Scandalous! Four major ethics violations in one week.

FOUR major ethics violations and power grabs made in one week - that might be a record for the Obama Administration! These should be scandals, but some of them are barely in the news. You'll understand why the media is desperate to distract us with some llamas and a very unattractive dress, when you check out this list of power grabs that have been made public in the past few days:

1.  Stole $3 billion from the Treasury.
The US Treasury - at the request of the Department of Health and Human Services - paid $3 billion to insurance companies, without the necessary permissions from the House of Representatives. This isn't some little footnote to the law that they just so happened to miss...it's a big deal - like a "taught in 3rd grade civics as an essential part of our democracy"-level deal - that all spending originates in the House.

The House is in charge of America's cash money records. I wanted a Lil Wayne reference in this column. Deal with it.

The payments were part of a subsidy program, under which the federal government pays insurance companies (!) in exchange for them limiting what they charge to low-income individuals. They told us that Obamacare would make the insurance companies less powerful...but instead, they're extorting the government for tax money?

Rep. Paul Ryan sent a letter to the Treasury, asking for an explanation of why these payments were made when they were not an authorized appropriation. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew sent back a letter that totally didn't answer the question. It described the payments, but did not mention why they were made.
2. Found 32,000 emails that were "lost" when Lois Lerner's "hard drive crashed."
The IRS claimed that Lois Lerner's emails were lost when her hard drive crashed. That's a BS excuse for a lot of reasons - the IRS is required by law to store AND back up their data, and it's pretty much impossible that thousands upon thousands of her emails would evaporate riiiiight as she came under scrutiny for unfairly targeting conservative organizations.

What's new this week is that Lerner KNEW the excuse was BS. One of the recovered emails she sent reads, "No one will ever believe that both your hard drive and mine crashed within a week of each other! Life is strange."

It IS strange, Lois. It's even stranger that, months after you and IRS Commissioner Koskinen testified under oath that you had produced all the emails you could find, federal investigators went in and found 32,000 more. It's not that the investigators had any special know-how about information recovery. According to one of the investigators, "[The emails] were right where you would expect them to be." Either Lois Lerner wasn't really looking for her emails in the first place, or she did find these emails in an obvious place and decided to lie about it.

The files were IN the computer!

3. Had Hillary taking money from foreign governments.
The governments of Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Finland, Australia, and the Dominican Republic donated to the Clinton Foundation during her term as Secretary of State. Algeria - Libya's next door neighbor in North Africa - was a NEW national government donor during this time. Ethics rules prohibited Hillary from taking the money from this new donor nation while she was Secretary of State, but she did anyway.

The scandal within a scandal - this is the turducken of scandals - is that foreign countries were allowed to fund Clinton at all while she was Secretary of State. Conflict of interest much, Hillary?

4. Gave itself the power to regulate the internet.
The FCC approved Net Neutrality, and we don't really know if that's good or bad, because we don't know what's in its 322 pages. The FCC has not released it to the public. They're pitching it as something that will keep the internet open, but you don't need 322 pages to keep things the way they are, so I'm skeptical.

Here are some more reasons I don't trust the FCC: The members of the FCC are not elected. All 5 were appointed by President Obama, and confirmed  by the Senate. The President asked them to make rules for the internet, and they did. Congress was never involved. Oh, and for the record...

From RBPundit.

This is going to make Comcast more powerful, not less.

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You won't see any of this on the news, because CNN is tackling something bigger and more important:

You laugh, but that llama is probably smarter than 80% of people who get interviewed on CNN.

These are House of Cards tactics used by a President trying desperately to get control of a government that is too big and too powerful. How there are people who still defend this President, and this administration, is beyond my comprehension.

