Vulture Droppings - the Team Donkey convention

I am implementing a semi-randomly-regular feature called Vulture Droppings. It will be a kind of "Random Thoughts" post in which I try to quickly summarize a particularly large event. Think of it being sort of like what a vulture leaves behind after devouring a horse. You don't get the whole horse, just highly processed leftovers.

---

Ah, convention week. It sucked. No Chicago '68. No chants of "The whole world is watching!". No cops in riot gear beating on hippie scum. The convention ended up being a big effing kumbaya fest of Team Donkey solidarity and unity. *sigh*

---

I'm particularly disappointed with HRC. Since when does Beelzebub play nice and act the part of the gracious loser? Man, am I sore about that! There's no stake through the heart. So why's she being such a good soldier for Team Donkey? Hopefully there's some nefarious plot afoot behind the scenes, or this could be the most boring election ever.

---

Okay, so since it was a boring convention and not Chicago '68, there should have been relative good behavior on the part of the police, right? Nay, nay! Unlike Chicago '68, they weren't busting heads on hippies. They were arresting an ABC reporter for daring to film Democrat high rollers in a public place. And they were brutalizing and arresting Christian teenage girls for writing on the sidewalk in chalk.

William Grigg is right. Police no longer view their duty as protecting and serving the people of their jurisdiction. They view their duty as protecting and serving der Staat.

---

You might ask yourself - what kind of President might Obama be? Team Donkey is touting him as the heir to FDR. According to Al Gorebells, he is like Abraham Lincoln. While those of us who understand what Lincoln was beyond the mythology taught in public schools have reason to be fearful of that assessment, the reality is worse. Obama is showing signs of being the next Woodrow Wilson, a totalitarian thug. A small example from convention week.

"We just want it to stop. It's not fair, it's blatant attacks against Barak Obama"

I'm listening to WGN, where Stanley Kurtz apparently just finished talking about his research. The first two callers - apparently triggered by the Obama campaign - both wanted Kurtz silenced.

I'm beyond disgust. I've been bitterly opposed to 'silence the critics' on blogs and in the media everywhere. This is not remotely the kind of politics that represents change that I want to be part of.

Okay, what's the big deal? This sort of thing happens all the time, right. The difference this time is that Obama's campaign actually orchestrated the shout down campaign. Check out the text of the alert here. Ah, censorship - the mark of the Marxist!

Those of you who are only aware of Woodrow Wilson through the mythology taught in the public schools would be surprised to know that this Progressive was, in fact, the first Fascist. He employed every one of the methods of consolidated State control employed by Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco. He employed thugs to silence his critics. He jailed those who wouldn't "get with the program". His "war socialism" (as he called it) was a massive campaign to indoctrinate the American people to the whole concept of the individual being nothing, the state being everything. Does that sound familiar? It should. "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato" ("Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State") was the foundation of Mussolini's Italian Fascism. Obama's already started down the path of silencing his critics, and he's not even in power yet.

---

Usually, once a convention is completed, the candidate whose party convened receives a huge bounce in the polls. For Obama.....not so much. Zogby shows the race as a dead heat, not a good sign for Mr. Obama. Even the most optimistic poll (from Obama's perspective) only shows him with an 8 point lead. By contrast, Michael Dukakis came out of his convention in '88 with a 17 point lead. McCommie must be beside himself with joy. It doesn't look good for the cause of DoublePlusGood HopeChange.

---

Little Nancy's on a roll

I'll bet you couldn't tell that I'm no fan of Nancy Pelosi. To me, she's a prime example of Liberalis Limousinus - the most loathsome and despicable creature know to man. She preaches sacrifice and shared responsibility to We The People. But she and her ilk will continue to fly oversized, expensive aircraft, ride in limos, and use enough electricity in one day to power my house for a month. They're despicable.

And Little Nancy's been on quite a roll this week. Quite a roll indeed!

In a statement that can only be filed under "Irony...see irony", Congressman (Congresswoman? CongressShrew?) Nancy had some advice for Hillary Clinton supporters.

"I think that women, we have to get away from the politics of victim. This is about you go out there and you fight," she said.

Wait a second? Do my eyes deceive me? This is the Queen of the Collectivists telling a Special Rights group.......NOT....to engage in Victim Politics?!?!?!?!?! This is definitely a "man bites dog" moment.

