Just Fuzzy: Leaving Cable for Roku + Amazon Prime

Sometimes you just have to tune it all out and focus on something else, or at least, I do.  Outrage overload is bad for the soul, and I’ve almost certainly earned a gold medal in the outrage overload event this week.  What better time, says I, to launch a “Just Fuzzy” thingy in which I’ll write about *gasp* not politics; I’ll tag them in the header “Just Fuzzy” so that anyone not interested in my inane ramblings can skip them.

I’m so rusty in this whole writing about random things that catch my interest thing that I actually had to dig back through the Fuzzy files to see what that even sounded like.  Apparently, I was once interested in things like my laptop (oh for those simpler days!), buying a new chair (okay, it’s really about complimenting good customer service), and nothing at all.  And just so you can appreciate the coming inanity of “Just Fuzzy,” I also wrote bizarrely-lengthy posts about Brussels sprouts, Cadbury chocolate Easter eggs, and “stuff.”  Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Today, I’m torn between talking about some of my favorite “escapist” television shows and my garden (well, “garden” is rather generous; it’s actually a bunch of pots on the porch), but I guess I’ll go with the tv thing.

I’ve been toying with the idea of getting rid of cable (now satellite) for years, and I’m finally there.  I just have to pay the penalty for canceling before my contracted two years, and I’m free.  I honestly can’t stand the leftist crap that makes up most of cable (I’ll just use that as the catch-all term) television, but I worried that I’d be “out of touch” or unable to watch the debates or whatever breaking news, blah blah blah.  I can get all that online, and should internet access mysteriously go down in America, watching television will be the least of my worries.

The big hurdle for me was that I like to watch tv.  No, scratch that, I love love love to watch tv.  I’m a couch potato, a lazy troglodyte who can spend–quite literally–whole days watching movies and tv shows.  I’ve been addicted to Buffy, Lost, Battlestar Galactica (the remake, of course), and Firefly.  Well, to be honest, the Firefly addiction came after the show was already cancelled (inexplicably and wrongly), but it’s good stuff. How on earth was I going to get my tv / movie fix without cable?

Enter Roku.  Was ever a better product invented?  Okay, we’ll tip our hats to the printing press and sliced bread, but Roku is awesomeness.  By the way, there are several versions, but I wouldn’t even bother with anything beyond the basic version–Roku LT–unless you’re an HDTV person, then go with Roku 3. The others just don’t cut it as far as I’m concerned.  Roku LT has what you need to make just about any television an internet-streaming miracle, who needs “instant replay” when you can get the same thing by hitting your left arrow button and then play?  The 2XD also makes no sense to me; if HD is your thing, just fork out the extra one-time $20 for the Roku 3.  Do keep in mind that I’m not the most technologically-savvy woman, so take all that for what it’s worth (probably not a whole lot, but I have the LT and love it.  In fact, I’m getting another one for my other tv as soon as I dispense with this dish thingy).

So I have Roku, and I love it. But I’m not sure that I’d love it so much if I didn’t also have Amazon Prime.  Sure, I try to spend my money on companies (etc.) that aren’t blatantly anti-conservative, but there’s just no substitute, yet, for Amazon.  When there is, I’ll go.  In the meantime, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love Amazon Prime (and no, neither Roku nor Amazon are paying me to write all this, promise): not only do I get guaranteed two-day order delivery (a serious plus now that I live off the beaten path), “free” shipping (it’s not even close to free, the shipping is just built in to the price, and it pays to shop around locally before buying on Amazon), and a variety of lending and buying privileges on my Kindle (another wonderful thing), but I get a wide wide range of television series and movies that I can watch for free.  Well, again, not free, you pay the Amazon Prime “membership” fee (currently about $90 for the year, so a steal when you’re ditching about that per month in cable).

