MUCKRAKER

• Climatic Scare as Flim-Flam

  Shades of George C. Scott and The Flim-Flam Man or Redford and Newman in The Sting, three fine movie-actors portraying the penultimate in the lineup of con artists working their scams on the hapless “mark” about to be had. The current best subject for a movie along the lines of [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 4:15pm EST
  

• University as BIG BROTHER?

  I never cease to wonder at the strange, sometimes ridiculously inculcated rules and regulations in institutions of higher learning having to do with everything from restraints on speech to the use of physical facilities. A student learns early (or else) that there are some words or terms that simply can’t [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 9:20pm EST
  

• The Actual Reason for Show Trials?

  Concerning Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, this is what the president said the other day, "I don't think it [the New York trial] would be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him." Attorney General Holder said this: "Failure is not an option. These are'" [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 1:52pm EST
  

• 19 November 1863

  What was perhaps the turning point of the Civil War was the bloody battle just outside of Gettysburg, fought in July 1863 in the placid countryside of Pennsylvania. Fifty-one thousand Union and Confederate soldiers were wounded, missing, or dead as a result of the desperate battle. On 19 November 1863, [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 10:00pm EST
  

• Khalid & IMAGE

  Dear Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
  
  As CEO of the Institute for Modifying All Government Entities (known as IMAGE, for short), I am writing to avail you of IMAGE services offered to anyone connected to any government, directly or indirectly or accusatorily or inferentially or...you get the picture, I’m sure. You [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 12:09pm EST
  

• Justice Trivialized & Propagandized

  The decision by the administration to try the 9/11 perpetrators in a criminal court in New York has outraged most conservatives – and most likely a lot of democrats – and remarked the point that these terrorists have committed crimes per se, not war crimes. If they had committed war [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 4:29pm EST
  

• DNC Memorandum #7

  From the office of Governor Tim Kaine, convener, 12 November 2009
  
  **Everyone is authorized to declare victory vis-a-vis the recent elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York, primarily on the basis that Creigh Deeds refused help from POTUS and TOTUS (Teleprompter of the United States) until it was [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 7:53pm EST
  

• Athletic Lunacy Reigns

  Wonders never cease when it comes to the amount of money that’s thrown away in Kentucky through the athletic departments of the state’s universities. The only athletic departments that are said to pay their way through income derived from ticket sales, TV, and other sources are at the University of [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 4:26pm EST
  

• Protective Order as Salvation

  The media seems constantly to be reporting increasing numbers of cases involving protective orders, assaults, sexual-abuse, even murder vis-a-vis women caught up in abusive relationships with men. It’s rarely the other way around. In the Kentucky legislature, there is yet another effort to address this situation, the protection, of course, [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 4:32pm EST
  

• A Terrorist By Any Other Name

  As is the case with everything that happens with regard to any governmental entity, the spin-doctors are at work satisfying their political agendas by using the Fort Hood massacre to make their points. The substantive facts are quite clear, to wit, that an army major of Arabic descent and a [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 10:23pm EST
  

• How the Guv-Grinch Stole/Restored Christmas

  Apparently it’s not enough that the mainstream media, TV media, local media, national media, and all other possible media spend interminable amounts of resources calling attention to the fact that Kentucky is southbound off the charts as far as everything from obesity to smoking to pill-popping to low graduation rates [...]
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  Posted: November 06, 2009, 1:49pm EST
  

• Political Spin & Backlash

  The spin-doctors are already hard at work concerning the off-year elections just completed, especially those in Virginia and New Jersey, in which the republicans were successful in gubernatorial races – by a landslide in Virginia. Both states were in the Obama camp in 2008 and helped put him in office. [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 3:31pm EST
  

• A Bad Year for Kentucky Corruption

  In the past year, Kentucky citizens, largely through the good work of reporters at the Lexington Herald-Leader, have been treated to a unique inside-look at the perfidy engendered by politicians and bureaucrats who are charged with honest discharge of duties in carrying on the business of government. However, a number [...]
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  Posted: October 31, 2009, 4:22pm EDT
  

• Foreign Relations -- Hopeless?

