Sunday, February 8, 2015

A post of political news and comment today after all

Update

We had to pull the plug today on our trip to visit friends. There was ice on the roads, and we weighed our desire to go against the grief that a sliding accident would create in our lives and opted for caution. But I had time to make my healthy SOS for dinner and a low-sugar apple pound cake for desert. Then there's the two quarts of potato salad we got to take with us....

But on the plus side, I pulled enough from email, news feeds and Twitter for a blog post. ~Bob

General News and Comment


Worth Reading: Dear World, We’re Sorry. By Derek Hunter
Excerpt: We have it good here in the United States, and this breeds contentment. It also breeds ignorance. We are the Paris Hilton of world citizenry. We have amazing lives free of problems the rest of the world routinely faces, and we didn’t earn it – we had it handed to us.
In inheriting prosperity, plentiful food, clean water and all the trappings of comfort readily available and affordable in the United States, we have no concept of the price paid to get us here. Moreover, we are being led by people who resent that we are here, choosing to focus less on the road ahead of us and more on the potholes, the mistakes and injustice every society has in its rear-view mirror.

Comments on: 25 Quotes That Show You How Much Liberals Hate Soldiers Like Chris Kyle. By John Hawkins
Below is one of those 25 quotes, and below that, a comment from someone responding to the article. The commenter tells us about the professor who proclaims that our volunteer military are only in it for the pay and benefits, basically they are mercenaries who kill for money. The explanation about the professor and how in fact he is just part of the mainstream among modern US historians is truly depressing. But it's the reality that is out there, after 40+ years of academia turning ever further to the Left. --Del. -- “THE United States now has a mercenary army. To be sure, our soldiers are hired from within the citizenry, unlike the hated Hessians whom George III recruited to fight against the American Revolutionaries. But like those Hessians, today’s volunteers sign up for some mighty dangerous work largely for wages and benefits….” —David M. Kennedy in the New York Times. -- Dr. David M. Kennedy, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus at Stanford University, is the co-author of "The American Pageant," a textbook used by thousands of high school AP U.S. History classes, including the one I teach, I am sad to say. The book is tendentious and biased in favor of the left from the first page to the last. Kennedy and his co-author Lizabeth Cohen cannot find enough good things to say about, for example, the New Deal, but they allude to political calculation in every action Lincoln took, and libel Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. But he is well within the mainstream of textbook authors. Dr. Alan Brinkley, Allan Nevins Professor of History at Columbia University, is the author of the textbook we previously used, which is of the same ilk. Brinkley is a man of the far left, clearly demonstrated by sections of the book such as "The Dream of Socialism." The point is that they are not on the fringe of American historians today. They are the mainstream. They are honored among their peers. They are sympathetic to socialism and Marxism, hostile to constitutionalism and classical, small-government liberalism. They are also hostile to the idea that America is anything special in the world, with opinions of the military that guards the far frontiers ranging from skepticism to outright hostility, Dr. Kennedy's appearances at the Army War College notwithstanding. We have been educating our children for decades with the writings of historians such as these. It is no wonder that America's young people (and even middle-aged citizens) have little to no idea of what is different, and better, about America compared to the average run-of-the-mill country elsewhere in the world. --Russell B.

"Obama Most Radical President ever" states famous Harvard PhD
Excerpt: Dr. Richard L. Rubinstein, Yale fellow, "Distinguished Professor of the Year", and Harvard PhD, states that president Obama's intention is to "correct the historical mistake of the creation of the state of Israel." Moreover, Dr. Rubenstein states that president Obama is extremely pro Muslim due to his family past to the point of "wanting to see the destruction of Israel. (Well, first it needs to be said that the professor has a Jewish name, so chances are good that he is Jewish. So some will discount his comments on the basis that he must be very biased towards Israel, and this is the real basis of his criticism of Mr. Obama. Personally, I just try to follow the facts and logic, and it seems to me that he is making a number of very good points. Mr. Obama told us all he is a revolutionary and that he was going to bring fundamental change to the nation, so that certainly fits. All the rest of the interpretations of his history and various actions are reasonable, but of course subject to disagreement. Everyone can listen and make up their own mind. --Del. Dr. Rubinstein is an interesting fellow and very distinguished academic. http://www1bpt.bridgeport.edu/~rlr/CVNOT2003-June.htm ~Bob)



Grim Milestone: MSNBC Ratings Tank to Near-Decade Low. By Daniel Doherty
Excerpt: This latest batch of bad news for MSNBC is a few days old but worth flagging nonetheless. Politico broke down the numbers: MSNBC registered its lowest full-day rating in nearly a decade on Tuesday, a devastatingly low benchmark that shows just how severe the network's decline has become. The liberal cable news network drew an average of 55,000 viewers in the all-important 25-to-54 year-old demo on Tuesday, its lowest full-day rating since July 2005, according to Nielsen ratings provided by an industry source. CNN had nearly three times as many viewers in the demo; Fox News nearly five times as many.

