Mr. Orwell, Please Pick Up The White Courtesy Phone...

Matthew's Weekend Commentary

The Lunatic's  Asylum:

   

The handsome devil to the left is one Eric Arthur Blair, better known to the world as George Orwell.

Mr. Orwell was the author of some of the greatest anti-authoritarian novels of all time. Books like 1984 and Animal Farm will stand the test of time as classics, and he was also an accomplished essayist, book reviewer, and journalist. Orwell, despite the fact that he was a Socialist, is one of my heroes.

As if that were a secret? I only bust out an Orwell reference about every thirty seconds, sometimes.

He’s a hero to me because, unlike most writers of his day -- a good many of whom are given the honorific of ‘great’ for little to no reason beyond that they appeal to pansy academics -- he dared to speak the truth, plainly and as he saw it. He did not apologize for his political positions, but did do his best to convince you of their veracity and utility with a command of the language that has been matched by very few. Compared to Orwell, in terms of the use of the English language, Shakespeare was a drooling idiot.

I was reminded of George, again, as soon as the scale of recent Obama Administration Scandals (hereafter OAS, for brevity's sake) was made public. Or rather, I should say, that at least what anyone is wiling to tell us with regards to OAS, because I don't believe we'll be getting anything close to a full reckoning on any of it until Barack Obama is safely enjoying a lavish retirement paid for with stolen money in France, with the rest of the deposed African tin-pot dictators.

Anyways, the whole sordid mess spawned this particular headline which is both hysterically funny, and all-too-sad:

Sales of 1984 rise 6,000% overnight after news of NSA Scandal Breaks.

For the benefit of those of you who went to public school, or who grew up waiting for books to become movies, I'll explain why that is a such a shocking headline.......

National Archives Leak Documents

Founders Fathers Online

This afternoon, the National Archives launched Founders Online—a tool for seamless searching across the Papers of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton.

Through Founders Online you can now trace the shaping of the nation, the extraordinary clash of ideas, the debates and discussions carried out through drafts and final versions of public documents as well as the evolving thoughts and principles shared in personal correspondence, diaries, and journals. This beta version of Founders Online was funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) and contains over 119,000 documents. New documents will be added to the site on a continual basis.

 _________________________________________

It's a Tough Job Being the House Minority Leader...

On America Adrift

"We must stop waving our extended arms in an effort to balance ourselves as we tiptoe along the edges of the Constitution in an effort not to upset weak-kneed appeasers with our unflinching belief in the ideas that made our country different and, yes, great. Are we losing America to the inevitable onrushing tide of history? No. But we’re in a storm, the mast is broken, the compass is off , and there’s a damn big hole in the boat. We have allowed ourselves to be manipulated by others, many of whom want to impose their culture and laws under the manufactured utopian idea that all all cultures are equal and most of them are better than America.

America is a culture, it has a culture, and it must be recognized….We must not allow our collective memory to fade or morph into trendy revisionist versions of political correctness, which become a substitute for the truth.” - Roger Ailes, Chairman Fox News

The 2013 Paul Revere Awards

Yesterday I was presented with the honor of a 2013 Paul Revere Award from the most excellent blogger and photo-shop artist, Curmudgeon of Political Clown Parade.

It is always an honor to be linked, mentioned or reposted on others blogs, and even higher honor to be recognized for your hard work and many hours spent that may go unnoticed at times.  

I Thank You my Dear Curmudgeon, and to the top of the trophy case it goes. 

I always said I could use a little more bust. In addition, now maybe people will pay more attention to me as I ride through town hollerin' out my car window.  

Here is a list of this years recipients:

Adrienne’s Corner 

Capitalist Preservation
Diogenes’ Middle Finger
Earl Of Taint
Maggie’s Notebook
Pirate’s Cove
Proof Positive
 Randy’s Roundtable
 Reaganite Republican
 Sultan Knish
 The Daley Gator
 The Looking Spoon
 Western Hero
 Woodsterman

 Zilla of the Resistance

On Striking a Balance Between Security and Freedom:

"Obama asks us to trust that he's using power judiciously. Under President Bush, liberals were never given reason to fear that government power was being used to persecute them. Enough said.

"The president assures us that 'no one is listening to our phone calls,' and that may be true. But this administration also assured us that no sweeping data collection on American citizens was going on, that the IRS was not unfairly singling out conservatives, that the Justice Department had not attempted to prosecute journalists, and that the Benghazi attack was the response to a video.

"It would be nice to trust the president, but it wouldn't be wise."

— Mona Charen, Nationally Syndicated Columnist

INFOWAR's Alex Jones To Write Autobiography

MIDDLE FINGER NEWS SERVICE

Noted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is currently in negotiations to write his life story. The working title is, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf Thinks The Sky Is Falling.”  

