Monday, August 4, 2014

A lot today--but many important items

Update

For new readers, I had a lung transplant on December 23, which developed complications in March. Feel free to skip these updates if they--understandably--bore you and go right to the news, below. FYI, FEV is Forced expiratory volume, litters of air you can blow in 1 second. I record my three highest numbers morning, and Night, then average them.

On Saturday, my FEV numbers averaged 1.53, the highest since April. Sunday morning they tanked--49 points below Saturday morning in three tries. But they came back up Sunday night, in fact above the morning. Evening numbers are usually 15-30 points lower than the morning, after a night on the BiPAP. Monday morning they were up 47 points over Sunday, and the evening was also up, so the average was 1.55, higher than Saturday. I Suspect Sunday morning I had mucus blocking a bronch tube or two that cleared out later.

In Rehab Monday, I was able to increase my speed on the treadmill from 2 mph to 2.2 mph for the 20 minutes, and from 1 mph to 1.5 mph for the two minute cool down. Stayed at 94% to 95% O2 saturation at 1 lpm. At 97% on the other three exercises. So all good. Thanks for all the prayers and encouragement.

After rehab I baked Blueberry Crumble and Blueberry Scones, using healthy ingredients. (Recipes on request). So I didn't get to all the hundreds of emails. Sorry. ~Bob

General News and Comment

Worth Reading: Out of Many, Two? They may not mean to do it, but America's political leaders are deepening the nation's divisions. By Peggy Noonan
If you hit a pay wall, Googl the title. ~Bob Excerpt: The talk turned to how some prospective presidential candidates seem to be running to lead two different countries. Rick Perry, say, and Elizabeth Warren experience, see, reflect and approach two very different realities. The conversation then took a surprising turn. My acquaintance said it's possible the U.S. in our lifetimes will simply break up, tear apart. This might not be so terrible, he said, it would probably work out fine. He spoke not with an air of alarm but philosophically and almost cheerfully, which took me aback. (I think we are likely to tear apart, but in many large and small pieces, complete with gang rule and warlords. When the colapse comes, it will cascade rapidly after the tipping point. First will come fiscal collapse, followed by riots and socail and political collapse. See my book: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic: And what you can do to prevent it. By Robert A. Hall
http://tiny.cc/g02s4 For a free PDF of this 80-page book you can read on your computer, write me at: tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. ~Bob)

Unbelievable: Blogger fired from language school over ‘homophonia.’ By Paul Rolly
Homophones, as any English grammarian can tell you, are words that sound the same but have different meanings and often different spellings — such as be and bee, through and threw, which and witch, their and there. This concept is taught early on to foreign students learning English because it can be confusing to someone whose native language does not have that feature. But when the social-media specialist for a private Provo-based English language learning center wrote a blog explaining homophones, he was let go for creating the perception that the school promoted a gay agenda. ... "Now our school is going to be associated with homosexuality," Woodger complained, according to Torkildson, who posted the exchange on his Facebook page.

Worth Reading: Darkness Falls. By Mark Steyn
http://www.steynonline.com/6499/darkness-falls
Excerpt: Edward Grey was Britain's longest-serving Foreign Secretary, although, in contrast to Hillary Airmiles Clinton he had a modest appetite for foreigners: For his first eight years in the job, he never set foot abroad, and then only did so because he was obliged to accompany King George V on a State Visit to Paris in 1914. He served a prime minister, Asquith who, not unlike a certain US president today, had little interest in foreign affairs and was unengaged by distant events in faraway places until late July of 1914 - by which time it was too late, and the great unraveling of world order had begun.

Unions Lose and the Public Wins Big in Wisconsin. by Hans von Spakovsky and James Sherk
Excerpt: Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin had quite a good day on July 31 when the state supreme court upheld not only Wisconsin’s voter ID law, but also the 2011 budget legislation that severely curtailed the power of public unions to control the lives and salaries of state and municipal government employees.

Man, 71, alleges self-defense in New Haven shooting
Excerpt: New Haven Police are investigating a shooting Sunday morning that left a 23-year-old male in critical condition after a 71-year-old male claimed he was attacked.
The 71-year-old, Anthony Anamasi, called 911 claiming he shot Leroy Brown, who tried to attack him with a knife and was awaiting for the arrival of police, spokesman Officer David Hartman said in a release. (Badder than old King Kong, and meaner than a junkyard dog...and now shot in the head. --George)

As Democrats avoid Obama, Romney is in demand on the midterm campaign trail. By Robert Costa and Philip Rucker 
Excerpt: President Obama thumped Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, but now their political standings seem reversed. During a summer in which Democratic candidates are keeping their distance from an unpopular president, Romney is emerging as one of the Republican Party’s most in-demand campaign surrogates.

Trustworthiness and the Commandant. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: During the past couple of years Marines I know, coast to coast and in exotic and not-so-exotic lands abroad, have confided they do not trust the commandant. Imagine. It's unthinkable really. But it's reality. A sad reality to ponder much less be obligated to address. Yesterday afternoon arrived an email that included the following commentary attributed to a once U. S. Marine Corps judge advocate who is now an accomplished attorney. "Just to sum this up...

Bored Government Workers Spend Their Days Watching Porn. By Kevin Glass
Excerpt: This takes "wasting taxpayer dollars" to a whole new level. Government workers at a variety of different agencies have been found to have spent their days watching porn, and a new Washington Times investigation found that their explanation was because they were bored.

