Saturday, October 31, 2015

Halloween

Halloween
Robert A. Hall

It’s scary on all Hollow’s Eve,
Ye never ken who’s at the door—
It might be a ghost or the fairies—
Of the jealous husband of sweet Nellie Moore!

It might be the Loch Ness Monster
Come slitherin’ oot o’ the deep-
Or the brother o’ Margaret MacGregor,
Claimin’ there’s a promise to keep!

It might be a water kelpie
Come creepin’ oot o’ the sea—
Or a lass with a bonny wee bairn
Wi’ a faint resemblance to me!

It might be an old hangit man,
Come clawin’ up oot o’ the ground—
Or the terrible mean old faither
O bonny, young Miss Molly Brown!

It might be any kind o’ a monster,
A thief, a rapist, a killer!
It might be the Queen’s Excise Man
Who’s come to demand a’ my siller!

Aye, it’s scary in Bonny Auld Scotland
When the witches come wigglin’ through—
Not to mention the fitball supporters
Who stagger around a’ roarin’ fu’!

You never ken who’s at your door—
To open to a ghost would be risky.
And it might be the maist fearful o’ a’—

And Englishman after my whisky!

Random Thoughts for November, 2015.

Random Thoughts for November, 2015. By Robert A. Hall

News Flash: President Barack Obama has announced new plans to settle Syrian and other Muslim refugees from the Middle East in the US. Under the plan, a refugee family will be selected at random to live with the Obama family in the White House and with them in New York after his term ends. Refugee families will also live in the homes of John Kerry, Michael Moore, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore, George Soros, Bill Gates, Tom Steyer, Warren Buffet, Rich Richman, Eric Schmidt (Google), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jack Dorsey (Twitter) the owners and CEOs of ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNBC, The New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, and 25 top Hollywood and Media personalities, including Whoopi Goldberg and the others stars of The View. "We can't ask ordinary Americans to accept the risks, expense and life-style changes associated with taking in Muslim refugees unless we who are their elite leaders are willing to accept the same conditions," Obama said. "If it's the right thing to do for them, it's the right thing to do for us." Obama added that they were in negotiations with the Pope over how many Muslim refugee families the Vatican, as an independent country, would be taking in. The Vatican says three families, but the Obama administration is firm that they should take at least two dozen. Obama also announced that after high school graduation his daughters will be joining the US Army and asking to be assigned to ground combat units, as will the children of several of the other celebrities on the above list. In addition, everyone taking in refugees has signed a pledge to reduce his family's carbon footprint to that of the average American family to combat global warming. (Satire, of course. If only. As recently as WWII, the elites thought their families should share in national sacrifices.)

When asked if it should be "All Lives Matter" or "Black Lives Matter?" every Democrat running for President except Jim Webb said "Black Lives Matter." So if you are white, Asian or Native American, Hillary, Bernie, Link and Marty think your life doesn't matter. Same if you are a non-black Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, atheist or gay.

The people most upset by Jim Webb's debate comments about killing a man in combat in Vietnam are the same folks who want to send other people's daughters--never their own--to serve in close infantry combat.

The CNBC Republican Debate should have been called the "Let's Boost Hillary" show.

Reading about the Benghazi hearing, pundits who were going to vote for her anyway (after they sobered up on Bernie) think it was a win for her. Pundits who would pour battery acid in their eyes before every voting for Hillary think it exposed her lies once again. I think they are both right.

Obama is more like JFK every day, now sending "advisors" to Iraq as Kennedy did to Vietnam. Eventually LBJ sent me. If you call, let it ring, I'll be packing or cleaning my M1.

Conservatives don't like MSNBC because they believe the media should be neutral. Liberals don't like Fox because they believe that any media outlet who does not promote progressive policies is an apostate from their religion and must be stoned.

We should consider those Muslims who come to the West not to assume western values but who want to establish Shari'a Law and the rule of Allah over the Kaffir, or those Mexicans who come to America not to become Americans but to establish their criminal cartels here and bleed us through crime and drugs, not as immigrants, but as invasive species that will destroy the established culture of freedom, replacing it with violence, hate and destruction.

A lot of people can't tell the difference between bad choices and bad luck.

The media are calling the Oregon shooter--whose victims were white--"mixed race." How come they call Obama black? Same racial make-up. One outlet called him a "White Supremacist." Being as black as Obama is an awkward start for a white racist. According to a picture floating around the net, one cable station Photoshopped his picture to make him look white.

Given the debate, it looks like the Dem nominee will be Hillary. With her negatives, she should be beatable, though she has unlimited foreign fiscal support. The hardest Democrat to beat would have been Webb, because he appeals to the center, but there was no chance the Dems would nominate him.

From John L, a retired Marine: Jim Webb is 100% on target. Almost everyone on that (Democratic Debate) stage last night is protected by people carrying guns. I don't have that kind of protection. Yet those people on that stage who are protected 24/7 by people carrying guns would deny me and others the right to carry a weapon to defend me and my family. People who surround themselves with armed bodyguards have no right to offer an opinion on why anyone else shouldn't have a gun. That's MY opinion and it will not change.

What's the difference between a Democratic Socialist and a National Socialist? Time and power.

I see Planned Parenthood has changed their procedures so they will not take money for baby body parts. It's the old, "We didn't do it and we promise not to do it again" defense.

I have never used, not even tried, recreational drugs (except alcohol of course, and I'm limited to one drink a day by my transplant). But if Trump, Hillary or Bernie becomes president, I'm going to give the idea more thought.

As history students know, the 1863 riots in New York were far worse that anything we have seen recently. They started as a protest against the draft, took on a racial aspect as blacks were targeted, beaten and killed, and progressed to a bacchanalia of looting, burning and violence. The New York Times editorialized: "...it comes...from a malignant hate towards those in better circumstances, from a craving for plunder, from a barbarous spite against those of a different race...the mob must be crushed at once...give them grape(shot) and plenty of it." I assume the Times was under different management then.

From a Vietnam Marine Buddy, Larry W: I started watching the Democrat debate last night and lasted until the question, "Is it 'black lives matter', or 'all lives matter'?" came up. To a man, and woman, the answer was "black lives matter". When I found out my life didn't matter to any of them, I switched channels and started watching Counting Cars on the History Channel. (I think Jim Webb said "All lives matter." ~Bob)

Funny how high schools once had shooting teams, and there were fewer gun laws. When I was a kid I don't recall any school shootings. I think they are another gift from the Progressive Sixties--when free range kids became the norm and discipline was renamed child abuse. The challenge facing America isn't gays wanting to marry--it's straights having kids and not getting married or providing discipline, values and direction.

If the Vatican does take in Muslim refugees, it will be interesting if they start demanding Shari'a Law and insisting the Pope stop his offensive blasphemy of claiming that God had a son.

Few blessings are unmitigated.

