Thursday, April 3, 2014

Today's Political News & Bronchocopy Update

Today's lung Bronchoscopy had mixed results. The pulmonologist seemed pretty concerned after it was over. The good news is that the slough (dead cells called "sluff") is decreasing, and they will debride more at the surgical bronchoscopy scheduled with Dr. Maloney, my surgeon, for Friday, 4/11. The bad news is it leaving scar tissue that is building up. Good if it strengthens the airway wall to prevent dynamic collapse when I breathe in, but bad if it builds enough to block the airway. Hard to tell now. They will likely try more balloons expanded in the lung to stretch it. No telling how all this works. The before picture of the stent was so covered in mucus that it looked like a complete gray blockage of the air intake--no wonder I pant hard getting dressed. He leaned at as much as he could get. If recent history is a guide this will improve things for a few days, then get worse as it collects again. So a long term prognosis is basically just guess work, so thy avoid it, for good reason. But almost every lung transplant patient I've met or talked with has had some problems, rarely a straight forward recovery. It's a complex, difficult and high-risk procedure, despite a great medical team. In any case, Charlie Med is standing by, I'm fighting like hell, the enemy is in the wire and I'm on the horn to arty. Thanks as always for everyone's kind words, support and prayers. I'm reminded every day how fortunate I am, to have lived to 68 (on 4/15), to have been born in a free-market, western society, to have had sucha great family, to have had the support of the voters in my district every time I ran and to have earned the privilege of wearing the Marine uniform. Our pastor had to conduct a funeral this week for a 3-month old girl who died suddenly of heart failure. I'd pull an oxygen tank 30 years and go through three lung transplants before having to face what that family just did, so prayers for them too. Semper Fidelis. ~Hall, Out.

Healthy SOS for Old Vets

Good Column: The Seven Red Lines That Matter. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: What struck me while reading, and thinking about national defense (and protecting others), is that no other creature deliberately postures itself to be weak - survival demands otherwise. To cower means one thing - to become a meal. And inevitably extinction.

Worth Reading: Sex and Race Equality. By Walter E. Williams 
Excerpt: There are several race and sex issues that need addressing. Let's look at a few of them with an ear to these questions: Should we insist upon equal treatment of people by race and sex or tolerate differences in treatment? And just how equal are people by race and sex in the first place? According to the National Institutes of Health, male infants 1 to 3 months old should be fed 472 to 572 calories per day, whereas their female counterparts should receive 438 to 521 calories per day. That's an official sex-based caloric 10 percent rip-off of baby females. In addition to this government-sanctioned war on women, one wonders whether the NIH has a race-based caloric rip-off where they recommend that black newborns receive fewer calories than white newborns.

Worth Reading: Democrats' Sixty-Year War Against Conservative Voices. By William Terrell
Excerpt: The IRS’s ongoing effort to stifle conservative speech is only the latest in 60 years of Democrat efforts to marginalize conservatives. In this latest attempt, the Democrats have proved willing to give up several valued parts of their agenda – including funding for pre-kindergarten, funds for the IMF, and more dollars for ObamaCare – in order to keep proposed new IRS rules that would institutionalize the harassment of tea party groups currently under investigation.

How Foreign Is Our Policy?: Part II. By Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: Would Vladimir Putin have sent Russian troops so boldly into Ukraine if the Ukrainians still had nuclear missiles? The nuclear disarming of Japan and Ukraine shows how easy it is to disarm peaceful nations -- making them more vulnerable to those who are not peaceful.
Ukraine's recent appeal to the United States for military supplies, with which to defend itself as more Russian troops mass on its borders, was denied by President Obama. He is sending food supplies instead. He might as well send them white flags, to facilitate surrender.

Fighting for Independence from an Anti-Democratic Oligarchy. By Baron Bodissey
Excerpt: The elections for the European Parliament are coming up in a few short weeks, and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is currently surging in the opinion polls. Our British correspondent JP sends a couple of samples of commentary on UKIP and the EU, and includes this note: 'Here’s evidence of the UKIP surge in action — see the following best-placed comment for depth of passion, particularly the closing paragraph.'