Since I got my Roku + Amazon Prime, I’ve watched gazillions of great shows, from old favorites like Buffy, Firefly, and BSG (yes, I watch them over and over, what can I say?) to new favorites like Downtown Abbey, Sons of Anarchy, Sherlock, and many more.  I am in couch potato heaven–all I need are some bon bons (okay, I mostly hate bon bons, but you get my drift).  I’ve watched a lot of “serious” stuff, too, from the David vs. Monsanto documentary to the quite wonderful Fat Head (a much-needed, sane response to the Supersize Me idiocy).  And just this week, Amazon got Grimm (which I’ve been dying to see) and Alphas, another show I thought I might like.

I’ve also watched (with no remorse) several seasons of Pawn Stars, Top Shot, and Cake Boss.  Yeah, yeah, I like that kind of stuff, what can I say?  I’ve caught a couple of movies, but my “No Buy” list is getting longer with every leftist hater insulting the Tea Party, conservatives in general, and America, so I’m happy to skip most of them.  Even if they’re “free” with Amazon Prime, they probably keep track of how many people watch what, so I don’t watch anything with anyone from my “No Buy” list.  Ever.

A couple of downsides to the Roku + Amazon Prime (with no cable) set-up:

1. A lot of shows that I would like to see, or see more than one season of, are $1.99 per episode.  Yep.  Per episode.  Add that up, and you’re better off buying the whole season on DVD and being able to watch it more than once.  Of course this limits what I will watch on my Roku.

2. You might put a show’s season or a movie on your “watch list” only to find that when you go to watch it, it’s suddenly $X.  Hmph. (The other side of this is that a show’s season or a movie that you want to see may be $X one day but be “free” the next, so it does pay to keep track.  I watched–and regretted watching as it happened–One for the Money for free after declining to pay an extra $9.99 to watch it, over and over?, for 72 hours.)

So apart from the crazy pricing (and this is true on Kindle, too, who’s going to pay almost the same thing for an “e” version of a book as for the actual book? not me), the Roku + Amazon Prime thing works out great.

If you don’t want to do business with Amazon (they’re on your “No buy” list), then there is still a LOT of free material you can get.  You can watch clips from Fox News, whole episodes of Fox News Sunday, movies and old television shows with the most annoying and misplaced “breaks” on Crackle and other “free” options.  If you’re a conspiracy nutter, there’s every channel known to man available–some for free, some not.  Oh, and yeah, there are free versions of everything from the tabloid media (CNN, MSNBC, etc.) to al Jazeera.  I skip those, but then I did on cable, too.

Over all, I love Roku with Amazon Prime; not only am I (going to eventually be) saving money, but I’m also watching stuff that I want, when I want.  By the way, you can watch Netflix, HuluPlus, the Blaze, Disney, and a host of other channels (some pay, some free) on Roku, but I tend to stick to Amazon Prime (and their “Newscaster” which includes Fox News).

Some great shows I never would have seen but loved: Alcatraz, Sherlock (yes, again), Jekyll, Sons of Anarchy (yes, yes, again), Robin Hood, and Red Dwarf.  Some old favorites I was happy to watch again include Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, I Love Lucy, Gilligan’s Island, and Good Neighbo[u]rs (aka The Good Life).

I still, technically, have cable, but I never ever watch it.  I watch my Roku or my DVDs, and when something happens, like a Congressional hearing and, next year, debates, I’ll just watch them online.  I’m happy to leave the expensive and unsatisfactory.  Why do I have to have crap like MSNBC and OWN when I would never ever dream of watching them, except perhaps for the comedy potential?  Why must I pay for ten versions of ESPN when I don’t watch sports, and when I do, I would certainly not watch ESPN after what they did to Hank Williams, Jr.?  No thanks, I’ll watch what I like when I like and pay for it as I go (or in one annual sum).

Capitalism. It does a wallet good.

Obama’s Illegal War Led To Benghazi Terror Attack

Okay, this is the last straw on Benghazi for me.  Now the Coward in Chief is blaming the CIA for his own failures . . . or were they failures from his perspective? That, to me, is the real question here.

