Saturday, April 25, 2015

Today's interesting political news and conservative comment

Update



My wife purchased a new spring jacket for Caramel. He seems to like it. ~Bob

I was informed Saturday that the Chair of the Dane County Ethics Board has resigned. No reason was given--she seemed vested in the process at the hearing we attended. That means there are two open spots. So the second hearing on the Sheriff's use of badge, uniform and cars in political ads has been postponed until the spots can be filled. The Board hopes the Sheriff will testify under oath. I will be surprised if he shows up to do so. ~Bob

General News and Comment


Hillary Lets The Veil Slip: Religion Is A Problem To Be Disposed Of
Excerpt: Kudos to TheDC’s Kerry Picket for spotting the significance of this Hillary Clinton quote: “Laws [about reproductive health care and safe childbirth] have to be backed up with resources and political will,” Clinton said. “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.” If one is to assume that “reproductive health care” rights are a euphemism for abortion (a fairly safe assumption), then this is quite telling. 

From the Left: Campaign 2016: Hillary Clinton's Fake Populism Is a Hit. By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone
Excerpt: Obama's remarks about carried interest pretty much always sound exactly like Hillary's remarks this week. He gave a Rose Garden speech in 2011, in advance of his race against Romney, in which he rejected "the notion that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or teacher is class warfare." But Obama and the Democrats never really did anything about the loophole, even when they had the power to do so. And if you go back, you will find "cooler heads prevail" pieces popped up every time the president mentioned carried interest.

Worth Reading: Why George W. Bush Let a Soldier’s Mom Yell at Him. By Dana Perino

Sweden: State-funded LGBT-organization put on a wetsex show for 15 year old students
Excerpt: The Pride Week ended with a “happening” in the schools auditorium where a few people put on a show. But this was no Shakespeare; it was the “love” and “openness” of the LBGT-lobby. A woman on stage undressed herself, got beaten by a man and after she fell to the ground, the man started… peeing on her. The Monday after the show, the school sent a letter to all employees asking them not to talk about this event. When the Swedish alternative news site Fria Tider calls principal Lesley Brunnman, she confirms that the event took place and says that it was “just a theater experience”. (My high school was seriously lacking in this type of educational experience. ~Bob)

Meanwhile in Iran...The Johns Hopkins Chick-fil-A Ban and the Coming Gay-Marriage Witch Hunt. By Andrew Guernsey
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417305/johns-hopkins-chick-fil-ban-and-coming-gay-marriage-witch-hunt-andrew-guernsey
Excerpt: A new spirit of intolerance has arisen on the Johns Hopkins University campus, and conservative Christians are the targets. The JHU student government’s vote this week to ban any hypothetical future Chick-fil-A outlet from campus because of the company owner’s support for traditional marriage, coming on the heels of the JHU Spring Fair’s censorship of a pro-life fetal-model display as “disturbing” and “triggering,” sends a clear message that students who disagree with liberal orthodoxy are not welcome on the Hopkins campus. (I have no problem with gay marriage. I think the real threat in marriage--several orders of magnitude larger--is straights having children and Not getting married\, contributing to poverty, crime, drugs and welfare dependency. But I have a real problem with punishing people who disagree with me on the issue--that was the SOP of the Nazis and Communists--and ISIS. Are they boycotting President Obama, who is making nice with Iran, which hangs gays? Because of this intolerance for opposing views, I've gone out of my way to patronize the Chick-fil-A in Madison, though it is on the far side of town. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fdrlFyDdgQ ~Bob)

Wisconsin: What did the Journal Sentinel know and when did it know it? By M.D. Kittle
Excerpt: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Patrick Marley confirms he was the mysterious reporter Cindy Archer spotted as armed police swarmed her home during a dramatic September 2011 police raid, one of several in the Milwaukee district attorney’s secret war on conservatives. ... Marley’s appearance at what was supposed to be a secret raid raises the possibility that the Journal Sentinel was tipped off by someone inside law enforcement. That would violate a state statute, as well as Wisconsin’s controversial John Doe law – the law that Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm has invoked twice in four years to launch what are supposed to be secret investigations of conservative activists.

Poll: Majority Says Obama 'Too Soft' on Iran, More Evidence of Rubio Surge. Guy Benson 
Excerpt: A few notes on the latest Fox News poll: (1) President Obama's job approval rating has slipped to (42/53), sliding six net points since last month. He's underwater on all four big issues, and down double digits on three: ... (2) His low marks on Iran stem from deep mistrust of that country's leadership. By a 36-point margin, Americans say the regime poses a threat to US national security, with a 51 percent majority saying that the Obama administration has been "too soft" with Tehran.

