This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Liberals suck

  • Leland Lee, anti-gun, gun trafficker sentenced

    Leland Lee, anti-gun, gun trafficker sentenced

    The Washington Post report that California State Senator, Leland Lee was sentenced in Federal court last week for trafficking in firearms and for accepting bribes.

    “I hope that in your sentencing of me, you will look at my entire life and not just these crimes I have committed,” the senator implored U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported. “In the 67 years of my life, I have devoted much of it to the work of the community, to people here in San Francisco and in the state of California.”

    Yee added that he was most ashamed to have hurt his family and supporters: “That will always weight on me, and that will always haunt me for the rest of my life.”

    Breyer was unsympathetic to the calls for leniency.

    Yeah, five years doesn’t seem too harsh for a man, a graduate of UC Berkeley, who, just months before his indictment had claimed to CBS News that “It is extremely important that individuals in the state of California do not own assault weapons. I mean that is just so crystal clear — there is no debate, no discussion” while he was plotting to bring those kinds of weapons into the hands of criminals in California from outside of the country.

    As a legislator, Yee supported strict gun control laws and was named to the Brady Campaign’s Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll.

    The calamitous epilogue to Yee’s career, then, seems to be an abrupt about-face. During his campaigns, Yee had styled himself as an outsider removed from the corruption that plagued San Francisco governments past.

    “My parents didn’t encourage me to go into politics at all,” he told Hyphen magazine in 2011. “There was a stereotype in the Chinese community that sees politics with suspicion. Politicians aren’t honorable, they’re corrupt and unsavory.”

    Five stinkin’ years.

  • California hires Holder to do battle with Trump

    California hires Holder to do battle with Trump

    Eric Holder

    For some reason, the State of California announced today that they hired former US Attorney General Eric Holder “Girding for four years of potential battles with President-elect Donald J. Trump” says the New York Times.

    [Kevin de León, the Democratic leader of the Senate] said he expected California to challenge Washington — and defend itself from policies instituted in Washington — on issues including the environment, immigration and criminal justice. He said California Democrats decided to turn to Mr. Holder as they watched Mr. Trump assemble his cabinet and begin to set the tone for his presidency.

    “It was very clear that it wasn’t just campaign rhetoric,” Mr. de León said of Mr. Trump’s proposals over the past year. “He was surrounding himself with people who are a very clear and present danger to the economic prosperity of California.”

    I wonder how he got the phrase “the economic prosperity of California” out of his mouth without a chortle.

    The Legislature has an ample stable of lawyers on staff, but officials said Mr. Holder and his firm brought specific litigation and political skills that could be needed in the coming years. Mr. de León said the final compensation for the firm had not been set, but would be publicly disclosed once it was.

    “The cost will be very minimal compared to the billions of dollars at stake if California doesn’t adequately make its case,” he said.

    Yeah, California has quite a surplus to toss around to fund extra lawyers. According to the California Debt Clock, they’re already more than $450 billion in the hole, so throwing a few billion at Holder won’t hurt much. In case Mr Deleon, hadn’t noticed, Holder worked for Obama and Obama is leaving town in 2017 taking with him any influence that Holder might have. Unless California wants to get into the gun-running business, like Leland Yee, former California State Senator, current Federal prisoner, Holder won’t be of much help.

  • How not to “get it”

    How not to “get it”

    Knightstown

    The Indiana village, Knightstown, finds itself at the center of controversy with their Christmas display. The ACLU is suing them for putting a cross atop their Christmas tree and they’re fighting back, according to Fox59;

    The ACLU sued the town on behalf of resident Joseph Tompkins, claiming the cross on top of the town’s Christmas tree is a violation of Tompkins’ First Amendment rights guaranteeing separation of church and state.

    The suit requests the cross be removed and the town pay Tompkins damages for being “forced to come into direct and unwelcome contact with the cross display” every day.

    “Just because one person’s offended, doesn’t mean they have to take away one particular thing,” said Knightstown resident Cynthia Sturgill.

