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

Category: WTF?

  • More News About the Clintoons

    Well,time for a recap of recent info about Clintoon and her email issues.  And we have some other recemt news about that “fine upstanding individual” and others around her, too.

    (Yeah, that part in quotes in the preceding para is satire – as is some of the commentary about Wasserman Schultz below.  That should be obvious as hell.  However, at least one of our frequent commenters often appears unable to recognize satire unless it’s explicitly flagged as such.  I thus elected to do so.)

    First:  Ms. Clintoon recently claimed that the FBI was merely conducting a “security inquiry” into that unauthorized and marginally-if-at-all secured “private e-mail server” that she used after flatly refusing to use official government email systems for official business.  (Yes, that’s the same e-mail server that has been confirmed to have contained over 2,000 classified items, some of which were classified Top Secret and were either compartmented or SAP material.)  Well, unfortunately for her, she didn’t coordinate that      baldfaced lie       account with FBI Director James Comey before publicly telling it.  Comey flatly contradicted Clintoon’s assertion, stating outright that the FBI is indeed conducting an investigation relating to the matter – not some type of “security inquiry”.

    However:  fear not, Clintoon fans!  That paragon of truth and sincerity, the DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is positive . . . that Clintoon is NOT a target of that FBI investigation.  She recently said exactly that in an interview.

    Sure, Debbie.  And I’m the Emperor of China, too.

    Geez.   Why in the hell do you think the FBI is interviewing all her closest aides before interviewing her, Debbie?  It’s called “building a case”, you ditz!

    It now appears that refusing to use government email systems – then having classified information sent to her on a private server not authorized for receipt of same – aren’t the only security corners that Clintoon cut while SECSTATE.  Seems she also on occasion refused to use secure voice communications systems as well, directing subordinates to call her on a private device in order to have a sensitive conversation.

    It also appears that the “hits” aren’t limited to Ms. Clintoon, either.  Remember a couple of years ago, when Clintoon’s husband – cigar-and-intern-lover “Slick Willie” himself – was reported to have flown “a few times” with a reputed wealthy perv and pedophile to various locations (some OCONUS) on said individual’s private jet?  Well, it turns out that aircraft logs show he in fact did that on far many more occasions than initially reported – on over 22 occasions, to be precise, vice the 11 that were originally reported by the press.  (And yeah – that last linked article does describe stuff that seems pretty damn sordid to me.)  On at least 5 of the trips, Willie apparently also managed to ditch his security detail while traveling with that “fine fellow”.

    Nice people.  Maybe they should go into public service.

    After all:  they’re apparently quite experienced at “servicing” the American public.

  • Yer Monday Smile: Wonder If Anyone We “Know and Love” Might Be Interested?

    Ain’t modern medicine wonderful?

    First penis transplant in U.S. performed in Boston

    This not a worldwide first.  The first successful such surgery was apparently performed in South Africa some 2 years ago.  It is, however, the first such surgery in the US.

    The individual concerned has yet to heal, so it’s unknown whether or not he’ll eventually be able to “cometh” or not.  (smile)  There’s also no word on whether the procedure was/will be covered under Medicare, Medicaid, or an ObamaCare policy – which would mean American taxpayers help pay for it.

     

  • Don’t Try These At Home. Or Anywhere Else.

    Well, we have a couple of examples of “things not to do” today, courtesy of Fox News.

    First:  do not engage in celebratory gunfire at a wedding.  (Or anywhere else, for that matter.)

    Why?  Well, sometimes it doesn’t turn out all that well.

    The guy survived, but I’m sure that his wedding night wasn’t exactly what he’d planned.  Police are reportedly investigating the incident.

    Second:  guns and “selfies” don’t mix.  Jonn’s written about this a couple of times before – here, and here – and warned everyone that’s not a good idea.  Looks like someone didn’t bother to listen.

    Not picking on India today, these two stories just happened to both be about incidents occurring in that nation  And with a population approaching  one and one-third billion, the law of averages rather dictates you’ll see some spectacular stupidity from time to time.

