Friday, December 11, 2015

Have yourself a Merry Little Jihad...and other political news



Ran Christmas errands Thursday morning and came home to 120 emails. Wore out the delete key. ~Bob

Book Recommendation: For Liberty and Glory: Washington, Lafayette, and Their Revolutions by James R. Gaines
This is a fine short history of the American and French Revolutions, and the unlikely friendship that grew between the reserved Washington and the exuberant Lafayette, a teenager with Major General's commission when they met. Well written and well sourced, it offers a wealth of information to the history buff. With a master's in history, I am well read on Washington and the American Revolution, not so much on Lafayette and the French Revolution. I learned a great deal about them. I think the lesson for us is that that American Revolution was a conservative one against external oppression, led by agricultural and business elites against external oppression. the French revolution was from the left, led by the radicals and it ate it's own. Lafayette was a leader, giving France the Declaration of Rights and the Tri-Color in use today, but he was almost consumed by it as was Robespierre and other leaders of the terror. Thus the French revolution led to chaos, violence, rivers of blood and dictatorship. This is well worth reading.

Must Hear: Sharia fiasco. Pat Condell

Worth Reading: The President's Speech. By Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: This was not a speech about how the Obama administration is going to do anything differently in the future. It was a speech about how Obama's policies were right all along. Obama is one of those people who are often wrong but never in doubt.
The president struck a familiar chord when he emphasized that we shouldn't blame all Muslims for the actions of a few. How many people have you heard blaming all Muslims? Even if 90 percent of all Muslims are fine people, and we admit 10,000 refugees from the Middle East, does that mean that we need not be concerned about adding a thousand potential terrorists — even after we have seen in San Bernardino what just two terrorists can do?

Worth Reading: Mass Murder and Identity Politics. By Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428151/mass-murder-radical-islam
Too many Muslim immigrants are angry rather than grateful toward their new country. Why would Ms. Tashfeen Malik, who was born in Pakistan but lived most of her life in Saudi Arabia, want to come to the United States? She obviously hated the United States and its values, at least enough to help stockpile an arsenal and to kill 14 people and wound another 21 in San Bernardino.

Ex-Muslim warns Europe; ‘deport anti-democratic Islamists’ or face more attacks
Excerpt: Sabatina James escaped death at the hands of her Muslim family for daring to refuse a life filled with beatings, incest, brutality and misery. She left her native Pakistan for Germany via Austria, changed her name, converted to Catholicism, all the while escaping becoming just another statistic that’s all too often glossed over by the Western media.

Both San Bernardino attackers pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, officials say
When Obama said that ISIS is contained, he should have added, "to Earth."

A rifle's journey from Belgium to Gaza
Excerpt: Three years ago, arms experts spotted a single advanced Belgian rifle in the hands of militants in Gaza. But how had a group listed by the EU and the US as a terrorist organisation obtained the weapon? Arms expert Nic Jenzen-Jones and the BBC's Thomas Martienssen have tracked its journey. (How interesting, now it's not just the average not so well made AK-47 all the jihadists are carrying, but Belgian made rifles of outstanding quality.  I would bet with better capacity that the standard 5.56mm carbine our guys are carrying now.  Maybe we should be offering a reward for any of these to be turned in, and then give them to the Kurds.  Along with the heavy weapons the Kurds have been begging for over many months now, but which Obama doesn't want to give them for reasons no one can figure out at all. --Del

Special benefits for one religion: Seattle Mayor Plans To Help Muslims Who Practice Sharia Law To Buy Houses

Dispelling the ‘Few Extremists’ Myth – the Muslim World Is Overcome with Hate
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428146/more-than-few-islamic-extremists

'Spinning up as we speak': Email shows Pentagon was ready to roll as Benghazi attack occurred