Despite the way the media and political junkies view it, not everything a politician does has a political basis. When I was elected to the Massachusetts Senate right out of college, I still lived at home. After my first re-election, I decided it was past time to get my own apartment. Naturally, I moved from Lunenburg to Fitchburg, the biggest city in my district at the time, so more apartments. The local paper speculated I had moved to "strengthen my power base." Later I moved to a bigger apartment that was across from the "Tower of Power," a local drug store/snack bar owned by a city councilor, friend of the local councilor who had been talked up as my next opponent. Since he and a lot of local Democrat pols met there in the morning for coffee, there was speculation that I was spying on him, or at least keeping tabs. And some that I might run against him for the City Council (you could hold both state and local office at the time--and some fools did!) Nope, I just liked the bigger apartment with a fireplace.

Donald Trump is headed to a rendezvous with obscurity.

The way customer service if going in this country, I expect to soon see businesses offering coupons saying, "Come shop with us and we will give you a Personal Thank You for your business. Limit one per customer. Not valid on holidays or the two weeks before Christmas. Coupon expires December 31.

I expect in years to come, the techies will mock the old fashioned folks who still practice analog sex. Glad I won't be here.

Sometimes I plug in my GPS and put it on mute so it can have fun "recalculating" without annoying me.

In our efforts to spare the non-productive embarrassment and preserve their self-esteem, we have made charity by taxpayers both mandatory and something they deserve. They now describe their dole payments as "getting paid." Thugs have picked up the terminology for robbing someone as though these drones have all earned their largess and are entitled to it.

I heat up about three times as much coffee as I drink. The same cup often goes in the microwave several times before I finish it.

People tend to believe what they want to believe. No past statements by Donald Trump contradicting current statements, no exposure of lies by Hillary Clinton about her server, can shake their faith in their candidate. This is true for rabid supporters on both sides of the political aisle.

When planning menus, I always first ask myself the key nutritional question: What in the refrigerator needs to go. This is followed by: How hard will it be to make?

Given that Obama and company claim that Islamist murderers aren't really Islamic, I'm surprised he doesn't claim that black murderers--of which there are many, mostly killing other blacks--are not really black.

If we had today's Democrats in the Senate in 1941, they would have filibustered the declaration of war against Japan after Pearl Harbor.

Progressive economics might be called "Déjà Voodoo."

From my friend Tom: "Hillary has promised more (if unspecified) gun control if elected, even taking "executive action" if necessary. Doesn't she know it was "executive action" to impose gun control that led to the Battles of Lexington and Concord?"

When I see a TV ad that says, "Be one of the first 500 to call and save $50 off your first order!" I figure that if I called, the odds of my being "one of the first 500" and thus getting the "discount" are 100%. But I don't call, so I'll never know.

Deceit, stupidity, corruption, greed, evil, meanness--all the evil and also all the good characteristics of men and women admit of no restrictions of race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity. If you have a bias for or against individuals based on their group, you will be wrong as often as right. The exception, of course, is self-selected groups such as Nazis, Communists, gang members, etc. And you might find exceptions even there.

There are those who claim Obama would steal candy from a baby. But the real problem is that he doesn't have to. He merely has to tell his minions that he wants candy and they will spread the talking points through the sycophantic media, which will convince the low-info public that Obama is entitled to the candy and that for the baby to withhold it is racist--the kid must "pay his fair share."

I would not be surprised if Obama's open borders policy results in bloody violence between Mexican cartel thugs and black inner city thugs who resent the outsiders moving into their territory.

Tesla's new electric powered (thus taxpayer-subsidized) Model X SUV is expected to cost from $80,000 to $142,000. I think it's sweet that your tax dollars are subsidizing a toy for the rich that you will never be able to afford. Very generous of you.

2015: President Obama says Putin campaign in Syria a sign of weakness.
2016: President Obama says Putin campaign in Baltic Republics a sign of weakness.
2017: President Sanders says Putin campaign in Poland a sign of weakness.
2018: President Sanders says Putin campaign in France a.....

PT Barnum supposedly said that there's a sucker born every minute. I would add that there's a new way to take the sucker developed every hour. Yes, I'm thinking of the explosion of betting on fantasy league sports.

Madison, WI where I live is a lovely town. Unfortunately it got high during the sixties and still has the hangover.

I think the next DSM should include a new mental illness: Pain-in-the-ass Personality Disorder.

If it wasn't for window-dressing a lot of government agencies and programs could qualify as nudist resorts.

Since many successful CEOs receive options as part of their compensation package, I wonder if the Planned Parenthood CEO has a Baby Parts Futures Option in her contract. Might be better than the cattle futures where Hillary invested $1,000, cashed out at $100,000 in a short period of time.

Abortion is nothing new. Before the war, a New York abortionist, a Madame Restall, was so famous that she was known as "Madame Killer." When she went out young boys would holler at her that her house was built on babies skulls. She committed suicide when her place was raided. That was before the Civil War, BTW.

People say we need more compromise in politics. Yes, indeed, we might have avoided WWII if we had been willing to compromise and let Hitler kill half the Jews and rule half of Europe. Some compromises are repugnant to the soul...for those who have one. And Hitler and Stalin compromised to launch WWII by each taking half of Poland. Of course, that didn't last and Germany invaded the homeland of their ally, the USSR in 1942. Thus with a lot of compromise. You offer half a loaf, the other sides accepts it and then is back the next day for the other half. It is why the NRA won't accept any compromise on guns--they know the other side wants a disarmed population. And why the pro-choice folks won't accept any compromise on Abortion--they know the pro-life people want to ban all abortions. A compromise with a tiger only holds until the Tiger get hungry again.

The Pentagon says Putin is lying about Syria. They figured it out when he said, "If you like your peace plan, you can keep your peace plan."

Barring real disasters like death, serious illness, accident, or fire, what most Americans consider a bad day is a far better day than 3/4 of the people in the world are having.

I notice now all the toy guns have orange plastic tips, so people, especially cops, know they are toys. Luckily for us, the crooks are too dumb to notice this, or they could glue orange tips on their real guns so the cops would hesitate to shoot them...

Not everyone wears Che Guevara tee shirts. It's a tiny minority of extremists who have hijacked peaceful college students' brains.

I'm so old I remember when the left thought the government was too powerful and was oppressing them.

Hate Speech, n. When you disagree with as progressive about something and he wants the government to silence you.

36,000 Americans died in Korea and 58,000 in Vietnam fighting against governments who wanted to implement Bernie Sander's ideas though coercion.

Donald Trump says if he had been president, he would have stopped 9/11 by closing the borders. Too bad he wasn't elected in 1940-he could have closed the borders of Hawaii and kept the Japanese from attacking Pearl.

If a place needs a bouncer, you may not want to spend time there.

If we do not do something about the debt ($18T) and the far larger unfunded liability (funds the government has promised to spend for things like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Obamacare, but does not have in the bank, estimated between $87T and $245T depending on who estimates, how far out you count and what things you count), we will have a fiscal collapse. If we do try to do something serious about it, those receiving the largess, which if you count crony capitalism probably includes two thirds of the population, will go to the polls and throw out the skinflints, putting in those who promise the most spending (Hillary, Bernie, etc.). I recently bought ten Zimbabwe bills totaling $950M on EBay for $8 bucks. That is where we are headed. It will destroy all retirement savings and capital. Then the society.

