Update
Another slick night with some snow at rush hour. Had a
dinner engagement on the west side, but this time left early enough I wasn't
late. Guy I met at the VA six months ago was in town. He follows the blog and
we got together. He had a lung transplant 13 years ago. I won't lay out his
details, but my lung transplant and the last 14 months have been a garden party
compared to what he's been through. ~Bob
General News and Comment
Older Piece But a Must Read: Six Seconds to Live.
"Sir, in the name of God, no sane man would have stood there and done what
they did. They saved us all." By Lt. Gen. John Kelly
Excerpt: "The truck’s windshield explodes into shards
of glass as their rounds take it apart and tear into the body of the son of a
bitch trying to get past them to kill their brothers – American and Iraqi –
bedded down in the barracks, totally unaware that their lives at that moment
depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. Yale and Haerter never
hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They
never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder-width apart,
they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could. They had only one
second left to live, and I think they knew." ... Kelly delivered this
speech to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on
Nov. 13, 2010, four days after his son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Kelly, was killed
in action in Afghanistan .
Senate committee
passes right-to-work bill amid chaos
Excerpt: Amid chaos, a Senate committee voted to send a
controversial right-to-work bill to the full house, setting up another
contentious debate for Wednesday. (Every voluntary association I managed over
31 years--there were seven--had more paying members when I left than when I
took the con. If you show value, they will join. If you are spending dues on
perks and pet projects the members don't value, they will not. ~Bob)
In Wisconsin
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414360/wisconsin-labors-last-gasp-christian-schneider
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414360/wisconsin-labors-last-gasp-christian-schneider
Excerpt: But on Tuesday, the
large-scale public-union-style protests didn’t materialize. Early on a snowy
morning outside the capitol, the sidewalks were empty. Several hundred union
members, decked out in hard hats and iridescent safety jackets, milled about
inside as the legislature conducted its public hearing on the bill. Perhaps
expecting some of the chicanery of four years ago, police posted signs
explaining that bringing live snakes into the capitol was prohibited.
No, Really, Scott
Walker Is the Frontrunner. By Jim Geraghty, Morning
Jolt
Excerpt: Quinnipiac polls likely Iowa Republican Caucus
participants and finds Wisconsin governor Scott Walker leads the pack with 25
percent; 13 percent for U.S.
senator Rand Paul of Kentucky , 11 percent each
for physician Ben Carson and former Arkansas
governor Mike Huckabee, and 10 percent for former Florida governor Jeb Bush. No other
candidate is above 5 percent and 9 percent are undecided. PPP shows Walker
leading nationally at 25 percent; Ben Carson is at 18 percent. The UT-Austin/Texas Tribune poll puts Ted Cruz at 20
percent; Walker
is at 19 percent. The Field poll puts Walker
ahead in California at 18 percent; Jeb Bush is second with 16
percent. PPP shows Walker second in South Carolina with 18 percent; Jeb
Bush leads with 19 percent.
Excerpt: In the last two weeks or so, Scott Walker’s star
has continued to rise from among the crowded field of Republican candidates,
which has placed a media target on his back.
Hillary’s Identity Crisis. By Jonah Goldberg
Excerpt: It apparently takes a
village of corporate marketing specialists to tell voters who she is.
Excerpt: This week Russia pushed its own reset button…
Russians paraded a missile on Army Day marked “to be personally delivered to
Obama.”
