Powerline Pic

Bromance ...


STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

A Karen Karen

In a sea of red

A Bass with the first name of Karen,

The Veep nod she’s been cravin’.

But her ultimate plot

Is to take the top slot,

Soon after Joe’s office swear-in.


STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

The Big Picture

I’m guessing that the riots now in many major US cities have evolved and no longer have everything to do with George Floyd’s murder ... OK, a little bit, at least symbolically ... but these are also uprisings spawned by anger over the virus lockdowns, our huge levels of unemployment, Bernie Sanders not getting the Democrat nomination, the Left realizing that they have a loser in Joe Biden, President Trump once again escaping the Deep State and the media’s drumbeat attempts to take him down ... and a venomous vitriol in the far-left (ANTIFA, Black Lives Matter, etc.) for the US and our institutions.

(Of course, breaking things and lots of free stuff also helps.)

Afterward: See: CNBC Story.

Joe Biden

From daily timewaster blog

Today’s Poser

Is Joe Biden a bigger tragicomedy figure than Fatty Arbickle?

Peter Principle

You tend to rise in the ranks to your level of incompetence — Peter Principle

It seems to this observer that Joe Biden long ago topped out on his Peter-Principle ceiling. He is now floating and floundering around in the Malarky ether.

I realize that writing this blog disqualifies me from running for president ... and puts me in peril of being shadow-banned by Facebook. So be it.

Deaf and Dumb

“Biden is not as smart as Bernie” — Donald Trump

Former Vice President Joe Biden shows once again why he is so tone deaf (and dumb) on foreign policy. (Or could it be because China gave $1 billion to his son Hunter’s hedge fund? See: The Federalist Story.)

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from Politico?

Moore defiant as Senate Republicans sever ties

Report: Roy Moore accuser worked for Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden

Poll: Alabama senate race tied ...

Limbaugh to Roy Moore: Hire Hillary Clinton ...

Asian leaders charm Trump -- too much, critics fear

Trump says Putin is 'insulted' by claims Russia meddled in 2016 US elections

China races to make FIRST CONTACT with aliens using world's largest dish ...

Saudi Arabia wants sanctions against Iran for terrorism, supporting Hezbollah ...

Romney moves toward Senate bid

Air Force general says China is advancing in space five times quicker than US

Black Death outbreak: Malawi becomes 10th country on plague alert ...

Amnesty advocates 'storm' Capitol Hill offices demanding no-strings amnesty

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which ones from Politico.

Sessions won't resign for now, but gets Trump's message

U.S. Postal Service breaks election laws to support Hillary, media silent

FTC probing Amazon deceptive discounting ...

Food stamp use falls to lowest level in 7 years

Spokesman for Trump's legal team resigns just two months after starting

Mueller to investigate money laundering by Trump's former campaign manager

Al Gore: Some levels of Earth have 'crossed point of no return' ...

Exclusive: [Sen.] Manchin urges Trump to block sale of CSX to Chinese

Christie's last big move could be filling Menendez's seat

German court system on verge of 'collapse' due to mass immigration

First female to join Navy elite force may be a former man ...

Joe Biden charging hundreds for signed books

Pooh Pooh

I have written in the past about my (and others') concerns regarding Hellary Clinton's health problems ... see: Sicko?, Devine Intervention, and I Robot. Most of my liberal friends, who are emotionally committed to electing this woman, have reacted with either pooh poohs or by questioning Trump's health as well. And Hellary has had other incidents since I last expressed my concerns. I won't detail them here as most of you who are awake know of what I write. But today at the 9/11 memorial service in downtown Manhattan, Hellary had another "health episode" and had to leave this ceremony early ... possibly fainting ... see: Fox News Coverage.

The evidences of this woman's frailty are so obvious now that their ramifications need to be explored. What if this woman becomes so sick or incapacitated between now and Election Day that it becomes clear that, even if elected, she would be so diminished that she could not govern? (Pooh, pooh!) What happens? Don't forget early voting has already started in some states ... with more coming on stream every week. Do the Democrats just carry on like what happened in Weekend at Bernie's?  Do they put a wig on Joe Biden and change his name? Does Tim Kaine step up and become the nominee? Perhaps they can postpone the election until she gets better? What if she doesn't? What does the Constitution allow under these circumstances?

I will make a rash prediction ... that she will not participate in all three presidential debates ... maybe not even one ...

Afterward: Sarah Silverman says that anyone questioning Clinton's health is an a**hole. Can I be this and also be in the basket of deplorables?

Pants-Suited Piranha

Hillary Clinton has had a very good week and a day. It all started with Bernie Sanders falling on his sword over Hillary's e-mail server problem in the first Democrat  debate. (I wonder what his reward has been promised for this bit of generosity ... Secretary of Labor?) ... and it ended yesterday when Joe Biden dropped out of contention for the Democrat nomination. (Here in Boston radio commentator, Howie Carr, wondered what racehorse gave its life and it's head to be found in Biden's bed.)

