Where Are My Keys?

It's not bad enough the IRS targeted Tea Party groups..

Turns out they also shared confidential information with ProPublica:

In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six [2] of those [3] public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)

On Friday, Lois Lerner, the head of the division on tax-exempt organizations, apologized [4] to Tea Party and other conservative groups because the IRS’ Cincinnati office had unfairly targeted them. Tea Party groups had complained [5] in early 2012 that they were being sent overly intrusive questionnaires in response to their applications.

That scrutiny appears to have gone beyond Tea Party groups to applicants saying they wanted to educate the public to “make America a better place to live” or that criticized how the country was being run, according[6] to a draft audit cited by many outlets. The full audit, by the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, will reportedly be released this week. (ProPublica was not contacted by the inspector general’s office.)  

Before the 2012 election, ProPublica devoted months to showing how[7] dozens of social-welfare nonprofits had misled the IRS about their political activity on their applications and tax returns. Social-welfare nonprofits are allowed to spend money to influence elections, as long as their primary purpose is improving social welfare. Unlike super PACs and regular political action committees, they do not have to identify their donors.

You know how it takes forever to get something you have requested from the Government?  Not in this case:

Just 13 days after ProPublica sent in its request, the IRS responded with the documents on 31 social welfare groups.

They sure wanted to get that information out in a hurry, didn't they?

This is what happens when the Press doesn't do its job, and the Executive Branch is allowed to do whatever it wants.

I'm sure things will be different when the IRS has a significant hand in your private health information.

Punch back, twice as hard..

Mayor Bloomberg has an informal lunch in a NYC pizza joint, tries to order a second slice, and is refused*:

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was denied a second slice of pizza today at an Italian eatery in Brooklyn.

The owners of Collegno's Pizzeria say they refused to serve him more than one piece to protest Bloomberg's proposed soda ban,which would limit the portions of soda sold in the city.

Bloomberg was having an informal working lunch with city comptroller John Liu at the time and was enraged by the embarrassing prohibition. The owners would not relent, however, and the pair were forced to decamp to another restaurant to finish their meal.

Witnesses say the situation unfolded when as the two were looking over budget documents, they realized they needed more food than originally ordered.

"Hey, could I get another pepperoni over here?" Bloomberg asked owner Antonio Benito.

"I'm sorry sir," he replied, "we can't do that. You've reached your personal slice limit."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Of course, this is satire.  I do hope that this does embolden a restaurant in NYC to actually have the balls to step up and do this, the next time Bloomberg dines there.

Today's unemployment numbers, a closer look..

As per norm, Zerohedge has some great details on unemployment.

First, this post looks at where the labor force participation levels are.  The bad news?  They are similar to 1979.

Next, this post looks at where the jobs were added in April:

I recall the MSM and Left complaining that jobs added under Bush with low-level "McJobs". Why do I think they will report on similar jobs under Obama in a different light?

And finally, we have a breakdown on jobs by age and gender: 

What is scary is that young men are not being hired, but old (over 55) are.  SO the "elderly" are hanging on, while the youngsters continue to get squeezed out of the labor pool.  That means they are not getting experience, money, and much hope for the foreseeable future.

When you look at the younger folks, broken down by gender, it is pretty bleak for young men:

I wonder if this reflects more young girls getting jobs at the mall, and the guys aren't getting the lawn/construction/labor jobs they used to.

Overall, not the picture of an economy that is healthy, is it?

All outliers are not equal..

Jezebel points out the obvious, writing that“Gosnell doesn't represent or stand for abortion care in any way. Abortion, done right, is a safe medical procedure.” But this idea of a high-profile case drawing an emotional response, and the attempt to use that emotional response to drive a policy debate, ought to be familiar. Jezebel’s statement, after all, could just as easily have read: “But Adam Lanza doesn't represent or stand for gun ownership in any way. Gun ownership, done right, is a safe practice.” Jezebel notes that "fewer than 0.3% of abortion patients ever experience a complication that requires hospitalization,” according to a pro-abortion rights group. But even according to anti-gun statistics, there were only 33,000 gun-related deaths in 2011 for 300,000,000 guns owned in the country (fewer than .00012 percent). The violent crime rate in the U.S., in fact, is approaching a historical low.

The case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, horrific on its own, is not helpful as a stand-in or argument in the wider debate about abortion and reproductive rights (because what he did is already illegal), just as the case of Adam Lanza, horrific on its own, is not helpful as a stand-in or argument in the wider debate about personal safety and gun rights (because what he did is already illegal).

Full piece is here.  Funny how the Left and the MSM use one of the above examples to illustrate why massive change is needed now, and all but ignore the other.