UK: UKIP's Nigel Farage: an anti-politics anti-hero who confounds the Westminster consensus. By Tim Stanley
Excerpt: Which brings us to Putingate, the latest Nigel-fluff that the Westminster elite is convinced will sink him. Right to the bottom of the ocean. Farage’s sin was to say that he admires Putin as a political leader, although not as a human being. Why this is controversial, I have literally no idea. Farage made it abundantly clear that he regards the Russian leader as a despot (“How many journalists in jail now?”); he simply thinks that he outwitted Obama on Syria. I think that; you think that; even Obama probably thinks that. 

UK: Banning the Muslim Brotherhood would be a welcome step in the war on militant Islam. By Con Coughlin
Excerpt: Reports today that David Cameron is planning to ban the Muslim Brotherhood from operating in Britain is a welcome signal that the Government is finally waking up to the mounting threat that Islamist militants pose to national security. Ever since the Arab world was first rocked by the wave of revolts three years ago, Downing Street has shown an alarming tendency to support the protests erroneously known as the Arab Spring without giving any serious thought to the likely consequences of their action.

British sniper in Afghanistan kills six Taliban with one bullet. By Holly Watt
A British sniper in Afghanistan killed six insurgents with a single bullet after hitting the trigger switch of a suicide bomber whose device then exploded, The Telegraph has learnt. The 20-year-old marksman, a Lance Corporal in the Coldstream Guards, hit his target from 930 yards (850 metres) away, killing the suicide bomber and five others around him caught in the blast.

VIDEO: The Twelver Apocaplyse. By Baron Bodissey
Excerpt: Andrew Bostom has written a new book, Iran’s Final Solution for Israel: The Legacy of Jihad and Shi’ite Islamic Jew-Hatred in Iran. In it he analyzes jihad and Jew-hatred in the Persian theocracy over the course of history. In his view, the relatively secular Pahlavi dynasty in the 20th century was an anomalous interval in an otherwise continuous history of apocalyptic Shi’a jihad in Iran. The mullahs who have ruled the country since 1979 are thus representative of an indigenous tradition among Shi’ites in Persia, rather than a sudden outburst of “extremism”.

Global Warming Will Cause War, Pestilence, Famine and Death Says New IPCC Report Inevitably. By James Delingpole
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/03/31/Global-Warming-Will-Cause-War-Pestilence-Famine-and-Death-Says-New-IPCC-Report-Inevitably
Excerpt: The real take-home story of the new report we already learned last week: that the latest estimates of the economic costs of "climate change" are considerably lower than previous projections; so much lower, in fact, that the costs could be offset by just a month's global economic growth. It's to obscure this inconvenient truth that the Big Green Propaganda Machine will now be cranking into overdrive. Over the next few days - watch and listen: they'll be all over the MSM like a suppurating pox rash - "expert" after "expert" will be dragged out of the woodwork to testify that, no, this time it's serious and as a measure of the serious seriousness of it all it's really about time we silenced those Big-Oil-funded climate deniers for good. 

Real Housewives of Jeddah. By Mark Steyn
Excerpt: Two weeks ago ABC announced a new series: "Alice in Arabia" is a high-stakes drama series about a rebellious American teenage girl who, after tragedy befalls her parents, is unknowingly kidnapped by her extended family, who are Saudi Arabian. ... Sounds interesting - and not untrue to life: more than a few children of western-Arab marriages have wound up shanghaied back to Saudi. But then the professional grievance mongers got wind of it:

California: Obamacare Materials Arrived With Pre-Marked Democratic Voter Registration Form. By Guy Benson
Excerpt: A local couple called 10News concerned after they received an envelope from the state's Obamacare website, Covered California. Inside was a letter discussing voter registration and a registration card pre-marked with an "x" in the box next to Democratic Party. The couple – who did not want their identity revealed – received the letter and voter registration card from their health insurance provider Covered California, the state-run agency that implements President Obama's Affordable Care Act. (Hey, North Korea per-marks the ballots for the only party, and they get 100% turnout and Young-Un gets 100% of the vote. Just doing what works for all-powerful government. ~Bob.)

