Update
Just received the above picture from the Chair. Despite
occasional breathlessness, and running too long, my talk to Pints and Politics
was well received. Many people came up and thanked me afterwards. One young
woman said she could have listened to me all night. (If they hadn't stopped me,
she would have!)
Cataract surgery 10:30 am Friday, so my computer time will
be limited for a bit. But after today, the weather here in Madison is supposed to warm, up to 48 degrees
high by Tuesday. Spring is God's way of telling us not to give up. ~Bob
General News and Comment
Worth Reading : Why Clinton
Excerpt: FOR A SECRETARY of state, running your own
email server might be a clever—if controversial—way to keep your
conversations hidden
from journalists and their pesky Freedom of Information Act requests. But
ask a few security experts, and the consensus is that it’s not a very smart way
to keep those conversations hidden from hackers. ... “Although the American
people didn’t know about this, it’s almost certain that foreign intelligence
agencies did, just as the NSA knows which Indian and Spanish officials use
Gmail and Yahoo accounts,” says Chris Soghoian, the lead technologist for the
American Civil Liberties Union. “She’s not the first official to use private
email and not the last. But there are serious security issue associated with
these kinds of services…When you build your house outside the security fence,
you’re on your own, and that’s what seems to have happened here.”
Source: Obama counsel
not aware of Clinton
Excerpt: The White House counsel's office was not aware at
the time Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state that she relied solely
on personal email and only found out as part of the congressional investigation
into the Benghazi
attack, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person said Clinton 's exclusive
reliance on personal email as the nation's top diplomat was inconsistent with
the guidance given to agencies that official business should be conducted on
official email accounts. Once the State Department turned over some of her
messages in connection with the Benghazi investigation after she left office,
making it apparent she had not followed the guidance, the White House counsel's
office asked the department to ensure that her email records were properly
archived, according to the person who spoke on a condition of anonymity without
authorization to speak on the record. (Wouldn't anyone getting one notice it
wasn't from a government account? The administration had to know. ~Bob)
Clinton’s E-Mail
Built for Privacy Though Not Security
Excerpt: A week before becoming secretary of state, Hillary
Clinton set up a private e-mail system that gave her a high level of control
over communications, including the ability to erase messages completely,
according to security experts who have examined Internet records. “You erase it
and everything’s gone,” Matt Devost, a security expert who has had his own private
e-mail for years. Commercial services like those from Google Inc. and Yahoo!
Inc. retain copies even after users erase them from their in-box. Although Clinton worked hard to
secure the private system, her consultants appear to have set it up with a
misconfigured encryption system, something that left it vulnerable to hacking,
said Alex McGeorge, head of threat intelligence at Immunity Inc., a Miami
Beach-based digital security firm. (I think we will never know what was in many
of her emails, unless Russia ,
China or Iran releases
their copies to us. ~Bob)
Hillary's Emails. By
Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt
On Greta Van Susteren’s show last night, ABC News political
director Rick Klein said he was at a loss to come up with an innocuous
explanation for Hillary’s “home-brewed” system. There is no innocuous
explanation. The whole point of it was to create an e-mail system that Hillary
and her team would control completely, that would be beyond the range of
federal record-keeping rules and laws and beyond the range of FOIA requests. If
any message seemed embarrassing, politically inconvenient, or incriminating,
she could erase it, and rest assured it was gone forever, beyond the reach of
any investigator, FOIA request, or subpoena. (By the way, in the interim, every imaginable White House
official should be brought before Congress and asked why it didn’t seem unusual
to them that Hillary Clinton never used a state.gov address, ever, at all, in a four-year
span. Her use of a private e-mail was not secret within the administration.)
Excerpt: House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz
(R-Utah) on Wednesday questioned whether Hillary Clinton improperly shared
classified information like former CIA Director David Petraeus. Asked on
"Fox and Friends" whether Clinton's exclusive use of a personal email
address during her time as secretary of State raised national security
concerns, Chaffetz said, "It does beg the question: Were there any sort of
classified pieces of information that were flowing through her personal email
account?"
As House panel issues subpoenas, questions mount over Clinton
Excerpt: A congressional committee issued subpoenas
Wednesday seeking information about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s use of a private
e-mail account for official business while she was secretary of state, setting
up a potential legal clash with the presumptive Democratic front-runner for
president.
Excerpt: "I want the public to see my email,"
she wrote in
the Tweet. "I asked State to release them. They said they will review them
for release as soon as possible." Obviously the best way to ensure that a
public official's emails are seen by the public is to hide them on a privately
managed server. Anyway, it's nice, I suppose, that Clinton asked State to review and release her
emails, but it's also totally beside the point. The problem is that the
Department of State didn't have all of her emails to begin with.