I have read that 97% of workplace fatalities are men, that men work longer hours than women on average, and that women live seven years longer than men on average. When will the gender inequality end? We need a national campaign. Oh, and women get to have multiple organisms as well! #MaleLivesMatter

Anyone who brings out facts the left doesn't like is demonized and called evil names: racist, Nazi, sexist, KKK, insane, nut, extremist, radical, out-of-touch, fanatic, fringe, etc. They then feel fully justified in ignoring the facts they don't like.

As another gift of the Prednisone I have to take to prevent rejection of my lung transplant, I now have osteoporosis. But I'm not all bent out of shape about it.

If through fortune, talent or effort you are successful, you will be the target of envy. And envy's weapon is often lies.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda buys no beer.

Local hospice has marketing billboards that read, "Dad deserves to live in dignity." I'd have gone with, "Dad deserves to croak in comfort."

In Madison there are a lot of bumper stickers that say, "Share the road with bikes." Only makes sense. Running over one results in a lot of God-awful paperwork.

The more Muslims the Germans let in, the more chance of terrorism and fiscal ruin...and then the rise of a new Hitler.

Power corrupts, yes. Power attracts sycophants and supplicants, certainly. But power is necessary to accomplish anything, even if it is only the power of your own brain and muscles.

Any day that starts out dark is behind the curve.

Violence is one of the leading causes of death for absolute rulers. Three of Islam's first four "rightly guided" Caliphs died violently. The number of English and Scottish kings who died of violence is so extensive it would take a lot of time to research.

Beware of the soulless sociopaths of socialistic states.

My weight is like gas prices, going up in big jumps, back down in small increments.

Be most cautious of those things you believe without question.

Infidels trying to placate Islam is like Jews trying to placate the National Socialists or blacks trying to placate the Democrat-founded Klan.

They keep saying we have too many blacks in prison. The solution is simple. We just make it legal for blacks to commit robbery, sell drugs, assault and commit murder. Since most of their victims are decent black folks or other black thugs, it won't hurt us White Privilege folks too much. But I bet the number of concealed carry licenses goes up in black neighborhoods.

Just as some people are born ugly of face, others may be fair in appearance, but are born ugly of heart and deficient of soul. Better the first.

To hell with Drugs and Rock and Roll, give me Folk and Alcohol!

The Democrats used to "lean left" as the commentators say. No longer. The party is now so far left it has to pretend to lean a little right to keep the low-info voters in line.

Most of my mail asks for money. Most of the organizations writing don't get it.

The choice in the Middle East seems to always be between oppressive dictators who don't make trouble for us and more oppressive theocracies that make trouble for everyone. Faced with two bad choices, Obama/Clinton/Kerry always choose the greater of two evils.

Funny how the same "liberals" who said it was racist to disagree with Obama's policies, and that saying anything negative about him made you a "hater," now feel free to call Ben Carson stupid, nuts, crazy, and insane. Imagine their reaction if you said that about Obama. Well, don't imagine--some right-wingers did, to the predictable response.

The people who complain the loudest about being offended are those who most enjoy the opportunity it gives them to play they victim. They see a benefit to themselves from being offended.

You cannot separate politics from economics. If you don't understand economics, your political opinions are worthless. And if your political opinions shape your economic thinking rather than the other way around, you are intellectually dishonest.

Inside every progressive is a Stalin or Mao, biding his time.

My take on modern art: If I could do it, it ain't art!

A lot of Republicans are mush more interested in throwing people they consider RINOs--Republicans who don't agree with them on every issue--out of the party than they are in throwing Progressives out of the government. Once they do the party will be pure. So will the government--Pure Progressive. Until the fiscal collapse. Then my most likely scenario is local warlords.

People who feel compelled to aggressively proselytize their faith--including the deeply held, fervently believed faith that there is no God--seem to me to often be insecure in their beliefs, preaching more to reassure themselves than convert the unenlightened.

When Progressives say they are looking for new ideas, they mean they are looking for new justifications for old ideas that have repeatedly failed, but which the clink to as articles of quasi-religious faith. I have seen their future--and it doesn't work, to paraphrase an old liberal quote about the Soviets.

Life is more perilous for those who seek truth than for those who seek gold.

Get the collection! My “Random Thoughts” from 2008 through July, 2013 are collected in this book: The Old Jarhead's Journal: Random Thoughts on Life, Liberty, and Leadership by Robert A. Hall
The Old Jarhead’s Journal is a collection of Random Thoughts on politics and life and Conservative Political Essays, mostly published on the author’s blog, including the essay “I’m Tired” which went viral on the Internet in 2009, “The Hall Platform,” “This I Believe,” and “Why I’m a Republican.” While they will be of interest to conservative thinkers, they are collected here in book form as a service to readers who wish to give a copy to favorite liberals and watch their heads explode. All royalties are donated to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund.

*****


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://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-American-Republic-prevent/dp/1461122538/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304815980&sr=1-5 For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s eleven books are listed here: http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html. His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

The GOP Debate and more political news and opinion

Important: Paul Ryan elected House speaker

Regardless of what you think about Ryan, the old myth that "the office seeks the man" seems to be true in this case. But should we congratulate him or commiserate with him? ~Bob

Worth Reading: Why Inequality Is the Democrats’ Dilemma. By John C. Goodman 
Excerpt: So why is anyone claiming that inequality is our most important problem? Because the chattering class has decided that stoking envy is the only way to energize the Democratic Party. Think about the problems we really do have: runaway entitlement spending, poor public schools, welfare dependency, an overly burdensome tax system and anemic economic growth. In every case the solutions we are debating come from the right: Privatization, school vouchers, tough love, a flat tax and lower taxes on capital. ... In a Brookings Institution study, Peter Orszag (former chief economist for President Obama) and his colleagues discovered that if you raised the top tax rate from 40 percent to 50 percent and redistributed that money to people at the bottom, the top 1 percent's share of income would only decline from 16.4 to 15.6 percent. The Gini coefficient (the numerical measure of inequality) would change so little you would have to squint to see it. In other words, you can’t solve the problem by taxing the rich. If taxation is your only tool, you have to break again one of Barack Obama’s frequently broken promises and raise taxes on the middle class.

Interesting: A breakout moment for Cruz and Rubio, but will GOP voters respond?
Excerpt: For most of this year, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) have been lurking in the background of the Republican presidential campaign. On Wednesday night, they broke out into the open, delivering strong and forceful performances in a raucous and rambling Republican debate marked by squabbling and sharp elbows.
Both Rubio and Cruz have won modest plaudits for their performances in the first two debates, but there was a demonstrable difference in what unfolded on the stage at the University of Colorado. They outshone Donald Trump and Ben Carson, the leaders in the polls, and Rubio overshadowed his onetime mentor, former Florida governor Jeb Bush.

MARCO RUBIO CRUSHES JEB BUSH IN CNBC DEBATE

PROOF: NBC DEBATE MODERATOR JOHN HARWOOD LIED ABOUT RUBIO’S TAX PLAN

TRUMP WALKS BACKS FROM LOW-IMMIGRATION, HIGH-WAGE PLAN
At the CNBC Republican primary debate, Donald Trump walked away from two critical elements of his immigration policy. He downsized his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, and he disavowed his prior commitment to curb corporate use of foreign university graduates.

