Monday, October 31, 2016

Competitive Spirit

Randy Rosetta noted today at Gridiron Now, “In a sport where rivalry games serve as the constant lifeblood, nobody does bitterness and contentious showdowns quite like the SEC. Every week, it seems like at least two teams from the best football league in college football collide with bragging rights at stake and hatred for the other overflowing like the stadiums that are often filled to capacity and then some.”
For the past 10 seasons, the Alabama-LSU game has catapulted into the spotlight as arguably the biggest game in the SEC and one of the most impactful games nationally every season.
My SEC sister, Diogenes, is a devout LSU fan.  I am a rabid Alabama fan.  I consider it a blessing to share a sport I love with someone I care about.  Since 2014 she and I have had a friendly wager on the Bama-LSU game.  The loser would make a donation to The Wounded Warrior Project; out of love for our brave military service members the winner would make a donation as well.  This is the way two dyed-in-the-wool fans handle their fierce competitive spirit.
Continuing our tradition, this year we agreed to make a contribution to Shriners Hospitals for Children.  Since 1922, more than 1.3 million children have received life-changing care at Shriners Hospitals helping them reach their potential to lead more fulfilling lives regardless of a family’s ability to pay.

I designated the Shriners Hospital located in Shreveport and here’s the letter they sent me:
“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”John Bunyan

As we approach Thanksgiving and the season of giving, I hope you’ll join us in the joyful act that reflects a thankful heart and relishes in the happiness that comes from helping those less fortunate than ourselves.  If you’d like to donate to the Shriners Hospitals for Children here is the link.  May God bless you today and always.

Hillary And Huma: The Panic Room

MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski Has Epiphany Calls Out Democrats For Hypocrisy Over FBI Director Comey

Trey Gowdy On FBI Finding 650,000 Clinton Emails

Flowing Curves Of Beauty

…maybe we’ll be entwined.




Wrigleyville: Never Count The Cubbies Out!

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Looking Forward To A Scandal-Crippled President?

A Century Of Cubs Futility

I think we can agree the Cubs played sloppy baseball last night.  They’re one game away from adding to a century of futility.  Only 5 of 44 teams to fall behind 3-1 in the World Series have come back to win the crown.

Joe Maddon’s got his top three starting pitchers lined up for tonight’s game:  Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks.  With lights-out pitching in his arsenal Maddon needs, no, must find a way to get Kyle Schwarber in the lineup.  The Cubs desperately need Schwarber’s bat.  The guy can swing the lumber!

When the cameras pan the stands at Wrigley you see so many elderly fans who’ve been waiting a lifetime for the Cubbies to win the World Series.  I hope they can pull off the comeback of the ages for them.  I can think of nothing more wonderful.  It’d be one for the history books.

GO CUBS GO!

Friday, October 28, 2016

Mean Tweets: DickiLeaks

If You Think I’ve Swindled Every Last Cent, Wait Until You See What I Do As President

UPDATE 10-28-16 11:33AM:  We regret the user who uploaded this video to YouTube™ has removed it without explanation.  Its not surprising that someone somewhere was offended by the jabs it took at Crooked Hillary.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

UPDATE II 10-28-16 11:54 AM:  I was able to locate a different user’s upload of the same video.  Let’s see how long this stays up.  Thank you for your patience.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

The Most Popular Tombstone Inscription In Chicago…

"Go Home, Newt, You're Drunk!"

I really wasn't going to comment on this, but I've seen a flurry of opinions about Newt's "slapdown" of Megyn Kelly, or how "hypocritical" she was to have, on at least one occasion, posed alluringly and then obsess over Trump's alleged sexual peccadilloes.


Give me a break! For the record, I have been a long time fan and defender of Newt. I admired his Contract with America, I defended him over the gross distortions of allegations against him supposedly handing his ex-wife divorce papers on her hospital sick bed, and I would have voted for him for president, if he'd had the fire in the belly required to capture the 2012 nomination. In that 2012 debate when he stood up to the media bias of the questioning, I cheered him for his backbone. His exchange with Megyn Kelly? Not so much.

In all the years I've followed his career, this moment was IMHO, his least dignified, most disappointing and most embarrassing moment. Newt has a reputation as a historian and a shrewd political strategist. Both true. He typically has the ability to calmly and rationally dissect whatever arguments are presented to him. This occasion... not so much.