Decoding the language of the Left..

Iowahawk nails it:

One of the creepier features of lefty language is the application of possessive pronouns. "My" is for rights (real or imagined), "your" is for responsibilities, "our" is for the stuff in my bank account they want to take. Unless it's the case of "our responsibility" in which case they actually mean "your responsibility." As the old saying goes, "what's mine is mine, what's yours is negotiable."

Nowhere is this linguistic claim-jumping more bloodcurdling than when they apply it to actual human beings: "our workers," "our seniors," and especially "our children." 

Oh, Melissa Harris-Perry? I have a rule. Unless you're my wife, there ain't no such thing as "our children."

Maybe something noble motivates the MHP/MSNBC national paternity suit campaign. Who knows? Maybe she merely is is inviting me to share my fatherly wisdom with America's children as if they were my own progeny. If that's the case I invite them to shut off the damn internet, finish their damn homework, and clean up those damn pigsties they call rooms. 

Worth reading..

Great post from Jeff over at Protein Wisdom:

It’s out in the open now.  There’s no longer any real pretense of objectivity. Each time the progressive media “report” favorably on something they characterize like this (fairly or not) — and no switch comes down to sting their hands — they grow ever more emboldened.  In the Oval Office they know they have someone who believes the very same things as they do, someone  steeped in the very same academic indoctrination, someone who was taught to hate the country he now leads.  Just like they were taught to hate it — and to self hate — convinced that to do so was liberating, the mark of having been truly educated, of seeing beyond the patriotic mythology into the cold black soul of a racist country whose successes came at the expense others it had dominated.  And they are protected as a result of that ideological kinship.  Free to express that hatred.  They are on the side of power — unbridled power that has revealed itself to them in ways subtle and direct.  They are the ones they’ve been waiting for, they were told.  And it invigorates them.  It gives them a sense of purpose and momentum.  Because through the heart of every leftist runs the blood of totalitarianism, of confirmation bias, of rank bigotry and a mob’s lust for violence, for punishment, for blood, for inflicting suffering on those who dare oppose their designs.

It’s who they are.  It’s what they do.

I don’t care who rolls their fucking eyes at my saying this.  Circumstances have taught me that in several years, when the political winds allow them to do so, those very same people on “my” side will be saying the very same things I’m writing on now, pretending there wasn’t a time they rolled their fucking eyes at the True Believers, the embarrassing Hobbits who were preventing them from wooing the moderates.

So fuck them.

The frightening truth that so many are pretending not to see is that we’ve seen this kind of scapegoating before elsewhere in the world.  By design.  Intended to bring about a desired end.

Here, today, the narrative from the neo-Stalinist progressives is that constitutionalists are racial supremacists and paranoid freaks; the Founding Fathers are their false idols; and the founding documents are their fetish.   Religion is both their opiate and their cocaine, the thing that simultaneously dulls them into an intellectual stupor and turns them into evangelical zealots bent on demanding obeisance.  Taken together, this toxic blend of hateful ignorance makes these slack-jawed clingers to their guns and their religion exceedingly dangerous to “sensible” people who want to live in a “community” wherein “common sense” laws — not the hoary edicts of dead white patriarchal slave owners — hold sway.  Rational, cultured, intellectual people want to live in a land that looks forward, to progress, not backward, to a time of tri-cornered hats and oppression of the Other.

This is the propaganda war being launched against you, against me, against we, the people.  Or at least, one prong of that war.  Because it goes beyond the mere normalizing of a video game playing out a fantasy based (at least partially) around that narrative.   It is a “truth” they must construct, then peddle, then reinforce.  To demonize the constitutionalists is to demonize the Constitution.  And to demonize the Constitution is to ready us for its obviation.

Hold onto your gear and prepare yourselves.  Register nothing.  Resist them at every turn.  Don’t cooperate.  Refuse to compromise.  Because it is coming.  And if you don’t feel it, and prepare for it, more’s the pity.

Wanna bet we'll learn Kagan has "evolved" over the last few years?

Why do I get the feeling she has?  Here's a brief trip down memory lane for those that don't remember:

That’s the statement Elena Kagan made back in 2009 when she was going through confirmation proceedings to become Solicitor General (emphasis added):

1. As Solicitor General, you would be charged with defending the Defense of Marriage Act. That law, as you may know, was enacted by overwhelming majorities of both houses of Congress (85-14 in the Senate and 342-67 in the House) in 1996 and signed into law by President Clinton.

a. Given your rhetoric about the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy—you called it “a profound wrong—a moral injustice of the first order”—let me ask this basic question: Do you believe that there is a federal constitutional right to samesex marriage?

