Sunday, January 31, 2016

Random Thoughts for February

Random Thoughts for February 2016. By Robert A. Hall
Feel free to post or forward.

Well, after Monday the Iowa Circuses will be over until 2020.

When I was the age of today's college students, if I wanted a "safe space" I had to dig it myself. And be prepared to defend it.

2015 will be remembered as the year when Donald Trump (after decades of supporting Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and liberal causes such as the illegal immigrant Dreamers, universal and single-payer healthcare, big government and crony capitalism, the Iran Deal, and abortion, plus bashing George Bush and Reagan) became a conservative. At least he said he did. But them he also once said Oprah would be a great vice president.

If Trump is the nominee, what will be his response when the Democrat runs ads with clips of Trump saying how great Obama is and that Hillary would be a great president?

I don't want you to think that the campaign has made me tired of Donald Trump. I was tired of the narcissistic, progressive, Clinton-loving blowhard decades ago.

No matter who is elected president in 2016, within six months people on the far left or on the far right will be calling for impeachment.

If Sanders really wants to beat Clinton, he should self-identify as black. Seriously, the left accepts Caitlin Jenner as a woman, and Rachel Dolezal as black because they say their are. So if Bernie said he was black, they'd have to accept it. After all, black leaders sided with Rachel. Then he could take a lot of the black vote from Clinton, and lock up the nomination, maybe the presidency.

There are things in life worth fighting for. For example to protect our families or the freedoms--all of them--in the Bill of Rights. Whose sports team is best is not among the things worth fighting for. Not even close.

In 1972, I was elected to the Massachusetts Senate, defeating an incumbent by 9 votes out of 60,000 in a 4-1 Democrat district. In 1974, the pols and pundits assumed I was a fluke and would be gone. But I won by 10,000 votes and carried every city and town in the district, including Ward Five, which the Democrat represented on the Fitchburg City Council. Oh, yes, his name was Bernie.

Liberals suffer from ADHD. "Addled Democrat Hillary Disorder."

I'm surprised Bernie Sanders hasn't adopted "16 to 1" as a slogan. (Extra credit if you get it.)

You have to be a little crazy to stay sane in today's world.

You can say this about Obama. ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran, Syria and Putin never humiliated him. He built that himself.

Pushing the elevator button several times will not make the elevator come faster. Turning the thermostat past the temperature you want the place at will not make it get warmer or cooler any faster. Oh, and those little arrows? They tell you which way the elevator is going. Mechanical things respond not at all to magical thinking.

The only thing consistent in politics is inconsistency.

If "Gun Free Zone" signs work, how come you never see liberals putting one up in front of their homes?

If Obama had been president in 1860, he would have refused to wage war on the South for fear of civilian casualties and environmental damage. The US would have become two countries, one the free Republican North and the other the Slave Democrat south. Slavery would have persisted in North America until perhaps 1900. And if the Confederate army had taken Washington, Obama and his family might have died in slavery.

When people say, "Everybody knows," they are usually building walls to protect a lie.

My wife's health insurance premium just went up $90 a month. She's 64. Thank you, Obamacare.

Why don't Democrats want blacks and Hispanics to fly? Well, they are putting in even tougher ID requirements at airports and all the liberals tell us that minorities are not competent enough to get ID, so...

Iowa and NH voters have a lot of power as the first primary states. And they are states with relatively few minority voters. Time for a #BlackVotesMatter movement?

Being retired I don't get snow days. Well, maybe I can skip rehab if it's bad....

I'm not a perfectionist. I don't think perfection is achievable, even if you knew what it was. But I'm an improvementist. I believe that every individual and every organization can improve every day.

People say that you should have routine checkups with your primary healthcare provider. Scary idea. Do you know how many people are dead with something that started with a "routine checkup"?

A lot of people believe you should, "live in the moment." But people who live mostly "in the moment" find their moments getting steadily worse. They can't delay gratification, making sacrifices now to have a better future. Then they are surprised when the future comes and it is harsh and poor. This they call "bad luck."

From an academic blog reader the day before the SOTU: I just turned down a ticket to sit on the stage with President Obama tomorrow. "After I'm Gone," to quote the song by Joey Feek, I want anyone who happens to remember me to think, "He lived by his Wyatt Earp Code."

People keep trying to sanitize the past according to their lights of what is correct today. New Orleans takes down statutes of Confederate Leaders, ISIS blows up ancient temples, the Taliban destroy the priceless statutes of Buddha, Mount McKinley is renamed "The High One".... Soon the Washington Redskins will be the Washington Sniveling Bureaucrats...

A progressive revolution usually only means different folks standing in front of the firing squad or holding the rifles.

The media long ago gave up speaking truth to power. They now are on the progressive PC leash and speak opinions as facts and spoon-fed talking points as gospel.

Too many people suffer from LLDD: Liberal Logic-Deficit Disorder.

From the Internet: The media seems to think that Allah Akbar is Arabic for "Nothing to do with Islam."

Remember that in America, you are innocent until the media convicts you. Ask Darren Wilson.

Since the Supreme Court has made Gay Marriage legal in all states, we shouldn't admit any refugees who oppose it. Or who opposes equal rights for women.

Narcissism is the root of all evil. But to run for public office, especially president, you must be at least a little narcissistic. Hopefully not with an incurable case like that of Obama and Trump.

Obama has stopped our military from bombing the ISIS oil trucks for fear of civilian casualties and environmental damage. Of course, ISIS depends on oil money to buy guns and explosives and to pay their terrorists, so letting them sell the oil results in far more civilian deaths and environmental damage. And eventually to dead Americans. But you can't expect him to think that far ahead.

95% of the people who watch debates are already solidly for one of the candidates, and watch to cheer for their team, not to get educated.

There is a debate over whether Mexican drug lord El Chapo should stay in Mexico or go to the US. Given his record of murder, I think there's a third choice--he could go straight to hell.

Women who dress immodestly deserve to be raped, and Gays deserve to be killed. And if you don't agree, you are Islamophobic, despised by all liberals for not accepting Muslim culture and welcoming refugees.

I miss disco. Actually, I don't really know what disco was except some type of dance music. But it kept the vacuous busy attacking or defending it.

When I point out Trump's long history of liberalism, such as supporting single-payer healthcare, the "dreamers," and big government taking private property to give it to his business, or saying Hilary would make a great president and would be able to handle Iran, or contributing to Hillary, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the Trumpeters say, "That was just business; he didn't mean it, he just needed to do it to be successful." What makes them think he isn't lying now about his beliefs just to be successful in the campaign?

I would like the epitaph on my grave to be, "I told you so!"

Don't worry, when Obama's hundred thousand Muslim refugees get here, Michelle Obama and the girls are protected by the Secret Service, so are in no danger. Your family is protected by...you.

I think that electing Hillary Clinton, or Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump president would be disastrous for the country, each in different ways. But Trump has an additional problem. Electing him will destroy the conservative movement as his manifest flaws throw sand in the gears and he is held up by liberals for decades as the "conservative" bogyman.

To be fair to Sean Penn in the El Chapo affair, you can see why he would look at the contemporary media and think that all you need to be a famous journalist is a huge ego, a PC tilt to the left, and alack of sound judgment.

I think the Madison weatherman should just say, "There's a wind chill advisory in effect until May..."

Liberals wanted a black in the White House, any black who could win, regardless of experience, competence or integrity. Now they want a woman in the White House on the same terms. Plumbing trumps integrity. 

What Obama calls "diplomacy" for getting our people released by Iran should really be called "paying the ransom money" to kidnappers, so they can buy arms to kill more innocent folks.

Failing to plan is not self-confidence. It is hubris. (Or lazy stupidity.)

Once you get to know them well, every family is dysfunctional in some way.

Don't know why there are not Bumper Stickers saying, "Donald Trump: The pro-Obama, pro-Clinton, anti-Tea Party candidate."

