(Via Kurt Schlichter)  Liberals have a new word for what normal people call “success.” They call it “privilege,” as if a happy, prosperous life is the result of some magic process related to where your great-great-great-grandfather came from.

It’s the latest leftist argument tactic, which means it is a tactic designed to prevent any argument and to beat you into rhetorical submission.

Conservatives, don’t play their game.

It’s easy to see that this notion that accomplishment comes not from hard work but from some mysterious force, operating out there in the ether, is essential to liberal thought. To excuse the dole-devouring layabouts who form so much of the Democrat voting base, it is critical that they undermine the achievements of those who support themselves. We can’t have the American people thinking that hard work leads to success; people might start asking why liberal constituencies don’t just work harder instead of demanding more money from those who actually produce something. (more…)

UPDATE….  Family of the suspected  Santa Barbara shooter alerted the police several weeks ago after being alarmed by YouTube videos “regarding suicide and the killing of people.”  (Read more…)

GOLETA, Calif. (AP) — A Hollywood director and his family believe his son is responsible for a shooting rampage near a Santa Barbara university campus, an attorney for the director said Saturday.  The family has not yet seen his body, but they have been told he was killed and believe he killed six people Saturday night, Alan Shifman said.  Shifman is the attorney for Peter Rodger, who was an assistant director on “The Hunger Games” film series. Authorities have not confirmed the identity of the shooter.

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For those of you following along, this is yet again MORE CONFIRMATION of Denis “The Fixer” McDonough being the origin of the construct. 

•  7:28pm Denis McDonough is in oval office updating POTUS and VPOTUS on Benghazi attack (Mindset: it’s a State Dept / CIA issue – their operation)
•  9:11pm White House Emails Google about UTube Video. (CC: State Dept mail list – Author Unknown ? [Ben Rhodes Communications Director])
•  10:30pm Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama Talk
•  10:35pm State Dept gives public statement blaming Benghazi Attack on video.

(Via ABC)  A still-classified State Department e-mail says that one of the first responses from the White House to the Benghazi attack was to contact YouTube to warn of the “ramifications” of allowing the posting of an anti-Islamic video, according to Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The memo suggests that even as the attack was still underway — and before the CIA began the process of compiling talking points on its analysis of what happened — the White House believed it was in retaliation for a controversial video.

The subject line of the e-mail, which was sent at 9:11 p.m. Eastern Time on the night of the attack, is “Update on Response to actions – Libya.” The e-mail was written hours before the attack was over.

[scribd id=225718331 key=key-arGsec43DfkuSSDcSI7J mode=scroll]

Issa has asked the White House to declassify and release the document. In the meantime he has inserted a sentence from the e-mail in the Congressional Record.

[Issa’s full statement HERE]

“White House is reaching out to U-Tube [sic] to advice ramification of the posting of the Pastor Jon video,” the e-mail reads, according to Issa.   (read more)

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As you read this, and absorb the implications, ask yourself: “what do you think the White House is doing with the communication flow of the GOP, Congress, and Congressional opposition”? The IRS and DOJ James Rosen scandal alone provide all the substance needed to let you know the White House is gaining all of the communications from any party or entity they want. So what do you think the administration is doing with that information ?

(Via Ladar Levison) My legal saga started last summer with a knock at the door, behind which stood two federal agents ready to to serve me with a court order requiring the installation of surveillance equipment on my company’s network.

My company, Lavabit, provided email services to 410,000 people – including Edward Snowden, according to news reports – and thrived by offering features specifically designed to protect the privacy and security of its customers.

I had no choice but to consent to the installation of their device, which would hand the US government access to all of the messages – to and from all of my customers – as they travelled between their email accounts other providers on the Internet.

But that wasn’t enough. The federal agents then claimed that their court order required me to surrender my company’s private encryption keys, and I balked. What they said they needed were customer passwords – which were sent securely – so that they could access the plain-text versions of messages from customers using my company’s encrypted storage feature. (The government would later claim they only made this demand because of my “noncompliance”.) (more…)

Everything we ever needed to know about collective unions we learned in Kindergarten. Why run around gathering up all the Easter Eggs – if they are just going to be reassembled in a big pile at the end of the hunt and equal amounts given to each ?