Ankara's Mosul miscalculation

Millennials Want To Send Troops To Fight ISIS, But Don't Want To Serve

Little girl demonstrates art of stabbing: “Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!”
A truly horrifying demonstration of the devout culture of hatred and murder that has come to exist among so many of the Palestinians.  30 years ago there was a fair amount of support among them for the 2-state solution, but Arafat torpedoed that when they had a great offer of it at Camp David.  Since then the rhetoric has been amplified enormously, and now extends to brainwashing small children with the glory of stabbing Jews.  I can't think of anything much sicker than this, the closest thing to it was the conditioning Pol Pot did to Cambodian boys to make them into monster killers.  And with this hardening against anything peaceful and glorification of dying as long as you take a Jew with you, the future is indeed bleak.  How tragic for everyone. --Del. the kids Obama says we shouldn't be afraid of. ~Bob

You mean they lied?! New Benghazi Email Shows DOD Offered State Department “Forces that Could Move to Benghazi” Immediately
Excerpt: Judicial Watch today released a new Benghazi email from then-Department of Defense Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash to State Department leadership immediately offering "forces that could move to Benghazi" during the terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. In an email sent to top Department of State officials, at 7:19 p.m. ET, only hours after the attack had begun, Bash says, "we have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak." The Obama administration redacted the details of the military forces available, oddly citing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemption that allows the withholding of "deliberative process" information. Bash's email seems to directly contradict testimony given by then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2013. Defending the Obama administration's lack of military response to the nearly six-hour-long attack on the U.S. Consulate in BenghaziPanetta claimed that "time, distance, the lack of an adequate warning, events that moved very quickly on the ground prevented a more immediate response."

The Palestinians' Window of Opportunity Is Closing
If any group, by virtue of its ideology and behavior, DID NOT deserve a state, the Palestinians world be the champion. Cordially, Larry Greenberg

Former Guantanamo detainee appears in latest Al Qaeda in Yemen video
Excerpt: A former Guantanamo detainee has appeared in the latest video released this week by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Among the senior Al Qaeda leaders featured in the video is Ibrahim al-Qosi, who was transferred to his native Sudan in July 2012 after being held for 10 years at the U.S. base in Cuba. According to the Foundation For Defense of Democracies' Long War Journal blog, al-Qosi joined AQAP last year and has since become one of its leaders. (Show me your shocked face. --Barb)

Germany Officially Hits One Million Asylum
Excerpt: One million Muslim migrants — mostly male, fit and military age. Merkel madness, and for this, TIME Magazine names her “Person of the Year” today....Germany (and by extension the EU) traded six million Jews for 25 million Muslims. Karma’s a bitch. (I put it to you that Merkel has opened the floodgates, lowered the drawbridge, and enabled the Muslim hordes to invade EUUK and shortly, US.  She has single-handedly dealt a fatal blow to Western Civilization.  "Nostradamus of the Balkans" said Obama would be "last US President."  There will be no more US, between the pincers of the black anarchists, ISIS and a nuclear Iran with missiles.  Muslim invasion predicted through Greece/Sicily/Europe by original Nostradamus centuries ago...the beginning of WWIII; said it would last 30 years and be very bloody and destructive; annihilating much. --Barb)

San Bernardino Jihad Home: They RELEASED the Crime Scene
Excerpt:  "Something stinks here," Ahlert concluded. "Given the track record of Islamic terror denialism embraced by the Obama administration – along with innumerable examples of media malfeasance protecting that approach – the unmistakable odor of a coverup, or an orchestrated disinformation campaign, hangs heavy in the air." Ahlert's analysis caught the attention of radio host Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday, who also has been wondering about the third shooter since watching news reports last week. (I saw a member of the police dept brief reporters that there were 3 shooters in the SUV and that one had "jumped out and run off and been captured" and was being interrogated; said not injured.  The other 2 were killed in the SUV.  Per other reports, the shot-up car was allowed to sit in the street for over 48 hours without being impounded/towed as evidence in a crime scene.  Go figure.  Right up there with turning the press loose in the apartment with evidence all over the place.  Same lackadaisical, could-care-less appearance post Benghazi.  Big effort to delete references to Saudi Arabia she reportedly lived there) and to say the $28,500 came from a home loan (self financed, right) a payment from a foreign country/person or domestic agency/person.  Now--days later--they are mentioning on MM that there is a "third" suspect....Barb)

