Saturday, March 31, 2012

Hawaii TSA and Airport Workers Charged with Meth Smuggling

Groping, pimping, and now meth trafficking is part of the TSA resume, according to the Honolulu Star Advertiser:
A federal criminal complaint alleges that workers for Delta Air Lines and the Transportation Security Administration helped a methamphetamine ring operate between southern California and Hawaii.
Healthtechzone.com further reports that one of the five individuals arrested allegedly "arranged transportation of the drugs from California by using a Delta or TSA employee to bypass security and place 30- to 40-pound shipments of drugs in luggage that had already gone through screening."

Friday, March 30, 2012

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Video: Bohemian Rhapsody Could Be Intoxicating

Canada's got talent!

You may have noticed that typical drunk driving suspect on video can barely recite the alphabet after a traffic stop.

But after cursing out a mountie, this pickup truck driver who was apparently stopped for alleged DUI sings Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in its entirety in the back of the police cruiser.

Drinking and driving is never a good idea, but the solo performance seemed to have a calming effect because the man becomes much more civil afterwards.

H/T to BroBible.com which says..."If you're going to go to jail, you might as well go in style...[The motorist] got a decent voice and is highly entertaining, making him better than half the people I've seen on The Voice. Unfortunately for [him], bismilah! No, the police will not let him go."




 

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Obama Was Against the Individual Mandate Before He Was For it

Remember all the hope-and-change malarkey from the 2008 campaign? Exhibit A: the health reform individual mandate:



In this video, the libertarians at Reason TV provide three additional bullet points for opposing socialized medicine:



 

CNN Disaster Coverage: ObamaCare "Train Wreck" at the Supreme Court

Day 2 of oral arguments in the ObamaCare case at the U.S. Supreme Court was a "train wreck" for the Obama administration according to CNN liberal, er, legal, analyst Jeffrey Toobin:



If Toobin is correct that the the court will declare the law unconstitutional, will the Justices merely block the individual mandate or throw out the entire 2,000+ page ObamaCare monstrosity ridiculously known as the Affordable Care Act given that the legislation has no severability clause?

 

Saturday, March 24, 2012

It's ObamCare's Birthday--And You Can Cry If You Want To

                 photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography via photopin cc

What if you gave a birthday party and no one came?

Even this grandstanding White House avoided any "celebration" of the two-year anniversary of the perversely called Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. ObamaCare.

Affordable? The Congressional Budget Office now finds the Obama health bill will cost a staggering $1.76 trillion (not $940 billion--which has hideous enough--according to the agency's earlier estimate) over 10 years.

Politico claims it knows why the public overwhelmingly opposes the left's version of health reform:
At the two-year mark Friday, nearly everything that Democrats believed about the politics of health care has turned out to be false. And the cost of those miscalculations has been huge. They have haunted Obama’s presidency, soured business as usual at the Capitol and upended the conventional wisdom peddled by political strategists, who have rarely been so wrong about something so big.
Are you still wondering what is ObamaCare?

National Review's Yuval Levin expounds on ObamCare's unhappy birthday that goes beyond merely the imposition of the individual mandate:
This law is horrendously bad health-care policy, it rips at the fabric of our constitutional order and our economic order, it makes a joke of any notion of limited government, and it involves a faith in centralized expert management that is utterly disconnected from the realities of modern life. It is the culmination of the liberal welfare state in every respect, and it was enacted just as the failures of that welfare state were becoming most plainly and painfully apparent. It stands to exacerbate and accelerate all of those failures, and so to make the crisis our country faces far more urgent and grave...
What’s wrong with Obamacare begins with the basic vision of government and of American life that underlies it, and is evident in every provision, every new unrestrained regulatory power, every new agency and subagency, every assault on individual liberty, basic economics, and simple common sense in the law. Very little of it bears much relation (or could really, given the nature of our health-care system) to anything any state has done.
Levin's article also cites a law school professor who claims that "Millions of people (e.g., those who make 401% of the poverty line – $43,000 for a single person) will be forced to pay up to $18,000 a year for health insurance without any tax credits or cost-reduction payments."

If this is accurate, affordable care is going to make a lot of people sick.

The U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the constitutionality of the one-size-fits-all individual mandate next week.

San Antonio Express-News columnist Jonathan Gurwitz sums it up well: "Our health-care system is deeply in need of reform. Obamacare is a cure, however, that is far worse than the disease. Stopping this exercise in constitutional malpractice now rests with the Supreme Court."

