Sunday, September 14, 2014

Shorter post today, but interesting news and comment

Update

From a blog reader and contributor
Hi Robert! My son in law did the GoRUK challenge yesterday and he and his buddies raised money for wounded Marines. I donated in your honor. Be well my friend! --Gail S. (the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund forwarded this to me. ~Bob)

General News and Comment


Scotland’s epic vote on independence from the United Kingdom. By George Will
Excerpt: Tucking into a dish of Scottish haggis is not a task for the fainthearted. There are various haggis recipes, but basically it is sheep’s pluck — the heart, lungs and liver — cooked together, then mixed with suet and oatmeal and boiled in a sheep’s stomach, then served, sometimes drenched with Scotch. People who pour whisky on oatmeal are not shrinking violets. Remember this on Thursday when Scotland votes on independence from the United Kingdom. There are economic reasons for and (mostly) against Scotland disassociating from the queen’s realm. This issue, however, touches chords of memory more interesting than money.

Scottish History Lesson: Scotland's Independence--A Response to George Will
I sent my friend Seamus the George will article above. He is a brother Marine and combat vet of Vietnam, who loves Scotland and Ireland, is a piper, into Celtic music and far more knowledgeable on Scottish and Irish history than I am. He wrote a long response, below with great history lessons on Scotland I thought was worth sharing. ~Bob

The Assault Weapon Myth. By Lois Beckett, New York Times
Excerpt: But in the 10 years since the previous ban lapsed, even gun control advocates acknowledge a larger truth: The law that barred the sale of assault weapons from 1994 to 2004 made little difference. It turns out that big, scary military rifles don’t kill the vast majority of the 11,000 Americans murdered with guns each year. Little handguns do.

Pelosi: "Civilization As We Know It Would Be In Jeopardy If Republicans Win The Senate"
Excerpt: MAHER: This and ISIS are threatening civilization. Oh, no. PELOSI: Yeah, it is really important. (She says that like it would be a bad thing! I suppose it could cut into the massive government debt and unfunded liabilities that will create fiscal collapse, the culture of violence and dependency that plague the under-classes, the ever-growing government with an unappeased hunger to develop bureaucracies that control every aspect of our lives--but I doubt it. ~Bob)

Watch the Video: City seeks favorable ruling in SWAT incident lawsuit; police video shows what happened
Excerpt: The city of Evansville is seeking a favorable judgment in a lawsuit brought by a local woman alleging the Evansville Police Department violated her constitutional rights when its SWAT team tossed flash grenades into her home and forced their way inside to serve a search warrant more than two years ago. ... In the video, Stephanie Milan, then 18 years old, can be heard yelling, “Don’t hurt me!” at the officers. Only she and her then 68-year-old adoptive mother Louise Milan were in the house when police shattered a glass door and burst in after throwing the flash grenades inside. (Looked a bit over-blown to me. ~Bob)

Victim files complaint against AG candidate over sexual assault case
Excerpt: Happ -- the Democratic candidate for attorney general -- came under fire after her office gave a deferred prosecution agreement to Daniel J. Reynolds, who had been charged with felony counts of first-degree and second-degree sexual assaults of a child. Under the deal, Reynolds' offense would be reduced to a disorderly conduct violation if he stays out of trouble for 12 months and completes other requirements. Records show Happ and her husband sold a piece of property to Reynolds under a $180,000 land contract that was executed in 2009 and paid off three years later. (As Obama said about his golfing after the Foley murder, she "should have considered the optics." ~Bob)

Minnesota Vikings RB Adrian Peterson indicted on charge of felony child abuse
Excerpt: Peterson, a six-time Pro Bowler, is alleged to have beaten his 4-year-old son with a thin, whip-like tree branch, or “switch,” causing numerous injuries. Minnesota has deactivated him for Sunday’s game against the New England Patriots. (If sexual assaults of a child draw a disorderly conduct plea, Peterson should get by with an overtime parking ticket. ~Bob)

Federal appeals court reinstates voter ID law
Excerpt: In a stunningly fast decision, a federal appeals court in Chicago reinstated Wisconsin’s voter photo identification law on Friday — just hours after three Republican-appointed judges heard arguments on reactivating the hotly debated law in time for the November election.

Obamacare, Cost Curves, the Ever-Worsening Entitlement Crisis, and the Case for Spending Restraint. By Daniel J. Mitchell 
Excerpt: I’m very worried about the burden of government spending. Moreover, I’m quite concerned that poorly designed entitlement programs will lead to fiscal disaster. And I’m especially irked that Obama made the problem worse by ramming through yet another misguided and costly health care entitlement.

Excerpt: The Democrats are in an orgasmic frenzy over news from Wasilla, Alaska. Seems the entire Palin clan showed up for a party in honor of Todd's 50th birthday and things got out of hand. It appears words were exchanged between son Track, the Iraq war veteran and an old boyfriend of his sister Willow. Words got heated so the combatants were kind enough to take the fight out to the front yard where it got physical. Reportedly, while the men folks were basically just beating their chests, the women got into some real fisticuffs. Sarah got in her share of licks but witnesses said it was daughter Bristol who displayed a deadly left hook that did some serious damage. Eventually the cops came but the alcohol had worn off a bit and none of the combatants wanted to press charges against each other...just your normal Momma Bear-Soccer mom weekend.

