It’s Friday, May 24th, 2019…but before we begin, here’s how we spent our day off:

We for one can never get enough of the Blue Angels…and the roaring sound of freedom echoing from their exhausts. (Trust us, Dash-5 won’t need to be called to account for getting ahead on the backside of the line-abreast loop; he’ll already have realized it!)

We’re reminded of the words written by one Mary Hamilton in 1915, which were subsequently added as a verse to what is, at least for now, considered the Navy Hymn, Eternal Father, Strong to Save, in that same year: 

“Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces in the sky.
Be with them always in the air,
In darkening storms or sunlight fair;
Oh, hear us when we lift our prayer,
For those in peril in the air!”

May God watch over all Naval Aviators, along with the rest of our Armed Forces and nation they serve and protect.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

We lead off the top of today’s order with the THAT Oughta Do It segment, as…

First African American female and first gay mayor of Chicago takes the oath of office at Wintrust Arena.

 

In reality, the swearing in of Chicago’s first, second, third or umpteenth Black female lesbian mayor will have as much effect on the Windy City’s problems…corruption, crime and utterly out-of-control gun violence, just to name a few!…as Ray’s admonition to Gozer in Ghostbusters: 

Perhaps if Mayor Lightfoot were to just ask her Homeys to please stop shooting each other…you know, nicely…peace will finally reign; but we doubt it.

Here’s the juice: the color, gender and sexual preference of Chicago’s mayor won’t undo what DECADES of Dimocratic misrule and outright corruption have wrought…particularly when said Black female lesbian hails from the same party responsible for same.

For more on the subject of Dimocrats and their counterproductive policies, we turn to today’s installment of our How Low Can You Go?!? segment, where we highlight the depths the 2020-wannabes are willing to plumb in order to earn the dubious honor of taking on Trump…the well-being of the country be damned!  First, Cory “Spartacus Can’t Be No Also-Ran”…

Booker Vows to Create ‘Office of Reproductive Freedom’ If Elected

 

Not to be outdone, as Mairead McArdle records at NRO…

Tim Ryan Says U.S. Must ‘Get Rid of the Hyde Amendment’

 

Sorry, but we had to search the web even to recall WTF Tim Ryan even is…or, perhaps more appropriately, WAS….that is before he faded into well-deserved obscurity owing to his willingness to increase the rate Progressives’ slaughter the unborn for not even a moment of notoriety.

Next up, writing at the WSJ, Bill McGurn relates…

The Tales of Parson Comey

Apparently the former FBI chief can see into other men’s souls.

 

“When in 1800 Parson Weems published “A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington, ” this and later editions would become the source of treasured chestnuts such as the tale of the 6-year old George killing his father’s cherry tree or the older Gen. Washington kneeling in the snow to pray at Valley Forge.

With its saccharine moralizing and portrait of larger-than-life integrity, it isn’t unlike today’s tales about former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey. Except that the glowing picture of Parson Comey as a paragon of virtue is a self-portrait.

Like the itinerant preachers who once brought the Gospel to the vast American countryside, Parson Comey periodically rides the circuit. In his case, this means appearing on CNN, penning an op-ed for the New York Times, or posting his pensées on Twitter, where he preaches the moral turpitude of anyone who may question, say, using a dossier he himself characterized as “salacious and unverified” to get a warrant to spy on an innocent American. But as with Parson Weems before him, Parson Comey’s tales aren’t holding up under the light.

Parson Weems, for example, gave us Washington telling his father, “I cannot tell a lie…I did cut it with my hatchet.” In the Parson Comey version, the then-FBI director tells the president “I don’t leak, I don’t do weasel moves”— only later to leak to the Times FBI memos detailing private conversations with the president. To avoid leaving his fingerprints, Mr. I Cannot Tell a Lie leaked via a law-professor friend. (A crime for which, if “Bull” Durham is half the bulldog he’s cracked up to be, Comey will likely be held to account.)

Or what about the parson’s tall tale about the FBI agents who’d interviewed national security adviser Michael Flynn at the White House? When Bret Baier of Fox News asked him if he’d told Congress that the two agents who’d interviewed Mr. Flynn “didn’t believe [he] was lying intentionally,” he insisted he hadn’t said it.