  State Secretary Clinton has finally made it to Pakistan to parley with the people whom she should have visited first in her journeys around the world, flying with all the trappings of royalty courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. That didn’t happen, of course, since President Obama made it plain [...]
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  Posted: October 29, 2009, 7:56am EDT
  

• Rampant Basketball Sexism!

  In the midst of all the current turmoil regarding the recession, Afghanistan, Iraq, nukes in Iran and North Korea, health-care, unemployment, cap-and-trade, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and whether or not the president smokes or the vice president knows the current meaning of “fluffernutter,” an even greater issue has reared its [...]
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  Posted: October 26, 2009, 1:08pm EDT
  

• DNC Memorandum #6

  From the office of Governor Tim Kaine, convener, 23 October 2009
  
  **Please pay no attention to the rumor that the president has thrown Creigh Deeds under the bus account his asking that neither the POTUS nor the TOTUS (Teleprompter of the United States) appear in the Virginia gubernatorial race [...]
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  Posted: October 23, 2009, 7:41pm EDT
  

• UK Athletic Department Peccadilloes

  No better reason for taxpayer revolt exists than that of the unbelievably idiotic management of athletics at the University of Kentucky, the latest of its intolerable circumstances being the paying of former basketball coach Billy Gillispie a cool $3,245,000 to be fired on the basis of a contract that had [...]
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  Posted: October 21, 2009, 4:21pm EDT
  

• Failed Honeymoon?

  Traditionally, an incoming president is awarded a six-month “honeymoon,” during which, with virtually no opposition, he is supposed to completely shake-up government, especially if he has a Congress dominated by his party. For President Obama, that six-month period ended on 20 July, at which time the health-care system in this [...]
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  Posted: October 15, 2009, 2:20pm EDT
  

• Chandler, "Gaming" & Bourbon!

  Democrat Ben Chandler, Kentucky’s Sixth District Congressman, heaved and groaned and delivered himself of an opinion piece published in the Lexington Herald-Leader of 11 October in which he castigated the state for not protecting the state’s “brand” industries, horses and bourbon. Okay...the “horses” part was actually all about slots at [...]
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  Posted: October 12, 2009, 5:12pm EDT
  

• Peace Prize as Farce!

  Most folks in the U.S. (okay, the whole world, for that matter) concede that the Nobel Peace Prize is a farce much if not most of the time since it is far more political than by way of recognizing people who have contributed significantly to the cause of effecting world [...]
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  Posted: October 10, 2009, 9:40pm EDT
  

• Obama Motivation?

  While President Obama is smart enough to grow into the office, his bizarre behavior thus far gives cause to wonder not only about that matter, but also to wonder about what aspect(s) of his life have had the greatest impact on his philosophies and consequently his approach to governance. In [...]
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  Posted: October 06, 2009, 2:53pm EDT
  

• Congressman Grayson & the Hereafter

  Dear Congressman Grayson:
  
  I’m contacting you account both respect and admiration accruing to your recent statement on the House floor: "I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America." Also, as president of the Serenity-Effecting Agency for Naturalizing Celestial' [...]
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  Posted: October 03, 2009, 2:01pm EDT
  

• "We Won"...On To Copenhagen!

  In answer to a question back in February as to his rationale for doing something or other, Prez Obama simply said, “We won.” No one begrudges the Anointed One the same perks in office that other presidents and their families have enjoyed, but there ought to be a line drawn [...]
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  Posted: September 30, 2009, 9:14pm EDT
  

• Mahmoud, Moammar & Hugo

  It’s just past midnight in a spacious tent in a small village just north of New York City. Three men, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Moammar Qaddafi, and Hugo Chavez sit around a small fire. Hereinafter, they are referenced as A, Q, and C, respectively, but not respectfully.
  
  *A: I thought that [...]
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  Posted: September 26, 2009, 4:32pm EDT
  

• UN Lunacy-Season!

  The president made his grand entrance into the United Nations on the 23rd though it was not nearly so grand as his conquest of Berlin in the summer of 2008. He lectured the world for better than 41 minutes, so he may have induced about as much sleep among the [...]
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  Posted: September 23, 2009, 7:20pm EDT
  

• Racism in the White House?

  The subject of racism has been much in the news of late. No lesser light than Jimmy Carter has heaved and strained and delivered himself of the opinion that white folk are against President Obama’s initiatives simply because they are racists. This means, course, that most Congress-people who can’t see [...]
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  Posted: September 19, 2009, 10:06pm EDT
  

• Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!