So let’s look back, shall we, to why we were even in Libya in the first place.  Remember the time that Obama went to Congress and got the Constitutionally-required approval to take military action in Libya?  Remember how Libya was a clear and direct threat to the United States?  Remember the required roll call votes from both houses of Congress before any such military action can take place? No? Well, that’s because none of that happened.  Obama decided, seemingly on a whim, to take America to war with the UN’s authorization, not that of the United States Congress.  Here’s what he said at the time:

“Today,” Obama said on March 19, “I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians. That action has now begun. In this effort, the United States is acting with a broad coalition that is committed to enforcing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which calls for the protection of the Libyan people.” (source link)

Yes, you read that right, Obama unilaterally decided to take America to war with Libya.  He did not, as President Bush did in Iraq, seek and obtain the approval and support of Congress.  Obama’s a “global citizen,” and his authority, he seems to imagine, comes from the world, not the American people.  He truly sees himself as above both the Constitution and Congress, and he started the war in Libya that was so mismanaged, so ill-conceived, so horribly executed that the direct result of his hubris and illegal, unconstitutional action was the horrific rape and slaughter of an American ambassador and the murders of two former SEALs and an embassy aid.

Christopher Stevens, Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty, and Sean Smith died as the direct result not only of Obama’s immensely-misguided illegal war in Libya but also because the Obama administration was desperate not to draw attention to the war and made serious lapses in judgement to cover their tracks.  For months, the Libyan ambassador’s staff, including its security staff, requested more security.  And were denied.  Not only were they denied the additional security they requested, but they also had much of what security they once had removed, against the ambassador’s objections.  This was in August, after the UK saw which way the wind was blowing and withdrew their diplomats and staff from Benghazi in June.  Not Obama.  He insisted that they remain there, effectively unprotected, on the anniversary of 9/11 and in the midst of Islamic terrorists.

We now know that once the attack was launched, the WH and State Department knew within two (2) hours that the attack was a terrorist attack.  We also now know that not one, as originally thought, but two (2) “stand down” orders were issued to any and all nearby American forces that could intervene and protect the ambassador and his staff.  And we further know that only the president can issue “stand down” orders in these instances.  We also know, of course, that both Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, former Navy SEALs who were in a nearby CIA annex, ignored those direct orders and attempted a rescue.  All this talk about how a rescue was impossible, forces too far away, etc. are clearly lies.

After the attack, Obama noted that the deaths of an American ambassador and three other American citizens was “not optimal,” and he insisted that the terrorist attack that he knew full-well was just that was instead the result of a YouTube video.  Imagine!  Both he and Hillary said this with a straight face; indeed, Hillary looked the mothers of the fallen former SEALs in the eye and told them that she would ensure that the video’s creator would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  Let that sink in.  I’m sure the still-imprisoned film-maker thinks of little else than his being a “patsy” who was thrown in prison to protect Obama and Hillary.

[Edited to add] And let’s not get too caught up in the latest lies that Obama didn’t know what was going on in Benghazi.  Remember this photo that came out the next day, on 9/12/12:

And remember how we all laughed in disbelief when Obama stated that same day that these people were actually dragging the ambassador to the hospital?  Well, it turns out that he was right, that he did know what he was talking about, because we found out during last week’s Benghazi hearing that Ambassador Stevens was taken–get this–to a hospital run by the very terrorist group that had attacked the embassy.  Gee, I wonder why he “disappeared” for several hours and what horrors he faced if he was still alive at that point.  So on day two, Obama not only knows that the attack was a terror attack but exactly where the missing ambassador’s body was. [end edit]

So what do we have here?  A president who unilaterally and illegally takes our military to war in Libya, removes security from diplomats when other nations are removing their diplomats, issues orders that any and all nearby responding forces to the terrorist attack “stand down,” and then tries to hide the fact it was a terrorist attack at all.  Remember, he knew within two hours that a terror attack took place but for weeks afterwards, including in an address to the UN, he blamed the video.  He even had the temerity to spend American taxpayer money to run ads in the Middle East apologizing for the flipping video!  I have no words.