Roberts Court continues assault on campaign finance law
Excerpt: Continuing its steady and unrelenting assault on the laws that limit the ability of wealthy Americans to influence the course of electoral campaigns, the Supreme Court today declared that regulations that limit the aggregate amount donors can give to electoral campaigns in a single election cycle are unconstitutional. This is a campaign finance limit you probably haven’t thought much about, and it’s one that affects a relatively small number of donors (at least up until now). (Opinion disguised as news. ~Bob)

Worth Reading: 5 Reasons Obama's 7.1 Million Number Is Meaningless. By Ben Shapiro
Excerpt: Now, it was always foolhardy for Republicans and conservatives to stake their objections to Obamacare on the number of sign-ups; Social Security is going bankrupt despite 100% enrollment. The reality is that Obama was always destined to hit his required numbers because, after all, he has the power of government to compel action. The real problem with Obamacare has little to do with the number of people signing up, and a lot to do with the restrictions on insurance companies and reimbursement rates to doctors. Nonetheless, the 7.1 million statistic is a meaningless one. It’s meaningless for a variety of reasons:

Did Michigan just trigger 'constitutional convention'? Bid gains steam
Momentum is building behind what would be an unprecedented effort to amend the U.S. Constitution, through a little-known provision that gives states rather than Congress the power to initiate changes. At issue is what's known as a "constitutional convention," a scenario tucked into Article V of the U.S. Constitution.... “Based on several reports and opinions, Michigan might be the 34th state to issue such a call and therefore presents the constitutionally-required number of states to begin the process of achieving a balanced budget amendment,” Hunter wrote. (Be careful what you wish for. A convention packed with progressives could be brought about by the power of the media and Obama controlling government--and could eliminate the Second Amendment and other guarantees of freedom. ~Bob)

The War on Poverty — $21 Trillion Later. By Matthew Vadum 
Excerpt: Fifty years and trillions of dollars after the “War on Poverty” was launched, poor Americans aren’t much better off, according to a study published by Republican reformers in Congress. The War on Poverty has barely made a dent in actual poverty, states the 205-page report unveiled last month by the House Budget Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.). (How can you say the "war on Poverty" was a failure, when it fed billions in tax dollars to Democrat interest groups to reward their support, just as it was intended to do? ~Bob)

Excerpt: The reason we have so many problems in health care is that almost everywhere we look, people face perverse incentives — patients, doctors, employers, employees, etc. When they respond to those incentives they do things that make costs higher, quality lower, and access to care more difficult than otherwise would have been the case. At the root of those perverse incentives is bad public policy.

School Employee Tells Five-Year-Old She Can’t Pray For Lunch
Excerpt: Lawyers from Liberty Institute fired a stern letter on Apr. 1 to administrators at Carillon Elementary School in OviedoFlorida, after a school employee told a five-year-old girl that she was not allowed to quietly give a prayer of thanks before eating lunch. Jeremy Dys, the attorney representing the young girl, released a public statement Tuesday, then exclusively discussed this situation with Breitbart News. The press release noted, “As the Supreme Court held over a half a century ago, students do not ‘shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.’”

Excerpt: The North Carolina State Board of Elections indicated that voter fraud may be at play in a report Wednesday after finding 81 instances of the names of dead people on voting rolls on dates later than their deaths…. But the State Board of Elections reported finding other instances of potential fraud: they found 765 instances of voters in North Carolina who also voted in another state in the 2012 general election.

Report points to possible voter fraud in NC
Excerpt: A report presented Wednesday by Elections Director Kim Strach to the Joint Legislative Elections Oversight Committee said 81 voters have a voter history later than the date of their death. The audit further identified 13,416 deceased voters on voter rolls in Oct. 13. ... The audit showed 155,692 registered North Carolina voters whose first and last names, dates of birth and last four digits of their Social Security number match those of voters registered in other states, but who most recently registered or voted elsewhere. A total of 35,750 voters with matching first and last names and date of birth were registered in North Carolina and another state, and voted in both states in the 2012 general election.

Excerpt: PM is a “mixture of harmful solid and liquid particles” that the EPA regulates. PM that is 2.5 microns or less is known as PM2.5, which is about “1/30th the thickness of a human hair.” These small particles can get into people’s respiratory system and can harm human health and even lead to death after just short-term exposure. The EPA set PM2.5 primary standards at 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air on an annual average basis, but the agency exposed test subjects to PM levels of 600 micrograms per cubic meter — 40 times what the EPA sets as an acceptable outdoor air standard. But in five of the studies, people were subject to levels higher than what they signed on for. (Not sure what they have been spraying overhead for three days but after being immersed in a dense, oily fog this morning, my gloriously blooming azaleas are shriveling and dying in 7 hours. --Barb.)