Jim Geraghty about Democrats: "Sanders is closer to what the base wants, Clinton is closer to what the elites want."

I believe strongly that if Trump is the nominee, Clinton or Sanders will be the next President. I could not vote to make any of the three President.

One thing you can say about the liberal elites--they've shown us that fighting for the poor is a great way to get rich.

If you poison millions and murder thousands to get rich, you too can score an interview with Sean Penn.

For people without self-discipline, "Just this once" becomes everyday.

Britain voting to ban Donald Trump is a political gift to him, which will, unfortunately, help his campaign.

Sarah Palin endorsing Trump didn't move me an inch in his direction. It made me suspect that my liberal friends were right about her.

I may be almost 70, but I want you to know I still have the fantasies of a twenty-year-old.

Humiliating people--especially subordinates--is not leadership.

Isn't it funny that Martin Luther King never talked about "White Privilege" or asked for segregated safe spaces for blacks.

Everyone talks about "Area 51." But I notice the government has kept a tight wrap of silence on "Area One through Area Fifty." What are they hiding?

Charisma is fine for getting you there, but once you get there you need competence. Without that, your charisma will be rapidly consumed in the fire of disaster.

If today's progressives were around in the 1943, they would have said, "We can't condemn Nazis for the Holocaust--its their culture and all cultures are equally valid."

Easy prediction. The Trump supporters are going to be bitterly disappointed. Especially if he is elected.

There's nothing like a candlelight vigil after a shooting to make the fuzzy-headed feel like they are doing something.

They say, "There is no use worrying about things you can't control." They are right. But I and probably everyone else worries anyway.

When you live in Wisconsin or points north, you take global warming as a promise, not a threat. And you fear it's going to be a promise like, "If you like your (health) plan, you can keep your plan. Period."

"I'm at as bad as a lot of people," sounds like a pretty hollow argument when talking to God. Or to a judge.

I was disappointed with the "The Revenant" movie. When friends told me there was a great bear scene, I naturally assumed...

Vindictiveness is a sword as likely to wound the wielder as the target. See "Bridgegate."

The refusal of the media and the government to name the ethnicity of Muslims, blacks and Hispanics involved in robbery, rape and murder doesn't reduce racism. It increases it as people read between the lines, word leaks out anyway, and the general public assumes the problem is worse than it is because they believe there is a massive cover-up. We saw this with the New Year's sex assaults in Germany which the media and officials tried to hide.

Cynical person that I am, I doubt the folks selling various exercise equipment on TV got their perfect bodies from that particular piece of equipment.

Name calling is not an argument. It is, however, the first of the seven recognized propaganda techniques.

Trump is a liberal in conservative talking points.

Hillary has been concerned with the "one percent" throughout her career. Concerned with getting Bill and herself into it that is.

Bumper Sticker Suggestion: "Rump is a TRINO!"

If you are going to eliminate references to slavery from history, you must eliminate all history, as every society, including black ones, practiced slavery. I have read that white slaves were being sold in Cairo as late as the 1800s. And Dr. Thomas Sowell writes, in "The real history of slavery," that during the period when 500,000 black slaves were brought to north America, 1,000,000 white slaves were kidnapped in Europe and taken into Muslim lands in north Africa.

People do not spend millions on advertising because they have your best interests at heart. The best you can hope for is that your interests coincide with their interest in making money.

I don't think Bloomberg is going to run. But then, I didn't think Trump was going to run either.

From my friend, Tom on Clinton vs. Trump vs. Sanders: "A dishonest, morally corrupt wanna-be hereditary aristocrat who would use the govt to feather her nest and crush all opponents v. a dishonest, venial crony-capitalist blowhard who would use govt to crush all opponents vs. a feather headed dreamer whose economic views are obsolete by nearly 1000 years, who would use the govt. to impoverish everyone. Did I miss anything?"

The favorite tactic of the left is to refer to Republicans as extremists or fanatics. Much as was said about abolitionists before the Civil war.

It used to be said that vulnerable people "wore their hearts on their sleeves." Now they ware them on Facebook.

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=booksandie=UTF8andqid=1304815980andsr=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.

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Today's Worth-Reading Political News and Opinion

Reviews: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
There are now 35 reviews, 89% of them 5-star. ~Bob

Rest in Peace: I regret to learn of the death of Col. Don Myers, USMC (Ret), a blog reader, contributor and great Marine. I again recommend his great book: Pride and Discipline: The Hallmarks of a United States Marine. By Colonel Donald J. Myers USMC (Ret) http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Discipline-Hallmarks-United-States-ebook/dp/B00KNOPONQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411845088&sr=1-1&keywords=Pride+Discipline+Myers

Syrian refugees admitted into US since Paris jihad murders in November: 525 Muslims, 1 Christian

Muslims fill German refugee camp with swastikas, anti-Semitic graffiti

Police officers flee angry mob in Swedish refugee center through back door

Fish Farming May Secure the Egypt-Gaza Border. Egypt may be securing its border with Gaza by fish farming in a moat along the security buffer zone.
As is shown by the Egyptian initiative,  why doesn't Israel complete the job and turn Gaza into an island? No tunnels into Israel! It could be called Shaitan's Island for the 'normal' Arabs condemned to live under Hamas. Cordially, Larry Greenberg

Are the Saudis "un-Islamic"?  Leading Saudi Cleric Says IS and Saudi Arabia 'Follow the Same Thought'
Excerpt: A former imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca has said that the Islamic State (IS) group follows the same brand of Islam as officially espoused by Saudi Arabia. Footage translated by British think tank Integrity UK on Wednesday showed leading cleric Sheikh Adel al-Kalbani speaking to the Dubai-based channel MBC about what he believes are the roots of IS.

8 Hamas terrorists confirmed dead in terror tunnel collapse
They build tunnels with the humanitarian supplies idiots send for schools and hospitals. ~Bob

Interesting: Buzz builds for Rubio in Iowa
Excerpt: Buzz is growing on the ground in Iowa around Marco Rubio, who many political watchers believe is set for a stronger-than-expected showing at Monday’s caucuses. In interviews with The Hill, Iowa Republicans and independent analysts in the state say Rubio is primed to break free from the second tier of contenders and finally emerge as the candidate to save the establishment from Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, who are battling for the lead in Iowa.

Must Read: It’s Rubio Or Bust For Republicans Who Want To Win. By DAVID WASSERMAN
Excerpt: There are a lot of complex analyses of the 2016 election floating around. My own theory is quite straightforward: If Hillary Clinton is the nominee — and she remains a heavy favorite over Bernie Sanders — her fate largely rests with Republican voters’ decisions over the next few months. If Republicans nominate Rubio, they would have an excellent chance to beat Clinton by broadening their party’s appeal with moderates, millennials and Latinos. The GOP would also have an excellent chance to keep the Senate, hold onto a wide margin in the House and enjoy more control of federal government than they have in over a decade. If they nominate Ted Cruz, Clinton would probably win, the GOP Senate majority would also be in peril and GOP House losses could climb well into the double digits. A Donald Trump nomination would not only make Clinton’s election very likely and raise the odds of a Democratic Senate; it could force down-ballot Republicans to repudiate Trump to survive, increase pressure on a center-right candidate to mount an independent bid and split the GOP asunder.

Trump showed them! GOP debate second-highest rated show in Fox News history
Excerpt: GOP debate scores 12.5 million viewers, making it the second-highest rated telecast in Fox News Channel history. 

