Friday, October 3, 2014

Today's Important Political News and Conservative Comment

Update

I always have a blue face mask with me, due to being immune-suppressed. I am required to wear it in the hospital, on airplanes and any place where there is likely to be large numbers of sick people. I usually have it pulled down to breath better in stores or restaurants, but if I'm in close contact with a lot of people, or someone near me is sneezing, up it goes. People often ask if I'm contagious. Now I can just tell them, "Oh, it's nothing...a little touch of Ebola..." ~Bob

Time to start Christmas, Hanukah or Winter Solstice Shopping
What better gift than a book by Robert A. Hall?: 
Something here for everyone--and the royalties go to charity, not me. ~Bob

Radio Interview for Uncle Sam's Misguided Children blog
This website has published "I'm tired." They have asked to interview me on their on air radio outlet Tuesday morning at 0900 CDT. The interview will be by radio host and USMC veteran, Rick Ferran "Tank." I have until then to overcome my natural shyness and humility...~Bob

General News and Comment


Scott Walker leads Mary Burke 50-45 among likely voters in latest Marquette poll
Excerpt: Republican Gov. Scott Walker has pulled ahead of Democratic challenger Mary Burke five weeks before Election Day, according to the latest Marquette Law School Poll.

Excerpt: We’ve heard a great deal lately about the “wrong side of history.” It is one of the president’s favorite ways to describe whatever side he isn’t on, and it’s been a phrase on the lips of progressives for quite a while. Among the myriad problems with the notion of a “wrong side of history,” as many critics (including me) have long argued, is that in the domestic sphere it is a call for one’s opponents to surrender to the inevitability of defeat, and in the international sphere it is deployed rhetorically to avoid deploying anything real. (Hitler was on the wrong side of history, but it was small consolation to the 40M dead of WWII. ~Bob)

Mission Accomplish, his career ruined, but: Tom Delay Found Not Guilty By State’s Highest Court
Excerpt: Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was found not guilty today by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. This is the highest appellate court in Texas for criminal cases and thus brings DeLay’s political persecution to an end.

A smidgeon of corruption? IRS Cover-Up: IG Report Exposes IRS Lying to American Public. By Matthew Clark
Excerpt: The cover-up is stunning. “The IRS concealed information it should have released in response to an estimated 336 requests in 2013, according to the report.”
In response to a report (from the same IG’s office) detailing the IRS targeting scandal, the American public demanded to know the truth. The American people sent in numerous FOIA requests, and the IRS concealed pertinent information at least 336 times.

'Man with the golden arm' saves 2million babies in half a century of donating rare type of blood
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259627/Man-golden-arm-James-Harrison-saves-2million-babies-half-century-donating-rare-blood.html
Excerpt: An Australian man who has been donating his extremely rare kind of blood for 56 years has saved the lives of more than two million babies. James Harrison, 74, has an antibody in his plasma that stops babies dying from Rhesus disease, a form of severe anaemia.

California Passes Temporary Gun Confiscation Law
Excerpt: Every gun owner hates the idea of a gun confiscation law. Not too long ago, we reported about Gabby Giffords’ “rational middle ground” ideas aimed at preventing “gun violence.” One of those ideas was to allow courts to issue Gun Violence Restraining Orders. These result in temporary gun confiscation(There is nothing so "permanent" as something "temporary". It looks like California Governor Jerry Brown took that idea to heart, as he just signed a law like it into effect. The law was spawned right after that kid killed six people on the UCSB campus.

