Surely Just a Coincidence

 In the run up to the 2012 election an Obama campaign website called out Idaho businessman Frank VanderSloot and seven other private donors by name and occupation and slurred them as having “less-than-reputable" records." Then, two months later Mr. VanderSloot received an audit notice from the IRS and two weeks after that the Department of Labor informed him it would audit his business.

Benghazi Matters . . . and Continues To Do So

Pithy Truths From a Comedian

Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is the guy who told his wife he was going for a hike and then went to Argentina to see his girlfriend. He was exposed as an unethical, lying, cheating weasel. In a stunning comeback, he has been elected to Congress, where he’ll fit right in.

According to Forbes magazine, Al Gore is now worth more than $200 million. This is what Gore meant when he talked about going green.

. . . Jay Leno

Worthwhile Sequester Target

Our Failing Media

Noting that the American press has been asleep at the switch on the Obama administration's Benghazi debacle grossly understates the media's malfeasance on the matter.

It's lack of curiosity about, and examination of what transpired to permit the terrorist murder of four Americans and its facilitating participation in the administration's coverup of that travesty shows that our journalice today are so blinded by their ideology that they are blissfully unaware of the existence of a switch at which they might sleep.

Similarly, it is incorrect to suggest that the press today would ignore officialdom's orchastration of a Watergate-like burglary.  Were the Obama gang to find a need for any such break in, the nation's journalice would rush to commit it for the administration.

An Ego-Driven Bridge Too New

Thanks to the ego-driven one-time mayors Brown of San Francisco and Oakland – Willy and Jerry, respectively – Bay Area motorists have been risking their lives for nigh on to a quarter century by driving across the unsafe bridge linking the two cities.

A portion of the span collapsed in the Loma Prieta earthquake in the fall of 1989, and that clue led to a determination that the eastern half of the heavily traveled bridge was unsafe. It could have been reinforced or replaced by a conventional bridge quickly and economically, but that was unacceptable to the Brown mayors, who insisted on an ego-satisfying “signature structure.”

Thus the two mayors gambled the lives of many but uncounted thousands of motorists for the 24 years that have elapsed while hugely expensive design contest and decision, contractor selection, and still ongoing construction processes took place.

The still-to-be-completed replacement bridge will in fact be a spectacular and unique structure . . . assuming that it eventually actually will be completed and put into use.  But whether and when that ever will occur is becoming increasingly questionable.  What is unquestionable is that the costs and tolls to finance them have multiplied and are continuing to multiply astronomically.

In their insistence on a new and unique structure the political Browns ignored some long accepted wisdom that was shared among mature people even though, like the two mayors, they lacked any engineering training – new and unique also means untested and subject to unknown inadequacies, defects, and problems.

For example, in the long ago days of this blogger’s youth, it was a truism that it was the better part of wisdom to defer buying a new automobile until after the desired model’s first year of production.  That allowed the design engineers an opportunity to deal with and and correct the inevitable initial bugs.  A more recent and vastly more tragic example is the collapse of Manhattan’s World Trade towers when terrorist flew aircraft into them on September 11, 2001.  The structures’ modern design failed – a marked contrast to the integrity of the traditionally designed and built Empire State Building that was barely scathed when a B-25 bomber flew into it during Word War II.

In the case of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge the first new and unique “signature” bugs surfaced a few months ago at about the same time the local political powers that be had scheduled a bridge-opening celebration for the coming Labor Day weekend..  At the time, construction of the bridge seemed to be nearing completion. But then it was discovered that some steel bolts that had been installed and were no longer readily accessible had snapped.  The defective bolts are necessary for the bridge’s structural integrity.  It is notable that the bolts snapped before even being subjected to the weight of just the completed bridge, let alone the stress of a full load of traffic or an earthquake.

