The state of Detroit explained

There are a number of theories and explanations for the decline of the city of Detroit.  From being the city with the highest per-capita income to the largest municipal bankruptcy is a steep and tragic decline.

However, here at the OC, we have photographic evidence of what's made Detroit the city is is today.

We rest our case.

Stolen from It Aint Holy Water.

I Can't Believe They Let You Do That!

Bill Whittle, talking about his recent holiday trip.  It starts off with "Well, I was in Texas for Thanksgiving this year.  I flew in from Los Angeles and it's always such a pleasure to visit the United States of America.  I was raised there as a boy myself."



Plain talk, straight and to the heart.  Wish I would have a chance to have a couple beers with the fellow some day.

H/T to The Daley Gator.

Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics and Obamacare Numbers

“Obama administration officials admitted Monday that roughly 126,000 Americans who successfully navigated the Obamacare website and enrolled in a new health insurance plan might not have officially signed up for their plans.”

H/T to Freedom is Just Another Word.

Who's at fault?

Stolen in its entirety from NRO's The Corner is this gem from Mark Steyn:

A mentally disturbed man is wandering through traffic outside New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal. Naturally, the NYPD open fire. They miss the guy. However, the sidewalks being full of people, they manage to hit two female pedestrians, one of them already using a walker, which comes in handy when the coppers shoot you in the leg.

 So the DA charges the guy with assaulting the women:

“The defendant is the one that created the situation that injured innocent bystanders,” said an assistant district attorney, Shannon Lucey.

Ah, yes: the “situation” injured the innocent bystanders. If you outlaw guns, only situations will have guns.

The defendant is looking at 25 years in jail for the crime of provoking law enforcement into shooting random citizens. If this flies in New York, then there is no law.

This is just the latest in the even growing trend whereby just about anything you do can be construed as a crime.  The rush to criminalize ordinary behavior is one more example of the ever-expanding reach of The State to control and punish the citizenry.

Forgetful

Somehow the OC managed to miss a historic anniversary yesterday.  Nope, not the one with Mrs. OC.  It was something even more significant.

December 5, 2013 was the 80th anniversary of the effective date of the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution.  Which, for the non-constitutional scholars in the audience, repealed the 18th Amendment.  Which established Prohibition.

Prohibition created many things, but they didn't include clean living for all Americans.  It created organized crime on a scale never before seen.  It created a nation of scofflaws.  It created a culture of corruption.  Sorta like an early version of the Obama administration.

You see, it was all an attempt by do-gooders to control the lives of Americans.  They knew better.  They knew what was good for the "people" and they sold it to the unsuspecting rubes.  Sorta like Obamacare.  (Are we detecting a theme?)

In any case, here are two photos stolen from Powerline.  Myself - it will be a "wee dram" of a fine whiskey tonight to belatedly toast the eventual wisdom of the American people.  Maybe today's America will wake up just like they did in 1933.

Not the first time

Seems that the OC is a bit behind the times.  This is at least the second time this week that The One has interposed himself into the public memory of a noted figure.

Must be something to be so wonderful - and to know it's all about yourself.

It's all about The One

Nelson Mandela died today.  Grand talk about his impact on South Africa and the world.  All true.

But don't forget the associations with the Communist Party.  Don't forget about the terror tactics used by his African National Congress.

Finally, getting to our headline.

 

How else would a narcissist note the passing of a world-renowned leader? Yep, by posting a picture of himself.

Stolen from Knowledge is Power.

Your moral betters in action

Harry Reid once again shows his stripes.  There is the law for you and me, but a separate one for the privileged and elite.

From CNN:

Washington (CNN) -- Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, one of Obamacare's architects and staunchest supporters, is also the only top congressional leader to exempt some of his staff from having to buy insurance through the law's new exchanges.

You see, they are our betters.  They know what we need for our lives.  And they also know that isn't what they want for themselves.

Remember that whenever you see such hypocrisy and elitism.

Post 1600

News is out on the future plans of Barack Obama.

No, we aren't talking about what to do with Obamacare.  Or Syria.  Or Iran.  Or Russia.  And not about North Korea, unemployment, stagnant wages, tepid economic results or national defense.