New ship honors Marine legend: The Lewis B. Puller christened Saturday in Barrio Logan
Excerpt: Top commanders from the Navy and Marine Corps were on hand for the Saturday christening of a ship that honored the memory of a revered Marine and symbolized efforts to bolster the military’s ability to put troops ashore on distant beaches. Just before 11 a.m., with an estimated 1,000 people looking on at the General Dynamics-NASSCO shipyard in Barrio Logan, Martha Puller Downs, the daughter of Marine legend Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, broke a Champagne bottle — on the fifth whack — against the Mobile Landing Platform’s hull.

Funny: Brian Williams Heroics

Satire: Brian Williams Drops Claim He Was Beheaded by Al Qaeda
Excerpt: NBC news anchor Brian Williams has publicly dropped his claim that he was personally beheaded by al Qaeda in Iraq, saying he had misremembered the event. Williams, known as ‘The Most Trusted NBC Nightly News Anchor in America’ has admitted, “I was never captured by al Qaeda in Iraq in May 2004, nor murdered by AQI leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi” in a notorious propaganda video. Though Williams had been making the claim for over a decade, it had not received any scrutiny until a recent comment he made on the execution of Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh.

Interesting: Extreme-left Dems pushing Middle America away. By Salena Zito
Excerpt: Tim Ryan — a once-strident champion of the Rust Belt city of Youngstown, filled with moderate Catholic Democrats whose issues are still firmly pocketbook-based — penned an op-ed saying he now supports abortion. The Ohio congressman, who once sat on the board of the Democrats for Life in America advocacy group, made that surprising reversal as he contemplates a run for U.S. Senate. ... Just five years ago, 110 pro-life Democrats were in the House, around a dozen in the U.S. Senate. Today, fewer than five are in the House, and two in the Senate.



Gun News

"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun." - The Dalai Lama

22-year-old man stabbed in St. John's home invasion
Excerpt: A resident of the home was taken to hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries. He has since been released. One of the suspects, a 22-year-old man, was stabbed and is in hospital with non-life threatening injuries. (Had to defend himself with a knife, because all of Canada is pretty much a criminal empowerment [gun free] zone. ~Bob)

Race Card News

Black Student Allegedly Shoots White Classmate, Takes Selfie With Body
Excerpt: The Westmoreland County District Attorney’s office is charging Maxwell Morton, 16, as an adult in the shooting death of Ryan Mangan, also 16, after Morton allegedly took a selfie with Mangan’s bloodied body. The case is generating national headlines because the African American suspect allegedly posted a selfie on Snapchat with the body after shooting Mangan in the face. (Doubtless Al Sharpton is already organizing the protest march and President Obama will send representatives to the funeral. ~Bob)

Obamacare/Government Healthcare News


Student Vaccination Waiver Rates in Dane County
Dane County votes heavily Democrat. But the near east side, center city (the isthmus) the west side and Middleton are where the heaviest proportion of progressive voters live. They are also the areas with the highest "personal exemption belief" vaccination waivers for their kids. The same holds true for the most liberal enclaves in deep blue California. These are the people condemning all Republicans for being anti-science, because a couple adopted about the same stance as a guy named Barack Obama. Christie: "I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well." Obama spokes person Josh Earnest "...the president believed 'that these kinds of decisions are decisions that should be made by parents...”' And Hillary's doctor is a vaccine skeptic: http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/04/clinton-family-doctor-is-a-vaccination-skeptic/ ~Bob)

Worth Reading: Insured, but Not Covered. By Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times
Excerpt: WHEN Karen Pineman of Manhattan received notice that her longtime health insurance policy didn’t comply with the Affordable Care Act’s requirements, she gamely set about shopping for a new policy through the public marketplace. After all, she’d supported President Obama and the act as a matter of principle. Ms. Pineman, who is self-employed, accepted that she’d have to pay higher premiums for a plan with a narrower provider network and no out-of-network coverage.