The Debate: ROCKY MOUNTAIN STATE DA BAIT. By Col. Andy Weddington, USMC (Ret)

Worth Subscribing To: Bad Debates with Bad Moderators Can Be Edifying, Too. By Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt
Maybe the best thing you can say about last night’s debate is that the GOP candidates demonstrated they could get through two hours of mostly hostile questioning. ... This was indisputably the worst-moderated debate of this young cycle, and perhaps the worst-moderated debate ever. Brent Bozell called it “an encyclopedic example of liberal media bias on stage.” If the moderators at the next Democratic debate exhibit one-half of the hostility, skepticism, and disdain that the CNBC ones did last night, Hillary, Sanders, and O’Malley will have on-stage meltdowns. As Jonah observed, it’s fascinating that Marco Rubio gets a question about his personal finances long after that New York Times story generated scoffing and skepticism, while Hillary Clinton didn’t get a single question about donors to the Clinton Foundation and conveniently timed State Department policy changes. Because of this, Ted Cruz won the night when he took a rhetorical flamethrower to the moderators, spelling out the dismissive, DNC-talking-point-style questions they had posed to each candidate. He contrasted it with the comparative softballs the Democrats received from CNN. The audience in the hall agreed and judging from the reaction on Twitter, a lot of viewers at home were applauding, too. It was Cruz’s best moment of his campaign so far. Besides that fantastic moment, Cruz just seemed to be dramatically better last night: His answers were concise, succinct, and direct; he hit the right emotional notes. When a guy gets this much better so fast, you usually want him to pee in a cup to see if he’s juicing. Marco Rubio had the second-best moment of the night when he declared, “Democrats have their own SuperPAC, it’s called the mainstream media.” (Morning Jolt is a free e-newsletter. ~Bob)

Interesting: Winners and losers from the third Republican presidential debate. By Chris Cillizza, Washington Post
Excerpt: Winners: Marco Rubio: The senator from Florida was good in the first two debates. He was outstanding in this one. The long-awaited showdown between Rubio and Bush wound up being a romp; Jeb tried to attack on Rubio's Senate attendance but got schooled by a very well-prepared Rubio. Rubio repeatedly took tough questions and turned them to his advantage, finding ways to tell his compelling personal story and steer the conversation toward what the GOP needs to do to beat Hillary Clinton. Rubio, as I've long noted, is the most naturally talented candidate in either party's field; he showed it tonight. Ted Cruz: Cruz had the single most memorable moment of the debate when, early on, he took on the CNBC moderators for the alleged "gotcha" questions they were asking. It drew a huge response in the debate hall and outside of it — and set the stage for a litany of attacks against the media from Cruz's rivals as the night wore on.

True, this: CNBC’s really bad debate night. By Aaron Blake, Washington Post

Front-runner Ben Carson keeps his signature cool in raucous GOP debate

Here is Ben Carson's speech before the National Press Club. Over 30 minutes long.  Insightful. --EK

Tolerant Liberals: Ben Carson is insane, nuts, crazy.
Funny how the same "liberals" who said it was racist to disagree with Obama's policies, and that saying anything negative about him made you a "hater," now feel free to call Ben Carson stupid, nuts, crazy, and insane. Imagine their reaction if you said that about Obama. Well, don't imagine--some right-wingers did, to the predictable response. ~Bob

Facebook Post from Tim Cavanaugh
I'm not for any candidate or any party or any news organization. I'm just noting that the P.B.S. News Hour uses the phrase "Dr. Jill Biden" to describe an Ed.D. from the University of Delaware but does not use the phrase "Dr. Ben Carson" to describe the former [director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins].

California Signs Law Allowing Illegals To Vote
It's not fair to make illegals come here to vote. We should set up polling places in their home countries, open for say two weeks, no idea, so they can vote as often as they wish. It's the Democratic way. ~Bob

Annual Firearm-related Homicide Down Nearly 50 Percent Over the Past 20-Years
Excerpt: On October 21, Pew Research Center released findings that show the annual rate of firearm-related homicides in America declined by nearly 50 percent between 1993 and 2013. That’s the same time period in which The Washington Post (WaPo) reported that firearm ownership doubled in the United States.

Meet “Project Exile”: The Proven, Effective Anti-Gun Crime Proposal That Liberals Hate
http://louderwithcrowder.com/meet-project-exile-the-proven-effective-anti-gun-crime-proposal-that-liberals-hate/
I published a column about this about 15 years ago. ~Bob

Black Pastor Bans #BlackLivesMatter. Demands Apology for…

Three charged with circumcising girls committed to stand trial

Ex-House Speaker Hastert pleads guilty in hush-money case

Marine Corps' new helicopter completes its first flight
This is real technical progress for the Corps.  When the first Super Stallion choppers got to Nam, they amazed everyone with what they could do.  Now this model is much better in several ways.  I used to work where they design and build the special bearings for the rotor heads, which is great technology.  You can fire a 23mm AP round right through those bearings and you can still fly for at least 20 minutes. These choppers make our guys faster, safer, more able to do the work. --Del. Tad better than the old CH 34 Sea Horse chopper I flew in from the Iwo Jima in DaNang harbor. ~Bob

Bipartisan Bill: When you can’t fix stupid
Excerpt:  Proving he has learned nothing, our chief executive last week vetoed the new Defense Authorization Act. That enactment pays the salaries of our troops and buys the bullets, beans and black oil they use to fight ISIS and al Qaeda. Unschooled and unskilled in defense matters, President Obama is a Grimm fairy tale of what happens when a community organizer in chief is horribly miscast as the commander in chief.

With Progressive Education and Common Core, its hard for student to remember if it's four or five Pillars of Islam they have to know. ~Bob

'Hero' US jet pilot saved farmer's life during crash
And another good man goes down...Apparently, he was steering to avoid buildings in the area, and didn’t eject until the last moment. He had just returned from flying strikes against IS. --Jim

Worth Hearing: The next generation

S.C. sheriff fires officer who threw student across a classroom
Of course, we were only shown the action part, don't know what else transpired, but it looked a little excessive to me. In the clip I saw, I couldn't make out the race or even gender of the student. But as soon as I heard that Obama's DOJ was involved, I knew. Black officer/black student, or black officer/white student or white officer/white student would all have meant no DOJ involvement in a local matter. And if the officer is eventually cleared, as the DOJ cleared the white officer in the Michael Brown shooting, it won't matter. The left and black community still think he was at fault. ~Bob

Language Alert: A Message To OBAMA
No notes or teleprompter. This guy tells it like he believes it is. There is a small amount of salty Navy language that probably couldn’t be helped, so be advised. --Greg

After Muslim Truckers Refuse to Deliver Beer… Obama Does the Unbelievable.

Dennis Ross: Critics were right about Obama, Iran and Israel
Excerpt: Dennis Ross, former senior adviser to President Obama, arguably should have come out strongly against the Iran deal — and advised Hillary Clinton (he served in her husband’s administration) that the administration was not leveling with the American people. His interview with the Times of Israel is revealing.