But when the House Intelligence Committee got the redaction lifted from their report on Russia, there it was on page 54: Parson Comey testifying that the FBI agents saw “nothing that indicated to them that he knew he was lying to them.”

…Yet now there’s a new team in the parsonage, and they are taking an objective look at what happened at the FBI during the Comey years. The question is whether the mistakes were simply a result of sloppiness and overzealousness or a deliberate abuse of power. (Though we must observe, people don’t generally go to the mat to cover-up sloppiness or overzealousness!)

This may explain why Parson Comey has of late been casting more first stones than usual. In recent days he’s informed former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that President Trump has “eaten” his soul, sermonized that Attorney General William Barr lacks the character needed to run “an organization based on truth,” and assured America that the president had “corrupt intent” when he asked the White House counsel to sack Robert Mueller. Apparently the former FBI director’s abilities include not only upholding the law and fighting off foreign foes but seeing into other men’s souls.

Yet, say this for Jim Comey: The parson knows his congregation. And he feeds it from Mount Self-Righteous, with a mix of Democratic talking points, proclamations about the wickedness of anyone with a different point of view, and the occasional lofty quotation from Reinhold Niebuhr. Ralph Waldo Emerson never met Parson Comey, but plainly he was well-acquainted with the type: “The louder he spoke of his honor,” Emerson wrote, “the faster we counted our spoons.”“

Comey truly never ceases to amaze: though having supposedly been led by an inner voice to take copious notes of his conversations with Trump, these same feelings never deemed it advisable to memorialize more meaningful conversations with…

Comey continued: “The Clinton campaign, at the time, was using all kind of euphemisms — security review, matters, things like that, for what was going on. We were getting to a place where the attorney general and I were both going to have to testify and talk publicly about. And I wanted to know, was she going to authorize us to confirm we had an investigation?…And she said, ‘Yes, but don’t call it that, call it a matter.’ And I said, ‘Why would I do that?’ And she said, ‘Just call it a matter.’”

…Loretta “Tarmac Meeting with Slick Willy” Lynch?!?

“I did not,” Lynch responded when asked if she had ever told Comey to call the investigation a “matter.”

“I have never instructed a witness as to what to say specifically. Never have, never will,” Lynch continued. “In the meeting that I had with the Director, we were discussing how best to keep Congress informed of progress and discuss requesting resources for the Department overall. We were going to testify separately. And the concern that both of us had in the meeting that I was having with him in September of 2015 was how to have that discussion without stepping across the Department policy of confirming or denying an investigation, separate policy from testifying.

“Obviously, we wanted to testify fully, fulsomely, and provide the information that was needed, but we were not at that point, in September of 2015, ready to confirm that there was an investigation into the email matter — or deny it,” Lynch added. “We were sticking with policy, and that was my position on that. I didn’t direct anyone to use specific phraseology. When the Director asked me how to best to handle that, I said: What I have been saying is we have received a referral and we are working on the matter, working on the issue, or we have all the resources we need to handle the matter, handle the issue. So that was the suggestion that I made to him.”

Did you catch that?  In her own words, Lynch admits suggesting to her underling that she, his boss…both now and undoubtedly under another Clinton Administration in the very near future…has been referring to the investigation into Hillary’s demonstrably illegal private email server as a “matter” or “issue”, just as Parson Comey said.

Two things had to be true for this farce to play out: (1) Lynch, Comey’s once and future boss, failed to recognize the potential power of her suggestion; and, (2) the good James “Parson/Boy Scott/Jack Armstrong the All-American Boy” Comey for once faltered in his self-described dedication to truth, justice and the American way.

Wethinks some of the prime players in this attempted coup…

…may well be facing a foe…

…they hadn’t anticipated.

Speaking of something the Deep State didn’t anticipate, as FOX News details, the…

Head of Virginia governor’s medical school knew about racist photo but kept quiet

 

“…The law firm investigating the origin and content of a racist photo, which appeared on Northam’s page inside the 1984 yearbook, said Wednesday that investigators were unable to determine whether the governor is one of the people seen in the photo or has any other direct connection to it.