President Obama promised a ‘year of action’ in 2014. Has he delivered? [VIDEO] By Julie Percha
Excerpt: It’s been six months since the State of the Union address, when President Obama took to the House rostrum and declared if Congress doesn't act, he would -- making 2014 a “year of action.” But now, as he stares down a potentially rocky midterm election for his party -- not to mention a Congress that’s gridlocked at near-historic low approval ratings -- the past half-year has meant anything but action on some of the president’s key goals.

Excerpt: Those wonderful folks who assemble your Big Mac are out in force again. They are now equating that $15.00 dollar per hour minimum wage with the civil rights movement of the 60's. Oh, they are an oppressed bunch, these societal losers who thought actually getting an education was silly! They feel shackled by the current minimum wage which varies from $7.25 to $12.00 an hour depending on who's running their state house. They work and they toil for slave wages behind an air conditioned counter and forced to take jobs that educated Americans worked for a time but have actually gone on to adult occupations and don't need anymore.

Senator Says He Had PTSD When He Wrote Thesis
Excerpt: Sen. John Walsh of Montana said Wednesday his failure to attribute conclusions and verbatim passages lifted from other scholars' work in his thesis to earn a master's degree from the U.S. Army War College was an unintentional mistake caused in part by post-traumatic stress disorder. (Most politicians when caught discover they have an alcohol o r drug problem. Or sometimes sex addiction. But if you are a vet, you can discover you have PTSD to excuse your behavior. ~Bob)

Obama's Inexplicable Love for the Dark Side. By James Lewis
Even the American left is finally realizing that this is the strangest administration in living memory. Obama simply has no real precedents, which is why he seems so utterly foreign. American presidents tend to be pragmatists, but Obama is locked into a simpleminded ideology of Good vs. Evil.

Obama's Greatest Flaw: America's Greatest Cost, Part 1 By Chuck

Excerpt: I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but I’m intrigued by their work, especially when it accurately explains why people do what they do – or can’t do what they would like or are expected to do. Case in point, President Barack Obama.

Texas shows the way on abortions. By Star Parker
http://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2014/08/04/texas-shows-the-way-on-abortion-n1873624
Excerpt: According to a new report by the University of Texas’ Texas Policy Evaluation Project, following these new regulations 19 of 41 abortion clinics operating in Texas have closed and abortions have declined 13 percent.

WaPo: Romney 2016 idea gaining steam among his supporters.
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/08/04/wapo-romney-2016-idea-gaining-steam-among-his-supporters/Excerpt:
Excerpt: Pay attention to the timeline. Asked whether he and other Republican officials are coalescing around Romney as a 2016 favorite, [Wyoming Gov. Matt] Mead said: “There is a movement afoot. . . . I’d tell him, ‘Governor Romney, people here in Wyoming and around the country would encourage you to take another look at it.’ ”…

Fluke Can't Afford Birth Control but able to Furnish $116,287 to Own Campaign
http://godfatherpolitics.com/16517/fluke-cant-afford-birth-control-able-furnish-116287-campaign/
Excerpt: In February 2012, a Georgetown law student testified before Rep. Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. Sandra Fluke spoke about the contraception mandate and women’s health. She pleaded for the new mandate because of student’s suffering from lack of contraceptive coverage and how they suffer financially, medically and emotionally. Fluke told the committee that as a student, she couldn’t afford to pay for contraception so she can peruse a sinful lifestyle of sex before marriage. (She will say, 'It's not the money, it's the principle." Trust me, when people say that, it's always the money. ~Bob)

Three Cheers for Ryan's Plan. By John C. Goodman 
Excerpt: Representative Paul Ryan has a bold, ambitious proposal “Expanding Opportunity in America,” to completely remake the American welfare state. Along the way he would also change the federal government’s approach to education, revamp what we are doing in our prison system and much more. Here is a surprise. Although Ryan’s approach is based on well-known conservative ideas, some on the left are actually praising parts of the proposal – including the editorial page of the Washington Post. Ryan’s plan shows something I have believed for a long time. All the innovative thinking on how to solve public policy problems for the past 25 years has come from the right.

FREE PDF DOWNLOAD: Ben Shapiro. How To Debate Leftists and Destroy Them - Truth Revolt
www.truthrevolt.org/.../ebook_pdf/how_to_debate_leftists_and_destroy_th...
Excerpt: 1. How To Destroy Leftists In Debate. By Ben Shapiro. How The Left Wins Arguments. All that matters is victory. That's a message that seems to have been lost.

Imteresting: Groups: US Political Effort In Cuba Hurts Aid Work
Excerpt: A U.S. program in Cuba that secretly used an HIV-prevention workshop for political activism was assailed Monday by international public health officials and members of Congress who declared that such clandestine efforts put health programs at risk around the world.
Beginning in late 2009, the U.S. Agency for International Development deployed nearly a dozen young people from Latin America to Cuba to recruit political activists, an Associated Press investigation found. The operation put the foreigners in danger not long after a U.S. contractor was hauled away to a Cuban jail. 9If this was in 2007, headline would say, "Bush political effort in Cuba...)


