LMAO

Found at RedState:

So...right now we have 46 senators. If we could get RID of all of these [the 25 that voted for cloture]...then we would have 52, keeping in mind that we keep who we have that is Conservative. I don't know what the answer is to Collins....Someone has to knock some sense into Maine...perhaps they will become the state version of Detroit.

Let's see if I get the math. Primary out of office 25 senators and the Radical Republicans will magically gain 31 seats. The Republican Civil War, courtesy of Ted Cruz, is disclosing a level of insanity that is both terrifying and hilarious.

I'm beginning to wonder if Ted Cruz is an undercover liberal assigned the task of destroying the Republican Party from within. That theory makes more sense than the Tea Party crazy that is actually happening.

NSA Want Us to Love Their Stalking Us

The NSA is asking Americans to help it lobby Congress for their programs to compile comprehensive dossiers on every single citizen. Why does this remind me of the Alec Baldwin character from The Juror?

If you never saw the movie, Baldwin plays a psychopathic mob hitman contracted to coerce juror Demi Moore into voting "not guilty." After the trial he uses his considerable skills as a murderous lunatic to seduce her by stalking her.

The NSA is backing up it's demand by rather blunting stating that we will die horrible deaths if we don't fall in love with the NSA. I, for one, will not succumb to NSA stalking us nor to their threats. They are evil; they know it and I know it. And, no, I will never fall in love with you.

Cruz Caves

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Crazytown) just voted for the bill he was filibustering, as did every other Republican in the Senate.

I'll tell you, any vote for cloture, any vote to allow Harry Reid to add funding for ObamaCare with just a 51-vote threshold, a vote for cloture is a vote for ObamaCare. ~ Sen. Ted Cruz

Tea Party cultists were declaring that anyone who voted for closure would be committing treason. Like a craven coward, when Cruz was faced with the certainty of standing alone in his no vote he surrendered and meekly hid among the crowd.

His little "filibuster" was just a dog and pony show or, as Shakespeare put it, "sound and fury signifying nothing."

Way to Piss Off Your Colleagues

Sen. Ted Cruz has begun talking. According to Senate rules, all Republican senators are allotted 15 hours for debate, about 20 minutes each (Democrats also get 15 hours). Ted's talkathon will only prevent any other Republicans from having an opportunity to speak on the matter.

It's pointless, egotistical grandstanding that can only accomplish enraging every other Republican in the Senate. It's the political version of committing seppuku in that no bill he offers will have a chance of even being heard in committee. As far as the Senate is concerned, Ted Cruz will be a dead man walking for the remainder of his term.

Ted Cruz In a Corner

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Crazy-TX) just keeps giving me the giggle fits. His latest plan to defund Obamacare is to filibuster the bill that defunds Obamacare. The logic, so far as his malfunctioning mind is capable of a sentient function like logic, is that by blocking his own bill he will somehow force Democrats to meekly surrender and vote for the bill he is filibustering. The plan is so profoundly stupid that even FoxNews is telling him it is idiotic.

When the dumbasses at Fox think you are being a dolt it's time to put on the cone cap and take a long timeout.

In a sane world this is where Ted Cruz would spend the rest of his term.

Affordable Care Act Rationally Viewed

I've studied the California marketplace for the ACA. My base health insurance costs (including copays) will decline a little, maybe $100 a month, but, and this is a huge but, factoring in the premium assistance tax credit, my insurance cost will be half what it was this year.

Now, when Republicans talk about defunding Obamacare they are talking about axing the tax credit which will amount to a massive middle-class tax increase. Democrats are missing the issue here. By trying to kill Obamacare, Republicans are trying to hike taxes on the middle-class by thousands of dollars a year. Suffering the most under the Republican plan will be families with children earning under $60,000 a year.

It is important to note, the tax credit is applied to the insurance premium, not the tax bill. So even someone who pays no income tax will receive full value of the tax credit. I'm totally surprised Democrats aren't publicizing the hell out of this simple fact.

New York's Tenderloin Corruption Lives

I'm surprised I didn't know the etymology of "Tenderloin" meaning the sleazy section of a city filled with bars and whores and drug dealers. I always assumed it alluded to the soft, fleshy parts of the professional women working in brothels.

I was wrong. The term was coined in 1876 by a New York City police captain who was describing how his life had changed after being reassigned from an upscale district of Manhattan to a precinct in the Bowery.

I've been having chuck steak ever since I've been on the force, and now I'm going to have a bit of tenderloin.

Meaning after years of being a poor but honest cop, he could now live bountifully off of all the bribes and protection payoffs he was getting working in the most lawless section of the city.

Of course, that was over a century ago and things have changes. Now, police corruption is not limited by geography. Any cop with an hand out and a black heart can earn significant supplemental income without accepting any bribes. And woe to any officer who tries to be honest.