Obama in Secret Pact With World’s Largest Muslim Country
Excerpt: But neither Congress nor the public have been allowed to see the final agreement the administration has negotiated. The president has not released the text of the agreement or the numerous side agreements attached to the TPP.

Worth Reading: Can Hillary Clinton Complete The Fundamental Transformation? Has this country already turned the dangerous corner? By Bruce Thornton
Excerpt: Just as they did after the first Democrat debate, the Public Relations and Marketing Division of the Democrat Party––otherwise known as the mainstream media––fell all over themselves declaring Clinton’s victory over her Democrat rivals and the Republican Party. Ignored were the damning admissions that were revealed, particularly the irrefutable evidence that Clinton knew the Benghazi attack was planned by terrorists and not a spontaneous reaction to what Clinton called “an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with,” the big lie spun by State and the White House to protect Obama’s campaign for reelection. So now a full year from November 8, 2016 the Dems have all but anointed Hillary to be our next president, based on this despicable display of mendacity, hauteur, and uncontrolled giggling. If they are right, then this country will have turned a dangerous corner on the road to abandoning our republican heritage of limited government, federalism, and personal freedom.

Get your programs! Syria conflict: Iran to attend talks in Vienna
Excerpt: It will be the first time Iran - an ally of President Bashar al-Assad - has attended such a summit with the US. Representatives of Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will also attend the talks. Earlier, the US said an invitation had been extended to Iran - a move Syria's Western-backed opposition questioned. (You can't tell who's fighting who without a program. The choice in the Middle East seems to always be between oppressive dictators who don't make trouble for us and more oppressive theocracies that make trouble for everyone. Faced with two bad choices, Obama/Clinton/Kerry always choose the greater of two evils. ~Bob)

WaPo Fact Checker: Hillary Clinton’s claim that DOMA had to be enacted to stop an anti-gay marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Excerpt: Where Clinton’s statement becomes problematic is when she says “there was certainly evidence to support” that “there was enough political momentum to amend the Constitution of the United States of America, and that there had to be some way to stop that.” This broader characterization of events frames the political momentum toward a constitutional amendment as so prevalent that DOMA had to be enacted as a defensive measure to stop the bubbling movement. That’s absolutely wrong — and thus tipped us to Four Pinocchios.

Russian Ships Near Data Cables Are Too Close for U.S. Comfort. By David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt

Excerpt: You're probably all read by now that our government masters have decreed that there won't be a Cost of Living increase for social security recipients this year, only the third such freeze in the last 40 years. The cause?  The Treasury Department has announced prices are low; the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is rosy, and those old people can get along without a raise....even if they do have to pay higher Medicare premiums. With regard to prices, certainly, thanks to those damn "frackerss", our gas prices are down.  However, have you taken a good look at the price of eggs, dairy, chicken and hamburger lately?  How's your water and electric bill faring?  How's that 25% bump up in your Obamacare premiums working out for you?

Alert Bernie Sanders: Denmark denies citizenship to Muslim who wants to replace democracy with Islamic law

20,000 Israelis sue Facebook for “Palestinian” jihad incitement. By Robert Spencer, JihadWatch.org
Excerpt: The video below shows some of the incitement that led to this lawsuit. While counter-jihadists are frequently suspended or have their pages taken down altogether from Facebook, this naked incitement to hatred and murder is just fine in Zuckerbergland. No incitement to murder, no calls for violence against innocent civilians, should ever be tolerated against anyone. But when it comes to inciting violence against Israelis, it seems to be fine with almost everyone. (I'm retired. I have time for jury duty. ~Bob

Al-Shabaab faction pledges loyalty to the Islamic State after murdering 150 Christian students. By Robert Spencer, JihadWatch.org
Excerpt: The Islamic State has already won the loyalty of Boko Haram in Nigeria and many other jihad groups worldwide. Its claim to be the caliphate is validated every day, in the eyes of those who accept that claim, by the fact that none of those who have vowed to destroy the Islamic State have yet managed to do so.

Muslim preschool girl holds knife, says “I want to stab a Jew.” By Robert Spencer, JihadWatch.org
Excerpt: Raised in a culture of hatred and bloodlust, what will she be as an adult? Note also that her father, who was no doubt thrilled by this savage little display, is a teacher. With what values is he imbuing his students?

Australian media covers up fact that man with meat cleaver who smashed cafe windows called himself “messiah of Islam.” By Robert Spencer, JihadWatch.org

Must Read: An Awful Enthusiasm: Toward the separation of celebrity and state. By Kevin Williamson
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426148/celebrity-worship-corrosive-influence-politics-archcitecture
Excerpt: But Gehry nonetheless was chosen to design the Eisenhower monument in Washington. That particular debacle is the result of celebrity multiplied by celebrity: When the time came to choose a committee to oversee the commissioning of the Eisenhower monument, the powers that be named Billy Crystal to it, along with Jerry Speyer and Jon Corzine. Crystal is a comedian, Corzine a financier who misplaces the occasional $1.5 billion, and Speyer is a real-estate developer who collects modern art made of garbage. They all have their virtues, to be sure (well, not Corzine), but none of them makes an especially good fit for the soldier who insisted on being buried in a standard-issue wooden army coffin wearing no medals or insignia. But these sorts of monuments aren’t really about the person they purport to honor; they are about the self-aggrandizement of the people who commission such monuments and oversee their development. Celebrity isn’t the enemy of the public good only, or even most significantly, on questions of taste. Minus the hypnotic power of celebrity, there would be no Donald Trump presidential campaign. Trump is a real-estate developer with a spotty record and a long history of the worst sort of crony capitalism, but he is famous — terribly famous. What is he famous for? He was transformed from a minor business figure little known outside of New York City into a nationally famous figure because of a tabloid divorce case that revealed him to be a man willing to betray his family in the cruelest and most callous way, and by a series of embarrassing business bankruptcies, most notably that of the hideous Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, the Mount Everest of bad taste. 


ALL TALK: FEWER GUN CRIME PROSECUTIONS UNDER OBAMA THAN GEORGE W. BUSH

Yes, Polling Trajectory Shows Bernie Sanders Defeating Hillary Clinton and Winning the Democratic Nomination

Keep Calm and Carry: Obama Plots Crime Increase. In violence-torn Chicago, president advocates releasing criminals from jail. By Aaron Stanley
Our crime rate will soar. Crime has gone down in past years because many bad guys were in prison. --Don

The Employer Mandate Is Having No Effect On The Percent With Health Insurance At Work. By John C. Goodman

Worth Reading: The War Against the Jewish Trees. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: You might think that the obstacles to peace are the rockets from Gaza and the brutal murders of Jews. You might be foolish enough to think that the obstacles are the ordinary Muslims who taunted and beat Adelle Banita-Bennett, suddenly widowed at 22, trying to escape the Muslim terrorist who had just murdered her husband. You might think that it’s the fact that a majority of Muslims in ’67 Israel spit on the Two-State Solution and that PLO boss Abbas rejected the Oslo Accords in a speech at the United Nations.