And now, the Obama White House is so desperate to distract attention from Benghazi that it’s willing to admit that its IRS was targeting, intimidating, and silencing conservative, pro-life, and Christian organizations (I write “was,” but we don’t know that it’s stopped or that it won’t start again when the heat is off).  Remember, we wouldn’t even know about the IRS thuggery if the IRS itself hadn’t said something about it.  What on earth could be so explosive about Benghazi that the president is willing to show his true Chicago-style, thug-like use of the IRS to strong-arm his political opposition in direct violation of both laws and the Constitution?

Punishing His Enemies: It’s What Tyrannical Dictators Do

In 2010, Obama told a Latino audience:  “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.”  We, in the conservative blogosphere were horrified.  This sounded Nixonian, it sounded banana republic unethical.  Yes, the president sounded petty and self-important, but he was also proud in a bizarre way–as if, punishing enemies and rewarding friends was something that was not beneath him, as we might expect from someone in a position of such power, but was instead something that he actually relished.  It was mind-boggling, really, to think that the president’s political “enemies” (not “opponents,” not “loyal opposition,” but “enemies”!) were going to be labeled by the head of state as essentially “‘enemies’ of the state.”

Even those of us who heard it and understood the implications didn’t know how, exactly, these punishments would be doled out, what form they would take.  Perhaps, we hoped, he’d just keep calling us names, mocking and deriding us, sneering down at us from his Styrofoam pedestal.  Maybe he’d lie about us more than usual, urge his sheeple in the tabloid media and regressive groups to attack and attempt to discredit us more often.  Maybe he’d set up another version of “Flag the Fishy” and “Attack Watch” to get our fellow citizens to turn us into the state . . . for some reason, to locate all the “enemies” he has?  And to what end?  After all, this is America, you can’t “punish” Americans for political dissent or on the whim of a president.

You can’t, right?

Wrong.

This president has taken punishing his enemies (and often simultaneously rewarding his friends) and elevated it to an art form that would make history’s worst tyrants and dictators drool with envy:

His DOJ: in addition to suing Arizona for violating federal immigration laws (while ignoring violations of immigration law in “sanctuary” states and cities, of course–after all, what petty tyrant doesn’t pick and choose which laws he likes best?), also has a well-known policy of never prosecuting blacks for crimes against whites.  0′s DOJ also went after Gibson guitar on bogus “wood” crime allegations.

His TSA: in addition to gross abuses of power and zero ability to actually detect an actual terrorist, the TSA considers anyone who “opts out” of their porn scans and gate rapes to be “domestic extremists.”

His DHS: in addition to the unprecedented (and frankly bizarre) stock-piling of ammunition about which they decline to comment, issued a memo in April 2009 telling various law enforcement agencies across the country to be on the lookout for dastardly “. . .. groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority [i.e. that pesky 10th Amendment which protects citizens and states from a too-powerful central government]. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,’ the warning says.” I.e. conservatives, TEA Party groups, patriots.

His military: in addition to forcing its pastors to perform gay “marriages,” has also targeted Christians in a special effort to silence their free speech.  And the army has been told not to consider actual terrorists (Nidal Hissan, for example) as terrorists, but instead to focus on Christians, Jews, and Islamaphobes.

His press secretary: tried to exclude the “enemy” network Fox News from an interview.  Yes, it was one interview, but if they had succeeded, it would have been the end of Fox in the WH press pool.  It was a baby step to see how far they could go in ending the freedom of the press.

His NLRB: targeted Boeing in a bogus lawsuit in an attempt to bully them into opening a new plant where the administration (and its union thug friends) wanted it.

His DOE joined with his DOJ to effectively revoke the First Amendment on all college campuses receiving federal funding (the majority of them, in other words).

His IRS: the recent revelations that the IRS was intentionally and methodically targeting TEA Party, “patriot,” and those groups or individuals “educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights,” has created deep concern on the right–leftists, not being the targets this time, are perfectly happy to see this gross abuse of power to intimidate and silence opposition.  This isn’t that surprising; after all, if we’ve learned nothing else over the past four years, we’ve learned that leftists are perfectly happy with tyranny and oppression . . .  as long as they are the tyrants and oppressors.  Too bad for them that totalitarian takeovers historically end badly (very very badly) for the regime’s early supporters and apologists.

