Obama blows off aunt's funeral; plays golf...

Priorities...

The New York Times reports:

After Zeituni Onyango, the woman President Obama once called Auntie, died in a South Boston nursing home this month, her closest relatives gathered her belongings at her nearby apartment. There, framed photographs of her with the president covered the wall.

Weeping before a polished wood coffin at her wake this past Saturday, they described Ms. Onyango, the half sister of the president’s father, as “the spirit of the Obama family” and talked about raising money to send her body back to Kenya. Mr. Obama helped pay funeral expenses and sent a condolence note, Ms. Onyango’s family members said, but the president did not attend, as he was golfing.

Humpday Fun Video: VFA-27's "Shoot 'Em If You Got 'Em" Cruise Video Teaser

The Royal Maces present the teaser to our full-length 2013-2014 cruise video: "Shoot 'Em If You Got 'Em" - which is packed with more than 27 minutes of high-flying and fast-action. It will be made available at the NAF Atsugi Spring Festival, May 3rd, and also via the VFA-27 Public Affairs Office at vfa27pao@gmail.com. Enjoy!
MIYFwww.facebook.com/VFA27

Chart of the Day: Ronald Reagan vs. Barack Obama Recovery...

The economy was actually worse when Reagan first took office... 

When Ronald Reagan took over from Jimmy Carter in ’81, things were actually worse economically compared to when Obama took over from George W. Bush in ’08.
Consider these three important comparisons of economic indicators, then and now:
- Unemployment was at 10.8% versus 7.7%
- Inflation (Consumer Price Index) was at 13.5% versus 2.7%
- Interest rates (prime rate) was at 21.5% versus 3.25%

Conservative charity criticized Hillary and Kerry; Gets tax exempt status revoked...

The Obama administration really excels in using the IRS for political purposes...

Via The Washington Times:

The Internal Revenue Servicehas revoked the tax-exempt status of a conservative charity for making statements critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry, according to a USA Today report.
The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, based in Manassas, Va., “has shown a pattern of deliberate and consistent intervention in political campaigns” and made “repeated statements supporting or opposing various candidates by expressing its opinion of the respective candidate’s character and qualifications,” according to a written determination released Friday by the IRS.
The IRS said the center acted as an “action organization” by publishing alerts on its website for columns written by its president, former FBI agent Gary Aldrich, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

What do the Dept. Ag., Railroad Ret. Board, TVA, Office of Personnel Management, CPSC, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have in common?

They have their own SWAT teams...

Via NRO: 

Regardless of how people feel about Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s standoff with the federal Bureau of Land Management over his cattle’s grazing rights, a lot of Americans were surprised to see TV images of an armed-to-the-teeth paramilitary wing of the BLM deployed around Bundy’s ranch.
They shouldn’t have been. Dozens of federal agencies now have Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams to further an expanding definition of their missions. It’s not controversial that the Secret Service and the Bureau of Prisons have them. But what about the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? All of these have their own SWAT units and are part of a worrying trend towards the militarization of federal agencies — not to mention local police forces.
“Law-enforcement agencies across the U.S., at every level of government, have been blurring the line between police officer and soldier,” journalist Radley Balko writes in his 2013 bookRise of the Warrior Cop. “The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the U.S. scene: the warrior cop — armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.”

Gallup: Global Warming Skeptics On The Rise…

The number of skeptics has doubled since 2001...

Via Gallup:

Demo candidate for governor of Maryland: Serving in Iraq War Not a Real Job...

Douglas Gansler 

And sitting in the Maryland's AG office surrounded by armed security is? 

Via Fox News:

A Democratic candidate for governor of Maryland is defending comments he made Monday in which he suggested his opponent, an Iraq war veteran, was not up to the task of a “real job.”

Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler drew ire from a veterans’ group after he made the comments about his opponent for the Democratic nomination, Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, at an event held by the Tech Council of Maryland.

During the event, Gansler was asked what the state had learned from the rollout of ObamaCare. Maryland’s state-run exchange has been particularly troubled, and earlier this month the exchange’s board of directors voted to replace technology in the system with one used in in Connecticut’s exchange instead of fixing its current system or partnering with the federal government.

Gansler said the website’s woes prove Maryland needs someone who has leadership experience and worked with budgets; someone, he claimed, unlike Brown.

“I’m running against somebody who has never managed anybody, never run anything, his ads are about how he’s a lawyer in Iraq, and that’s all fine and good but this is a real job,” Gansler said.

If you take the words "in Iraq" out of the last paragraph in bold, Gansler could have been talking about Barack Obama prior to 2009.

Nancy Pelosi Whines About SCOTUS Ruling Against Affirmative Action In College Admissions

Put your big girl panties on Nancy. Affirmative action is becoming a thing of history books. I suspect historians will judge it harshly.

Today's #SCOTUS decision is another regrettable step to rig the political process against efforts to constitutionally advance diversity.
— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) April 22, 2014