Ghana Turns to IMF for Help as Currency Crisis Deepens
Excerpt: The currency of West Africa’s second-largest economy has plunged 36 percent against the dollar this year as investors lost faith in the government’s ability to curb spending and rein in a current-account deficit that’s set to exceed 10 percent of gross domestic product this year. Since having most of its debt cleared in 2005 as part of a global relief campaign for poor nations, Ghana has racked up borrowing, while failing to keep government spending under control.(This is what debt and unlimited spending eventually do. Yet a liberal Obama-supporter told me she didn't worry about the debt because, "The government can always print more money." When I sent her an article about debt in the past, below, she responded, "I don't do economics--it makes my eyes glaze over." ~Bob. The West and the Tyranny of Public Debt

Ukrainian army closes in on Donetsk as rebel fighters call on Russia for help
Excerpt: Fighting has raged on the western outskirts of Donetsk as the advancing Ukrainian army tried to seize control of the rebel stronghold. The separatists, who are in danger of being encircled, have renewed their calls for Russia to send troops to their aid.

A Recovery in Need of a Recovery: Why Is the Economy Still Weak? Blame These Five Sectors. By Neil Irwin
The economy keeps underperforming. Yes, new G.D.P. data last week werebetter than expected. But the United States is still producing around $800 billion a year less in goods and services than it would if the economy were at full health, and as a result millions of people aren’t working who would be if conditions were better.

A documentary about the Montagnards
Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the war in Viet Nam and Laos. They have been the object of genocide in Laos, and only a small fraction of their population survives. In Viet Nam they are a discriminated against minority, whose traditional way of life has been very heavily discouraged, and their religion, a form of Christianity, has been proscribed by Hanoi. Numerous local leaders have been harassed heavily, some have gone into jails and never been seen again, others have just died while in custody. Reporters are never allowed access into their areas, but Hanoi maintains this filthy lie that there is religious freedom in the country. --Del

Worth Reading: As It Gets Uglier Than Now. By John Ransom
Excerpt: Shortly before the market crash in 2008, when oil prices were at all-time highs, Harry Reid, Democrat Senate Majority Leader, sold his investments in the energy industry-- according to his public filings-- and bought the healthcare industry instead. ... And now you know, in a thumbnail sketch, how Harry Reid became a millionaire through public service. ... Obama, Pelosi and Reid certainly know how to take care of themselves. I predict Obama will become the first former president to be worth a billion dollars.

The grifting wing v. the governing wing : While the Tea Party is busy lining their pockets, the rest of the Republicans are actually trying to get things done. By: Steve LaTourette 
Excerpt: And the most important battle being waged today isn’t the one about which party controls the House or the Senate, it’s about who controls the Republican Party: the grifting wing or the governing wing. ... Political grifting is a lucrative business. Groups like the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Patriots are run by men and women who have made millions by playing on the fears and anger about the dysfunction in Washington. My former House colleague Chris Chocola is pocketing a half-million dollars a year heading the Club for Growth; same for Matt Kibbe heading up FreedomWorks (and I don’t think Kibbe’s salary includes the infamous craft beer bar that FreedomWorks donors ended up paying for). The Tea Party Patriots pay their head, Jenny Beth Martin, almost as much. ... Steve LaTourette is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing Ohio’s 14th district who now heads the Main Street Partnership.

Obama’s Own Stimulus Predictions Show We’d Have Been Better Off Without It. By Ben Howe 
Excerpt: This was, in part, a way of using the bully pulpit to remind Americans how awesome the Recovery Act (Stimulus) was and that it is the reason for all of our wonderful employment which sits at 6.2%. This number ignores that there are 3.6 million fewer full-time jobs than there were in 2007 as well as the millions of workforce dropouts that have simply given up. ... n fact, according to the experts that crafted the monstrosity, we would’ve done better had we not had a stimulus bill in 2009 at all.

The Home Front. By Mark Steyn
Excerpt:.....Around the world, American power is a joke - in Moscow; in Beijing; in Teheran, where US taxpayers pay billions of dollars a month for Iran to participate in the charade of "negotiations" while getting on with their nuclear program; in Fallujah and Ramadi, where head-hacking jihadists now ride around in US vehicles brandishing US weapons; in Tripoli, where "leading from behind" has effortlessly advanced into evacuating from behind... Across the planet, American power is a joke. Instead, like Singapore, the firepower's pointing the wrong way - on the domestic front, at US citizens.

British Army Now Has Fewer Tanks Than Horses Thanks To Military Cuts
Excerpt: Britain will have just one tank regiment from today, meaning that it will have more horses than tanks, and will only be able to field around tanks in a war. The Times reports that thousands will gather in Wiltshire today to mark the merger of Britain’s two remaining tank regiments amid concerns that the move could be misguided as tensions with Russia increase. After a decade fighting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan with just light infantry, heavy armour became seen as outdated. 

LA Times Critical Of Michelle Obama. No, really.
Except: Unfortunately for Michelle, this seemingly innocent initiative is not above scrutiny. She claims that by drinking more water people will have more energy and it will even cure headaches. .... If you are not dehydrated, the only thing drinking more water will do for you is add an extra trip to the bathroom.

Excerpt: On July 31, the National Defense Panel released its long-awaited report on the effects of the QDR and delivered its findings to Congress. The panel pulled no punches — its findings were a scathing indictment of Obama’s foreign policy, national security policy, and defense policy. The panel found that president Barack Obama’s QDR, military force reductions, and trillion-dollar defense budget cuts are dangerous — and will leave the country in a position where it is unable to respond to threats to our nation’s security.