Not only are we, justly, concerned that political dissent will make us a target of IRS (or FBI, CIA, FDA, DOJ, or any other executive branch agency–keep in mind that the videographer 0 falsely blamed for Benghazi is still in prison.  Sure, he did something unrelated to the video wrong, but odd how he was only picked up after the attack in Benghazi when the president and secretary of state needed a scapegoat.  And believe me, every single person out there is guilty of some crime or violation of some regulation–there are so many that we don’t even know about. You could be harassed for collecting rain water, for growing vegetables or herbs on your porch, for who knows what else. So we are not only concerned about the IRS targeting us as taxpayers), but we also are concerned about what this means with the new role that the IRS has as the 0Care enforcers.  They now have, granted by the 0Care monstrosity, access to our personal bank accounts (actual access, not the power to freeze them–they’ve had that for ages), free reign to monitor our purchases and income, access to our personal medical files, and a list of other means by which to “enforce” the 0Care mandate.  These things could all be used to intimidate, bully, silence, even imprison any person “guilty” of political dissent.

And now we know, for a fact, that 0 is not only willing but actually relishes wielding the power of the presidency to “punish” his “enemies” (no, I won’t rant about his insistence that he can use drones to kill American citizens on American soil because he thinks them an “enemy,” but . . . well, not so tinfoil hatty now, huh?).  We, that is anyone who opposes this administration, are 0′s “enemies,” and no abuse of power, no strong-arm tactics, no bullying thuggery is beneath him.

These are the times that try men’s (and women’s) souls.  Luckily, we are Americans, and this tyrant wannabe will not intimidate, cow, or silence us.  We are not Germans defeated in spirit and nation, we are not Russian or Chinese peasants–isolated and disarmed, we are not, in other words, easy pickings.  And for that, I am forever grateful.

For Leftists: Thinking, Hard.

I’m not sure whom I find more despicable, the leftist pols who spin the most amazingly absurd narratives or the leftist morons who gobble them up as Gospel, infuse them with their own special brand of hate, and spew forth bile and vitriol like an overactive, over-reactive volcano.  Yes, I’m kind of talking about what’s going on as the left struggles to defend their Dear Leader and “messiah” on Benghazi.  Note that the last link was to a British news site; oddly, apart from Fox News, the only coverage of this massive story is being conducted overseas (oh, and it’s the leftist Guardian, not the rightish-but-still-faaar-left-of-me Telegraph, but you know how those Brits are just RAAAACIST Republicans who hate Obama.  Or something.). Note, too, that some tabloid television networks, like NBC, are willing to admit that Obama is incompetent or “sloppy.”  That’s huge.  He’s been the bestest best thing since best things were first found to be best, but now suddenly he’s incompetent? That’s one hell of an admission from the salivating, slavish media.  And we know why they’ll throw out that bone.

And, frankly, I–at least–don’t care.  We’re talking about “news” organizations that failed to cover the Gosnell trial because it was “local” but spent hours and hours on some crazy, murdering biotch’s guilty verdict . . . while the Benghazi hearings are the actual news–national and international news–of the day.  Indeed, the hearings are being covered not only in Britain but in Germany, even in Russia and in the Middle East.  Our “media”?  Dancing around like puppies for scraps from their master’s table.  Massive fail.

But I’m not really talking about that, per se, others are covering it amazingly; instead, I am mostly talking about . . . well, just generally. I was just reading through some articles and a couple illustrate my point magnificently: one talked about how the majority of Americans accept gay people and the other was about the Traitor in Chief’s comments about immigration.  Oh, and let’s not forget the bogus stat that 90% of Americans support background checks. Dude, 90% of Americans can’t agree that the sky is blue, but the myriad lies–outrageous, in-your-face-ridiculous, “not one dime” lies–this president tells are not really my point.

Here’s the thing, the point, if you will.  A poll shows that the majority of Americans accept gay people, and that’s probably true.  I do.  And I know that my conservative friends and relatives do.  But here’s where everything gets murky for sophomoric leftist brains: I can accept gay people without *gasp* supporting gay “marriage.”  Yes, it’s true!  I can also accept that Obama is president without wanting to make him dictator for life.  Imagine that!

