Halloween Political Humor


You would think Halloween would be the favorite holiday for leftists. After all, you go to other people’s houses and get free candy.
But since the entire process is voluntary, that spoils the fun for our coercion-loving statist friends.
Which may explain why a lot of Halloween humor has a libertarian bent. My favorite example is the video of a comedian explaining how to teach your kids about taxes after they’re done trick-or-treating.
Today, though, we’re going to enjoy a bunch of cartoons, starting with this Jerry Holbert gem showing Obama and his senior staff putting together his healthcare plan.

Obamacare: A Real Horror Story





Heritage Action for America (If you
are reading this, click to display images in your email program.)

Obamacare: A Real Horror Story

Friends,

Scarier than any Halloween costume or ghost story, millions of Americans are receiving letters in the mail from their insurance companies saying that their health insurance will be dropped or that their premiums will skyrocket.

Here is why you should be afraid of Obamacare:





>> Watch and share to tell your friends why they should fear Obamacare.

Thank you in advance for sharing this video with family and friends – everyone needs to know the reasons to fear Obamacare are real.


Sincerely,

Russ Vought
Political Director
Heritage Action for America



Don’t Worry – The Government Says That The Inflation You See Is Just Your Imagination

by Michael Snyder



If you believe that there is high inflation in the United States, you are just imagining things.  That is the message that the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve would have us to believe.  You might have noticed that the government announced on Wednesday that the cost of living increase for Social Security beneficiaries will only be 1.5 percent next year.  This is one of the smallest cost of living increases that we have ever seen.

Leaked Pentagon Video - Flu Vaccine Use to Modify Human Behavior



Leaked Pentagon Video - Flu Vaccine Use to Modify Human Behavior
What you are about to hear is not science fiction or conspiracy theory but a glimpse of what is going on behind the closed doors of the United States Pentagon.
In a small auditorium labeled BC232 a man is presenting a discussion on how the military industrial complex can spread a virus and use a vaccine to extinguish what the pentagon calls undesirable human behavior. Specifically in this case religious behavior.
This is dark science my friends. With all the mandatory vaccine programs in the United States do not be deceived for a moment that something like this will not or possibly hasn't already been used on the American public.

Wild Bill for America's Second Biggest Lie

The second biggest lie in America is that the federal government needs more money and Americans don't pay enough in taxes. Its time to defeat the big lies.



America and the Fall of Rome

By Michael Reisig 






It’s disheartening to continually witness the blatant comparisons between our nation and those greater (and lesser) countries that have fallen in the past – a constant eroding of moral foundations, a disintegration of law, and a collapse of what was once a vibrant economy. It seems each day the six o'clock news reports yet another challenge to the values and traditions of America. The daily paper has become the harbinger of doom for a country that once believed in God, revered the traditions of marriage and faith, and preserved the concepts of swift and sure justice.

A Timely Comparison




Learn More About Each President





Introduction: 

This has been moments in time for America when similar comparisons take place in this country’s brief and proud history. While the past does not necessarily predict the future, it is important to ponder and compare these occurrences especially when it includes America’s leaders for it may well portend the future.

Sebelius to Congress: No Clue on Obamacare Enrollment

Kathleen Sebelius didn't do herself - or her career - any favors today.
On Capitol Hill to answer questions about why the Obamacare federal health insurance exchange, Healthcare.gov, has been such a disaster, Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary (for now) couldn't even tell congressmen how many people have signed up.
In response a question from U.S. Rep. Lee Terry, R-Nebraska, about how many people have actually enrolled in Obamacare via the government website, Sebelius was clueless.
That millions still believe this idiot and her president can run a health insurance exchange is what amazes us more than anything.
If you refuse to see serial incompetence when it is right there in front of your face, then you're a hopeless drone who's part of our country's problems.