Obama Bails Out Big Pharma – In Kenya: Awards $224 million contract to USAID's favorite big business
Excerpt: The administration excused Kenya from completing a nationwide pharmaceutical network for which the U.S. had already devoted more than a half-billion dollars to create. Kenya proved unprepared to assume control of this drug supply-chain system by July 5, a transition date the two nations agreed upon five years ago. The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, therefore, awarded Chemonics International, the project’s contractor, a no-bid, sole-source $224-million contract for another 15 months of work. (Command economies do not work. This kind of cherrypicking favorites, throwing good money after obviously bad, flies in the face of the traditional capitalist system where those/programs who work are rewarded, versus those who fail. Government is ripe with graft, corruption and inability to hire auditors or accountants that use figures/budget versus political bias to make decisions. This is the kind of stuff that led to the implosion of the USSR. They had to introduce certain capitalistic practices despite themselves. --Barb)

Ebola News

The following pieces were submitted by Barb, a blog reader and frequent contributor. Read them critically, consider the sources and make up your own mind. It's hard to sort the alarmist from the factual on this....as on many things. ~Bob

Excerpt: ....Because the US knows this airborne strain is a respiratory virus (the one that will develop into the actual Pandemic), they needed to make some last minute adjustments to their emergency pandemic protocols, which were just refined on July 31, 2014 by Barack Obama to suite the needed definition in preparation for a WHO Pandemic Level 6 Declaration (down the line).... This bioengineered “respiratory” variation of the Ebola-Zaires virus was then purposely released in January 2014 through the Takmira TKM-Ebola human trials at the Kenema Government Hospital Lassa Diagnostic Laboratory (Soros / Gates Foundation) in Sierra Leone, using select test subjects as hosts (that are immune to the disease they then carry/spread).... Tekmira doses first subject in human clinical trial of TKM-Ebola Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation has dosed the first subject in a Phase 1 human clinical trial of TKM-Ebola, an anti-Ebola viral therapeutic that is being developed under a US$140 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense. [biotechnologyfocus.ca] Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjYFZC3FB2g (Needs independent confirmation. ~Bob)

This Ebola Different?
Excerpt: I heard a doctor (Dr. Elaina George) on the Bill Cunningham show last night. She said this Ebola isn’t acting like Ebola has in the past. She also commented that she’s not sure it isn’t spread via air (i.e. without direct contact), especially with the way it seems to be spreading and ‘acting’ with the current outbreak. She mentioned the pigs-to-macaque monkey study which did seem to show ZEBOV (Ebola Zaire - the deadliest strain of Ebola and the strain currently on the loose in this outbreak) infecting the monkeys without direct contact. REPLY TO ABOVE QUESTION posted on Free Republic: "I sent the message to one of my very close friends who is at least as conservative as you and I are. .... He has about 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry at a HIGHLY technical level......... It is a bio safety level 4 BSL-4 (highest level- only 15 complexes in America, 9 are Federal), and the highest Biological Weapons Potential."

From Pigs to Monkeys, Ebola Goes Airborne
Excerpt: When news broke that the Ebola virus had resurfaced in Uganda, investigators in Canada were making headlines of their own with research indicating the deadly virus may spread between species, through the air. The team, comprised of researchers from the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease, the University of Manitoba, and the Public Health Agency of Canada, observed transmission of Ebola from pigs to monkeys. They first inoculated a number of piglets with the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus.

Why Experts Were Surprised That Ebola-Infected Doctor Could Walk Into A Hospital

Excerpt: The fact that an Ebola-infected American was able to walk into a Georgia hospital Saturday after his return to the United States surprised even medical experts familiar with the ravages of the deadly disease. ...Schaffner said the fact that Brantly appeared to be well enough to walk, indicates that at least for the moment his heart rate, respiratory rate and other vital signs were not critical...."If he really does get better, we want to know his secret," Morse said.

Illegals Bring Risk Of Ebola. Exclusive: Dr. Elizabeth Lee Viet warns of 'global array of viral illnesses'

Excerpt: If risk is so low for the U.S., why is the CDC quietly setting up Ebola Quarantine Centers in 20 cities across the U.S.? Why did the Congressional Record report that Ebola bio kits have been deployed to National Guard units in all 50 states?... There is too much information being actively suppressed by this administration and the politically appointed heads of DHS, HHS, CDC, ICE and other agencies.

New York City hospital testing patient for possible Ebola infection

Excerpt: Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City is testing a patient who recently traveled to a West African country affected by the Ebola outbreak, the hospital said in a statement Monday afternoon. The male patient arrived at the emergency room Monday morning with a high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms. ... CDC officials told Fox News correspondent John Roberts that there have been “a half dozen or so” so-called “Persons Under Investigation” in the U.S. for possible Ebola infection and that they have all turned out to be negative.

Excerpt: The precautions don’t include screening air passengers from affected countries. ”It is important to note that Ebola is not contagious until symptoms appear, and that transmission is through direct contact of bodily fluids of an infected, symptomatic person or exposure to objects like needles that have been contaminated with infected secretions,” the CDC said. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told CNN that the outbreak is “coming close to being a catastrophe.”(CDC, Tell that to the monkeys who caught it from the pigs......Since when do we believe the paternalistic state regime? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.....Barb)

US to Begin Testing Ebola Vaccine
Excerpt: The U.S. government will begin testing on people an experimental Ebola vaccine as early as September, after seeing positive results from tests on primates, according to media reports on Thursday. The National Institutes of Health's infectious disease unit is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to put the vaccine into trial as quickly as possible, according to CNN and USA Today.