Painfully funny: Donald Trump has flip-flopped so much that Stephen Colbert hosted a Trump vs. Trump debate
Excerpt: The final Republican presidential debate before the Iowa caucuses was missing the field's loudest mouth, Donald Trump. But not to worry: Stephen Colbert on Thursday hosted an all-Trump debate — in which Trump debated himself. What followed was a "debate" in which Colbert cut back and forth between some of Trump's many contradicting past comments. Here are the highlights:

Worth Reading: Why isn't Marco Rubio winning?. By Ross Douthat
Excerpt: In the month after that confrontation, Bush’s national numbers slipped into the lower single digits, while Rubio’s climbed steadily. In early December, he and Ted Cruz both had about 15 percent support in the national polls, below Donald Trump but well above all the other professional politicians in the race. It seemed as if they were rising in tandem, and that Rubio was destined to be the establishment’s preferred candidate in a three-man race with Cruz and Trump — and based on past results, the likely nominee.
But instead, Rubio hit a ceiling, while Cruz continued to climb. And despite a long series of “moments” when he was supposed to consolidate his position, the Florida senator is still basically stuck. (From a friend and very liberal colleague from the Massachusetts Legislature: " I fear Rubio more than any of the others. He's young, articulate, and may be the way the Republicans get a better share of the Hispanic vote, not only this year but long term. And he gives the GOP a big edge in Florida, by far the biggest swing state. He's vulnerable in November on his extreme conservatism on some issues and his inexperience, and I understand there are some Florida financial scandals lurking out there, but I still would rather face Cruz or the Donald." --PM)

Excerpt: But since joining the Trump campaign, Pierson has been eager to suggest that it is Cruz himself who is the immigrant. “There’s a ton of voters who are a little uncomfortable voting for someone outside of the country,” she told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer earlier this month, insinuating that Cruz’s birth makes him ineligible for the presidency. Oddly, Pierson had no such concerns when she was campaigning for him — or when, in March 2015, just after Cruz’s presidential announcement and shortly after her comments on The Kelly File, she wrote on Facebook: “Repeating your wishes as facts isn’t going to make them so. Ted Cruz is a natural citizen by BIRTH and is eligible to be President,” adding: “For those constantly citing otherwise is plain whiney and the most unintelligent way to prop up your choice. So, your candidate is just going to have to bring it in the debates. Good luck!”

For Donald Trump, it’s always about control

The great businessman: How Trump Bungled the Deal of a Lifetime
Excerpt: Fueled by a slew of bank loans in the late 1980s, Trump absorbed an airline, a football team, a landmark hotel, a bunch of casinos, a yacht, and other nifty stuff -- almost all of which he eventually lost because he couldn’t juggle the debt payments. He overcame those setbacks, but the man who emerged from that mess wasn’t really a dealmaker anymore. Kept afloat by his wealthy father’s funds and his own gifts for self-promotion, Trump became a reality TV star, golf course developer and human shingle who licensed his name on everything from real estate and vodka to mattresses and underwear.

Donald Trump Wanted Vets Kicked Off Fifth Avenue
Excerpt: Instead of debating his presidential rivals Thursday, the GOP frontrunner is hosting an event ‘to raise money’ for veterans. That’s rich, say the disabled veterans he tried to eject from the street outside Trump Tower.

Trump's Tax Plan: So Terrific That It Would Add More Debt Than Obama's Seven Years In Office
Excerpt: For a man who is running to “make America great again,” Donald Trump’s tax plan is exceedingly expensive. According to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, Trump’s plan would add trillions to the national debt, more than the current sum added after seven years of President Obama’s policies (via Weekly Standard):

Worth Reading: The Only Book You Need to Understand Donald Trump's Popularity
Excerpt: Here is a man who has never held public office and has achieved less in business than Paris Hilton; who, except for the real estate knowledge, connections, and fortune, all of which he inherited from his father, has failed at pretty much everything except real estate and, of course, self-promotion; who touts himself as a champion of the little guy while being "famous for not paying his bills" to the "little guys" who service him; who is known for threatening to sue critics; whose political views change constantly (for example, opposed raising the minimum wage in the first primary debate, now supports it); who "switched political party affiliations at least five times since the late '80s, according to voting records." ... But never mind all that, because Trump's deals are fabulous!  Like this one, for the Plaza Hotel: Paid $407.5 million. Lost $74 million the first year. Plaza in bankruptcy protection just one year after Trump bought it. Plaza eventually sold for $325. Not to mention, of course, the casinos.  And the New Jersey Generals.  And the Trump Shuttle.  And…well, they're all there for the Googling by those willing to take the trouble to look.  And for those who do, be sure to Google Trump's connections with Philip "Chicken Man" Testa, Nicademo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, Phillip "Crazy Phil" Leonetti, and Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno.  Despite having never met Messrs. Testa, Scarfo, Leonettie, and Salerno, they don't sound to this writer like the kind of guys a presidential candidate can throw under the bus as did Barack Obama with Jeremiah Wright.  Or refuse a favor should that candidate someday occupy the Oval Office.

Interesting: FBI's Hillary Clinton email investigation not letting up. By Julian Hattem, The Hill
Excerpt: Six months after it began, the federal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server shows no signs of slowing down. Former FBI officials said the length of the probe is not unusual and speculated that a decision on whether to file charges against Clinton or her top aides could come later this year, during the heat of the general election campaign. “I don’t know that there’s any magical cutoff date,” said Ron Hosko, the FBI’s former assistant director of the criminal investigative division and a 30-year veteran of the bureau. For Democrats, the extended investigation has become a source of some anxiety, with Republicans gleefully raising the prospect of the Democratic presidential front-runner being indicted.

Flint, Michigan: Did race and poverty factor into water crisis?
Excerpt: The contamination of drinking water in Flint, Michigan, has so outraged community advocates that they now pose a powerful question: Was the city neglected because it is mostly black and about 40% poor? Several advocates say yes. They charge that Flint residents are victims of "environmental racism" -- that is, race and poverty factored into how Flint wasn't adequately protected and how its water became contaminated with lead, making the tap water undrinkable. (let's play this out: Republican governor appoints Democrat emergency manager; new Democrat mayor and town council; Democrat decision to save money by switching water source.  Now NAACP cries racism.  What to do?  Replace city government and you overturn the will of the people, and second-guess their abilities to self-determination.  Don't replace city government and continue business as usual. --George. Note that a majority of the 100% Democrat council are black. ~Bob)

Worth watching: HIDDEN CAMERA: Buying Machine Guns without Background Checks?
Excerpt: If you’re a leftist who believes other leftists, it’s probable you think guns (even fully automatic ones) can easily be purchased without a background check. You hold this notion for a simple reason: your leftist leaders in political circles reaching as high as the White House, say such silly things as “Guns are easier to buy than books.” A myth which is as true as receiving a college scholarship from the tooth fairy. To prove how wrong leftists are about guns, we took a hidden camera to gun shows and gun dealers. We tried weaseling through the “gun show loophole” and even tried getting automatic weapons without background checks. It went as well as anyone who’s ever purchased a gun legally would expect it to go.