And today the pant-suited piranha goes in front of the House committee investigating the Benghazi murders to testify about her role in this sleazy matter. I am certain that any incriminating information that this committee has gathered has been fed to her by the committee's Democrats so that Hilary now has well-rehearsed answers.

And if anyone believes that the Obama administration's  FBI investigation into the Clinton e-mail server issue has not already been compromised by the Clinton Foundation political juggernaut, they have not been awake for these last seven years. Yes, it seems that the whole rationale for Hillary becoming our 45th president is her gender and our uninformed electorate might just buy into this bit of pop-culture inanity.

The Whip Hand

Hillary Clinton clearly has the whip hand when it comes to the Democrat Party ... witness how fuzzy and feckless is the scheduling of the Democrat presidential debates ... see: Democrat Debate Schedule. It doesn't take too many smarts to realize that this "speculative" debate schedule ... with just about everything marked "TBD" ("to be determined" for those of you in Rio Linda) ... is indicative of a great deal of control being exerted by Hillary's mob enforcers.

Why is this you ask? Clearly Hillary Clinton has a great many questions she doesn't want asked by the moderators of such debates ... or her opponents like Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley or Jim Webb. The uncertainty surrounding the dates, places and formats of these supposed six Democrat debates ... this late in the game, leads me to suspect that even these nebulous parameters are subject to change at the whim of Hillary.

And given that her news and polls keep getting worse ... and assuming that Veep Joe Biden enters the race in September ... I will not be surprised to see further deterioration of this debate scheduling... under the snapping cat-o-nine-tails of Cruella Clinton.

The Hollow Men

To honor John Kerry, Joe Biden and Barack Obama for the framework of an agreement that was just struck with Iran, I reproduce T.S. Eliot's poem, The Hollow Men:

Mistah Kurtz - he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of this tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper. 

Predictions

Every year a group of our friends get together to celebrate New Year's Eve. One tradition is for us to make predictions for the ensuing year and then, come the next New Year's Eve, prizes are given for the most prescience. Here are a few of this year’s more interesting predictions:

                                                                                                                    

• New vaccine to slow the onset of Alzheimer’s disease

• Prince and Elton John appear together on tour      

• Amazon takes over US Postal Service

• Drop in oil price puts kibosh on XL Pipeline

• President Obama’s approval rating reaches 58% 

• Republicans will lose two more House members due to misbehavior

• Superbowl will be lowest scoring game in history

• Google will buy Netflix      

• Greece will be asked to leave the European Union

• Joe Biden is not VP at the end of 2015

• Cosmic pulse disrupts communications for days

• Deval Patrick appointed judge of a high court or ambassador

• Hillary urged to drop out in favor of Elizabeth Warren

• Lost Malaysian jet debris discovered in unexpected location

• Joyce Carol Oates will win Noble Prize in literature

• Putin removed from office as Russian economy tanks

 • RIP – George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter

• George Clooney and wife separate

• Miley Cyrus marries Patrick Schwarzenegger

• Patriots win Super Bowl

• Iran acquires atomic weaponry

• Stock Market will correct by at least 10%

• Eddie Redmayne wins Best Actor for “Theory of Everything”

• “Selma” wins Best Picture

• Major LA earthquake … extensive damage
• Latin America pushes Middle East off of 24/7 news casting    

• Brazil will launch a satellite

• Sony Pictures will sell off its library of movies
• Apple stock soars 50%

• Keith Richards dies

• Aaron Hernandez found not guilty

• Marathon bomber – guilty but no death penalty

• “Boyhood” wins Best Picture

• Russia will default on its debts … again

Tune in this time next year for the results …

Fun Facts

-        The Iraqi government of former president, Nouri al-Maliki, which was required to form a more “inclusive” administration before President Obama could formulate a strategy to combat ISIS, now has as its new Vice President ,,,  namely Nouri al-Maliki … see: CNN Story.

-        A young Chinese man died of a heart attack while he was about to make his fourth donation in a week to a sperm bank … see: UK Daily Mail Story  ... shades of Nelson Rockefeller.

-        Six years in the limelight might have turned Sarah Palin’s and her family’s heads. Apparently the Palin clan got into a brawl recently near Anchorage, Alaska at a large party. Some of the reporting may be apocryphal, but read the details for yourself: NY Post Story. A stretch Hummer is a little too pretentious for my taste.

-        Cabbies at the San Diego, California airport now need to pass the “smell test” as well as other safety measures before they are allowed to pick up passengers … see: ABC News Story.

-        “This is a big f-ing deal!” Vice President Joe Biden recently tweeted that the worst abuse of man or woman is the abuse of power. No f-ing kidding? … see: Michelle Malkin Story.

-        Perhaps Ayman al-Zawahiri (Osama bin Laden’s former number-two man) is losing his touch? In the first raid orchestrated by him on the Indian sub-continent, three al Qaeda members were killed and seven captured when they attacked the wrong target. See the details here: UK Telegraph Story.