Former Md. governor Ehrlich pays visit to N.H.; you know what that might mean. By Robert Costa
Excerpt: Ehrlich, 56, a former congressman who served one term as Maryland’s governor, said in a phone interview that he is, for the moment, simply looking to reenter the national political fray after keeping a low profile in recent years as he has practiced law and hosted a talk-radio program. ... Ehrlich said his still-evolving pitch is mostly “pragmatic” and about the need for “problem-solvers,” rather than ideological hardliners, to rise in the GOP so that the party could draw increased support from women and blue-state skeptics.

Authorities ID Pennsylvania state trooper killed in ambush; say suspect is at large
Excerpt: The gunman who ambushed two Pennsylvania state troopers late Friday night, killing one and injuring the other, is on the loose and dangerous, authorities said at a Saturday afternoon press conference. The two troopers were ambushed outside a state police barracks in northeastern Pennsylvania during a late-night shift change. (How large will the White House delegation to the funeral be? At least the three BO send to Michael Brown's funeral, yes? ~Bob)

Excerpt: Republicans have a 58.0% chance of winning a majority.

Is he doing it out of spite? Another beheading, another Obama golf game. Even Piers Morgan weighs in. By Joe Saunders 
Excerpt: It’s Sunday afternoon, do you know where your president is? Of course you do. Closing in on Round 200 of his two-term administration, President Obama hit the links yet again on Sunday, squeezing out the last days of golfable weather in the Northeast by going to the greens. (To update Kipling, " If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you" --then it must be time to hit the links! ~Bob) 

Behind 3 women together today at the store. They used an EBT card and I saw them in the parking lot loading the groceries into their Audi. (At Walgreens, saw a healthy guy, 20s, try to buy an energy drink with an EBT card. Wouldn't take, so he paid with A $100 bill. Clerk said to me, "Our money." ~Bob)

Obamacare/Government Healthcare News
           
Harkin: Hillary Clinton’s “Fingerprints Are All Over” Obamacare. By Andrew Kaczynski
Excerpt: Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin said Sunday Hillary Clinton’s “fingerprints are all over” Obamacare. The Iowa senator was introducing Clinton to speak at his 37th annual Steak Fry. “One of the things she always worked on was advancing this concept, this idea that health care should be a right and not a privilege in this country,” Harkin said. (It's a major problem that liberals don't understand the difference between a "right" and a "good." I get as much freedom of speech, religion and the press as Warren Buffet or Bill Gates. You and I will never get as much healthcare, food, housing, etc as they do--it can't be done. If they are "rights," we should all get the same amount of those rights. ~Bob

Glitch in health care law allows employers to offer substandard insurance. By Jay Hancock
Excerpt: A flaw in the federal calculator for certifying that insurance meets the health-care law’s toughest standard is leading dozens of large employers to offer plans that lack basic benefits, such as hospitalization coverage, according to brokers and consultants. (A flaw in Obamacare? How can that be? Guess they should have read the bill. ~Bob)

Worth Reading: Is ObamaCare Working? By John C. Goodman, PhD.
Excerpt: Sarah Kliff, another ObamaCare supporter, estimates that health reform has enabled about 5 million people to become newly insured. But that’s only about 10 percent of the uninsured. What happened to the mandate that required that everyone have health insurance this year or face a fine? Turns out that the mandate doesn’t actually apply to millions of people. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 90 percent of the uninsured are exempt from the mandate.

Worth Reading: Doctoring in the Age of ObamaCare: Endlessly entering data or calling for permission to prescribe or trying to avoid Medicare penalties—when should I see patients?
Google the title if you hit a pay wall. ~Bob. Excerpt: It has been four years since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, so I thought it may be useful to provide the perspective of a physician providing daily medical care. I am an endocrinologist in Washington, D.C., and have been in solo private practice for 17 years after seven years at an academic institution. Since 1990, the practice of medicine has changed significantly, seldom for the better.

"You're Greener than Gore" News

Excerpt: Back in the Bad Old Days, tyrants bent others to their will with machine guns and death camps. But what fig leaf can modern, touchy-feely, petty tyrants use to make sure other people remain “in compliance?” How about Saving the Planet?

Religion of Peace News

Must Read: The Covert Origins of ISIS 
Excerpt: Would it interest you to know who helped these psychopaths rise to power? Would it interest you to know who armed them, funded them and trained them? Would it interest you to know why? This story makes more sense if we start in the middle, so we'll begin with the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. (Foreign policy incompetence and cover-up! Now, there is no obvious solution since NATO and Middle Eastern allies refuse to support an unwilling and leaderless Obama. GBH, MajGen, USMC (Ret). "Must Read" doesn't mean I verify it as true--I don't have the Intel access to do that. ~Bob)



ISIS Beheads British Aid Worker, Releases Video – Cameron Tweets ‘Pure Evil’
http://patdollard.com/2014/09/breaking-isis-beheads-british-aid-worker-releases-video/
Excerpt: Islamic State militants have released a video claiming to show the beheading of British aid worker David Haines.

