…art, music, and opinions from Lower Alabama
“Government has become ungovernable; that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is the meekness of the mob and the madness of the government.” G. K. Chesterton
via Gerard
Miz Althouse points out the background to this picture:
The only two competent leaders on that sideways monolith are Ms. Merkel and Bad Vlad. Storm’s a-comin’ indeed.
…presented without comment.
via GoodShit
Those who are looking for a smoking gun that will finally, once and for all, prove The Preznit is ultimately culpable for the misbehavior of his subordinates are doomed to be disappointed. As Limbaugh said, mentioning the American Thinker Article, there is not nor will there be a smoking gun to link Obama to any of the current scandals.
From Ace of Spades:
So all Obama has to do is publicly castigate and demonize his those who oppose his policies (which he has done many times), and thugs like Eric Holder and Lois Lerner swing into action. No need for anyone to tell them what to do. They know what pleases Obama, and they will use the means at their disposal to carry out his wishes, to wit: to suppress and neutralize his enemies. Conservatives get on Obama for being a crappy leader, but that’s not completely accurate. This is leadership. It’s leadership, Chicago-style.
The lack of direct documentary evidence linking Hitler to genocide is interesting and if he had been captured alive, I’m not sure how the Nuremberg prosecutors would have built a case against him. Especially if he had pulled an Obama, thrown Himmler and Goering under the bus and piously claimed that the first time he had heard of the whole death camp thing was when he had read about them in the papers.
So…
It’s at the point that a wholesale housecleaning is needed- not just in the elected ranks, which, face it, is easy enough to do if enough people get motivated. The bigger housecleaning is going to be among the ranks of the civil servants- those who look on government work as a career in and of itself and not a temporary, mildly distasteful duty. Those are the ranks that have a vested interest in a government that grows ever bigger. Those are the people who are 90% aligned with the progressive movement. Until a solution is found for them, nothing will ever really change.
Perhaps a rail, tar, and feathers (some assembly required) for the most egregious of them is what’s needed- Pour encourager les autres.
Res Ipsa Loquitur
via the whole damn ‘net
Speak it, sister!
via Miz Ann
From her commentariat:
What in effect we have as of right now base on this IRS testimony is a shakedown protection racket mob style, with Don Urkel at its head and the rest of the families that make up the cabinet. That’s what the federal government has now become, the mob, the mafia, and yet, I don’t see a single one of them that work within it coming up against any RICO statutes. But then again, why would they impugn their own. That’s like grading your own final. Hey, guess what,m I got a 100%. I’m awesome. Not even Sebelius who has admitted as much. You can’t have a mob state and think to yourself that it will go on, in this way much longer. Everyone can see it and they are disgusted by it, well, except for the sycophantic leftist citizenry that thinks giving the big fuck you to republicans and conservatives is what they deserve.
The natives are restless. Can you hear the drums?
If you need an explanation, you’re too far gone. Via Ace
But do we have the nerve to follow through to the conclusion?
How Many Times do We have to Hear about the Peaceful 99% of Muslims?
…
Did you know that, — 99% of the Japanese did not attack Pearl Harbor? — 99% of the Nazis did not kill Jews or Gypsies, or invade Poland? — 99% of the Communists did not engage in Stalin’s or Mao’s purges? — 99% of the Germans killed in Dresden had never bombed England? — 99% of the Italians did not invade Ethiopia? — 99% of the Iranians did not occupy the US embassy in Teheran? — 99% of the Al Qaeda membership did not fly airplanes into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon?And so on, and on, and so what? What does that “99%” prove? Just one thing: There are consequences in the real world to belonging to organizations or following ideologies and leaders that commit atrocities. That’s the way it works. If 99% of Muslims are not terrorists, and do not support terrorism (that’s the big “if”) where are they? Why can’t they control the crazies and murderers and rioters in their midst? If they can’t they will find that they might just pay the price, even if they did not pull the trigger, or drop the cyanide gas. The Germans and the Japanese discovered that during World War II.
So whether you’re in Boston or Fort Hood, London, Paris or Benghazi, at some point you have to face the fact that this is a cultural struggle we are causing ourselves to lose. Either the terrorists and those who enable them are held accountable by the civilized, or the civilization itself will fall. Do we as a culture have the stones to make the correct decision? I honestly don’t see much evidence of it- we no longer even hold our own leaders to any traditional moral standard, much less those who attack us.
Only by each individual taking a stand- “This far, no further”- will this ever change. You’ll have to look inside yourselves for the answer to that.
C. S. Lewis:
And all the time — such is the tragi-comedy of our situation — we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more “drive”, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or “creativity”. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.
An amazing and perceptive man. His kind would not be allowed in our Brave New World.
Glenn links to this:
– but that is just papering over the problem. The problem is the tax system itself– ridiculously complex and riddled with perks for those with the money or the power to game the system. Ordinary folks need not apply. We need a tax system that is evenly allocated and forces everyone to comply, no exceptions. A national sales tax would do that – a tax on consumption, not income – which would apply equally to a Michael Bloomberg or to me. No exemptions, no deductions, no VAT. No forms to file.
The infrastructure is already in place; it would be relatively painless to implement.
