The Department of Justice Visited My Blog and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

Back in August I posted a few videos of Rep. John Dingell's Town Hall on Health Care.  Over the next few days I wasn't surprised to see a few visits from House.gov and Senate.gov on my web site.  As you can see, near the bottom of my blog is a counter that tracks visits to this site.  I can't tell who visited, but I can see what I.P. address they were using.

Imagine my surprise that a few weeks later I see that someone from DOJ.gov logged onto my site.

That's right:  The Department of Justice.  Why would they be looking at my blog, a blog that was getting at that time an average of 50 visitors a day? Sure, I have been critical of the Obama Administration, but there has been nothing on this site that broke any laws in anyway.

Well, I may have found my answer.

The New Republic Online posted this story on October 6th:

Is the Department of Justice engaging in fraud, or is it simply trying to hide its propaganda? Those of you wondering how DOJ uses your tax dollars to enforce our nation’s laws might be interested to learn that Eric Holder has apparently hired former Democratic campaign bloggers to work at the department in what appears to be a secret propaganda unit. According to a story at The Muffled Oar website, the bloggers are housed in the Office of Public Affairs (the press office). Their job is to place “anonymous comments, or comments under pseudonyms, at newspaper websites with stories critical of the Department of Justice, Holder and President Obama.” One of the bloggers is former DNC and John Edwards staffer Tracy Russo, whose name was featured prominently on the department’s introduction of its new website on October 1.

 Matthew Miller Director of Public Affair at the Justice Department told the Washington Times:

"There is no 'blog squad'. There is Tracy [Russo] who handles online media.  It’s the policy of the office of public affairs to not post anonymous comments.  We have not seen any evidence that anyone does post comments, and if we did have evidence of that, people would no longer work here."

Mr. Miller countered accusations of the existence of a "blog squad" pointing to what he says is lack of evidence.

Except for the fact that the DOJ.gov was on my site back in August.  Now maybe I gained a fan from someone in Attorney General Holder's office, but considering it was a one time visit, I figure they were looking for something.

Are we seeing a trend develop in the Obama Administration?  First we read about employees working out of the White House to get artists to work with the National Endowment for the Arts to create propaganda that will "push" the President's agenda on health care.  Now we may have the Department of Justice scanning web sites for dissent against the policies of the White House.

What's next?    Stay Tuned....



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When Orchids Are Made Illegal, only Criminals Will Own Orchids.

We are all becoming criminals.  Here is yet another example of the Government overreaching its authority and criminalizing ordinary citizens who had no intention of breaking the law.

In 2006, Federal Agents burst through the door of the home Kathy and George Norris, 60 and 66 year old Grandparents of six grandchildren.  They ransacked the house, overturned drawers, emptied bookshelves, threw the Norris' belongings on the floor and searched their home.

Were these SWAT clothed agents from the FBI?  The ATF?  Homeland Security?

Nope.  They were from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service....and their mission:  Looking for illegal orchids.

That's right.  Orchids.  Seems that Mr. Norris, who owned a home-based business cultivating, importing and selling legal orchids, did the unthinkable:  he ordered perfectly legal orchids from a supplier overseas, but failed to fill out the necessary paperwork properly.  The result?  Mr. Norris spent two years in prison.

As Brian W. Walsh writes: 

The judge who sentenced George had some advice for the Norrises: “Life sometimes presents us with lemons.” Their job was to, yes, “turn lemons into lemonade.”

Never mind how difficult it is to run a successful lemonade stand when you’re a diabetic with coronary complications, arthritis and Parkinson’s disease serving time in a federal penitentiary. If only George had been a Libyan terrorist, maybe some European official would have lobbied to secure a health-based mercy release.

Common sense would tell you that a simple inquiry into the background of Mr. and Mrs. Norris would have shown that they were not smugglers, but simply two citizens that have done what many in Washington have done, filled out their paperwork improperly.  When a politician does this, its OK; when two grandparents do so, it means two years in a federal penitentiary.

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Speaking the Unspeakable: Rosemary's Baby Isn't "Good-Good"

Quick

Name three Roman Polanski films.  (Don't use IMDB.com)

Rosemary's Baby
Chinatown
and......

Thought so.  

These movies, plus many others in subtitles, seem to excuse this man of raping a 14 year old girl.  According to Whoopi Goldberg, it wasn't "Rape-rape".  Fellow cradle robber Woody Allen has come to Polanski's defense, as well as many other Hollywood directors and stars that seem to believe Polanski, being overseas, making movies, getting rich, enjoying Europe, winning awards, and generally being able to do his thing...has suffered enough while on the lam for running from the police for a crime he pled guilty to.

Debra Winger complains "the whole art world suffers" in such arrests.  I beg to differ. Polanski should be in prison for subjecting the movie viewing world to the abomination that is Rosemary's Baby, an absolutely horrible horror film.  I'm seen it twice hoping that after a second viewing it would get better.

It doesn't.