Coy

Is she or isn’t she?  Will Hillary Clinton be running for president? This is the media obsession of late … but, if one follows the crumbs, the answer presents itself ... NO.

And the reasoning behind this boils down to one obvious set of events … the circling of all the other potential Democrat vultures around the prize that might be theirs if Hillary bows out. Vice President Joe Biden is much more visible of late. And so is that high cheek-boned "Native-American," Elizabeth Warren, Senator from Massachusetts. But now, stage left enters Governor Moonbeam from California, 76-year-old Jerry Brown … and there are others … see: Washington Post Article. The logic is as follows … why would all these other potential candidates be jockeying for the saddle if Hillary is a shoe-in for jockey? The answer is that they must know something that we don’t.

But then why also would Hillary and Bill be playing it so coy if they knew that this media dream was not to be … if for whatever reason … health issues, age issues, past performance issues, or even waning enthusiasm? The answer is quite obvious … Hillary, still seeming the front runner, creates a meme that opens the corporate and big donor coiffeurs to oodles of pelf for her, her husband, the Clinton Foundation, and even darling Chelsea. These donor plutocrats want access to the White House next time around and a big fat check is the way to do it.

Don’t forget that the Clintons have a posse of adviser mouths to feed and they need the continued avalanche of campaign and foundation money to keep these hanger-ons happy. So, I predict that Hillary will continue playing this demure demoiselle until right up to the time when there would be no going back … or until the media turns on her.  This might be as late as the summer of 2016. And then it’s sayonara to all the saps who lined the Clinton pockets … and the devil take what’s left of the Democrat party.

I can’t really say I’m sorry.

Feeling His Oats

Has anyone noticed how frisky Joe Biden has become of late?  Not only is he grabbing the headlines day after day … for instance assuring the new Ukraine Prime Minister that we got his back … see: Politico Story. (Why isn’t President Obama sending such an important message?)  But it is also rather obvious that “Plugs” has had another round of nip and tuck on his mug.

The question then becomes … why is Ole Joe so newly motivated?  Perhaps he knows something we don’t know about Hillary … whether she may be too infirmed to engage in the next presidential campaign …  see: Daily Caller Story?

This certainly would explain why lately he seems to be feeling his oats.

Clown Shortage

There is a growing dearth of clowns in the United States according to the Clowns of America International’s President Glen Kohiberger … dropping by about a third since 2004 … see:  New York Daily News Story. Apparently there have been problems recruiting enthusiastic younger people into this Pagliacci profession to replace the older ones who are dying off.

I think we all know the perfect place for this organization to place their next recruitment ads … Washington, DC.

Afterward: Apparently Powerline had the same idea ... see: Powerline Blog.

Pearly Gates

I have had mixed feeling about Obama’s former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates … see: Swinging Gates.  However now that Gates has unloaded on President Obama, former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and VP, Joe Biden, Gates has suddenly risen in my estimation.  (“The enemy of your enemy is your friend.”)

Now Gates has written a soon-to-be-published book, portions of which have been leaked to Bob Woodward in the Washington Post ... and it does not sugar-coat his feelings toward these three administration hacks.  Viz: Obama is two-faced, a very poor manager, and willing to sacrifice American lives in Afghanistan to no real purpose.  Biden is anti-military and has been, over the years, consistently wrong on all foreign policy issues.  And Hillary Clinton’s motivating factor has been how something might play politically … independent of the true merits of each situation.

Gates even takes a deserved dump on Congress. 

When this book, “Duty.” comes out next week,  I look forward to more of such relishing revelations.  However, I do think that Bob's Gates and Woodward will receive even fewer invites to inside-Washington social elbow-rubbings than they are getting today ... but they should get a gold star on St. Peter's ledger.

Afterward: See also: Wall Street Journal Article.

Tennis Anyone?

Our reluctant warrior, President Obama, last Friday interrupted his golf game long enough to lob the Syrian war-making judgment back into Congress’s court … not so much, I believe, out of respect for the Constitution or the War Powers Act, but rather as a way of postponing the actual start of belligerencies for another two weeks.  If Congress then deliberates and confirms his dubious decision to try to take out some of Assad’s chemical-weapon delivery mechanisms, then he, once again, might be able to off-load any serious political repercussions if things go poorly.  Ad in.

But I say “dubious decision” because, like the Israelis, I also doubt that, even if Congress gives him the go-ahead, he will actually serve the ball … see: Powerline Comments.  If however Congress, like the British Parliament and Germany, says “no,” then Obama can slink away from this confrontation with a very small shred of his dignity preserved.  He will then, once again, have spoken loudly but carried a small stick … independent of Vice President Joe Biden’s crass innuendo.

As to my “reluctant warrior” comment …we now know that President Obama played cards during much of the Abbottabad raid on the Osama bin Laden compound and concluded his Friday’s challenge to Congress over Syria’s use of chemical weapons by going off to play another round of golf.  Either our President has nerves of steel or a spine of spaghetti.  I think history will tilt toward the pasta.