If Nuclear War Doesn’t Exterminate Us The Ebola Virus Might, Obama’s White House Press Conference
Excerpt: Allegedly the ebola carriers will be quarantined in special rooms. But we already know that American hospitals cannot even contain staph infections. What happens to the utensils, plates, cups, and glasses with which the ebola infected persons eat and drink? (And there are those containers for other bodily fluids....Barb)

Excerpt: The amendment signed by Obama replaces subsection (b) of the original Bush executive order which referred only to SARS. Obama’s amendment allows for the detention of Americans who display, “Severe acute respiratory syndromes, which are diseases that are associated with fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or other respiratory illness, are capable of being transmitted from person to person, and that either are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic, or, upon infection, are highly likely to cause mortality or serious morbidity if not properly controlled.” Although Ebola was listed on the original executive order signed by Bush, Obama’s amendment ensures that Americans who merely show signs of respiratory illness, with the exception of influenza, can be forcibly detained by medical authorities.

Obamacare News

Barney Frank: President Obama Lied About Obamacare. By Sandy Fitzgerald
Excerpt: Former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank says President Barack Obama lied to Americans about being able to keep their healthcare coverage, and he was "appalled" by the president's inaction during the botched Obamacare rollout. "Frankly, he should never have said as much as he did, that if you like your current healthcare plan, you can keep it," Frank, a retired Democrat congressman from Massachusetts, told The Huffington Post. "That wasn't true. And you shouldn't lie to people. And they just lied to people." (Barney Frank has been a super supporter of Obama and lots of socialist ideas and dedicated to the Democrat Party, but apparently he has a streak of commonsense honesty stuck in his head somewhere. Which caused him to tell the unvarnished truth about Mr. Obama's "misspeaking" in the campaign to get ObamaCare passed. Yes, it was a LIE, one that was repeated many times, frankly, clearly, staring into the cameras. But told "for your own good" in the simplest defense of it. That's what America has always needed, smart, elite leaders who know what's really good for us even when none of us knows it, and who are brave enough, dedicated enough, to lie to us, flat-out, for our own good. I know, it's just me... I can't swallow that line. And I reject, totally, passionately, the idea that it's OK for my President to tell deliberate lies to me because he thinks his ideas are so good that it's justified. --Del)

Worth Reading: Price of failure: Pay raises and promises. Sentinel & Enterprise
Excerpt: The latest example of government's Mouseketeers Club mentality comes at the shaky Massachusetts Health Connector. Recently, MHC executive director Jean Yang doled out raises of $10,000 or more to 11 of the agency's 53 workers. ... This action comes after the embarrassing debacle associated with the state's rollout of its Obamacare website, which has cost taypayers nearly $1 million in computer fixes and lawsuits and still isn't resolved. (The Fitchburg Sentinel [which absorbed the Leominster Enterprise] was probably the most important paper in my senate district. Always gave me pretty fair coverage. ~Bob)

The Trans-Atlantic Version of Great Moments in Government-Run Healthcare. By Daniel J. Mitchell
Excerpt: When government suppresses the free market and takes over the healthcare sector, you get some really odd results. Consider these stories from Sweden: A man sewing up his own leg after getting frustrated with a long wait. The government denying a wheelchair to a double amputee because the bureaucrats decided his impairment might not be permanent.

Voters Still Fear The Worst Under New Health Care Law
Excerpt: Voters continue to give the U.S. health care system low marks but also remain convinced that Obamacare will only make things worse. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 34% of Likely U.S. Voters rate the nation’s health care system as good or excellent. Nearly as many (29%) give it poor marks, although that’s down from 35% in June, the highest negative in regular tracking since November 2012.

Newly Insured, Many Now Face Learning Curve
Excerpt: Advocates of the Affordable Care Act, focused until now on persuading people to buy health insurance, have moved to a crucial new phase: making sure the eight million Americans who did so understand their often complicated policies and use them properly.
The political stakes are high, as support for the health care law will hinge at least partly on whether people have good experiences with their new coverage.

Survey: 1 In 5 Uninsured Don't Want Coverage. By Phil Galewitz , Kaiser Health News
Excerpt: Though millions of people gained health coverage this year as a result of the Affordable Care Act, millions more remain unaware of their options or have no interest in getting insured, a new survey has found.

Aetna CEO Admits Obamacare Customer Numbers Worse Than Expected. By Marguerite Bowling
Excerpt: Aetna has picked up 600,000 customers thanks to the Affordable Care Act. But is the company any more profitable? CEO and Chairman Mark Bertolini couldn’t say for sure. ... Bertolini said the initial Obamacare enrollment numbers were worse than expected but younger enrollees increased in April in May, when Aetna picked up two-thirds of its customer growth through Obamacare.

Employer Health Insurance: A Bargain Compared to Government-Sponsored Coverage. By Sally Pipes
Excerpt: After years of slowing growth, employer health costs are forecast to climb at a faster pace next year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Even with that projected growth, employers are spending much less per person than is the government — about 60 percent less, concludes a new study from the American Health Policy Institute.