The 5 People You Meet at CPAC

CPAC 2015 is upon us! This large gathering of conservative and libertarian thought leaders, pundits, writers, politicians, and politicos is a sight to behold. Despite what the press would want you to believe, most of the thousands of attendees are everyday people who want the best for America and for their communities. They're Main Streeters looking to learn how to make a difference. Among this crowd, you'll find some characters. Here are 6 types who make CPAC distinctive:

1. The giveaway guru

Flitting from booth to booth in the exhibit hall, you'll find these people hurriedly hitting up the best promotional giveaways. "Best" is a relative term - it's not like anyone is giving away plane tickets or iPads or something. But when it comes to t-shirts, bumper stickers, books, pocket-size Constitutions...they're raking it in. This person will strategize and execute like a machine, and at the end they'll be walking out of the convention center with, like, 18 different tote bags.

2. The plague victim

This person has spent the past month operating on two hours of sleep and five cups of coffee, and it's finally caught up to him. His eyes are puffy and he's a sniffly, sneezy mess - who's hell-bent on hitting up every single event on the schedule. You have to respect that level of dedication...and at some point, you'll also have to shake its hand. So pack your Purell, kids, because you're gonna need it.

3. The straw poll stalker

This one already has a preferred presidential candidate and wants everyone to know it. He or she treats the straw poll as seriously as the Tributes took the Hunger Games. He or she is armed with a roll of voter stickers and a clipboard and an unrelenting (borderline psychotic) enthusiasm for recruiting votes. These types will hunt down every last potential straw poll voter...they will pop out at you from hallways and from behind potted plants. Terrifying, but they're all so cheery you can't really say no.

4. The "I'm just here so I don't get fined."

This photographer/writer/cameraman is here for his job. He or she is totally confused by the CPAC organized chaos. This one lurks by the coffee stations from 7:00am - 4:00pm, and lurks at the bar from 4:00pm onward.

One breed of this type is The Mole, who is sent to CPAC by a left wing media outlet to go "undercover" and report back on how conservatives are all weird home schooled sister wife freaks. Since The Mole made up his mind about CPAC long before arriving at the conference, this person isn't trying to learn anything while they're here. He or she believes there is nothing to learn from us "Tea Party neanderthals." Not a very enlightened or progressive opinion, huh?

This is how The Mole feels about everything at CPAC.

The Mole just knows that he's SO enlightened and liberal and progressive and all-around better than CPAC attendees, and comfortable in that knowledge, he sits back and relaxes inside an aura of smugness. We're not zoo animals - we're only a little nerdier than normal (okay...maybe a lot nerdier), and to The Mole, this is a great disappointment.

5. The stuck in high school

This type comes in two flavors: you've got the ones who are self-appointed hall monitors and dress code enforcers, who judge every neckline and every hemline lest some harlot be tempting them thar menfolk. 

And then you've got the exact opposite...who spends most of the day on tinder, scoping out fellow right-wingers. You've also got the ones who are looking for alcohol...which, by the end of a few 16-hour days, is all of us.

Have fun this weekend. And remember, it's a jungle in there!

YAYs and NAYs of the Oscars 2015 Red Carpet

The only interesting part of the Oscars is the red carpet. It's where you see who is wearing who, who gives an awkward interview, and who can't pronounce French designer names. I don't know anything about the designers and the fabrics and whatnot, but anybody can look at their TV and say "that dress works" or "that dress doesn't." So, here are my totally uninformed an uneducated opinions about last night's gowns:

We'll start with Anna Kendrick, who is perfect as usual.

Source

The color makes it a little prom-ish, but what are the Oscars if not Hollywood Prom? Coral looks fresh and bright. You do you, Anna Kendrick.

Jennifers Aniston and Lopez look like gorgeous sparkly band-aids.

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LOVE the gowns, not so much the color.

Lupita Nyong'o wins the red carpet. LUPITA 4 EVeR N EvER.

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With all those pearls, the dress must have weighed a hundred pounds! And yet Lupita looks weightless and floating, because she is a magical fairy tale person.