  • “And the Hits Just Keep On Coming” . . . for the VA

    We all know that the VA has serious problems.  But this appears to be a new – and disgusting – issue that hasn’t previously surfaced.   Maybe you want to wait until well after lunch before reading the linked story from Fox.

    Whistleblower: Cockroaches served in food
    at Chicago-area VA hospital

    In this case, the “whistleblower” is one Ms. Germaine Clarno – president of the facility’s AFGE Local.

    If the name “Germaine Clarno” seems familiar, it should.  Jonn’s written about her before.

    In case you’re forgotten: Clarno is the same “whistleblower” that refused to discuss other issues involving patient care with Republican Members of Congress from Illinois after her preferred Democratic officials did squat when she brought those issues to their attention.  Clarno herself admits that the issues were serious enough that people died needlessly.

    Then again, when you’re willing to play politics when lives are literally at stake I guess you’re willing to do the same when the food is substandard or vermin-infested. And I’m guessing Clarno’s known about the food issue for a while, too – she says, “It’s been like this for years, ever since anyone can remember.”

    The linked Fox article’s worth reading; so is the article Fox in turn links from Conservative Review, which gives more details.  But as I said earlier:  maybe you should wait an hour or so after having lunch to read either.

    Sad.  As well as infuriating – and absolutely inexcusable.

  • That’ll Teach Him to Sleep on the Job!

    One guy found out the hard way that sleeping on the job isn’t a good thing.

    Seems that the other day, a Fedex employee was at work.  He was working the graveyard shift.  About 4AM he got really sleepy; he dozed off.

    He woke up somewhat later – and discovered he had a rather serious problem.

    You see, Memphis is Fedex’s air hub location; the guy worked for Fedex at the Memphis Airport.  His job was loading Fedex cargo and packages onto aircraft.

    The guy had dozed off on board one of Fedex’s aircraft, in the cargo bay, in Memphis.  When the guy woke up, that Fedex plane was was now airborne – and en route to Lubbock, TX.

    The aircrew discovered the stowaway during the flight, and alerted LE on arrival at Lubbock Airport.  The guy was questioned and released.

    No word on whether the guy has been fired by Fedex.

    Fox News has an article with a few more details.  It’s a hoot.

  • Another Reason to Be Thankful You Live in the USA

    If you ever wanted another good reason to thank God you’re NOT an expresso-sipping, cheese-eating Metrosexual Euroweenie – here it is.

    Recently, a German comedian wrote a satirical and suggestive poem about a public figure.  He recited the poem on a German TV show.

    Unfortunately, in Europe their concept of freedom of speech (and of freedom in general) isn’t quite the same as ours.  The public figure was insulted – and requested a criminal investigation of the comedian be opened.

    Why?  It seems here that the public figure here was Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan – a foreign head-of-state.  And under an obscure provision of German law, that is not legal in Germany.  Specifically, insulting a foreign head-of-state violates Article 103 of Germany’s penal code.  And that “crime” carries a maximum penalty of 3 years in prison – or up to 5 years if it is deemed a “slanderous insult”.

    No, I’m not joking.

    On Ergodan’s request, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has approved initiation of a criminal investigation into the matter.   She’s also indicated she will “move to repeal the controversial and little-used Article 103 of the penal code” by 2018.

    Yeah, I’m sure the German comedian in question is just thrilled to hear about the latter.

    Logically, this should go over well in Berkeley and similar places.  After all, criminalizing free speech helps to create “safe spaces” where people are protected from “disturbing speech and ideas”.  But in the rest of the US . . . maybe not so much.

    Any American who doesn’t thank God daily that they are an American is a damned fool.

  • More ObamaPhone “Good News”

    I’ve previously written about the “Lifeline” program here at TAH, now commonly referred to as “ObamaPhones”.  Well, the program is back in the news.  And as was the case previously . . . it’s not exactly in the news for the right reasons.

    When I last wrote about the program around 2 1/2 years ago, it was riddled with fraud.  Indicators at the time were that the program’s fraud rate appeared to be about 40%.