Undocumented Democrat News

Nancy Pelosi Loses It: Has Meltdown on Floor as House Republicans Pass Tough Border Bill. By Brian Hayes
Excerpt: But bigger news was made by what the former Speaker Nancy Pelosi did on the floor before the vote, throwing an undignified tantrum right on the floor before shocked colleagues to attack a Republican who pointed out her own dismal record on immigration. (Nancy Pelosi objects to proposed interruption of flow of cheap labor to her vineyards. --TH)

Leaked report: Open border attracting people from all over the world. By Thomas Lifson
http://americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/leaked_report_open_border_attracting_people_from_all_over_the_world.html
Excerpt: It isn’t just adorable little tykes from Central America that are making long and perilous journeys to the United States, attracted by a border whose guards are busy changing diapers and offering care to those who already ignored our laws. People from almost every country on earth have been streaming into the United States, according to a leaked intelligence analysis from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that was obtained by Breitbart Texas.

Leaked CBP Report Shows Entire World Exploiting Open US Border
Excerpt....It shows that most of the human smuggling from Syria and Albania into the U.S. comes through Central America....In addition to the individuals from terror-prone nations who attempted to illegally enter the U.S., individuals from nations currently suffering from the world’s largest Ebola outbreak have been caught attempting to sneak across the porous U.S. border into the interior of the United States. At least 71 individuals from the three nations affected by the current Ebola outbreak have either turned themselves in or been caught attempting to illegally enter the U.S. by U.S. authorities between January 2014 and July 2014.

Illegal-Alien No-Shows: By the time ICE files court cases, the unaccompanied minors have settled elsewhere
Excerpt: The Department of Justice has begun ushering unaccompanied alien children to the front of the line for immigration court proceedings — but the children still fail to appear in court. In one day at a Los Angeles immigration court last week, Judge Ashley Tabaddor heard the cases of nearly 40 illegal immigrant minors, but none of the children appeared in court, according to the Los Angeles Times. In each case, the illegal immigrant minor was thought to have settled elsewhere, and the judge reportedly decided not to deport the children in absentia.

Religion of Peace News.

Worth Reading: And the war came. By Paul Grenburg
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/greenberg080414.php3#.U-AijvldW8M
Excerpt: The innocent American could only read the headlines and shake his head sorrowfully at the continuing carnage in Gaza -- a pillar of fire by night and a cloud of smoke by day. How did this happen again? Simple: Hamas renewed its indiscriminate attacks on Israel through overhead rockets, underground tunnels, words and deeds -- and Israel finally responded in force. Not just the innocent but the sophisticated observer has to wonder: Why? What's the sense of it? There seems none from the rational -- that is, the conventionally Western -- point of view. Which may explain why generations of Western diplomats, denizens of think tanks, and Deep Thinkers in general, have failed to make sense of this ever-renewed conflict, let alone end it. ... Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer prize-winning editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Excerpt: "Peace [be] upon my dear brothers, the political leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and all resistance groups," said Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani, the Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Qods Force (IRGC-QF,) in a recent letter about the Gaza conflict. As expected, the war between Hamas and Israel has provided great ideological fodder for Iran. And it is no surprise that Iran's revolutionary leadership, best characterized by Ayatollah Khamenei, has been vocal on the issue.

Hamas Snatches Disaster from the Jaws of Victory. By John Cassidy
Excerpt: Except it didn’t happen. By launching a Friday morning attack in the border city of Rafah, which ended with two Israeli soldiers killed and one captured, Hamas’s fighters torpedoed the seventy-two-hour truce and the negotiations that were meant to come with it. Within hours, Israeli tanks, artillery, and aircraft were blasting Rafah and the surrounding territory, killing another seventy Palestinians and injuring more than three hundred and fifty, according to local officials.

Crying 'ceasefire' in a crowded military theater: On walking with Kerry. By Rabbi Dov Fischer
Excerpt: The Government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done well to avoid being cowed into a poorly conceived ceasefire in the midst of its defensive struggle to stop Hamas from raining rockets and terror indiscriminately on the people of Israel. It has been encouraging, even inspiring, to read and hear the loud and angry responses throughout Israel — condemnatory across the board, from right to left — denouncing each of the respectively ludicrous ceasefire proposals that have been floated by John Kerry, United States Secretary of State, partly on his own and partly in consultation with two of the world's most notorious generators of Israel-hate: Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and the leadership of Qatar.

Attacks in Jerusalem spark fears that Gaza war will spawn more violence
(Also Islamic jihad Leader Killed)
Excerpt: A pair of attacks along the line separating east and west Jerusalem set this bitterly contested city on edge Monday amid fears that the nearly month-old war in the Gaza Strip will spawn violence far beyond the territory’s boundaries. The assaults — one with a gun, the other with a backhoe — prompted Israeli police armed with automatic weapons to set up makeshift checkpoints and ambulance services to go on high alert, as city leaders appealed for calm. (And buried in the story: Before the cease-fire kicked in, an Israeli airstrike killed one of the most senior militant commanders yet in the 28-day operation. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a close ally of Hamas, said the leader of its northern flank, Daniel Mansour, 44, died in astrike on his home just before dawn Monday. The incessant Hamas attacks on Israel, through rockets and the tunnels, provoked the current violence. ~Bob)

Jon Voight Blasts Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz For Fanning Flames of Anti-Semitism.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2014/08/03/jon-voight-blasts-actors-anti-semitismExcerpt:
Excerpt: You have been able to become famous and have all your monetary gains because you are in a democratic country: America. Do you think you would have been able to accomplish this in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, et cetera? You had a great responsibility to use your celebrity for good. Instead, you have defamed the only democratic country of goodwill in the Middle East: Israel. You should hang your heads in shame.