Her second moment in the spotlight happened earlier this week at a press conference in Denver. It seems that some McCommie boosters and pro oil-independence demonstrators showed up to heckle our dear, sweet Speakerette.

The demonstrators interrupted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with chants of “Drill here! Drill now!”

Pelosi paused and asked the group, “Right here?”

Seeming to enjoy the back and forth, she followed with another question: “Can we drill your brains?”

Can we drill your brains? What kind of a juvenile retort is THAT? "Yo Mama" would have been a more mature and meaningful response than the one she came up with.

Additional irony moment: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Fascist-MD) had this to say to the protestors.

“sophomoric chanting” won’t solve the energy crisis and that “all thinking Americans know” — stressing the word "thinking" and looking at the crowd — that America doesn’t have a quarter of the word’s fossil fuels yet uses a quarter of the world’s energy.

Oh sweet irony! The very people who brought us the "show up and shout down speakers we don't agree with" guerrilla tactic now want us to stop with the "sophomoric chanting" when THEY have something to say.

Notice too how the Left is always - ALWAYS - so overly impressed with how "smart" they are. "Thinking Americans". What a joke! People capable of THOUGHT know that these asshats are in bed with Big Enviro and THAT'S why they're opposed to drilling (well, that and Little Nancy's natural gas stock profits).

Senator Cardin - the sequel

I've really got to hand it to Ben Cardin. He'll stand in and take his cuts at the plate, even after I posted a less than flattering analysis of his last response to me.

A little background first. Senator Cardin's first response letter to me was the product of my having voted in one of those dopey Congress.org polls about whether we should drill for oil in "pristine" ANWR or in coastal waters. His reply, in over-simplified summarization was, "no drilling, higher CAFE standards (for 2020!), and alternative fuels". I lampooned Team Donkey's version of "alternative fuels" as "hydrogen, wind, solar, fairy dust, unicorn farts, the aura of Brittney Spears, and healing thoughts." It wasn't a very nice post. Nor should it have been! Let's be adults here, people! Yes, we can look at alternative fuels - great idea! But let's also start building some energy independence (read: tap our OWN oil) rather than depend on our "friends" in the Middle East, Venezuela, and Russia.

Fast forward to now. Another Congress.org poll. Another "Yes, damn it! Drill already!" vote from yours truly. And, amazingly, another reply from Senator Cardin! (Note: the hyperlink takes you to an HTML copy of the letter, recreated as-is, without alteration).

It looks like the Senator is crawling out from under Majority Leader Harry Reed's skirt. Ms. Reed would NEVER tolerate this kind of language!

Our nation's dependence on foreign sources of crude oil is largely to blame for the recent spike in gasoline, diesel, and heating oil prices. Gas and diesel prices in the U.S. are closely linked to prices in the world crude oil market, which has been strained recently by unexpected supply disruptions, increasing worldwide demand, and other factors over which the U.S. government has little or no control. Because the U.S. imports over 65 percent of its crude oil from foreign countries, we are deeply vulnerable to global forces beyond our control.

Many of the foreign countries and regimes which supply us with our oil are openly hostile to our government and the American way of life. Consequently, American consumers have been unintentionally financing anti-American regimes and extremist groups when they pay for gas, compromising our national security one tank at a time.

Rock on, Senator! Spoken like you get it!

Unfortunately, the letter then returns to predictable Team Donkey talking points.

At the same time, American consumption of carbon-rich oil and other fossil fuels is permanently altering our environment. Recently, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report stating with 90 percent certainty that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases (GHGs) released through burning oil , coal , and other human activity have caused substantial global warming since the 1950's. Many energy and environmental experts believe carbon dioxide concentrations in our atmosphere will double by the middle of the 21st century , due to human influence. This could cause a climate-wide temperature increase of 3.5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit, and a wide range of other disconcerting consequences, including ocean acidification, melting Arctic ice caps, species extinctions, and rising global sea levels.

Where are my boots? It's getting deep in here! Can we stop already with the faux science Big Global Warming hysteria already? The UN is your source?!?!? C'mon! Those asshats will say anything to bring us one step closer to the Glorious One-World Socialist Utopia!