Serious Trend: Trans-Species. Woman claims She Was Born a Cat…

Worth Seeing: Land of the Freebies

Interesting: Not to be trusted. By Alan W. Dowd
Excerpt: In 1938, Hitler’s SS destroyed 300 synagogues and arrested 25,000 Jews. A year later, he began to deport Germany’s Jewish population to Eastern Europe, where his war on religion would crescendo. By the end of the war, Hitler had murdered 6 million Jews. 
Likewise, the Nazi regime desired “a complete extirpation of Christianity,” as the U.S. government concluded after combing through Nazi records, but “considerations of expediency made it impossible” to do so in one fell swoop. So Hitler employed a policy of gradualism: lying to church leaders about the Nazi program and then lying about church leaders to the German people, abrogating laws protecting religious independence, seizing control of church institutions, shuttering religious schools and seminaries, declaring certain denominations illegal, fomenting violence against church leaders, sending anti-Nazi church leaders to concentration camps and murdering others. 
Imperial Japan elevated its emperor to a god status, making it easier for his high command to justify anything and everything. (Very nicely done, from the American Legion magazine. --Del)

Obama administration needs to abandon its Petraeus obsession. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt:  In politically driven moods, the ancient Romans often wiped from history all mention of a prior hero or celebrity. They called such erasures damnatio memoriae. The Soviet Union likewise airbrushed away, or "Trotskyized," all the images of any past kingpin who became politically incorrect. The Obama administration seems obsessed with doing the same to retired Gen. David Petraeus. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is now thinking of retroactively taking away one or two of Petraeus’ four stars. (For doing less than Hillary did. ~Bob)

The ISIS model: When College Radicals Obliterate History
Excerpt: But of all the protests that have swept across campuses in recent months, the ones that are especially troubling are those that seek to plant a kind of ‘malware’ that distorts and even erases history. It appeared most visibly at Princeton University, with calls to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from its School of International and Public Affairs, as well as a mural of Wilson from the campus over his “racist legacy.” No matter that Wilson was an important president in Princeton’s development, or a widely acknowledged progressive president of the United States. His legacy should no longer be remembered or celebrated at Princeton because of his efforts to re-segregate the civil service. (If you are going to eliminate references to slavery from history, you must eliminate all history, as every society, including black ones, practiced slavery. I have read that white slaves were being sold in Cairo as late as the 1800s. And Dr. Thomas Sowell writes, in "The real history of slavery," that during the period when 500,000 black slaves were brought to north America, 1,000,000 white slaves were kidnapped in Europe and taken into Muslim lands in north Africa. ~Bob)

Important: WHO: Zika virus ‘spreading explosively,’ level of alarm ‘extremely high’

Important: DR. MANNY: 3 serious dangers of the Zika virus
2nd point--neurological inflammation in spine in adults--new. --Barb. Bring back DDT. ~Bob)

The forgotten Confederate general who deserves a monument
Excerpt: Born in 1821 in South Carolina, James Longstreet graduated from West Point in 1842 and served with distinction in the Mexican War. As the officer corps split along sectional lines, he joined the Confederacy in 1861, eventually rising to join Gen. Robert E. Lee’s inner circle. But it was after Appomattox that Longstreet truly distinguished himself — as the rare ex-Rebel to accept the South’s defeat, and its consequences. He urged fellow white Southerners to support the federal government and help rebuild their region on the basis of greater racial equality. He joined Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party. In the 1870s, he commanded a biracial state militia loyal to Louisiana’s Reconstruction government, aggravating an old war wound while fighting alongside his troops against violent white supremacists in the streets of New Orleans.

Wounded Warrior Project: Padding Their Own Pockets or Helping Vets?
http://freedomoutpost.com/2015/10/wounded-warrior-project-padding-their-own-pockets-or-helping-vets/

President or King? Translated, that’s what the Supreme Court is asking. By Fred Barbash
Excerpt: All is forgiven if you’re not familiar with the “take care” clause in Article II of the Constitution about the presidency, the words that say “he shall take Care that the laws be faithfully executed.” The Supreme Court hasn’t fooled with it in many years. The words are buried below the State of the Union clause, and the business of receiving “Ambassadors and other public Ministers.” They lack resonance; they sound polite.
But their meaning, traced back through hundreds of years of history and translated into today’s colloquial English is indeed a command: They mean “Mr. President, don’t act like a king” — administer the law, but don’t dispense with it or change it.

The admiral in charge of Navy intelligence has not been allowed to see military secrets for years

Bernie Sanders, The Bum Who Wants Your Money
Excerpt: It wasn’t as bad as he says. His family managed to send him to the University of Chicago. Despite a prestigious degree, however, Sanders failed to earn a living, even as an adult. It took him 40 years to collect his first steady paycheck — and it was a government check. “I never had any money my entire life,” Sanders told Vermont public TV in 1985, after settling into his first real job as mayor of Burlington. Sanders spent most of his life as an angry radical and agitator who never accomplished much of anything. And yet now he thinks he deserves the power to run your life and your finances — “We will raise taxes;” he confirmed Monday, “yes, we will.”

Vote Cruz in Iowa as if the Republic Depends on It. By David Limbaugh (Rush's brother)
http://townhall.com/columnists/davidlimbaugh/2016/01/29/vote-cruz-in-iowa-as-if-the-republic-depends-on-it-n2111509?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=How is Ted Cruz too conservative? Don’t you really mean that Cruz is too committed to his principles,  that he will actually fight against the establishment and thus he is a thorn in their side?

Important: The State Department: Hillary Clinton’s email correspondence contained ‘top secret’ material. By Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger, Washington Post
Excerpt: The State Department acknowledged for the first time Friday that “top secret” information has been found in emails that passed through the private email server Hillary Clinton used while leading the agency, elevating the issue in the presidential campaign three days before the hotly contested Iowa caucuses. The information was contained in 22 emails, across seven email chains, that were sent or received by Clinton, according to a State Department spokesman. The emails will not be disclosed as part of an ongoing  release of Clinton’s email correspondence from her years as secretary of state, even in highly redacted form. (I don't believe the Obama politicized DOJ will indict her. ~Bob)

Another Socialist Paradise: Venezuela is on the brink of a complete economic collapse


Older, but interesting: Davis-Bacon: Jim Crow's Last Stand
Excerpt: Today, however, most people like to believe that their government fairly represents the interests of everyone, regardless of race. Unfortunately, the states and the federal government still discriminate against blacks, but this state-sponsored racism has taken on more subtle forms. Thus while great strides have been made since the Jim Crow era, some relics remain. One of them is the Davis-Bacon Act. ... The Act was passed in order to prevent non-unionized black and immigrant laborers from competing with unionized white workers. The discriminatory effects continue, as even today minorities tend to be vastly under-represented in highly unionized skilled trades, and over- represented in the pool of unskilled workers. Davis-Bacon restricts the economic opportunities of low-income individuals in a number of ways. 

The Goldberg File. By Jonah Goldberg

Worth Reading: WHERE'S OUR PRESIDENT? By Col. Andy Weddington, USMC (Ret)

Chinese military force to take lead on cyber, space defense

Archaeologists Dig Up An 800-Year-Old Native American Pot. What They Found Inside Is Changing History

Worth Reading: America the Indispensable. By Rupert Murdoch
Excerpt: Recent tragic events have highlighted the importance of a robust military and of leadership. Leaders sense when difficult decisions must be taken and that is a rare quality in an age too often defined by narcissism. No leader will fight for values, for principles if their government is a value-free vacuum.  Moral relativism is morally wrong. For a US Secretary of State to suggest that Islamic terrorists had a “rationale” in slaughtering journalists is one of the low points of recent Western diplomacy and it is indicative of a serious malaise. (A lot of people don't like Mr. Murdoch, for various reasons.  I am no expert on the man, but I can say that this speech makes perfect sense to me, and I am grateful and happy that he was able to put those thoughts together.  In an age seemingly filled with professors, pundits, and various actors and other famous people who are eager to denigrate this nation and make little of its many achievements, to hear the positive side of it, the important side of it, is a really great thing.  I only wish more people could read or hear these words and understand how valid they are. --Del)

Worth Reading: The simple arithmetic that could jump-start America’s economic growth. By George F. Will
Excerpt: If there is going to be growth-igniting tax reform — and if there isn’t, American politics will sink deeper into distributional strife — Brady will begin it. Fortunately, the Houston congressman is focused on this simple arithmetic: Three percent growth is not 1 percent better than 2 percent growth, it is 50 percent better. If the Obama era’s average annual growth of 2.2 percent becomes the “new normal,” over the next 50 years real gross domestic product will grow from today’s $16.3 trillion (in 2009 dollars) to $48.3 trillion. If, however, growth averages 3.2 percent, real GDP in 2065 will be $78.6 trillion. At 2.2 percent growth, the cumulative lost wealth would be $521 trillion.