Excerpt: And the other 53% were human shields. The “international allegations of a lopsidedly heavy civilian death toll” are jihad propaganda, willingly and even eagerly disseminated by the mainstream media.

VIDEO: Pro-Hamas Protesters Attack Marine in Front of White House. By Daniel Greenfield
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/pro-hamas-protesters-attack-marine-in-front-of-white-house/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pro-hamas-protesters-attack-marine-in-front-of-white-house
Excerpt: He was punched, pulled, kicked, and even spat on.

Amazing: Finnish reporter tells the truth about rockets fired from Gaza hospital and then complains when pro-Istael media mention it. By Thomas Lifson
http://americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/amazing_finnish_reporter_tells_the_truth_on_rockets_fired_from_gaza_hospital_and_then_complains_when_proisrael_media_mention_it.html
Excerpt:Consider the case of Finnish television correspondent Aishi Zidan. William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection reports: We reported on the Finnish reporter who disclosed that there was rocket fire from just behind Gaza’s main hospital, Hamas hides in, under and around Gaza’s main hospital, and the media covers it up (Video):

To the Students for Justice in Palestine, a Letter From an Angry Black Woman: ‘You do not have the right to invoke my people’s struggle for your shoddy purposes’ By Chloe Valdary
Excerpt: The student organization Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is prominent on many college campuses, preaching a mantra of “Freeing Palestine.” It masquerades as though it were a civil rights group when it is not. Indeed, as an African-American, I am highly insulted that my people’s legacy is being pilfered for such a repugnant agenda. It is thus high time to expose its agenda and lay bare some of the fallacies they peddle. (This lady really goes at it, line by line, in full detail. I think she is really ticked! But she expresses herself very well. --Del)

Obama advisor John Brennan speaks about the beauty of Islam

Pakistani newlyweds decapitated by bride's family in honor killing. By Shelby Lin Erdman, CNN
Excerpt: A young newlywed couple in northeastern Pakistan died a horrible death at the hands of the bride's family in the latest honor killing in the nation, police in Pakistan said Saturday.
The couple, identified as Sajjad Ahmed, 26, and Muawia Bibi, 18, were married by a Pakistani court on June 18 against the wishes of the Bibi family, Punjab police official Mohammad Ahsanullah told CNN. (Well to be fair, according to JihadWatch.com, Muslims don't committee all the honor killings of female relatives, just 91% of them. This is part of the real War on Women ignored by multicultural progressives. ~Bob)

Afghanistan a How-To Lesson in Perfect Stupidity: 54,000 Paid Ghosts, Vanishing Firearms, Warlord Protection Rackets. By Mike Shedlock
Excerpt: Thank president Bush, vice president Dick Cheney, and president Obama for working together to create a how-to map of perfect foreign policy stupidity.

Boko Haram Strapped And Remotely Triggered Explosives On Unsuspecting Kidnapped Schoolgirls Which Were Scoured From A Captured Chinese Factory
http://www.inquisitr.com/1387881/boko-haram-strapped-and-remotely-triggered-explosives-on-unsuspecting-kidnapped-schoolgirls-which-were-scoured-from-a-captured-chinese-factory/
Excerpt: In what could only be deemed as one of the world’s most heinous crimes, the Boko Haram militants have been strapping explosives scoured from a Chinese factory onto little schoolgirls and exploding them via remote controls.

Excerpt: Somalia’s Al-Shabab insurgents said they had assassinated a lawmaker in Mogadishu as he left prayers at a mosque Friday, the fifth MP killed this year in a string of attacks. (Of the Muslims killed in the last 20 years, the vast majority were slaughtered by other Muslims, not Christians or Jews. ~Bob)

'Pakistan used US anti-terror military aid to fight India'
Excerpt: Most of the American military aid to Islamabad for counterinsurgency has gone into buying equipment to fight India, a former US diplomat has told lawmakers as he described Pakistan as a country which is "on the edge in many ways of being a failed state". Testifying before a Congressional Committee, Ronald Neumann, former US ambassador to Afghanistan, said the state department on terrorism ranks Pakistan as having the highest level of terrorist incidents of any country in the world. (Time to congratulate the Pakistani government for the fine job it is doing and send them more money! That is the usual response in Washington to revelations like these. --Robert Spencer, www.JihadWatch.com)

'Mujahideen’ in India threaten attacks in Mumbai in response to Israeli Gaza ops
Excerpt: The Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor of MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) uncovered the story and exclusively provided The Jerusalem Post with a report, quoting the letter signed simply as “Mujahideen” and targeting the police chief. “We will take revenge for Gaza. In 1993, you [Maria] got a chance. This time you won’t. Stop us if you can,” read the letter published in the Daily News & Analysis (DNA) newspaper on July 27.