Pelosi: Universal Daycare Would be a Great Addition to Obamacare



In an interview with The Hill on Monday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who hopes to regain the House Speakership in the 2014 election, said that her first job as Speaker would be to push universal childcare as part of Obamacare. Pelosi said that Democrats would “of course” pick up seats in the House in 2014, stating that she would then pursue “comprehensive affordable, quality childcare” as part of an Obamacare extension. “That would have the biggest impact on women, families, and…job creation,” she said. “This is the missing link in so many things that we've talked about. It

To Understand Obama and the Democrats :

 October 30, 2013 | Rush Limbaugh 

You Must Understand Liberal Ideology

(excerpt)
All Obama cares about is that every day the general direction of the country is toward where he wants to go. The day-to-day minutia and the problems and the apparent failures of what he's trying to do, irrelevant. Because the chaos and the dismantling is the success. And when you're gonna start dismantling something as big as the health care system, of course it's gonna be a mess. These guys don't know what they're doing. They don't really have an alternative and they don't care right now.
All they care about is that it gets so bad that there is a clamor for the government to fix it by having a single payer system. Even if people don't know what they're asking for. It's messy where this is heading. But you cannot dismantle something this big and this intricate without there being chaos, and that's fine with them. If you're Obama and the Democrats, you just keep pounding on the traditions and institutions that made this country great.


THANK THESE REPUBLICANS FOR OBAMACARE

 Ann Coulter   


We have Obamacare for one reason and one reason only: For a brief, ghoulish period in recent history, Democrats controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.
We don't have Obamacare because the public was clamoring for it. We have it because Republicans lost elections.
First, Republicans lost their majorities in the House and the Senate in 2006, thanks to George W. Bush’s highly effective “Keep the Base at Home on Election Day” campaign, which consisted of pushing amnesty for illegal aliens.Then in 2008, Republicans had the bright idea to run crazy-eyed crypt-keeper John McCain for president.

My Advice to Californians; Get Out Now

By Alan Caruba


If you live in California, I have a bit of advice. Get out now while you can afford the gas to load up the van and head north or east. You won't be alone.




SHOCKING OBAMA VIDEOS REVEAL REAL GOAL


President's testimony over years confirms plans for socialized medicine



The Obamacare plan – state and federal exchanges through which Americans are ordered to buy government-specified health care plans from insurance companies that signed up to offer coverage – perhaps should be called Obamacare 1.0.

VIDEO FALL OF THE REPUBLIC

Reblogged from Reclaim Our Republic:



Fall Of The Republic documents how an offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy by design. Leaders are now declaring that world government has arrived and that the dollar will be replaced by a new global currency. President Obama has brazenly violated Article 1 Section 9 of the US Constitution by seating himself at the head of United Nations’ Security Council, thus becoming the first US president to chair the world body. A scientific dictatorship is in its final stages of completion, and laws protecting basic human rights are being abolished worldwide; an iron curtain of high-tech tyranny is now descending over the planet. A worldwide regime controlled by an unelected corporate elite is implementing a planetary carbon tax system that will dominate all human activity and establish a system of neo-feudal slavery.

Obama’s Cracker Jack’d Healthcare Plan

Obamacare Hi-Jacked Our Wallet  
From The Black Sphere
with Kevin Jackson


OBAMACARE: A piece of legislation so magical and mysterious that, as Nancy Pelosi so eloquently put it, “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it….”
Imagine the mainstream medias’ surprise!

When I was a small boy my mother would bring home one of my favorite snacks — Cracker Jacks! Popcorn and peanuts smothered in gooey caramel-flavored sugar. Sweeter than a molasses-covered ice-cream cone. They were absolutely delicious!

But what was even more special than all that chewy-goodness were those three little words emblazoned on the outside of the box: “Toy Surprise Inside!” Sometimes I’d discover a little toy gun and play cops and robbers with my brothers. Next time I’d find a miniature car I could zoom around the living room. And what’s more, it was free! FREE I TELL YOU!!!

Then one day a terrible, horrible, awful thing happened. Mom brought home a box for me and set it on the coffee table. As usual, I anxiously dumped some of it out on the floor (this was so I could dig around and claim my prize…forget the crunchy popcorn). The only thing in the box besides the popcorn and peanuts was a tiny envelope.

Tossing the envelope aside, I dug deep to the bottom of the box thinking by some horrible twist of fate, someone forgot the prize. Or maybe some Cracker Jack packer STOLE my surprise!