Too funny: Congratulate North Korea on getting a hydrogen bomb.

























Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Don't miss today's interesting political news and opinion

Google shut down outgoing mail for 24 hours, concerned I was sending Spam. I may have to go to a Google Group you subscribe to in order to get notices out. If you want off my email notices, just send me a short request. Slammed lately, passed on a lot of incoming email, much still not looked at. Tuesday afternoon we were invited to the Wisconsin Capital for the investiture of Justice Rebecca Bradley. Interesting time but it ate up half the day. ~Bob

Book Recommendation: Sneaking Into the Flying Circus: How the Media Turn Our Presidential Campaigns into Freak Shows. By Alexandra Pelosi  
Pelosi was a political reporter, covering the 2000 and 2004 campaigns and traveling with candidates. This is an insider's look at the campaign of 2004, the candidates and especially the media coverage, made perhaps more interesting now that time has passed and passions cooled--some of them anyway. I would never have read, let alone expected to recommend a book by Nancy Pelosi's daughter. However, someone gave it to my wife thinking I might be interested, so I cracked it open. First, Pelosi makes no bones about the fact that she is a liberal Democrat and her opinion of George W. Bush is about the same of my opinion of her mother. That said, it has lots of great insights and insider stuff on the candidates and on the media covering--or more often creating--the political news. I loved the quote from Wes Clark, Jr. (the General's Son) on the political press: "They do a huge disservice to the American people. They are a threat to democracy. They don't care about reporting the facts. They don't care about getting your story out. It's about getting people excited enough to watch the news and the political coverage. What can you learn by following the circus around other than that it's a circus?" (P-162) Hard to disagree. Or this by Howard Dean: "The New York Times did some really bad things by putting stuff in the paper that they knew wasn't accurate...Most people under thirty-five don't think the New York Times has any more credibility than whatever they want to read on the Internet." (P-179) This book will be of interest to political buffs, even conservative ones like me.

Must see video: Donald Trump: Rock-Ribbed Conservative

A Rose By Any Other Name. By Tom Kratman
Excerpt: Now about that liberal cargo cultism with regard to terminology and titles…
A couple of weeks ago the Secretary of the Navy, one Ray Mabus, ordered the Navy2 and Marine Corps3 to eliminate any titles that weren’t gender neutral. Of course, not wishing to appear anything but “hip” (do we still say that?) and “with it” (do we still say that, too?) or multiculturally sensitive and gender inclusive (I know we say silly shit like that), I support SecNav completely. Yes, of course I do. After all, as all right thinking people know, changing of titles can perform fantastic feats of magic, like reducing the weight of a tank’s treads by as much as 97% and lowering the weight of a one hundred and fifty pound rucksack to less than forty pounds. Moreover, science shows that, once titles are changed, no young men will thereafter be willing to do physical work for women – who, of course, become equally as strong as men by virtue of the changed title – for sexual favors, while no young women, being so terribly strong, any more have to put on the kneepads to get some young man (or men) to change heavy truck tires or carry their extra ammo. And, since changing the titles will make women every bit as physically capable as men, rape will go away as a problem, except in cases where women have morning after regrets. What’s not to love about this program? (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 I expect that in 20 years they will move his novel Caliphate to the history section. ~Bob)

NYPD: Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat

Residents Flee Pool After Migrants Masturbate Into Jacuzzi, Defecate In Kid’s Pool, Invade Girls Changing Rooms
Excerpt: Sex attacks by Muslim migrants on non-Muslim girls in public pools got so bad, one public pool banned migrants. But the swimming pool lifted the migrant bather ban after left-wing pressure, just 24 hours after four children were molested. Of course the left stands in defense of  violence, oppression and subjugation. In the 21st century they run to cover for Islam, jihad and sharia. Last century, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Mao and the other leftist monsters wreaked havoc on humanity in the war on freedom. (It's their culture. Who are we...? If today's progressives were around in the 1943, they would have said, "We can't condemn Nazis for the Holocaust--its their culture and all cultures are equally valid." ~Bob)

They'll turn up...German Government Can't Account for 600,000 Refugees
Excerpt: German government statistics show that more than 600,000 refugees seeking asylum have failed to make a formal application to remain in country and the government doesn't know where they are. Slow processing of asylum applications may account for some of the missing. And there's a good chance that many refugees have left Germany for other European countries.

Prosecutor: Seattle man charged with killing 4 was on terrorism watch list

REVEALED: Full List Of 1,049 Victims, Crimes Committed During Cologne New Year’s Sex Assaults. The North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state government has released the full log of offences recorded in the city centre on New Year’s Eve, which lists in detail the forms of crimes committed, and the genders of those attacked.
The PC authorities in Germany tried hard to gloss over what happened in Cologne and a lot of other places, but the news was spread by citizens through the social media and in the end it all broke loose.  The chief cop in Cologne is out of a job now, and the furor among many Germans has risen a lot and is not going away.  My friends in Germany tell me that by now there is no longer much doubt that this huge influx of people, only 40% of whom are actually holding documents from Syria, and of whom 60% are young men, is becoming a much larger challenge than Angela Merkel and the rest of the super generous politicians expected or want to acknowledge.  Reality finally bites when you have ignored it coming at you while you kept your rose-colored glass clamped onto your face. --Del

Palestinian Authority Antisemitism: Overview of 2015. By Itamar Marcus
Excerpt: Since the Palestinian Authority (PA) was established, and continuing throughout 2015, it has systematically used Antisemitism to indoctrinate young and old to hate Israelis and Jews. The PA has actively promoted religious hatred by demonizing Judaism and Jews, spreading libels that present Jews as endangering Palestinians, Arabs, and all humanity.

Worth Reading: The Task You Have Taken Upon Yourself. By Hugh Fitzgerald
Excerpt: In the Western world, almost 15 years after the 9/11 attacks, and after many thousands of other terrorist attacks by Muslims, why are Western publics still so ill-informed about Islam? ... Along with Distraction, life throws up the obstacle of Boredom. Islam is a tremendous challenge for Unbelievers, not because it is objectively hard, but because it is simply not very interesting for those who do not share the fanatical faith. It takes great mental stamina for non-Muslims to engage with all the sacred rigmarole of Islam — just to follow the isnad-chain of a single hadith can be exhausting. And the plot and the dramatis personae of Islam are not attractive. Islam’s history is bloody, and one is not riveted, but repelled, by that bloody history. You can only take so much.

“Christian Girls Are Only Meant for the Pleasure of Muslim Men”
Excerpt: Three Christian girls in Pakistan, who rejected the advances of some wealthy Muslim young men, were recently mauled by them. One of the girls died.

Denmark approves controversial migrant assets bill
Excerpt: The Danish parliament has backed a controversial proposal to confiscate asylum seekers' valuables to pay for their upkeep. Police will be able to seize valuables worth more than 10,000 kroner (1,340 euros; £1,000) from refugees to cover housing and food costs. MPs also approved plans to delay family reunions for asylum seekers.