  The keeper of this corner – giving thanks to C-Span, as usual – watched the entire proceeding on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives 15 September concerning HR #744, otherwise known as the infamous resolution to stab South Carolina’s Joe Wilson for calling out the president during the [...]
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  Posted: September 16, 2009, 8:00pm EDT
  

• Media - Disingenuous Shill?

  The disingenuousness of newspapers with regard to actual facts is sometimes amazing, even considering that the mainstream media currently is agenda-driven and is primarily a shill for Obamessiah’s administration. There’s no argument with a newspaper’s editorial position on anything, but to display in the “news section,” such as it is [...]
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  Posted: September 12, 2009, 5:40pm EDT
  

• Too Long & Too Disingenuous

  The president missed another opportunity in his health-care speech before the Congress – actually the nation, as it was designed to be – when he bloviated for what seemed an eternity on a subject that might have required 20-25 minutes. His first mistake was in turning the event into a [...]
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  Posted: September 10, 2009, 1:29pm EDT
  

• Obama's Missed Opportunity

  The latest shakeup in the Obama administration, the “resignation” of Van Jones from something called the “czar for green jobs,” remarks a certain sadness that is growing in intensity every day…a sadness that could have been entirely avoided but for the mindset of Obama vis-à-vis his office. He reflects the [...]
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  Posted: September 06, 2009, 9:43pm EDT
  

• DNC Memorandum #5

  From the office of Governor Tim Kaine, convener, 03 September 2009
  
  ***Sorry to be a bit late…okay, missed last month; however, things have been hectic lately, particularly because of the riff-raff that’s been upsetting the Town Hall meetings. The legislators are refusing to hold any more meetings since these [...]
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  Posted: September 03, 2009, 10:19pm EDT
  

• Jekyll/Hyde/Obama/Emanuel

  It’s just past one a.m. in the little room off the Oval Office and Dr. Jekyll and his alter ego Mr. Hyde are meeting with President Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, hereinafter referenced as J, H, O, and E, respectively, if not necessarily respectfully.
  
  *H: I [...]
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  Posted: August 27, 2009, 9:27pm EDT
  

• Obama as God's Partner

  This is what President Obama said to 1,000 Jewish rabbis in a conference call on 19 August: "We are God's partners in matters of life and death." One wonders if the president has a death-wish with regard to “his” health-care bill now being tortured through everything from sidewalk conversations to [...]
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  Posted: August 22, 2009, 11:54am EDT
  

• Leadership VACUUM

  Perhaps the tip-off on just where the Obama administration stands was given the other day by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This is from CNSNews.com - “In a television interview Monday [10 August] in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that it would [...]
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  Posted: August 17, 2009, 9:13pm EDT
  

• Moral Turpitude - So what!

  Nowhere is moral turpitude more noted than in the world of sports in this country. This doesn’t mean that it’s more prevalent among athletes and coaches/managers than among others, only that when discovered it’s made far more public. The better-known and respected the perpetrator of what is still considered an [...]
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  Posted: August 16, 2009, 4:04pm EDT
  

• Clunker

  According to the main propaganda arm of the Obama administration, aka the mainstream media, the “clunker trade-in” program has been a huge success, not only in getting rid of thousands of air-polluting heaps but also by helping the auto industry get back in gear. The fly in the ointment, of [...]
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  Posted: August 04, 2009, 4:33pm EDT
  

• End-of-Life Conferences

  One of the most interesting features alleged to be in the health-care bill now being considered in Congress is the one regarding the “end-of-life” conferences to be held by the aging with government officials as they “plan” the best way to die with the least amount of medical cost, thus [...]
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  Posted: July 31, 2009, 5:40pm EDT
  

• To CALIBRATE or not to CALIBRATE

  The word is already catching on, and the commentators and pundits will soon be using it profusely, and all the more so because the messiah, aka President Obama, coined it in his famous second response to his own first response regarding the mental capacity of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police force, [...]
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  Posted: July 29, 2009, 10:54am EDT
  

