Monday, December 8, 2014

Today's political news and conservative comment

Update

Need a gift? Recommended Books for Christmas or Hanukkah
I have read all these (except the ones I wrote which I skimmed) and recommend them. I'm giving some of them as gifts myself, and have given others in the past. Fiction is at the end. ~Bob

Funny: Hitler learns about Operation Wolverine
I found out a guy I know in Madison, Tim Donovan, does spoofs on the Hitler-Downfall clip. This one is funny. He had several good ones on the Mary Burke campaign, but they are a tad outdated now that she went down in flames. ~Bob

Offensive?
People are welcome to post comments disagreeing with me. I don't get offended at that at all--or I wouldn't be speaking to my wife and most other family members. But a couple of correspondents--both Marines, alas--got insulting and offensive about my positions. One questioned my integrity because I reported that I have had very good experiences with the care team at the Madison VA. The other called me a RINO because he disagreed with my anti-Obama tactics! I took them off the notification list. I don't get paid anything for doing this blog so there's no value in letting myself be degraded. I do it as I think it is a service for people looking for these types of stories. If they want to read it, they can check it on the web when they have time.

BTW, I moderate all comments. Some I delete for language, though some of that I let through as they reflect on the cognitive functioning of the commenter. But I delete all spam, about 50% of the comments. They go something like, "Wonderful blog--I hope you write more about this topic. Please see my website: www.fakeviagraforsale.com." I'm not making money on this--and don't want other folks bombarding you with questionable sales pitches. ~Bob)

General News and Comment

The Democratic Party’s long term problem is worse than you think. By Greg Sargent 
Excerpt: As I noted this morning, anyone who cares about the future of the Democratic Party needs to ask whether the party’s elders and wise men are thinking hard enough about how to regain ground on the state level. That would make it more likely that the next round of redistricting battles, in 2020, could help Democrats win back the House in the face of population shifts and GOP redistricting successes that have gamed the national map in favor of GOP control. This process needs to start now. If you look a bit more deeply into the problem, though, it appears even more daunting than you might have expected. (They have a strategy. In GOP controlled states like Wisconsin, they and their media allies are pushing for non-partisan redistricting as fairer. In Dem controlled states like Illinois, the old gerrymander system is fine with them. If you could design a truly non-partisan redistricting system and require it nationwide, I'd be in favor. But not a piecemeal one that benefits Democrats in both types of states. The real hoot is the claim that putting blacks into one district is a GOP trick to concentrate these Democrat voters. When I was in the Massachusetts senate, we created a black senate district to give blacks the opportunity to elect a black state senator. The Dem leadership was opposed because it meant one of their caucus members had to go. I believe in some cases the courts have ordered that blacks be a majority in some Congressional districts to add to the Black caucus in Congress. ~Bob

Inane attack: Jeb Bush not conservative?! By Jennifer Rubin 
Excerpt: Is Jeb Bush really going to run against the conservative base? That would be odd since he is a conservative – a pro-Second Amendment, pro-life, pro-defense, pro-growth, tax reducing and spending cutting conservative.

TV News Legend: Obama Explodes With 'Profanity.' Journalist slams administration as 'most opaque'
Legendary ABC News journalist Ann Compton says President Barack Obama launches into “profanity-laced” tirades against the news media in off-the-record meetings with reporters, and she calls his administration “more opaque than any I have covered.” Compton retired from the network in August after a 40-year career, and she made the comments about Obama in a new interview that aired Sunday night with Brian Lamb of C-SPAN.... And when policy decisions and presidents are inaccessible and don’t take questions from the press on a regular basis, I think they reap what they sow.”