Turkish PM Erdogan Returning Jewish American Award
Excerpt: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is returning an award given to him by a Jewish American group in 2004, after the group asked for it back because of comments he made regarding the conflict in Gaza. Turkey's ambassador to the U.S., Serdar Kilic, wrote to Jack Rosen, president of the American Jewish Congress, on Erdogan's behalf. Kilic said Erdogan would be glad to return the award because of Israel's actions in Gaza and "the regrettable stance adopted by the present leadership of the American Jewish Congress vis-a-vis the recent attacks on the innocent civilians in Gaza."

The NSA’s New Partner in Spying: Saudi Arabia’s Brutal State Police
Excerpt: The National Security Agency last year significantly expanded its cooperative relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Interior, one of the world’s most repressive and abusive government agencies. An April 2013 top secret memo provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden details the agency’s plans “to provide direct analytic and technical support” to the Saudis on “internal security” matters.... According to the memo, the NSA began collaborating with the MOD in 2011 on a “sensitive access initiative… focused on internal security and terrorist activity on the Arabian Peninsula”; that partnership was conducted “under the auspices of CIA’s relationship with the MOI’s Mabahith (General Directorate for Investigations, equivalent to FBI).

Excerpt: The Islamic State continues to release photographs of the execution of Iraq soldiers and security personnel. Yesterday, the Islamic State's Anbar Division released seven photographs documenting the beheading of three Iraq soldiers. While the beheadings could not be confirmed, the photographs released by the Islamic State are similar to images of other executions that have been confirmed.

Isis Crucifies 8 Christians In Syria For Apostasy From Islam
Excerpt: Various sources have received independent confirmation from inside Syria that these men were former Muslims that had converted to Christianity. They were not ‘..rebel fighters from a rival faction..’ as many news outlets are reporting. Each of the 8 men were charged with the crime of apostasy for renouncing Islam and converting to Christianity. When confronted by the ISIS members, they refused to “revert” to Islam. (I'd "convert." In fact I'd volunteer for their army. And when I got my hands on a gun...~Bob)

The bravest man in Turkey: "Islam is worse than Nazism." By Robert Spencer
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/08/turkish-poet-islam-is-worse-than-nazism
Excerpt: When Serkan Engin sent me this piece and asked me to publish it, I asked him if this could endanger him in Turkey. He responded, “I am ready to die.” I certainly hope that he encounters no difficulty as a result of making these public statements; what happens to him now will be a test of the health of the freedom of speech and Kemalist secularism in rapidly re-Islamizing Turkey. It is certainly not possible to say such things in the U.S. today without charges of “racism” and “bigotry,” without any discussion of whether there are Islamic texts and teachings that justify violence and hatred: the question cannot even be asked
.

In Europe, They Call For Death To Jews. Again. By Abigail R. Esman
Excerpt: Few European Jews speak or understand much Arabic. But there is one phrase many have recently come to know: "Khaybar Khaybar ya-Yahud,jaish Mohammad saya'ud."The words refer to the battle of Khaybar, in which the Prophet Mohammed slaughtered and enslaved hundreds of Jews, including women and children; "Mohammed," it means, "is coming back for you." It is a death threat to Jews everywhere, and it is being shouted out with growing frequency these days on the streets of Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Berlin.

Five Ways Muslims Have Contrbuted to "building the very fabric of our nation." By Robert Spencer
http://pjmedia.com/blog/5-ways-muslims-have-contributed-to-building-the-very-fabric-of-our-nation/?singlepage=trueThe Marines
Excerpt: “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli…” The line from the Marines’ hymn commemorates the Marines’ actions during the First Barbary War (1801-1805), the first war the United States fought against Islamic jihadists. The war came about because President Thomas Jefferson refused to accede to the Barbary states’ demands for tribute payments – demands made in accord with the Qur’an’s dictum that the “People of the Book” must be made to “pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (9:29). The Barbary pirates, also acting in accord with Islamic law regarding the kidnapping, enslaving and ransoming of non-Muslims, were seizing American ships and enslaving the crews, demanding exorbitant ransoms for their release. The Marines put a stop to all that, and the line from the Marines’ hymn shows how pivotal their actions on the Barbary coast were to forming the Marine ethos. So for the Marines, too, we have Muslims to thank. (Robert Spencer runs JihadWatch.com. Worth reading and subscribing to their daily updates. ~Bob)

Lebanese soldiers die as Syria rebels raid border town
Excerpt: Eight Lebanese soldiers have been killed in clashes with Syrian rebels who raided the border town of Arsal in Lebanon on Saturday.

Islamic State seizes town of Sinjar, pushing out Kurds and sending Yazidis fleeing. By Loveday Morris

Excerpt: The ancient northern Iraqi town of Sinjar emptied Sunday, with thousands of people fleeing on foot as Sunni extremist militants made their first significant punches through the defenses of overstretched Kurdish forces. Sinjar is an ancestral home of the long-persecuted Yazidi religious sect, which the Islamic State has branded as devil worshipers, and few of its residents stayed to find out what was planned for them when the group’s militants entered Sunday.

1 comment:

  1. As Bill Clinton taught us, semantics is all.

    I propose we abandon the obsolete phrase "illegal alien," with all its negative connotations, with the far more progressive description of "unregulated immigrant."

    And then Mr. Obama can explain how, at last, he has discovered something he is unwilling to regulate.

    ReplyDelete