Category Archives: cartoons
Disney World Government
Departed Secret Service director Julia Pierson wanted the Secret Service to become more like Disney World – more welcoming. Omar Gonzales felt welcome enough to dash through the unlocked front door of the White House with a knife. Former Director Pierson has a legacy. In fact the new culture seems to be taking hold throughout the federal bureaucracy.
Peggy Noonan calls the attitude “the new bureaucratic brazenness”. Actually not so much welcoming as we don’t give a damn what you think.
Everything sounds like propaganda. That will happen when government becomes too huge, too present and all-encompassing. Everything almost every level of government says now has the terrible, insincere, lying sound of The Official Line, which no one on the inside, or outside, believes. The other day, during the big Centers for Disease Control news conference on the Dallas Ebola case, a man from one of the health agencies insisted in burly (and somehow self-satisfied) tones that the nation’s health is his group’s No. 1 priority. And I thought, just like a normal person, “No, your No. 1 priority is to forestall a sense of panic. To do that you’ll say what you need to say. Your second priority, connected to the first, is to assert the excellence and competence of the agency with which you are associated. Your third priority is to keep the public safe.”
Doyle McManus just wants to know what happened to good old American know-how.
I like my Grumpy character – Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. Since Obama threw him under the bus I drew him with tire tracks on his back. Too bad he’s facing you.
UNCF and Koch Brothers
The hated Koch brothers give out a lot of money to libertarian-conservative causes. They also give a lot of money to hospitals, schools, symphonies, ballets, and the UNCF. Those on the receiving end usually don’t question their motives. They say, “thanks”, and spend the money.
UNCF
Some left leaning organization, however, are all about questioning motives. When the Brothers Koch gave $25 million to the United Negro College Fund, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees demanded they give it back.
Instead, the UNCF said, “thanks” and accepted the gift. The AFSCME then decided a “mind isn’t such a terrible thing to waste” after all, and severed ties with UNCF.
Republicans Beat LeBron to Cleveland
Republicans see something Lebron James didn’t. They’re coming to Cleveland for their 2016 national convention.
If Republicans are betting a Cleveland convention will reel in Ohio’s 18 electoral votes, Al Hunt at Bloomberg might be happy to take a little of that action:
History, however, suggests the convention venue usually has little bearing on the outcome. The last four Republican conventions have been held in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), New York (New York City), Minnesota (St. Paul) and Florida (Tampa.) The Republican candidate failed to carry those states in each of those general elections.
Anyway, Cleveland is thrilled to have the convention but it still hasn’t forgotten about LeBron. The current front menu page of the Plain Dealer has 2 links to convention stories and 3 links to James stories.
Messin’ with Obama
Last week, in Minnesota, President Obama complained that Republicans were “messin”” with him and “calling him names“. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a president say that before. Well, maybe one time. Here‘s President Obama last year.
The constitutional lawyer-in-chief added on Monday that the failure of Congress to get on board with his agenda would be justification for him to further go it alone.
Messin’ with Obama
This came after a week of of being rebuked by the Supreme Court for executive overreach.
Smug Koskinen and a Smidgen of Corruption
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen smugly insisted there isn’t a smidgen of corruption at the IRS. Oh wait, those were President Obama’s smug words. Koskinen smugly insisted he’s never been called a liar before.
He must have meant before he promised to produce Lois Lerner’s emails. Emails he knew at the time were missing.
Michael Gerson says IRS has, “undermined respect for authority. And it doesn’t seem even to understand the damage it has done”.
Well, they’re not the only ones. A year ago EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson conducted official business on an email account under the alias of Richard Windsor. Clever, no? She gave herself an ethics award for the scam. Windsor is now a fat cat at Apple, where Climate Change skeptic shareholders have been told to get lost.
The governing class is losing its fear of humans. Is it too late to yank the chain?
To Victor Davis Hanson the federal government has evolved into a sort of a “rogue organism”.
Add up these various alphabet-soup pathologies — well apart from the NSA, AP, and Benghazi debacles. Government agencies are now eager to venture into areas well beyond their mandates. They will use any means necessary to further the careers of their executives, massage data to enhance the administration’s agenda, or simply abdicate their responsibility to enforce the law at all if it is found to be politically incorrect.
In other words, we are witnessing a new federal government that is a sort of rogue organism that exists for its own enhancement and is willing to do anything necessary to help those who help it.