Russia To Conduct 'Observation Flight' Over U.S. 'Most of the world has no idea this treaty even exists'
Excerpt: In an attempt to promote transparency in military activities between the two countries, Russia will conduct an observation flight over the United States as part of the Treaty on Open Skies between Dec. 8 and Dec. 13, Sergei Ryzhkov, head of Russia's National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, said Monday. The flight will be launched from Travis Air Force Base in California and cover a maximum range of 2,640 miles. A group of U.S. specialists will also board the Russian aircraft to monitor the flight and to ensure that norms of the treaty are not violated. (One site said something like, "Those I know retired from Alphabet Soup agencies took to the hills to their seed camps/shelters a couple months ago and have gone quiet.....Barb)

Excerpt: The U.S. Air Force’s air power superiority over China is rapidly diminishing in light of rapid Chinese modernization of fighter jets, cargo planes and stealth aircraft, according to a recently released Congressional review. The 2014 U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission recommends that Congress appoint an outside panel of experts to assess the U.S.-Chinese military balance and make recommendations regarding U.S. military plans and budgets, among other things.

G.O.P. Donors Seek to Narrow Field of Presidential Candidates to One. By Nicholas Confessore
Excerpt: Dozens of the Republican Party’s leading presidential donors and fund-raisers have begun privately discussing how to clear the field for a single establishment candidate to carry the party’s banner in 2016, fearing that a prolonged primary would bolster Hillary Rodham Clinton, the likely Democratic candidate. The conversations, described in interviews with a variety of the Republican Party’s most sought-after donors, are centered on the three potential candidates who have the largest existing base of major contributors and overlapping ties to the top tier of those who are uncommitted: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney. (Christie far down my list, given hi help to Obama in2012 and his pro-Islamist views. ~Bob)

America's Military: A force adrift. By Hope Hodge Seck
Excerpt: For many of the war-weary troops who deployed to combat zones over and over again for 13 years, the end of an era of war in Iraq and Afghanistan is good news.
But for Marine Sgt. Zack Cantu and other service members, it's a total morale killer. For many of them, particularly the young grunts and others in combat arms specialties, it's the realization that they may never go into battle for their country and their comrades. (If I hadn't been concerned before about what's gone on with our military, this would have most certainly pushed me over the edge in real worry. It's not a short article, but that's because the subject deserves a lot more than an executive summary. I strongly recommend taking the time to open the link and read through the full article. Taking the politics out of it (as much as possible), the bottom line is still that as a nation we are not giving our military the kind of support that it needs and that its members, past and present, so well deserve. This should be a bipartisan matter, that Congress is made fully aware of, and that we the people demand be addressed properly. --Del)

Today I Stopped Caring
Excerpt: We represent a “Police State” where “jackbooted badge-wearing thugs” randomly attack innocent people without cause or concern for constitutional rights. We are Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Rodney King all rolled into one lone police officer stopping to help change an old lady’s tire. I stopped caring today as no one wants us around, but instantly demands answers, results, arrests, when a crime takes place.

Will U.S. survive news media? By Terry Garlock
Excerpt: Too bad shame died in America long ago, else Democrat leaders would be hiding their heads. Not only because of the election results, but the mainstream media, having delivered an exhaustive defense of Obama, is now trumpeting two false messages on behalf of Democrats. Talking heads begin with, “What the voters were saying ...” and then they add their own agenda, which usually ascribes to the voters the desire to get rid of gridlock, compromise and get things done. But the voters were saying nothing of the sort.

Cash on the Table. By Russ Choma 
Excerpt: The 2014 election might have been the most expensive midterm ever, and it might have seen some of the most extravagant spending on wall-to-wall advertising ever — but when Election Day had come and gone, there was a surprising amount of money still sitting on the table. The Service Employees International Union PAC reported yesterday that, as of Nov. 24, it had $19.7 million in cash on hand. It spent $29 million over the course of the two-year cycle, but that’s a very large pile of leftovers.