The Battle of Benghazi and Obama's Refusal to Issue "Cross Border Authority." By Capt Joseph R. John
Excerpt: The below listed video can be viewed by clicking on the link, it explains that a 130 man US Army In-Extremis Force, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group known as C-1/10, that stages out of Stuttgart, Germany, C-1/10 that was activated is under the operational command of Special Operational Command Europe.  The In-Extremis Force was fully manned and ready on the tarmac in Sigonella, Sicily, 45 minutes away from Benghazi.  They were awaiting orders to launch, but that their rescue mission was held on the tarmac for 12 hours because The White House refused to issue “Cross Border Authority.“ (This is a real killer concept, that there were well equipped special troops 45 minutes away from Benghazi that were not allowed to go to the aid of the people under attack.  If this can be confirmed, it will lay the deaths of those two former SEALs directly on Mr. Obama, or whomever he left in charge when he went to be to rest up for his apparently critical to the nation trip to Las Vegas the next day.  Why/how those perfect resources were not allowed to go into action is a question that really has to be answered.  Not that anyone in power or in the media will want to go there, of course. --Del)

FBI arrests Milwaukee man said to be planning temple attack
Excerpt: A Milwaukee man faces federal charges after he allegedly purchased two machine guns from undercover agents as part of a plan to attack a Masonic temple.
Court documents show federal prosecutors charged 23-year-old Samy Mohamed Hamzeh on Tuesday with unlawfully possessing a machine gun and unlawfully receiving and possessing firearms not registered to him. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had an attorney. (Probably an Amish militant. Nothing to do with Islam. ~Bob)

15-year-old refugee brutally stabs, kills his Swedish caretaker
Excerpt: Swedish police responded to 322 reports of violence at refugee homes in 2015 — more than twice as many as in 2014. A knife fight between asylum seekers in the city of Halmstad ended in multiple reported stabbings just last week. The unprecedented violence is putting a huge strain on resources at the moment, according to National Chief of Police Dan Eliasson

Madness: 'Flee': Message to ISIS oil tanker drivers released by Pentagon
Excerpt: The exact message from the Pentagon to ISIS' tanker drivers just before U.S. warplanes decimated the terrorist army's oil convoys last November has been revealed.
Text of leaflets dropped before bombing began, warning truck drivers to run for their lives, was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the blog War is Boring.   “Warning. Airstrikes are coming, oil trucks will be destroyed,” read one leaflet. “Get away from your oil trucks immediately. Do not risk your life.”

India: Gandhi statue defaced with Islamic State slogan and threats

Encouraging polygamy: UK: New reforms give immigrants with more than one wife extra benefits

Answer: Who Really Is Guilty of Hijacking Islam? Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (Ret.) 
Excerpt: The 2016 presidential race provides the ideal venue for addressing a critical question yet to be asked of any candidate. Its answer is critical both to the conduct of our nation’s foreign policy and protection of our homeland. Yet, if asked, not a single candidate is qualified to respond. In a world plagued by “violent extremism“—President Barack Obama’s non-descript term for “terrorism”-by those allegedly acting in Islam’s name—a link he will not make—the question is: Does the disconnect between Islam and terrorism stem from Islamic extremists hijacking a peaceful religion, giving it a violent interpretation, or from Islamic moderates hijacking a violent religion, giving it a peaceful interpretation? (OK, the colonel has just read and understood what is really there in Islam, and has dared to talk about it very plainly and simply.  He will now be of course vilified as an Islamophobe, intolerant racist, and generally nasty guy.  But everything he says below is only too true.  The "theology" of Islam is so flawed logically that any real theologian can pick it to pieces in no time at all.  It envisions a harsh God who changes His mind by whim, and considers women to really be second class creations.  Its idea of heaven is unlimited sex with gorgeous ever virgin women, at least  that's it for men, what it is for women is hard to figure out.  No concept of true spirituality, of a loving God who values all His creatures.  And more can be said, but that's more than enough for now. --Del)

Worth Hearing: Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL

Danish teen fought off her attacker - now she'll face fine. A 17-year-old girl who was physically and sexually attacked in Sønderborg will herself face charges for using pepper spray to fend off her assailant.
Excerpt: The teenager told police that she was attacked in central Sønderborg on Wednesday at around 10pm by an English-speaking man in dark clothing. She said the man knocked her to the ground and then unbuttoned her pants and attempted to undress her. (Yep, dare to defend yourself with a non-deadly weapon and you are in trouble for it.  Illegal to possess or use pepper spray?  What set of morons passed a law like that?  (I'm guessing a personal firearm is out of the question, also any knife longer than an inch, probably a hammer or screwdriver too.  You're supposed to depend on screaming or persuasion to get your attacker to desist.  Sure, that usually works. --Del)

Worth Reading: Do Emotions Trump Facts? By Dr. Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: Those of us who like to believe that human beings are rational can sometimes have a hard time trying to explain what is going on in politics. It is still a puzzle to me how millions of patriotic Americans could have voted in 2008 for a man who for 20 years — TWENTY YEARS — was a follower of a preacher who poured out his hatred for America in the most gross gutter terms. Today's big puzzle is how so many otherwise rational people have become enamored of Donald Trump, projecting onto him virtues and principles that he clearly does not have, and ignoring gross defects that are all too blatant. There was a time when someone who publicly mocked a handicapped man would have told us all we needed to know about his character, and his political fling would have been over. But that was before we became a society where common decency is optional.

Worth Reading: Do Emotions Trump Facts? Part II. By Dr. Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: Former governor Sarah Palin is an intelligent person, contrary to how liberals have tried to portray her. So it seemed to me that, if anybody could explain why they were promoting the candidacy of Donald Trump, it would be Governor Palin. But I listened in vain for any evidence or logic that would provide a reason to vote for Donald Trump for the office of President of the United States. There were lots of ringing assertions, just as in Trump's own speeches, but no convincing facts or demonstrable reasons. After all these months, no coherent plans have emerged from the rhetoric of "The Donald"— just sweeping boasts about all the things he says he will achieve. But boasts about the unknown future are hardly reassuring.

Trump won’t make it past Iowa. By Neill Ferguson
Excerpt: Harvard University’s Niall Ferguson says the public mood is mad as hell, but he’s not convinced Donald Trump will even make it to Super Tuesday.

Trump in 2011: Participating in Debates Takes Courage! By Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt
Excerpt: Donald Trump is out of Thursday night’s debate? Fine. Back in 2011, Trump planned to moderate a GOP debate in Iowa; only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum agreed to participate. In an interview with Megyn Kelly at the time -- pause for irony -- Trump said, “We’re not seeing a lot of courage here, are we? Not lots of courage, these Republicans. They’re supposed to be brave.” He went on to add, “Say what you want about Newt, Newt heard about the debate, ‘I want to do it.’ So there’s a certain courage or confidence or something.” A joking exchange with Kelly later: KELLY: “Do you really think you’re a better moderator than I am?” TRUMP: “No. I could never beat you. That wouldn’t even be close. That would be no contest. You’ve done a great job. I mean it.’

Rick Perry endorses Ted Cruz
Excerpt: Perry, who also sought the GOP nomination before dropping out in September, said he now sees the race as one that is between Cruz, a fellow Texan, and Donald Trump. Through phone calls and during a December day spent driving around his Round Top, Texas, home in his truck with Cruz, Perry said he found the senator to be a good listener who respects the Tenth Amendment, “knows what he does not know” and is more conservative than Trump. “Of those individuals who have a chance to win the Republican primary, at this juncture, from my perspective, Ted Cruz is by far the most consistent conservative in that crowd,” Perry said. “And that appears to be down to two people."

Worth Reading: Is Donald Trump Conservative? Here’s the Rundown

Important: Hillary’s team copied intel off top-secret server to email. By Paul Sperry
Excerpt: The FBI is investigating whether members of Hillary Clinton’s inner circle “cut and pasted” material from the government’s classified network so that it could be sent to her private email address, former State Department security officials say. Clinton and her top aides had access to a Pentagon-run classified network that goes up to the Secret level, as well as a separate system used for Top Secret communications. (If this is true, the Department of Justice should be spitting out indictments like a Pez dispenser: --Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt)

Interesting: Poll: Sanders Outperforms Clinton in Matchup Against Trump
Excerpt: Sanders leads Trump by 15 points nationally over Trump, 54 percent to 39 percent, while Clinton's advantage over Trump is 10 points, 51 percent to 41 percent.
           