Answer: There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

b. Have you ever expressed your opinion whether the federal Constitution should be read to confer a right to same-sex marriage? If so, please provide details.

Answer: I do not recall ever expressing an opinion on this question.

It’s an answer she stood by at the time in a follow up statement.

I was told when I posted about this during Kagan’s confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court that I was hopelessly naïve (or worse) to think she meant anything more than a statement of the law at that time, and that she would find a way not to be held to that statement when the issue came to the Supreme Court.

I don’t think that’s a fair reading of her statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2009, but I also think it’s probably a fair reading of what her position will be in the cases to be argued this week.

Watch how quickly she changes her mind.

Malice or incompetence?

Great pieceon the state of parenting today, and the public school system.  We are extremely fortunate that we have the means to send the little Duper to a fantasic private school in our area.  Even in that accelerated environment, we see some of the same issues that the author of the linked piece experienced with her kids.

We are very "hands on" with her school and teachers, and still have some battles getting extra work assigned, and reading-level appropriate books given to her.  Our system (Public and Private) definitely teaches to the middle, focusing more on the 80% of the kids in the pack, and less on the top and bottom 10%. 

If you haven't had kids in the school system lately, you'd be surprised how much it has changed since our school days.  Even in the private school sector, it's amazing how the fundamentals are back-burnered, and the embracing of technology is front and center.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's important (and super cool!) for young kids to get their hands on computers to add to their overall education experience, but it shouldn't take away from the basic skills of how to find library books, to write complete (and legible!) sentences, to critically think, to comprehend what they are reading.

Computers and technology are great tools, but should compliment the skills, not overshadow them.  It doesn't surprise me that the kids in NYC that made headlines this past week can't read and write at grade level.  Society has made education less important.  Minority kids are teased for "acting white" if they get good grades.  We are inundated by people in respectable public positions not using proper English (the word "at" used improperly is a big one in our house), and saying things like "thinkin'", instead of "thinking".  You see it all the time, from the local news, to the White House.

We as a Country need to take a long, hard look in the mirror, and decide what We want to be, and what's important to us.

Until we decide that making a viral video on YouTube, or somehow getting onto a reality TV show isn't as important as knowing basic History, Math, Reading Comprehension, and English, we are setting ourselves up for failure in the future.

I listen to Adam Carolla's podcast when I exercise, and he is spot on with his views on bringing back Dignity, with a healthy dose of Shaming mixed in.  Society needs to stop allowing people not to take responsibility-responsibility for your personal health, education, work ethic, etc.

How sad that we went from the Country that defeated Hitler and defended the World, then led the way in innovation and Big Achievement; to the Age of Teen Mom and Real Housewives in about 70 years.

It only took about 5 years to build the Hoover Dam in the 1930's (and completed 2 years ahead of schedule!), with none of the tools, technology, and materials we have available today.  And yet somehow, 12+ years later, the World Trade Center project is still not finished.

I wish the people in this Country could stop arguing about stupid petty differences, and focus our attention on Big Picture Items.  JFK united the Country in a goal of putting the first people on the moon in less than 10 years.  We rallied around that goal, and shared collectively in achieving it.

Today, I make a comment on Twitter on how the weather forecasters suck at their jobs (last week calling for 10" of snow, we got 4"; saying that a storm last night would miss us completely, we got about 6"), and that there is no accountability for poor performance.  Piker spent the better part of 30 minutes telling me how I was wrong, and how weather forecasting isn't an exact science, how if I think I could do better, I should apply for the job, how we should eliminate weather prediction, etc.

When we can't even agree that people who suck at their jobs, suck at their jobs, and somehow turn that into a "since-you-took-a-position-therefore-I-have-to-take-the-opposite-position-no-matter-what-the-topic-is" dialogue, we are doomed long-term as a society.

Sorry for the rant.

Ahh, the wonders of Obamacare..

Great compilationby Professor Jacobson.

Sunday two-fer..

Twitter funny guy Iowahawk celebrated his birthday today, and requested insults as gifts.

In lieu of birfday spanks, I welcome your most stinging insults. Do your worst, internet.

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) February 24, 2013

 Maybe were happy to oblige, including yours truly, which Iowahawk liked enough to retweet to his followers: 

@iowahawkblogRachel Maddow knows more about cars than you do.

— Madeline's Dad (@WAMK) February 24, 2013

Twitchy picked up on the fun, compiling a list of some of the better ones.  I was fortunate enough to make it into the group.

Pretty cool when you get noticed out there!