MaxRedline

It's Amazing That The Bus Still Rolls

Washington Post bloggers David Weigel (left) and Ezra Klein (foreground). 

Barky's decided to toss Lois Lerner, the IRS honchette in charge of targeting exemptions, under the bus to join the growing pile of bodies there, since it's become clear that she's going to have to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee whether she wants to or not. Thus it was that Barky yesterday summoned several of his favored media folks, including Leftist print columnists and bloggers, to the West Wing for a little pow-wow yesterday.

Washington Post's Ezra Klein and Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memorandum today both dutifully published pieces today calling for Lerner to be fired or resign. They're good little tools, and apparently unacquainted with the tale of the frog and the scorpion.

She tried to take the 5th today, but Chairman Issa and others believe that she waived that right by prior testimony. Right now, the legal beagles are having at it. Ultimately, however, it appears as though she may be compelled to testify.  Should that occur, she's got some thinnin' to do: Barky's already made it clear that she's gone; even though he hasn't come right out and done anything, it's apparent that his minions have their marching orders.

That being the case, what benefit can she hope to derive from remaining loyal and not implicating him or others in his administration?

A Great Rending Of Garments And Gnashing Of Teeth

The Porkland City Council got their heads handed to them. After unanimously deciding to fluoridate the water supply, a hastily-formed group in opposition gathered enough petition signatures to put the matter on the ballot. That they managed to do so in record time should have given supporters pause, but as usual, it didn't.

Supporters raised nearly a million dollars, and handed out half a dozen $20,000 "grants" to black, latino, native American, and other groups in an effort to buy their support. They flooded the airwaves with the usual It's For The Children™! tripe - they must easily have spent over half a million on ad-buys alone. And they enlisted professional trolls from the east coast to log into media websites to extol the wonders of fluoridated water while flaming anyone who dared to disagree; those folks were as bad as the devoted apostles of the Religion of Man-Made Global Warming.

And yet, for the fourth time, fluoridation supporters lost. And they didn't merely lose; it wasn't even close. It would likely have been even worse, had non-Portland residents of some 13 other towns been allowed to vote.

Today brings the rending of garments and the gnashing of teeth as supporters blame "a vocal minority" and "ignorance" for their 60/40 loss. Some claim that the folks who like the water just the way it is need to "pony up" to provide free dental care and fluoride tablets to the poor minority children. In view of the fact that Portland Public Schools already provides free fluoride tablets to students and that dental care is available free or at low cost through Oregon Health Plan and through OHSU, it's a ridiculous argument. As well, free dental clincs are held at least twice a year.

Others claim that the poor minorities can't afford to buy a toothbrush and a tube of fluoridated toothpaste for their downtrodden children. Really? There are dollar stores across the Portland metro area; heck, there's even one in reasonably well-off Southwest Portland - where for a whopping three dollars you can buy a tube of toothpaste, a bottle of mouthwash, and a toothbrush.

It gets really silly from there: opponents are portrayed as racist, greedy Republicans, for example. When was the last time a Republican won an election in Portland?

The fact is that this issue polled well only among affluent, guilty white folks, despite the crass efforts of proponents to purchase minority support with $20,000 "grants" to minority organizations.

 

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More From The Benevolent Overlords

Despite past federal court rulings, your Benevolent Barky Administration is acting to nullify the First Amendment. The Overlords at the Department of Vegetation and the Department of Just Us issued new regulations earlier this month:

The Justice Department and the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights have now effectively defined dating and flirting as “sexual harassment,” in addition to demanding that colleges adopt unconstitutional speech codes.

Perversely, the government suggests that punishment may be required BEFORE a disciplinary hearing, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland‘s “sentence first, verdict afterwards“:

a university must take immediate steps to protect the complainant from further harassment prior to the completion of the Title IX and Title IV investigation/resolution. Appropriate steps may include separating the accused harasser and the complainant, providing counseling for the complainant and/or harasser, and/or taking disciplinary action against the harasser.

1984 is here; it just arrived a few years later than anticipated.

Meanwhile, Kathleen Sebelius, Overlord at the Directorate for Health and Human Sevices, has been busily redefining the term, "Rights":

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (shown) told the World Health Assembly (WHA) on Monday that “universal health coverage” is a “right” and that it is the responsibility of “national governments” to achieve this goal.

According to her, Rights are most definitely not "endowed by our Creator"; instead, they are granted by government. And thus, it follows that they can also be taken away by government.

 

 

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Time To Hold "Planners" Accountable?

The latest and greatest trend among "planners" over the past decade or so has involved running trains at-grade, and often in the middle of perfectly good roads. They're absolutely fascinated by it. And they seem completely unfazed by the fact that week in and week out, pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers are killed or seriously injured due to the inevitable - and completely preventable - "unexpected interactions". The latest episode comes out of Seattle, where a man in his 50's was hit. The transit agency said he suffered minor injuries, but he was subsequently transported to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.

This comes on the heels of last month's incident in which a Mariners fan was killed while walking to the stadium. And in green, sustainable Sacramento, collisions happen nearly every week. It's the same story in virtually every city in the country that's installed at-grade light rail. By contrast, collisions, injuries, and deaths are rare along actual heavy-rail train lines.

The marked contrast can be linked directly to the conscious decisions by "planners" to run light rail trains down streets, and it's time to start charging these boys and girls with criminal negligence.