How Crazy Am I to
Think I Actually Know Where That Malaysia
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/02/jeff-wise-mh370-theory.html
Excerpt: I soon realized the germ of every TV-news segment is: “Officials say X.” The validity of the story derives from the authority of the source. The expert, such as myself, is on hand to add dimension or clarity. Truth flowed one way: from the official source, through the anchor, past the expert, and onward into the great sea of viewerdom. (Less interested in the subject, though I am, than in the story-development flow, and how news is packaged. --George)
Excerpt: I soon realized the germ of every TV-news segment is: “Officials say X.” The validity of the story derives from the authority of the source. The expert, such as myself, is on hand to add dimension or clarity. Truth flowed one way: from the official source, through the anchor, past the expert, and onward into the great sea of viewerdom. (Less interested in the subject, though I am, than in the story-development flow, and how news is packaged. --George)
Democrats "I Trust Scientists" Tweet Backfires
Hilariously. By Christine
Rousselle
Excerpt: The official Twitter of the Democrat Party
attempted to be snarky today and tweeted an image that implied that Republicans
are anti-science: ... This being said, there's apparently at
least one set of scientists the Democrats don't trust: the ones who
said that the Keystone XL Pipeline will "not significantly worsen"
the environment.
The Virtues of Marco
Rubio
Excerpt: Rubio, the son of naturalized Cuban immigrants,
would be the first Latino Republican candidate. That in itself should warm the
cockles of establishment-type GOP hearts. And make no mistake –
Republicans must improve with minorities. Bright, articulate and
energetic, Rubio served eight years in the Florida House of Representatives,
eventually being elected speaker in 2006. In 2009, he ran against Charlie Crist
in the Florida
senatorial primary. Beginning as an underdog, Rubio climbed the polls quickly
and won the primary. Crist then ran as an independent, but Rubio beat him again
in a three-way race.
If you roll your eyes and conclude
that only Jesus could beat Barack Obama’s former chief of staff in a Chicago Democratic primary
. . . then you’re in luck: His runoff opponent is former Illinois State
Senator Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who was outspent 12 to 1 in Tuesday’s race.
Miraculous!
Excerpt: It was difficult to control my emotions --
specifically, my anger -- during my visit to Vietnam last week. The more I came
to admire the Vietnamese people -- their intelligence, love of life, dignity
and hard work -- the more rage I felt for the communists who brought them (and,
of course, us Americans) so much suffering in the second half of the 20th
century. Unfortunately, communists still rule the country. Yet, Vietnam today
has embraced the only way that exists to escape poverty, let alone to produce
prosperity: capitalism and the free market. So what exactly did the 2 million
Vietnamese who died in the Vietnam War die for? I would like to ask one of the
communist bosses who run Vietnam
that question. "Comrade, you have disowned everything your Communist party
stood for: communal property, collectivized agriculture, central planning and
militarism, among other things. Looking back, then, for what precisely did your
beloved Ho Chi Minh and your party sacrifice millions of your fellow
Vietnamese?" There is no good answer. There are only a lie and a truth,
and the truth is not good. (Having just returned from Viet Nam
myself, where I came face to face with the despotism and oppression of
communist rulers, I am right with Mr. Prager. --Del. me too, Del --and I didn't have to go back to know
that! ~Bob)
MSNBC Host Feels
Sorry For Chris Kyle’s Killer: ‘His Life Is Ruined’ [VIDEO]
Excerpt: Appearing on “Andrea Mitchell Reporting,” former
Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy said that he felt for the murderer
of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle and fellow veteran Chris Littlefield because
“his life is ruined.” “It’s a tragedy,” said Murphy, who also hosts MSNBC’s
“Taking the Hill” program. “I’m happy that justice was served. But that verdict
yesterday doesn’t bring back Chris and Chad . It doesn’t. They’re gone.
And, you know, now another Marine, his life is ruined.” (We like to say there
are no ex-Marines. but this killer qualifies. ~Bob. Murphy has to be the
biggest moron who ever lived. --Steve)
Excerpt: Since I’m in the United Kingdom , it’s appropriate to
announce that another Briton has been elected to the Moocher
Hall of Fame. Ms. Kay Bird deserves this “honor” because it takes a very
reprehensible entitlement mentality to brag about taking a global holiday with
welfare cash. And we’re talking about a global holiday that appears to be far
more extravagant than the foreign trips enjoyed by Natalija,
another member of the Moocher Hall of Fame.