Weinstein Co. co-founder Harvey Weinstein, who is circulating the pro-Polanski petition said that people generally misunderstand what happened to Polanski at sentencing.  Apparently so does Weinstein, who forgets that Polanski pled guilty.

The LA Times has this passage from Peg Yorkin, founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation:

"It's bad a person was raped. But that was so many years ago. The guy has been through so much in his life. It's crazy to arrest him now. Let it go".

They sure don't make feminists the way they used to, huh?

Have you thought of a third yet?  (The correct answer is The Pianist or Frantic, actually Roman Polanski's Frantic).  I will give Polanski this, The Pianist was a very good film.  But it no way excuses the Hollywood elite from their obscene support of this rapist.  Running off to Europe to live your life is not how most people convicted of the same crime do their "time". Ask yourself two questions:  If this were you, how do you you think you would be treated?  Why should we hold "celebrities" to any different standard?

All Animals are Equal; Some Animals are More Equal than Others.

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5 Year Old Boy Catches 800lb Gator

The Hippo's Ass is taking a few days off to go fishing. I am heading Up North to Northern Lower Michigan for a weekend of hanging out with some old school buddies, sitting on the boat, drowning a few worms and maybe, just maybe, catching a Walleye or two. We have a rule though, "You Catch Em, You Clean Em."

Which leads me to this particular story.

Harvesting an alligator that's 20 times your size is a piece of cake, according to 5-year-old Simon Hughes. "Well, its pretty much simple," said Simon who caught the alligator.



Simon's father said Simon is a natural born hunter, so an 800 pound alligator was no match for him. "Well I my got my gun out and shot him," the 5 year old said laughingly.

Um...yeah.

Sometimes we just need to get away from the craziness and put all the worries behind us. Thoreau had the right idea: head into the woods near a pond and simplify, simplify.

Have a great weekend folks.

The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.

If you like what you read, please become a fan of The Hippo's Ass on Facebook, feel free to reblog us on your site, or follow us on Twitter @thehipposass. If you see something that is worthy of being on The Hippo's Ass, please email us the story or video at hipposass@gmail.com

Killer Facebook Groups

 Is your baby a Facebook Hater or Lover?

The blog-o-sphere and the media (in their own little world) was all-a-buzz the other day when a poll on Facebook was discovered that asked if President Obama should be assassinated. Before it was removed, 700 people voted.

The Secret Service, we are told, has launched an investigation into who created the poll.   This didn’t stop bloggers and pundits from speculating if this was an outgrowth of the anger from conservatives and "teabaggers" toward the current Administration.  One commenter wrote:

It is truly amazing that no one ever considered doing anything this outrageous or disrespectful to Dubya, who was a much more inept Commander-In-Chief. His education credentials are bonafide, as opposed to Dubya who skated through school on the coattails of his father. And people have the nerve to think this is not racism?

A reader of the Huffington Post declared:  "Glenn Beck is partially responsible for this."

My personal opinion is the creator of the poll is a sock-puppet, phishing for just enough idiots to respond to the poll to deduce that all opposition to President Obama wants him dead. Had any of the reporters or bloggers actually used the search function on Facebook, they would have found several groups on the social networking site dedicated to killing, or wanting the death of, a political leader, particularly the death of one George W. Bush.

This group professes that We all Want To Kill George Bush  It has 427 members and has been on Facebook since 2007.

The "I Bet I Can find 1,000,000 People Who Wanted to Kill Bush Group has only 517 members.  Their description states:

Come on is this how u can share ur feelings about bush..
I think that we dont want to put bush in prison, we dont want to burn him, we dont want him to get burned.
(WE WANT TO SEE HIM FRI TO DEATH)That little basterd

Stating, "LEts kill the fukin guy !!!" (sic) the "I bet i can find more than 200 people hu (sic) wanna SHOOT DOWN GEORGE BUSH" has 64 members and has one of those trendy WANTED: For Crimes Against Humanity posters that you see at campus novelty shops, right next to the I Heart Che T-shirts.

This particular group "If George Bush Wants To End Terrorism, He Should Go Ahead and Kill Himself" doesn't want to personally harm Bush.  What I found interesting about this one was the picture of George Bush as Hitler.  I thought progressives and liberals were all above that sort of thing???

Then I looked up Sarah Palin. Apparently if she had been elected Vice President, there would have been a number of Birkenstock wearing slackers that planned on killing themselves.

Will those group members that "wanted George Bush dead" be subjected to the same Secret Service Investigation that the Obama Assassination Poll creator was?  Why did Facebook act so quickly on a President Obama themed question, yet has left these groups continue to exist for years? Or is it O.K. to want SOME people dead, but not others?


If you like what you read, please become a fan of The Hippo's Ass on Facebook, feel free to reblog us on your site, or follow us on Twitter @thehipposass.  If you see something that is worthy of being on The Hippo's Ass, please email us the story or video at hipposass@gmail.com