It turns out that Obama wants to transition from the most powerful man in the world, (though some say that's now Vladimir Putin), to host of SportsCenter.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

If you have any doubt as to how much of a sports junkie Barack Obama is, check in with the entertainment moguls who attended a private briefing with the president Nov. 26 before his speech at Jeffrey Katzenberg's DreamWorks Animation campus in Glendale.

At the end of the conversation -- which touched on a myriad of topics, from piracy to Iran -- Obama revealed what's at the top of his bucket list post-White House: "At least I know what I want to do when I retire … host ESPN SportsCenter's Top 10 list," Obama quipped as he turned to Disney's Robert Iger, whose empire includes ESPN.

 That day can't come soon enough.  Even the prospect of President Biden doesn't faze me.

Good riddance!!

Well....hell froze over today, but only in one small spot of the liberal universe.  Martin Bashir, of MSNBC ilk, has resigned.  About time, but unfortunately, it's not enough given the liberal pantheon of hate.

From Howard Kurtz at Fox:

Bashir had already apologized for what he called "offensive" comments about the former Alaska governor, whom he also called an "idiot" and "dunce." He told viewers in a scripted commentary last month that someone should defecate in Palin's mouth. He was invoking an old slave punishment in response to a speech by Palin, a Fox News contributor, comparing the national debt to slavery.

You see....it's ok for liberals to slam conservatives.  How many times was there the "Bushitler" reference?  The calls for Cheney to die of a heart attack?  The slurs and insulting characterizations of Palin?

But that all acceptable.  These are the right people, attacking those evil Republicans.  They are on the side of compassion and understanding.  Except for when they are the ones casting the hate.

Bashir took off two weeks for what was billed as a vacation, and criticism mounted as MSNBC took no disciplinary action against him, even as it booted Alec Baldwin over an alleged anti-gay slur hurled at a photographer. In retrospect, it's clear that by failing to suspend Bashir, MSNBC allowed public pressure to build to the point where the only way to control the damage was to sever its relationship with the British journalist.

Baldwin was an easy one to toss under the bus.  He had violated the rule of speaking ill of one of the Democrat's protected classes.  And he wasn't really a "journalist".  But by skating on Bashir, the hypocrisy over the double standard was too easy to juxtapose.  Attack gays -- get canned.  Attack Palin -- well, take a vacation.

Further, look what it took to get MSNBC to take action.  It wasn't the "idiot" or "dunce".  It was only when Bashir got scatalogical did he cross the MSNBC "line".  Shouldn't that line be much closer to the center?

So, MSNBC cleans its gene pool a bit.  The only question is whether they will now take a stand when the race-baiting Al Sharpton crosses the line.   Along with the others on their payroll.  My bet is that the word has gone out -- keep up the slanderous attacks, but stop short of human waste.

Which is kind of ironic since much of the output at MSNBC is just that.

NFL and guns

As you might have heard, the NFL has banned a gun manufacturer from advertising during the Super Bowl.  Interestingly, there is never a weapon shown during the commercial, and just a silhouette drawing in the logo at the end.  But that was still too much for those PC folks at NFL Central Command.

Colion Noir has compiled a video of the banned commercial, plus a few of his comments.


H/T to Moonbattery.

Catching up on Thanksgiving

This is too good to exerpt, so here it is in its entirety.  Reprinted without permission, but most assuredly with appreciation.  And thanks.  The great George Will nails this one out of the park.

We are tomorrow’s past, so this Thanksgiving give thanks for 2013, a year the future might study more for amusement than for edification. HealthCare.gov performed the public service of defeating Barack Obama’s ascription of every disagreeable effect to one of two causes — George W. Bush or global warming. Concerning the latter, a CNN anchor wondered if an asteroid that passed by Earth on Feb. 15 was “an effect of, perhaps, global warming.” The Los Angeles Times announced that it had stopped publishing letters questioning global warming caused by human activity.

Which makes sense, if you agree with the New Yorker’s resident expert, who called the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on warming “the last word on climate change.” It evidently is the first science to reach the end of its subject, all questions answered. Therefore it is puzzling that dramatic predictions of an unusually high number of 2013 hurricanes were dramatically wrong.