That startling discovery raised numerous mind boggling (and still largely unanswered) questions about what else was, or could go wrong, and led to multiple investigations and efforts to determine how the defects had occurred, who was responsible for them, and how they could be corrected . . . hopefully in time for the politically scheduled Labor Day opening (as well a the associated $5.6 million taxpayer funded congratulatory party the politicians planned to throw to celebrate themselves and one another for having won the gamble on which they bet the safety of the bridge's users).

Instead though, the still ongoing inquiries have resulted in a cascade of discoveries of  serious new and additional problems.

Among the lessons to be learned from this are (i) the inadvisability of allowing politicians to have any say over how necessary infrastructure components should be designed and built, and (ii) the advisability of not buying a bridge in its first model year.  Incidentally, bridges designed and built by the Romans throughout its European empire still are in everyday use throughout the continent.

Former S.F. Mayor Willy Brown has retired from public office and has gone uncharacteristically silent about the bridge about which he theretofore had been bragging.  Former Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown is like the Bourbon kings of France – never forgetting anything but never learning anything either.  With undiminished hubris, Jerry, who now is California’s governor, is pushing for massive new and novel projects to be funded by the taxpayers – a bullet train between the northern and southern portions of the state and a tunnel system to syphon water available and needed in the north from there to the naturally parched south. 

One Founder Foresaw Obama

Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.

. . . Benjamin Franklin

The Truth Behind the Government's Rosy Employment Report

If the Labor Participation Rate had remained steady throughout the Obama years, a full 161 million Americans would be in the workforce and the unemployment rate would be at 10.8 percent. 

Noteworthy Observation

Isn't it strange that after a bombing, everyone blames the bomber, but after a shooting, the problem is the gun?

Not That Long Ago

Obama's mouthpiece puppet Jay Carney yesterday sloughed off a media question about the Benghazi terrorist murders of  Americans with a dismissive statement that the carnage occurred "a long time ago."

Well, Mr. Carney, the American ambassador and the former special forces heroes who endeavored to rescue him are still dead . . . so shame on you.

Furthermore, the questions about the craven conduct of this country's leaders in abandoning the victims of the onslaught to die never have been answered.  Those responsible for ignoring the prolonged attack and the shameful failure to mount any rescue effort while it was in progress never have been identified or held accountable. 

So the questions are very much alive and demand answers despite the evasive efforts of the glib empty suits, poseurs, and shills like Mr. Carney who currently populate our government,

Media Drowning In Ideological Sewer

Just when one thought the nation's newsrooms couldn't sink any lower they demonstrated anew their ability to disseminate pap not justified by any news judgement based on rational thought, critical thinking, or intellectual insights.

For the better part of the past two days significant occurrences that deserved public attention were given short shrift or ignored altogether as an obscure athlete -- one that I never had heard of and whose name I already have forgotten -- was made an instant (though temporary) celebrity by the media for having publicly proclaimed that he is a pervert.  Of course the nation's opportunistic politicians joined the press in adulating the narcissistic exhibitionist deviant.

But really, who gives a damn about any stranger's sex life and preferences?  Such things are better left private, as they used to be.  Personally, I'm with Queen Victoria for reputedly having said (in response to homosexual conduct being described to her) that she didn't care what they did so long as they didn't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.

Meanwhile, however, the press continued and still continues to ignore such minor hallmarks of American life -- to mention just two -- as:

* The murder trial of a Philadelphia abortion doctor who is accused of gruesomely murdering at least one woman and a bunch of babies, as well as 

* The continuing lies and coverup by our government about how and why it abandoned its ambassador to Libya and a several other of our heroic countrymen to die in a terrorist attack in Benghazi.

One has to wonder about the moral and intellectual squalor of the nation's newsrooms, and by whom and how news judgments and decisions are being made there.

Religious Law Comes to the U.S.

In enacting legislation that legalizes both gay marriage and marijuana, the State of Washington -- perhaps unintentionally -- adopted a Biblical admonition.  Leviticus 20:13 states:

If a man lies with another man they should be stoned.