The first four and a half minutes are a pretty benign back and forth, but around the 4:48 minute mark, things begin to get heated. Kelly is pressing Newt to admit, in the face of numerous polls, that his candidate may be slipping (alternate universes aside). The supposed slide timed to the allegations surrounding what he may or may not have said to a beauty queen (exacerbated by his dwelling on the story for days), and the crass remarks on the audio leaked from Access Hollywood.

MK: "If Trump is a sexual predator, that is..."

NG (interrupting): :He's not a sexual predator! You can't say that! You cannot defend that statement!"

MK (Crosstalk): "Okay, that's your opinion, I'm not taking a position on it."

Let's stop it there for a second.

Staggering Choices


Back To Wrigley

The tandem of ace Cubs’ pitcher Jake Arrieta and slugging phenom Kyle Schwarber set the Tribe on its ears last night dominating Cleveland in a 5-1 victory bringing the 2016 World Series back to Wrigley.

Arrieta went 5⅓ shutout innings while Schwarber went 2 for 4 with a walk and 2 RBIs.  Schwarber became the first position player in MLB history to earn his first hit of the season in the World Series after missing all but three games of the regular season after tearing two ligaments in his left knee back in April.

Team doctors allowed Schwarber to be the DH in Games 1 and 2.  Will he be cleared to play the outfield at Wrigley? "We'll see," Schwarber said. "I haven't tried it. So we'll take it day by day, like I said."

Manager Joe Maddon could play Schwarber in left field and move Ben Zobrist to right.  Jason Heyward was benched due to a hitting slump of just 2 for 28

The Cubbies now hold a home field advantage for Games 3, 4 and 5.  Can they win the Series by taking all three games at Wrigley?  The experts say yes.  The Cubs have a 62% chance of taking home the crown to the Tribe’s 38% according to Five Thirty Eight.

I’m not hanging my Cubbies hat on any sports expert’s notion—I’m going with my gut—the Northsiders will sweep the Tribe.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

I Voted Early

Not normally a superstitious person, I was reticent to trundle down to my polling station and cast my vote in the 2016 presidential election.  After all, in 2008 and again in 2012, my guy got shellacked.

I had an 8:45 AM appointment with my pulmonologist during which I learned that there had been an issue with the refrigerator used to store vaccines for the flu and pneumonia.  After I left the doctor’s office I went to my local pharmacy and got both shots.  I was feeling slightly invincible.  “How about a bite to eat and then girding your loins to tackle that early vote?” I asked myself.

I pointed the car in the direction of my polling station to find folks lined up around the building and out to the street.  I thought about aborting my plans, but reasoned that the lines weren’t going to get any shorter so I parked the car and assumed my position in line.

People were friendly.  No one was on their phone.  Some conversations were fairly audible, others were hushed.  About 20 minutes in, I heard a woman somewhere in the back of the line begin to hack and wheeze and cough.  I thought, “This is my chance to be a real smartass.”  So…I hollered quizzically, “Hillary?  Is that you?”  The reaction from those in line was priceless.  “Lock her up!  Lock her up!” they chanted.  I made a funny.

When I finally made it inside and a poll worker escorted me to my voting machine, I looked down at the first screen totally unprepared for the impact of seeing the name of the first ever unindicted felon on the ballot for President of the United States.  This was a moment in history—a chance to stake my political claim—to stop a corrupt bitch from being coronated.

Today, I canceled out Colin Powell’s vote.  

MAKE THIS GO VIRAL: “America's Moment Of Truth”


UPDATE:  We wish to thank The Feral Irishman for linking to this post.

You’re Blind!

I watched Game One of the World Series last night and was astonished at how piss-poor home plate umpire Larry Vanover was.

I thought, as did millions of other baseball fans, that Major League Baseball was making a more concerted effort to get its best umpires into the World Series while minimizing the appearances of its weakest umps.

One headline from the Chicago Tribune read:  “Corey Kluber helps Indians to 6-0 victory over Cubs in World Series.”  Kluber’s a great pitcher, but Vanover is the one who “helped” the Indians win.  It was infuriating to watch this dolt call a handful of balls off the plate strikes and to a greater extent pitches right smack dab in the strike zone balls.

According to Baseball Prospectus, Vanover’s K/BB ratio is 2.25 compared to the MLB average of 2.58.  His ERA is 3.93 while the average MLB rating is 4.18 and finally, his WHIP rating (walks plus hits per inning pitched) is 1.29 compared to the MLB average of 1.33.
Cubs left-hander Jon Lester was noticeably upset about the disparity between calls made on his pitches and those of the Tribe's hurler.  He had a chat with Vanover at the end of the third inning to express his ire.  “I don’t know if he had a (microphone on),” Lester said. “It was just two professionals talking to each other about what was going on. I don’t comment on umpires. I’m a competitor. I think every ball I throw should be a strike. We talked it out; we hashed it out and moved on from there.”