Worth Reading: You Can Never Be “Nice” Enough to the Muslims. By Naomi Ragen 
Excerpt: For years, Israel has been demonized, held responsible for every terrorist atrocity from blowing up Holocaust survivors at a Passover Seder to the mutilation and murder of her Olympic athletes. It was all Israel’s fault, because she had mistreated the poor Palestinians. The French welcomed thousands of Muslims to France. They made them citizens, gave them access to everything the Western world has to offer. The French sided openly with the Palestinians, and had a hands-off policy towards Muslims, making their neighborhoods no-go zones for the police. Their reward? Mass killings in supermarkets, magazine offices, restaurants, a sports arena, and a concert hall by Muslims. But why? After all, the French were so “nice?” After the most recent French atrocity, ISIS, claiming responsibility, posted the following on its website: “Hundreds of apostates were attending an adulterous party.” (Appeasement never works. When a society invites an enemy to live within and then appeases it, it will metastasize and consume it. When will our body-guarded politically correct leaders figure this out? Cordially, Larry Greenberg)

Genocide?
The State Department is poised to declare ISIS actions in Nineveh Plains and other areas of Iraq a genocide—but against Yazidis only. The finding is likely to leave out Iraq and Syria’s Christian minority. An array of religious scholars, church leaders, and dignitaries are petitioning Secretary of State John Kerry to reconsider, based on the evidence: "We have extensive files supporting a finding that ISIS’ treatment of Iraqi and Syrian Christians, as well as Yazidis and other vulnerable minorities, meets [the genocide] definition. They include evidence of ISIS assassinations of Church leaders; mass murders; torture, kidnapping for ransom in the Christian communities of Iraq and Syria; its sexual enslavement and systematic rape of Christian girls and women; its practices of forcible conversions to Islam; its destruction of churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and Christian artifacts; and its theft of lands and wealth from Christian clergy and laity alike." --Mindy Belz.

Excerpt: Naval Base Bombed, Shinto Worshipers Fear Backlash - New York Times - December 8 1941 (Very funny in its way.  Only sad in that it's only slightly exaggerated, we do have people about that crazy who are professors, activists, politicians, and famous people in the Arts who think they are thereby qualified to make serious pronouncements about the world of which they are actually quite ignorant.  Often culpably so. --Del)

Paris attacks: Bataclan third attacker identified
Excerpt: Mr Valls did not name the man, but did not dispute reports naming him as French national Foued Mohamed-Aggad, 23, from Strasbourg. Ninety people were killed at the Bataclan in last month's attacks.

California Muslim chases neighbor with sword: “I would die and kill for Allah.”
Excerpt: One might almost get the impression that all this had something to do with Islam, were it not for all the learned analysts who assure us otherwise.

Guantanamo Detainee Released By Obama Is Now, Get This, an Al Qaeda Commander in Yemen
Excerpt: Obama talks an awful lot about this or that being "exactly what the terrorists want." You know what I think they might want? Having their top leaders returned to the battlefield so they can kill more innocent people.

Why Join ISIS? How Fighters Respond When You Ask Them
Obama also keeps telling us the detention center at Guantanamo Bay “has been an enormous recruitment tool for organizations like ISIL.” Do you believe that? Some ordinarily Muslim young man hears about Guantanamo Bay and heads out to Syria to sign up with the beheading maniacs? A recent study of 49 fighters in Syria and Iraq who were willing to discuss their motivations didn’t mention Guantanamo Bay. --Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt.