State Department Refusing To Answer How It Handled Open
Records Requests For Hillary Emails. By Chuck Ross
Excerpt: The State Department is refusing to provide insight
into how the federal agency handled Freedom of Information Act requests for
Hillary Clinton’s emails, as fallout from Clinton’s use of a private email
account as secretary of state is poised to stretch into a third day.
As The
Daily Caller, The
New York Times and others noted on Tuesday, Clinton ’s use of a personal email account —
HDR22@clintonemail.com — thwarted the FOIA request process.
Tweet from John Nolte @NolteNC
Reminder: If not for GOP resolve in the face of media
pushback to get the truth about Benghazi ,
we would not know about Hillary's emails.
Hillary’s State Dept Ripped an Ambassador for Using Personal
Email in 2012. By Josh Feldman
Excerpt: As Hillary Clinton is being scrutinized
for using personal email to conduct official government business,
a new report today reveals the State Department inspector general, while
Clinton was Secretary of State, scolded the Ambassador to Kenya for––wait for
it––using personal email to conduct official government business.
Excerpt: After ignoring a Freedom of Information Act request
submitted in August 2014, government watchdog Judicial Watch has issued
a lawsuit against the State Department for all emails between former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her top aide Huma Abedin and wife of Muslim
Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi, Nagla Mahmoud, from January 2009 to January
2013. It was discovered earlier this week that both Clinton and Abedine used
personal email accounts to conduct government business, potentially violating
federal records laws.
White House Works Hard to Cover for Hillary's Crimes. By Onan Coca
Excerpt: The latest Hillary Clinton scandal is in the midst
of exploding (right on the heels of the last one – her decision to accept
beaucoup bucks from our enemies) about her team's decision to use private email
accounts during her time as Secretary of State. The depth and breadth of this
scandal is still playing out but one thing is for sure – this is a big bump in
the road for the Clinton 2016 campaign.
Jon Stewart Uses
Netanyahu Speech To Mock Jewish Women As Frigid
Excerpt: That joke came later in the evening courtesy of The Daily
Show’s Jon Stewart, who closed his 9 minute attack on Netanyahu with a joke
that was not only sexist but furthered a nasty Jewish stereotype:
Worth Reading : Liquidity
evaporates in China
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/11450691/Liquidity-evaporates-in-China-as-fiscal-cliff-nears.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/11450691/Liquidity-evaporates-in-China-as-fiscal-cliff-nears.html
Excerpt: Nobody can fault China 's leaders for lack of
bravery. The Politburo has kept its nerve as the world's most giddy experiment
in credit-driven growth faces assault on three major fronts at once. Real
interest rates have rocketed. The trade-weighted rise in the yuan over the past
two years has been spectacular. Fiscal policy is about to tighten drastically
as the authorities clamp down on big-spending local governments. Put together, China is
pursuing the most contractionary mix of economic policies in the G20, relative
to the status quo ante. Collateral damage is already visible in the sliding
global prices of iron ore, copper, nickel, lead and zinc over recent months, as
well as thermal coal, oil, corn and even sugar. (And do they pull us over with
them? ~Bob)
Excerpt: China 's
Premier Li Keqiang unveiled a lower growth target and pledged
tighter environmental controls as he opened parliament's annual session. Addressing
the National People's Congress (NPC), Mr Li said China would target growth of about
7% in 2015.
Important: More dangers, but military is shrinking
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20150305_More_dangers__but_military_is_shrinking.html#UDw6236rTXgVoDix.03
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20150305_More_dangers__but_military_is_shrinking.html#UDw6236rTXgVoDix.03
Excerpt: The world seems to be becoming more dangerous these
days. Not so coincidentally, America 's
military power continues to decline rapidly. Before considering how and why,
here's a snapshot of what's happening around the globe:
The Audacity of Weakness. By Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414870/audacity-weakness-victor-davis-hanson
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414870/audacity-weakness-victor-davis-hanson
Excerpt: At one point the Iranian
economy was sputtering due to Western sanctions. Hundreds of thousands of
reformers hit the streets of Tehran
in 2009 to protest what they believed to be the fraudulent results of a
presidential election. The theocracy was worried that its nuclear plans would
either cause economic collapse due to the sanctions or prompt some sort of
Western military response. But all of that has changed due to the Obama
administration’s zeal to conclude an agreement with Iran at any cost.