    I guess Mr Tomkins and the ACLU didn’t get the message last month when Americans decided that they are tired of being pushed around by the Left and elected Donald Trump despite the evidence to the contrary that they could be successful. After eight years of being preached to about Hope and Change, the folks of Knightstown have put crosses all over their town on their private property, I’m sure they’re hoping that Mr Tompkins comes into direct and unwelcomed contact with the cross wherever he goes in Knightstown;

    Tompkins did not respond to a request for comment about the community’s reaction to his lawsuit.

    Town officials also say they’re not ready to comment about how they plan to respond to the suit.

    It’s freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.Knightstown

  • Russian interference in the election

    Much has been made in the last few days in regards to charges that Russian hackers influenced the election. The intelligence agencies charge that their interference changed the outcome of the election. It almost seems like the government is worried that vote tallies were altered, but that is not what they are talking about. This is from the New York Times;

    The Washington Post and The New York Times reported on Friday that American intelligence agencies had concluded that Russia took covert action during the campaign to harm the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The new conclusion, The Times reported, was based in part on evidence found by the C.I.A. that Russian hackers had penetrated the Republican National Committee’s computer system, as well as that of the Democrats and several of Mrs. Clinton’s senior aides, but had leaked only Democratic correspondence.

    Those stupid emails again. If it was Russians who released those emails, I’d like to thank them. None of the authors of those emails has denied their veracity or disputed the content. If the Democrats want to get twisted around because someone released a blueprint of their machinations behind the scene, well, let them. If they’re worried about the image that everyone now has that Democrats are corruptocrats who manipulate the system so their side wins, maybe they should change the way they do business rather than finding excuses as to why they should have won doing business the way they always have done business.

  • GMAFB, Part . . . Aw Hell, I Lost Count

    Well, the PC crowd is       showing its ass       demonstrating its “wisdom” yet again.  This time, it’s the “enlightened” city government of Bloomington, Indiana, that’s hard at work “saving us from ourselves”.

    It seems that the City of Bloomington has chosen to officially rename two holidays.  Henceforth, in Bloomington, they will not be known by their common – and legal – names.

    The Bloomington city government chose to do this because they deemed the actual names of the holidays to be “culturally insensitive”.  Gotta protect those “special little snowflakes” from being offended, dontcha know.

    The two holidays Bloomington’s ordered renamed?  Good Friday – and Columbus Day.

    I’m not joking.

    Freaking idiots.  Yo, Bloomington:  Hank Hill has a message for you regarding this stupidity.  He kinda sums things up in about 5 seconds, IMO.

    The main campus of the University of Indiana is located in Bloomington, so this really isn’t too surprising.   This kind of libidiotic PC crap is regrettably quite common in college towns.

    Hey, wait a minute . . . “Indiana”.  Isn’t that rather “culturally insensitive”, too?  (smile)

  • This Might Explain It

    We all know that Ms. Clintoon failed to make any public appearance on election night after it was clear she’d lost.  While she did send John Podesta to make a statement on her behalf that evening, she personally made no public appearance until the following day.

    Well, perhaps we now know why.  Per Political Insider, Ms. Clintoon was reportedly “a bit indisposed”  after the election’s results became known late that evening.

    “Indisposed” . . . as in crying uncontrollably, unable to stop – then subsequently becoming angry, physically attacking two of her senior campaign staff, and having to be physically restrained.  It was also reported that she appeared to be inebriated as well.

    Some have called Ms. Clintoon’s behavior that night a “violent meltdown”.  If the description in the linked article is accurate, I’d say that characterization is spot-on.  I think we all know what Dean Wormer would say about it, too.

    Such “exemplary” behavior is just so . . . Presidential.  Way to “stay classy,” Ms. Clintoon.

    Yeah, I think this might explain quite a bit.  Including why we’re seeing so many immature twits on the Left throw a post-election temper tantrum.

    They’re just playing “follow the leader.”

     

    (Hat tip to longtime TAH reader and commenter ChipNASA for posting the link in comments elsewhere.)