Then, in yet another plot twist, the Senator returns to reality.

Selling new leases for oil exploration and drilling in areas of the United States that are proven to be rich in oil, such as the Outer Continental Shelf and in the Gulf of New Mexico , may help displace some of the oil we currently import from abroad. This is why I support new lease sales and increased oil and natural gas drilling on the public lands and the parts of the open seas that the government has opened for drilling and where it is possible without great environmental loss . With the price of oil at an all-time high, the economic incentive for oil companies to explore for new oil and gas, drill in untapped reservoirs, and extract more from the wells already built, is higher than ever.

Yes! Drill! Drill!! Drill!!!

The letter ends, predictably, with a rundown of legislative steps Senator Cardin supports that he believes will lead to a solution. There's the predictable "you can't drill your way out of this" paraphrase that is, I suppose, required by DNC mandate.

But, overall, I'd say that Senator Cardin's second reply letter to me was W-A-A-A-A-Y better than his first. At least now he's acknowledging that we need to drill. Now we just have to make sure that he holds to that.

I know he's a junior Senator in his first term. I know that there's a certain amount of "tow the party line" that goes with being a first-term Senator. I get it. But the Senator needs to be his own man. And, most importantly, he needs to do what's best for America, not what's best for Al Gorebells, Richard Branson, T. Boone Pickens, General Electric, and Nancy Pelosi.

One last thought: where is Senator-for-life Barbara Mikulski? She can't be bothered to weigh in with her "solutions"? I guess that's what happens when you've been a Senator since Reconstruction. You can't be bothered with the little people.

It's always more power, never less

It's a funny thing, you know. Government and law enforcement agencies are always asking for more and broader powers. They never show up in Congress saying, "Gee, ya know? I really think we're a little big for our britches and we're throwing our weight around a little too much. Please take away some of our broad powers that circumvent key parts of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights." Nope. It's always more. Always.

The Feebs ruined Richard Jewell's life. Ruined Stephen Hatfill's. Drove Bruce Ivins (whether guilty or not) to suicide. And, shocker, they want more power.

A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.

The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations.

Catch the key phrase: without any clear basis for suspicion. Ain't that a kicker?

Have the American people really changed that much since I was a kid? There's NO WAY such a request could be made 30 years ago, in the post-Watergate USA. Memories of Nixon and his cronies abusing their power were still strong then.

Now? The sheeple trust that Big Brother and his appointed agents, the Feebs, the heinous ATF, and der Schutzstaffel - excuse me, DHS - will play nicely and always within the rules, no matter how many sweeping extra-Constitutional powers we give them.

Land of the free, home of the brave? I think not.

Two more in the list

I've converted over to the new Blogger "Blog List" widget, so now you can not only see the blogs I follow, but also see when their content is updated.

I've added two additional blogs of interest since touting Sore Toes and a Bleeding Heart. These two blogs couldn't be any different from one another.

The first blog is that of noted libertarian crusader Vin Syprynowicz. Mr. Syprynowicz writes for the editorial page of the Las Vegas Review Journal as his day job. He doesn't pull his punches and will take on any subject. Read his stuff. He's good.

The second blog is that of frequent TVL visitor and commentator Whateverman. Whateverman and I don't always see eye-to-eye, but he's a very reasoned debater, and seems to be quite bright. His blog is an ecclectic day-in-the-life snapshot of his life, with various commentary thrown in here and there. Give him a read. He's all right in my book.

It didn't work? No way!

Only the boneheads at Homeland Security (okay, technically ICE, but it's all DHS in the end) could come up with a plan this completely stupid.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today the launch of a pilot program, Scheduled Departure, which will begin next week in five cities. The program allows fugitive aliens who have no criminal history and pose no threat to the community an opportunity to remain out of custody while they coordinate their removal with ICE.

Let me translate that from bureacrateze for you: "Say, Mr. Illegal Immigrant -- turn yourself in to us voluntarily, and we'll let you make all the arrangements to return home and promise not to raid you".

This "innovative plan" ran from August 5th through August 22nd. How successful was it? Eight people turned themselves in. Eight. I can't believe there are eight people that stupid! Oh, wait. There had to be at least eight asshats at ICE who thought this was a good idea. Never mind.