That’s a Bunch of Boloney

For the Tucker Carlson (and William F. Buckley) fans out there, Washington Post Reporter Warns Journalists To Avoid Tucker Carlson’s ‘Dunk Tank.’

But of course. Given Carlson’s nightly ability to demolish leftwing shibboleths and those who claim to believe them, as William F. Buckley quipped when asked why Bobby Kennedy was declining repeated requests to appear on Firing Line, “Why does baloney reject the grinder?” - From Ed Driscoll at Instapundit

And now since we’ve established the premise of this post let me just ask: is there anything better than bologna in all it’s glorious varieties? I say no. American bologna – Oscar Mayer is the most famous but far from the best -

is a variation on German (garlic) bologna which is itself a derivative of the original ground meat sausage from Bologna: Mortadella (pistachios optional, although not really).

And the once popular “olive loaf” is itself just another variation of Mortadella,

one that few people seem to enjoy these days for some reason unknown to me.

I’m guessing it’s because they’ve only had the cheap, inferior variety. I love bologna in all of it’s glorious incarnations although my absolute favorite may be the humble ground bologna sandwich (best served on cheap, racist white bread).

Also known as “poor man’s ham salad” this is generally the recipe given:

Ground Bologna Sandwich Spread

Ingredients
1-1/2 lbs ring bologna
2 – 3 baby sweet pickles
3 - 1/8″ slices from 1 medium-size Spanish onion
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tsp yellow prepared mustard

Remove any strings or clips off the ends of the ring bologna. Cut the bologna into 4 sections for easier handling. Slit one side of each section lengthwise and remove the casing.

Install discs onto the front of the meat grinder for a fairly small grind and grind the ring bologna into the glass dish. After digging the rest of the bologna out of the grinder, dump the bologna into the mixing bowl.

Finely-chop the sweet pickles till you have about 1/2 cup, and then do the same with the slices of onion. Add the chopped pickle and onion to the bologna in the mixing bowl, then add the mayonnaise and mustard and mix it all together till it’s smooth. Taste it, adding some salt to punch up the flavor if necessary.

Transfer it to the storage bowl and refrigerate the spread until it’s ice cold. Use a fork to put a layer of spread about 3/8″ thick (my kids like it about 1/2″ thick on a slice of white bread, then close with another slice. Serve with kettle-cooked potato chips or steaming-hot French fries. MICuisine

My Mom’s recipe was simpler: just ground bologna, originally made with her hand grinder

but later just shredded on a hand grater through the largest sized hole, a chopped homemade dill pickle (never sweet in our house) no onion, no mustard, no added salt, and Miracle Whip to taste. I still make it the same way only I use a food processor and replaced the Miracle Whip with Hellmann's decades ago. Imagine my surprise to discover this particular version is also known as “Monkey Meat Spread!” (can I say that?)

If  you don’t want to bother even that much, good old fried bologna is also good for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Or if you’re feeling slightly more sophisticated and want to have a glass of wine with your bologna, go with the original Mortadella, sliced very thin – be sure to specify, it actually tastes different that way – and serve as part of a traditional Italian antipasto tray loaded with anything and everything else you have on hand.

Along with some good crusty bread or rolls you’ve got yourself dinner. And that’s no boloney.

Oh, and BTW, French baloney is known as “Lyoner” – I don’t know why I find that amusing, but I do. I guess we will see this weekend whether the French continue to be cheese eating surrender monkeys full of Lyoner, or have evolved into something with a bit more, eh…bite.

Bon appétit mon cheri!

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A Dutch Fable

I know a lot of people are celebrating what is sure to end up a hollow victory. I’m glad President Trump twisted enough arms to deliver on what he promised during his campaign, it proves him an honorable man and a formidable leader. It’s just that the sense of deja vu leaves me feeling less than celebratory. Perhaps a long week of cold, grey skies and rain has impacted my frame of mind. Here’s how things stand from my vantage point:

I see the House Republicans behaving like they won the lottery:And the Senate Republicans acting like they’re quite relevant while in reality they’re just the Bedazzler, able to tart matters up a bit but likewise unable to fix what’s been intrinsically broken. The body politic alone can do that.

Broken But Bedazzled

And the Democrats are acting as they always do, win or lose, with their usual grace and decorum.

Dems sing “na na na na, goodbye” to Republicans on House Floor

And, also as usual, the Republicans will get the blame.

Unfortunately the reality - set in motion with the original passage of the “Bill We Had To Pass To Find Out What’s In It” and sealed with Justice Roberts’ bogus finding that Obamacare was torturously constitutional - is less optimistic.

Krauthammer said ObamaCare "failed at every level," but it did change Americans' expectations regarding health care.