Gun News
Police ID Man Killed
In North Austin Shooting
Excerpt: Austin Police have identified a man who was shot
and killed in north Austin
early Saturday morning. Police say they were called to an apartment home in the
7200 block of Twin Crest Drive
around 1 a.m. on Saturday. When they arrived, they found 26-year-old Ray
Anthony Arredondo dead of an apparent gunshot wound. Police say the tenant of
the apartment was sleeping when Arredondo forced his way into the apartment.
Police say Arredondo pointed a gun at the tenant and demanded he get on the
ground. The tenant then grabbed his handgun and fired a shot at Arredondo
striking and killing him, police said.
Homeowner shoots, kills intruder in Catawba County
Homeowner shoots, kills intruder in Catawba County
Excerpt: Catawba County deputies said two burglars broke into the home
on the 7400 block of Riverbend
Road in Claremont
around 9 a.m. The suspects broke a window around the back of the house and came
in through the basement. Meantime Bruce Fox heard the men entering his home and
got a 12 gauge shot gun. Fox called police but the men came after him. "Subject
kicks in the door leading into the hallway, he comes down the hallway toward
the homeowner and the homeowner fires one shot with the shotgun striking the
subject in the chest," said Sheriff Coy Reid, Catawba Co.
Obamacare/Government Healthcare News
Excerpt: The experience of the ONC in its first few years of
existence warns against allowing it to exert too much control over HIT. In 2004,
the ONC was originally envisioned as the “coordinator” of HIT. However, in
2009, the ONC became the financier, certifier, and regulator of much of HIT.
The federal government allocated a 5-year budget of $30 billion to disburse as
incentives to hospitals, physicians’ offices, and other health facilities, as
encouragement to install electronic health records (EHRs). ONC was given the
power to certify EHRs that would qualify providers for the incentive payments. A
new NCPA study concludes
that this has proven expensive, unproductive, and potentially harmful, which
leads to the conclusion that the federal government should play a minimal role
in guiding HIT over the next decade.
Undocumented Democrat News
From the left: Another
Federal Judge Strikes Down An Obama Executive Action On Immigration. By Conn Carroll
Excerpt: A federal judge appointed by President Obama issued
a preliminary injunction last week ending a key 2014 immigration executive
action that helped end a wave of illegal immigration from Central Americans
countries last summer.
Study: Hispanics Will
Occupy 75% of New Jobs Starting in 2020. By Warner Todd Huston
Excerpt: A new study finds that Hispanic foreigners, both
legal and illegal, will account for a large portion of future job growth,
taking perhaps as many as 75 percent of the jobs created by 2020.
"You're Greener than Gore" News
Reporters Laugh at White House Spokesman when He says that
6 Years Isn't Long Enough to Review the Keystone XL Pipeline. By Onan Coca
Excerpt: When the White House press corps is laughing at
your answer – you know the answer probably wasn’t very good. In an interesting
Q and A with White House reporters, Obama spokesman Josh Earnest isn’t even trying
to hide the fact that his answer is ridiculous. He knows it is, and the
reporters covering the White House know it is. The State Department (and other
government agencies have had 6+ years to analyze the effects of the Keystone
Pipeline and they still haven’t accomplished their task. In that time, several
other studies of the Pipeline have been done, none
showing any negative environmental impact. In fact, the net effect on
the environment will be positive because the Pipeline will reduce the
possibility of accidents with oil being transported by truck, train or boat.
