I'll Take Potpourri For $100, Alex

1. You Can't Make this Stuff Up Dept.

In the aftermath of the stunning admission by the IRS that yes, there are backups of the Lois Lerner emails, but that sifting them out would be "too onerous," comes this charming development:

A lawyer in the IRS ethics office is facing the possibility of being disbarred, according to records that accuse her of lying to a court-appointed board and hiding what she’d done with money from a settlement that was supposed to go to two medical providers who had treated her client.

The disciplinary arm of the D.C. Court of Appeals has recommended that Takisha McGee, a section manager in the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility, lose her law license over the charge, which stems from a personal injury case she worked about a year before she joined the tax agency.

"Takisha," eh? Any guesses which box she checks for "Race or Ethnic Origin" on the census forms?

The case could pose a credibility issue for the IRS, whose professional conduct office is the watchdog charged with ensuring all tax professionals “adhere to professional standards and follow the law.”

No, really?

Despite that duty, the office has dispatched Ms. McGee to lecture professionals about the importance of maintaining high ethical standards.

See topic heading.

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2. I Told You So Dept.

When it comes to matters with a racial, ethnic, or religious implication, Britain's organs of State are no more trustworthy than our own:

The sexual abuse of about 1,400 children at the hands of Asian men went unreported for 16 years because staff feared they would be seen as racist, a report said today.

Children as young as 11 were trafficked, beaten, and raped by large numbers of men between 1997 and 2013 in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, the council commissioned review into child protection revealed. And shockingly, more than a third of the cases were already know to agencies.

But according to the report's author: 'several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist'.

And why might that be? Could it be that "Asian" is what the British use as a circumlocution for Muslim? The article never uses that word, but the names and ethnic heritages of the perpetrators make it clear as crystal.

A thousand truths do not mark a man as a truth-teller, but a single lie marks him as a damned liar....Lying to other people is your business, but I tell you this: once a man gets a reputation as a liar, he might as well be struck dumb, for people do not listen to the wind. [Robert A. Heinlein, Citizen of the Galaxy]

That quote has been a favorite of mine for many years...but despite its penetration, it doesn't quite complete the journey:

Word gets around. Something as atrocious as the rape-torture-murders of [Channon] Christian and [Christopher] Newsom cannot forever be kept from the light of day. People talk: policemen, forensic investigators, neighbors, reporters, reporters' clerical assistants, cleanup specialists, garbagemen, the families of the victims, their neighbors, and their neighbors' kids. There's simply no hope that the story won't sooner or later be told. When it is told, after a long interval of silence, people will naturally ask one another, "Why haven't we heard anything about this before now?" They will suspect conspiracy.

And now and then they will be right.

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3. Rainbows But No Unicorns.

Freedom of association in these United States has taken its death blow:

The New York State Division of Human Rights (DHR) has ruled that the Roman Catholic owners of an Albany-area farm violated the civil rights of a lesbian couple when they declined to host the couple’s same-sex “marriage” ceremony in 2012.

Robert and Cynthia Gifford, who own and operate Liberty Ridge Farm in Schaghticoke, were ordered by DHR Judge Migdalia Pares and Commissioner Helen Diane Foster to pay $10,000 in fines to the state and an additional $3,000 in damages to the lesbian couple, Jennie McCarthy and Melissa Erwin for “mental pain and suffering.”

Additionally, the Giffords must provide sensitivity training to their staff, and prominently display a poster highlighting state anti-discrimination laws.

Course of true love never did run smooth, did it? But wait: there's more!

“After communicating the fact that they chose not to hold same-sex marriage ceremonies at the farm because to do so would violate the Giffords’ sincerely held beliefs (that God intended marriage to be between a man a woman only), Mrs. Gifford invited the couple to visit the farm to discuss handling their wedding reception, which the couple refused.”

Concerning which Emperor Misha comments thus:

Of course they did. The two obscenely obese dykes weren’t in the slightest interested in an actual wedding ceremony at the Giffords’ farm. All they were interested in was punishing the “other” for daring to not endorse, embrace and celebrate their lifestyle. That and a meal ticket, because meal tickets is something that the couple uses a lot of. A lot.

And so the Giffords joins a line of photographers, bakers and various and sundry other people who have been found guilty of insufficient adulation of Teh Ghey and punished by the strong arm of the state in the former land of the free. But nothing, absolutely nothing is being forced upon anyone, that’s just Crazy Talk.

Just think of the $13,000 as a tax on politically incorrect attitudes. I'm sure that's Barack Hussein Obama's position.

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4. Blood Pressure High Enough Yet?

From the very beginning of the IRS and Benghazi investigations, the Dishonorable Elijah Cummings (D, Hell) has been the spike in the wheel of both Congressional committees and an overflowing fount of ideas for "improving things:"

If somebody isn't tasked with ensuring the implementation of equitable policing in cities across the country, then no one will do the job. the Administration must appoint a federal czar, housed in the Department of Justice, who is specifically tasked with promoting the professionalization of local law enforcement, monitoring egregious law enforcement activities, and adjudicating suspicious actions of local law enforcement agencies that receive federal funding.

Inasmuch as "surplus" and "superannuated" military equipment is being pressed upon every law enforcement agency in the country, the Administration would no doubt assert that all police departments would be subject to such "oversight." Refusing such "gifts" would not be allowed as an escape. What do you suppose would happen to the states' privilege of legislating their own codes of penal law after that, hmm?

Say, there are rather a lot of those federal "oversight" personnel. And they look rather heavily armed, don't they?

"First they nudge, then they shove, then they shoot." -- Glenn Beck.

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5. Don't Worry, Be Happy Dept.

What could possibly go wrong with this?

The federal government is spending nearly $1 million to create an online database that will track “misinformation” and hate speech on Twitter.

The National Science Foundation is financing the creation of a web service that will monitor “suspicious memes” and what it considers “false and misleading ideas,” with a major focus on political activity online.

The “Truthy” database, created by researchers at Indiana University, is designed to “detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution.”

The university has received $919,917 so far for the project....

“This service could mitigate the diffusion of false and misleading ideas, detect hate speech and subversive propaganda, and assist in the preservation of open debate,” the grant said.

“Truthy,” which gets its name from Stephen Colbert, will catalog how information is spread on Twitter, including political campaigns.

“While the vast majority of memes arise in a perfectly organic manner, driven by the complex mechanisms of life on the Web, some are engineered by the shady machinery of high-profile congressional campaigns,” according to the website.

“Truthy” claims to be non-partisan. However, the project’s lead investigator Filippo Menczer proclaims his support for numerous progressive advocacy groups, including President Barack Obama’s Organizing for Action, Moveon.org, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, and True Majority.

Concerning which the esteemed Sara Noble comments thus:

The leftists in the government will decide what is a political smear and so on....

In reality, it will shut down free speech if they start demonizing opposing opinions. These are the same people who target innocent Americans who disagree with them.

They also plan to look into shady campaign practices. We know what party they will be investigating....

Remember AttackWatch and how they viciously attacked Romney donors so donations would stop? This is another way to AttackWatch. Remember how they told government workers to spy on each other and report anyone for violating any rules? Then there is the spy on newsrooms program they tried to implement and which they threatened would return after tweaking. This is how they roll.

What was that Glenn Beck quote again?

That's all for today, Gentle Reader.