Friday Notes

1. The Chicago Tribune has endorsed Libertarian Gary Johnson for president.  Chicago is, of course, President Obama's home town.  They say that:

We would rather recommend a principled candidate for president — regardless of his or her prospects for victory — than suggest that voters cast ballots for such disappointing major-party candidates.

2. This clown bullshit is getting out of hand.

3.  The dawg is at the groomers this morning.  He looked like a sasquatch, so we made the appointment.  Hopefully, by this afternoon, he'll be trimmed and I'll know which end to scratch.

4.  All of my fast-draw brethren are in Fallon, Nevada this week, shooting in the Fastest Gun Alive competition.  I've been busing Facebook, trying to keep track, but it appears that they shot the category matches yesterday.  Two shooters much beloved in this area won category matches.  Gentleman George took 1st place in the Men's Super Senior category, and Texas Rose took 1st place in Women's Traditional.

4.  Milady and I have been invited to her brother's house across town this evening to eat chicken wings.  He's a pretty good wing cook, and I am not going to wear a white shirt.

5.  It looks like the deceased are registering to vote in Virginia.  This must be some more of that voter fraud that we hear never happens.  I wonder which party they registered for?

6.  Hey, Donald!  Keep your eye on the ball.  No one gives a crap about some nobody's non-existent sex tape.

Send In The Clowns

The 21st Century isn't panning out like I imagined it.  It seems that ... well, heck.

We have reached the stage of the Great Clown Panic when real clowns have started to worry about profiling. In Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the Cumberland Times-News reports, "members of the Classic Clowns Club have been alarmed by news reports in which police have asked anyone who sees a clown to call 911. The troupe members often travel in costume, and worry that, if someone notices a van full of clowns and calls the police, they could end up in legal trouble."

This is absurd, and it seems to be a meme.  Really.

Our culture is becoming more and more bizarre daily.   This isn't the 21st Century I imagined, and I don't have my flying car yet.

Comey's Disgrace

FBI Director James Comey tried once again to tell Congress why he didn't indict a serial felon.



"We've had nine straight Democrats talk with Director Comey emails wthout asking for immunity.  That's a record.

I laughed out loud when he said that.

Hillary's Gambit

It looks like she's in pure panic mode.  People don't like her, they don't trust her, and she's reaching out with a new message.  She's po' folks, just trying to make it in this world.

“Bill and I have been blessed,” Clinton said at a community college gymnasium here in Raleigh, speaking to a crowd of about 1,400 supporters, where she touted her plans for paid family leave and debt-free college. “We didn’t come from millionaire families. My husband’s father died before he was born.” …

Yeah, Bill was an orphan, bless his heart, and she was just a pore struggling college student when they met.  She's just as common as sweet potato pie.   No, she made her money the old fashioned way, by getting into politics and pay-for-play corruption.  She and her husband made over $55 million while she ran the State Department.

Their tax returns show that the couple earned $57.5 million in the four years she ran the State Department (2009-12), thanks in large part to Bill’s speaking career at events tied to entities with business before the State Department.

People aren't supposed to get rich in government, but she and Bill have managed to parlay their government contacts into a multi-million dollar bank account.

That's a great message, Hillary! You have fun with that.

 

Hypocrisy Reeks

The Moonbats continue to scream about evil oil, and the hypocrisy is staggering.  Our latest example comes from The Guardian, in an article entitled "No fracking, drilling or digging: it’s the only way to save life on Earth".  The author, George Monbiot, tries to make the case.

All this nonsense is a substitute for a simple proposition: stop digging. There is only one form of carbon capture and storage that is scientifically proven, and which can be deployed immediately: leaving fossil fuels in the ground.

He says all this, of course, while using electricity powered by fossil fuels, typing on a keyboard made of the byproducts of fossil fuels, driving to work in a vehicle powered by fossil fuels, probably even the shirt he's wearing comes in some form from fossil fuels.

Yet, he wants us to give all this up, but shows a decided lack of leadership by using all those things in his modern life. And, in my experience, that's the case with most environmentalists.  They want us to give up all these things, while using each and every one of those things to advance an agenda.

George is concerned about life on earth, yet fails to realize that the next mass extinction event will probably be like the last one.  A huge meteor falling on us that we can do nothing about, won't see coming, and will be on us before we can even panic.

In short, George reveals his ignorance, and his hypocrisy reeks.

You first, George.  Give up everything that comes from fossil fuels, and then we'll talk about it.

A Cautionary Tale

We talked about this last week.  And, I see that it's back in the news this week.  It appears that the Saudi government, faced with falling oil revenues, is having to cut back on public sector salaries and other cash payments to their citizens.

A lack of taxes, a big public sector, subsidized fuel and abundant government spending are benefits that officials have long cautioned are unaffordable, yet are seen as a right by many citizens because of the kingdom's high oil output.

It's a cautionary tale of government excess, and what happens when the money runs out.  Before you start feeling sorry for the Saudis, or smug about their pain, reflect on our national budget and our national excesses, and what happens when the money runs out and we have to start cutting back on freebies.  Like free phones, free this, free that, and subsidized everything-else.

What can't go on forever, won't.   Eventually, the bill comes due.

Comey's Disgrace

Fascinating article over at National Review that sheds light on Comey's rationale that no reasonable prosecutor would have taken Hillary's case.  It seems that Obama was knee-deep in it.