U.S. sues Deutsche Bank for alleged tax fraud, seeks $190 million
Excerpt: The U.S. government on Monday sued Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE), seeking to recoup more than $190 million from the German bank over alleged tax fraud more than 14 years ago. According to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Deutsche Bank used "insolvent" shell companies to conduct a series of fraudulent conveyances designed to hide taxable gains from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the case arose from Deutsche Bank's late 1999 purchase of a corporation that was sitting on an unrealized $150 million gain in shares of drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb Co 

Is this proof mysterious bangs heard on both sides of Atlantic WERE caused by a top-secret US jet? Footage of hypersonic engine in action reveals it sounds almost identical to unexplained noises

Excerpt: There was growing evidence today that some kind of hypersonic jet may have been the cause of the mysterious bangs heard over both the UK and the US on Saturday. Engineering expert Dr. Bhupendra Khandelwa told MailOnline he believes the loud, repetitive bangs sounded like an experimental jet engine called a pulse detonation engine (PDE). Other theories - including weather phenomenon or meteors and space junk 'burning up' in the atmosphere - have been largely dismissed by experts. 

Curiosity rover finds crater it is exploring was once a giant Martian LAKE - and it may have been teeming with life
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2865886/Mars-warm-wet-entire-PLANET-Curiosity-rover-reveals-crater-mountain-exploring-giant-lake.html#ixzz3LMUQk8JA 
Billions of years ago, a lake once filled the 96-mile- (154-km) wide crater being explored by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, bolstering evidence that the planet most like Earth in the solar system was suitable for microbial life. (Podkayne was there...~Bob)

Ebola and Enterovirus News

Excerpt: The CDC has notified the Office of Management and Budget that CDC expects to actively monitor 65,250 at risk Ebola travelers entering the USA per year. Obviously CDC came to this number by counting the number of travelers that have already entered the USA in the last 3 months and projecting it out to 12 months. Reverse engineering CDC's projection, 16,313 Ebola exposed travelers have entered the USA since the Ebola outbreak began. (Stage set for martial law? Plague or race riots; with executive order, you can be interned for a cough/cold. Let's talk about a movie about POTUS/FLOTUS. --Barb)

Race Card News


Must Read: Hands Up Don’t Shoot? How Nyack Changed Police Procedure Nationally. By John Patrick Schutz
Excerpt: .. like her fellow convicted and now released member of the Weather Underground, Kathy Boudin. What does a crime from 30 years ago have to do with current events in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island? Much, actually. You see, when Ms. Clark and Ms. Boudin and their group finished their shopping trip to Nyack and the Nanuet Mall on October 20, 1981 they left in their wake two dead Nyack Police Officers and one dead Brinks Guard. And, sadly, the reason that African-American Police Officer Waverly Brown and Irish-American Police Officer Edward O’Grady were dead was because Kathy Boudin emerged from the get-away van with her hands up, begging the Officers to put down their guns because she was unarmed, knowing full well when they did her comrades would ambush the officers from the van, firing round after round into the two soon-to-be dead officers along with Officer Artie Keenan who was badly injured. They continued firing into Officer Brown’s body after he was down and as a final farewell ran over the body of Officer O’Grady.

Mau-mauing the Ferguson police to feed the victim narrative. By Dave Blaska
Excerpt: Last week during a sympathy march in Madison (of course) for the Ferguson rioters, one civic-minded businessperson told Bring It! “I swear I heard this chant when stuck in traffic because of the protestors … ‘Pants up. Don’t loot.’” My friend, you didn’t hear that in Madison! More attuned to the Emerald City is The Nation magazine (sentences we did not finish): “Even as activists are organizing against police violence, many Americans continue to see blacks as criminals — and want our police to act accordingly.” (I prefer, "Hands off, don't loot." ~Bob)

The Department of Social JusticeFederal officials lectured Ferguson residents about “white privilege.” 
Excerpt: As investigators combed through Ferguson, DOJ’s Community Relations Service began holding the town-hall meetings, which excluded press and everyone from out of town. Ferguson resident Audrey Watson, 47, attended one of the meetings. She says federal officials organized the attendees into small groups and asked questions such as “What stereotypes exist in our community?” “How does white privilege impact race relations in our community?” and “Is there a need for personal commitment to race relations?” (DOI. Gone are the days of "Star Trek" ideology where all nations and races worked together to make the universe a better place. Now it is hate, hate, hate, me, me, me and Service to Self goading, nudging, tempting. The antithesis of Goodness. As the King of Jordan said a couple days ago, this IS about Good versus Evil, not formal religions. --Barb)