Anyway, we’re done with Vanover.  He will rotate to the field and will be the replay official for Games 3-7.

CNBC published an interesting piece noting the 2016 World Series could be one of the last World Series in which balls and strikes are called by a home plate umpire.
“Sportvision, a subsidiary of sports powerhouse SMT, has the technology to call every single ball and strike with near perfect accuracy, using its "Pitchf/x" product.”
“Pitchf/x is the rectangle you see on TV that shows the strike zone. It's the same technology that undermines umpires when they clearly miss a call. And it's the same technology that can reduce umpires from key decision-makers to caretakers at baseball games.”
I’m not going to overreact (not much anyway) to this setback.  Kluber dominated the Cubs.  It’s not the end of the world.  Game Two starts tonight at 7:08 PM ET on FOX.  The early start is due to a forecast of rain in Cleveland.

GO CUBS GO! 

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Root, Root, Root For The Cubbies!

Those “Loveable Losers” are losers no more.  From his broadcast booth in baseball heaven Harry Caray was shouting “Holy Cow!” at the historic news the Chicago Cubs won the NLCS against the LA Dodgers and a trip to the World Series.  The World Series I tell ya!

Seventy-one years removed from their last pennant, and 108 years since their last World Series crown, the Cubbies begin the series at Progressive Field in Cleveland.  The first pitch will be tonight at 8:08 PM ET on FOX.

My beloved Atlanta Braves were awful this year but I remember well the utter euphoria in 1995 as the Braves won the World Series against the Cleveland Indians.  I have a soft spot for the Cubbies.  How can you not root hard for a team that has the longest title drought in baseball history?

Indians first baseman Mike Napoli said, “The baseball gods are really happy right now.  I wanted the Cubs to win just because I knew how cool it would be to be a part of it.  I think it’s going to be a special World Series.  There’s two droughts and there’s going to be a winner.”

Monday, October 24, 2016

Integrity Of The FBI Called Into Question

The political action committee of Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, an influential Democrat with longstanding ties to Hillary and Bill Clinton, gave almost $500,000 to the election campaign of the wife of an official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That very same official played a role in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State under President Barack Obama. Campaign finance records show McAuliffe’s political-action committee gave $467,500 to the 2015 state Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, the wife of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

White House Admits Everything They Told Us About Obamacare Was A Big, Fat Lie

Cue the creepy Stephen Hawking laugh:

Flowing Curves Of Beauty

There are some days you should go back to bed with a hot brandy, a box of chocolates and a warm energetic companion.





Saturday, October 22, 2016

Alabama Crimson Tide Vs Texas A&M Aggies

This afternoon, beginning at 3:30 PM ET, all eyes will be glued to a TV set in anticipation of the battle that will be waged at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa.  Bama haters are itching to see the Aggies serve up the Tide’s first loss of the season.

Some would have you believe that Alabama must lose a game this season and it will come at the hands of either A&M or LSU.

Is there any reason to believe that the Aggie defense that gave up 684 yards of offense to Tennessee, a team Bama held to under 200 yards last week in Knoxville, will win today?  The ESPN Matchup Predictor gives The Crimson Tide a 76.7% chance at victory and A&M a pathetic 23.3%.

Folks in College Station have high hopes of a win today and uploaded a hype video to pump them up:

OK, TA&M has played very well so far this season.  The Aggies are rested as they come off a bye week and they’re hanging their hat on QB Trevor Knight who led the Sooners to a 45-31 victory over my beloved Boys from Tuscaloosa in the 2014 Sugar Bowl.
Knight ain’t no “Johnny Football” and their “12th Man” will be noticeably absent in a stadium filled with over 108,000 rabid Houndstooth-hat-wearin’ crimson-clad fans in Tuscaloosa.  Alabama has vanquished other quarterbacks cut from the same cloth as Knight.  I don’t think for one moment that he will be able to sit in the pocket and exploit the Tide’s secondary nor will he have any better success running against Alabama’s D-line than Josh Dobbs did last week.  Saban and Kiffin will have the Aggies on their heels early and often.
Here’s hoping the cameras capture Aggie fans doing some epic “surrender cobras” as they come to realize they’re losing the game.


 ROLL TIDE ROLL!