The details of the book are severely under-wraps because Jones is fearful that the government will sell his information to secret communist Martians who are looking to construct a constitution based on his manifesto and coercion techniques.

It would seem that Mr. Jones wants all who purchase his book to read it, then immediately burn it because he doesn’t want the government to learn his secrets, but also doesn’t want to lose the profit of you buying into his book.  

Jones has been apprehensive about even releasing the title because he’s fearful the government will find the printing press, insert tiny explosive devices into every copy, and then put the blame back onto him.  

The only reason Middle Finger News was able to bring the news of Jones’ new book to you was a promise to never trust the government again, move our organization underground, and barricade ourselves in an explosion-proof bunker while only communicating with the outside world through a new version of Morris Code unbeknown to the United States federal government.

We lied.

Finding Out if Your Potential Employee is an Ex-con is Now Considered Racist.....

This Government has gone Slap-Ass Crazy

Attorney General Eric Holder - Hopefully in Position to Fail Criminal Background Check Soon 

WSJ - Federal regulators Tuesday accused two large employers of improperly using criminal-background checks in hiring, the latest salvo in a contentious debate over whether such screening amounts to discrimination against black applicants.

In complaints filed in federal courts in Illinois and South Carolina, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said two companies discount retailer Dollar General Corp.and a U.S. unit of German auto maker BMW ,generally barred potential employees based on the criminal checks, when they should have reviewed each applicant. The commission said the policies had the effect of discriminating against black applicants......"

Ms. Moore said rules concerning criminal-background checks are particularly important because blacks are convicted of crimes more often than whites. According to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, black men were incarcerated in 2010 at more than six times the rate of white men and nearly three times the rate of Hispanic men.

Mr. Lopez, the EEOC general counsel, said the Dollar General and BMW cases are "very serious systemic race discrimination cases." At both companies, the EEOC cited statistical disparities in the hiring rates of blacks and nonblacks after the companies ran criminal-background checks....."

Dollar General said it "prohibits discrimination in its hiring and employment practices." The retailer said its criminal background checks are "structured to foster a safe and healthy environment for its employees, its customers, and to protect its assets in a lawful, reasonable and nondiscriminatory manner."

At BMW, the EEOC alleges that the auto maker hired a new logistics contractor at its Spartanburg, S.C., assembly plant in 2008, and required 645 employees of the prior contractor to undergo a new criminal background check. Of those, 55% were black; but 80% of the 88 terminated employees were black. Some of the dismissed employees had worked for various contractors at the BMW plant for as long as 14 years. BMW employs 9,000 people in the U.S.

[SNIP]

As stated in the story above, business owners have the right to protect their assets, employees and customers. No one I know of in this day and age denies employment because of skin color or national origin, those are not choices. But as an adult, if you make the choice to molest children , steal or jack convenience stores on Saturday nights for fun and profit, don't come to my window and then cry because I won't hire you no matter what you look like. And the government shouldn't be telling me otherwise!

Depends on Whose Ox is Being Gored: Al Franken Style

Senator Al Franken

It's pretty lonely to be the National Security Agency right now. The revelation of a massive data-collection program has left many progressive senators criticizing the agency, from Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. But one of the other most liberal senators in Congress is so far speaking out in NSA's support.

Al Franken, the Minnesota Dipshit Democrat who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, knew about the data-mining. Or at least that's what he told Minnesota's WCCO on Tuesday. "I can assure you, this is not about spying on the American people," Franken said. The senator also believes the data collection has saved American lives:

"I have a high level of confidence that this is used to protect us, and I know that it has been successful in preventing terrorism.There are certain things that are appropriate for me to know that is not appropriate for the bad guys to know."

Last Thursday, Franken issued a press release that expressed concern about the privacy-security balance in the NSA program.

Franken hasn't always been so forgiving of similar practices. At a September 2009 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the reauthorization of expiring components of the USA Patriot Act, Franken read the Fourth Amendment to the assistant attorney general for national security as a means of questioning the act's "roving wiretap" provision. Franken would also eventually vote against a 2012 reauthorization of the FISA amendments that give the government wide surveillance authority.

But in an early 2006 AlterNet interview before he was officially running for Senate, Franken disparaged the Bush administration's NSA warrantless-surveillance program, laughing off a similar rationale to the one he's used in part to justify the current program:

"They're trying to justify these warrantless wiretaps by saying, "Oh, it's al-Qaida!" One guy is saying it's just al-Qaida--the Hayden guy, and then on the other hand, you hear from the FBI that they were inundated with referrals on all kinds of stuff with these calls, so much so that they couldn't get to their real work, and that none of the referrals led anywhere.

I think it's a Roveian strategy: "We win on national security; we'll scare people, and then we'll just win."  