Communist Slavery? Hardly News: North Koreans sent abroad into 'forced labour', says UN
When the left comes to power, the power becomes absolute. And the coercion increases as they force the people to do what the leaders think is good for them. But the leaders always live very well. ~Bob

The Religion of Peace: Muslim preacher: “Oh Allah, annihilate the Jews…let us kill them”

Journalist Stoned While Trying To Film In Swedish No Go Zone,” by Liam Deacon
Muslim rapist to victim: “Islam allows it and we will do it”

UK: Muslim sex attacker dodges deportation by claiming to be a Syrian refugee
Coming soon to your neighborhood, courtesy of Obama and Kerry. ~Bob

76-YEAR-OLD CONNECTICUT PRINCIPAL PROMOTING "COEXISTENCE" MURDEREDBY MUSLIM TERRORISTS. You can't co-exist with people who want to kill you. By Daniel Greenfield

My take on modern art: If I could do it, it ain't art. ~Bob

Satire: Military Hiring Linguists To Translate Military Instructions



Tuesday, October 27, 2015

A lot of not-to-be-missed news and opinion

Wisconsin Autumn

When the moon is full of bluster
And the wind its bidding does,
Then the birling leaves will muster
For the dance that ever was.

Then you know the Iceman's coming,
With a breath that chills the soul.
With the sun our faces shunning,
Bank your fires with Spring the goal.

Robert A. Hall
Madison WI
10/27/15

"Birling" is a British/Scots word for spinning or swirling.

My latest culinary effort--Yankee Pot Roast


Why Liberals Should Love Donald Trump. By Robert A. Hall

Worth Reading (with part one): Building an Organization for the Long Term (Part II). By Tom Kratman
http://www.everyjoe.com/2015/10/26/politics/building-military-organization-for-long-term/#1
Excerpt: Be sure to read Part I of this series. Hamilton’s first step, in what was a program about as complex as the problem it purported to solve, was to simplify his squad leaders’ jobs. (Tom Kratman is a retired USA LtCol, an occasional contributor to this blog, and an outstand author of military science fiction, including the A Desert Called Peace series. http://www.amazon.com/Desert-Called-Peace-Carrera-Book-ebook/dp/B00B5HJOFY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426715332&sr=8-1&keywords=Peace+Kratman ~Bob)

Interesting: Why are doctors afraid of the word “death”?
My comment on their site: The whole society is afraid of using the "D" word. Notice how many obits say George "Passed Away" as though George went to the drug store and will be right back. Or at worst, moved to the west coast. I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 06/2006, a usually-terminal illness that kills more people than breast cancer, though BC gets 80 times as much research funding, as it has a largely defined victim group while PF is an equal opportunity killer. I had a lung transplant 12/23/13 through the VA and came very close to death on 05/26/14 when I had to go on a breathing ventilator. I have improved since then; I'm not real well but off O2 and not in the VA hospital since 07/07/14. I have my affairs in order, and my obit written, plus a message for my friends. I forbid anyone to use the euphemism "passed away," but I said that croaked, went toes up, bought the farm, went west, etc. are fine. Having volunteered for Vietnam as a Marine, and being almost 70 with PF, I'm well beyond my sell-by date, been in the check-out line for several years. With a masters in history, I know that no individual and no organization lasts forever, though we are still on the first republic, a tad better than, say, France. Still, it seems to me that the USA in its historic form is winding down, as unimaginable to most Americans as the end of the empire was for Roman citizens at the time. But it is inevitable, like our own deaths, and the current debt of $18T, plus the unfunded liabilities for Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and Social Security, which are promised but are not considered debt, run from $87T to $240T, depending on who estimates and how far out. Couple this with the fiscal and social pressure of Jihadist terrorism, waves of illegal immigrants who have no desire or skills to assimilate and the rise of a China determined to dominate the East, possible the world, and the fiscal situation becomes impossible. It will go fast after the tipping point, when politicians will still be debating global warming and gay marriage. When we can no longer borrow to cover the promises, the government will print money faster than Weimer Germany (I recently bought $950M in Zimbabwe currency on EBay for eight bucks). That will lead to fiscal, political, economic and social collapse, followed by riots, famine, pestilence and violence. Death will, as in the dark ages, become as common as fleas and will be spoken of as a commonplace by the survivors. See: "The West and the Tyranny of Public Debt" http://www.newsweek.com/2010/12/27/the-west-and-the-tyranny-of-public-debt.html
I fear the country is going to "pass away." I will link to this from my Old Jarhead blog. (www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com) Robert A. Hall, USMC 1964-68, USMCR, 1977-83
Massachusetts Senate, 1973-83 Author: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
All royalties go to help wounded veterans For a free PDF of my 80-page book, write tartanmarine(at)gmail.com

Poland elections: Conservatives secure decisive win
Excerpt: Europe's refugee crisis also proved to be a key topic of debate before the election. While the government has agreed to take in 7,000 migrants, opposition parties have spoken out against the move. (The new liberal government in Canada will be more "multicultural," take in more Muslims, leading to more terror attacks and a return to conservatives. ~Bob)

Poland’s Parliament Has Literally Zero Liberals Now
Interesting to see how formerly communist nations have, over decades, moved steadily away from real leftist politics, even though they do have plenty of socialist elements still in their systems.  As do we, of course, since Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, welfare, etc, are socialist elements.  But we are still more a capitalist-friendly and independence oriented society overall, even though the Democrat Party has slid steadily towards leftist ideals and policies. Hopefully we too will be reacting against that in next November. --Del

Worth Hearing: (Rubio) SHOCKED the Senate with this revelation. Now you know.
From the email: Below is an extraordinary speech (of only three minutes) delivered on the floor of the US Senate by US Senator Marco Rubio (FL). He says it all succinctly and delivers a most powerful message about Obama and Iran.

Worth Reading: Goodbye Sweden
Excerpt: This is the last post on this blog. I am leaving Sweden for good shortly, and will no longer be following its descent from what was once the third most prosperous country in the world. Frankly, it’s just too damn depressing.  ... Today, it’s as if the inmates are running the asylum. The politicians are participating in a chicken race of “goodness” where everybody tries to one-up each other in caring for the citizens of OTHER countries while Swedish retirees, school children, handicapped and other vulnerable categories of people are thoroughly ignored. Violence is exploding. Jihadist Trojan horses are flowing through the porous border along with the tens of thousands ID-less refugees. 
But what makes me the most pessimistic about Sweden’s future is how the social fabric itself has been undermined. ... The famous Swedish health care system is a good example. 120 000 hospital beds in the late 1960s became 20 000 today. Cancer patients are put on waiting lists for months. Entire emergency wards shut down for summer.

Worth Hearing: Sweden - Ship of fools. By Pat Condell

Worth Hearing: Sweden goes insane. By Pat Condell

Worth Reading: The Death of Europe. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: European leaders talk about two things these days; preserving European values by taking in Muslim migrants and integrating Muslim migrants into Europe by getting them to adopt European values. It does not occur to them that their plan to save European values depends on killing European values.