Waiting for a Climate
Apology
Excerpt: The Sierra Club gleefully
reports that our saints at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to date
have forced the closure of 186 coal-fired power plants. They claim there are
still 337 to go. According to their data each coal-fired plant produces an
average of 500 MW of energy, capable of powering roughly 260,000
households. That’s over 48 million households deprived of inexpensive energy, and
all in the name of combating global warming. Their reasoning is to combat the
emission of carbon dioxide, that evil greenhouse gas that has caused our Earth
to warm unnecessarily. Yet recent discoveries have found what we’ve known all
along. That man-made climate change is a scam and a scandal of proportions that
we have never seen. (This writer is a bit emotional as well on the subject. I
can understand that, what is hard for me to understand are the people who will
cheerfully manipulate data to demonstrate there's warming, and we have plenty
of examples of that, starting with the famous "hockey stick"
professor. (Who is involved in a lawsuit about people pointing out his bad
science, which will get interesting when trial starts. He also claimed to be a
Nobel Prize recipient, and the Nobel people got ticked enough to make a public
announcement that he is no such thing.) For me, reading the Climategate e-mails
in which climatologists talked about destroying data so no one could use it to
argue with them was the start of realizing, with shock and dismay, that PhD
geniuses can be as subject to passionate beliefs as anyone else. I don't go for
the deliberate scam conspiracy theory, but enough people getting emotionally
committed to the whole idea in the end has the same effect as a conspiracy. Why
the idea of manmade damage to the planet's atmosphere is so compellingly
attractive to so many people is a complete mystery to me, but that's how it is.
Meanwhile, the actions they want us all to take because of this belief would be
and are already becoming damaging to our society. The EPA declaring CO2 to be a
poison gas is not science, that is politics in action in a place that should be
exempt from politics. A very, very bad idea. --Del. if you circulated a petition on college
campuses to ban carbon-based life forms, you get thousands of signatures. ~Bob)
Religion of Peace News
Excerpt: President Obama’s vision is that of a man
brainwashed through an academic vision of multiculturalism, in which American
exceptionalism has no place. It’s a vision that has been shaped by a longtime
association with people who hate our country, people such as the Rev. Jeremiah
Wright, Weather Underground leader and Pentagon bomber William Ayers and Ayers'
onetime fugitive wife, Bernardine Dohrn. A vision that sees a moral equivalency
between what Christians did centuries ago and today’s Islamic savagery is quite
prevalent in academia. It’s part of what’s worshipped on most college campuses
as diversity and multiculturalism. College campus idiots – and that includes faculty
members and administrators – call for the celebration of and respect for all
cultures. In their eyes, it’s racist Eurocentrism to think that Western values
and culture are superior to others. But that’s the height of stupidity.
Must Read: Obama’s Hasty Mosul
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414334/obamas-hasty-mosul-offensive-bing-west
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414334/obamas-hasty-mosul-offensive-bing-west
Excerpt: Last week, the press
panned Mr. Obama’s anodyne remarks about “violent extremism.” The next day, the
Central Command briefed the press on plans to seize the city of Mosul in northern Iraq ,
which is currently held by ISIS . For a White
House fixated upon imagery, news of an impending offensive projected a resolute
commander-in-chief. ... The two battles for Fallujah show what would be likely
to happen in Mosul .
In April of 2004, President George W. Bush ordered the Marines, against their
advice, to seize Fallujah. Within days, the ferocity of the battle sparked a
public outcry. Mr. Bush lost his nerve and ordered the Marines to pull out.
Similarly, if Mosul
is attacked, Mr. Obama will be pressured by a dozen nations with competing
interests. Given the present circumstances, he must, unlike in past crises, be
fully resolved to stay the course. . Bing
West, a former combat Marine and assistant secretary of defense, has written
three books about the war in Iraq
Secretary of Homeland
Security says My Job is to "Give Voice to the Plight of Muslims
Excerpt: My goodness! When are Americans going to have
enough of the federal government advancing the religion of pieces?
"Homeland Security" Secretary Jeh Johnson sides with Barack Obama
about not getting at the root of the terrorism taking place in the world today,
Islam. In fact, recently, Johnson said that it was part of the administration's
job to "give
voice to the plight of Muslims." (Another "useful idiot". --JB)
Kurdish, Christian
forces battle ISIS as fate of 150 reported
hostages unclear
Excerpt: Kurdish and Christian militiamen battled Islamic
State militants Wednesday in northeastern Syria , where the extremist group
abducted at least 150 people from Assyrian Christian villages, according to
activists. Hassakeh province, which borders Turkey
and Iraq ,
has become the latest battleground for the fight against the terror group
Islamic State, also known as ISIS. It is predominantly Kurdish, but also has
populations of Arabs and predominantly Assyrian Christians and Armenians.