Why Does the U.S. Refuse to Label GMOs?
Excerpt: In what area of policy does the United States differ from every nation in Europe, as well as Australia, Japan, Russia, India and China? Well, each of these countries requires the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs), while the U.S. has refused to budge on this issue. In fact, the U.S. is becoming more and more isolated among industrialized nations in its stubborn insistence that GMOs are perfectly safe for human consumption. Would it surprise you that the companies that create GMOs are primarily U.S. corporations? It’s seemingly another case of special interests winning, and average citizens losing out. (Personally, I think that GMOs are a boon to mankind, with the potential to save lives, like Golden Rice. I think the anti GMP hysteria is another tin-foil-hat conspiracy theory, like the anti-vaccine and anti fluoride movements. ~Bob)

Obama Brushes Off Plight of U.S. Marine Jailed in Mexico
Excerpt: Obama will trade 5 terrorists for a deserter traitor, but ignores this patriot. Unreal. Check it out: It’s the State Department’s problem. On the same day Republican lawmakers urged President Obama to do something about an American war veteran languishing in a Mexican jail, a White House spokesman indicated it’s not going to happen.

248,000 Jobs Added in September. From The Patriot Post
The U.S. economy added 248,000 jobs in September, and the headline unemployment rate fell to 5.9%. The real story is that 315,000 people left the workforce, and labor force participation ticked down again to 62.7%, remaining at levels not seen since the Carter-era recession. That's why the unemployment rate is falling. The U-6 unemployment rate, a better measure, sits at 11.8%. That said, the report contains some good news: The August report was revised up from 142,000 jobs created to 180,000, and CNBC notes, "The job creation [in September] was tilted heavily towards full-time positions, which surged by 671,000. Part-time jobs actually fell by 384,000." Furthermore, writes National Review's Patrick Brennan, "248,000 jobs in September is still not as fast as we’d like a recovery to be, but it’s noticeably more jobs than need to be created to keep up with population growth, and the past eight months have been a faster average period of job creation than any comparable time during this recovery." The American economy is resilient enough even to face the headwinds of Barack Obama's "recovery."

Worth Reading: 28 words that Democrats really wish President Obama didn’t say today. By Chris Cillizza 
Excerpt: President Obama was at Northwestern University on Thursday to deliver an economic speech that, he and his team hoped, would lay out the case forwhy the public is better off today than they were six years ago -- even if they didn't feel it in their everyday lives. Instead, Obama just gave every Republican ad-maker in the country more fodder for negative ads linking Democratic candidates to him. Here are the four sentences that will draw all of the attention

Dem Who Backs Obama 99 Percent of the Time: I'm Totally a Thorn in His Side. By Guy Benson 
Excerpt: Colorado's Mark Udall is the ultimate Obama rubber stamp. He's represented his purple state in a reflexively partisan, close-minded manner, backing President Obama 99 percent of the time. He's getting pilloried for his slavish loyalty to a president whose popularity has cratered in the state, and he knows its a serious vulnerability

Ebola News (Again rates its own section, alas!)

First US Ebola Patient Identified; Second Possible Ebola Patient Under Watch; School kids Monitored for Possible Infection
Excerpt: Meanwhile, even Chris Matthews wants to know why President I Got This told the American public that it was "unlikely" that Ebola would reach America's shores. Allah disputes the "unlikelihood" of it -- all we're doing is checking people for fever. That's a symptom that might not present itself for days after the actual infection. So why would Obama say this? Because he says "Nothing to see here, folks, move on" to everything. He is worried how worries will affect him politically, so he does nothing but offer empty -- and often outright false -- assurances that he's on top of everything.

Scrutiny in Texas to Detect Whether Ebola Has Spread
Excerpt: The man who has become the first Ebola patient to develop symptoms in the United States told officials at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital last Friday that he had just arrived from West Africa but was not admitted that day because that information was not passed along at the hospital, officials acknowledged Wednesday. ... Mr. Duncan came back to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday and was admitted for treatment, but in those two days in between, his contacts with a number of people — including five schoolchildren and the medics who helped transport him to the hospital — potentially exposed them to Ebola, forcing officials to monitor and isolate them in their homes and to begin a thorough cleaning of the schools the students attended. (Does not include number of staff at ER at Triage on first visit, let alone those on second....Barb)

President Obama said an Ebola case in America is unlikely but now that we have one, what is Obama doing? Fundraising of course!