Is Sebelius Falling On Her Sword




Was Sebelius threatened or is she just being a good soldier?
Is she doing a Hillary number by falling on her sword for the Boss? read more  I find it amazing that The One is  never held accountable. He is definitely no Harry (the buck stops here) Truman. I cannot ever remember any president, including the much reviled (fairly or unfairly) Nixon, who did not "man up" to the decisions they made "for the good of the nation" -- no matter how unpopular those actions may have been.
Our current president has "manned up" to nothing. From day one, he blamed Bush for "the mess we inherited". Then as time went on and that one got a bit old, he always found a way to blame the GOP, or anybody else that he felt was a vulnerable target. Of course, he was always supported by the slavering MSM.
Well, in fairness, it has been reported by several that they were threatened not to be critical of The One, or else their news organization would lose access to the White House. Here is one of several links  on that issue. The latest comes from CNN here
Is there a pattern? Yes, we all know that Soros controls much of the MSM. There are those who genuinely swallowed, er, believed what was being stated, and undoubtedly those who were intimidated. Either way, the truth is lost/buried and our liberty threatened by ever encroaching Big Brother due to the fear, ignorance or complicity of those who are supposedly the guardians of the truth.

Time is Short to Stop the Bullying of Children in School Showers and Bathrooms


 From Brian S. Brown, President
NOM California
Our children face enough struggles at school without having to worry about being harassed and bullied by someone of the opposite sex forcing their way into the most vulnerable areas of public schools — showers, bathrooms, changing areas and locker rooms. But that's exactly what is going to happen if a new law in California is allowed to take effect.
California lawmakers have passed what's being called the coed-bathroom law. It mandates access to all school facilities including showers and restrooms based on "gender identity" and not a student's actual sex.
The temptation some people may have is to chalk this law up to another crazy idea coming out of California. But that would be a mistake. Rather, this new law illustrates where the gay lobby is going with their never-ending crusade to strip society of all gender norms and differences.
California is the first state to pass a law like this, but several other states have had similar legislative proposals. And Massachusetts has passed something similar by way of administrative regulation.
If the law is allowed to stand in California, it could be coming to your state before you know it. That's the bad news.
The good news is that we have an excellent chance of stopping this law in its tracks and making sure it never takes effect. But time is short — we have only one week left to stop this law.
NOM California is working with allies in the Privacy For All Students coalition to qualify a referendum putting the co-ed bathroom law on the ballot. Once the referendum qualifies for the ballot, the law is suspended and does not take effect until voters can decide if they want to approve or reject the law.
Our polling shows that voters are highly likely to reject the law if it is presented to them. The challenge is obtaining the nearly 505,000 signatures we need to succeed.
If you live in California, or can forward this email to someone who does, please go to the coalition website to download a petition. Complete the petition (be sure to read the instructions) and mail it back immediately. Petitions must be received by November 6th to be processed in time to be submitted to counties on November 8th.
Please also make an immediate contribution to NOM California so that we have the resources to finish the petition drive strong. Because of the short timeframe to mount a referendum, it's necessary to supplement the volunteer effort with a paid petition drive. We must help the coalition raise $77,500 immediately to finish the paid petition portion of the qualification effort.
We are nearly out of time. Hundreds of thousands of signatures have been collected, but we need more.
If you live in California, please help us by signing the petition today. Regardless of where you live, please also make an immediate donation to NOM California so that we have the resources needed to complete the petition drive.
We are counting on you to help protect the privacy and security of our children and grandchildren and prevent them from being exposed to members of the opposite sex in school showers, bathrooms and locker rooms. Please act today.
 

Women Stand With Ken Cuccinelli

Reblogged from All-American Girl for the Restoration of Values:

 



Despite what Terry McAuliffe and his apologists say, Ken Cuccinelli is not anti-woman. Ken believes that women should make their own decisions, independent of the government, to excel in life. The majority of us aren't keen on aborting children or relying on the government from cradle to grave. We recognize the danger of big government, which is why we are supporting and voting for Ken Cuccinelli.

Is Obama Still President?

By Victor Davis Hanson


His cadences soar on, through scandal after fiasco after disaster.