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Wheelchair-Bound Toddler Gets the TSA Treatment

Could this be another example of "groping and pillaging" by the Transportation Security Administration?

In this video, a TSA agent insisted on checking out a three-year-old boy with a broken leg on his way to Disney with his family.




 

Monday, March 19, 2012

Clay Buchholz and Jenny Dell at Red Sox Spring Training


Boston Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz looked sharp in a Grapefruit League spring training game yesterday.

Buchholz gave up only one run and four hits in five innings in a win against the Tampa Bay Rays at Charlotte Sports Park, the Rays spring training field in Port Charlotte, Florida. Final score: Red Sox 8, Rays 4. Rays star Evan Longoria homered against Buchholz in the second inning.

The Sox and their fans are looking for a bounce-back year after the September 2011 debacle.

Most the Sox supporting cast in yesterday's game consisted of players from the minor league roster; only a few actual starters made the trip from Ft. Myers.

One notable first-teamer did show up for the game, however--new NESN Red Sox reporter Jenny Dell, who replaced Heidi Watney.

Dell (in blue dress) doing a NESN television live shot between innings:

Another live shot:



A fan greets Dell as she leaves the venue (spring training is apparently the only time when NESN staff can clock out early).


Still Wondering What is TSA?

The security queue is something that everyone has to put with when traveling by air.

This infographic from onlinecriminaljusticedegree.com depicts the federal money pit known as the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Whether you are a occasional or regular traveler, or even someone considering a TSA job or TSA career, this info is something to take into account as you approach the airport security checkpoint.


TSA Waste
[Created by: Online Criminal Justice Degree]

Friday, March 16, 2012

Photo ID for Voting: What's Wrong with this "Picture"?

The left seem seems to be addicted to vote fraud in the same way that crackheads are drawn to the white powder.

How else to explain the all-too-predictable Justice Department blocking Texas' voter ID law for mythical violations of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, while a Wisconsin judge issued a ruling setting aside a similar Wisconsin law. Now the corrupt United Nations, an organization dominated by human-rights-violating dictatorships, wants to engage in a phoney-baloney investigation of U.S. photo ID laws.

Liberals worried about make-believe voter disenfranchisement cling to the fantasy that voter fraud is not a problem. Here is another video from James O'Keefe of Project Veritas that demonstrates otherwise.




Monday, March 12, 2012

New ShePac Video Puts Spotlight on Liberal Misogyny

The iconic radio talk show host Bob Grant used to say that liberals are the ultimate hypocrites. When it comes to trashing politically conservative women, that is certainly an accurate description.

As we asked previously, regardless of one's political leanings, why is it okay for the left--including HBO's Bill Maher, the one million dollar Obama campaign donor--to smear Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and other prominent right-of-center women but the opposite causes the mainstream media to go bananas?

As Prof. William Jacobson of the Legal Insurrection blog writes, "Sexualized, unapologetic attacks on conservative women simply are part of the accepted landscape."

This video from ShePac.com puts it all into perspective:



 

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Crony Capitalism Update for Today

Even the Obama-worshipping apologists at the Washington Post found this newsworthy:
Big donors considering whether to work the phones raising money for President Obama’s reelection campaign might consider the fate of his 2008 bundlers. Many of them, it turns out, won plum jobs in his administration.
Obama campaigned on what he called “the most sweeping ethics reform in history” and has frequently criticized the role of money in politics. That hasn’t stopped him from offering government jobs to some of his biggest bundlers, volunteer fundraisers who gather political contributions from other rich donors.
More than half of Obama’s 47 biggest fundraisers, those who collected at least $500,000 for his campaign, have been given administration jobs. Nine more have been appointed to presidential boards and committees.
Let's not forget that Obama has taken in more cash from Wall Street fat cats, a.k.a. the 1%, than any political candidate in history.


 

Limbaugh, Maher, and the Outrage Double Standard

How much more cable news airtime will this manufactured controversy about Rush Limbaugh's dumb comments about the Georgetown law student/political activist take up?

It's times like these that make us thankful for alternative entertainment such as Netflix streaming.

Whether you like Limbaugh or not, the efforts to force his radio show off the air will likely fail. At the same time, why is it okay for the left to bad-mouth Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and other right-of-center women while the mainstream media stays silent? [What you hear next is the sound of crickets.]

For example, as many have pointed out, HBO's Bill Maher, who practically has a part-time gig as a CNN co-host, gave one million bucks to the Obama SuperPac.

Given Maher's history of "anti-woman" trash talking, shouldn't there be a media outcry for the Obama campaign to return that cash immediately? Moreover, will Palin (and others similarly situated) be receiving a phone call from the president [more crickets]?