Don’t Close Gitmo. We will need detention centers as long as the War on Terror lasts. By Judith Miller
Excerpt: It’s been a busy summer at the detention center at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base. The joint task force in charge of the 226 remaining detainees -- they are never called “prisoners” -- is spending about $440,000 to expand the recreation yards at Camp 6, a medium-security facility. At nearby Camp 4, which offers communal living for the most “compliant” captives, the soccer yard is being enlarged. At Camp 5, a maximum-security facility, another new, $73,000 classroom is under construction, and satellite TV cables have just been installed. In March, Joint Task Force Guantánamo added art classes to the thrice-weekly instruction it offers in Arabic, Pashtu, and English. And the estimated 16 detainees who have been cleared for release as soon as Washington can find countries willing to accept them have just received training on new laptop computers, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. Gitmo continues to expand its “intellectual stimulation program” for detainees, whose education ranges from nonexistent to postgraduate. In addition to a library of over 15,000 books in a dozen languages, magazines, puzzles, electronic games, and newspapers -- two mainstream Arabic dailies are offered twice weekly along with USA Today -- there are over 315 movies on DVD and up to five hours a day of five-channel satellite TV. Detainees may order between two and eight books a week. Librarians black out pictures of scantily clad women and other photos that detainees find offensive.

By The Numbers. The Untold Story of Muslim Opinions & Demographics

Iraqi Christians evacuated to Eastern Europe
Excerpt: A privately chartered Airbus 321 on Thursday carried 149 Christian refugees from the camp in northern Iraq that has been their refuge for more than a year to their new home in Slovakia. On board were families from Qaraqosh, the largest Christian city in Nineveh Plains, which was overtaken in August 2014 by ISIS fighters who forced out Kurdish forces and killed or displacing nearly all the city’s 50,000 residents.

A progressive paradise: Puerto Rico panic: Will the can politicians kicked down the street become a boomerang?
Excerpt: The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico is $72 billion in debt, Gov. Alejandro García Padilla says he has no money to pay the interest due Jan. 1, and liberals and conservatives propose different solutions to the fiscal crisis. The eventual resolution will affect not only 3.5 million Puerto Ricans but 315 million other Americans.

HOMELAND SECURITY SHUT DOWN INVESTIGATION INTO FAROOK AND MALIK LINKED ISLAMIST GROUP TO PROTECT ‘CIVIL LIBERTIES’ OF POTENTIAL TERRORISTS

Islamic State oil trade 'worth more than $500m'

One Of The Islamic State’s Biggest Oil Customers May Surprise You
Excerpt: One of the Islamic State’s biggest oil customers is the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, a senior U.S. Treasury official said Thursday. “ISIL is selling a great deal of oil to the Assad regime,” Adam Szubin, acting under secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the Treasury, said in London according to Reuters. Assad’s forces and ISIS have been in direct conflict with one another for the better part of two years. (Putin was right?  Show me your shocked face! --Barb)

GOP: Bolster surveillance in wake of attacks
Excerpt: A trio of freshman Senate Republicans, including one White House contender, is trying to up pressure on Congress to pass new surveillance legislation, saying it's needed to defeat "radical Islamic jihadism" after a string of recent attacks.
"How many attacks on the homeland will we have to endure before the president understands that lawful intelligence tools subject to judicial review are necessary to win the long war against radical Islamic jihadism?," Republican Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), who is running for president, Tom Cotton (Ark.) and Joni Ernst (Iowa) wrote in the Independent Journal Review on Friday.

WaPo Fact Checker: Democrats’ misleading claims about closing the no-fly list ‘loophole’
Excerpt: We advocate precise and accurate language that minimizes public confusion. In this case, politicians are focusing on the specific no-fly list when referring to Feinstein’s amendment. But the actual provisions in the bill were more broad-reaching, and the provisions were more nuanced than the catchy phrase: “If you’re too dangerous to board a plane, you’re too dangerous to buy a gun.” This is the language that Feinstein has used, and that her fellow Democratic lawmakers, Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail and also President Obama have repeated. But such phrasing lacks context and doesn’t portray the full impact of the bill — and thus, earns Two Pinocchios.
           