In the age of Obama, we just ran up a $700 billion annual deficit and called it restraint, as if success were to be defined as not adding another $1 trillion each year to the national debt. The strange thing is that after the end of the Iraq War and the winding down in Afghanistan, forced sequestration, new taxes on high earners, and a supposedly recovering and revenue-producing economy, we are still running up near-record deficits. Stranger still, Obama is bragging that the deficit has been cut by billions — as if the 400-pound heart patient can be content that he lost 50 pounds in record time and so trimmed down to a manageable 350 pounds.

WH Intimidates Insurance Companies Not to Publicly Criticize Obamacare


• BY DANIEL HALPER



The fear of White House retribution.


CNN reports that the White House is intimidating insurance companies not to publicly criticize Obamacare:




"What is going on is, behind the scenes attempt by the White House to at least keep insurerers from publicly criticizing what is happening on this Affordable Care Act rollout. Basically, if you speak out, if you are quoted, you're going to get a call from the White House, pressure to be quiet," reports CNN.
"Several sources tell me and my colleague Chris Frates that insurance executives are being told to keep quiet. [The head of] a consulting firm for big insurance and an out spoken critic of Obamacare says he is getting calls from these executives who want him to speak out, Anderson, for them about the problems because they feel defenseless against the White House PR team. ... the White House is exerting massive pressure on the industry, including the trade associations, to keep quiet. Sources telling us they fear White House retribution."



Evil Seems To Be In Charge




 

Benghazi Whistleblower Attorney: 'Very good evidence' people were RELIEVED OF DUTY because they insisted on a military response

It was obvious from the beginning that something was terribly wrong. We just "knew" it. Now, more & more facts are coming out to support this view. Both Benghazi as well as Extortion 17 seem to have been outright setups for nefarious intent against our own citizens and military serving abroad .
The administration handling of both of these incidents are just the most outstanding examples of the sheer treachery by this administration.

From Hyscience "You know, Panetta is not a bad man. He knows what went wrong that night. He's never been properly questioned about this and pressed. And if he were he would admit all of this stuff."

continue reading


Killing Obamacare

BY JAY COST




There’s no time to waste.



The recent government shutdown illustrated a lot of political truths. For starters, people are unhappy when the government is shut down, and they naturally tend to blame the party of less government. The media instinctively help them conclude that the Republicans are at fault.

But the shutdown also illustrated just how unprepared the Republican party is to deal with the threat of Obamacare. Even though the law is unpopular, Republicans failed to convince the country of how great a threat it poses to the public good. Poll after poll shows that only a minority thinks the law will make them worse off, despite growing evidence that Obamacare’s side effects are serious and far-reaching. “Shutdown theater” did nothing to alter that attitude, which reflects poorly on the Tea Party backbenchers who wanted this fight and the leaders who prosecuted it. And now it appears House Republicans intend to deemphasize Obamacare and focus again on cutting traditional spending.

This is a mistake. The fight against Obamacare cannot be pushed to the sidelines. If the shutdown failed to notch any victory against it, then conservative leaders need to rethink their tactics and try something different. The easiest path to victory against the law, at first glance, is to win total control of the government in the 2016 elections. But a closer look at the law, especially in historical context, indicates grave risks associated with that approach: Obamacare may do much damage by that point, and it may be substantially more difficult to undo four years down the road.
Obamacare is, of course, a liberal law, as all agree. But its place within liberalism is a peculiar one, and worth investigating in some detail. When we think about the modern American left, we often think of the provision of benefits, suggested by Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms”: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. It is that third freedom that American liberals have focused on for generations, giving us Social Security, Medicare, aid to education, and so on. Four Freedoms liberalism has been decidedly rights-based. 

But there was an earlier brand of liberalism that did not emphasize the distribution of benefits to the same extent. Theodore Roosevelt and the Bull Moose progressives promoted some rights-based goals, like restrictions on child labor, but these were pieces of a grander puzzle: the management of the entire American economy by technocratic experts for the greater good. This is why the Bull Moosers did not want to outlaw all trusts: They saw the utility of some trusts, and believed that with governmental guidance trusts could be made to work in the public interest. Indeed, many progressives at the turn of the last century spoke of the concept of individual rights as an antiquated notion that unfortunately had been embedded in the Constitution.