  • Yet Another Dose of PC Stupidity from Academia

    In yet another example of PC asininity, a group of 469 students and professors at a major university have asked the university’s president to refrain from using quotations from a particular historical figure.  In common vernacular, they’ve done so because, in essence, “That’s racist!”

    Yeah, I know – you’re thinking this is just another example of garden-variety academic stupidity.  Well, read on.

    The university in question is the University of Virginia.  The historical figure?  Thomas Jefferson – who founded the University of Virginia in 1819.  The PC tools who signed the letter drafted by an equally clueless group of faculty object to the University of Virginia’s President using Jefferson quotations because he was a slaveowner during the late 1700s and early 1800s.

    I’m serious.

    Unfortunately, the University of Virginia’s president – Dr. Teresa Sullivan – didn’t have the guts to tell the fools, politely, to GFT (plural of GFY).  Her reply was IMO a weasel-worded cop-out, saying that “quoting someone recognizes ‘the potency of that person’s words’ ” without implying “an endorsement of all the social structures and beliefs of his time”.

    No sh!t, Dr. Sullivan.  That’s incredibly obvious to anyone with three or more working brain cells.  Although perhaps you did need to spell it out “see Dick and Jane” style for this particular group of fools.

    Dr. Sullivan should have provided a bit of adult leadership here, but didn’t really do that.   IMO, she should have instead said something along these lines:   “Jefferson was a great man, but was a man of his times.  He was not perfect.  However, his ideas remain sound, and form the basis of our democracy; he also founded this university. 

    As this university’s President, I will continue to quote Jefferson whenever I feel doing so is appropriate.  It’s a free country; in your own writings, feel free to quote him or not as you desire.

    If that last is unacceptable to you, perhaps you should seek your education or employment elsewhere.  Here at the University of Virginia, we allow freedom of speech – even when that involves facts or ideas we find distasteful.”

  • Good Economic News? That Would Be a “No”.

    Well, the latest economic figures are out.  And as has been the case since January 2009, the numbers and trends . . . well, they suck.

    First:  the “official” unemployment rate declined last month – from 5.0% to 4.9%.  That’s good, right?

    Um, not really.  You see, the number of US residents employed actually DECLINED last month – even though the “official” unemployment rate also declined.  While approximately 43,000 people appear to have lost their jobs in October, it seems that that an additional 152,000 also simply quit looking for work during the month.  So though the number of people working declined, because of how the “official” unemployment rate is calculated that number “went down”.

    Yeah, that official “unemployment” rate is a wonderful measure of how well the economy is doing.  Today, 43,000 fewer people are working than the previous month, and 3x that many got discouraged and quit even looking for work – and the number shows “improvement”.  Go figure.

    As I’ve repeatedly said, a much better statistic to look at to determine the US economy’s performance is the labor participation rate.  That is defined as the fraction of the US civilian population that could work that is either working or looking for work.  And that measure DID DECLINE last month – from 62.9% to 62.8%.

    And in case you’re wondering, no – THAT decline is decidedly NOT good news.  What that means is that more than 94,600,000 people who could be working . . . aren’t.

    That’s the second-highest number in US history.  The highest number occurred earlier this year, in May.

    A labor participation rate of 63% or less is, to be blunt, an indicator that the US economy is in the freaking toilet.  Prior to the last several years of economic hard times, the last time the US labor participation rate was 63% or lower was during April 1978 – or 38 1/2 years ago.  That was during Jimmy “We Don’t Need No Steenkin’ Economy” Carter’s  Administration.

    The US labor participation rate was 65.7% in January 2009.  From there, it declined steadily to roughly 63% range, reaching 63% in November 2013.

    It’s been 63% or less ever since then – which means that the US economy has been absolutely in the crapper for a full three years now.

    It’s time to ask this question:  “Are you better off now than you were 8 years ago?”  I’m willing to bet the answer for virtually everyone is, “Oh, hell no!”

    And remember this:  if Clintoon’s elected POTUS next week, we’ll get at least 4 more years of the current Administration’s failed economic policies – or worse.