On any other person, this pea green - sparkly - stripey - partially sheer gown would be a disaster. Somehow, though, Emma Stone looks fabulous. She's taking a cue from Angelina's Jo-LEG from a couple years back.

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I don't understand what Lady Gaga was going for with this. (Previous statement applies to everything she has done in the past five years.)

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A lot of dress. A lot of gloves. A lot happening here.

Nicole Kidman wasn't up for an Oscar, but that didn't stop her from walking away with a little golden shiny man.

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The red belt needs to go, but the red hair is perfection.

ScarJo has a funky necklace and no patience for creepers.

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Not into the dress (it looks...sporty, somehow?) but the necklace, the hair, and the attitude are total winners.

Time for this bear to hibernate! Tweet me your reactions to the red carpet? Would love to hear your yays and nays :)

6 Signs You're Being Catfished by ISIS

ISIS, like the University of Phoenix, is stepping up its online recruiting efforts. Jihadis are using social media to lure in new fighters from Europe and North America. It's a modern tactic for a stone age death cult. The crazy thing is, it's working.

The CIA estimates that around 2,000 Westerners have left their old lives behind for Jihadis they met on the internet. We don't know how many of those Westerners are Americans, but there has emerged a distinct pattern of the American defectors being young and female.

Ladies. Seriously? I didn't think anyone would be dumb enough to get roped into a murderous terrorist organization, but the statistics are real - it's happening. So here are 6 tips for recognizing if you're being recruited by ISIS over the internet, because apparently a lot of you need them:

1. He cares a lot about how well you can cook and sew. ISIS fighters are taught specifically to recruit women who are good cooks and seamstresses. There's nothing at all wrong with either of those skills (who wouldn't want to be a fantastic cook?) it's just weird if a guy cares overwhelmingly about you being good at these things. Worst case scenario, he's a jihadi. Best case scenario, he's a garden variety nutcase. Either way, shut it down.

2. He's trying to lure you with kittens. No, really - CNN found that ISIS was using kittens to convince women to join their ranks.

 "He's a terrorist" should top your list of dealbreakers, but "he's a cat person" should not be far behind. And before I get hate mail from cat people - there is a huge difference between cat people (lowercase) who think cats are cute, and Cat People (uppercase) who are alllllllll about their cats.

3. He's married. To three other women. Not all polygamists are terrorists, but you don't want to be a Sister Wife. You especially don't want to be a sister wife to a sicko, in the middle of the desert, thousands of miles away from home.

4. His profile picture is something like this:

Swipe left. Block him. Close your account. Turn off your phone. Throw your phone in the nearest body of water. Change your name. Move to Belize. Start over.

5. He wants a very fast destination wedding...in Syria. Western teenagers are running away from home and flying to Turkey or Syria to marry men they met on the internet.While we don't know the exact number of these marriages that have taken place, we do know that ISIS has opened up a "marriage bureau" in northern Syria specifically for immigrants who come to marry their fighters.

Don't agree to marry someone you haven't met in person. Also, don't go to Syria. It's not a destination so much as it's an impoverished hellhole full of human rights abuses, at the moment.

6. He tells you he's a jihadi. Many of these guys aren't exactly hiding their job description. Use your head, people.

This has been an installment of "things you should already know." If any of this was news to you, quit the Internet and go outside because you are clearly undercooked and not ready to be a real person on the world quite yet. When you're ready, come back to the web because it's fun (and we have YouTube videos of babies riding roombas!) - just be sure to be smart and be safe.

Islam: Religion of Peace (and Vandalism and Arson)

Someone vandalized and torched New Shiloh Christian Church in Melbourne, Florida, around 3 AM on Monday morning.

They spray-painted "Allahu Akbar" and a swastika on church property, kicked in a door, and set fire to a storage unit adjacent to the electrical room. This crime caused about $5,000 in damage. If not for the fire alarm and sprinkler system activating in time, the blaze would have reached a diesel tank in the electric room - and the damage would be far greater.