Nuance.

Nuance that is, of course, totally lost on the all or nothing, my way or the highway left.  You can’t just accept gay people, you can’t just accept that the government should recognize gay relationships as they do those of heterosexuals.  Oh no!  That’s not good enough, not “tolerant” enough for the most intolerant people on the planet.  You must accept that God is wrong, that your religion, your faith, your beliefs are all wrong.  You must embrace something that you might accept but not endorse; if you’re not ready to don a pink tutu or a suit and tie and march in the gay pride parade, then you’re not tolerant enough.  Actually, well, you’re just a toothless troglodyte teabagging troll.

Uh huh.

It’s sad, isn’t it that our wanna-be intellectual and emotional superiors on the left are incapable of reason, of compassion, of understanding, of anything remotely resembling human feeling?

Sad, and I used to find it perplexing, but it’s really not.  They just have simple, childlike thought processes that literally jump from “you accept gay people” to “therefore, you must accept gay ‘marriage’” and with that the utter destruction of religion and of religious freedom in this country.  And if you don’t, well, everyone knows you can’t accept gay people without supporting gay “marriage”; therefore, you must HATE gay people!  Again, uh huh.  The lack of logic, of critical thought, is mind-numbing.  But not unexpected.

The left does this on purpose and urges its mindless sheeple to not think, to be “tolerant” and to think that tolerance somehow means acceptance, even submission.  It does not.  I can tolerate something without accepting it, much less submitting to it.  There’s a huge difference, actually, but the English language seems to be a bit problematic for shallow, unthinking leftists (probably why they feel the need to “revise” and “adapt” it so often).

And we see this knee-jerking, conclusion-jumping, skipping over major points and differences, ignoring of language and its meaning again in Obama’s statement that “unless you’re a Native American, you came from someplace else.”  Well, no . . . poop, Sherlock.  (omg, is that an awesome show or what? Anyway,) yes, Dear Leader, we–well, okay, maybe not me, personally.  Or my parents.  But sure, somewhere down the line, some of my relatives–came to the United States from someplace else.  But here’s the thing, they didn’t come here illegally.  They came here within and abiding the law, respecting their new home and hoping to succeed in the land of the free and home of the brave.  They didn’t sneak in, they didn’t “overstay their visas,” they didn’t come as “birth tourists,” they came as legal aliens who acquired citizenship and paid their own way, often against great odds.

But conflating all immigration with illegal immigration, all immigrants with illegal immigrants, is par for the regressive course.  Now, do you really think that Obama himself doesn’t understand the difference?  Of course he does.  Do you really think that Obama doesn’t know the difference between accepting gays and demanding that gay “marriage” be the law of the land?  Of course he does.  As in all things from the economy to foreign policy, he just plays his mindless minions like a fiddle.  Rome may burn . . . but his disciples won’t notice.  Until it’s too late.

Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the “TEA Party Terrorist”

It happens every single time there’s a shooting, a bombing, or almost any type of violent crime.  From George Zimmerman to Nidal Hasan, from Jared Loughner to Amy Bishop, from the D. C. sniper to the IRS plane crasher . . . no matter the deed, some leftist in the media starts blaming the TEA Party, either making the most outlandish accusations based on a Google search and a common name (Jim Holmes) to the outright statement that some hack writer “hopes” that the Boston bomber is a “white American”–he means, of course, white, conservative American, preferably a TEA Party member but any old white supremacist would do just fine in a pinch; after all, they’re all the same. Everyone knows that all TEA Party members are white supremacists.  And violent.  And ready to start shooting up schools, theaters, parking lots at the drop of a hat.  Except . . . well, that’s just never happened.

You know who shoots things up and bombs things?  Crazies, leftists, and jihadis.  That’s it.  I was visiting my mom when the ricin letters and the Boston marathon bombing took place, and I said to her, “the ricin guy’s a white American nutter, and the marathon bomber is a Muslim radical.”  Am I some sort of seer, one gifted with “the sight”?  Can I truly see events and their perpetrators from thousands of miles away?  What is this strange magic that enabled me to nail it within seconds of hearing of the incidents?

