October 14, 2013

"NSA COLLECTING CONTACTS FROM 500,000 'BUDDY LISTS' EACH DAY."


Drudge, linking to this Washington Post revelation.

AND: In the longer view, we see an artistic parallelism in the President and his wife. Note the facial expression and the hands:


There are 3 headlines under the First Lady:
Squirrels go nuts for First Lady's garden in shutdown...
...tomatoes are rotting
UNHARVESTED...

36 comments:

David said...

You really have to click through to read the blog post about Michelle's garden. It's a uninentional comic masterpiece.

Seems all those federal veggies are "going to waste" because only a minimal staff is there to tend the (1500 square foot) garden. The staff was "prohibited" from harvesting the veggies.

The Obamas, the modern federal state and Washington DC in a nutshell. Can't stoop over to pick a tomato without a bunch of federal employees.

The Obamas have become proprietors of a plantation.

TosaGuy said...

That garden article is hilarious. It reads like an actual tragedy is going on.

TosaGuy said...

Gardens are great. Grew up with one. My mom had us kids out there working in it. What a good way for a family to bond.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Why cant the first lady barricade the nuts out of her garden?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Sorry for the misspelling... I meant to say Barrycade.

Hagar said...

Wasn't there something about her victory garden being planted in contaminated soil and and the fruits being unsafe for human consumption?

Deirdre Mundy said...

Huh. She has two daughters.... surely that's enough unpaid labor to pick the veggies...

Or have the first daughters been furloughed as well?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Or have the first daughters been furloughed as well?

"Evict Obama’s Mother-in-Law from White House"

Almost Ali said...

Say what you will, Obama is one happy camper. Not even his father dreamed of creating such turmoil and chaos... in Kenya, much less the United States. It's the Marxist jackpot where commie dreams have come true.

rcommal said...

What the hell. Lord almighty, despite my profound cynicism and suspicion, even I thought that at least a part of the point that was supposed to be transmitted by Mrs. Obama's White House ag efforts was to grow and tend a garden, either personally (individually or as a family) or as a community. Wasn't it supposed to be a modeling [at least of sorts]? This story, assuming it's not just true but also factual and truthful, both steams and frosts me. I mean, why the freakin' hell can't the First Kids and their friends, supervised by Mrs. Obama and selected parents, harvest that garden? What a waste, all the way around. Honestly. Truly.
---

Also, FTR, the shorter version of my reaction is: what B.S., and not the sort that can fertilize a garden, in order to encourage its growth.

Ken Mitchell said...

Dave writes: "Can't stoop over to pick a tomato without a bunch of federal employees."

Yup; that's the Federal (and too many State) government problem; only the worker ASSIGNED BY THE UNION can do anything. When my son was in grade school, I tried to help out with the flowers around the campus, but was prohibited because that was the gardener's job - and when the gardeners went on strike, I couldn't do it because ONLY a UNION gardener was allowed to do such things.

Michelle obviously feels that she must obey the strike orders issued by her hubby. Either that, or she doesn't have a CLUE as to how to actually pick a tomato.....

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The democrats say tomato and the republicans say tomato.

tomato, tomato, potato, potato, lets call the whole thing off.

Let the shutdown continue.

rcommal said...

Also, jeez. How proud must Chef Comerford be of wasting food. LOL. A contradiction and conundrum, that.

; )

rcommal said...

I think that Spike Mendelsohn, for example, along with some other cheflebreties, ought to trot right over (or even fly in in order to trot right in) to harvest that crop and put it to good use. Tip to tail! (Or, as parents, grandparents and grandparents used to say: Waste not, want not--

--or something like that.)

rcommal said...

In addition: Where the hell are the Iron Chefs and everyone else so into so much various stuff when you need 'em?

rcommal said...

Calling all Top Chefs!

rcommal said...

I mean: Calling all Top Chefs as well.

rcommal said...

TBF and TBC, OTOH, it's not as if we haven't, as a matter of policy, paid people to not just not harvest but also to not even bother to grow stuff. So there's that, and therefore that-there's a *that* to consider.