Kirsten Powers, one of the few pundits whose cable news commentary made any sense on Super Tuesday, published a piece at The Daily Beast that makes this very point. Powers, a liberal, discussed her article on FNC:


In this video, two Capitol Hill Democrats who denounced Limbaugh make complete fools of themselves by refusing to condemn Maher's misogynistic outbursts:



Near the end of this interview, Bernard Goldberg talks about how the media ignores personal attacks on conservative women:  

Is an Israeli Attack on Iran Inevitable?

Now that it is an election year, President Obama let it be known this week that he is a strong supporter of the state of Israel. Despite this new bromance, he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aren't on the same page as far as the nuclear threat posed by Iran is concerned.

Today's New York Post contained this interesting claim:
The US offered to give Israel advanced weaponry -- including bunker-busting bombs and refueling planes -- in exchange for Israel's agreement not to attack Iranian nuclear sites, Israeli newspaper Maariv reported Thursday.
President Obama reportedly made the offer during Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington this week.
Under the proposed deal, Israel would not attack Iran until 2013, after US elections in November this year. The newspaper cited unnamed Western diplomatic and intelligence sources.
This leak may or may not be just more posturing. Netanyahu said on FNC this week (see video below) that war with Iran is not inevitable. The prime minister added that "The paradox is that if they actually believe that they are going to face the military option, then you probably will not need the military option."


What is Obama's real record on Israel? Check out this video:



Even if privately applauded, a preemptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities--and hopefully this can be avoided--could plunge the world into war, and/or destabilize the global economy, and unleash massive antisemitism, perhaps making it more fashionable as it were.

Speaking of antisemitism, the beauty of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is that it gives everybody their say, including those who put forth the sick fantasy of Israel being an apartheid state.

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Professor Eraim Karsh responds:
This charge, of course, is not only completely false but the inverse of the truth. If apartheid is indeed a crime against humanity, Israel actually is the only apartheid-free state in the Middle East – a state whose Arab population enjoys full equality before the law and more prerogatives than most ethnic minorities in the free world, from the designation of Arabic as an official language to the recognition of non-Jewish religious holidays as legal days of rest.
By contrast, apartheid has been an integral part of the Middle East for over a millennium, and its Arab and Muslim nations continue to legally, politically and socially enforce this discriminatory practice against their hapless minorities.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Super Tuesday on Toast

                                                    [photo credit: Jonathunder]

The 2012 Super Tuesday (so-called) primary results tomorrow may or not bring clarity to the GOP presidential race, but the backbiting, hostility, and bashing against other candidates evidence in the right-of-center political blogs appears to have little chance of abating.

Many of the commenters seem to be experts on one subject:  Toast.

After a given candidate loses a primary (or even wins one) or makes yet another dumb statement, any number of commenters rush to upload posts that pronounce that candidate toast.

With all the talk about toast, you'd think these guys work at Denny's or the Waffle House.

And what's with this doom-and-gloom defeatism from some of the toast-masters about the upcoming presidential election? Some of these are paid trolls from the Democrats, but that aside, no one knows what's going to happen in November, including those authoring those blanket blog indictments.

And this almost childish threat that "I'm going to stay home unless my candidate wins the nomination" is ridiculous.

If you haven't noticed, all politicians are full of it, including the four remaining, flawed candidates that are vying for the Republican presidential nomination. But any of them would be a huge upgrade over the current occupant of the White House.

Do you really want four more years of socialism, crony capitalism, and out-of-control government spending and regulation? Do you want Obama making more radical-left Supreme Court appointments or other lifetime nominations to the lower courts? Then by all means, stay home.

As we have written previously, those on the right and in the middle must unite in support of whoever becomes the Republican nominee--whether that's Romney or Not-Romney--in the 2012 general election.

Otherwise, the country could be toast.

 

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Lilyhammer Review: "Silvio" from The Sopranos Relocates from Jersey to Norway

 photo credit: TonyFelgueiras via photopin cc

Bruce Springsteen band member Steven Van Zandt, a.k.a. "Silvio Dante" from The Sopranos, stars in the new fish-out-of-water, Norwegian-produced comedy drama Lilyhammer, the first venture by Netflix into original series content.

Van Zandt plays New York gangster Frank Tagliano who enters the Witness Protection Program after he testifies in court against a mob rival who tried to wack him. Van Zandt also gets a writing, executive producing, and composing credit in the series.

