It’s Tuesday, June 18th, 2013…but before we begin, when is a radical Iranian cleric more moderate than a Conservative American?

Whenever CBS News says so!  So much for much-ignored anchor Scott Pelley’s claims CBS represents a fair and balanced approach to the news.

And do these educated idiots really believe the Mad Mullahs would allow anyone to run for office who wouldn’t toe their line…or risk losing their feet?!?

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of NRO via Conn Carroll’s Morning Examiner, Mark Steyn offers this follow-up to last week’s item detailing the Administration’s refusal to combat domestic terror where it’s most likely to be found:

Big Politically Correct Brother

The bozo leviathan sees everything . . . and nothing.

What a freaky coincidence, eh? But it’s the differences between the simulation and the actual event that are revealing. In humdrum reality, the Boston bombers were Chechen Muslim brothers with ties to incendiary imams and jihadist groups in Dagestan. In the far more exciting Boston Police fantasy, the bombers were a group of right-wing militiamen called “Free America Citizens,” a name so suspicious (involving as it does the words “free,” “America,” and “citizens”) that it can only have been leaked to them by the IRS. What fun the law-enforcement community in Massachusetts had embroidering their hypothetical scenario: The “Free America Citizens” terrorists even had their own little logo — a skull’s head with an Uncle Sam hat. Ooh, scary! The Boston PD graphics department certainly knocked themselves out on that.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was training in Dagestan, posting terrorist videos on YouTube, and getting fingered by the Russians to the FBI. Who did nothing.

“As horrific as this bombing was, the FBI preventing it by monitoring the Tsarnaev brothers’ mosque would have been far worse!”

If you had the misfortune to be blown up by the Tsarnaev brothers, and are now facing a future with one leg and suddenly circumscribed goals, like those brave Americans featured on the cover of the current People magazine under the headline “Boston Tough,” you might wish Boston had been a little tougher on Tamerlan and spent less time chasing the phantoms of “Free America Citizens.” But, in fact, it would have been extremely difficult to track the Tsarnaevs at, say, the mosque they attended. Your Granny’s phone calls, your teenager’s Flickr stream, and your Telecharge tickets for two on the aisle at Mamma Mia! for your wife’s birthday, and the MasterCard bill for dinner with your mistress three days later are all fair game, but since October 2011 mosques have been off-limits to the security state. If the FBI guy who got the tip-off from Moscow about young Tamerlan had been sufficiently intrigued to want to visit the Boston mosque where he is said to have made pro-terrorism statements during worship, the agent would have been unable to do so without seeking approval from something called the Sensitive Operations Review Committee high up in Eric Holder’s Department of Justice. The Sensitive Operations Review Committee is so sensitive nobody knows who’s on it. You might get approved, or you might get sentenced to extra sensitivity training for the next three months. Even after the bombing, the cops forbore to set foot in the lads’ mosque for four days. Three hundred million Americans are standing naked in the NSA digital scanner, but the all-seeing security state has agreed that not just their womenfolk but Islam itself can be fully veiled from head to toe.

We’re told that universal surveillance has prevented all kinds of atrocities we can never hear about — an answer straight out of Orwell. Yet oddly, in the ones we do hear about, the perps are hiding in plain sight (Major Hasan with “Soldier of Allah” on his business card), the intelligence services do nothing (the Pantybomber known to the CIA but still permitted to board the plane), and the digital superstate is useless (the Tsarnaev photo rang no bells with the facial-recognition software, but was identified by friends who saw it on TV).

And thus, the bozo leviathan blunders on. Big Politically Correct Brother sees everything . . . and nothing.

Yeah…and this committed Islamist didn’t perpetrate an act of terror…

…he just went Postal!

Speaking of national security, it’s the subject of the latest from Marc Thiessen, courtesy of AEI:

The national security implications of the IRS scandal

A new Fox News poll is out today which finds:

Two-thirds of American voters (66 percent) think the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups as part of a high-level operation to punish political opponents. Far fewer — 23 percent — think it was a mistake by a handful of lower-level IRS employees…

Even Democrats, by a seven percentage-point margin, are more likely to think the targeting was a punitive measure ordered by higher-ups.

In addition, most voters continue to believe the Obama administration knew about (40 percent) or was directly involved in (28 percent) the IRS treating conservative groups unfairly.

Think about that. Sixty-eight percent of Americans believe that Obama either knew or ordered the IRS actions targeting conservative groups. Even more stunning, 48% of Democrats believe Obama either knew or directed the IRS action.

This poll points to a major problem: The IRS actions have eroded the basic compact of trust between the government and the people. And that is having reverberations beyond the IRS scandal. It is having an impact on national security.

For the past week, I have been defending the Obama administration on the NSA surveillance leaks. In my Washington Post column and TV and radio interviews, I have tried to explain that Big Brother is not watching you, no one is listening to your phone calls or reading your emails.