Video: GM’s Barra Pleads Ignorance
Excerpt: Barra admitted to not reading all the documents submitted by GM, and had few answers when she appeared in front of a Congressional committee investigating GM’s recalls. ("Our success should depend not on accident of birth, but the strength of our work ethic and the scope of our dreams. That's what drew our forebears here. It's how the daughter of a factory worker is CEO of America's largest automaker." That line referred to General Motors CEO Mary Barra, invited by Michelle Obama to the address and sitting near the First Lady. --Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt.)

Liberals Can't Stand To See Republicans Succeed In N.C.
Excerpt: If there's one state that's drawn the ire of Democrat activists, it's North Carolina, a blue state turned bright red, thanks to dissatisfaction with President Obama. Liberals can't stand the fact that North Carolinians, after voting for Obama in 2008, thought better of it and voted to fire him in 2012, the only swing state to do so. The anti-Obama sentiment also swept Republicans into power in both the statehouse and governor's mansion for the first time in more than a century. (We're in the national news! I have to say I was only partially aware of the interesting statistics about how many improvements have gone on, like the big drop in unemployment. Of course we don't even see all that touted in the NC media. And finding out it was Bev Perdue who didn't tighten up on Duke Energy, not the current governor, is really interesting. Not that I think everything the GOP has done here is great, the marriage protection act is far too narrow, and they have other flaws as well. But the glass is not half-empty at all, not with the lowered unemployment and the major improvement in the business tax climate rating. I think they will do OK again this Fall. --Del)

Obama subsidizes private jets for high-flyers abroad. By Timothy P. Carney
Excerpt: Americans who own private jets need to pay more in taxes, President Obama argues. So it seems odd that foreign executives riding Gulfstream jets from Shanghai to Mumbai get U.S. subsidies from Obama's favorite export agency. The Export-Import Bank of the United States recently announced a milestone: Under Obama, the agency has subsidized the sale of $1 billion in private jet sales to overseas customers.

The Cost of Waiting Times
Excerpt: How much does waiting for medical care in Canada cost? $1.1 billion in 2013, says Nadeem Esmail, director of health policy studies at the Fraser Institute. Waiting times -- the delay that Canadians have to suffer before they can receive necessary medical care due to rationing -- can be calculated in order to illustrate the burden of waiting for health care. In Canada, the average wait time per patient was 9.6 weeks.

Gov. Scott Walker refuses to take down religious tweet
Excerpt: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker believes he can do all things through Christ, but an atheist group charges that he cannot do all things through Christ on his official social media platforms. The Freedom From Religion Foundation has demanded Walker remove posts from his official Facebook and Twitter feeds that read, “Philippians 4:13.”

California's Brownshirt Anti-Semitism Comes to Vassar. By Stella Paul
Excerpt: California is the lifestyle incubator of the nation. And now the trendy anti-Semitic thuggery that debuted at California’s public universities has metastasized across America, all the way to the elite halls of Vassar.

Excerpt: War is what Obama does best. The War on Women. War on Poverty. Class War. Race War. Walk up to a union member snoozing on a bus, a Latino man crossing the street, a gay cowboy poet earning minimum wage, and community organize him along with a few hundred thousand others into the latest battle in the social justice war that never ends. (A very insightful view of how things work, and the comparisons and contrasts between Putin and Obama. Some will call it a radical attack, but it seems to make good sense to me. --Del)

While I do not pretend that the Israelis never make any mistakes, by and large they bend over backwards to be humanitarian, the prisons that hold the assorted Palestinians who are there for crimes including horrific murders of Jews are closer to being a resort with locks than the kind of prisons we put our violent criminals in. But that the world is still well equipped with fervent anti-Semites is all too true, even beyond the fanatic Jew-hating Muslim radicals. And the UN is the place that has been the great playground for anti-Israeli propaganda for decades now. (The only country that gets even a fraction of the attacks Israel gets is, wait for it.... Yes! the good old USA. Why we pay so much to support the UN has been a mystery to me for many years.)