3 NYC residents
arrested, charged with trying to join Islamic State militants
Excerpt: Three New York City residents -- two with
Uzbekistan citizenship, and one a citizen of Kazakhstan -- plotted to travel to
Syria to join ISIS militants and 'wage jihad,' the Justice Department
announced. One of the defendants also offered to kill the president of the United States
if ordered do so, the criminal complaint alleged.
Excerpt: "American aircraft carriers are very big
ammunition depots housing a lot of missiles, rockets, torpedoes and everything
else," the Guard's navy chief, Adm. Ali Fadavi, said on state TV, adding
that a direct hit by a missile could set off a large secondary explosion. Last
month Fadavi said his force is capable of sinking American aircraft carriers in
the event of war. (FYI Adm. Ali Fadavi - mock carriers don't fight back. And
your mock carrier didn't have the escorts that our Carrier Strike Group take
with them. The typical CSG consists of the carrier, a guided missile cruiser,
one or two Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System (LAMPS) warships, and one or two
anti-submarine destroyers or frigates, all of which would be engaged in
defending the carrier from any attack. --MasterGuns)
Excerpt: This idea that we cannot even call it Islamic
terrorism seems Orwellian to me. It seems like we’re paying a very high price
for this which is we can’t discuss it even rationally. Can’t we at least say
that there are a number of factors that are involved? And the religion is
certainly one of that.
Have not read.
~Bob
Let's Unfriend ISIS.
By A.J. Caschetta
Excerpt: As absurd as "unfriending" a terrorist
organization sounds, the Obama administration's use of social media to counter
what it euphemistically calls "violent extremism" has been equally
feckless. On Jan. 7, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged "the need to counter some of the
extremist ideology that ISIL is propagating, using some pretty sophisticated
social media strategy." Five days later ISIS hacked Centcom's social media accounts.
After capturing large
stores of American weapons in Mosul last summer,
ISIS tweeted this doctored version of Michelle
Obama's #bringbackourgirls appeal for the release of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls
kidnapped by Boko Haram. The White House was not amused.
A Quarter of British
Muslims Sympathize with Paris
Excerpt: More than a quarter of British Muslims sympathize
with the terrorists who committed the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris last month,
according to a new ComRes poll conducted for the BBC. These findings indicate that a
substantial minority of Muslims in Britain approve of murder against
individuals deemed to have insulted the Prophet Mohammed. Roughly 27 percent of
the respondents said that they have "some sympathy for the motives behind
the attacks" while 32 percent said that they were not surprised by the
terrorist attacks.
You can't make this stuff up: Expert on Islamophobia
Joins ISIS . By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: In 2009 he was invited to SVT, where he told
Swedish viewers how Muslim phobia (Islamophobia) and hatred was spread around Europe . Previously, the Swede have been heavily involved
to counter what he described as a misleading picture of Muslims as violent
fanatics. In an episode of SVT debate, which can be seen on Youtube, he
attacked the malicious picture of Muslims spread in Europe .
This fear is based on ignorance of Islam,” Michael Skråmo said. ... Michael
Skråmo, 29, took the whole family – his little four children and wife – to the
IS-controlled area inside Syria .
Now Skråmo filmed a propaganda video outside the Syrian city Kobane where he
preaches jihad and calls Swedish jihadists to leave Sweden and join the “holy war”.
Which side are we on? Pentagon leak on secret
anti-terror training camp
Excerpt: The Pentagon let
slip that one of its training camps to help fight Islamic State terrorists is
in Jordan —
information the pro-U.S. kingdom had specifically requested be kept private,
and the latest gaffe in a series of sensitive leaks coming out of the
Department of Defense.
*****
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five
terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic.
http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-American-Republic-prevent/dp/1461122538/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304815980&sr=1-5
For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s
eleven books are listed here:
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html.
His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com.
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