US Intel: ISIS May Have Passport Printing Machine, Blank Passports
Excerpt: American authorities are warning the terror group’s followers may have infiltrated American borders with authentic-looking passports ISIS has printed itself with its own machines, according to an intelligence report obtained by ABC News.

Report: Congress 'Misled' About Taliban Five to 'Settle a Campaign Promise'
Excerpt:  The Taliban Five were among Gitmo inmates recommended for "continued detention" in 2010 by Obama's Executive Order Task Force. When the administration decided to swap them for Bergdahl's release, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee at the time, Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), received just two and a half hours' notice instead of the 30 days required by law. The committee didn't receive the written classified notification and assessments, as required by law, until two days after the Taliban Five left Gitmo. (Article notes some of 5 have "engaged in threatening activities" in Qatar (where Clock Boy and family moved). --Barb)

Obama's Phony War Against ISIS
Excerpt: With all that in mind, riddle me this: Vice Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Paul Selva admitted Wednesday that 40 percent of U.S. airstrikes fail to strike “dynamic targets” in the fight against the Islamic State (IS).... And yet even with all that, there's still this: The United States Air Force, which has launched over 20,000 missiles and bombs since the start of the bombing missions against ISIS over a year ago, revealed that its munitions stockpiles are now depleted. ... The world's most powerful Air Force isn't allowed to drop bombs which it's somehow still running out of, against an enemy the White House can barely admit even exists.

Report: Obama Told NSC And FBI To ‘Downplay’ Terrorist Angle Of San Bernardino
http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/10/report-obama-told-nsc-to-downplay-terrorist-angle-of-san-bernadino/#ixzz3tzVgOpDr
Excerpt: A source told Jack Murphy of SOFREP that the FBI instantly believed the shooting, which left 14 dead, to be a clear act of terrorism. ...This source added that as soon as the shooting took place, Obama convened a meeting with the National Security Council and the heads of other federal enforcement agencies to discuss a public relations strategy. Part of the reason for trying to avoid the designation of the shootings as terrorism is because it threatens to upset the Obama administration’s strategy in Syria. (In Syria?  What about all the Islamic Syrians whom various agency heads agree cannot be vetted because no databases exist to verify being rushed in and seeded around the US without foreknowledge to governors of states to receive these aliens?  Meanwhile, the Christians who are persecuted are left to rot, die, be beheaded, blown up, enslaved.  Anti-Christian; Mass Media not screaming about the Christians, are they?  Some Christians who have been here are being deported!  The agenda, folks is the NEW AMERICAN PROGRAM and the destruction of the US, the banishing of red/white/blue in exchange for black/red and the collapse and transformation.  There will be no other US president; forget the election babble; just smoke.  Watch what the left (sinister) hand is doing.  Media idiotic and controlled entirely.  Note how they all sport red/black as a federal uniform....or black/blue after a violent incident, seemingly.  Tried to get news the other day and ABC was having a cupcake decorating contest.  CBS had a rock band blaring, lights, lasers, air humping.  In WWIII's opening stages....  Pathetic.  No true investigative reporting.  Their computers are either tampered with or their cars are and they have fatal wrecks; or their parent companies are squeezed.  The CBS reporter who embarrassed Obama recently at a press conference was ripping and tearing apart Trump as "unconstitutional" 24 hours after the story broke that, in fact, what Trump suggested was part of US law code and had been used by Jimmy Carter during the Iranian crisis.  But still, the bitter invective being screamed and yelled for the value of a good smear.  Dare the Regime-controlled media run this story?  Show me your shocked face....Bolding above is mine. --Barb)