UN's musical chairs: Richard Falk’s wife is top nominee for a post on the Human Rights Council. By Hillel Neuer
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/UNs-musical-chairs-344116
Excerpt: As UN chief Ban Ki-moon today joins foreign ministers from around the world in Geneva to inaugurate a month-long session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, he should tell the 47-nation body to stop a controversial appointment that will expose itself to ridicule. The secretary-general is surely looking forward to the upcoming exit of Richard Falk, the council’s pro-Hamas investigator of “Israel’s violations of the principles and bases of international law.” (And the game goes on at the UN, as the article explains. --Del)

CODE PINK PHOTOGRAPH: Obama Admin Considers Texting Fat People to Remind Them They Are Overweight
Excerpt: The Washington Free Beacon’s Elizabeth Harrington reported last week that NIH had spent nearly $3,000,000 in recent years to fund studies looking into the possibility of using text messages and web tools to treat obesity. That sort of Big Government intrusion into your mobile phone might strike you as outrageous. But that’s not even the half of it.

Iran Picks American Embassy Hostage Taker for UN Ambassador
Excerpt: Weakness begets contempt, and you can’t blame the rest of the world for assuming that only a profoundly weak, sickly country would put the likes of Barack Obama and John Kerry in charge of foreign policy. As Obama and Kerry pave the way to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the mullahs repay us with a gob of saliva in America’s face: 'Iran has named a member of the militant group that held 52 Americans hostage in Tehran for 444 days to be its next ambassador to the United Nations.'

Excerpt: The most important single element of stealth Islamization is the effort to convert Western schools from centers of secular education into hubs of Islamic indoctrination. Fortunately, there are plenty of dhimmi teachers and school administrators eager to help out, convinced that they’re serving the interests of multicultural peace and harmony. These days, for some reason, this form of dhimmitude seems to be most prevalent – and to take its acutest form – in England.

Israel to Go 'Deep Into Lebanon' in Future Hizballah Clash. By Yaakov Lappin
Excerpt: Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanese terror organization Hizballah, announced in recent days that he does not seek conflict with Israel, but quickly added that in the long-run, armed conflict with Israel was the only path forward.

Hagel Mulls Banning Smoking in Military
Excerpt: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel gave his support Monday to moves by the services to consider banning tobacco sales on bases and ships. (I used to smoke and encourage everyone to stop. But there comes a time when intrusion into personal choices impacts morale. Already the pressure on those who drink has resulted in less than 50 total Officer's Clubs in the entire military. The Corps only had 10 Officer's Clubs as of 2009. We can send a young man or woman to face the Taliban in a gunfight, yet we are going to unilaterally make a decision that smoking is too dangerous? I am so glad I retired when I did. --MasterGuns) 

By Surrendering Control Of Internet, Obama Surrenders Our Freedoms
Excerpt: Kowtowing to global pressure, President Obama has unilaterally decided America should give up its oversight of the Internet's most vital infrastructure.
Specifically, Obama's Commerce Department is making plans to surrender protection of the Internet's domain name system (DNS) and the vital Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to some unknown international bureaucrats — a dangerous abdication of authority that could take place as early as next fall. (Even many Democrats think it's not a good idea to give away the control of the Internet. But Obama is so far into trying to please the world in general that he's ready to go for it. This is one of his worst ideas, and so utterly unnecessary by any standards. I can hardly wait to see the effects of having the "international community" taking over running the Internet. Let's see, that means that China, Cuba, Venezuela, Pakistan, Iran, and lots of other enlightened nations will be voting on how people will be allowed to use it. What could go wrong? --Del. Obama probably thinks we stole it from the Native Americans. ~Bob)

ATF Agent Attempts to Illegally Scan Gun Owner Forms of Pac N Arms Multiple Times – Threatens to Revoke Dealer's License
Excerpt: Last year, Gun Owners of America warned that the "ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) is going from dealer to dealer, copying the information on these forms (4473), and feeding it into a database." We've seen, in recent weeks, how this unconstitutional agency is illegally terrorizing small business owners, such as Ares Armor, and raiding their establishments to gather information on their customers, in what many people believe is part of the plan to create a national gun registry database. Now comes another story out of Maine.