#Ebola will be blamed on Global Warming, it will be racist to limit travel from infected nations to protect USA

6 Ways The Feds Screwed Up the Ebola Response
Excerpt: Ebola is not easy to transmit. But the federal government is making it a hell of a lot easier for those who have contracted Ebola to transmit it here in the United States, if the case of Thomas Eric Duncan is any indicator. Here are the top six mistakes made by our government in dealing with the Ebola epidemic: Killing Quarantine Rules....

Obama's Pathetic Response To Ebola Isn't Reassuring
Excerpt: Now that Ebola has arrived in the U.S., Americans should ask why. After all, our government knew that the outbreak in Africa was severe but has done little to keep the disease from reaching our shores. Sure, the medical professionals involved — doctors, nurses and epidemiologists — are working hard and bravely to contain an outbreak, which so far includes a Liberian man in Dallas and as many as 100 people he came in contact with. But the government's response, as is too often the case, has been far less than competent and remains so. (And the things that we actually do need a federal government for, they don't do very well. Like getting serious about keeping Ebola out of this country, cancelling all the flights, and checking anyone coming from the area. The guy who brought it here isn't even a US citizen, he's a Liberian. The further we get into this, the crazier it gets. And there won't be any remotely large scale production of the vaccine that MAY be effective for quite a while. Great, just great. No, not time to panic, but I do hope that there gets to be enough interest in this for the government and perhaps the states to get totally serious about watching out for it. And maybe somebody can figure out how to speed up manufacture of that vaccine. --Del)

Dallas Paramedic: We Weren't Contact After Working In Ebola-Exposed Ambulance
Excerpt: “Three days after the fact,” an exasperated Aklinski stated, “I had to demand exposure testing and they are reporting following up with all the people in the ambulance??? Bull crap!!! They haven’t even followed up with the ten firefighters that were on duty Sunday.

CDC quarantine regulations
Excerpt: In October 2014, the first patient on American soil infected with the Ebola virus sits in isolation in a Texas hospital, prompting calls for travel restrictions between the United States and Ebola-stricken countries. Meanwhile, four years ago, the administration of President Barack Obama moved with virtually no fanfare to abandon a comprehensive set of regulations which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had called essential to preventing international travelers from spreading deadly diseases inside the United States. The CDC had proposed the regulations in 2005 under the administration of George W. Bush, reported USA Today in 2010.

Doomsday warning: UN Ebola chief raises 'nightmare' prospect that virus could mutate and become airborne - making it much more infectious
Excerpt: UN warns Ebola virus currently plaguing West Africa could become airborne. The longer it moves between human hosts the greater possibility of mutation. The risk grows the longer virus is living within the human 'melting pot.' NGOs have said the Ebola virus is currently infecting five people every hour.

If Ebola doesn't worry you: Chikungunya in the Americas
Excerpt: Updates of chikungunya case counts are publicly released every Wednesday by 12 p.m. MT. As of September 26, 2014, local transmission had been identified in 34 countries or territories in the Caribbean, Central America, South America, or North America. A total of 737,084 suspected and 12,052 laboratory-confirmed chikungunya cases had been reported from these areas (Updated data from the Pan American Health Organization alt="External Web Site Icon" class=externalImg title="External Web Site Icon" v:shapes="_x0000_i1025">). Chikungunya virus likely will continue to spread to new areas in the Americas (North America, Central America, and South America) through infected people and mosquitoes. The mosquitoes that transmit the virus are found throughout much of the Americas, including parts of the United States. Since chikungunya virus is new to the Americas, most people in the region are not immune. This means they can be infected and spread the virus to other mosquitoes. (Could be controlled by DDT, like Malaria, West Nile and Bedbugs, but we have to save the birds...so the green wind farms can chop them up. ~Bob)

Race Card News

Lawsuit: Wrong sperm delivered to lesbian couple
Excerpt: A white Ohio woman is suing a Downers Grove-based sperm bank, alleging that the company mistakenly gave her vials from an African-American donor, a fact that she said has made it difficult for her and her same-sex partner to raise their now 2-year-old daughter in an all-white community.