Tri-Mess Wants To Be A Leader

Despite their ongoing financial issues (which the agency claims are due to rich bus drivers and maintenance workers, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the rail-centric managers), the former transit agency (now a development agency) wants to spend $20 to $30 million on implementing a "paperless ticketing" system. This, they note, would position TriMet as a leader among "transit agencies".

It's all part of the costs associated with maintaining the myth that Porkland is on the cutting edge of green, sustainable societal evolution. Despite opposition, the Agency plans to implement the technology this summer, with full deployment timed to coincide with the grand opening of their new 7.3 - mile light rail line to nowhere; slated for September 2015.

All aboard - whether you want to or not!

Tri-Mess: More From The FON (Friends of Neil)

About once a week or so, the former regional transit agency known as TriMess gets caught in another lie, or at least, in some form of deception. Last week brought us Jeff Gianola's news segments in which long-time FON Neil McFarlane tried to brush aside the fact that TriMet managers are among the best-compensated of any transit agency in the country.

In interviews conducted, appropriately enough, on an immobile bus, McFarlane claimed that TriMet's one of the best transit agencies in the country, and you have to pay managers big money to retain them. At the same time, he whined that the health insurance and other benefits that they have to pay drivers and mechanics are bleeding the agency dry (though, yeah, he sorta found a million dollars to give pay boosts to himself and 69 of his very bestest managers, and kinda hid that from the public). But hey, none of that matters, because drivers and mechanics.

It's like the Barky administration in there: we gotta stop giving tours to kids because sequester.

This week, the latest is that they've ticked off a federal judge by playing hide-the-salami with evidence in a case in which they're defendants. One of their bus drivers made an illegal left turn and ran over five people; two of whom died. And when asked for documents during the discovery process, they decided that electronic documents must not count. So the judge clarified things for them: not only do electronic documents count, but Neil McFarlane, as head of the agency, now has to submit a sworn affadavit that all materials have been turned over.

In a court hearing last month, the judge also took TriMet officials to task for constantly grumbling about requests for evidence during the phase of the lawsuit known as discovery. 

"I'd just say that if one of TriMet's buses takes a left turn and kills somebody, badly injures three others, then they probably should buckle up and expect some discovery without too much complaining," Mosman said, according to a court transcript.

McFarlane got off too easily. The weasel should be jailed. No offense intended to weasels, who are in no way culpable.

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A Shift In The Winds

2014's looking bleaker all the time for Democratics, according to a new Rasmussen poll of 1000 likely voters:

With growing questions about Benghazi and actions taken by the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department, Democrats' noticeable edge over Republicans in voter trust in the area of government ethics and corruption has disappeared.

Just a month ago, Democratics were eight points ahead of evil, greedy Republicans in the voter trust department, but now they've lost that - and Republicans are slightly ahead of them. It's almost as though some of those folks have begun to notice that Democratics are, well, Democratics. Keep up the good work, Team Barky!

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"Not As Bad As Nixon"

Barky's gone from "Hope'n'Change" to an all-new slogan: "Not as bad as Nixon". He may not be able to make even that stick; nobody died in Watergate. Even the Left's calling for him to fire his BFF, Eric Holder, now. He can't blame Bush, and he's fast losing traction on his "blame Republicans" strategery. 

Times are bad for the erstwhile Messiah. Even the folks who helped to write and bulldoze through his fantastic Obamacare law are now predicting a train-wreck on that front, and it's not only unlikely that he won't regain the House next year; he very conceivably could lose the Senate as well. And amid the flap over his AP spying operation, it emerges that he targeted others as well (FOX News, unsurprisingly, among them). These revelations have perturbed even those who once considered him their ally. When Keith Olbermann starts griping about him, and Holder, he's got a real problem.

The president said press freedoms must be balanced against the protection of U.S. personnel overseas.

Wait, what? Isn't this the same guy who just last year asserted that he has the authority to order the execution of U.S. citizens without due process? And given the Benghazi coverups, exactly when did this guy start becoming concerned with "the protection of U.S. personnel overseas"?

As Ricky used to say to Lucy: "You've got some 'splainin' to do!"

Well, nothing a few more rounds of golf can't fix. 

Congressional Clowns

What a surprise! Former acting IRS head Steve Miller apparently lied to Congress when testifying about IRS targeting. That's supposed to be some sort of a crime, but rules and laws don't seem to apply to this administration.

In addition, Obama's Treasury Secretary gave Congress an ultimatum; demanding that the debt ceiling be - you guessed it - increased, and stating that it's non-negotiable.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Friday urged congressional leaders to raise the debt limit and insisted that the White House is not going to negotiate over the increase because lawmakers have "no choice."

Doubtless, he threatened to sic Mooch on them if they don't comply. Barky needs more money for his vacations, to say nothing of his pals in the solar and wind "industries".

We Don't Care

Well, they're finally being open and upfront about it: rules and laws don't matter to the Barky administration.

Shillary Clinton's long-time deputy chief of staff, Huma whoever, not only was permitted to moonlight while she was collecting some $135,000 in her critically important role as Shillary's aide, she didn't bother to report the additional income on government disclosure forms because - it's just a stupid rule, and it doesn't apply to her. It's irrelevant.

And a Barky aide, Dan Pfeiffer, claims that IRS targeting of certain groups is likewise irrelevant.

In the matter of the Benghazi murders, Dan reiterated that who edited the "talking points" is irrelevant.

And as for questions regarding Barky's whereabouts during the Benghazi murders, Dan says that they're not only irrelevant, but offensive. So there's that. Mustn't offend, you know. We're only talking about four murders, here. Nothing to see; move along.

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