Just being reminded this nit-wit got elected and is on the Judiciary Committee makes my skin crawl.  And no, people of Minnesota, you are not excused. 

Biden: Gun Control ‘Fight Is Far From Over’

Since the first Round Went So well, Let's Go for Two, Joe.

WASHINGTON (AP) —Six months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, some of the victims’ families are heading to Capitol Hill to remind lawmakers they are painfully waiting for action, while some of the president’s allies are asking him to do more without any new prospects of legislation to toughen gun laws.

Gun control advocates also are anticipating further action from President Barack Obama, who said he would do everything he could to stem gun violence even without Congress.

The Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank with close ties to the White House, is asking Obama to issue a dozen more executive actions they say are within his power to reduce gun crimes. The group has been pushing those measures in meetings with the White House, where point man Vice President Joe Biden declared in an email to supporters Friday, “This fight is far from over.”

Obama issued 23 executive actions in the aftermath of Sandy Hook and hasn’t ruled out doing more. His aides say he isn’t planning to announce any new initiatives or hold a gun-related event this week but will likely acknowledge the anniversary.

Read More 

Obama Goes Full Biden in Press Q&A

The Curious Russian Afterlife of Actor Steven Seagal

Long, long ago – for about 15 minutes – Steven Seagal was a big deal in Hollywood. His movie “Under Siege” made a lot of money. But that was pretty much it. Next came a string of big-budget flops followed by a lengthy and ongoing twilight spent in straight-to-video purgatory. As for me, I don’t think I’ve ever made it all the way through a Seagal film. His stiff, tubby frame, extreme humorlessness and mystic posturing make it impossible for me to suspend disbelief. Here in the US he serves as a punch line, part of the flotsam and jetsam of trash culture.
 
Indeed, Seagal has sunk so low that a few years ago he starred in an awful reality show named “Steven Seagal: Lawman,” which followed the bloated actor around down here in Louisiana as he helped cops solve crimes. Seagal claimed to be some kind of reserve policeman. In one episode he drove a tank into the wall of a man’s home who was suspected of raising roosters for cockfighting. Soon afterward a member of Seagal’s SWAT team shot the fellow’s dog. A lawsuit ensued.

Hollywood Z-Lister  and Former
Bad Ass Steven  Seagal 

That wasn't Seagal’s only bout of legal trouble in recent years. Shortly before the tank incident, he was accused of tricking female personal assistants into becoming his “sex slaves”, while last year a former business partner with known mafia connections took Seagal to court for not paying his debts. All of this scandal and absurdity tends to overshadow Seagal’s claim to be the reincarnation of Chungdrag Dorje, a 17th-century “treasure revealer” of Tibetan Buddhism – much to his frustration, I am sure.

Given all his trouble at home, it’s not difficult to understand why Seagal has been spending so much time in Russia lately. Back in March he opened a martial arts center in Moscow with Vladimir Putin himself. Putin of course is a big judo fan, and Seagal used to be a martial arts instructor. Watching video of the ceremony, I was struck by Seagal’s fake goatee. It was on his face when he was with Putin, but subsequently vanished when he took to the mat for a demonstration of morbidly obese old-man judo. Mysterious; and yet Seagal’s disappearing beard drew no comment from journalists anywhere.

Last May, Seagal (with beard) popped up in Chechnya, hot on the heels of fellow washed-up action dude Jean-Claude Van Damme and Russian patriot Gerard Depardieu. The republic's leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who definitely looks like the kind of guy who enjoys Steven Seagal movies, declared the corpulent master of kung fu “almost a Chechen.”

And then last weekend things turned from surreal to tasteless as Seagal (without beard) showed up in Beslan, where over 380 people, including many children, died during the 2004 siege. According to a spokesman, Seagal declared that he would dedicate the rest of his life to “fighting terrorism,” though in what capacity remains unclear. On Tuesday, however, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin revealed that he wanted to offer Seagal a job as a global sales rep for Russian weapons. A curious post for a Buddhist, but maybe – given all these lawsuits – he needs the cash. Not since Vaclav Havel offered Frank Zappa the position of cultural attache' for the Czech Republic has a government made such a bizarre offer.

So maybe I should go easy on the star-struck Kadyrov as he proclaims his admiration for Steven Seagal. Maybe in Russia, people aren’t up on the scandals about dead puppies, alleged sex slaves, and the mafia stuff. On the other hand, when Seagal visited Beslan last weekend he did so in the company of a group of American congressmen. And I ask you, what was going on there? Didn’t one of them stop and think, isn’t this the guy who sells an energy drink named “Lightning Bolt” and who released an easy-listening album called “Songs from the Crystal Cave”? What the hell is he doing here?

A Good Monday Morning

The Air Ship of State

Earl of Taint

Middle Finger Symphony Theater:

*No Tuxedos Required*