Why U.S. blacks are easy targets for radicalization. By Jesse Lee Peterson 
Excerpt: Extremist Muslims are recruiting willing American blacks for violent jihad against their own fellow citizens. .. Nolan reportedly attended a mosque headed by Suhaib Webb, an imam with ties to former al-Qaida mastermind Anwar al-Awlaki. Webb had been the leader of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City. Amazingly, Webb is head of the sister organization of the mosque attended by Boston Marathon bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Why are blacks so susceptible to being radicalized?

Obamacare/Government Healthcare News

Wisconsin Employers and Workers Suffer under Obamacare
Excerpt: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) raises the price of health insurance, affecting the labor market as employers attempt to deal with the rising costs of health benefits. Devon Herrick, senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis, explains how the law is impacting the state of Wisconsin. Two-thirds of insured Americans have health coverage through their employers. Wisconsin employees are more likely to receive employer-sponsored health benefits than are employees in other states, though the percentage of residents receiving employer-sponsored health insurance has been declining in Wisconsin since 2000: In 2000, 60 percent of Wisconsin employers offered employee health plans, which fell to 50 percent in 2011. In 2000, 72 percent of Wisconsin workers employed in small firms were offered employer-sponsored coverage. That number had dropped to 51 percent by 2010. The ACA will only contribute to the drop in employer coverage, which has been most prominent among small firms, as costs rise.

As the courts turn: The continuing legal perils of Obamacare. By Thomas P. Miller 
Excerpt: Legal challenges to various aspects of Obamacare (aka the Affordable Care Act) keep traveling on a rollercoaster. Today’s episode of the law’s continuing courtroom soap opera involves a ruling by a federal district court in Oklahoma, which overturned a 2012 IRS rule authorizing premium assistance tax credits in federal exchanges (since rebranded as “federally facilitated marketplaces”). The decision improves the likelihood that the Supreme Court ultimately will consider this issue on appeal; either in the spring of 2015 or during its next 2015-2016 term.

Undocumented Democrat News

And if Chikungunya doesn't worry you...The mainstream media ignores the elephant in the room
Excerpt: The first case of the “mystery” virus affecting kids all over the country has been reported in Maine. The mainstream press has shown an astonishing lack of interest in the obvious. Over 900 cases of this illness have appeared, scattered throughout the country and they have only one thing in common. The introduction of illegal alien children. How has the press handled this? By ignoring it.

"You're Greener than Gore" News

Global Warming in Madison, WI
After the worst winter anyone here remembers, with temps as low as -23 degree F, we had a very cool summer. Only two days reached 90 degrees F. Tonight's forecast is for a low of 35 degrees and snow showers extending into Saturday morning. On October 3, early autumn. ~Bob

Huffpo Authors: Climate Change to Blame for Rise of ISIS
Excerpt: A read-it-to-believe-it column in the Huffington Post is demanding that each American do more to stop the looming threat of the Islamic State-- by recycling. Arguing a direct correlation between droughts in Syria and the rise of Islamist extremism, the authors blame climate change for the terrorist group's advance in the Middle East..... But they are related, the authors argue, because the desperation that grows when climate change triggers a severe shortage of food could snowball into an international terrorist movement: ... [M]any in the West remain unaware that climate played a significant role in the rise of Syria's extremists.

Religion of Peace News

Video purportedly shows ISIS beheading of British hostage Alan Henning
Excerpt: An Internet video released Friday purportedly shows an Islamic State fighter beheading captured British aid worker Alan Henning and threatening another American captive in the fourth such killing carried out by the extremist group, according to The Associated Press.

Obama
The new non-war prompted someone to ask me why Obama is like a banana. "Why?" I replied. "Because he came in green, turned yellow and has now gone rotten," was the answer. Good joke, but since he's a product of the Chicago way machine, I think the rot was always there. ~Bob

Bomb, Occupy, or Neither? Blowing apart a problem for a while is different from ending it for good. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: Wars usually end only when the defeated aggressor believes it would be futile to resume the conflict. Lasting peace follows if the loser is then forced to change its political system into something other than what it was. Republican Rome learned that bitter lesson through three conflicts with Carthage before ensuring that there was not going to be a fourth Punic War.