Those are facts. But people don’t believe it. (Nor should they!) If this administration abused its power at the IRS, they ask, why should we trust them not to do the same at the NSA?

It’s a fair question.

The details of how we collect signals intelligence on our enemies — and the restrictions we place on the NSA to protect civil liberties — must, of necessity, remain secret. If we reveal them to the American people, we reveal them to al Qaeda — and that makes it easier for the terrorists to evade detection. That means these programs, which are vital to our national security, require a basic compact of trust between the government and its people.

That compact of trust has been gravely damaged. Many Americans simply are not willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt that his administration is not abusing its powers at the NSA — because his administration did abuse its powers at the IRS.

So the actions of the IRS have not only harmed the specific groups targeted, they have put our national security at risk.

Not to mention the future of this President’s signature legislation.  And all for…

…short-term personal political gain.

And since we’re on the subject of sacrificing national security for short-term personal political gain, courtesy of The Daily Caller, former New York Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey lists…

Six big problems with the immigration bill from someone who has actually read it

The video’s a little long, but it’s well worth the time.

In a related item, courtesy of the Washington Examiner, we can only hope and pray David Drucker’s right…yet again!

John Boehner won’t back immigration bill without majority GOP support

House Speaker John Boehner is not going to bring a comprehensive immigration-reform plan to the floor if a majority of Republicans don’t support it, sources familiar with his plans said. “No way in hell,” is how several described the chances of the speaker acting on such a proposal without a majority of his majority behind him.

Boehner, R-Ohio, does not view immigration in the same vein as the fiscal cliff last December, when he backed a bill that protected most Americans from a tax increase even though less than half of the GOP lawmakers were with him, said multiple sources, who spoke anonymously to allow greater candor. With economists warning that the deep cuts and higher taxes needed to avoid the fiscal cliff could devastate an already ailing economy, Boehner felt compelled to compromise with President Obama and allow taxes to rise on the wealthiest taxpayers. He feels no such urgency about immigration reform, lawmakers said.

Boehner has long supported an overhaul of U.S. immigration policy and would like the House to act on it before August. But he also understands the issue’s political sensitivity and the impact it could have on Republicans in the 2014 mid-term elections. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., a former pollster aligned with the GOP leadership, said Boehner will not approach to immigration reform the same way he did the fiscal cliff tax bill, or the Violence Against Women Act, which also passed with a minority of the majority. “I just don’t think that’s the winning formula here,” Cole told The Washington Examiner. “What the speaker wants to do is have a hopefully bipartisan product — certainly one that has the majority of Republicans — pass the House. This has got too much emotional, political impact and I think it really has to be genuinely bipartisan.

“The Senate is debating the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” proposal, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is puhsing for a final vote before the July 4 recess. The House also is creating its own a bipartisan comprehensive plan, authored by four Democrats and three Republicans, but it is also advancing multiple bills of much narrower scope that will deal with individual Republican priorities like border enforcement.

Democratic and progressive immigration reform advocates remain hopeful that the Senate bill, which includes a path to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants already living in the U.S., will be the basis for any final congressional compromise. (Why…WHY?!?)The Senate bill’s citizenship pathway, although arduous, conditional and designed to take 10 to 15 years to achieve, will almost assuredly face opposition from House Republicans.

That is why Boehner, in an interview last Monday, raised eyebrows and excited Democrats when he declined to specifically rule out bringing up an immigration bill that did not have the support of a majority of his majority. The speaker latered clarified his remarks, saying most Republicans would have to support anything brought to the floor.

“My goal is always to bring bills to the floor that have a strong Republican majority,” Boehner said. “Immigration reform is a very difficult issue. But I don’t intend to bring an immigration bill to the floor that violates what I and what members of my party — what our principles are.” (Boehner…principles?!?)

The practice of bringing to the floor only bills that are supported by the majority of the majority party has become known as the “Hastert Rule,” named after former Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who used that standard as a litmus test. Hastert’s successors are free to violate that guideline, as Boehner did on the tax deal, and so conservative activists are now urging House Republicans to incorporate the standard into the body’s internal rules to prevent Boehner or his successors from violating it.

Boehner has so far maintained a commitment to moving immigration reform through “regular order,” delegating authority over much of the process to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. The speaker has acted behind the scenes to keep the process from sputtering, but otherwise prefers to foster member involvement and encourage as many as possible to introduce bills and legislate.

One GOP strategist noted that Boehner is navigating a different set of dynamics than Reid in the Senate. (We would sure as hell hope so!) In particular, House Republicans are likely to suffer a greater voter backlash in the 2014 elections is they back the wrong immigration reform bill than they would if they simply did nothing on the issue.

“There is no national crisis with an artificial deadline the president can trump up and trot out on the nightly news,” the GOP strategist said. “Boehner is under no pressure to put the Senate bill on the floor.”