• DNC Memorandum #4

  From the office of Governor Tim Kaine, convener, 27 July 2009
  
  ***Questions have been asked concerning the reason for changing the above title to Convener from Chairman, as noted in Mem #3, thus passing over the term Chairperson. The reason is simple: Representatives from the Green Party and PETA [...]
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  Posted: July 27, 2009, 7:28pm EDT
  

• Chandler in the Dock

  Crunch time is here for Kentucky’s Sixth-District congressman, Ben Chandler. Already on the record as having voted on an energy bill nobody, including himself, had read, when, indeed, on the night before the vote, 300 pages nobody had read were added to the bill nobody had read, he’s now supporting [...]
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  Posted: July 24, 2009, 7:41pm EDT
  

• News Conference as CAMPAIGN

  After having virtually sworn never to suffer through another one, I watched the president’s “news conference” on the 22nd. There were few questions (no time) since Obama stretched each non-answer to the limit, so full of himself was he that he, perhaps inadvertently, just rambled. He has given a new [...]
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  Posted: July 23, 2009, 4:35pm EDT
  

• American Ayatollah?

  This is the lead paragraph in a Fox News report of 20 July: Roughly 500 members of Hizb ut-Tahrir — a global Sunni network with reported ties to confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda in Iraq's onetime leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — met inside a Hilton hotel' [...]
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  Posted: July 21, 2009, 11:21am EDT
  

• Czars...the New Duma!

  The going thing in Washington these days is the “Czar Game.” So far, President Obamessiah has appointed 33 czars to take over parts of the government and report directly to him, thus bypassing all the Cabinet secretaries, who also report directly to him. The term “czar” is defined as “one [...]
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  Posted: July 08, 2009, 5:12pm EDT
  

• Tyranny & the Fourth!

  Coincidentally, the document that declared the independence of the United States was officially sanctioned on 04 July 1776 in Philadelphia and the turning-point battle of the Civil War that preserved the resulting Union was fought on 04 July 1863 at Gettysburg. Thus, in the span of little more than one [...]
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  Posted: July 02, 2009, 10:20am EDT
  

• Another Shoe Has Dropped!

  Well…surprise, surprise…the other shoe – or perhaps better – ANOTHER shoe has dropped in Kentucky’s ongoing “Year of the Scandal.” This time, it’s the Kentucky Association of Counties, and the Lexington Herald-Leader is to be thanked for yet another expose. This should be a “Pulitzer” year for the paper.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: July 01, 2009, 8:07am EDT
  

• Chandler Drinks the KOOL-AID!

  Central Kentucky’s U.S. Representative Ben Chandler drank the Obamessiah KOOL-AID and voted for the Cap-and-Trade bill and is proud of it. Oh yeah…he said he had to struggle about this decision but didn’t mention that he, as was the case with all the rest of the solons, had never read [...]
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  Posted: June 27, 2009, 4:48pm EDT
  

• KEEP...Now Out of the Gate!

  The “horsey set,” including Governor Beshear and former governor Jones, now the president of the Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP), the super-lobby outfit (with deep pockets) stumping for slots (now euphemistically called video lottery terminals) at ONLY the racetracks met their Waterloo when the slots bill didn’t make it out [...]
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  Posted: June 26, 2009, 1:44pm EDT
  

• BC, Dementia &"Slots Bill"

  Back in August 2006, Lexington Herald-Leader Boy Columnist (aka Larry Keeling) allowed as how he had been having health problems accruing to inhaling the fumes of his lawn mower, perfectly understandable, but no one else seems to ever have that problem out in the wide-open spaces of lawns so maybe [...]
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  Posted: June 25, 2009, 5:46pm EDT
  

• IMAGE Is Everything!

  Dear Car Czar Rattner:
  
  You have been in your job salvaging the auto industry for a few months now, with only two companies going bankrupt (May I presume to compliment you?), but, while recognizing your accomplishments and obvious ability, I write to offer the services of the Institute for [...]
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  Posted: June 24, 2009, 11:37am EDT
  

• The Right Connections?

  How much is a life worth? That might be the pertinent question with respect to the recent events connected to Donte Stallworth, a Cleveland Browns receiver in the National Football League. Stallworth, driving quite drunk, killed Mario Reyes, a pedestrian, last March in Florida and has been facing a possible [...]
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  Posted: June 19, 2009, 4:18pm EDT