"I would predict that in less than seven years, we'll be in a single-payer system," Krauthammer said, pointing out that Republicans aren't even arguing for a free market system anymore.

"They have sort of accepted the fact that the electorate sees health care as not just any commodity, like purchasing a steak or a car," Krauthammer explained. "It's something now people have a sense the government ought to guarantee."

He explained that there are only two options for the future of health care in the U.S. - a radically, individualist system where the market rules or single-payer - and the country is not going to ever go back to the former.

"The terms of debate are entirely on the grounds of the liberal argument that everybody ought to have it," Krauthammer said. "Once that happens, you're going to end up with a single-payer system." – video here

It’s not the Krauthammer hasn’t been wrong in the past, and it’s not that I don’t wish he were wrong this time, but it’s just that he put to voice the dread that has resided with many of us since 2009. Perhaps the dread could be put to rest with this latest Congressional action were it not based on the two immutable truths of government:

1. Once something becomes thought of as an entitlement, it can never be totally taken away, e.g. Social Security

2. Once government gets its hooks into something it will never fully extract them, e.g. income tax

Income tax, originally introduced as a Revenue Act of 1861 to pay for Civil War debt, was repealed 10 years later only to re-emerge permanently in 1909 as the 16th Amendment. Having successfully planted the concept that “everyone is entitled to healthcare” – as if they had been previously denied – as a “human right,” Obama’s real legacy never really rested on Hillary getting elected. It was already embedded in the American psyche. 

Barry always fancied himself the half-black FDR and damned if he wasn’t.

Yes, we will continue to fight and beat it back but the truth is the dyke (can I say that?) has been breached and our job now is to ensure we keep a finger in it to prevent it’s complete demise and allow the sea to come rushing in. It’s an infinitely bigger job than simply keeping the dyke maintained properly.

 

Sorry for the reality check. It doesn’t mean I’m tired of winning. Just a cautionary tale that we must be forever on guard. (h/t Ronald Reagan)

Let the debates begin.

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Please Don’t Hurt My Mom and Dad

We don’t call them snowflakes for naught. The age of majority in 48 states is 18 and 19 in the other two. Yet one of our nation’s most vaunted universities finds these adults unable to deal with the stress of…library fines. So they’ve done away with them. From The Harvard Crimson:

We have witnessed first hand the stress that overdue fines can cause for students. Eliminating standard overdue fines and standardizing loan periods across Harvard’s libraries should help students focus on their scholarship, rather than worrying about renewing library books every 28 days in order to avoid fines.

Old enough to vote, marry, “hook-up”, and defend our country in mortal combat,but not yet old enough to either return borrowed books on time or deal with the consequences. Something that most children learn by age 10, or at least they used to.

I suspect it’s the “consequences” part of the equation that does not compute for the helicopter parent generation. It’s hard to understand something you’ve never had to deal with.

It’s probably too late for this generation. The only consequences they approve is the punishment imposed on people who dare express disbelief in the dogma that has been hammered into their heads since the day they were conceived: global warming, cultural relativity and white man’s guilt. Use free speech to express an opinion in opposition to one of these sacred lambs and the wrath of Political Correctness will rain down on your head.

Just ask the student whose paper was marked down for the audacity of using the term “mankind” instead of “humankind” (both defined identically in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary). His professor deemed the non-politically correct, non-gender neutral term to be a “writing mechanics” error. Apparently Professor Davis created his own rules since English grammar doesn’t prohibit the proper use of words simply because some people find them offensive. Mark Steyn accuses Professor Davis and his ilk of "engaging in the totalitarian moronization of a generation." Current events would indicate that he’s correct.

Having been mind-melded by their teachers and culture, today’s youth believe that disagreement with their progressive doctrine is morally unacceptable and therefore grounds for both ostracizing and censure. With that type of totalitarian mindset I guess I can understand why the thought of breaking a simple rule like not returning your library books on time would throw them into a tailspin. I’m just surprised that exceptional students at such an elite university couldn’t figure out a way around the problem.

-

Oh wait – that would involve problem solving, something else seldom taught anymore. So I guess eliminating the fine was the only way to alleviate the overwhelming stress imposed by late library books.

They would have returned them for me if only they would have known they were due.

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The Incredible Lightness of Being Smug

You see this sort of smug, superior grin in the face of an SJW. But behind it is utter madness. These are broken people, whose actions are no longer rational in any sense…They are, rather, individuals who have completely lost touch with reality. Unable to cope with the weight of the world, they seek to unload it on others. It’s your fault, not theirs. Nothing is their fault, they are perfect, you are to blame for everything. - The Weight of the World - Declination

And then, as if on cue, Samantha Bee (smug left comedian) states smugly that there is no smug left problem.