FMR CIA Director: Obama Forced Out Intel Chief Who Warned About Weak Iraqi Army
Excerpt: Wednesday on Newsmax TV's "The Steve Malzberg Show," President Bill Clinton's former director of the CIA James Woolsey said President Barack Obama's attempt to blame poor intelligence is getting "less and less true" as he pointed to the forced resignation of the Head of [Defense Intelligence Agency] Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn who was "making it very clear he was very worried about the stability of the Iraqi army."...And so I think that side of things really was not dealt with real squarely by the administration and I think it did, it did either, permitted or required Flynn to leave early, retire early, and he's the most brilliant intelligence officer this countries seen in the last couple decades." ...At the time there were reports he was challenging the Obama administration narrative that al Qaeda was on the run after the death of Osama bin Laden.

Excerpt: As President Barack Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, a storm is brewing over alleged double standards concerning civilian casualties incurred during the current US bombing campaign against the Islamic State terrorist organization in Iraq and Syria. Writing in the National Review, pundit David French observed that only a few months after the Obama Administration used terms like “appalled” and “disgraceful” in reacting to supposed civilian deaths during Israel’s recent war against Hamas in Gaza, the president has now loosened the restrictions imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths arising from American military operations.

War with ISIS: What does victory look like? By Andrew Liepman and Philip Mudd
Excerpt: We have too many reminders of the resilience of this particularly violent ideology to think that it can be eliminated. ... Despite these lessons, commentators across the political spectrum speak today about the defeat of an even larger, more geographically diverse, and more brutal adversary, in Syria and Iraq, as if somehow the lessons of the durability of al Qaeda ideology has proven brittle in other, equally complex, battlefields. It hasn't.

War without end: The U.S. may still be fighting in Syria in 2024, 2034, 2044 . . . By Jack Shafer
Excerpt: America has allies in Syria’s civil war, of course, including Harakat Hazm, part of the Free Syrian Army. Harakat Hazm is fighting Assad, but it has also fought alongside America’s enemy Jabhat al-Nusra, which has not disqualified it from receiving U.S. weapons and training. Harakat Hazm took exception to the American-led bombing of Syria in a statement, calling it an “external intervention” and “an attack on the revolution,” according to a Los Angeles Times report. So Harakat Hazm, America’s friend, which fought with America’s enemy against Syria—which is neither friend nor enemy—objects to the fact that America bombed Syria in pursuit of the Islamic State, which is also Harakat Hazm’s enemy. Meanwhile, the militant Shiite group Hezbollah is drone-bombing Jabat al-Nusrat along the Lebanon-Syria border at the same time Israel is downing Syrian jets. Confused yet? You’ll have plenty of time to catch up.

Women and Children for Sale: A new U.N. report paints a terrifying picture of life under the Islamic State.
Excerpt: In early August, fighters from the Islamic State swept into the small Yazidi village of Maturat in Iraq's Sinjar district and took women to the Badush prison in Mosul. Hundreds more women and girls were herded into an ancient citadel in the town of Tal Afar in the northern province of Nineveh. From Tal Afar, a group of 150 unmarried girls and women, mostly from Christian or Yazidi families, were selected and reportedly sent to Syria "either to be given to ISIL fighters as a reward or to be sold as sex slaves," according to a report released on Thursday, Oct. 2, by the United Nations' human rights office in Iraq. (Just more information about how truly awful these maniacs are. --Del. According to the Holy Qur'an and the Sacred Hadith--the traditions of the prophet that Islamic scholars say are required to understand the Qur'an--Mohammad kept slaves and Allah allowed the rape of female slaves [that which your right hand possesses]. According to these texts, Mohammad is the perfect example of conduct for Muslims today. Thus slavery, like child-marriage for the same reason, is VERY Islamic. ~Bob )

Troops not eligible for campaign medal in fight against ISIS
Excerpt: The troops President Obama has deployed to Iraq are not eligible for certain medals because the U.S. has not officially designated their efforts a military campaign. ... Veterans groups are upset over the exclusions, arguing the battle against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL) should be treated as an extension of previous military campaigns.