An Obama legacy of
less freedom and more danger? By Jay Ambrose
Excerpt: As the last two years of his tenure move toward
their conclusion, President Barack Obama’s increasingly probable legacy — on
top of the much-discussed debt he will leave to punish future generations —
could be a nuclear-armed Iran
and a striking diminution of rule of law and American freedoms. Recently, the
great shudder among liberals has been the visit of Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu to beg America
not to sacrifice his country in its rush to an agreement that would eventually
allow Iran
to build a bomb.
Rubio-Lee Plan Cuts Taxes on Business Investment to Grow
the Economy by 15 Percent. By William McBride
Excerpt: Earlier today Senators Rubio and Lee released their
“Economic
Growth and Family Fairness Tax Reform Plan.” We have modeled the economic
and budgetary effects of the plan and will release our full results Monday, but
the following is a preview. On the business side, the plan is strongly
pro-growth by design. Instead of taxing net business income at our current high
rates, it taxes business cash-flow at a top rate of 25 percent. This is the
essential way to reduce the most growth-slowing aspects of our federal tax
code:
A-10s lead series of
planned rotations to Eastern Europe . By Brian
Everstine
Excerpt: The Air Force's response
to growing concerns in Eastern Europe includes new deployments and training
exercises for airmen, who will train in countries facing down Russia over incursions in Ukraine . New
agreements with countries such as Bulgaria ,
Romania and Estonia
lay the groundwork for training missions involving F-15s, F-16s and airlift
aircraft, while other aircraft, such as A-10s, are being called on to show the
military's force in the region. (I guess someone has decided these
"obsolete" aircraft aren't actually ready for the junkpile just yet. Wow...
some good thinking at last? (I think the Marine Corps should buy the Warthogs from
the USAF, cut rate, and take them over. The Marines believe totally in close
air support, and the A-10 is great for that. And it's cheap to run.) --Del )
Robots
Not-So-Favorite Son?
Scott Walker Catches Jeb Bush in Florida
Excerpt: A new poll shows Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
is running in a dead heat with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in the Sunshine State Walker right on his heels with 22 percent.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., places third with 11 percent followed by former
Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., with 10 percent. Huckabee moved to Florida after his 2008
presidential bid.
Task Force Violent:
The unforgiven. Part 1: The Tragic Betrayal Of An Elite Marine Corps Commando
Unit. By Andrew deGrandpre , Military
Times
The link takes you to a detailed article about an incident
in Afghanistan that is shameful not to the men who were out in front of the
enemy fires, but the brass that did a terrible job in posting them there without
proper preparations, and most of all, the brass and media people who convicted
them in the headlines of being war criminals. Which they absolutely were not,
but they were smeared and harassed, their careers and lives badly affected, and
when they were finally cleared, hardly anyone heard about it. One hell of a way
to treat our best fighting men! --Del
Gun News
‘Cop Killer’ Bullets
Haven’t Killed Any Cops But that's Not the Point
http://godfatherpolitics.com/20827/cop-killer-bullets-havent-killed-any-cops-but-thats-not-the-point/
http://godfatherpolitics.com/20827/cop-killer-bullets-havent-killed-any-cops-but-thats-not-the-point/
Excerpt: “In fact, gun rights advocates and law enforcement
agencies contacted by WND say they have been unable to document a single
incident in which a police officer has been taken down by a criminal using an
AR-15 handgun in the 20 years since this particular round, the M855 ball, has
been exempted from the federal ban on armor-piercing bullets. It was exempted
based on its use for sporting purposes.” Of course, none of this matters to the
anti-gun (and now anti-ammunition lobby). The goal is to get a legal foot in
the door. If the potential for harm is a factor in determining if one type of
ammunition should be banned, then it’s easy to see how some group could make a
case for other types of ammunition. Establishing the precedent is the
all-important goal.
Excerpt: A violent crowbar-wielding ex-con breaking into a Baton Rouge man’s home
should have listened to the armed homeowner when the homeowner ordered him
repeatedly to stop.
He didn’t… and left with a new toe-tag instead.
Suspect shot by
intended robbery victim: Milford Police
Excerpt: Police said the armed suspect fired a shot which
hit one of the group in the neck and then continued to aim the gun at them. One
of the group returned fire with a licensed weapon, striking one of the
suspects. (I’m sure the criminals were surprised by the fact that some people
in Connecticut
are still licensed to carry guns. Maybe the legislature can fix that loophole
for the crooks. --John Lyliea)
Excerpt: A homeowner on Diann Drive said burglars kicked in his
front door after he declined to answer their incessant knocking around 11:45
a.m., Detective Melissa Parker told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The
homeowner and the suspected burglars then exchanged what sounded like 40 shots
to neighbors. The homeowner thought he wounded one suspect and police found a
man “shot multiple times” in woods near the home, Parker said.