PENNSYLVANIA – Few workers would turn down a raise. Union members, however, can have raises turned down on their behalf.

Employees of a Pennsylvania grocery store learned this the hard way.

Managers at the Giant Eagle grocery in Edinboro, Pa., wanted to reward hard work. So they boosted the wages of two dozen high-performing employees above their union rates. But United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23 was not pleased. The union argued the pay increases violated their contract, took Giant Eagle to court and forced it to rescind the raises.

Why did Local 23 oppose higher pay for its members? Because it upended their seniority system, allowing junior employees to make more those with more seniority. Local 23 wanted uniform pay scales—even if that meant cutting some of their members’ wages. (more…)

MILWAUKEE, WI — The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that it is not a violation of constitutional rights if police break down a citizen’s door, search the home, and confiscate firearms, so long that they believe it is in the citizen’s best interest.

A Doctor’s Concern – The lawsuit stems back to an incident that occurred on May 22, 2011.  A psychiatrist, Dr. Michelle Bentle, phoned police to report that a patient had expressed a suicidal thought during an outpatient appointment; the woman had received some bad news and privately expressed grief during a difficult appointment.

At approximately noon, Milwaukee Police were dispatched to search for Krysta Sutterfield, age 42 at the time, in order to forcibly detain her and commit her for a mandatory medical evaluation.  In Wisconsin, the mere suggestion of suicide is grounds for forcible police detention.

Police had a description of Ms. Sutterfield’s vehicle but could not immediately locate her; police checked her garage and it was empty.  Hours passed.  At 2:45 p.m., Dr. Bentle notified police that her patient “had called her some minutes earlier stating that she was not in need of assistance and that the doctor should ‘call off’ the police search for her,” according to court documents. (more…)

How dare you not comply !   “Your ?…. You want YOUR ?”

WASHINGTON DC – Sounding a new aggressive tone, first lady Michelle Obama vowed in a private conference call on Monday to fight industry efforts at rolling back healthy school-lunch standards, an issue that could come up for a vote on Capitol Hill later this week.

The remarks to health activists were made in an off-the-record conference call at the beginning of a week of intense lobbying around proposed changes in the national school-lunch program, which sets standards for fat, sugar and sodium levels in food.

“I was thrilled that the first lady pulled advocates together this morning and sounded such a strong rallying cry to fight back against efforts to weaken the school food standards,” said Margo Wootan, who lobbies on Capitol Hill and elsewhere on behalf of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. (more…)

“This is an attempt by the federal government to keep people from buying guns and a way for them to combat the Second Amendment rights we have. It’s a covert way for them to control our right to manufacture guns and individuals to buy guns.”

(Via Washington Times)  Gun retailers say the Obama administration is trying to put them out of business with regulations and investigations that bypass Congress and choke off their lines of credit, freeze their assets and prohibit online sales.

Since 2011, regulators have increased scrutiny on banks’ customers. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2011 urged banks to better manage the risks of their merchant customers who employ payment processors, such as PayPal, for credit card transactions. The FDIC listed gun retailers as “high risk” along with porn stores and drug paraphernalia shops.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has launched Operation Choke Point, a credit card fraud probe focusing on banks and payment processors. The threat of enforcement has prompted some banks to cut ties with online gun retailers, even if those companies have valid licenses and good credit histories. (more…)

Good summary of Michelle Obama’s speech ideology to the graduating class of Topeka Kansas from Truth Revolt:   

For Michelle Obama, the world is black and white. But not about good and evil, right and wrong. Her black and white is all about skin color.

She talks about it often, incessantly, even, injecting race and racism into speeches and events in which they have no business. And she did so again on Friday, when she traveled to Topeka, Kansas, to deliver a speech to graduating high school seniors.

First, a background note: Her speech was moved up a day after parents complained that her visit to a school district — just blocks from the historic schoolhouse central to the Brown v. Education Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation — would focus on race, not their children’s accomplishments.

And that, in fact, is exactly what the first lady did.  (more…)