Paleoanthropology has not reached its last word. The story of human evolution may have been simplified by conclusions reached this year about a 1.8 million-year-old skull found in the Caucasus in 2005. The earliest human remain found outside of Africa indicates that our ancestors emerged from Africa as a single species, not several species. Its brain was about one-third the size of today’s human brains.

Some of today’s brains. A Tennessee judge’s ruling was reversed: She had ordered a family to change their child’s name, Messiah, because that “title” has “only been earned by one person.” At the school where a Maryland kindergartner is supposed to learn reasonableness, school officials interrogated him for more than two hours before notifying his mother that he possessed a cap gun. Fortunately, it contained no caps; otherwise it would have been deemed an explosive. Michigan educators forced the removal of the little plastic soldiers a mother had put on cupcakes she brought to school on her son’s birthday.

On Sept. 17, Constitution Day, a student at Modesto Junior College was told to stop distributing copies of the Constitution until he had filled out the requisite forms for permission to use the college’s designated “free speech area.” The Bank of England is putting Jane Austen on a new 10-pound note because without a woman on some notes, British currency would “not command respect and legitimacy.” Queen Elizabeth II is on all notes. When Britain’s education secretary said children should learn to add and subtract, and memorize some of the nation’s kings and queens, a teachers’ union objected. The union had hitherto said: “For the state to suggest that some knowledge should be privileged over other knowledge is a bit totalitarian in a 21st-century environment.” American University in D.C. scheduled a course on “The 50 Shades Trilogy.”
 
The infantilization of adults continued with the marketing of $600 High Rollers, which are Big Wheels for (biological, not actual) grown-ups. MSNBC, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Gov. George Wallace’s attempt to prevent the integration of the University of Alabama, identified Wallace as a Republican.

Human remains found beneath a Leicester parking lot were confirmed to be those of Richard III, missing for most of the 528 years since he lost the Battle of Bosworth. He remains buried beneath the bad reputation acquired at the hands of the Tudors’ talented PR specialist, William Shakespeare.

In Washington, even local government is demented: Its transit authority Metro threatened Henry Docter with “arrest, fines and imprisonment” for the crime of unregulated gardening. Docter had filled 176 empty planters at the Dupont Circle subway stop. Metro was briefly deterred by the public outcry against its threat to punish Docter for his uncompensated act of beautification. But then it had the 1,000 morning glories and other plants ripped out.

Those vigilant about our welfare never sleep; Canadian relief supplies for Oklahoma tornado victims were stopped at the U.S. border until every item could be itemized in alphabetical order and its country of origin noted. You can’t be too careful.

As the National Park Service and NASA understand. They are among the federal agencies that have their own SWAT teams. The Agriculture Department, however, stresses sensitivity. A video of its “cultural sensitivity training” shows employees being instructed to call the Pilgrims who created Thanksgiving “illegal aliens.” Of course there were no immigration laws to make any one of the first Thanksgivings illegal — for which fact, give thanks. Someday, if there is no Agriculture Department, more thanks to be given.

Original article can be found HERE.

Kickstarter for the White House

This video is a couple of months old, but it exemplifies the mindless Obamatron youth. Gotta play it a couple times to catch all the digs.




H/T to What If?

They Knew!!!

There's a new NRSC video out.




I'm not a big fan of the NRSC because of their often RINO-esque behavior and the squish of many GOP senators.  But, if it's a choice of a Senate run by Harry Reid or one run by Mitch McConnell, I know which is my choice.  So, let's get the Senate majority first, then worry about the extent of their conservative credentials.

BTW, it's pretty good.  Those video clips should run again and again and again, just to remind the voters how the Democrats all lined up to ram Obamacare down our throats.

H/T to The Lonely Conservative.

Wait right here

Be a good little Obamatron and wait here:

Is this really America?

The right people

It doesn't matter whether or not you are actually accomplishing.  As long as you are one of the "right people", then the self-congratulatory log-rolling continues.  From NRO's The Corner:

Hillary Clinton is set to receive an award on Tuesday evening from the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) for her “legacy of leadership” in combating HIV/AIDS.