But the EVMS investigation report disclosed that school President Richard Homan — a donor to Northam’s campaign — had learned about the racist yearbook photo from his staff, raising questions about whether politics was taken into consideration in Homan’s decision not to address the matter.

“The staff members were advising the president at the time of the photograph and asking if EVMS had an obligation to or should do something about it, such as notifying Governor Northam about it,” the report read. “The president of EVMS decided that the school should not take steps to publicly announce the photograph or to call Governor Northam’s attention to it.”

Staff members told investigators that they thought the governor would “already be aware of what was on his personal yearbook page,” while Homan insisted on moving forward rather than revisiting photos from the past.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, Homan has been supporting Northam’s political ambitions since 2013. He donated $1,000 to Northam’s campaign for lieutenant governor. He then contributed another $1,000 when Northam ran for governor and later donated $10,000 to his inaugural committee in 2017…”

No conflict of interest there.

Once again, the cover-up was worse than the crime.  Because, quite frankly, at least in our opinion, particularly given the times, what Ralph Northam did barely constituted bad taste.  Then again, we refuse to view the past through the insanity-inducing prism of present-day political correctness.

Here’s the juice: Governor Ralph Northam shouldn’t resign because he posed for an ill-advised 1984 yearbook photo; he should resign because he lied about the act after first admitting to it.

And President Richard Homan should resign because he tried he cover up the truth, and his political connection to it.

Since we’re on the subject of the politically-correct misrepresenting the truth, courtesy of FOX Business, we learn…

Apple CEO Tim Cook tells 2019 graduating class ‘my generation has failed you‘

 

No, Tim, YOU failed them.  Facts are, many of ‘your generation’ gave their lives to preserve the freedoms the Class of 2019 now enjoys…and countless others served in the defense of same.  All you did was reap the dividend on their investment.

Smart phones are nice, but in the pantheon of truly invaluable commodities, they’re right there, as Shannon reminded us, with…

…professional athletes and entertainers…and corporate CEOs.  Oh,…and television “news” personalities.

Then there’s this indication FOX News (which, though we frequently cite it, is often only one step above CNN in accuracy) is looking to make this headline…

Columbine shooting survivor Austin Eubanks found dead in Colorado home

 

…the reoccurring contemporary equivalent of Titanic Survivor Found Dead in Bed.

Seriously, with all due respect to the memory of Mr. Eubanks, this isn’t news, it’s sensationalism masquerading as news.  Which just goes to prove why, as we stated previously, FOX News stories should be taken with the same grain of salt which accompany the digestion of anything CNN…along with MSDNC, NBC, CBS, ABC or any other MSM source…misreports.

Which brings us, inappropriately enough, to The Lighter Side…

Then there’s these memes courtesy of Jimmy Crilley…

…along with a couple from G. Trevor:

Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with the Connect the Dots segment, as we see if you can discern what common factor these three tragedies share.

Exhibit “A”:

Oregon State student dies after falling 100 feet while taking picture at popular lookout

 

Exhibit “B”:

Selfie couple who fell off Yosemite cliff were drunk

 

And, if you haven’t made the connection, here’s Exhibit “C”, i.e., the giveaway:

Allow us to identify what they didn’t have in common.  While we’ve no reason to believe the subject of Exhibit “A” was inebriated, the couple in Exhibit “B’ were unquestionably drunk while posing on the edge of a 700′ precipice.  Which means, if nothing else, they’re candidates for a Darwin Award.  

So, yes, if you said “a thirst for social media stardom overriding one’s instinctive sense of self-preservation”, give yourself a gold star!

Hey, if…

…then dying in pursuit of ephemeral fame is no way to end it.  Though it does aid in deepening the global gene pool.

P.S. Contrary to what the narrator suggested, NEVER point a handgun…or any other firearm…at ANYONE, let alone yourself.  But if you’re bound and determined to risk your life, rather than worry about the safety…which the vast majority of handguns don’t have…just make certain the weapon isn’t LOADED!  And even then, STILL don’t point it ANYWHERE but down or downrange.

Magoo