Man Says He Shot
Burglar In Self Defense
Excerpt: A man witnessing criminals breaking into his
neighbor's home takes matters into his own hands and ends up shooting one of
the burglars. The incident happened this afternoon in the 6700 Block of
Wakefield Drive in Southwest Little Rock . Police
identified the burglars as Termaine Braxton and Anthony Roberts. Charles Dorsey
held them at gunpoint, waiting on officers, but before they got there things
took a dangerous twist.
Race Card News
Going Bananas: A Case
Study in Media-Manufactured Racism. By Michelle Malkin
Political correctness is a pathological disorder. You can't
say "niggardly" or "black holes" or "chink in the
armor" without provoking protests or risking your job. You can't invoke
the Constitution or call illegal behavior "illegal" without being
accused of hatred. And now, you can't goof around at a high school basketball
game in silly costumes without the world accusing you of "racial
insensitivity." Last week, thanks to hyperbolic grievance-mongers and
irresponsible reporters, the students of Holy Spirit High School in Absecon , N.J. New Jersey basketball game get warning, no
punishment," USA Today decried. (This is a great article about a terrible
situation, and really puts the focus on the despicable behavior of media. Which
is not just this single case, but an overall pattern of irresponsible behavior
by the media and too many public figures. This damned concentration on seeing
racism everywhere, all the time, regardless of the actual situation, is really
bad for everyone. --Del. "Unfortunately, we also cry (racism) when a
Michael Jackson gets hauled up on charges of child molestation or a white
bureaucrat uses the unfortunate, but inoffensive, word "niggardly."
--Leonard Pitts, Black Columnist. See below. ~Bob)
From 2008, but worth reading: Wearing The Victim Hat
Is Becoming Trendy. By Leonard Pitts Jr.
Excerpt: Someone is going to think this column is racist. That
person -- he or she will be white -- will be unable to point to so much as a
semicolon that suggests I believe in the native superiority of my, or any
other, race. Rather, the accusation will be based in the fact that the column
discusses race, period. It's a phenomenon I've seen many times, most recently
when a friend of mine told me that a friend of hers regards me as racist
because I write about race. To which I gave my standard answer: if that's how
it works, I'll start writing about money. Then I'll be a billionaire.
Undocumented Democrat News
Disingenuous Obama
grants 100K illegal visas
Excerpt: Newly revealed court documents show that President
Obama has granted about 100,000 expanded work permits to illegal immigrants as
part of his controversial executive actions before a federal court blocked his
administration from implementing the new policies. The Justice Department has
revealed that the Obama administration immediately began processing renewals of
the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program under new guidelines that
extended work permit grants from two years to three. Those immigrants had
originally applied under the old rules, but renewals processed after Nov. 24
were granted the extension.
"You're Greener than Gore" News
Ethanol: The GOP-Supported Rip-Off. By Larry Elder
Excerpt: Can someone explain why
the “party of limited government” continues, with a straight face, to support
ethanol? Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa says about the heavily subsided
product, “Everything about ethanol is good, good, good.” Really? Really?
Really? ... Ethanol increases the demand for corn, which means corn prices go
up. This causes prices for farmland to rise. It also raises the prices for
animal feed, which makes food prices go up. Not just on meat – prices have gone
up on poultry and dairy products, as well as foodstuffs containing cornstarch,
cornmeal, corn syrup and other corn products. Meanwhile, the U.S., which as
recently as 2007 supplied two-thirds of the world’s corn with its exports, now
supplies only a little over one-third. And the amount of corn used to produce
the ethanol to fill one SUV’s gas tank could feed one person for one year. (If
Ethanol is good, let it stand on its own in the marketplace. ~Bob. It is an
undefensible practice, originally put in place at the command of the
environmentalists who weren't smart enough to know that while ethanol from
sugar cane is efficient at producing fuel energy, it's not so at all from corn.
But then the corn guys figured out that this is great for them, and they hired
lobbyists, and some of the supposed conservative GOP politicians got on the
bandwagon. To their shame, but it has to be said that there are Democrats on
the same bandwagon. Money talks for everyone in DC. But we need some upright
people to stand up in Congress and scream out the truth about this, and stop
the subsidies that are just a waste of taxpayer dollars. I am waiting for
someone from either side of the aisle to go for it. --Del )
Religion of Peace News
Must Read: National Survival
for America and Israel in the Age of Bureaucracy and Terror. By Daniel
Greenfield
Excerpt: Only one thing will prevent a nuclear weapon from
being used on Tel Aviv or Haifa .