That may bit a bit awkward, given that, as secretary of state, Clinton riled AIDS activists by slashing the State Department’s programs for AIDS prevention and treatment.

Perhaps the true money quote from the story was by Jamar Rogers, who said:

“I love the president, I support him, but I really do think that it’s kind of a travesty that George W. Bush did more for AIDS/HIV research than Barack Obama,”

Not as much a travesty as the hypocrisy that liberal gay activists display.  George Bush does more to fight AIDS than any other president, but they line up like lapdogs to support frauds like Obama.

How can they look themselves in the mirror?

Fraud, you say....

People have been saying that the lies told by Obama would be criminal fraud if done by someone in the private sector.  Buf for our anointed one, it's just standard procedure.

Now, we have word about other fraud in Obamacare.  From NRO's The Corner comes this:

While the Obama administration looks to put HealthCare.gov’s woes behind it, another one of the health-care law’s key aspects could pose the latest problem for its supporters. A report by the Treasury Department’s inspector general found that the law’s health-care subsidies may be susceptible to fraud.

According to the report, problems will likely arise as recipients claim the subsidies on their 2014 tax returns. To address this issue, the IRS must improve its current system and controls for preventing fraud.

Yep....those wonderful folks at the IRS, who will impose the "tax" for the mandate, now have one more thing to deal with.

Simply marvelous, as we used to say.

The Haircut

Stolen in its entirety from The Feral Irishman.

Blessed are those that can give without remembering, and take without
forgetting.

One day a florist went to a barber for a haircut. After the cut, he asked
about his bill, and the barber replied, 'I cannot accept money from you, I'm
doing community service this week.'  The florist was pleased and left the shop.

When the barber went to open his shop the next morning, there was a 'thank
you' card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the
barber again replied, 'I cannot accept money from you, I'm doing community
service this week.' The cop was happy and left the shop.

The next morning when the barber went to open up, there was a 'thank you'
card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.

Then a Congressman came in for a haircut, and when he went to pay his bill,
the barber again replied, 'I can not accept money from you. I'm doing
community service this week.' The Congressman was very happy and left the
shop.

The next morning, when the barber went to open up, there were a dozen
Congressmen lined up waiting for a free haircut.
 
And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the
citizens of our country and the politicians who run it.

Lies of Obamacare

Steve Tobak has a Silicon Valley based technology strategy company.  Recently, he got word about how Obamacare would result in the cancellation of the policies he currently offers to his employees.  In response, he posted a column at Fox Business.  It's worth reading in its entirety, but the end brings home the bitter truth:

Let me tell you something, folks. We’ve seen this sort of leadership behavior before. We’ve seen it at companies like Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and Adelphia. If you’ve ever wondered what makes powerful executives commit fraud, the answer is simple. They think they’re above the truth and the law. They think they know better. And they think they can exert their will over others without being held to account.  

When that happens, it’s called absolute power, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That’s what I think we’re seeing here. The organization of our federal government into three unique and autonomous branches was supposed to keep this sort of thing from happening. It didn’t. It failed.

Power. That's what it's all about.  Not the good of the nation, or its people. Just raw naked power and control.

Remember that when you cast your ballots.  At every level at all times.

Thanksgiving advice

Steven Hayward at Powerline submitted some Thanksgiving tips to the Wall Street Journal.  He also posted them at Powerline.  An excerpt:

Thanksgiving presents a tough choice.  Should you cook the turkey on a rotisserie grill, or should you deep-fry it?  Forget the barbaric oven, but if it’s all you have, give yourself a fighting chance and cook the turkey upside-down–that is on a V-rack with the breast side down, so that the white meat doesn’t dry out so badly.  (Wait: can we actually still say “white meat,” or is that racist?)

 That last parenthetical comment is just part of why I love reading Hayward.  He also wrote:

 My favorite Thanksgiving recipe involves lightly rinsing the chilled glass first with Vermouth. . .  oh, wait, that’s an everyday recipe.  Never mind.

 Read the whole thing HERE.