No sh*t!  Then again, he wasn’t under any really discernible pressure when he screwed up everything else he’s ever touched.

For more on defending the indefensible, we turn to this report from Dave Boyer in The Washington Times:

White House defends high bills for Africa trip

President Obama is under fire for the price of the first family’s upcoming weeklong trip to Africa, which could cost taxpayers as much as $100 million at a time of federal budget cuts and furloughs. The Obamas’ trip will take them to Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa from June 26 to July 3. The excursion will involve military cargo planes airlifting 56 support vehicles, including 14 limousines, and three trucks to carry bulletproof glass panels to cover the windows where the family is set to stay…

A House lawmaker said rather than spend $100 million on a trip to Africa, the administration should instead fund public tours of the White House that were canceled under the “sequestration” budget cuts.

“For the cost of this trip to Africa, you could have 1,350 weeks of White House tours, which the White House has canceled indefinitely due to budget constraints,” Rep. George Holding, North Carolina Republican, said on the House floor Friday. Mr. Holding said with the country more than $16 trillion in debt, the administration should not be spending so much money on an eight-day visit to Africa.

The White House defended the trip Friday, saying, “There will be a great bang for our buck (OUR buck?!?) for being in Africa because when you travel to regions like Africa that don’t get a lot of presidential attention, you tend to have very long-standing and long-running impact from the visit,” said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama.

The trip also will involve an aircraft carrier or amphibious ship with a fully staffed medical trauma center to be stationed offshore in case of an emergency. Fighter jets will fly in shifts to provide around-the-clock protection over the president’s airspace. The trip reportedly will involve hundreds of Secret Service agents.

The president and first lady Michelle Obama also had planned to take a safari in Tanzania, which reportedly would have required a special counterassault team to carry sniper rifles in the event of a threat from wild animals. But the safari was canceled in favor of a trip to Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was held as a political prisoner for 18 of his 27 years behind bars. (Yeah…that’s a must!)

Mr. Rhodes said Mr. Obama already has traveled extensively to Asia and to Latin America, and he said some people think the president’s trip to Africa “is overdue.” (Such as who?!?) “Africa’s a critically important region of the world,” he said. (As important as trimming a $17 trillion debt?!?) “This is a deeply substantive trip and one that has been highly anticipated on the continent. And, frankly, there’s been great disappointment that the president hasn’t traveled to Africa until this point, other than a brief stop in Ghana.”

Mr. Obama is expected to spend part of the trip emphasizing the importance of global health programs, including HIV/AIDS prevention. “We have huge interests there,” Mr. Rhodes said. “You’ve got some of the fastest-growing economies in Africa. You’ve got a massively growing youth population. You’ve got key security and counterterrorism issues that we work on with African countries.”

Yes…the countries the First Marxists are visiting are soooo key to our international security and counterterrism efforts they cannot be depended upon to assist in his security arrangements.

Turning, appropriately enough, from international to internal security, as Jack Minor, courtesy of World Net Daily and Carl Polizzi details, as per the time-tested tenets of international Marxism, the internal enemy remains the most dangerous:

Cops even taking muskets

Illinois veteran had to fight for return of antiques

Gun control enthusiasts have frequently mocked Second Amendment supporters by saying they only have the right to a musket, which was the weapon of choice at the time the Bill of Rights was drafted. However, now lawmakers have taken to even confiscating these weapons.

The Daily Herald reports Arthur Lovi, a resident of Arlington Heights, Ill., who is also an Air Force veteran, was speaking to a VA psychiatrist about tragedies in his life, including the loss of his wife of 33 years. Although she had died nine years before, Lovi said the wound from her death was still raw. Even to this day, he remained somewhat bitter after a doctor incorrectly diagnosed her as having a cold after she complained of being tired and bruising easily. The following day another doctor informed her she had leukemia, and she died a few weeks later.

“I’ll have hard feelings about it until the day I die,” Lovi told the Daily Herald. “Not that a day would make a difference, but maybe it would have. I’ll never know.”

Followings his appointment with the psychiatrist, the therapist contacted the police to tell them Lovi had made a threat against the doctor who made the first diagnosis. However, she went on to tell them she did not consider him to be a threat, but simply did so because it was part of her job.

The report resulted in several officers showing up at his house later that night and confiscating his three antique firearms, which included a musket that was over 100 years old. According to Lovi, two days later he asked about his firearms, and an officer came to his house to talk about it. He said after the officer turned the conversation to his wife, he became upset. The officer demanded Lovi undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Following the evaluation, it was determined he was not a danger to himself or others.

In spite of the clean bill of health, it was only after Lovi obtained a lawyer two months later that his firearms were returned.

On the Lighter Side…

Finally, in the Medical Section…

New Study Says Men Are Cause Of Menopause

Women: like Dimocrats, they’re always blaming someone else!

Magoo