Friday, October 21, 2016

If She Wins Liberal Hacks Will Spend The Next Several Years Powdering Granny’s Folds

This presidential race has been a three-ring circus and not the good kind we remember as kids.

The avalanche of leaked emails brought to us by Julian Assange, the FBI 302s exposing Clinton’s quid pro quo, strong suspicions of intentional voter fraud, voter intimidation by DNC operatives like Robert Creamer and the blinding liberal bias and media collusion has folks reeling in disgust.  Apparently, this election cycle will determine the presidency of No Longer America.

Makes ya wonder if all the circus clowns whose job it was to sweep up after the elephants ran off to become campaign spokesmen for Hillary.  I hope they’re happy to be in league with The Beast because if she wins on November 8th they’re going to be stuck powdering Granny’s folds for the next several years.  They must be so proud.

DDoS is Screwing With de Internet

In case you haven't noticed, there have been some major disturbances in the Force, er, interruptions in the Internet today. Several of you may have commented here, and we have not replied because Disqus is down. Not just here, but most everywhere I've visited. The Disqus site itself is accessible, but comments are down.

Twitter is down, along with other random sites. It has been called a Distributed Denial of Service attack. The Feds are aware of it and are trying to track down those responsible for it.

There's is nothing wrong with your set. We control the vertical. We control the horizontal.

If you are suffering from Extreme Twitter Withdrawal, please call 1-800-Get-a-Life. Operators are standing by...

Hillary Is A Gore Truther

The soundbite everyone seems to have seized on after the third and final presidential debate was Trump’s declaration that if he loses the election he might consider the results illegitimate because the process is “rigged”.

Granny huffed and puffed that her opponent’s answer was “horrifying” saying he was “talking down our democracy.”

With the mounting evidence of intentional voter fraud, voter intimidation and media collusion with the Clinton camp is it any wonder that Trump would make such a statement?

James Carville, the Gollum-like weasel and decades-long Democrat operative, admitted “of course there’s going to be some fraud.”

The g-d Left have argued vehemently in the past that “their” elections were stolen, i.e. John Kerry in 2004.

In August, according to The Federalist, Politico’s Ben Wofford wrote a piece explaining how the election could be hacked in 7 minutes.  The piece focused on a professor who bought an $82 voting machine and hacked with it so he could manipulate the results.

Wofford noted, “In American politics, an onlooker might observe that hacking an election has been less of a threat than a tradition,” citing Huey Long’s infamous rigging in 1932, and the 1948 “Lyndon Landslide” during which Lyndon B. Johnson “mysteriously overcame a 20,000 vote deficit in his first Senate race.”

In September of this year, disgraced former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz denied George W. Bush won Florida in the 2000 presidential election saying Al Gore AKA ManBearPig won it and the Supreme Court elected Bush to the presidency.

In October 2002, at a private fund-raiser in Los Angeles for Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan of Missouri, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told the crowd that President Bush merely had been “selected” president, not elected.  Remember the hanging, swinging, pregnant, dimpled and tri-chads and the infamous “butterfly” ballots?

According to a 2012 Pew Charitable Trust report, roughly 18 million voter registrations are either “significantly inaccurate” or invalid—enough to tip an election. Yet when Donald Trump echoes the concerns about election integrity many Americans have had for years, it’s totally insane.

It’s pretty plain to see that election-rigging only matters when Democrats lose.

Relive the insane machinations of the Gore-Lieberman Sore-Loserman “recount” from this HBO documentary clip:

Thursday, October 20, 2016

LIVE Stream: Donald Trump Deliver Remarks at the Alfred E. Smith Dinner in New York City 10/20/2016

Hillary’s Coziness With The Russians Has Been Interrupted By The Election

Those annoying document dumps, courtesy of Russia, just keep gumming up the works for Granny don’t they?

Desperate, and I do mean desperate, for a debate bailout Hillary addressed Russia’s alleged interference in the presidential election by calling her opponent a “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“It’s pretty clear the Russians have engaged in cyber attacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do and that you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race,” Clinton asserted.

“I don’t know Putin,” Trump said. “He said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would be good. He has no respect for her. He has no respect for our president, and I’ll tell you what—we’re in very serious trouble because we have a country with tremendous numbers of nuclear warheads.  From everything I see has no respect for this person.”

"Well, that’s because he'd rather have a puppet for president of the United States and it's pretty clear," Clinton fired back.

"No puppet. You’re the puppet," Trump immediately said.

She squirmed, and noticeably so, at the charge.