And it's not diplomacy or viruses released into nuclear facilities. Those too
delay the inevitable. The one thing that will stop it, is the same thing that
stopped nuclear weapons from being used on New York ,
Los Angeles and
Washington D.C. Deterrence. Mutually Assured Destruction. The only way to check
the threat of force by an opponent with no regard for your life, is by
demonstrating equal or superior force. When it comes to nuclear weapons, that
means an awareness that any nuclear attack will be met by nuclear attack. (Making
a Nuke deal with Iran
is like the peace treaty Stalin made with Hitler. Hitler launched Operation
Barbarossa as soon as he thought it was a good idea. You can feed a tiger
breakfast and it will agree not to eat you--until lunch. ~Bob)
Obama needs to answer
Netanyahu. By Dennis Ross
Excerpt: Accepting the mantra that "no deal is
better than a bad deal," Netanyahu offers the alternative of insisting
on better terms and increasing the pressure on the Iranians until a more credible
agreement is reached. He does not fear the Iranians walking away from the
negotiating table because, in
his words, they need the deal more than the U.S. and its partners.
While the Obama administration is unlikely to accept his
argument that it should simply negotiate better and harder, it should not
dismiss the concerns Netanyahu raises about the emerging deal. Indeed,
the administration's
argument that there is no better alternative than the deal it is
negotiating begs the question of whether the prospective agreement is
acceptable. ... Dennis Ross,
counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, was
a key White House adviser to President Obama on Iran
from 2009 to 2011 and Mideast peace envoy for two previous administrations.
Important: What is the Antidote to Radical Islam? By
Daniel Pipes
Excerpt: "Radical Islam is the problem, moderate Islam
is the solution" has been my watchword since 2002, meaning that Islam's many problems will only be
solved when Muslims leave Islamism, an attempt to regress to a medieval model,
and favor a modern, moderate, and good-neighborly version of their faith. Plenty
of people this analysis, but no one offered an alternate solution.
Now Murat Yetkin, editor-in-chief of the Hürriyet Daily
News in Turkey ,
has done so in a recent column, "Antithesis of radical Islam is not
moderate Islam, it is secularism.
Video: Isis Leader Was Armed & Funded By Obama White House.
By Paul Joseph Watson
Excerpt: A top member of the jihadist group that the US government and NATO armed and funded in the
overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi back in 2011 is now leading ISIS forces in Libya .
Older, worth reading: The Greatest Murder Machine in
History. By Mike Konrad
Excerpt: When one thinks of mass murder, Hitler comes to
mind. If not Hitler, then Tojo, Stalin, or Mao. Credit is given to the
20th-century totalitarians as the worst species of tyranny to have ever arisen.
However, the alarming truth is that Islam has killed more than any of these,
and may surpass all of them combined in numbers and cruelty. The enormity of
the slaughters of the "religion of peace" are so far beyond
comprehension that even honest historians overlook the scale. When one looks
beyond our myopic focus, Islam is the greatest killing machine in the history
of mankind, bar none.
The Saudi king gave a prize to an Islamic scholar who says
9/11 was an ‘inside job.’ By Ishaan Tharoor
Excerpt: The preacher is not short of controversy.
His orthodox, Wahhabist views — affiliated closely with the Saudi
state — are polarizing in India ,
which is home to a diverse set of Muslim traditions and sects. His
conservatism has led him to make statements endorsing the use of female sex slaves and allegedly expressing sympathy
for terrorists.
Excerpt: Apata claims her husband's family turned against
her when they suspected she was gay, and took her to a sharia court, where she
was sentenced to death for adultery. Her brother and three-year-old son, she
says, were killed by mobs. She ran away, lived on the streets in Manchester , and now her
case has come to the Royal Courts of Justice for a final decision. Will she be
given asylum, or will she be sent back to Nigeria where she could face
certain death? (Given the fact that she is appealing to the tender mercies of
Appeasement Britannia, Aderonke Apata should be prepared to be sent back to
certain death in Nigeria
so as to ensure that British authorities do not appear “Islamophobic.” --Robert
Spencer, JihadWatch.org)
Excerpt: Ali Khamenei, 76, suffering from prostate cancer,
according to unspecified reports; reportedly assessed to have two years to live
*****
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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