Some cops believe in old fashioned corruption. These NYPD officers are using FBI databases as a resource to gain intelligence for their own lucrative criminal activities. But the big source of cash is rigging the system to get promotions.

• Officers perjure themselves to gain convictions.
• They plant evidence on innocent people. This accomplishes a couple things. First, it is a lot safer framing an innocent person than to try to arrest actual, possibly armed, criminals. Also, if an officer is taking protection payments from drug dealers he needs to be arresting somebody to keep his arrest numbers up.
• Ah, the numbers. The NYPD puts it's officers on quotas. They are required to rack up arrests, it doesn't matter if arrests are bogus and the victims are eventually released. What matters is the raw number of arrests.
• Alternatively, police will fail to report and pursue actual crimes, such as downgrading felonies to misdemeanors, so their statistics show a steady decrease in crime.

One honest officer who blew the whistle through channels was arrested by his colleagues and locked up in a psych ward for daring to question his superiors. Others have faced departmental discipline or been fired.

This last example has lots of supposition. Allegedly, a bank bribed a New York City judge to help the bank take (steal) a man's home. When the man publicly complained he was kidnapped, beaten, and murdered allegedly by two NYPD officers hired by the judge as muscle.

I've noted before that in several American cities the police are just another violent street gang, albeit with more impressive gang colors.

A Taste For Blood

Most people, when forced by circumstances to kill another human being, react with revulsion to the deed. This is one reason the suicide rate of American soldiers returning from the was zone is so high. Even the notorious Doc Holliday is said to have cried after the shootout at the O.K. Corral.

A few find the experience morally liberating. They have broken the ultimate taboo, gotten away with it, and perhaps even been celebrated for the act of killing someone. And they like it.

Speculation is beginning to appear that George Zimmerman, the Florida man who shot and killed an unarmed teenaged boy, may belong to that second category. The conversation in Florida, including it seems at least one police chief, is that Zimmerman is a "ticking time bomb." It is unlikely that Trayvon Martin will be the last innocent person to die at the hands of George Zimmerman.

Hypocrisy and Chemical Weapons

I'm not claiming that Assad is an angel or that Syria using chemical weapons is not evil. Only that there have been times the United States did not consider using chemical weapons so bad.

Gaza - 2009

White Phosphorus (Willy Pete) is an incendiary weapon. It is a self-igniting chemical that burns at 5000 degrees C. It burns flesh to the bone. It has a limited military usage to generate smoke screens. The Israel Defense Force used it as an anti-personnel and terror weapon during Operation Cast Lead, Israel's war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. While several human rights groups denounced this use of chemical weapons the United States was officially silent.

Iraq - 2004

Insurgents were so well established in the city of Fallujah American generals decided to use a tactic called "Shake and Bake" where chemical weapons (again White Phosphorus) are deployed to force people out of hiding so they can be killed with anti-personnel bombs. Obviously, the United States approved of the use of chemical weapons by American troops.

Iran-Iraq War 1980-88

During the third year of Iraq's war with Iran, President Ronald Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld to become Saddam Hussein's BFF ("The Enemy of My Enemy Is Mr Friend" foreign policy theory). The US provided spy satellite intelligence to Iraq to help them target their chemical weapon attacks. The United States also sold biological and chemical weapon agents to Iraq that it used against Iran.

Vietnam War

Sure, it was a half century ago, but the United States did spray over 20 million gallons of chemical weapons (Agent Orange) over South Vietnam and adjoining countries with the expressed goal of forcing civilians to abandon their rural villages. Five percent of all children born in Vietnam suffer from birth defects caused by Agent Orange. The United States also extensively used chemical incendiary weapons (napalm) against both military and civilian targets.

Quote of the Day

If your friend promises to jump off a bridge, no one says that they're worse off when you talk them out of it because their credibility has been damaged. Everyone knows that they are better off. ~ Booman Tribune on the people opposing bombing Syria

Syria Recipe For Disaster

Take a stupid idea (bombing Syria)
Add in a quasi-rational concept (going to Congress for approval)
Mix in the raving delusions of a senile old fart (John McCain)

The result is a souffle that promises to explode in our faces.

When the week began we had the President's proposal for a quick and dirty (there is no other kind) bombing mission to punish Syria for using poison gas on its own citizens. Now we have the Sec. of State hinting at a possible American military occupation of Syria while the Senate resolution assigns the objective of regime change to the military mission. To mix my metaphors...

The Original Plan.

The original plan was for Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy (Obama) to beat up the school yard bully (Assad) and then go back to football practice. As revised by the Senate, the plan is for Team America to ground the evil monster (Assad) to dust with our perfectly legal weapons of mass destruction then choose, pretty much at random from the dozens of rebel factions, the group that will be the American puppet regime and then use such force as necessary to compel the Syrian people to accept our puppet as their lord and master.

The revised Senate Plan.

If that sound like a replay of the Iraq War, then you have successfully entered the mind of John McCain. May God have mercy on your soul.