WikiLeaks laid bare that the former Secretary of State didn't see Russia as a problem.  On May 29, 2013 Granny recounted a meeting with Putin while SOS.

“We talked about a lot of issues that were not the hot-button issues between us, you know, his view on missile defense, which we think is misplaced because, you know, we don’t believe that there will be a threat from Russia.”

Six days later at an annual conference for Goldman Sachs CEOs Clinton chirped, “I would love it if we could continue to build a more positive relationship with Russia.”

Granny and Bubba Clinton, as well as campaign chairman John Podesta, enjoyed a close relationship with Russian interests throughout The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer’s regime.. Podesta’s emails reveal that he sat on the board of directors and owned 75,000 shares of the Russian-backed Joule Unlimited. He has transferred those shares to an anonymous holding company.

Bubba received a $500K speaking fee from Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment firm, on June 29, 2010, just as the Russians announced their intention of buying Uranium One and with it one-fifth of the U.S. uranium supply.

From The New York Times, a publication loathe to criticize the unindicted felon:
At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One. 
Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. 
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well. 
And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock. 
At the time, both Rosatom [Russian atomic energy agency] and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show.
Remember this hot mic moment from 2012 just before the general election?

Monday, October 17, 2016

Hey Press Poodles, “Happy National Boss Day”

The notorious treasure trove of “Podesta Emails” demonstrates how the press has always been little more than an extension of the Clinton Machine.  Most of the press poodles and lamestream media stenographers see nothing wrong with their complicity.

Trump’s running mate, Gov. Mike Pence, made the rounds on Sunday’s talking head shows proclaiming, "The media is piling on with such unsubstantiated claims, ignoring an avalanche of hard evidence, documented evidence, of deeds by the Secretary of State" contained in the WikiLeaks email dump.

CNN’s Jake Tapper described DNC Chair Donna Brazile’s feeding debate questions to Clinton as “journalistically horrifying.”

Joe Concha, contributor for The Hill, put the media’s coverage of Campaign 2016 in glaring perspective when he compared the air time on network news to accusations against Trump and the WikiLeaks revelations related to Granny Clinton.
“Reaction to Trump's critique of the media by many left-leaning media members and advocates was about what one would expect, referring to it as dangerous and dark and totalitarian and conspiratorial and just about every other word from the 2016 Hyperbole Style Guide. Those conclusions, of course, are just air without any real foundation in terms of numbers or data to support it.” 
[SKIP] 
“In viewing recordings by The Hill of each major network's evening newscasts, which are watched by an average total of 22 million to 24 million people nightly, the newest batch of WikiLeaks revelations was covered for a combined 57 seconds out of 66 minutes of total air time on ABC, NBC and CBS.” 
“Those leaked emails include derogatory comments about Catholics by senior Clinton campaign officials and more disturbing examples of collusion between the media and her campaign.  It’s newsworthy stuff.” 
“On the other hand, allegations from four women of unwanted sexual advances by Trump were covered a combined 23 minutes.” 
“Add it all up, and one presidential candidate's negative news of the day was somehow covered more than 23 times more than another candidate's negative news of the day.” 
[SKIP] 
“When looking at the numbers, Trump may actually have a point.”
Barry Casselman, who has not endorsed either candidate noted, “What we are now witnessing in the 2016 US presidential election is an unprecedented media coup d’Ă©tat as many of the combined media forces are attempting to determine the next president before the voting takes place.”

With the dereliction of duty by the nation’s largest media organizations and their role as propaganda arms of the Democratic Party, it bodes ill for the future of an already putrid media that no longer serves the best interests of Americans or the world.

This is precisely why the electorate ended up so angry.

Flowing Curves Of Beauty

“One is never over-dressed or under-dressed with a Little Black Dress.”  Karl Lagerfeld





Sunday, October 16, 2016

Hillary: “I Don’t Do Drugs. Why? Do You Have Some?”

During a campaign rally Saturday in New Hampshire, Donald Trump accused rival Hillary Clinton of being "pumped up" during their last debate, saying they should both be tested for drugs before the next one.

Trump said, "Athletes, they make them take a drug test, right.  I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate. Why don't we do that? We should take a drug test, prior, because I don't know what's going on with her, but at the beginning of her last debate, she was all pumped up at the beginning, and at the end it was like, 'Oh, take me down,'" imitating his opponent.

"She could barely reach her car.”

After a shocking video showing her collapse during the 9/11 ceremony emerged, scores of political pundits and news agencies began to question her stamina and strength to serve as president.