She was asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper to respond to criticism that New York Times columnist Ross Douthat sent her way, arguing that her schtick is part of the Left’s problem and a reason why Hillary Clinton did not win the presidential election.

She dismissed the criticism as “one person’s opinion.” When pressed by Tapper about whether there is a smug liberal problem, Bee said, “I just can’t take responsibility for the way the election turned out. Is there a smug liberal problem? I don’t think there is.”

Again, as if on cue, Hillary Clinton confirmed that there is no smug liberal problem.

“I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey's letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me and got scared off. The reason I believe we lost were the intervening events in the last 10 days.”

So in addition to misogyny she lost because of Comey, WikiLeaks and the Russians - “Nothing is their fault, they are perfect, you are to blame for everything.”

Did I mention that in addition to being smug they’re really angry too?

WHY AREN’T I 50 POINTS AHEAD!?!

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We Demand Heads

So it looks like we have a 100% Democrat-approved budget. The Trump budget continuing resolution looks pretty much like the Obama budget continuing resolutions of the last 8 years – except bigger. This isn’t exactly the Contract with America we signed on for.

I guess we’re to believe the Republican’s perennial “we’ll just take one bite of the apple at a time” approach will work this time?  When it’s never worked before?

So in lieu of a border wall we’re to be satisfied with the end of Michelle’s rotten school lunches?

While that’s nice for the lunchroom crowd today, the orchard continues to be littered with rotten apples that will have to be dealt with tomorrow.

We are not amused.

I’m talking to you Mr. Ryan

And we demand heads.

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Mayday! Mayday!

 The May-pole is up,
Now give me the cup;
I'll drink to the garlands around it;
But first unto those
Whose hands did compose
The glory of flowers that crown'd it.
~  The Maypole, 1660

Happy May Day comrades! Have you ever wondered  how this:

Morphed into this?

Maybe due to to a propaganda system masquerading as education? Producing stellar results like this:

A recent study conducted by YouGov found only 33 percent of millennials are familiar with Lenin. Of those who are familiar, 25 percent view him favorably. The study also revealed, among other disturbing insights, that 32 percent of millennials believe more people were killed by the administration of George W. Bush than the regime of Joseph Stalin, which was responsible for no fewer than 15 million deaths.

Influenced by educational and cultural systems hostile to free-market economics and willing to whitewash the human toll of Marxism, young Americans are increasingly turning to socialism and other forms of extremist ideology. In a 2016 poll by Harvard University, 33 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 said they supported socialism while 51 percent said they opposed capitalism. Alarming also are the findings that only 25 percent of millennials now believe that living in a democracy is essential, down from 75 percent for their grandparents’ generation.

At some point they may wish to reconsider their priorities.

H/T Gerard

In Vereteno’s seemingly immortal words: “We are on correct path, comrades.”

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Fake Nerd Prom

Half the people speaking at last night’s Trumpless White House Correspondents’ Dinner made a point of telling the President in absentia that “the media is not fake news!” And yet nobody saw the irony of having a fake correspondent from a fake news show from Comedy Central  host the event?

Hasan Minjah, posterboy for Muslim Anchor Babies and Dreamers

No wonder they don’t know fake news when it bites them in the butt.

President Trump, meanwhile, was busy raising the roof in Pennsylvania.

Expect MSM to report he drew a small crowd.

If you ask me one of the most promising outcomes of the First 100 Days of Trump – which is related to the current state of the fake news cabal  - is the active rumor about a  spontaneous generation of a real conservative network. Wouldn’t that be sweet? A real response to media fascism?

Something tells me that Sean Hannity might be persuaded to join some of his former colleagues in that eventuality.

They’re expanding their attack to target media outlets and individuals who refuse to push their biased talking points and fall in line with their agenda. They hate Fox News. They hate talk radio. And they hate you, if you support our president and his policies.

I am calling it “media fascism.”

As you may know, I have become the target of a smear and slander campaign. The radical, alt-left, destroy-Trump media immediately picked up on lies told about me — even though the person with whom they originated recanted. They wanted a cheap headline.

A simple Google search would have ended the witch hunt against me. These lazy so-called journalists would have discovered this individual has severe credibility issues and has targeted and tried to smear and slander me for well over a decade.

Like President Trump, I can fight back. But this is about more than either of us. The dishonest media is out to silence every conservative voice in the country. Trump’s election has made them come unhinged, and now they are coming after all of us.”  - Sean Hannity

But in the interim, expect the mainstream media to continue to build false narratives in order to generate more fake news. 

It’s their job.

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