Indeed, imagine what would have happened had Clinton been indicted. The White House would have attempted to maintain the secrecy of the Obama-Clinton e-mails (under Obama’s invocation of a bogus “presidential communications” privilege), but Clinton’s defense lawyers would have demanded the disclosure of the e-mails in order to show that Obama had engaged in the same misconduct, yet only she, not he, was being prosecuted. And as most experienced criminal-law lawyers understand (especially if they’ve read a little Supreme Court case known as United States v. Nixon), it is an argument that Clinton’s lawyers would have won.

I can see Comey's discomfiture at learning that President Obama had bee emailing Clinton on her private server.  If the DOJ had prosecuted Hillary, they would have had to prosecute Obama as well, under the same statutes.  Still, if Comey knew that Obama was knee-deep in the same crimes, why didn't he spell that out during his July 5th press conference?

We were once a nation of laws.  Not kings or queens, lords or ladies.

Lamont Scott Narrative Collapses

So, it turns out after multiple days of rioting, the thug Lamont Scott was a prohibited person, a felon, not legally able to own a handgun, and his wife had filed a restraining order against him.  Yeah, really.  Did his wife think that she could keep this secret forever?  I guess she did, which shows what an idiot she is.  Let's talk about what the internet has learned about Lamont Scott.

According to records from Bexar County, Texas, Keith Lamont Scott was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in July 2005 and sentenced to seven years in prison. In relation to that case, he was charged and found guilty of evading arrest. He was also charged with unlawfully carrying a weapon, reckless driving, and assaulting his wife, but these charges were later dismissed.

Seven years in prison for assault iwth a deadly weapon.  He was prohibited from owning, possessing, picking up a weapon.  The police found his gun after he repeatedly ignored orders to "drop the gun" before they shot him.

Last year, his wife filed a restraining order against him, alleging that he was violent and a threat to her and his son.  She knew that he had a gun, in violation of both state and federal law.    What we're now learning is that he decided to wait at a bus stop, smoking marijuana while brandishing his gun when he came to the attention of police.  Yeah, let's go over that again.

I sincerely wish Mr. Scott hadn’t smoked marijuana in public while brandishing a gun while waiting to pick his son up from the bus stop.

Yeah, don't we all wish that Mr. Scott had not smoked dope while brandishing a gun. After causing all this turmoil, the Scott family should be charged with every law available on the books.  Oh, look.

This was a justified shooting, and Mecklenburg County prosecutors should be investigating whether the Scott family committed any crimes during or after the shooting, as well as whether Rakeyia Scott is a fit parent for serially endangering her children.

I concur.  His wife is not a fit mother, and the county should take the kids.  She's clearly not capable of understanding right from wong.

Crime in the United States

I see that the FBI has released it's report Crime in the United States.  This is a yearly product of the FBI.  The overview is here.  The full report is here.

I'm posting this mainly for my own quick links.  I intend to be digging through it the next couple of days and weeks.

Monday Morning

Pulling my boots on in the pre-dawn, I see that police agencies in Southern California have lost over 300 firearms in the past five years.  That's not good.  Probably, single losses or thefts, but the leadership in those departments needs to send strong signals to their officers.

I understand that there is going to be a debate tonight, and Hillary is panicking. The polls show a dead heat.  She was ahead three or four weeks ago.  What I did notice was all those newspaper articles this weekend calling Donald Trump a liar.  What a coincidence that all those big newspapers chose to run the same story the weekend before the debate.

The irony, of course, is that the largest serial liar in the recent history of US politics is calling someone else a liar.  Everyone with any sense at all knows that Hillary's campaign was behind the articles, and everyone with any sense knows that if Hillary's lips are moving, she's lying.

Hillary wondered last week why she is not 50 points ahead?  Like most entitled pols, she believes that the fact that Comey didn't indict her means that he exonerated her.  Quite the contrary.  Comey's disgrace is that he didn't close the deal, but he plainly told us that she doesn't deserve to ever again be able to access state secrets.  Personally, I'd rather dry-shave a badger's testicles than vote for Hillary Clinton.

PawPaw will probably sleep through the debate tonight.  I'll read about it on the morrow.

What's Fer Lunch, PawPaw?

That's normally the question that the grandkids ask when they come over for a Sunday lunch.  Milady and I cook lunch every Sunday and while we're never really certain how many folks are going to show up to eat, we normally cook for twenty or so.

Today, it's Italian Beef.  An eight-pound arm roast, slow cooked in good Italian seasonings until it falls apart.  About eight hours in the slow cooker.  I've talked about it before, and the recipe is here.  Click on the link to learn about it.

The weather is still warm in Louisiana, the official start of autumn not withstanding, and we're not quite ready to make big hearty soups, stews, or gumbos.  This slow-cooker full of beef should bridge the gap.

We'll serve it on hoagie rolls with a bag of chips.  If that son't suit them, KFC is just down the road.

Odessa

A good friend of mine lives in Odessa.  When I saw this, I lol'd.

Hey, Windmill!  Thinking about you, buddy!

Hat tip, Day by Day Cartoons.

Gunfighting

Got up this morning, cleaned all the guns, made sure that the screws were tight.  We've got a gunfight scheduled at the club today, and PawPaw needs to get away from all the work, politics, ancillary bullshit and go have some fun.  Belle and I will be there later today.

It's a beautiful Saturday out there, and it's time to go enjoy it.