"You're Greener than Gore" News

The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever: New data shows that the “vanishing” of polar ice is not the result of runaway global warming. By Christopher Booker, The Telegraph
Excerpt: Following my last article, Homewood checked a swathe of other South American weather stations around the original three. In each case he found the same suspicious one-way “adjustments”. First these were made by the US government’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). They were then amplified by two of the main official surface records, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) and the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), which use the warming trends to estimate temperatures across the vast regions of the Earth where no measurements are taken. Yet these are the very records on which scientists and politicians rely for their belief in “global warming”. (Just because there is BIG MONEY involved in Global warming [about $300M for just Al Gore so far] doesn't mean people would LIE to keep it flowing, does it? ~Bob)

The EPA Is Ready To Regulate Americans’ Wood Stoves
Excerpt: The EPA has finalized a 344-page rule to make wood stoves more environmentally friendly, meaning that millions of Americans will soon be forced to buy more expensive wood-fired stoves. Republican lawmakers have opposed the rule, saying it would harm millions in rural America that rely on wood stoves to heat their homes every winter. With natural gas and electricity prices on the rise, wood stoves can be an economical choice for many living in the countryside. (Poor, ignorant rednecks, clinging to God, Guns and Wood Stoves! ~Bob)

Religion of Peace News

Worth Reading: A month after kosher market attack, French Jews plan an exodus
Excerpt: In homes, in shops and in synagogues guarded night and day by soldiers wielding assault rifles, conversations are dominated by an agonizing choice: stay in France and risk becoming the victim of the next attack by Islamic extremists, or leave behind a country and a community that Jews say they are proud to call home. The French government has scrambled to persuade them not to go, aware that if Jews see little future for themselves in Saint-Mandé — where Muslims, Christians and Jews have long lived in harmony — then there’s no chance for the European ideal of interfaith coexistence. (For Jews, Europe is again a "go-area," not a no-go area. Most Muslims are not violent terrorists, but enough are ready to "go jihad" that it's hard to feel safe around numbers of them, especially when the Qur'an declares you a target. And Europe is a terrorist empowerment zone, what we call a gun-free zone, where only killers who ignore the law can be armed. ~Bob)

'We’re leaving Britain - Jews aren’t safe here any more.’ After watching the rise in anti-Semitism in this country, the Gould family has taken the radical decision to emigrate to America. By Angela Epstein
Excerpt: She is not the only member of Britain’s 300,000-strong Jewish community to feel things have reached crisis point. Since the people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels last year and the murder by radical Islamists of four Jews at a kosher supermarket on the outskirts of Paris last month, the chorus of concern has been growing. The actress Maureen Lipman recently revealed that she, too, is considering leaving the UK because of the rising number of attacks on Jews. (The hopelessly dhimmi Telegraph doesn’t say it, of course, but the reason why Jews are leaving Britain is because of Islamic anti-Semitism. There is a good deal of Jew-hatred among other groups, as this article itself notes a “white Polish man” randomly slapping a Jew, but the reason why there is so much anti-Semitism is because of Britain’s rapidly growing Muslim population. And so Britain is becoming Judenrein, and British authorities are moving swiftly and efficiently to stigmatize and marginalize any criticism of jihad terror or Islamic supremacism — thereby sealing their nation’s doom. --Robert Spencer, JihadWatch.org.)

Joe Biden and John Kerry Are Shunning Israel’s Prime Minister — But Guess Who They Did See This Weekend. By Sharona Schwartz
Excerpt: The left-wing politician said Netanyahu “won’t get to meet with a single American official on this visit — not from the National Security Agency, not from the White House, not from the State Department.” Herzog is Netanyahu’s chief rival for prime minister when Israelis go to the polls March 17. Officials in both Biden’s and Kerry’s offices denied any pre-planned meetings had occurred with Israeli officials in Germany. A Biden aide told the Jerusalem Post that Herzog and Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz [Likud] separately greeted Biden “in passing” in Germany, but that “no meetings, formal or informal, were held with either official.”