What’s Really Going on with Holder’s Civil-Rights Crusade against Police Departments. Federal investigations of the Garner and Brown cases are just a pretext. 
Excerpt: But the Justice Department civil-rights investigations Holder is fond of announcing are not like public trials. ..... More significant, they happen with the air of extortion created by the nearly $28 billion in funding Congress keeps giving Justice every year, no matter how many congressional investigations it obstructs, how many false statements its officials make, and how much it politicizes law enforcement. The investigations are taxpayer-funded jihads that states, cities, and towns know they lack the resources to fight off. (And female nominee well-trained on how to carry on. --Barb)

‘Juveniles’ Attack Another Bosnian In St. Louis
Excerpt: Do #BosnianLivesMatter?... They’re not a Designated Victim Class in the United States, and they look white, so whatever happens to them is just too bad. If they don’t want to be dragged from their cars, beaten, and discarded in the street like garbage, they shouldn’t have come to America to escape genocide. (Evil being preached to the Community and they are selling their souls to hate. Welcome to Obama's America. Oh, and Merry Christmas, whitey. "If I had a hammer...." --Barb)

Excerpt: Relations between blacks and whites in America today are worse than they have been in decades under the Obama regime, a new poll says. Sadly, many whites voted for Obama thinking--erroneously, as it turns out--that voting a black man into the White House might help usher in a new era of harmony between the races in America. Many simply thought that racism would fade even more in this new era. But those who make a living pushing racism won't let it die. Not Al Sharpton, not Jesse Jackson, not Barack Obama. Racism has not receded and now, it appears that a majority believe that the opposite has occurred, race relations are worse than ever.

Race relations. By Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt
Excerpt: ... we may be reaching the point where the progressive Left’s interest in perpetual public outrage over claims of racially-motivated police abuse is working against the interests of President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and incoming nominee Loretta Lynch, and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. Because progressives like Obama, Holder/Lynch, and de Blasio are in charge now, ostensibly in charge of both police forces and the investigation of those police forces when there are allegations of abuse. If there are indeed horrific abuses of police power and targeting African Americans occurring like clockwork, and never with any serious consequence . . . all of this is happening on their watch. You particularly have to wonder if the president likes hearing about violent protests against police in Berkeley and Manhattan, and shutting down highways in Washington, Long IslandMiami, and elsewhere. No one at those protests is chanting, “Way to go, Mr. President.” For Obama, we’re about to enter the seventh year of an eight-year presidency. It’s getting late. Walking into America’s poorer minority neighborhoods, are things significantly better or worse than they were on January 19, 2009, the day before Obama took office? Are the schools performing any better? Are there more job opportunities? Are there fewer people struggling with addiction? Are there paths to success? Have the crime rates changed dramatically? Is the relationship between the citizens and the police forces any better?

Excerpt: But what is odder still is how it seems a local St. Louis police investigation has been smothered, overtaken, and downplayed. When Gertz called the local police for comment, they referred him to the U.S. attorney in St. Louis. ...Then, when Gertz called the U.S. attorney, he was told he had to call the Office of Public Affairs in Washington. (Per author, AKA Holder's flunkies. --Barb. I use "Holder's Irregulars." ~Bob)

Family Of Man Shot By NYC Cop Warn Al Sharpton To Stay Away
Excerpt: "He just wants to take credit for this," she said, even though Sharpton never took the time to contact the family and ask if he was wanted. The family says that they were shocked when they heard that Sharpton had scheduled himself to give a eulogy for Gurley. "How can you do a eulogy for someone you don't even know?

Obamacare/Government Healthcare News

A Cadillac (Tax) For Everyone. By Sally Pipes
Excerpt: While campaigning for the White House, President Obama promised to cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans. As he put it, “In an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.” And then, the president went ahead and raised taxes on the middle class, thanks to Obamacare. ... But President Obama and his allies misled the public by claiming that the tax would only affect gold-plated health plans.

