How to lose friends and make enemies.
The U.S. Department of Justice notified The Associated Press on Friday, May 10, that it had secretly obtained telephone records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP journalists and offices, including cell and home phone lines.
Lets see now,
Mao Zedong would be proud.
Instead, if it doesn’t violate the Constitution, can I suggest a nationwide education program on how a cow magically transforms itself into a delicious hamburger?
Related.
Strengthening the family unit. I have a feeling we’ll see more “family time” as the mid-terms approach.
“The DSCC has failed to clear the track in several states for their candidate of choice. Now that they’ve been unable to land their chosen candidate in Kentucky, Georgia, and South Dakota – the Senate Democrats are left facing the awkward situation of having to support their 2nd, 3rd, or even 11th choice,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Brad Dayspring.
Disenchanted members of Gov. Cuomo’s administration, embarrassed by the worsening government scandals and convinced that Cuomo won’t be president, will soon leave their jobs — just as the governor is stepping up plans to run for re-election next year.
The Government is facing an exodus of senior energy and climate change advisers amid growing concerns that decisive action to tackle global warming is falling victim to Treasury intransigence.
And since the convergence of events between 18th century France and the current global situation is becoming too close for comfort, we can now predict that at some point soon, a member of the New Normal aristocracy will announce: “Let them eat insects.”
“To do so, he may need to do more than to promise to bolster embassy security and to shut down the IRS targeting operation. He may need to forcefully condemn the half-truths and distortions disseminated under his name.
He may need to fire people who can’t get his story straight.”
How historical figures would have looked today.
h/t Black Mamba
The worldwide interweb is chock full of hellish Russian dash-cam footage – brawling drunken motorists, spectacularly poor driving, and horrific crashes and near-misses – of the sort that lights up your monkey-brain and makes you feel like you’re gazing into the seventh circle of hell. Tonight, we see a different dash-cam view of Russia, one showing unidentified individuals performing simple acts of common grace.
h/t martywd
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Don’t worry, the Beltway family are keeping Americans informed:
The brother of a top Obama administration official is also the president of CBS News, and the network may be days away from dropping one of its top investigative reporters for covering the administration’s scandals too aggressively.
Richard Grenell, former Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy for the US ambassador to the UN:
“…the media’s becoming the story, let’s face it. CBS News President David Rhodes and ABC News President Ben Sherwood, both of them have siblings that not only work at the White House, that not only work for President Obama, but they work at the [United States National Security Council] on foreign policy issues directly related to Benghazi….
Let’s also show you why CNN did not go very far in covering these hearings….the CNN deputy bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is married to Hillary Clinton’s deputy, Tom Nides….
h/t Black Mamba & chris c
…there must not only be smoke but real fire when both the WSJ’s Peggy Noonan and the NYT’s Maureen Dowd agree on something in large part.
Some background here and here.
Not that it should matter, but….
A key Benghazi whistle-blower who has allegedly been punished for speaking out against the administration is a registered Democrat who voted for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
…of ice.
The aftermath in Manitoba*. (the comments on this story are hilarious)
A ‘during’ from Mille Lacs Lake, MN.
*There were no polar bears listed as casualties.
….it was on Faux News.
Looks like it wasn’t just conservative/Tea Party groups drawing special attention from the IRS:
…at least one purely religious Jewish organization, one not focused on Israel, was the recipient of bizarre and highly inappropriate questions about Israel…from the same non-profit division of the IRS at issue for inappropriately targeting politically conservative groups. The IRS required that Jewish organization to state “whether [it] supports the existence of the land of Israel,” and also demanded the organization “[d]escribe [its] religious belief system toward the land of Israel.”
I avoid the profane as a rule, but it’s Saturday night, and this is too much of an amusing one-off not to share: here’s Andy Prieboy’s unsettlingly straight-faced, gentlemanly-sounding ode to the “happy high retardians” who, when when legless and devoid of any common sense, knight themselves the Hearty Drinking Men.
Language warning.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
The Washington Post’s official twitter feed:
Who’s tweeting about Benghazi? Rich, middle-aged men and Chick-fil-A lovers.
Astonishing.
Be sure to read the responses underneath.
The New Oxford American Dictionary defines ‘onerous’ as “involving an amount of effort and difficulty that is oppressively burdensome.”
I mention this because a news story in yesterday’s Globe & Mail began —
“The Harper government is making it more onerous for people to settle their foreign parents or grandparents in Canada…”
I used the past tense – “began” – because the loaded phrase has been scrubbed, changed from “more onerous” to “tougher” (the original lede can be seen quoted here in one of the early comments under the article).
The new requirement announced by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney “(doubles) the amount of time for which (the younger immigrants) must cover any provincial social benefits incurred by their relatives.”
Here’s the question: when someone emigrates from another country to Canada for a more prosperous life, and subsequently brings over a couple or three elderly parents/grandparents/relatives, is a requirement/agreement/arrangement, when agreed to and understood in advance, that the older relatives he brings over not use the social welfare system (i.e. not burden the taxpayers) for a designated period of time oppressively burdensome on the immigrant who is being welcomed into the country?
There are so many ways to frame any particular news story — and to change the report without any acknowledgment of having done so.