Worth Reading: New allegations renew old questions about Saudi Arabia, 9-11
Excerpt: For years, some current and former American officials have been urging President Barack Obama to release secret files they say document links between the government of Saudi Arabia and the Sept. 11 attacks. ... He testified at his trial that key members of the Saudi royal family continued to fund al-Qaida in the late 1990s, even after the group had declared war on the House of Saud. He also described plotting with an employee of the Saudi Embassy in Washington to shoot down Air Force One. (We have some common interests with the Saudis, but they are not our friends. We had one friend in the Middle East--Israel--before Obama set out to alienate them. Saudi Arabia is a deeply schizophrenic society., trying to balance the needed support of the fundamentalists to avoid an Al Qaeda Spring as Iran, Egypt and thanks to Obama's war Libya has enjoyed, and those who want to modernize and enjoy the prosperity that western capitalism brings to the people. To better understand the Saudis, I recommend Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia by Robert Lacey. http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Kingdom-Modernists-Terrorists-Struggle/dp/0143118277/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414100906&sr=1-1&keywords=Inside+Kingdom ~Bob)

Excerpt: The problem with all such high-horse declarations by Obama is his continual omission of historical context and, in this case, his conflation of the frequent with the rare. The Crusades began in 1095, almost a millennium ago; the Inquisition in 1478, now over 500 years past. When the president says “people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” he should remember that all religions at the time committed terrible deeds that shock the modern sense of morality — given the savage wars between Christendom and Islam, and the religious purifications and civil discord common to all the religious factional strife that played out, violently, in accord with the ethos of the times. Slavery was outlawed in the U.S. in 1865. Jim Crow ended officially a half-century ago. Indentured servitude, however, continues, almost exclusively among some Islamic groups in the Middle East and Africa.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. - Winston Churchill

The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response to Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech. By Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic
http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/the-foolish-historically-illiterate-incredible-response-to-obamas-prayer-breakfast-speech/385246/
Excerpt: People who wonder why the president does not talk more about race would do well to examine the recent blow-up over his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. Inveighing against the barbarism of ISIS, the president pointed out that it would be foolish to blame Islam, at large, for its atrocities. To make this point he noted that using religion to brutalize other people is neither a Muslim invention nor, in America, a foreign one: (it's started...revisionist history in the form of accepting moral relativism is now main stream. In or out of context, Obama's statement is inflammatory, and by now he should understand the 'optics' of it all. --George. It is the writer who is "historically illiterate." The first "crusade" was the Muslim one to conquer Europe and extinguish Christianity. They over ran Catholic Spain very early on, and were advancing into Europe when Charles Martel and his Christian knights turned them back in 732. The Crusades were an attempt by Christians to reverse the Muslim conversion of the Holy Land to Islam by the sword. And at the Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1751, Don John of Austria and a Christian fleet destroyed a Muslim fleet intent on over-running Europe. In the process, they freed as many as 7,500 Christian galley slaves held in the worst sort of bondage by the Muslims. Note that Dr. Thomas Sowell says in the time period when 500,000 African slaves were brought to North America, 1,000,000 white Christian Europeans were kidnapped into slavery in Muslim lands in North Africa. When do we get our reparations? See also: "Inventing the Crusades" by distinguished historian Thomas F. Madden http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/inventing-the-crusades ~Bob)

Islamic?

Discussion of Islam by priest who has studied long
Interesting speech by a 40 year student of Islam and Israel. Definitely not PC.. --Del

Girl cadets threatened with BEHEADING by two men as they left an Army Reserve Centre
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2942460/Girl-cadets-threatened-BEHEADING-two-men-left-Army-Reserve-Centre.html
Excerpt: Police have mounted uniformed patrols around an Army Reserve after two girl cadets were threatened with beheading as they left the centre. Two men had shouted the violent threats as they drove past the teenage cadets, who weren't in uniform at the time. 

Bosnian Muslims in U.S. used Facebook, PayPal for jihad plotting. By Robert Spencer, JihadWatch.org
Excerpt: Why would Bosnian Muslims get involved in plotting jihad terror activity? We have for years now been repeatedly assured that all the Muslims in and from Bosnia were moderates who loved America, and threatened with charges of “Islamophobia” if we even questioned that dogma. Those learned analysts have yet to explain the activities of these Bosnians and others like them. Meanwhile, Facebook would do well to stop its jihad against counter-jihadists and keep better watch on activities like these.