Philippine Islamist Militants Threaten to Behead German on October 17
Excerpt: Al-Qaeda linked Islamist militants in the Philippines said on Thursday they will kill one of two German captives on Oct. 17 unless their demands are met. ... The militants are demanding a 250 million pesos ($5.6 million) ransom and for Germany to stop supporting U.S.-led air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria.

John Kerry's "The Real Islam." Iran executes man for heresy
Excerpt: A 37-year-old man has been executed in Iran after being found guilty of heresy and insulting prophet Jonah, according to human rights activists.
Mohsen Amir-Aslani was arrested nine years ago for his activities which the authorities deemed were heretical. He was engaged in psychotherapy but also led sessions reading and reciting the Qur’an and providing his own interpretations of the Islamic holy book, his family said

Oklahoma Beheading: Suspect's Jihadist Beliefs on Facebook
Excerpt: A convert to Islam named Alton Nolen beheaded a co-worker at a food processing plant in Oklahoma City on September 25 after being fired by his employer. The Clarion Project immediately reviewed Nolen’s Facebook page and found photos indicating support for the Islamic State terrorist group, Osama Bin Laden and other violent jihadists.

Oklahoma beheading suspect transferred to jail; victim's friend remembers she was 'loved and liked by everyone'
Excerpt: In his first court appearance, Nolen requested a Muslim to be named as his court-appointed lawyer. (Beheadings have nothing to d with Islam, of course. Doubtless there are large numbers of Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Secular Humanists running round chopping off people's heads, just not reported by the media. ~Bob)

Islamic State Beheads Seven Men, Three Women in Syria: Human Rights Group
Excerpt: The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human, Rights Rami Abdulrahman, said five anti-Islamic State Kurdish fighters, including three women, and four Syrian Arab rebels were detained and beheaded on Tuesday 14 km (8 miles) west of Kobani, a Kurdish town besieged by Islamic State near the Turkish border. He said a Kurdish male civilian was also beheaded. 

Libyan soldiers killed in Benghazi bombings and clashes
Excerpt: At least 29 Libyan soldiers have been killed in two car bombings and clashes in the eastern city of Benghazi. Some 60 troops were wounded in the violence near Benghazi airport, medics and military sources say. (The legacy of Obama's lead-from-behind, non-Congressionally-authorized war in Libya. ~Bob)

Nine U.N. Troops Killed in Worst Attack Yet on Mali Force
Excerpt: Nine United Nations peacekeepers in Mali were killed when heavily armed gunmen on motorbikes ambushed their convoy on Friday, the deadliest attack yet on U.N. troops in the west African nation, the mission said. The attack on the peacekeepers from Niger took place in the region of Gao and highlighted a sharp increase in strikes on foreign troops based in Mali to prevent the return of al Qaeda-linked Islamists who seized its northern desert region in 2012.

Long but interesting: Sandstorm: The Middle East in chaos. By Reuel Marc Gerecht

Excerpt: The concept of asabiyya is helpful in trying to understand the Middle East today, after the second Iraq war (2003-09) and the Arab Spring (2010-12) together unhinged a dying political order throughout the region. Today, no Muslim state in the Middle East has an asabiyya that peacefully and happily binds its citizens together. Unless new organizing ideas are embraced, we are likely to see the persistence of the Islamic militancy that has shaken the region. The prognosis isn’t good, in part because of highly counterproductive American actions. U.S. air raids against the Islamic State and other radical Islamic groups, which only stir the hornets but don’t destroy the nest, are unlikely to change the fundamental dynamic that keeps working against us. 

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