Fair and Balanced??

If you need any more proof that the big networks have their own agendas (and they aren't for the people), look no further than how they treated a recent murder conviction in North Carolina.  You see, the guilty party was none other than Crystal Mangum, who falsely accused college students at Duke with the charge of rape.

When Crystal Mangum falsely accused several Duke lacrosse players of rape in 2006, there were 160 major television news stories in the first five days after the players were arrested, but in 2013, when Mangum was convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison, there were only 3 major television news stories, a difference in coverage of 5,233%.

You see, if it doesn't fit the narrative, it doesn't see the light of day.

Transportation and Secret Police

Moving on to the international beat.  Word is in of an airline crash in Russia.

MOSCOW –  A Boeing 737 jetliner crashed and burst into flames Sunday night while trying to land at the airport in the Russian city of Kazan, killing all 50 people aboard in the latest in a string of deadly crashes across the country.

The Tatarstan Airlines plane was trying to make a second landing attempt when it touched the surface of the runway near the control tower, and was "destroyed and caught fire," said Sergei Izvolky, the spokesman for the Russian aviation agency.

Hmmm.  Touched the surface and caught fire.  Destroyed.

The ministry released a list of the dead, which included Irek Minnikhanov, the son of Tatarstan's governor, and Alexander Antonov, who headed the Tatarstan branch of the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB.

Why do I have some questions swirling around?  Those in the FSB don't die in their sleep, not in Russia.

Just food for idle speculation on this Sunday.

Story at Fox News.

Doing the Right Thing

Most of the time, the OC points out the stupidity and corruption of our governmental "leaders".  But every now and then, I'm happy to point out when old-fashioned common sense prevails.

Take this story from Georgia.  In the city of McDonough, between Atlanta and Macon, a hot-dog restaurant was cited for "code violations" for flying flags that honor the branches of our military.  However, there is a happy ending, or at least a move towards one.

City Administrator Frederick Gardiner reportedly was unaware that CJ’s was cited and later told Miller (OC note: the owner) that he’s asking for the citation to be voided. Gardiner says the ordinance classifying flags as signs is too vague and should be rewritten.

 Could rational law be making a comeback?

H/T to Fox News.

Toe the Line

For speaking the truth about the new Obamacare "fix" declared by our dear leader, the District of Columbia Insurance Commissioner has lost his job.  From Fox News:

The District of Columbia’s insurance commissioner says he was fired after questioning President Obama’s plan to fix ObamaCare and saying the city might not follow his suggestions.

Yep....can't make mention of the emperor's clothes.  Gotta keep everyone on the plantation.  Oops, guess that last line means I'm one of those racists who oppose Obama.

Oprah

While in the UK to promote her factually-inaccurate movie "The Butler", Oprah Winfrey decided to let the British people know a little bit about how things are here in the Colonies.  While on the BBC, Oprah blasted the American people.  According to her, the criticisms and falling poll numbers for Obama are the result of.....drum roll please.....racism.

Over at NRO Corner, Victor Davis Hanson takes apart Ms. Winfrey.  In part, he writes:

Aside from her historical ignorance, Oprah Winfrey has increasingly turned to the race card to explain the president’s plummeting polls. In her race-obsessed world, Syria, Benghazi, the NSA, IRS, AP, and ACA messes do not explain why a reelected president crashes from a recent 60 percent approval rating to less than 40 percent in less than a year.

Instead, in Oprah’s no-win, racialist world, to the degree that Obama is popular, Americans are considered for the time being as not racist; to the degree that he is not, the country suddenly is collectively under suspicion (e.g., “everybody’s thinking it”).

That Obama might be utterly inexperienced in the manner of Jimmy Carter, less than veracious in the manner of the impeached Bill Clinton, or suffering the same second-term blues of Ronald Reagan during Iran-Contra or popularity crash of George W. Bush after Katrina simply cannot for Oprah be true of an African-American president, who for some reason must not suffer the same fate and treatment as almost all who have held the highest office. Instead, in this raciallyobsessed world of Oprah, that Obama is faring no different from his predecessors is now the country’s fault. And as remedy, he must be given deference if the country wishes to avoid the latest therapeutic rant from Oprah.