The FBI is aware of the situation but has declined to comment on it. The local police are investigating, but have so far not labeled the incident a hate crime.

"Police told Local 6 [news station] they are hesitant to label the case a hate crime because they don't want to alarm the public." With all due respect to the Brevard County, the public should be alarmed.

Someone is going to great lengths to tell churchgoers that they, and their faith, are not welcome in the community. That's a hateful violation of 1st Amendment rights.

Someone is using a Muslim phrase to harass Christians. That same someone is using a swastika to harass Jews. And the local community is so afraid of being labeled "Islamophobic" and "intolerant" that they are refusing to call a hate crime what it is.

Madison, Wisconsin also saw an anti-Semitic crime spree over last weekend and reacted in much the same way. They condemned the hate, but wouldn't condemn whoever did it. We as a society have to condemn both. We cannot ignore hate crimes just on the off chance that they may have been motivated by Islam.

Media Silent on Anti-Semitic Crimes in America

On last Saturday morning, several Wisconsinites woke up and found explicit anti-Semitic graffiti spray painted on their homes.

The graffiti - rife with swastikas, swear words, and sexual organs - hit 30 homes in western Madison.

Police are not yet considering this a hate crime. Are they blind? When someone goes on a spree painting hateful slurs and causing property damage...that's a hate crime. It's not a robbery or burglary (where the criminal expects to benefit from what he or she is doing). There is nothing the perpetrator(s?) will get out of this, save for spreading a hateful message.

The President of the Madison Jewish Federation lives in the neighborhood that was targeted - and directly across the street from a house that was vandalized. He looks out his front windows and sees anti-Jewish slurs.

I chose not to post any of the images here, because whoever did this does not deserve to have their message amplified in any way (and I haven't figured out how to blur images yet.)

A few local news outlets picked up this story, but that's about it. Major US media networks cover the anti-Semitic harassment that's happening in Western Europe. Yet they won't touch it when it happens here.

I'm not sure why that's the case, but here's my guess: If major news outlets acknowledge that anti-Semitic crimes are happening here, the next natural question is, "Who is responsible?" If it turns out to be a Muslim or a group of Muslims, like the perpetrators in Europe have been, then that disrupts the media narrative of Muslims as victims of backlash.

I'm not saying that we know who did it. I'm saying that the press is so wedded to its narrative, that it's afraid to find out.

Sources:
Channel 3000 
JP Updates
WKOW

The Best Dating Advice I Found on Twitter

Joni Ernst is a Combat Veteran

...and the Huffington Post can shut right the hell up. HuffPo published a column claiming that Joni Ernst hasn't earned the right to call herself a combat veteran, because her "unit was never under fire."

The left-wing media seems to think that this means Ernst is not fully a combat veteran. But I don't care how any other writer or talking head defines "combat veteran." The only definition that matters belongs to the Pentagon and the DOD - and they apply the term to anyone who has served in a combat zone.

Senator Ernst served in a combat zone. That makes her a combat veteran.

She was a company commander of the 1186th Transportation Company of the Iowa National Guard. This Company served in Kuwait and Iraq during 2003 and 2004.  Remember what Kuwait and Iraq were like at that time? I don't, because I wasn't there. But all the evidence - and there is TONS of evidence - suggests that it was hostile and dangerous, and definitely not a cakewalk.

This is just one more instance of "Pro-woman Progressives" attacking a woman because she is a Republican. I'll bet you ten bucks that we would not be having this conversation if Joni Ernst were a Democrat. And of COURSE liberals have set their sights on smearing a Republican as a liar - instead of admitting to two big liberal lies that are rightfully in the news.

Liar, Liar.

Brian Williams is not the only public figure who has told a tall tale of survival in a war zone. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton told a whopper of her own: She claimed, repeatedly, that she had to run through sniper fire with her daughter, Chelsea, after their plane landed in Bosnia in 1996. Hillary was First Lady at the time.

