Dear #IRS Commissioner Koskinen: “Nobody Believes You”

 

Have you ever wondered what the operative definition of “supercilious” was? How about “imperious“? “High-handed“, perhaps? Well, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen’s testimony today is as good an example of all of those as I could have provided previously:

“…I have a long career, that’s the first time anybody has said they don’t believe me…”

Based on the laughable claims you are currently making, Mr. Koskinen, I’d offer that such a description is likely long, long overdue:

Ann Coulter, Dennis Miller AND Romney/Ryan: Together At Last!

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What do these folks have in common, you ask? Read and find out….

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I’m up in Chicago on business this week, and I’ve been having conversations with people from all over the political map. The majority of them expressed some level of dissatisfaction with the direction our country is headed, even the ones whose political leanings differed from mine. There were a couple of folks who thought everything was just swell, but they were a little clueless in other areas of their life, as well.

And remember: I’m in Chicago.

Overall there seemed to be a belief that we’re losing/lost our values, and I’m actually not talking about religion or morality per se. People ranging from cabbies to managers to waiters/waitresses all agreed that many of the ideals which made our nation great are gone, or are going fast.

Ideals such as when:

• We were proud of our work ethic.
• We didn’t suffer fools gladly and, maybe more importantly, everyone agreed on who the fools were, too. 
• We believed that charity was our responsibility, not the government’s.
• We always tried to have a laugh or three along the way, despite the fact that life was never “fair”.
• And we got a little goose-pimply at the thought of our country being the best.

The following three videos are not overtly patriotic; well, at least the first two aren’t. However, in their own way, they are (to me, at least) decent illustrations of how our country used to feel, to behave, to think.

I hope you agree.

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At a downtown Chicago eatery last night, I was able to catch just a few minutes of Ann Coulter beating the British out of Piers Morgan on his CNN show. Morgan was his usual snide, supercilious self when speaking with a Conservative (see his interview with Jonah Goldberg if you want an example of what I mean), but Ann reminded me again just why I own all of her books:

she is the single least politically correct public figure in the country, she’s funny, and she’s unabashedly Conservative.

Below is tonight’s interview which thankfully showed up on YouTube almost immediately. Morgan tries time and time again to box her in, and Coulter just refuses to go there. Heck, she throws his attempts back at him, with the distinction being that she uses common sense, logic & facts in her rebuttals, instead of tired, Progressive talking points.

It’s roughly 20 minutes long, but it feels like it’s about 4.

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This video is from Jay Leno’s interview with Dennis Miller back in August. It’s philosophical rather than current event related, with Dennis expressing what the majority of tax-paying citizens feel: that he has no problem helping the truly helpless. Heck, that’s what charity is for. Miller only bristles at being made to feel guilty about not wanting to help those who could help themselves, but won’t.

And for the record, yeah, I feel that way exactly.

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The last clip is, in my humble opinion, one of the best ads that the Romney/Ryan team has made. It’s not topic specific, but more an overall outreach to anyone who is on the fence as to how to vote. They pack a lot into only three minutes, and dress it up with some solid production value to make  it feel like 50% campaign ad, and 50% the “Homerun” scene in The Natural.

Hope you enjoy it, and have a great weekend.

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VP Debate: Ryan holds the fort, while Biden is buffoonish

Last week in the initial presidential debate, Romney’s win over Obama more closely resembled a 90-minute video game, with Obama having been stuck with the broken controller. It became a rout almost immediately, and you stuck around only to see how bad the final tally would be.

In contrast, this week’s Vice-Presidential debate was more closely contested, but was still memorable for two big reasons: demeanor and facts.

First, the facts. Biden started the evening off by pulling a Bart Simpson (“it wasn’t me!!”), essentially blaming our Intelligence Community for the Administration’s repeated lies about Benghazi.

From Commentary Magazine:

The vice president claimed that the story the administration put out about the terrorist attack on the consulate and the murder of the U.S. ambassador being part of the fallout from a controversial anti-Muslim video was the fault of the intelligence they were given. But rather than put the issue to bed, it raises even more troubling questions about not only about the security disaster but also about the lack of leadership shown by senior administration officials including the president. It also contradicts State Department testimony and other comments from intelligence officials that they knew it was a terror attack within 24 hours of it happening.