In fact, Oprah has no record of worrying about the level of disrespect shown the office. If she did, she might have said something a few years ago when her president was routinely being compared to a Nazi, and often by her own fellow celebrities, writers, politicians, civil-rights activists, and filmmakers. That she said nothing then, but now says a lot, explains not America’s problem with race, but her own race obsessions, which have blinded her to her own prejudices and hypocrisies.

Hanson calls it "The Moral Decline of Oprah".  I'll be a bit more direct.  It's the reverse racism of a privileged liberal who sees racism everywhere except in the mirror.

Read the whole NRO piece HERE.  And VDH has a regular column at PJ Media, Works and Days, which can be found HERE.

The Metaphor

Wesley Smith had a short post on NRO Corner that was too good to summarize.  So here it is in its entirety:

I have been trying to think of a good metaphor for the Obamacare debacle. I think I found it in the Vasa.

Vasa was a Swedish warship launched in 1628 — only to sink after sailing less than a mile. It is so apt! Here’s the Wikipedia recounting:

Vasa was built top-heavy and had insufficient ballast. Despite an obvious lack of stability in port, she was allowed to set sail and foundered only a few minutes after she first encountered a wind stronger than a breeze.

The impulsive move to set sail was the result of a combination of factors: Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus, who was leading the army on the continent on the date of her maiden voyage, was impatient to see her join the Baltic fleet in the Thirty Years’ War; at the same time, the king’s subordinates lacked the political courage to discuss the ship’s structural problems frankly or to have the maiden voyage postponed. An inquiry was organized by the Swedish privy council to find personal responsibility for the disaster, but in the end no one was punished for the fiasco.

Perfect! We have seen the same exact arrogance, stupidity, and lack of accountability in Obamacare — the public-policy Vasa of our times. 

 Original post can be found HERE.

Saturday Funnies

Culled from the Powerline weekly collection:

And, for some good news in all this mess:

No Shame

As a followup to the Sheila Jackson Lee video (seen below), John Hinderaker of Powerline had this to say:

I have long been struck by this difference between Democrats and Republicans: Republican elites are deeply embarrassed by stupid Republicans, of whom there are, undeniably, a few. They go to great lengths to disassociate themselves from Republicans who are dumb, or are perceived as such, and consider low-information Republicans to be a serious blight on the party. Democrats, on the other hand, are completely shameless.

Have you ever heard any Democrat express embarrassment at any other Democrat, no matter how stupid, and try to disassociate himself from the ignorant elements of his party? No. There are a number of Democrats in Congress, not to mention the rank and file, who are complete morons. Sheila Jackson Lee has lots of company. But do smarter Democrats care? Do they shiver with embarrassment when a member of their party worries that Guam may tip over, or thinks Obama is going to fill up her gas tank, or doesn’t know the difference between Mars and the Moon? Not at all! This difference between the parties strikes me as profound, but its full elucidation will have to await another day.

Food for thought.  But then, that seems to predominantly happen on our side of the aisle.

Box of Rocks

Time for a blast from the past video.  Though this is several years old, just remember -- these are the Democrats that keep voting for imposing more and more government on you.  They know better.  But what do they really know.

H/T to the Powerline boys

Life Happens

Some major crap happened in my life.  Obama's re-election didn't help any, but I am over that.  No, not really.  He still has a way of just grating on me....the sound of that smug voice is just like fingernails on a chalkboard.  I have to remember the cost of that big-screen TV every time I want to throw a shoe at him on the screen.

Anyhow, I'm back from the kinda-dead.  I know that I'm going to have to take a 7 week hiatus in late January, but we'll see how it goes before then - and after.

As for the kinda dead:  I still have some health insurance for now, so I'm back seeing my doctor again.  BP is too high, ditto on cholesterol and glucose.  New meds, need to lose some weight, do more activity and, gasp, exercise.  I don't like going to a gym, and the weather is getting worse.  Maybe I'll spring for some of that cold-weather gear from REI or Cabelas, so I won't have that excuse.

In any case....see you around.