Holder Still Holding Out

Nearly two (2) years have passed since Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed by guns provided to drug lords through our federal government.  You will note that, to date, there has been absolutely no punishment of any individual within the Department of Justice for this atrocity.  Eric Holder, the guy who is supposed to make us safe by establishing the rule of law, has openly refused to supply requested documents which would indicate the individuals responsible for permitting this atrocity.  Supreme Legal Eagle Holder has repeatedly refused to apply and defend countless laws in the United States and now openly thumbs his nose at a Congressional Subpoena.  As a result, he was held in contempt, yet, still serves at the President's pleasure.  Surely, he'll turn over the documents now right?  Wrong.  The House has been forced to file suit to enforce its subpoena through the courts.  The irony is that morons like Nancy Pelosi have the audacity to claim that the House, by enforcing it's powers and the flipping LAW, is somehow wasting tax dollars... because Holder refuses to follow the law.  I know.  It makes no sense.  Honestly, even as a liberal, why would you allow someone to run your party who is so incompetent and boldy dishonest?!  So what if she votes the way you'd like her to, she makes the entire group seem utterly insane.

More from the story:

Terry was killed in December 2010 in a gun fight with bandits who had crossed the U.S.- Mexico border. Two of the weapons recovered at the scene were part of Fast and Furious, an Obama administration operation that was supposed to try to track guns being sold to Mexican cartels, but which lost track of the weapons, allowing thousands to stream across the border.

 Two things to note...  This is "THOUSANDS" of weapons we are talking about.  It took two (really only one) to result in the death of officer Terry.  How many more are going to die from the other "unaccounted for" guns?  Secondly, we need to expand on the idea that the guns were "lost track of."  That's not really accurate.  In reality, we are told that the federal powers running this operation specifically ordered that we ignore the gun's movement.  The D.O.J. / BATFE put guns into the hands of murdering scum and specifically told agents to shut up when they protested the idiocy of the act.  Moreover, they told them not to follow or track the weapons.  And when they blew the whistle?  They threatened, demoted and punished them.

Fast and Furious is so "special" because it utilized “uncontrolled delivery,” whereby the criminals were essentially allowed to drop off the map. Moreover, the operation wasn't conducted with the cooperation or knowledge of the Mexican government.  Splendid.

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Also, as we all know, the TSA is utterly and absolutely worthless.  Yesterday (or somewhere there abouts) an individual swam up to a fence, climbed over it and sauntered past a $100 Million "super-duper high tech" monitoring system.... all the way past the candy cane forest and right into the airport...  No, this isn't fiction.  It's TSA at its finest.  Good job TSA!  You deserve more of our tax dollars!!!  I'm so glad you fondle our junk.  That way, at least we know we are getting some return on our money.

Lazarus

Like the Biblical figure, TCD has returned from the dead.  We had a forced hiatus for a while due to a combination of work and other trivialties which I won't bore you with but the good news is there are TONS of things going on out there in the world that deserve the scorn and sarcasm of The Duck.

So, first and foremost, let us recall POTUS's brilliant words that if you are a small business owner, you "didn't build that [business]" because the federal government or some public teacher did.   What?! How utterly absurd.  Highways didn't develop until Henry Ford began mass producing cars.  The internet may have been born, technically (kind of), from U.S. military application but civilians showed the government how to use it and the potential for its use.  Moreover, the computers that lead to the development of said internet started off with private citizens more so than any government action.  So, using POTUS's logic, the private individual is responsible for all that the federal government has done since 1941 give or take a few years..  A computer created/exploited the internet, so the computer gets all the credit right?  Of course the foolishness of this intellectual gibberish is beyond the mental faculties of a union minded, big government person... Meahhh... so be it.  Here is POTUS's reasoning summed up by one very clever individual (and which I find utterly hilarious):

 "How about that Michael Phelps? [TCD Edit- THE Greatest Olympian Ever] But let's remember he didn't win all those medals, someone else did. After all, he and I swam in public pools, built by state employees using tax dollars. He got training from the U.S.O.C. and ate food grown by the Department of Agriculture. He should ... share his medals with people like me, who can barely keep [their] head[s] above water, let alone swim."

In other news, Amtrak managed to lose over $800 million selling cheeseburgers and sodas.  Despite the fact that a burger will cost you over $9 as a rider, they still managed to lose another $7 on top of that. Amtrak riders also pay roughly $2.00 for a Pepsi but each of these sodas cost the U.S. Treasury $3.40.... [You will note that ] Amazon.com is currently selling 24-packs of 12 ounce Pepsi cans for $8.94 -- which averages to about 75 cents per can."   "How in the heck is it possible for Amtrak to screw up so bad," you ask?  Because the federal government is REALLY good at running businesses and in doing all things basically.  Way better in fact than say, Chick-Fil-A...