For Biden to put all of the blame for the lies about the video and the denial of terrorism on intelligence officials says a lot about the complete breakdown of administration counter-terror policy. His denial that anyone in Washington knew that the story put forward Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations wasn’t true seems implausible. Even if true, it speaks to administration incompetence.

“Smart Power“. It’s worked just awesome so far.

Joe being Joe, he was just getting warmed up. This from the Washington Free Beacon:

Vice President Joe Biden accused Rep. Paul Ryan of putting two wars on the “credit card,” and then suggested he voted against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“By the way, they talk about this great recession like it fell out of the sky–like, ‘Oh my goodness, where did it come from?’” Biden said. “It came from this man voting to put two wars on a credit card, at the same time, put a prescription drug plan on the credit card, a trillion-dollar tax cut for the very wealthy.”

“I was there, I voted against them,” Biden continued. “I said, no, we can’t afford that.”

[Actually], Sen. Biden voted for the Afghanistan resolution on Sept. 14, 2001 which authorized “the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.”

And on Oct. 11, 2002, Biden voted for a resolution authorizing unilateral military action in Iraq, according to the Washington Post.

Further, if you re-read that quote, what the Beacon doesn’t single out is the “put a prescription drug plan on the credit card” part of Biden’s quote. His finding fault with that is curious, since he voted for it, too, along with many of its expansions.

Hey, maybe he forgot?

And now, and perhaps most importantly in the long run, the demeanor.

I have to assume that it was drilled into Biden’s semi-porous cranium that he had to attack, attack, attack the entire night. Well, if that was his goal, he succeeded. However, he also succeeded in portraying himself as an overbearing, contemptuous, insufferable creep.

I promise you: that is a charitable description.  

Biden's got the "arrogant know-nothing hard of hearing mathematically ignorant jerk" vote locked up.

— John Hayward (@Doc_0) October 12, 2012

https://twitter.com/craigcarroll/status/256565422709698561

I listen to Wallace every week, and he’s no partisan. He is, in fact, often much tougher on Republicans than anyone this side of MSNBC. His portrayal of Biden is accurate to a fault: Biden exhibited the manners of the drunk guy at your last office party, hectoring the bartender for “one more for the road”. I haven’t seen as epic an interruption (or in this case, a blizzard of them) since Kanye West and Taylor Swift. Virtually ever time Ryan spoke, Biden would begin yammering. The most recent tally that I’ve seen so far is Biden=82 interruptions, Ryan=6. If that’s even close to the official total (and I think it may be too low), that tells you all you need to know.

Biden wasn’t done. As Wallace intimated, even during the times that Ryan could string three sentences together without Joe “My turn! My turn!” Biden butting in, he amused himself by laughing. Snickering. Smirking. Openly guffawing. Rolling his eyes. And generally behaving like your 9-year-old when they argue with a sibling.

It was pathetic.

Feel free to watch all or part of it below. I’m warning you, though: within the first 30 minutes, you will have lost whatever remaining respect you had for our current VP. And the next 30 minutes is worse.

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Ryan was solid throughout, and presented himself as smart (we knew that), and in control of the facts (knew that, too). Ryan didn’t outright win the evening so much as Biden discredited himself from consideration with his churlish, clownish behavior. Among Independents especially, I think that will count against Biden far more than any policy points he may have scored.

Before the debate, I had initially decided against including this cartoon. Now it’s more than appropriate.

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UPDATE: Ed over at HotAir.com has video of Biden claiming to have voted against the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, citing them both as the reason for the massive deficits we now face. As I mentioned, this is a complete and total lie.

Check out his post, and you won’t have to sift through the entire debate video (above) to see it.

Vice-Presidential Debate Preview: PAUL RYAN

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…’Nuff said.

Hiding the ‘Big Lie’ by ….accusing your opponent of Lying

You’ve gotta hand it to the Libs: they show world-class commitment to their lies.

The mantra from the Left regarding the General Motors plant in Janesville, WI  which Paul Ryan referenced in speech his RNC speech has basically been, “Paul Ryan lied, Lied, LIED”. Over and over, and over again, this has been repeated ad nauseam. They simply will. Not. Let. It. Go.

In this day of politicians rolling over at the first hint of push back, it’s impressive and admirable that Ryan hasn’t so much as flinched in the face of this contemptible slander. And, of course, Ryan has something going for him in this argument: he’s telling the truth. 