Sanders gains 17 points in South Carolina according to new poll

Clinton’s email excuses are falling apart . By Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post

Hillary Clinton’s historical problem with honesty

2016 Election: Clinton vs. Trump. This isn't a popularity contest™
Excerpt: This map will track the electoral vote count for a prospective Clinton vs. Trump 2016 race. States that have been polled are based on a polling average, while unpolled states are shown based on the 2012 result for that state.

The Businessman: Trump Worth $10 Billion Less Than If He’d Simply Invested in Index Funds

You Hate It From Barack Obama. But You Love It From Donald Trump.

Trump once wrote Hillary Clinton would be 'great president'
Excerpt: Donald Trump praised Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, saying that she would make a “great president.” BuzzFeed News unearthed the comments, made in a 2008 blog post. “Hillary Clinton said she’d consider naming Barack Obama as her vice-president when she gets the nomination, but she’s nowhere near a shoo-in,” the real estate mogul wrote about the tight 2008 Democratic primary between Clinton and then-Illinois Sen. Obama. (Sarah Palin endorsing Trump didn't move me an inch in his direction. It made me suspect that my liberal friends were right about her. ~Bob)

Trump Is Popular Because Americans Don’t Want Conservative Change. By Steve Berman 
Excerpt: And then Donald Trump walks on to the mound, never throws a pitch and holds us on the base with merely a look–we’re too scared to even try. I’m not so sure the country even wants conservative values anymore. We’re too hooked on what the government does for us. We know Jefferson said, “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.” But it just feels so good. (Can you recall Trump ever talking at length about making the government smaller? He accused Republicans of “attacking Social Security -- the Republicans -- they’re attacking Medicare and Medicaid” and he praised the infrastructure spending in the stimulus. His health-care plan is, “Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now. I would make a deal with existing hospitals to take care of people. The government’s gonna pay for it.” Why do we need that in the Republican presidential nominee? We already get that from the Democratic nominee. A reader noted that the three guys who left the GOP presidential race first -- Rick Perry, Scott Walker, and Bobby Jindal -- were the ones who campaigned most explicitly on smaller government. --Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt)


Worth Reading: 10 Questions Donald Trump Supporters Need To Consider. By Mary Ramirez

Hillary: THERE THERE, THERE'S THERE THERE. By Col. Andy Weddington, USMC (Ret)

Interesting: With Trump and Palin, Republicans get what they deserve. By Kathleen Parker
Excerpt: The challenge for those of us in the observation business is to illuminate what’s plainly obvious without offending those who prefer not to see. But there’s no winning once passions are engaged, and hating the messenger is a time-honored tradition. Even though it was, in fact, obvious in 2008 that Palin was out of her league, as I out in a column, her fans wouldn’t hear of it. About 20,000 of them took time out of their busy schedules to send me emails expressing their displeasure. (I’ve kept them all for nursing-home share time.) The whole episode was instructive in multiple ways, but most important, it foretold a dumbing down of the GOP that eight years later may prove irreversible.

Michael Reagan: Trump is no Reagan Republican
Excerpt: Mr. Trump, I knew Ronald Reagan. And you’re no Ronald Reagan! Of course, I am stealing that line — with a twist. Donald Trump shouldn’t mind. He’s been stealing my dad for his own purposes. Trump frequently invokes Ronald Reagan’s name to defend his sudden, 180-degree switch from being a life-long, pro-Clinton Democrat to a Reagan Republican. 

Must Hear: The Trump Tapes: Vol. 1
                                      
Why Trump Endorsed Bill de Blasio. By Dan Spencer
Excerpt: Donald Trump: “He’s a smart guy that knows what’s going on really big league and I think he is not going to want to destroy New York.” Voice Over: That was Donald Trump a little over two years ago, endorsing PC Socialist Bill de Blasio for New York Mayor. Donald Trump: “I think pretty strongly that he’ll end up being a good mayor, maybe a very good mayor.” De Blasio ran on class warfare, sanctuary cities and ending stop and frisk. De Blasio’s sided with looters and cop killers against the police, with teachers unions against schoolchildren and with PC liberals to let the homeless run wild on city streets. ...  “I think he is going to want to make New York great.”

A Confession: What I Think of Pastors For Trump. By Erick Erickson 
Excerpt: I totally and completely get American angst that drives people to Donald Trump. I get it. I may disagree with it, but I am not unsympathetic to it and I do understand it. What I do not understand, however, are preachers and theologians gravitating to Donald Trump. It should be harder for those engaged in daily theology to bifurcate their Christian world view from their citizenry. In fact, as I have spent more time in seminary, I find it harder and harder to balance politics and faith. It is surely possible, but when I read 1 Timothy 6, I see warning signs that some would dismiss rapidly as “that’s about preachers, not politicians.”

24"-30" in VA: Winter Storm Jonas: Latest Updates
Excerpt: The first 30 inch snowfall totals have come in from near Winchester, Virginia, ... Up to 24 inches of snow has now fallen southwest of Washington, D.C. in Manassas, Virginia.
But Remember This? Robert Kennedy Jr : “Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don’t own a sled.”
Excerpt: In Virginia, the weather also has changed dramatically. Recently arrived residents in the northern suburbs, accustomed to today’s anemic winters, might find it astonishing to learn that there were once ski runs on Ballantrae Hill in McLean, with a rope tow and local ski club. Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don’t own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers.

Christians, Conservatives, Men, and White People Are Not Responsible For Your Problems. By John Hawkins
Lou Holtz once said, "Don't tell your problems to people: eighty percent don't care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them." Unfortunately, Lou Holtz is a man out-of-step with our whiny age. Today, people will not shut up about their problems. They want to let you know about every issue they have, every “microaggression” and every time they’re offended. It’s a bottomless sea of discontent. Worse yet, our generation of complainers never seems to blame themselves for their own problems. Instead they’ve picked out a group of designated fall guys that it’s always okay to blame for every problem they have: Christians, conservatives, men or white people. Every time a Muslim engages in a terrorist attack, we get a lecture on the crusades which ended in 1291. 

Worth Reading: No, 2015 Was Not The Hottest Year Evah…

Explanation: What is happening in Moldova

Worth Reading: Establishment tribes beat drums against Ted Cruz. BY ANGELO CODEVILLA
Excerpt: Simultaneously, as if signals from a council of sachems had summoned them to the warpath, the Republican establishment’s warriors took after Ted Cruz. Pat Buchanan encapsulated this establishment: “… officeholders past and present, donors, lobbyists, think-tankers angling for jobs, party hacks and talking heads [who] discuss how to frustrate the rising rebellion against what they have done to America.” The establishmentarian drumbeat against Cruz has involved but a whiff of argument on policy, and a few twisted or out of context attributions. But it has consisted mostly of attacks on the man’s character. Fox News led the way with characterizations ranging from flip-flopper to “servile.” ... Angelo M. Codevilla is professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University, and a member of the Hoover Institution’s working group on military history. He is the author of fourteen books, including  Informing Statecraft, War, ends And Means, The Character of Nations, Advice to War Presidents, and To Make and Keep Peace. (Codevilla defends Cruz against establishment attacks. I thought I detected a Codevillian note in Cruz during the last Repub debate. That recommends him to me over Trump (of course) and Rubio. --Bill T. I am an admirer of Dr. Codevilla, though I still think Rubio is the conservative with the best chance to win. ~Bob)

Interesting: Gates on White House: ‘This Micromanagement Is a Problem’
Excerpt: Gates also said there was a direct line to a White House staffer when he visited a Special Operations command center in Afghanistan. “I stood there and I said, ‘you rip that out while I’m standing here and watching’ and I told our commanders, I said, ‘If you get a call from a White House staffer or an NSC staffer, you tell them you’re not authorized to take the call and refer them to my office and tell them I said to go to hell,’” he said. Gates, who has worked under Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Brent Scowcroft, told the audience he would have been fired if he had called a four-star commander as a National Security Council staffer.