As an academic, Woodrow Wilson believed that the Constitution wrongly immortalized principles whose time had gone, and during the 1912 campaign, he nominally opposed TR’s “New Nationalism.” In practice, however, he advanced the Bull Moose vision as much as anybody could have hoped. The legislation creating the Federal Trade Commission, for instance, which was passed under his guidance, granted the new regulatory agency vast discretion. And World War I was a decidedly progressive affair, with the government taking a firm hand over the management of the economy for the war effort.

It was the success of the progressives in World War I that inspired Franklin Roosevelt—Wilson’s assistant secretary of the Navy—to treat the Great Depression as a national emergency akin to the Great War. Accordingly, his administration took a heavy hand in managing both agriculture and industry. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) restricted agricultural output in the hope of stabilizing farm prices, with remuneration to farmers who followed the rules. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) offered big business a bargain: The government would suspend the Sherman Antitrust Act, allowing businesses to coordinate through trade associations, so long as they worked with the government to create and abide by socially responsible production goals. This was the pinnacle of Bull Moose progressivism. The government would convene and manage a coalition of economic stakeholders for the public good. If that meant the diminution of traditional rights, so be it.
The real danger of Obamacare is that it combines the micromanagement of the AAA and the NIRA with the rights-based approach of Social Security and Medicare. The former doesn’t work in practice, while the latter is politically unassailable. Thus, Obamacare may turn out to be a policy that does enormous harm to the country but that simply cannot be eliminated.

Why should we believe that the federal government is remotely capable of managing something as complicated as American health care? The complexities of the task make a mockery of the very notion of “expertise.” The disastrous rollout of the health insurance website indicates quite clearly the hubris of governmental experts who populate Washington, D.C., these days. Moreover, it is only a matter of time until perverse second-, third-, and fourth-tier effects of this law undermine its goals. Already, there is plenty of evidence that Obamacare, like the AAA and NIRA, invites political interference. Politically connected groups like unions and large businesses have received exemptions that average people simply cannot enjoy. And politics heavily influenced the implementation timeline, which was set to culminate almost at the midpoint between two national elections.

But the NIRA and AAA could be abandoned because at their core they did not extend individual rights, and thus did not create new political clients dependent upon government services. Obamacare does precisely that. It uses First New Deal methods to accomplish a Second New Deal goal. That will complicate efforts to repeal and replace the bill when (not if) it falters. A lot of people will receive federal benefits because of it, and the experience of Social Security, Medicare, and scores of other programs demonstrates that, once in place, they cannot be easily altered.

This is why conservatives—at the grassroots or inside the Beltway—cannot blithely assume they will be able to undo Obamacare. This is not simply a matter of individual freedom or efficiency in the provision of health services, as conservatives so often argue. This is a law that promises to do something the government has never successfully accomplished during peacetime. Even so, it will work for some people, and history shows that a motivated minority who receive direct benefits from Uncle Sam can prevent commonsensical changes to their precious programs, even to the detriment of the public good.

Obamacare, in other words, combines the worst bureaucratic innovations with the best political innovations of the last century. Conservative leaders have never faced a foe quite like this, and must rise to the occasion. So far, they have failed. There is nothing in the movement’s political playbook that comes close to an adequate strategy for opposing this behemoth, and the recent shutdown only confirms that the Republican party’s leadership is unprepared for the challenge they face. They must do better, for this law is more injurious than they know.

This was an abject failure. By the time the Supreme Court invalidated the NIRA, the justices were doing the president a favor. Businesses were cheating on the codes left and right, to the extent that they participated in them at all. The effect of the AAA was more pernicious. It rested above all upon an economic fallacy, that limiting production would help the country recover from the Depression. Beyond that, it brought unprecedented government intrusion into previously private matters. In Wickard v.Filburn (1942), for instance, the government brought suit against Roscoe Filburn for growing wheat for private consumption, and the Supreme Court ruled with the feds. Worst of all, the AAA degenerated into gross payouts to the Southern plantation class, at that point one of the most important Democratic client groups. They used the cash to buy farm machinery and then fire the black sharecroppers who worked on their land. This, in turn, forced a generation-long migration into the cities, and facilitated the urban crisis of the 1960s.