CIA Takes Bullet for Obama on Benghazi
Excerpt: Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell testified before Congress this morning that the CIA ignored a key piece of information that was the exact opposite of what then-U.S. ambassador to the U.N Susan Rice told the American public about Benghazi, Libya shortly after the attack on the U.S. embassy compound. The CIA’s station in chief in Libya wrote an email on Sept. 15, 2012 to Morell that the attack was “not an escalation of protests” and there was no anti-American demonstration that sparked the attack

Excerpt: But here is a good outcome of Daylight Saving Time that’s going to make it a little easier for me to take. I'm only sorry that a Volvo SUV got blown to bits as well: “Police believe a device may have exploded in Dublin on Sunday because a gangster forget about the Daylight Saving Time change. “A blundering bomber was being hunted last night after a powerful device he attached to a car exploded in his face.

Disregard? FBI, military hunt ex-Army recruit suspected of plotting 'Ft. Hood-inspired jihad'
EXCLUSIVE: The FBI is searching for a recent Army recruit believed to be planning a "Fort Hood-inspired jihad against U.S. soldiers," FoxNews.com has learned.... The alert, a copy of which was obtained by FoxNews.com, was sent out by the FBI's Kansas City Division on Friday and distributed through the U.S. Marine Corps.... The alert is titled, “Planned Fort Hood-inspired Jihad against US Soldiers by Army Recruit” and was issued “to inform and protect officers who may encounter this individual or others exhibiting the same aspirations.” (Heard Hannity mention this on his broadcast last night during reporting on incident. He said Fox had been contacted by FBI and asked to "disregard the report" as erroneous. "Then," he said, "This happened." --Barb)

Worth Reading: I'm Fighting to Restore a Free Society: Instead of welcoming free debate, collectivists engage in character assassination. By Charles G. Koch
Excerpt: Unfortunately, the fundamental concepts of dignity, respect, equality before the law and personal freedom are under attack by the nation's own government. That's why, if we want to restore a free society and create greater well-being and opportunity for all Americans, we have no choice but to fight for those principles. I have been doing so for more than 50 years, primarily through educational efforts. It was only in the past decade that I realized the need to also engage in the political process.

Va. Legislator: Dar al-Hijrah Critics Spread Fear and Hate. By John Rossomando
Excerpt: Alfonso Lopez, a Democratic candidate for Congress, slammed Fox News host Eric Bolling for denouncing Lopez's resolution honoring the 30th anniversary of the controversial Virginia mosque. Bolling criticized the resolution because of Dar al-Hijrah's ties to American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and convicted Fort. Hood shooter Nidal Hassan during a March 19 broadcast.

Government oppression in action in this country
The video that is available through this link is the most disturbing one I have ever heard about the use of government power to harass honest citizens. It's 7 minutes, not long, yet far too long simply because of the content. This is a story that should be heard by anyone who believes in America, and the rights of individuals, and that abuse of government power against individuals should be anathema. If this same story had been told 7 years ago, it would have been front page news for the NY Times and everywhere else. Please take a look and make you own conclusions. --Del

Fort Hood Gunman Did Not See Combat in Iraq Tour, Officials Say
Excerpt: The soldier who shot three people to death at Fort Hood apparently did not see combat during a tour in Iraq three years ago but was clearly troubled, under treatment for depression and anxiety and being evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder. (Who knew you could get PTSD from not seeing combat? Given both my timing and the fact that as a Radio Relay Team Chief, i was assigned to Regimental Headquarters, my combat exposure was keeping my head down during a couple of rocket or mortar attacks. So I missed enough to get disability three times over--I'm putting in! Best of all there are groups that basically coach you in PTSD. [Do you have flashbacks? Nightmare? Trouble sleeping? Thoughts about hurting yourself? Etc.] Once they finish asking the questions to evaluate you, you know what to say. Read the great book Stolen Valor for more on the subject. ~Bob)

Equality Fever: Turning the Tables on the Left. By Selwyn Duke
Excerpt: If a famine befell us and you couldn’t save everyone, would you withhold the food you had and let every citizen starve rather than endure the inequality of just saving some? If recent history is any guide, certain leftists just might say yes. A good example of this phenomenon was a multiple sclerosis patient in Gothenburg, Sweden, who was denied a more effective and expensive medication — even though he was willing to pay for it — because, wrote columnist Walter Williams in 2009, “bureaucrats said it would set a bad precedent and lead to unequal access to medicine.” No wonder Winston Churchill said that socialism’s “inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