Facebook is not your friend
Excerpt: Facebook has transformed itself into Big Brother. If you're on it, it's time to get off the platform:

Worth Reading: Either Carry a Big Stick—Or Shut Up! By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: Such liberal self-moralizing is never termed chauvinistic or culturally arrogant, because its practitioners are so often liberals who want all others to become as liberal as themselves. Nonetheless, many of our current tensions in the world result from our enemies’ dislike of our smug sense of moral superiority. Lecturing Egypt to respect a "largely secular” Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral win means that the U.S. is safely distant when one-election/one-time Islamists dismantle the process that brought them to power and seek an Islamic state.

Question Insanity: What to Ask Progressives. BY OLEG ATBASHIAN
Excerpt: The two women who showed up early for my book signing at a small bookstore in Houston, TX, never even bothered to open my book. Wearing knowing smiles, they engaged me in a bizarre discussion that wound up leaping all around the known and unknown universe. They hadn't the slightest curiosity about my ideas as an ex-Soviet immigrant in America, or what I had to say about my experience working inside the two ideologically opposed systems. As it turned out, they had spotted my flyer in the store window the day before, and the book's title -- Shakedown Socialism -- had enraged them so much that they decided to return the following day and give me a piece of their collective mind. Their act almost made me feel as if I were back in the USSR, where the harassment of people with my opinions was the norm. 

East Chicago councilman charged with murder takes oath of office while behind bars

Deaths in Japan and Taiwan as record cold snap hits east Asia. At least 95 people die as record-low temperatures in region bring snow and ice cause flight cancellations and leave thousands stranded

Self-defense shootings spike in Albuquerque. By Elise Kaplan
Excerpt: Eleven months ago, police say a homeowner awoke to a strange noise, grabbed his gun and went to his kitchen, where he found a man crouching, clutching a knife. The homeowner opened fire, killing the suspected burglar. Detectives said the homeowner’s actions were justifiable and didn’t arrest him. Throughout 2015, similar scenarios played out over and over again across the city as civilians shot would-be burglars. Six of the eight justifiable homicides occurred during attempted burglaries or robberies – more than in the previous four years combined. (According to my friend in Albuquerque who sent me this article, Roger Finzel, the attorney cited in the article is a very liberal member of his local gun club.  But being a Liberal in New Mexico doesn't mean you don't have and regularly practice with firearms. Note that only a fraction of shootings get judged to be justifiable, and that's the way it should be.  No one should try to kill someone else without very clear need to take that drastic step as part of avoiding a very clear major danger to life and limb. --Del)

Whooping Crane Migration Project Ends. By Russ Niles
Excerpt: After 20 years and $20 million spent to try to create a new flock of cranes based in Wisconsin in the summer and Florida in the winter, it turns out that the cranes saw through the human-engineered plan. Although the flying part of it was pretty successful (about 250 cranes raised in Wisconsin were successfully led to Florida by the aircraft) the cranes didn't do their part. Only 10 chicks from the artificially raised cranes reached adulthood. There are now 93 birds in the flock, most of them lousy parents according to a USFWS official quoted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Why aren't the others getting it?" asked Peter Fasbender. "The common thread is this lack of parenting skills." Operation Migration, the Canada-based organization that does the flying part, isn't giving up without a fight, however. (So...a favorite do-good activity shown to not do as much good as stated.  Is not, say the do-gooders.  But the root cause of the failure: bad parenting. So goes the life. --George)

Interesting: The mood of Davos turns out to be quite wrong. By Neill Ferguson
Excerpt: “It’s a bit like reliving your college years, but with each year compressed into a day.” That was how one of my friends summed up the Davos World Economic Forum last week. “On Day One, you are a frisky freshman. There isn’t an invitation you don’t accept. But by Day Four, you are ready to graduate and return to the real world.”

Worth Reading: The New Segregationism. The Oscar nominations have brought a corrosive racial politics to the fore. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: One of the stranger demands of various campus affiliates of Black Lives Matter was the call for “safe spaces.” That is a euphemism for designated racially segregated areas. In such zones, particular minority groups are reassured that no white students or faculty could enter — and thus by their mere presence supposedly remind them of institutionalized white bias. Left unmentioned is the surreal college enforcement of such segregation. What will happen if a half-white student, or a Brazilian, Peruvian, or Syrian foreign student, wanders into a safe space designated for blacks? Does the Dean of Diversity — presumably dressed in a sport coat with elbow patches rather than appearing as Lester Maddox with a bat — call security to expel the miscreants for their racist assumption that there should not be private areas set off by race?

The Demand for Villains. By Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: The latest tempest in a teapot controversy is over a lack of black nominees for this year's Academy Awards in Hollywood. The assumption seems to be that different groups would be proportionally represented if somebody were not doing somebody else wrong. That assumption carries great weight in far more important things than Academy Awards and in places more important than Hollywood, including the Supreme Court of the United States. In an earlier era, the groupthink assumption was that groups that did not succeed as often, or as well, were genetically inferior. But is our current groupthink assumption based on any more hard evidence?

We are witnessing the end of the House of Clinton

Surprise: Farrakhan Says Blacks Kill Each Other More Than White Cops Do
Must be the End Times when agree with BPs. --Barb

Worth Reading: This Woman Just Explained Economics In A Nutshell. And It's So True It Hurts.

Worth Reading: Wounded Warrior Project accused of wasting donation money
Excerpt: A CBS News investigation into a charity for wounded veterans, the Wounded Warrior Project, looks into how the charity spends its donation money. What caught our attention is how the Wounded Warrior Project spends donations compared to other long-respected charities. (This is just the first of a two-part series on serious criticism's of the WWP operation.  Nothing in it is hard to believe, this kind of morphing into a real party attitude by upper management and staff has happened more than a few times before with really successful fundraising charities.  The river of money coming in convinces everyone they deserve whatever little "perks" they can get, they become the really important people, not the people they actually say they exist to serve. --Del)

Test your news IQ
I was 12 for 12. ~Bob

Important: Pursuing critics, China reaches across borders. And nobody is stopping it.
Excerpt:  China’s campaign against dissent is going global. Amid extraordinary moves to rein in criticism at home, Chinese security personnel are reaching confidently across borders, targeting Chinese and foreign citizens who dare to challenge the Communist Party line, in what one Western diplomat has called the “worst crackdown since Tiananmen Square.” A string of incidents, including abductions from Thailand and Hong Kong, forced repatriations and the televised “confessions” of two Swedish citizens, has crossed a new red line, according to diplomats in Beijing. Yet many foreign governments seem unwilling or unable to intervene, their public response limited to mild protests.

This show of anti-Semitism at an LGBT conference should bring change

A Tale Of Two Rivers: Obama Condemns Flint Disaster After Ignoring Colorado Mine Spill
Excerpt: The same cannot be said for his reaction to the thousands of people who had their drinking water tainted by the Gold King Mine spill in August — a spill caused by his own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  It’s a tale of two rivers, both contaminated by government mismanagement, but only one provoked moral outrage from Obama. While Obama said Michigan’s government shouldn’t “shortchange basic services that we provide to our people,” he was virtually silent when his own administration polluted rivers flowing through western states and Indian territory. (Discrimination.  One incident involved just Native Americans...What's it matter to the feds?  They've always used and abused Native Americans, except when they want to make a trophy display of do-gooding.  But the other river, well, they have footage of the poor black babies with rashes and not being able to have baths, and mommas griping about "having to use bottled water."  At least they GOT bottled water....  If it is a black wronged, it fits the scenario and the agenda for TRANSFORMATION.  Native Americans, too bad.  Note that the federal government's OWN AGENCY, THE EPA, was liable for both of these incidents, causing the one in the West and burying the information in Michigan.  Yeah, POTUS didn't declare a state of emergency for the poor Indians. --Barb)