We discussed this last week, and since this has been proven incontrovertibly false, you’d think the Left would just lick their wounds on this and move on.

When will we learn.

On the Today show, Matt Lauer grilled Ryan yet again over this:

“There are some people who are claiming that you played a little fast and loose with the truth on certain key elements. And I’m not just talking about Democratic analysts, I’m talking about some independent fact checkers. Would you concede that while many of the things you said were effective, some were not completely accurate?”

Ryan responded patiently yet firmly, as if he was explaining to his 10-year-old why running with scissors really wasn’t such a hot idea: 

“No, not in the least, actually. What they’re trying to suggest is that I said that Barack Obama was responsible for our plant shutdown in Janesville. That is not what I was saying. Read the speech. What I was saying is the President ought to be held to account for his broken promises. After our plant was shut down he said that he would lead an effort to retool plants like the Janesville plant to get people back to work. It’s still idle, people are still not working there.”

You can see the whole Today Show clip here. By the by, I’ve found that when I’m watching Lauer, keeping an airsickness bag near-by often comes in handy.

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Now I’m just a guy with a blog, but if I could do the 5 seconds of research to find the video (below), then presumably Matt has an intern or six that he could dispatch to bring this same video to him. The only reason he wouldn’t is that he already knew the truth, he didn’t want to know it, ….or Lauer was simply lying.

Here’s the video; you decide:

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UPDATE: From Newsbusters, this will come as a shock to exactly …nobody.

Although the press has decided that every statement of Paul Ryan’s, no matter how provably true, is cause for days of dissection, when it’s one of their darlings like Elizabeth Warren, they can let wild assertions go unchallenged…even when the statements are cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs level crazy.

Shocked, I’m telling you; shocked.

(click on the image to connect to the story)

Paul Ryan, MSNBC, and your own lyin’ eyes (and ears)

Last night I tried something new (for me, at least).

(A) I watched the Republican Convention speeches, and at the same time…

(B) I kept Twitter open, and….

(C) I had MSNBC on, in the background.

Now, I’m admittedly a newbie to Twitter, but that wasn’t my issue. It was the addition of MSNBC that made it…otherworldly. It was flat-out bizarre.

I’m watching the speeches, right? So I obviously could see for myself what was happening. On Twitter, I read in real-time quips and others’ impressions of the event; so far, so good. Yet all the while I had the Ring-wraiths on MSNBC insisting that I most definitely had NOT heard what I thought I’d just heard.

Like I said: bizarre.

And more than a little sad.

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If you didn’t stay up late last night, you missed one of the all-time best nights of political speeches you will ever see: Mike Huckabee (I know he’s decent, but he was surprisingly good last night), Condi Rice (polished; uplifting; excellent), Gov. Susana Martinez (she is a wonderfully natural speaker) and finally Paul Ryan. Oration is not one of Ryan’s top skill sets, but you’d never have known it last night.

From Guy Benson at Townhall.com:

Ryan also made a play for young voters, which included a gem of a line:

“College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.  Everyone who feels stuck in the Obama economy is right to focus on the here and now.  And I hope you understand this too, if you’re feeling left out or passed by: You have not failed, your leaders have failed you. None of us have to settle for the best this administration offers – a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us. Listen to the way we’re spoken to already, as if everyone is stuck in some class or station in life, victims of circumstances beyond our control, with government there to help us cope with our fate.  It’s the exact opposite of everything I learned growing up in Wisconsin, or at college in Ohio.  When I was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life.  I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself. 

That’s what we do in this country.  That’s the American Dream.  That’s freedom, and I’ll take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners.”

Ryan described the generational differences between himself and Mitt Romney, including this cheeky jab:

We’re a full generation apart, Governor Romney and I. And, in some ways, we’re a little different. There are the songs on his iPod, which I’ve heard on the campaign bus and on many hotel elevators. He actually urged me to play some of these songs at campaign rallies.  I said, I hope it’s not a deal-breaker Mitt, but my playlist starts with AC/DC, and ends with Zeppelin.

If you didn’t see the speeches, you really need to (at the least) read all of Guy Benson’s write-up. If you can take the time to watch some of the speeches, too, you won’t regret it. 

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But.

But….

Remember how I told you I had the MSNBC feed going, too? It was hair-on-fire time, and everyone seemed to need a drink. It’s also possible they’d already drained the bar.