Worth Reading: The Rise of House Clinton. By Jonah Goldberg
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418794/gaslighting-america-jonah-goldberg
Excerpt: A truly sociopathic liar (though his sociopathologies hardly end there), Clinton has a gift for making other people feel like there is something wrong with them for objecting to his deceptions. At the outset of the 1990s, liberals had worked themselves into a moral panic about sexual harassment. If anything, it was a bigger obsession than the campus-rape panic we’ve been witnessing over the last few years (no doubt in part because there was more factual basis to the problem). ...  Then, the country was presented with proof, incremental and suggestive at first, overwhelming and indisputable by the end of the decade, that Bill Clinton was an irrepressible and irresponsible sexual predator, at least by the moral and evidentiary standards established by feminist activists and the press corps that loves them. And, rather than face the consequences of applying their own principles consistently, they prostrated themselves to the Oval Office. Gloria Steinem raced to the pages of the New York Times to advance the “one free grope” rule. Susan Estrich, Susan Faludi, and countless other professional feminists defenestrated their principles in a desperate attempt to defend Clinton.

WOODWARD: ‘IT BETTER BOTHER US’ HILLARY SAYS DIFFERENT THINGS PUBLIC AND PRIVATELY

SEAN SMITH’S UNCLE: GLAD HILLARY HAD PARTY AFTER HEARING, TOO BAD MY NEPHEW COULDN’T MAKE IT, ‘EMBARASSED’ AT DEMS

Worth Reading: BUCKET LIST. By Col. Andy Weddington, USMC (Ret)

Seattle Got Their Precious $15 Minimum Wage, But Look What Happened to Jobs
Excerpt: Between January and September of 2015, 700 restaurant industry jobs were lost in the Seattle area. This is especially significant, because over the same period in the past five years from 2010-2014, an average of 3,000-4,000 jobs were gained each year. 9as long as their intentions were good, they care not at all for the results for real people. ~Bob)

O'Reilly to Dems Against Kate's Law: 'How Can You Live with Yourself?'
Excerpt: Bill O'Reilly said a stand-alone vote on Kate's Law would put lawmakers to the test and -- in his opinion -- disqualify any Democratic senators who oppose it from holding office. The proposal would impose a mandatory five-year prison sentence on felons caught trying to re-enter the U.S. after being deported.

Mom of Slain Officer: Killings Must Stop, Blue Lives Matter

NEW ORGAN SCHEDULED FOR OVAL OFFICE

Gallup: Majority Of Americans Believe More Concealed Carry Guns And Background Checks Will Improve Safety

On duty, under fire: A Wisconsin trooper faced down a gunman who planned to go out fighting
Excerpt: Snyder’s killing, as documented in interviews and police reports, is among the 800 fatal shootings by police so far this year. As the tally continues to grow, so does public debate and criticism over police use of deadly force. But only a small number of the shootings — roughly 5 percent — occurred under the kind of circumstances that raise doubt and draw public outcry, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. The vast majority of individuals shot and killed by police officers were, like Snyder, armed with guns and killed after attacking police officers or civilians or making other direct threats.

Worth Seeing: Mother of Killed Palestinian Terrorist Pulls Out Knife in Interview, Threatens to Carry Out Attack

France: Policeman suspended for two years for criticizing the Islamic State’s caliph

EEOC wins $240,000 damages for Muslim truckers fired for not delivering beer
Not like they refused to bake a cake. ~Bob

Australia: School allows Muslim students to leave the room to avoid singing the National Anthem

Islamic State video vows to murder Jews worldwide and “eradicate this disease from the world”

Armed Robber’s Family Is Angry After He Is Shot Robbing A Dollar Store!

New York Appeals Court Rules Murderer Not Guilty Because Six-Day-Old Baby ISN’T Really a Person

Clinton: ‘Republicans Lying – Veterans Are Happy With Medical Treatment’ [Video]
Most vets in Madison, like me, are happy with the local VA. I see a lot nationally that are not. ~Bob

Worth Reading: Sadly, there is no party for Jim Webb. By Cynthia M. Allen
Excerpt: A decade ago, Webb’s centrism, his military service and his interest in political compromise — if only rhetorical — would have been seen as an asset in the Democratic Party. Today, they are reasons to ignore him. Any move toward the center, any suggestion of bipartisanship, is a liability. It’s widely accepted that the nature of contemporary politics has driven the party power structures to the extremes, but this seems most evident in the Democratic Party.

I'm Shocked! Missing Money? Report questions how states spent ObamaCare funds

Iran Marches, Russia Rules, Obama Watches. By Charles Kruthammer
Excerpt: Guess who just popped up in the Kremlin? Bashar al-Assad, Syrian dictator and destroyer, now Vladimir Putin’s newest pet. After four years holed up in Damascus, Assad was summoned to Russia to bend a knee to Putin, show the world that today Middle East questions get settled not in Washington but in Moscow, and officially bless the Russian-led four-nation takeover of Syria now underway.

After a strong stretch for Clinton, Sanders turns more aggressive

Excerpt: I was somewhat amazed to read this morning Google was inundated with "Hillary Emails" search inquiries on the night of the Democratic debate.  Seems that millions of Americans had never heard of Hillary's email problems, of her private server, of potential Russian and Chinese cyber hacks into her private server.  How is that possible?  So I dug a little more.  Found out that Politico ran the numbers on this.  And they came to the startling conclusion that very little coverage has been given to this issue in the main stream media...with only Fox News giving the subject much coverage, complemented by sparse coverage on CNN.  

Correction: Snopes says the item below, which I included in my last post, is not true
NEW JERSEY School bans Halloween because it is offensive to Muslims

Excerpt: AFP reports that the United Nations have voted to deploy peacekeeping forces known as Blue Helmets to defend world heritage sites from attacks by ISIS terrorists. (If not farce, it will be tragedy. ~Bob)

Interesting: Has the United States lost its best friend to its biggest rival?
Excerpt: Britain has seen itself as the United States’ best friend on the international scene for more than a century. I had thought that we British overdid its importance — till I heard the president of the United States tell an audience in the House of Commons in May 2013 that it was special, very special, “because of the values and beliefs that have united our people through the ages”. That doesn’t seem to have stood the test of time. This past year has been special only for the  disquiet that’s crept into the relationship, as successive high U.S. officials deplored cuts to the UK’s defense capacity. Then, in March, the disquiet became acrimony, as the UK headed the list of Western states to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment bank, with only minimal warning to the United States. One senior official spoke of a “constant accommodation” of China by the Brits.