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." 

Turns out, that's a work of historical fiction. Video came out later, of Hillary and Chelsea walking off of the plane, participating in a small welcoming ceremony on the tarmac, and departing. No bullets, no nothing.

Source: Politico

 Just like Brian Williams, Hillary came clean only when she got caught. And as much as she tried to downplay it - it deserves our attention. Here's why:

1. You're the First Lady. There is a staff of people assigned to you to keep you safe (and, generally, pretty comfortable). When Hillary said that she landed under sniper fire and had to run across a war zone with her daughter - she implies that all those people failed at the most basic part of their job.

2. Her apology was...not an apology, really.

"So I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I'm human which, you know, for some people, is a revelation."

Now I've met some humans, interacted with them, even - and they generally don't make up war stories. In fact, nearly all of them kinda frown upon people who make things up about themselves. We all make mistakes...but we certainly don't all lie about war stories.

3. You can't "misspeak" on this one. People "misspeak" all the time. We say "Me and you are going to the store" instead of "You and I are going to the store." We use "data" and "media" like singular nouns, even though they're plural. Misspeaking is a slip-up like that - not the telling of an entire story, on multiple occasions, to multiple media outlets.

4. There is practically zero chance of "misremembering" an event like this. It is totally understandable to forget what you were wearing on a certain day, or what exactly was on your to-do list, or something like that...but running for cover, with your daughter, under sniper fire in a foreign country? You don't "misremember" something like that. If it had happened, it would be in your memory loud and clear. But it didn't happen. SO...why say it?

Brian Williams has had to pay a big price for his lie. Hillary - darling of the media - has hardly had to answer for her tall tale. When she finally announces the presidential campaign she's been running for years, let's hope she gets held to the same standard of honesty and integrity.

Yays and Nays of the Week

Hi Team! Sorry I've been away for awhile - it's been a busy handful of days. And because so much has been going on, I can't pick just one thing to talk about here. SO. Here are my Yays and Nays for the week!

YAY: Katy Perry's Super Bowl Halftime Shoes.
The performance was a solid 13 minutes of cartoonified, brightly colored insanity...so, exactly what you expect from Katy Perry. I loved it (Left Shark fo' life!) and was especially into her fabulous shoes!

Source: Hollywood Reporter

NAY: Why are we talking about vaccines? I thought this was decided, like...way a long time ago?
This is the latest attempt by Democrats to make Republicans look anti-science. It's not Republicans who are anti-vaccine...it's a small minority of annoying yuppies who believe junk science. Like most dumb Democrat smear campaigns, this one is backfiring: Turns out, Hillary wasn't so pro-mandatory-vaccine back in 2008.

YAY: Zoodles and Squoodles.
I bought a vegetable spiralizer last week, and have been munching away on zucchini noodles and squash noodles ever since. A few minutes on the stove with garlic and olive oil, then topped with parmesan & a lemon squeeze...yum.

Source: Two Peas and Their Pod (My Zoodles aren't nearly this pretty!)

NAY: Saint Louis University is building a monument to...a week-long Occupy Protest that happened on their campus. No matter what you think of Occupy (I don't think of them at all, because they failed, natch) it's a little silly to build a monument to what was a fairly casual week-long effort. You don't see white girls building monuments for week-long juice cleanses, and consuming ONLY juice for a week is much harder than whining about inequality.

YAY: Harper Lee to release a second novel.
The "To Kill a Mockingbird" author will be releasing her second book, titled "Go Set a Watchman," on July 14. This one centers on Scout Finch as an adult woman. Lee wrote the book in the 1950s. Let's not forget that Harper Lee is now 88 years old, already a literary legend for TKAM, has nothing to prove, and is STILL choosing to release a book she wrote six decades ago, in its original form, without revisions. It's a brave decision, and I can't wait to read the book.