Logic.  Logic, more specifically, based in what we know about crazies’ and jihadis’ past actions on American soil.  Crazies do crazy stuff, they fly into IRS buildings, they mail letters laced in ricin or send bombs through the mail, they shoot up movie theaters, parking lots, high schools, even elementary schools.  What they don’t do is bomb public events.  Indeed, they don’t really use bombs all that much (McVeigh did, Bill Ayers did, and I’m sure some others).  Most of the crazies have turned out to be leftists, Obama supporters, and Obama voters, but that doesn’t damn the entire left (as certainly one loony TEA Party member would damn us all); no, crazies are mostly crazy.  Sure, they have some reason, however incoherent to sane people, for their crazy act.  It might be that they are mentally ill (as is usually the case), or it might be that they are paranoid geniuses (okay, that’s mentally ill, too); they are all pretty much the same, though, and seem to fit into two categories: political nutters (these generally leave behind rambling manifestos under a tinfoil hat paperweight, or if they survive, they become professors at top American universities) and social misfits (these don’t leave manifestos).  Well, maybe home-grown terrorism should be given its own category, because it’s not really mental illness that motivates the domestic terrorist, at least not always, sometimes it’s ideology (leftist only so far in our history)–even so, they bomb the Pentagon or some other government building; they don’t bomb marathons.

Unlike crazies and homegrown terrorists, jihadis do bomb public places.  They do it all the time, all over the world.  And right here in America.  Jihadis are driven by Islam, or if you prefer, by their radicalization, by their belief that their god wants them to kill as many non-Muslims as they can to prepare the way for the great global caliphate they failed to achieve in the early Middle Ages (those darned Crusaders put a stop to that).  Bombing the twin towers or a marathon is right up their alley.  So all in all, it wasn’t really hard to figure out which group was responsible for the Boston marathon bombing (generally speaking, I have no idea the exact affiliation of the Muslim terrorists who are responsible, but I didn’t for one minute imagine–much less HOPE–that it was a TEA Party member).

So I can look at the patterns, at what has happened, and surmise from that what is most likely to have happened in two new scenarios.  It’s not hard.  It doesn’t take any special ESP ability, and it certainly doesn’t take Islamophobia or whatever the “you’re a big RAAAACIST” charge would be.  It’s just that there are patterns of behavior one can look at.  Simple, right?

You’d think.

There have been exactly zero TEA Party bombings or attempted bombings or thwarted bombings; there have been exactly zero TEA Party shootings (mass or otherwise, though I think one guy did shoot his own television in his own living room).  Despite this lack of any reason whatsoever to imagine that any TEA Party person would be violent, each and every time something happens, leftists hoppity hop and skippety jump to their go-to conclusion that surely THIS TIME, at long long last the elusive TEA Party bomber or shooter would be spotted, perhaps leaving behind evidence in the form of a giant footprint (barefoot, of course) or some tufts of unruly hair hanging from a bush.  Or maybe there’s a grainy video of a long “TEA Party terrorist”-shaped neck skimming through the water.

For the leftist media and its devoted readers believe as firmly in this “TEA Party terrorist” as many believe in Big Foot, the Loch Ness monster, and assorted other things that may or may not exist . . . but they hope they do.  This time, this time, they hope, they pray (or whatever they call it), they do little private dances of barely constrained glee at the thought that this time, oooh, if only!  Imagine!!!  A real live incident by a real live “TEA Party terrorist”!  Everything they’ve always believed would be, in that one event, instantly verified, proven beyond any doubt at all, they’d have the solid evidence they’ve so long claimed was out there but that they could never produce.  They’d have their evidence, finally, that there really is a Big Foot Loch Ness Monster “TEA Party terrorist.”  They know they’re out there . . . they can feel it in their bones.  After all, they’ve heard from someone who knows someone who saw someone who said something about seeing one . . . .