PC Idiot: Susan Rice: It’s Not a War Because We Don’t Have Combat Boots on the Ground
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/09/12/Susan-Rice-It-s-Not-A-War-Because-We-Don-t-Have-Combat-Boots-On-The-Ground
Excerpt: “We’ll not have American combat forces on the ground fighting as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is what I think the American people think of when they think of a war, so I think this is very different from that.” (As others have noted, Japan didn't have boots on the ground at Pearl Harbor. I supposed if we nuked every Muslim country, no one would call it war? PC Idiots, if you'll pardon the redundancy. ~Bob)

PC Idiot: Used Koran Salesman Obama: “The Islamic State Is Not Islamic”
Excerpt: “No religion condones the killing of innocents,” Obama lied, pretending that The Koran’s numerous commands and exhortations for worshippers of Allah to terrorize, slaughter, and behead “infidels,” as the way to advance the Muslim ideology and earn one’s way into paradise, did not exist.

UK Islamic Imam Refutes Obama: Terrorizing the Enemy is Part of Islam & Islamic State is "Pro-Life." By Tim Brown
Excerpt: London Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary, a long-time controversial Islamist in the UK, finally came out and admitted what all of us who don't have our heads in the sand have been saying. The same imam that encouraged Islamists to get on welfare in order to engage in jihad told Russia Today, "Terrorizing the enemy is, in fact, part of Islam."

Obama's legally dubious Isis campaign is just a way to continue perpetual war: The question isn’t whether this is war. It is. The question is how long until we’re clamouring for ground troops in Iraq again
Excerpt: The president also announced that he wouldn’t be needing congressional approval for prolonged airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, ignoring both their constitutional obligations and his … and that we’d be funneling more weapons to a group of “moderate” fighters that hardly anyone believes is moderate nor particularly good at fighting, including Obama. Legal scholars on the left and the right denounced the president’s unconstitutional decision to bypass Congress and authorize military action unilaterally by pinning it to the 13 year-old Authorization for Use of Military Force against al-Qaida – which expelled Isis months ago. The justice department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which already has an egregious habit of declaring their legal interpretations of public laws classified, may not have even bothered to put this particular tortured legal interpretation in writing. (The Guardian is considered left wing in the UK. ~Bob)

Excerpt: A spokesperson for the family of Steven Sotloff—the journalist gruesomely murdered by ISIL last week—accused "so-called moderate Syrian rebels" of helping the Islamic terrorist group to capture Sotloff in exchange for a cash payment. (These are the folks Obama, Reid, Boehner et al want to send arms to. Again: THERE ARE NO GOOD GUYS IN SYRIA. ~Bob)

Interesting: Just War Theory and ISIS. By Steve Deace 
Excerpt: This natural law requires military action to be morally justified given the human toll at stake. Dating all the way back to Augustine's City of God, this is what's more commonly known today as "just war theory." There are seven components to Just War Theory. Let's take a look at each and see if military action against ISIS applies.
Excerpt: Two al Qaeda commanders are reported to have been killed in a US airstrike in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika. The deaths of the jihadist leaders, who are members of an al Qaeda company known as the Badr Mansoor Group, have not been confirmed. The two were identified by Dawn as Aqalzadin and Ikramullah, who were among seven jihadists reported to have been killed in "a US drone strike" that targeted "a compound near Komal village of Paktika province." The area is near Pakistan's tribal agency of South Waziristan, which is a hub for al Qaeda and other Pakistani jihadist groups.

Four Men in Two Cities Killed in Acts of Islamic Jihad; Media, Obama, and Holder Silent
Excerpt: Ali Muhammad Brown, 29, was charged with the murder of 19-year old Brendan Tevlin on June 18th. Brown also confessed to killing two people, Ahmed Said and Dwone Anderson-Young, in Seattle on June 1. In addition, he was also charged with shooting another man, Leroy Henderson, in the Skyway area of Seattle in April. All of the men were killed with a 9 mm handgun. There is consistency in Brown’s statement to police in both King County in Seattle, and Essex County, N.J. He told authorities that he was doing his small part as vengeance for U.S. actions in the Middle East.

LAME: Christian Website Yanks A Column Condemning Islam. BDoug Giles

Excerpt: Last week, Gary Cass, who drives defendchristians.org, contacted me asking if ClashDaily.com would run his piece titled, “I’m Islamaphobic, Are You?” I gave it a read and quickly said, “Heck yeah”, because Cass, like Clash, believes Militant Islam is implacable and must be stomped on like a narc at a biker party. In his sensible screed Gary gave three powerful points on how we must deal with violent Muslim mayhem. Check it out:

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