The experience of this First New Deal helped prove a point that economic conservatives know instinctively: Government does a bad job of managing the economy. The experts are not as knowledgeable as they think they are; it is impossible for them to anticipate all of the various ways their interference will affect society, for good and for ill. For instance, who in the Department of Agriculture could have predicted that the AAA would contribute to an urban crisis in Northern cities some 30 years later? Additionally, the idea that experts can be insulated from politics is illusory. When bureaucrats in the Agriculture Department complained about the inequity of AAA subsidies, they learned the hard way that they were not as removed from Democratic politics as they had liked to think. FDR needed the backing of the Southern Democrats who ran the congressional committees, and the price of admission was support for the wealthy plantation class at the expense of the poor. So he had agriculture secretary Henry Wallace sack the bureaucrats who made a stink.

It was the failure of the First New Deal that brought about the rights-oriented Second New Deal, and with it Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act guaranteeing labor unions the right to organize, and eventually the Fair Labor Standards Act providing for a federal minimum wage. Liberalism shifted from attempting to manage the economy directly toward supplying the downtrodden with tools to fight their own battles. This is why the left remembers the New Deal so fondly. It is not for the quasi-fascist “Blue Eagle” campaign of the NIRA or the AAA’s requirement that millions of baby pigs be slaughtered. Those were failed policies that ultimately led to a change of tactics and the eventual triumph of Social Security, labor rights, and a minimum wage. When LBJ sought to complete FDR’s work, he did not go house to house to make sure nobody was growing wheat in the backyard; instead, he created Medicare, federal aid to education, and public television.

On the surface, Obamacare appears to fit into this tradition. That is certainly how the president frames it, proudly trumpeting all of the people who now have access to health care thanks to federal efforts. But dig a little deeper, and it emerges that Obamacare has much in common with the failed efforts of the original New Dealers to organize vast segments of the economy.

For almost 80 years, the federal government has been in the rights-producing business, especially as regards health care. The elderly, the indigent, low-income children, and veterans have all been brought under the federal umbrella. The people still on the outside looking in are primarily those who refuse to buy insurance or those for whom the economics of insurance cannot account. Insurance is a bet between insured and insurer made amidst uncertainty about when and whether calamity will strike. People with preexisting conditions cannot qualify for insurance for the same reason that a person whose house is burning down cannot get homeowners’ insurance: The calamity is not in doubt.

Rather than provide the uninsurable with separate access to health care—such as veterans enjoy, for instance—Obamacare seeks to fit this square peg into a round hole. People who cannot logically be incorporated into the economics of insurance are nevertheless forced into it. In requiring this, Obamacare behaves in effect much like the AAA or the NIRA. To make these people eligible for insurance, the federal government must manage the intimate details of the health insurance industry, and by extension all of American health care. Dollar for dollar, this has meant a heavier hand than ever envisioned by the New Dealers in the early 1930s.


We Told You It Wasn’t Free: “I Was All for Obamacare Until I Found Out I Was Paying For It”

by Mac Slavo



It seems that more and more democrats and supporters of President Barack Obama are coming out of the woodwork about their confusion.

O'Reilly Has Caught The Bug ...




In his Talking Points Memo tonight Bill O’Reilly compared Barack Obama’s policies to the Communist Cuban regime.
From the video:
“Liberals want certain things such as low cost health care for everybody. But they don’t calibrate the unintended consequences of what they espouse. For example, imposing social justice, a big Obama theme, means somebody’s going to have to pay for it.
 If you go to Cuba you’ll see most people are destitute because the government has taken everything from them in order to level the playing field. We'll all be poor together.”

ObamaCare: They Don’t Call ‘Em ‘The Stupid Party’ for Nothing

by Roger L Simon



According to RealClearPolitics, the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) is opposed by 50.6 percent of the U.S. population and approved of by only 40.3%. And yet, according to Gallup, the Republicans, the party that unanimously opposed ObamaCare in Congress, is at an all-time low in approval at an abysmal 28%.
Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Obama Should Be Impeached… for Cluelessness


When I read Sunday evening in the Wall Street Journal that Barack Obama was “unaware” until last summer that the U. S. spied on thirty-five world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, I was frankly stupefied. (Well, maybe not entirely stupefied, but at least semi-stunned.)

Police Intimidate Impeach Obama Demonstrators

Our friends at WCJ report that police do sometimes try to bully/intimidate. To make them stop, it may be necessary to call their bluff...