Undocumented Democrat News

Exclusive: House GOP Leaders Trick 216 House Republicans Into Accidentally Supporting Obama's Executive Amnesty
Excerpt: By adding that exception to the original bill, we would now give the president the statutory authority to do what he’s doing to issue these work permits,” Gohmert said. “I know that this language is in there for people claiming asylum and for refugee status, but not ever for providing work permits. But by adding this to this bill that’s supposed to claim his effort to provide work permits is illegal, unconstitutional, and inappropriate, the exception that was added gives him a statutory basis for arguing his work permits are now statutorily allowed.”

"You're Greener than Gore" News

NOAA report says California drought mostly due to natural causes, not global warming. By Jason Samenow, Washington Post
Excerpt: The build-up of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere may worsen western droughts in the future, but it is not the principal driver of historic drought afflicting the entire state of California right now, says a major NOAA report released today. “Natural oceanic and atmospheric patterns” are to blame for the drought, the 42-page report says. (Diverting water to save bait fish and the use of over a gallon for every almond produced might figure in. ~Bob)

Religion of Peace News

Christian Kids Murdered by Muslims for Refusing to Convert instead saying “No, We Love Jesus”
Excerpt: Sometimes the stories I feel compelled to write about seem like “too much.” I have felt my heart break numerous times since I began writing for Eagle Rising… and this is one of those hard stories.

France promises to fight anti-Semitism after attack
Excerpt: France's interior minister has vowed to make the fight against anti-Semitism a "national cause" following an attack on a Jewish couple last week.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali fights radical Islam's real war on women
Excerpt: In early April of this year, Brandeis University, under pressure from student activists and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, reversed its decision to give an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a global advocate for women’s rights. The decision was triggered by Hirsi Ali’s outspoken criticisms of Islam. The Somali-born activist has sounded alarms about the prevalence of extremism in Muslim countries and the misogyny that pervades even mainstream Islam.

ISIS fighter from Ottawa appears in video threatening Canada with attacks ‘where it hurts you the most’
Excerpt: The six-minute video said Canadians would be indiscriminately targeted and that Muslims were obliged to either join ISIS or “follow the example” of the attackers who struck in Ottawa and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que. “You either pack your bags, or prepare your explosive devices. You either purchase your airline ticket, or you sharpen your knife,” said the video, produced by a propaganda group linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham.

Firebombs thrown at police in Stockholm riot
Excerpt: "What is quite unusual here is that this was seemingly somewhat planned ahead," police spokesman Kjell Lindgren said. He said firebombs and piles of paving stones were already prepared when police arrived and the approximate 30 people behind the riot were reported to have been masked. ... Like Husby, Ragsved has a large immigrant population, and further violence in immigrant suburbs could help boost the far-right anti-immigration Sweden Democrats in snap elections in March next year.

Uruguay Accepts 6 Detainees Held at Guantánamo
Excerpt: Mr. Hagel’s slow pace this year in approving proposed transfers of low-level detainees contributed to larger tensions with the White House before his resignation under pressure last month.....The Obama administration hopes that if it can shrink the inmate population to two digits, Congress will revoke a law that bars the transfer of detainees into the United States. It would be far cheaper for taxpayers to house the inmates on domestic soil, and the White House argues that closing Guantánamo would eliminate a propaganda symbol for terrorists to use against the country. (Of course, King and his ilk determine who is "low-level." --Barb)

Radio Host: Obama Has An ‘Anti-American Foreign Policy’
Excerpt: His foreign policy “has been an anti-American foreign policy.”...I think a big part of his legacy will be the emergence of the Islamic Republic as a nuclear armed power with intercontinental missiles. He walked away from Iraq recklessly and irresponsibly for selfish political reasons, foolishly, giving rise to the Islamic State which now owns northern Syria and much of northern Iraq


*****
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic. http://tiny.cc/g02s4 For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s eleven books are listed here: http://tinyurl.com/o4nu65u. His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com.


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