Palin, Fallon Mock Vladimir Putin In 'Tonight Show' Skit
Too funny. ~Bob

The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage. By Michael Teitelbaum
Excerpt: A compelling body of research is now available, from many leading academic researchers and from respected research organizations such as the National Bureau of Economic Research, the RAND Corporation, and the Urban Institute. No one has been able to find any evidence indicating current widespread labor market shortages or hiring difficulties in science and engineering occupations that require bachelors degrees or higher, although some are forecasting high growth in occupations that require post-high school training but not a bachelors degree. All have concluded that U.S. higher education produces far more science and engineering graduates annually than there are S&E job openings—the only disagreement is whether it is 100 percent or 200 percent more.

Great Legs & No Jobs: UPS Fires 250 Employees for Staging a 90-Minute Protest to Defend Co-Worker. By Hayley Peterson
Excerpt: The company dismissed 20 of the workers after their shifts Monday and issued notices of termination to another 230 employees, notifying them that they will be fired once the company has trained their replacements, UPS spokesman Steve Gaut told Business Insider. The workers were protesting the dismissal of longtime employee and union activist Jairo Reyes, who was fired over an hours dispute, according to Gaut. The New York Daily News first reported on the firings. Local politicians are threatening to cancel city contracts that give UPS millions of dollars in breaks on parking fines.

How Anti-Jewish Jokes Hurt the Palestinian Cause. By Nuzha Nusseibeh
Excerpt: It happens every time I visit the U.S., and it’s happened increasingly over the last five years. I say I’m Palestinian (usually after trying out the less inflammatory “I’m from Jerusalem” and then being pressed for detail). There’s a pause, and then—“Oh, so... is it a problem for you that I’m Jewish?” There it is. The assumption that because I am Palestinian, I harbor animosity toward Jews—and not just Israeli Jews, but all Jews, all the time, everywhere. It was one of the first questions I got asked when my new roommate met me at the beginning of my college career, and again as I mingled at my first-ever internship lunch. (It still took me by surprise too, the assumptions about Americans during the 30 years I lived in Britain. I still can't believe the way they talk about us. Horrible. --Kate)

Worth Reading: One California for Me, Another for Thee. By Victor Davis Hanson 
Excerpt: Currently, three California state senators are either under felony indictment or already have been convicted. ... What is the common denominator with all three California senators – aside from the fact that they are still receiving their salaries? One, they are abject hypocrites who campaigned against old-boy insider influence-peddling so they could get elected to indulge in it. Two, they assumed that their progressive politics shielded them from the sort of public scrutiny and consequences that usually deter such deplorable behavior.

Twilight of the Red and Green. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: The left has never adapted to the transition from nationalistic wars to ideological wars. It took the left a while to grasp that the Nazis were a fundamentally different foe than the Kaiser and that pretending that World War 2 was another war for the benefit of colonialists and arms dealers was the behavior of deluded lunatics. And yet much of the left insisted on approaching the war in just that fashion, and had Hitler not attacked Stalin, it might have remained stuck there.

Obama’s Mideast Nightmare. By Daniel Greenfield 
Excerpt: While Bush only overthrew Saddam, Obama overthrew Mubarak, Ben Ali, Gaddafi and Saleh. The difference lay not only in the scale of their respective regime change operations, but in their relative impacts on regional stability. Saddam had invaded other countries and cultivated terrorists, while the governments that Obama helped overthrow, aside from Gaddafi, were not expansionistic, were not obsessed with building up WMD’s and had helped maintain regional stability. Bush had sought to stabilize the Middle East by removing Saddam. Obama instead destabilized it by trying to remove every government that was in any way friendly to the United States and was not covered by the umbrella of the Saudi GCC.