Which leads us to this story: Mayors and city councilman/alderman have recently vowed to exclude Chick-Fil-A from their communities after the privately-owned company's president expressed his belief that marriage should be defined as it is in the Bible (and which also happens to be the federal law, for the record). Chick-Fil-A, as an organization, also donates to several non-profit groups that discourage homosexual lifestyles and/or gay marriage.  As a result, Dan Cathy's views have been dubbed "hate speech" and "bigotry."  Simply holding a different opinion about something is not "hate speech" but in this day and age anything with a Christian perspective IS considered hate speech so, maybe, under modern terminology it technically is... (of course, in which case, the belief that one should "love thy neighbor" is also hate speech... technically)  To come to this "hate filled" conclusion we obviously must ignore the fact that Chick-Fil-A gladly serves homosexuals in their restaurants, hires them as employees and allows them to advance within the company.  

(More After The Jump)

Socialism Marches

Capitalism Progresses.  There's a difference.

The world economic upheaval continues.  It seems to TCD, that part of the problem develops from countries having too many bills and not enough money to pay those bills.  (I know, our economic prowess is stunning).  So investors don't like those countries and they decide to leave them (physically and financially) when those countries try to take more and more of their money.  So, the countries wind up in an even worse position to pay said bills.  Some of those countries include:

France, Greece and Spain (the U.S. doesn't fit here because we just print more money... although... POTUS is promising to raise taxes on the wealthy 10% so they are paying more than they currently are... which is 70% of the bill).  Ok, ok, add us to the list but we're still not socialist.

So what to do when you have no money?  Obviously, you decide "austerity measures" are cruel because they sound cruel and you go right on spending money. Excellent plan! How could this happen?  In short, socialism (or socialist theory rather).

 

There are various kinds of Socialism.  There is small socialism like when the government taxes you at a greater percentage than your neighbor (and gives that money to Amtrak in the form of subsidies for four decades without them ever making a profit)...  And then there is great big Socialism like when the government takes everything you own and tells you that you don't deserve more than others simply by  virtue of working harder.... and calls you scum in the process.  (For the record, to get more under Big Socialism, you must be a leader in the Socialist Working Party!  Like these guys in China, who are technically communists but there is no major distinction between Communism and Socialism when you get to the far end of the spectrum.)

{More After The Jump}

Careful With Your Words

A new article is outlining efforts by Supreme Big Sister, Janet The Mighty, and the Department of Homeland Security to monitor you're statements as potential "terrorist" threats. The thought police are now officially cataloging your personal information for having opinions containing words they deem potentially threatening.

I am curious to see just how much money is spent on monitoring the public for saying things like "drill" and "illegal immigrant" on the web. How this could be an effective approach to counter-terrorism or homeland security is beyond me.

Why would any terrorist post something publicly on twitter, a blog or facebook? It makes no sense and erodes your personal freedoms in the process. Do they really think that is how the bad guys are communicating? If so, our security is even more tenuous than I thought. The sheer amount of data that we would have to process in order to catch someone with this approach is overwhelming. To process that amount of information, you'd have to spend a LOT of money. Who's money... Well, who's do you think?

This is not effective counter-terrorism but it is a good way to start profiling individual U.S. citizens. Not something, as a U.S. Citizen, that I would want to pay my government to do.

While the Duck IS in favor of counter-intelligence, we prefer it to be focused on foreign soil and not here at home. Especially, when it's a fruitless endeavor like this. I can pretty much guarantee TCD has made the list having said "illegal immigrant" roughly 10,000 times. However, in the event we did not, this should seal our fate. Here is a few of the words that you are not permitted to say without drawing the attention of DHS. If you've posted this, you're being watched and your personal information is being cataloged and used "somehow" (no one really knows how at this point):

The DHS outlined plans to scan blogs, Twitter and Facebook for words such as 'illegal immigrant', 'outbreak', 'drill', 'strain', 'virus', 'recovery', 'deaths', 'collapse', 'human to animal' and 'trojan', according to an 'impact asssessment' document filed by the agency.

When its search tools net an account using the phrases, they record personal information.

It's still not clear how this information is used - and who the DHS shares it with.

Well that's comforting isn't it? Privacy and Freedom of Speech have strange new meanings these days. In terms of feasibility, think about how many times someone tweets about the zombie apocalypse as a joke. Now imagine how many times those same people will post things about Armageddon being triggered by an outbreak of a virus strain that leads to the collapse of civilization and numerous deaths of illegal immigrants after some form of human to animal trojan is created while drilling for oil. I did it just now to be a jackass. Imagine what the kids'll be doing over on twitter and Facebook.

I can't imagine how many billions are going down the drain over this. You folks at DHS need to get back to basics and stop trying to develop a minority-report like system. DARPA, I love you but come on, let's be serious for a minute. The amount of data processing power you will need is not financially reasonable. No matter how complex the algorithm is, you're just wasting money because of the amount of false hits you will generate. In the end, not only will this NOT work but you will undermine the people's trust in government. That's not a good thing.

So, now that TCD is on your list and has your attention, please take note of that concept and focus your efforts where they belong- on the bad guys, not twitter and the public at large. Thank you.

The Duck Was Right

...but you already knew that didn't you?

So a congressional report recently concluded that the TSA was bloated, ineffective and generally obnoxious. Shocking no?

Also, it turns out that the GM / Auto Bailouts were even worse than originally thought. Super shocking no?

As a fun FYI, it turns out GM didn't lose 14 BILLION of your hard earned dollars. They actually lost around $24 BILLION. (I bet that figure still goes up before its all said and done).

So, you see, dear reader, The Cluster Duck is always right.