BEN CARSON: I’D ‘RELISH’ GENERAL ELECTION MATCHUP WITH HILLARY, THE ‘POSTER CHILD’ OF DISHONESTY

AMERICAN FLAG REPLACED WITH ‘UNAPOLOGETICALLY BLACK’ FLAG DURING CHICAGO #STOPTHECOPS PROTESTS

From the left: America is changing its mind on Israel: How Netanyahu is alienating his most essential ally

Denmark: Muslim mob attacks police car, shots fired at Shia march

France: Muslim screaming “Allahu akbar” & “Kill the Jews” stabs Jew, punches rabbi

Sharia Toronto: Cabbies turning away passengers with seeing-eye dogs
I do wish a gay couple had the courage to demand a cake from a Muslim bakery. ~Bob

Bernie Sanders' 'Medicare For All' Would Be A Disaster For All

Democrat sexism? Sanders: I am not 'shouting' at Hillary Clinton

NO WHITE HOUSE INVITE: Kid's Invention is Life-Changing for Vets With PTSD

CONCEALED PERMIT HOLDERS OFFERED A DISCOUNT AFTER RESTAURANT IS ROBBED

76-Year-Old Woman Confronted By 3 Attackers Opts To Take Matters Into Own Hands (Photos)

#SJW ‘Thought-Police’ Suspend Student For Facebook Picture… With a Gun.
http://louderwithcrowder.com/sjw-thought-police-suspend-student-for-facebook-picture-with-a-gun/
Excerpt: The problem however is the pictures were taken with members of the Canadian Armed Forces who were at Brysen’s school, for career day. “The army came to his career class and the end of September he posted pictures on his Facebook and then I get a message saying he can’t come to school because there was guns and stuff on it.”

Worth Reading: An open letter to President Obama: We can hear your deafening silence
http://examiner-enterprise.com/everett-piper/open-letter-president-obama-we-can-hear-your-deafening-silence
Excerpt: Mr. President, this past Thursday, Chris Harper Mercer entered a classroom at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, and proceeded to ask his fellow students to stand up if they were Christians. When they stood, he shot them in the head. A few moments later, in Washington D.C., you took to the stage. Your remarks lasted slightly over twelve minutes and in those comments you said absolutely nothing about Christians. Nothing. A 12-minute speech and not one word about those who were targeted for execution. Mr. President, Christians are being beheaded in the Middle East and you have lectured us about the Crusades. Christians have been killed in Charleston and you have preached to us about the National Rifle Association. Christians have now been singled out and murdered in Oregon and mum’s the word. Why? What would you have said, Mr. President, had the victims been Muslims? What would you have said had they been targeted because they were transgender, gay or wearing a hoodie?

DEA agents caught in Colombian prostitution scandal punished with… bonuses
Excerpt: This is the exact kind of thing that drives every normal US taxpayer crazy.  Apparently anything less than having sex with a baby animal on your desk during working hours while wrecked on crack just means some time on paid leave until they whitewash it, or give you the most gentle slap on the wrist, and then the promotion or bonus or new job or some combination.  This has gotten to be past ridiculous, and you wonder if anyone in Congress is ever going to go after this kind of total crap. Del

Graphic video: Islamic State executes man by running him over with tank, justifies act by quoting Qur’an

Raymond Ibrahim: Direct Experience — The One Benefit of Accepting Muslim Migrants
Excerpt: A silver lining exists in the dust cloud being beat up by the marching feet of millions of Muslim men migrating into the West: those many Europeans and Americans, who could never understand Islam in theory, will now have the opportunity to understand it through direct and personal experience. Perhaps then they will awaken to reality? The fact is, most Western people have had very little personal interaction with Muslims.

WHO KILLED THE LIBERAL ARTS?
We've all heard that things in colleges and universities have been slanted in many places to PC and serious Liberalism (which is different from the 1964 Liberalism I shared).  This video provides some input that blew me away.  Can this really be happening in our best schools?  Can college students be denied the experience of the cultural greats of Western Civilization, whose thoughts were the foundation for the society in which we live and by which we all benefit? Please take a gander at this, see what you think. --Del

The McCarthyism of Liberal Catholic Elites. By Rod Dreher 
Being the old fashioned pain in the butt type who prefers to actually understand what went on, I looked up the NYTimes letter that is the subject of the article below.  There was nothing in it about heresy, there was simple questioning of the possibility of making what would truly be a critical change in Church policy, contrary to the millennia of doctrine.  That is, will the Pope allow divorced and remarried people to receive communion before their marriage is formally annulled? The outraged attack on the writer is so beyond reasonable understanding that I have to say I just don't understand it at all.  What in hell are they so mad about?  I don't have a degree in Theology or Church history either, but the 8 years of required Theology courses did leave me with some capacity to understand the discussion.  The letter writer's opinion is that the Pope and some others are moving towards a huge change in policy; if so, that would indeed be very, very strange.  He doesn't claim to know it's going to happen, he suggests that's the way Francis and others are thinking.  He gets to speculate on things without somehow being a rabid attacker of the Pope or the Church. So I remain puzzled and uneasy about this kind of response by so many people who do have positions in the Church or are experts of sorts about it.  If anyone can explain this to me, I'd be happy to listen. --Del

The Decriminalization Delusion. America doesn’t have an incarceration problem—it has a crime problem. By Heather Mac Donald
Are there some people in jail with long sentences, especially federal jails, for nonviolent drug offenses, basically growing or distributing marijuana?  Absolutely. But is the current belief valid, that our jails are all overcrowded by people in for minor offenses yet with long sentences?  I've heard this a lot and was starting to think it might be true, but below is a very detailed article that presents the hard data. I did know from friends in law enforcement that a big chunk of criminal prosecutions are "dealt down" so that people caught for various offenses often spend much less time in jail than their actual criminal act would call for.  And at other times, prosecutors decline to press the case because there's not the full set of unimpeachable evidence that guarantees a conviction.  So some criminals may get arrested several times before they finally get convicted and go to jail. The article below presents a lot of hard facts and solid statistics that tell us that while there may well be a problem with some people getting sentences longer than really appropriate, that is not a huge situation in the system overall.  And with police and prosecutors backing off even more from enforcing the laws, and more criminals getting out early or not going in at all, anyone who doesn't expect crime to rise is living in a dream world.  This may get very messy in the coming future. --Del

Note to Democrats: disagreeing with Carson is racist, just as you called us racists for disagreeing with Obama's policies. ~Bob

CNN: ISIS TIES FOES TO ANCIENT PALMYRA COLUMNS AND BLOWS THEM UP

Important: Angry China shadows U.S. warship near man-made islands

Allies vs. Allies: Turkey confirms shelling Kurdish fighters in Syria

Funny: ‘JEOPARDY!’ CONTESTANT GIVES HILARIOUSLY WRONG ANSWER TO QUESTION ABOUT LIBERALS
Excerpt: A woman’s incorrect answer to a Final Jeopardy question about liberals gave the audience a good laugh, and even elicited a chuckle from stoic host Alex Trebek.

Satire: Army Agrees to Accept 20,000 Syrian Migrants To Meet Retention Goals
http://www.duffelblog.com/2015/10/army-accepts-20000-refugees-retention/#ixzz3pfxm5mvw
Excerpt: Early Wednesday, Pentagon officials announced that the Army will spend $2 billion this year to recruit 20,000 migrants currently fleeing Syria in an attempt to meet their retention goal for fiscal year 2015. “We have tried everything so far but keep falling short,” said Maj. Gen. Thomas Semands, commander of Army Human Resources Command. “I’ve let in all the gays, transgendereds, and everyone in between. We’re even pretending we will let women serve in the infantry. I guess the next step is to let the deserters of other nations join, eh?” When told that his microphone was live, Semands added, “What I really mean is, you know, diversity is our strength!”

Satire: New ‘Gender Neutral’ Latrines Will Require Troops To Sit While They Pee