Whistleblower: Feds Shut Down Terror Investigation That Could Have Prevented San Bernardino Attack
http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/11/whistleblower-feds-shut-down-terror-investigation-that-could-have-prevented-san-bernardino-attack/#ixzz3tzSbvOyI
Excerpt: A former Department of Homeland Security agent says that an investigation he was conducting into a fundamentalist Islamic group operating in the U.S. may have helped stop San Bernardino jihadi Syed Farook had the government not shut down his probe. During an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on Thursday, Philip Haney said that in 2012 as an agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National  Targeting Center, he opened an investigation into a Sunni Islamic group called, Tablighi Jamaat, a subset of the fundamentalist Deobandi movement.  But Haney said that just a year into the investigation it was shut down (by) State Department and the Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. (So DOS and HSA aiding and abetting Islamic terrorism domestically.... US regime pro-Arab, pro-Islam.  Anti-Christian, anti-American.  Remember, those in military reportedly asked, "Can you kill an American citizen?"  Don't worry about Trojans coming in.  They're here; have been.  No wonder many in law enforcement saying "If you can carry concealed, do all the time now" and many communities considering open carry. --Barb)

Missouri police investigate purchase of 100 cellphones at separate Walmarts
excerpt: Missouri police are investigating after at least 100 cellphones were purchased at three Walmarts during the past week, local FOX and ABC affiliates reported.  The FBI was contacted in at least two of the cases, though it’s unclear if federal officials are actively involved.  “These people were, they were foreign-speaking,” said Laclede County Sheriff Wayne Merritt, who encouraged citizens to call the cops if they observed odd activity. (Could be for "organization" using dark apps. COMMENT FROM SITE:  roadpaver: Cell phones are easy triggers for bombs. You use one cell phone (screen light or sound (beeper) for the triggering the circuit and the other cell phone to call all the other cell phones to trigger the bombs.  America is stupid or just plain spoiled.  The circuits can be bought for around $15 give or take - assembled and then wala. All you need is bomb material. What do you think cheap IED's are made from? They found that out in the first IRAQ war. Looks to be starting up again except this time they are bringing it to the States.  Why they bought the phones at Walmart is anybody's guess when you can mass order real cheap phones from China in bulk for a lot less. --Barb)

Illegal alien from Middle East told agents he owned several guns, 10 cell phones
Excerpt: A man from the United Arab Emirates in the U.S. illegally told Florida investigators he’d owned multiple guns and 10 cell phones before they arrested him for possessing ammunition, prosecutors announced Thursday. Investigators say they found 25-year-old Hamid Mohamed Ahmed Ali Rehaif at a hotel in Melbourne, southeast of Orlando, where he’d paid more than $11,000 in cash to stay for roughly two months. He checked into a different room every night, The Orlando Sentinel reports.

Worth Reading: WaPo Fact Checker: Marco Rubio’s claim that no recent mass shootings would have been prevented by gun laws
Excerpt: This is certainly a depressing chronicle of death and tragedy. But Rubio’s statement stands up to scrutiny — at least for the recent past, as he framed it. Notably, three of the mass shootings took place in California, which already has strong gun laws including a ban on certain weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Gun-control advocates often point to the experience in other countries that have enacted gun laws that heavily restrict gun ownership; as we have shown, quantitative measures of cross-comparative crime statistics, especially where the crime is not consistently defined (i.e., “mass shooting”), usually end up being apples-to-oranges comparisons. It is possible that some gun-control proposals, such as a ban on large-capacity magazines, would reduce the number of dead in a future shooting, though the evidence for that is heavily disputed. But Rubio was speaking in the past, about specific incidents. He earns a rare Geppetto Checkmark.