    As you might recall:  the program is funded by fees collected by the FCC on telecommunications services.  Yeah, you’re reading that correctly:  that means you and I pay for it whenever we pay our phone or Internet service bill.  And since it’s effectively funded by a revolving “slush fund” collected from paying telecommunications users, the program doesn’t get that much visibility – or Congressional oversight.

    So, how are things 2 1/2 years later?

    BLUF:  the program still appears to be rife with fraud and abuse.  The FCC recently caught one of the program’s service providers – Total Call – internally duplicating sign-up records and collecting excess funds based on those duplicated records (as well as bypassing other program rules).  The FCC is asking Total Call to return around $9.7M worth of those improper fees, plus has assessed them a whopping fine.

    Gee, great!  That means the FCC is really “raking them over the coals”– right?

    Well, not really.  The FCC is indeed hitting Total Call for $51M – $9.7M to recover fees paid for duplicate claims, plus around $41.3M in fines.  But even including the fines, it appears the FCC will only recover a fraction of the total fees paid to Total Call for their duplicative and bogus claims.

    The nearly $10M in bogus fees referenced above represents what Total Call collected from the FCC for 2,587 duplicate claims.  The actual total of duplicate claims paid was 32,498.  The FCC apparently is simply going to ignore the other almost 30,000 bogus duplicate submissions – and recover nothing for those.

    Estimates are that the actual loss to the government due to all of those bogus claims was over $84M – not $9.7M.  That means the government is collecting less than 12% or so of what was wrongfully paid to Total Call.  Even including the fines, the FCC is only recovering around 60% or so of the actual loss.

    Gee – collect $84+M in bogus fees, then return $9.7M and pay $41.3M in fines.  Doing the math, that means Total Call is somewhere around $39M ahead.  Sounds like a real deterrent to future similar schemes, doesn’t it?

    But as bad as that is, that’s not the worst “stinker” here.

    The FCC recently voted to expand the “ObanaPhone” program (Lifeline) yet again.  On 1 April 2016, the FCC – in a 3-2 vote – approved expansion of the program to include 3G wireless broadband.

    Yeah, you read that right.  Now, not only with ObamaPhone users be able to “phone home” on the taxpayer’s dime – they’ll also have subsidized data services, too.  Can you say “web surfing”?

    But wait – I haven’t even told you the best part yet.  The issues with Total Call described above were known to the FCC in late March.  However, information concerning that apparent scam was not released to the public until after the FCC vote on whether to approve the broadband expansion on 1 April.  Further, FCC personnel – including the 5 FCC commission members – were told not to discuss the matter publicly until after the vote.

    Now, why might the FCC want to keep this under wraps until after they voted on the program’s expansion?  Well, “Avoiding public outcry and complaints” sounds like one rather obvious answer to me.  “Trying to ‘fly under the radar’ ” regarding the program’s expansion to include wireless broadband also comes to mind.

    However, we should be used to crap like this by now.  I mean, really:  based on the past 7+ years we should know to expect stuff like this from “the most transparent Administration in history”.

    The Washington Free Beacon has an excellent article that discusses the above.  Their article has more details on the about the FCC’s investigation; about Total Call and it’s checkered past history with the ObamaPhone (formally “Lifeline”) program; and the intentional hiding of the incident until after the recent FCC vote.  It’s IMO definitely worth a read.

    Sheesh.  This kind of crap simply needs to stop.  Yesterday.

  • Yer Sunday Funny: “Donna the Deer Lady”

    This happened at KOYY-FM, 93.7, in Fargo/Moorehead, ND, in either Sep or Oct 2012. It happened on their “Morning Playhouse” show.

    The incident was reported by numerous news outlets (Fox, Huffington, Daily Caller, and others). The caller later followed-up with the station, taking ownership of the original call and acknowledging that she’d been in error.

    So, there you go. Yes, we can easily greatly reduce or eliminate deer strikes by autos. All we have to do is move the deer crossings to safer locations. (smile)