With the same scowl, vocal style, hunched shoulders, excessive f-bombs, and hideous hairpiece that were on display in The Sopranos, the Tagliano character hides out in Lilyhammer (Lillehammer), Norway, with a new identity, Giovanni Henriksen.

In the process, "Johnny" Henriksen manages to find shortcuts through the Norwegian socialist bureaucracy. In so doing, the show raises an interesting question. What's worse--an ineffectual government functionary or a crooked "businessman"? Further, if a former crime boss corrupts everyone in his path with a "direct-action strategy," is that an upgrade?

As Lars Walker writes at the American Spectator website...
Imagine a television comedy about an American who moves to an exotic foreign country. He utterly refuses to assimilate, flouts the local laws, beats up people who offend him... acts in pretty much every way as the stereotypical Ugly American, and yet comes out as a sort of a hero?
And imagine that this series was produced, not by some jingoistic American company, but by people from that very foreign land. And what if most of their countrymen loved it?
Big Hollywood's John Nolte lauds the show for its perhaps inadvertent counter-balance against political correctness that would likely never find its way into American television:
Every year Norway holds their own 4th of July, and when Johnny sees that his girlfriend’s son has written a speech about tolerance, peace, love, and multiculturalism — he tells the kid not to apologize for Norway, but to be proud of his country and to stand up for it. The end result is one of the series’ highlights.
Whether the series will "go left" in future installments to make up for its departure from PC orthodoxy remains to be seen.

The subplots and characters in Lilyhammer are interconnected like--to some degree--Curb Your Enthusiasm. And although those in the Witness Protection Program have sometimes gotten into further trouble with the law in real life, would someone on the run from the mob really get mixed up in all kinds of high-profile schemes?

The eight-episode series, which apparently set ratings records in Norway, takes a darker, less-comedic turn in episode five, and becomes somewhat unbelievable by the series finale. It has been renewed for a second season, however.

Perhaps the most charming aspect of the show is how the generally friendly and quirky Norwegian characters switch seamlessly between their native language and English.

Lilyhammer does not necessarily pack a wallop or hit the nail on the head, but if you subscribe to Netflix streaming, it's definitely worth a look.

 

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Internet Journalist/Activist Andrew Breitbart, R.I.P.

In casually scanning a news website first thing this morning, we saw the report of Andrew Breitbart's passing.

At first we thought it was a gag or a hoax but sadly other websites had confirmation of this stunning, unbelievable news.

Breitbart was the remarkable Internet impresario who created "the bigs"--i.e., BigHollywood.com, BigGovernment.com, and BigPeace.com--and who helped launch the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post.

Commenter "righthearted" posted this on NationalReview.com and sums it up well:
I don't have a clue who can or will attempt to replace Andrew Breitbart...and it's probably way too soon to even think about such things...but at the end of this sad day in which we all recognize his passing and pay our much deserved respects for this hero, I do hope and pray that somebody of wisdom and boundless courage will at least take up his mantle and begin to try to do so. Indispensable is a great word for Andrew and his work...it speaks of the great and urgent need we have for men and women of his stature to keep the movement going forward. RIP, Andrew...We'll all be praying for your family and friends in their great loss today. Thank you for all you did for all of us.
Tributes to Breitbart are ongoing.

Earlier today, National Review's Jonah Goldberg and The Five's Greg Gutfeld reacted to the breaking news on FNC:


 
Added: Commenter "BurkeanBadger" posted these thoughts at LegalInsurrection:
...More than any other prominent conservative journalist/pundit/blogger, Andrew deeply understood the left. He understood the will to power which underlies left-leaning ideologies from orthodox Marxism-Leninism to mild mannered welfare-liberalism. He understood the utopian obsession, the elitism, the echo-chamber style of discourse (almost completely ignorant of the political/social opinions of the broader society…and proud of that ignorance) which are omnipresent in most leftist circles. Most importantly, he understood that the left will use any means to achieve its ends.
But that’s not all: He was also fearless. He successfully used leftist tactics against the left, and he did so mercilessly, masterfully, and without hesitation...
And the London Telegraph's James Delingpole had this to say:
I keep going back to @andrewbreitbart's Twitter feed, still unable to believe that one of my conservative heroes has dropped down dead at the age of just 43. Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised: Breitbart did enjoy a voraciously Type A lifestyle – smoking, drinking and burger-scoffing like there was no tomorrow. Which, sadly, for this big-hearted, generous, witty, rumbustious, intelligent, fearless father-of-four there now isn't. Like PJ O'Rourke, Breitbart was one of those rare types who manages to make conservatism look both fun and cool..