The Trump Cult of Personality and its Conservative Media Enablers. By Guy Benson 
Excerpt: Please recall this Huffington Post poll released in September. It demonstrated how Republican voters -- driven, it would seem, by Trump backers -- became astonishingly supportive of (a) maintaining the Iran nuclear deal, (b) government-run and -funded healthcare, and (c) race-based affirmative action when the pollster informed respondents that those positions were held by Donald Trump, as opposed to Barack Obama.  These aren't hypotheticals, by the way.  Follow those links, and you'll discover that longtime Democrat Donald Trump has embraced all three liberal stances during his current presidential run. Not back when he was donating generously to Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid over the years (yes, yes, "because he's a businessman!"), and not even more recently, when Trump was declaring his support for the wasteful "stimulus" package enacted by Obama, whom he declared had rescued the American economy; no, these are viewpoints articulated by the current iteration of Trump.  The punchline is that his supporters don't care at all.  Trump's Democrat-style campaign is driven by feelings and identity, not issues.  The HuffPo survey also revealed the same phenomenon at play on the other end of the spectrum, as hordes of Obama cultists reflexively tossed foundational liberal-left ideals overboard after they were told they were agreeing with Trump, versus Obama. 

‘Common-sense’ gun reform is overrated. Here’s why.

White House finalizing executive action on guns
Excerpt: The White House is finalizing a new executive action that would expand background checks on gun purchases, according to one of President Obama’s top aides. Senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said Wednesday the president has asked his team to send him a completed plan “in short order,” according to The Associated Press. ...Still, Jarrett’s comments are an indication that Obama could soon roll out a proposal that would set up a major battle with Republicans in Congress and gun rights groups. 

Clueless In DC: WH “No Idea Why Americans Are Buying So Many Guns” 

Excerpt: As I explained in last week’s Health Alert, the U.S. health care system is an unsustainable mess. In our economy one dollar out of every five is spent on someone’s medical care; Medical costs are growing twice as fast as incomes; Medical prices are rising at three times the rate of consumer inflation. The Affordable Care Act was supposed to fix those problems and make health care “affordable.” However, the method was ill-conceived: Obamacare required everyone purchase overpriced health insurance. That’s like throwing gasoline on a fire hoping to smother it. As a health economist, it’s hard to imagine a policy agenda that could be any less effective — or more damaging to the health care system.

Worth Reading: Chicago Police Scandal Highlights Problems with One-Party Rule. By Jonah Goldberg

Worth Reading: Public discontent has fueled the Trump phenomenon. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: The public no longer respects U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the IRS, the VA or the GSA. Even the once-hallowed Secret Service has become a near laughingstock of incompetency, corruption and politicization. Is the purpose of NASA really Muslim outreach, as NASA chief Charles Bolden suggested in 2010? The world that we are told about by our government bears no resemblance to what we see and hear every day. President Obama has exacerbated this current disconnect between the public and its officials. In unserious fashion, he shares his selfies, parades his annual Final Four picks and jets off to Los Angeles to appear on late-night talk shows, even as he hectors Americans in sermons about their Islamophobia, their carbon footprints, their immigration xenophobia and their gun obsessions.

SCIENCE & SCIENTISTS - PSEUDOSCIENCE & PSEUDOSCIENTISTS. By Col. Andy Weddington, USMC (Ret)

Burglary suspect hides in Florida lake, where gator eats him
Excerpt: A suspected burglar jumped in a Florida lake apparently hiding from law enforcement before an 11-foot alligator killed him, investigators said Monday. His hand and foot reportedly turned up inside the animal's stomach. Brevard County Sheriff's Maj. Tod Goodyear says 22-year-old Matthew Riggins told his girlfriend he would be in Barefoot Bay to commit burglaries with another suspect.  (Guns?  We don't need no stinkin' guns.  My brother recently retired from the Sheriff's Department there.  I, have personally seen gators in this size range; they terrorize the neighborhood pets.  --Ron P. When gators are outlawed, only outlaws will have gators. ~Bob)


4 Things Dropping ‘Master’ Tells Us About Harvard University. Harvard faculty are supposed to be less gullible, less panicky, and better educated than your average third grader. As this insanity shows, perhaps that’s not so.