Bitter? Petty? Sure, no question. Manic? Yes, yes. But I think what I saw, more than anything, was rage. Petulance. Fury. It was a bit like watching several fully grown ‘Veruca Salts‘, none of whom can believe that they aren’t being given their Oompa-Loompas right now.

What else can you call this pithy review of Ryan’s exceptional speech from Chris “Make It A Double” Matthews:

Nasty? Negative? Ryan’s speech? Are you kidding me? I wanted to drive to the gym (heck, I could have RAN to the gym), I was so pumped-up afterward. It’s ridiculous mischaracterizations of observable fact such as this which are the reason people poke such fun of MSNBC. They bring it on themselves.

Matthews wasn’t done yet, either. Here’s the transcript, from NewsBusters.com:

MATTHEWS: “…..I think that you can always – the thing I always look for in these speeches is, who’s the person on the podium up there – at the lectern, talking to? And I don’t want to get too sectarian about this, but it’s clear that Paul Ryan was talking to people who think about rights as something that were – produced by Thomas Jefferson, ignoring the people for whom the rights only came in the 1960s; no reference to the fact that a good portion of the country was denied those rights, especially the important right to vote, up until 1965. And it was given to them through a lot of effort and fighting between the two parties, and it became a bipartisan effort led by Lyndon Johnson, and, of course, Everett Dirksen of Illinois. But, for some reason, they never mentioned those things, because they’re talking to people – let’s be honest about this – who didn’t feel – the benefit, at all, from those civil rights, and I think that’s very important to point out.”

Rights that were “produced by Thomas Jefferson“? Huh? You mean, the guy that iterated that all of us had inalienable rights? You know, from God? THAT Thomas Jefferson?

As a critic, Matthews is an exemplary idiot.

‘Course, to some degree, I kinda sympathize with the MSNBC’ers: they’re in a tough spot. They’ve been selling the “GOP-is-racist” meme for sooooo long, it is indelibly associated with them. It’s their brand. So as people actually SEE these nice, friendly, smart, and sincere folks from the right side of the aisle, some will start to wonder, “Hey, maybe the Conservatives actually aren’t dog-whistle-tweeting, racist Satan spawn?”. And as soon as THAT happens, the remaining 4 dozen MSNBC viewers will finally, mercifully change their channel.

Forever.

However, in the meantime, if you’d like some free Schadenfreude , I suggest you tune into MSNBC soon.

It’s the best comedy programming on right now.

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UPDATE —  If you’re really pressed for time today, have no fear: the Free Beacon has Ryan’s six best lines of the night for you. We’re full-service, baby!

Regarding Paul Ryan: You called down the Thunder!!

Ever since the formal announcement on Saturday morning that Paul Ryan would be Mitt Romney’s VP, the web and the TV talking heads have been on fire with articles and opinions about Ryan’s selection, alternately praising and castigating it. The Left seems to be acting especially happy, which I am taking as the political equivalent of “whistling past the graveyard”.

As soon as I heard the news, I had the immediate flash in my brain of Wyatt Earp on the train platform in ‘Tombstone‘:  “You called down the thunder!…..“, and it seems that it occurred to more folks than just me.

I think I know why, too.

Ryan has already made Obama look foolish on national TV, while coming across as the non-threatening-yet-brainy boy-next-door. The Left responded as they always do, telling lie after lie about Ryan, which after three years has had zero effect …other than to make them look shrill and desperate.

With the addition of Ryan, the choices are more stark than ever:

• The free market Capitalist, cut spending so we can grow the economy and reduce the deficit guys in one corner, and
• the Statist and quasi-Socialist, spend-like-a-five-year-old-with-his-very-first-nickel guys in the other corner.

Oh, yeah: I’m gonna definitely need more popcorn for this.

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UPDATE: For those of you who are coming late to this party, here are some links for you that pertain to or include Mr. Ryan:

• Path To Prosperity.
• Paul Ryan vs. the Titanic.
• Pro-Growth Tax Reform.
• Paul Ryan on the hidden spending in Obamacare.
• Paul Ryan and Truth.
• How to save Medicare.

Admittedly, we’ve been on Ryan’s bandwagon for a long time now. He’s not a perfect man, just a good one …but he’s just about perfect for this particular place and time.

Paul Ryan

A completely honest analysis in three short minutes.