Hmm.

Oh, forget I said anything.

"Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream."

rcommal said...

P.S. Honestly, shouldn't harvesting that garden count as physical, philosophical, mental and social activity and education under the "Let's Move" initiative?

---

[Please add "Forget I asked that" to "Oh, forget I said I said anything". LOLAM.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I remember a story claiming the first lady was going to be payed, presumably for her duties as first lady.

Maybe she has been secretly hired/furloughed.

Non essential personnel ... shhh, keep it on the down low.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

With a fearful press hiding under their desk... who knows what Obama has been really up to all these years.

Anonymous said...

Must bus in illegals to harvest the garden, a job that no Americans are allowed to do.

Question: How much of our tax money is paid as wages to the staff to tend the stupid garden? $100,000+ per person plus Obamacare, pension benefits?

Annie said...

So Michelle has a vegetable garden and is too high and mighty to take care of it herself. What a joke, tried tp paint a picture of being regular folk. Plantation indeed. I wonder if the poor thing can't dress herself. Is her staff of 20+ furloughed too?
Too arrogant to have food pantries come and do the harvest.

richlb said...

I sensed the "sexually frustrated First Lady" vibe from the Drudgetaposition. Her "tomatoes" are rotting! Won't Barack please tend to her garden as it withers away?

Clyde said...

As you sow, so shall you reap. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. Produce rotting on the ground is a strong, accurate metaphor for this administration.

And the freeloading squirrels? They heard that the EBT system had a glitch and loaded up their shopping carts with everything they could stuff them with, hoping to check out before the system came back up.

George M. Spencer said...

For 27 years Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a six-day-a-week newspaper column. I'll guess that she actually wrote a good number of those pieces and possibly all of them in the early years. You can read some of them here. They read like personal correspondence.

Does anyone think Michelle Obama wrote a word of her 2012 book "American Grown"? Does anyone think she does any work in that garden, except for photo ops?

cubanbob said...

Poor Michelle. Just think of the position she is in. A black woman stooping, picking tomatoes and weeding a garden, why just think of the optics. A black woman field hand at the White House? Mississippi 1860. Bad optics and therefore the tomatoes must rot until the white field hands return to work.

Robert Cook said...

It's perplexing to me that those moved to comment here seemed riled up about Michelle's garden, but don't flinch at the further revelations of NSA snooping into and harvesting of our personal business and associations.

Those who cry "tyranny" at Obama's every utterance seem unconscious of or unbothered by a giant, secret government spy agency recording everything it can about their lives. Also, none of us know what the NSA's actual budget is; doesn't this bother those who urge that we must withhold money from the small stipends received by the elderly and needy in order to avoid alleged financial catastrophe?

TosaGuy said...

Cookie,

According to Saul Alinsky, it's easier to mock an individual and "her" garden than a faceless, secretive gov't agency, which is an issue we have already discussed previously.

TosaGuy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
TosaGuy said...

And no, you are not actually "perplexed" because you are engaging in the same thing by trying to make commenters live up to the positions they have expressed in the past.

Cedarford said...

Sad, the diva with the Harvard Law degree that had an active law license for 3 1/2 years cannot deign to pick the tomatoes before they go bad.
Staff does the menial stuff in the "First Lady's garden" save on annual photo op day.

Sooooo pathetic.

Then Cookie tries riding to the rescue, demanding people ignore it and focus on "more profound" matters like his NSA leak machine, dry ice bombs at LAX, Indian typhoons....ANYTHING but the Obamas...

Robert Cook said...

Hmmm...still nothing? Bueller? Anyone? Just crickets out there?

Unknown said...

Gotta love Drudge
Look at the Onion to read a great sendup on potus and flotus and their sex life.

rcommal said...

Robert Cook: Shame on you. Are you actually stating that the likes of me haven't been thoroughly objecting for, yea, these many years? If so: Screw you. You think not better than I.

rcommal said...

I remember this, in its real time, too.