Street Artist Combo Brutally Attacked for Pacifist Tag Post Charlie Hebdo
Excerpt: It seems like something one would be hard pressed to disagree with: the word “coexist," written on a wall using a Muslim crescent as the letter “C," a Star of David as the letter “X," and a Christian cross as a “T." But in Paris, this particular iteration of the popular inscription—here, created by the street artist Combo, who also pasted a life-size photo of himself next to it—didn't go down well with everybody. Le Monde reports that four young people asked the artist to remove it last weekend, and beat him up severely when he refused to do so. (Combo won’t describe the “young people” who attacked him, as “it would only add fuel to the fire.” In saying that, he makes clear who they were. Even though Combo dresses in the garb of a devout Muslim, his art offends Muslim hardliners who don’t like seeing the Islamic crescent next to the Star of David and the cross. “Coexist,” indeed. --Robert Spencer, JihadWatch.org.)

WATCH: ISIS supporters cheer as pilot's execution shown on big screen in public square
Excerpt: A video circulated online by social media accounts believed to be linked with Islamic State militants, purports to show people in the Syrian city of Raqqa watching and cheering the execution of Jordanian pilot, Mouath al-Kasaesbeh on a large projection in a public square.

Bail denied for man accused of threatening to burn wife's genitals, rape
Excerpt: There will be no bail for a Quebec City man who is accused of threatening to burn his wife’s face and genitals with acid, forcing her to have sex and citing the Koran to justify beating their children. The 40-year-old man was arrested on Jan. 26 after his wife filed a complaint with police, alleging that he had threatened her in a Walmart. (He forced her to have sex? That’s completely in accord with Sharia. A Hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “If a husband calls his wife to his bed [i.e. to have sexual relation] and she refuses and causes him to sleep in anger, the angels will curse her till morning” (Bukhari 4.54.460). And another: “By him in Whose Hand lies my life, a woman can not carry out the right of her Lord, till she carries out the right of her husband. And if he asks her to surrender herself [to him for sexual intercourse] she should not refuse him even if she is on a camel’s saddle” (Ibn Majah 1854). And as for quoting the Qur’an as he was beating his children, maybe if they were girls he was quoting this verse: “Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that Allah has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for Allah’s guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them.” (Qur’an 4:34) --Robert Spencer, JihadWatch.org. As I've said often, Jihad Watch's free -newsletter is worth reading. ~Bob)

Baghdad bombings kill 37, wound 86: officials
Muslims are by far the most frequent victims of Allah-murder by Islamists. ~Bob

Worth Seeing: ‘Sharia is Islam and Democracy is the Opposite': This Video is a Rude Awakening [VIDEO]
Not an eye-opener at all. Those of us who have been following Islamic jihadism since before 9-11 have long had our eyes wide open. Those who subscribe to the quasi-religious cult of multiculturalism have their eyes squeezed shut, and wouldn't open them if forced to kneel before an ISIS executioner. Time for a Flashback to 1998: America’s War on Terror will be Long, Slow and Cruel http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2015/02/flashback-to-1998-americas-war-on.html ~Bob

Excerpt: The mother of the first American hostage beheaded by Islamic State said the Obama administration is letting down all Americans captured by the terrorist group. Unconfirmed reports of hostage Kayla Mueller’s death is proof, Diane Foley told ABC News, saying the administration is doing “too little, too late.”
Excerpt: Fierce battles between Boko Haram and a growing coalition of Nigeria's neighboring states has left hundreds dead this week. Swarms of the group's jihadists launched a series of attacks inside Niger on February 6, marking the first time that Boko Haram has penetrated into that country. The attacks, which reportedly left over 100 Boko Haram fighters dead, also injured a senior Chadian army general. (Question for Obama. If ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram, et al are "not Islamic," how come they grow stronger daily as more Muslims join them to follow the more violent injunctions in the Qur'an and Hadith? ~Bob)

Prince Charles Expresses Fear for Christians in Middle East: ‘A Danger’ That There Will be ‘Very, Very Few Left’
Except: The heir to the British throne, who is on a trip to the region, told the BBC that the plight of Christians persecuted by Islamic extremists was “a most agonizing situation,” though it was important to remember they were just one persecuted minority among many around the world. “But at the same time I fear that the problems in the Middle East are not going to go away immediately,” the prince said in a pre-recorded interview with “The Sunday Hour” radio program. “And so there is a danger that there is going to be very, very few left.”

Unverified, but fun to watch. The world's stupidest terrorists: Social media users ridicule ISIS with videos of jihadists accidentally blowing themselves up
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2942495/Social-media-users-lampoon-ISIS-posting-videos-calamitous-jihadists-blowing-up.html

*****
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:

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