar system is populated by 40billion people all the way out to the Oort cloud, there are no taxes, and virtually every function of government is privately operated. Justin Cord, a man from our time, is reanimated after cryo-sleep and enters a world where every human is incorporated at birth and spends their 300-400 year lifespan working to gain a majority share of themselves.

Against a backdrop of interesting, high-tech advancements, the book pits the Randian ideas of the individual and absolute freedom against the ideas of Milton Friedman and about the sovereign right of the individual to incorporate themselves if they want and how self-interest, being the prime motivator of men, could theoretically be used to benefit as many people as possible without government interference.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Grab a copy next time you're at the library or download it to your Kindle.  

If you want to blame somebody besides the Navy Yard shooter, blame Bill Clinton

One of the first things Bill Clinton did as President was to sign an executive order that prohibited servicemen and women from carrying their personal firearms while on duty on base. This also prohibited commanders from issuing firearms to service personnel while on base.

The absurd establishment, by Bill Clinton, of US military bases as gun-free zones is what made the Ft. Hood massacre possible and was at least, an aggravating factor in yesterday's Navy Yard massacre.

It took police 5-7 minutes to arrive on the scene yesterday. That's 5-7 extremely long minutes when a lunatic with a gun is shooting at you. If only a few service people had their legal conceal/carry weapons, this guy would probably have been stopped before the police arrived and who knows how many lives saved? The same thing goes for Ft. Hood.

How outrageous is it that a shooter at a Publix supermarket here in Birmingham would meet more armed resistance than he would at the nearest military base? Thanks Bill Clinton.

UPDATE: So there seems to be some confusion as to whether the ban on personal firearms carried by service personnel on bases, was implemented during the end of G.H.W.Bush's term or the beginning of Bill Clinton's, or both. There were a couple of directives but I'm not clear on which one actually banned personal weapons. When I get it cleared up, I'll post a correction if needed.

Still, concealed/carry firearms at Ft. Hood and the Navy Yard would almost certainly stopped the killing well before the cops arrived from off base or MP's from the front gate.

The left-wing media love to lecture Americans on how awful we are because we own guns. They pretend to be experts when reporting on weapons-related crime so they can then wonder, teary-eyed, why there isn't more gun control. Well, here's one possible reason why most Americans don't pay attention to media morons who think they know about guns.....the AR-15 isn't a shotgun.....

This was CNN's breathless reporting on the Navy Yard shooter and his access to weapons.

And this boys and girls, is how America's role in the Syria story ends

Whoever did this brilliantly funny photoshop deserves to win the Internet. This has been flying around all day, most notably over at Hotair, which is where I found it.

There should be a dialogue balloon over Obama that reads, "I gotta pee". 

Dumb CNN anchor can't remember Ft. Hood massacre

Over at CNN, they hire pretty anchors to read the news, but they aren't too bright. Carol Costello says live on air as the DC Navy Shipyard shooting unfolds, that she can't ever remember a shooter going on a rampage at a US military installation. Really, Carol? Does Ft. Hood ring a bell?

The field reporter gently reminds her about Ft. Hood, sadly without making her look as ablivious as she evidently is.....

 

California throws itself off the cliff with minimum wage hike to $10

Just how stupid are they in California? Stupid enough to ignore the business flight out of that state because of union thuggery and obscenely high taxes, and drive still more jobs out by raising the minimum wage to $10 by 2016.

Entry level jobs aren't worth $10 an hour. They're worth whatever the labor market determines they're worth, which in the current, high-unemployment economic climate would be dramatically less than even the $8 it is in California now.

Additionally, entry-level jobs don't exist to support families. They're for entry-level workers to learn job skills, responsibility, punctuality, work ethic, and to earn a little spending money as they prepare to move on to a better job. If you are trying to support a family working entry level, then you've already made a whole series of horrible life decisions and there's not much hope for you.

Business simply won't hire people to do entry-level work for $10/hour. They'll either fire some workers to make up the difference or they'll move to a state that is more friendly to business. When he signs this bill, Jerry Brown will have established himself as the biggest moron to ever hold a governor's office.

9/11 widows enjoy lifetime "victim" card

I heard where firefighters at Boston's Logan airport had to apologize for their airplane fire training on 9/11. Apparently some 9/11 widow/mother played her victim card and whined that the image of an airplane on fire caused her stress on her day of mourning. 

Get over yourself, miserable harpie! What delicate snowflakes we are that 12 years after a catastrophe, we can't be reminded of it by first-responders training for the next catastrophe. These guys were doing precisely what they should have been doing on 9/11....preparing for the next one. 

For how long are these 9/11 widows with their cloying need for attention going to dictate what we are and are not allowed to do on 9/11, out of respect for their feelings?