States should also be forbidden an income tax; they, too, would have to rely on a sales tax, and would be forced to be careful how high it was, risking driving business and citizens into lower-taxed states.
The price increases would look painful at first until you realized that nothing was being deducted from your paycheck. The cost savings from reduced overhead would be enormous.
And to me the greatest benefit of all would be the masses of government employees who would have to find jobs in the private sector they so despise. The actions of our government in my lifetime- Democrat, Republican, whatever- have convinced me that a wholesale housecleaning is long overdue. IRS, EPA, DOE, HUD, etc., etc., – I’m talking about you.
It will be wrenching. But if we don’t take back our country we are going to lose it- in our lifetimes. The signs are all there if you have the guts to see.
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
— Robert Heinlein
Or, in today’s case, taxed out of existence.
The Dems are going to have to decide quickly what side they are on. As Wretchard says
It is in the long-term interest of the Democratic Party for their foreign policy in the Middle East to succeed, because even with the press on their side they cannot wholly escape the effects of failure. By contrast candidates have shorter cost/benefit horizons. They only need to survive long enough to get theirs. Once that is done their loyal serfs are left to make shift as best they can. Defending the leadership at the cost of courting a foreign policy disaster must mean that the Party will eventually hold the bag.
But anyone who thinks Hillary and Barack will reward them for their sacrifice should ask themselves how Chris Stevens fared when he pleaded for help. Can they expect better?
So the basic problem with defending Benghazi at all costs is that a political party has effectively painted itself into the corner of failure; maneuvered as it were by Darrel Issa into taking the wrong side, into reinforcing failure just to prove they can do it. They have to keep eating the broken glass if only to demonstrate that it is delicious.
Maybe they can do it. But a moment’s reflection will show it is a dumb thing to do. For there are two hearings on Benghazi; the first is taking place in Congress, which may or may not be successfully spun. But even if it could be, there’s a second hearing concurrently running in the halls of history which they have no prospect of winning. The demons that ate up Benghazi have joined into a mighty river of chaos that is washing away national boundaries in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and in the Kurdish regions. The Son of Benghazi is spreading chaos and destruction everywhere.
Cornered rats, the lot of them. Of course, I have my own opinion…
We’re still FOUR million FULL TIME jobs short of where we were in December of 2007.
Both those numbers courtesy of the BLS, if one cares to dig a little. And I believe those numbers are cooked, as well, to make the current thugs in office look better than they are
Ice, I think a lot of things are being cooked these days. I can appreciate what it must have been like in Dusseldorf around 1937.
But every once in a while, the truth slips out.
This was his real rating before sandy, and probably was after. At this point, they can’t lie too hard or they’ll be found out.
Diplomad:
I do not hear discussion about whether we need none, little, some, or a lot of immigration, and if we do, what type of immigration we should seek. Do we need millions more of semi and unskilled people from Mexico and other poor countries? Absent widespread elimination or reduction in minimum wage, taxation, public assistance, and zoning laws, how will these people contribute to the economic growth of our country? This is not nineteenth century America with small factories and workshops on every street corner, and belching smokestack industries eager for cheap workers. This is the America of EPA regulations, OSHA bureaucrats, job killing minimum wage and health insurance laws, outsourcing, and of a growing ethos that sees single parents living on the public dole as an honorable existence. It is also the America of multiculturalism whereby immigrants are encouraged never to become Americans.
The rubbish being put out by Obama and others on the taxes that these new immigrants will pay is just that rubbish. They will draw public assistance and not pay taxes. What impact will this continuing flood of poor migrants have on the job and advancement prospects of struggling poor and middle class black, white and brown Americans? I haven’t heard much said about that, but I predict it won’t be good.
Is our immigration law going to continue based on the idea of family reunification? Will adults be able to petititon for their adult sublings and those siblings families? Will we continue to ignore promises that the new immigrants will not become a public assistance burden? If so, we are in for an endless cascade of new immigrants petitioning for their relatives and on and on and on. Yes, sure, technically we will have solved the “illegal alien” problem by making them all legal. Is that what is best for our country, I stress for our country not for the Democratic party?
Bob Owens:
There were forty-seven shot and seven killed in Chicago over the weekend. This occurred in the heartland of America, in a city in which boasts of the strictness of its gun laws.
This is greater carnage that the low-grade war still being waged across Iraq between government forces and various insurgent groups.
This is comparable to our losses in the entire Afghan war zone over the same time period.
This is comparable to the dead and injured in continued fighting between factions in Libya.
This comparable to Turkey’s riots which have garnered international condemnation.
This is only slightly less than the casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
Despite the bodies filling the morgue and screaming wounded filling emergency rooms, progressives insist this third-world conflict in Cook County is a model of how strict gun control makes citizens safer.
Tell us another lie. This one isn’t working.
Instapundit:
TENNESSEE WAS ONE OF THE LAST STATES TO PUT PHOTOS ON DRIVER’S LICENSES, and people who objected were called paranoid. But now: State photo-ID databases become troves for police. “The faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver’s-license fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects, accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal investigations. The facial databases have grown rapidly in recent years and generally operate with few legal safeguards beyond the requirement that searches are conducted for ‘law enforcement purposes.’”
Nope. No comment. None needed.