The Trans-Aged Deserve Equal Rights, Too. The Obama administration has championed special protected classes of citizens, but the government is still ignoring one deeply oppressed group: the trans-aged.

Interesting: Knowledge That Isn't
Excerpt: When you hear politicians speak (the president or members of Congress) and they tell you that the science or facts are settled, do you tend to believe them or treat their comments with skepticism? Those who survey such things show that faith in government and politicians has fallen to record lows. But many other professions have also seen a decline in public trust. (Why skepticism is on the increase? As it damn well should be, given the fantastic record of misreporting of so many, many things so often.  Sometimes they manage to fit in several bits of misinformation or just lies in the same week, or make statements that leave one stunned by their blatant stupidity.  (My recent favorite is the CA politician proclaiming that California has demonstrated that serious gun laws work well.... saying this just a day after the San Bernardino massacre!) "Figures don't lie, but liars figure" is a classic that needs to be repeated often.  I like the very famous and popular "97% of all scientists agree about Global Warming", which it turns out came from one guy who talked to over 600 scientists, then reduced to the group he thought was really the smart ones, of only 89 individuals, 87 of whom agreed.  87/89 = 0.97  On the basis of this, the world has been told ad nauseam that "97% of ALL scientists agree", including of course from the Oval Office on several occasions.  And it turns out that some fairly decent polls of large groups of scientists show that a very substantial fraction have a lot of doubts about the theory of manmade global warming, but you won't hear about those on TV or on the pages of the NYTimes. Sadly, it's become difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff in just about any hot topic discussion, gun laws, murder rates, health care quality, starving children in the USA, and a lot more.  I am a trained and well practiced scientist with a lot of work in Statistics and how to analyze data (after making sure they're good data in the first place), and I have to put a lot of effort into it.  What chance do others with fewer qualifications and less time to spend have? We can only hope that enough sources of truth remain and enough people work to find them that not everyone ends up either believing the nonsense or just giving up on what to believe. Del)

What Did Ted Cruz And Marco Rubio Learn From George W. Bush?

This Satanic Temple Leader Is Blogging Her Abortion

MARINE WORD GAME - DECODING AND ANALYSIS. By Col. Andy Weddington, USMC (Ret)

Worth Reading: Is Liberalism Good for Poor People? By John C. Goodman 
Excerpt: When is the last time you heard Hillary Clinton talk about poverty? How about Barack Obama? Or Bernie Sanders? Granted, they use the word “middle class” a lot. But when is the last time you heard them talk about what they want to do for the “poor”? I can’t remember. Take housing. On any given day about 565,000 people in the United States are homeless. That problem isn’t going away any time soon. In fact, at the current rate of progress it will take 40 years before the homeless disappear from our shelters and streets. I don’t recall any Democratic proposals to change that. Ironically, the chronically homeless decreased more under President Bush (30%) than under President Obama (21%)Hillary Clinton actually charged a group of homeless veterans $500,000 to give a speech. (I have no idea where they got the money.)

At the Paris climate summit, discussions over a global climate accord hit a roadblock on Friday, as China and other countries refused to give in to a demand from the United States and the European Union for all countries to review and update their plans for curbing greenhouse gas emissions every five years. Beijing has already pledged to begin lowering its emissions around 2030, and is unwilling to adjust that goal. Chinese delegates to the Paris talks also once again asked for developed nations to do more to wean themselves off of greenhouse gas-producing fuel sources like coal, gas, and oil. “[W]e have been pushing all kinds of countries, whether it is the EU or others. We wish they can all be more ambitious," said Gao Feng, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's special representative on climate change. Saudi Arabia has also balked at language in the proposed plan to halt the rise in the global temperature, over worries that it will impact global oil production. The disagreements have extended the summit by a day. --FP Morning Brief. (We have cut our emissions thanks to Obama-opposed fracking, and they will start in fifteen years? And the President is too dumb to realize we are being played? ~Bob)

































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