Well done, Mrs. Smith: Hillary Clinton flees protest led by mother of man killed in Benghazi. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: There is one thing that will make Hillary pass up a venue. The mother of one of her victims. Former Secretary of State and potential Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, recently cancelled her plans to appear as the keynote speaker for the 17th Annual Western Healthcare Leadership Academy on April 11 in San Diego, amidst planned fervent protests from local San Diego residents. Protesters have organized under the banner of “The Difference Matters” coalition, a group that primarily consist of local San Diego women who refuse to allow Clinton into their community because of her role in the Benghazi cover up scandal.

Red Tape under Obama
Excerpt: The United States is in desperate need of regulatory reform, say James Gattuso and Diane Katz, research fellows in regulatory policy at the Heritage Foundation.
Over the last five years, the Obama administration has issued 157 new major rules at an annual cost of $73 billion. That number includes 26 new major rules in 2013 alone, twice the annual average of George W. Bush. And already, regulators have identified 125 more major rules that they plan to work on in 2014.

Protesting in Paris. By Daniel Pipes
Excerpt: Inspired by the surprise success of the recent Swiss referendum limiting immigration, the demonstrators demanded a similar opportunity to vote on this heated issue in France. Flyers announced "Peuple de France n'aie pas peur. Dis que tu en as assez!" ("People of France don't fear. Say that you have enough!"). Tasin passed out copies of her booklet, Qu'est-ce qu'elle vous a fait la République? ("What has the [French] Republic Done to You?").

Excerpt: Back in the 50's and 60's the America Mafia employed a team of high-priced lawyers that would show up in court, mount a defense against charges of running prostitution rings, gambling rings, extortion, or even murder. The Mafia called them "mouthpieces" and they served as front line troops who allowed the criminal Mafia to lay low. This seems to be the only talent our current President has. Last week, when principled leadership was required over when the G-7 were meeting and scurrying in fear like little rats from the might Putin, Obama executed a "massive fail". So this week Barack is back in the states and doing what he does best...hitting the campaign trail, making speeches about the minimum wage, kissing elderly women at a Rosie the Riveter reunion and raising massive amounts of cash for his liberal brethren. So BHO is back in Chicago where he'll raise millions and will, no doubt, visit local cemeteries and sign up dead people to the Democratic voting rolls.

Worth Reading the Full Article: Millionaires Need Your Help! By Ann Coulter
Excerpt: Herrin admitted that he employs a lot of illegal aliens and bitterly complained that they lived in fear of "Border Patrol and deportations." (But, apparently, he doesn't live in fear of admitting he's violating our immigration laws.) ... He said his illegal alien employees deserved amnesty because if "we keep them here and not do anything for them once they get old, that's really extortion." ... Taxpayers have been subsidizing Chuck Herrin's underpayment of his illegal labor force for decades, with skyrocketing taxes to pay for schools, roads, bridges, food stamps, health care and so on. Now Herrin thinks "we" are supposed to support his illegal employees in their old age, too. Here's another idea: How about a federal law mandating that employers of illegal aliens take responsibility for the people they hire? Why is the taxpayer on the hook for illegal aliens' food, housing and medical care, when Chuck Herrin got 100 percent of the profit from their cheap labor? 

I thought this might be an April Fool but the author says it's true (Kate): Study: Vegan and Vegetarians Less Healthy Than Meat-Eaters. By David Atherton

Excerpt: This study even concluded that a "..growing body of epidemiological, clinical and experimental evidence suggesting that regular cheese intake may reduce the risk of cardiovascular outcomes." On alcohol those who drink moderately have far lower levels of heart disease and consequently live longer than tee totallers. The WHO's study into passive smoking also found no statistical significant correlation with lung cancer and heart disease. 

2 comments:

  1. Robert, we have a little in common; our birthdays are three days apart, we're both cold war warriors, saw time in Vietnam and have an abiding love of our country. You are trying mightily to invite an alien lung to make itself at home in your chest and I live with part of one gone to lung cancer a few years ago. We are still both "warriors" that don't give up easily and i'll be damned if I'm going to give up on you. Each morning just as the sun rises over the mountains I send a hell of a strong prayer your way...so don't sweat it; one of these fine days that new lung is going to accept your gracious invitation to settle down and feel right at home, just mere inches from that warrior heart in your chest. Semper Fi.

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  2. Bob, you are a continuous inspiration to a guy who does
    not inspire easily. You will know who I am when I sign
    off.

    Your pal............... One Note Johnny

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