Marco Rubio's Team Throws Cold Water on 2016 Poll Surge. By Kevin Derby
Excerpt: The Rubio campaign tampered down expectations after Quinnipiac University released a poll on Thursday showing the Florida Republican atop the GOP field and running closest against former U.S .Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the heavy favorite for the Democratic nomination. Rubio takes 15 percent of Republicans, with former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla., in second with 13 percent followed by Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., with 11 percent. No other Republican breaks into double digits.


Giant New Magma Reservoir Found Beneath Yellowstone. While an eruption is still unlikely, the find improves our understanding of the super-volcano underneath the national park. By Sarah Zeilinski
Excerpt: Enough hot rock sits beneath Yellowstone National Park to fill the Grand Canyon nearly 14 times over, according to our best view yet of the super-volcano that lies below the famous landscape. ... The Yellowstone hotspot plume has been producing eruptions for the last 17 million years. Due to plate tectonics, Earth’s surface has moved over the hotspot, creating a track of ancient eruptions that stretches from the Oregon-Idaho-Nevada border—the site of the first eruption—to the Yellowstone caldera. Since the hotspot reached Yellowstone some 2 million years ago, the super-volcano has erupted three times, most recently about 640,000 years ago. (If the Yellowstone super-volcano erupts, we will no longer need to worry about China, Russia, Illegal Immigrants, Debt, Islamists or Global Warming. ~Bob)

Battlefield America: The War on the American People 
Excerpt: In Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the follow-up to his award-winning book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead paints a terrifying portrait of a nation at war with itself and which is on the verge of undermining the basic freedoms guaranteed to the citizenry in the Constitution. Indeed, police have been transformed into extensions of the military, towns and cities have become battlefields, and the American people have been turned into enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.... As Whitehead notes, this shift into totalitarianism cannot be traced back to a single individual or event. (Believe heard interviewed by Glenn Beck. --Barb)

The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase's Worst Nightmare. Meet the woman JPMorgan Chase paid one of the largest fines in American history to keep from talking. By Matt Taibbi
Excerpt: She was blocked at every turn: by asleep-on-the-job regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission, by a court system that allowed Chase to use its billions to bury her evidence, and, finally, by officials like outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, the chief architect of the crazily elaborate government policy of surrender, secrecy and cover-up. "Every time I had a chance to talk, something always got in the way," Fleischmann says.
This past year she watched as Holder's Justice Department struck a series of historic settlement deals with Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America. The root bargain in these deals was cash for secrecy. The banks paid big fines, without trials or even judges – only secret negotiations that typically ended with the public shown nothing but vague, quasi-official papers called "statements of facts," which were conveniently devoid of anything like actual facts. 

Behind the scenes, $50M VA project caused clashes, concerns
Excerpt: An obscure foundation to support senior citizens has morphed into the role of real estate developer as it seeks federal approval of a $50 million plan to redevelop the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs campus in east Lincoln. Some city officials privately worry the foundation is being used to help private interests get the VA property without having to take on the burden of renovating and maintaining the sprawling, aging campus, according to a Nebraska Watchdog investigation.

Rising Dragon News

China's President Promises Pakistan $45B In Investment
Excerpt: NPR's Philip Reeves tells our Newscast unit that Xi's visit is being seen as a "game changer." Here's more from him: "This trip marks a step forward in China's grand plan for securing new and more direct routes to the energy resources and markets of the Middle East, Africa and Europe. This includes creating a corridor running from western China down through Pakistan to its southern port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea."

Flashback: Doubts deepen over Chinese-backed Nicaragua canal as work starts
Excerpt: A year and a half after the $50 billion project to build a canal across Nicaragua was launched by President Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla, the doubts have only grown.
Work officially began this week. But reporters hoping to see any evidence of how it would be done in a fraction of the time it took to build the much-shorter Panama Canal, or discover who would pay for it, were left with more questions than answers. At events marking the start of what is meant to be a five- year job, Nicaraguan officials and the Hong Kong-based company behind the canal dodged questions about its financial backers, mounting delays and whether Washington had been consulted. (The Chinese billionaire could not have started this project without the encouragement of the Chinese government. ~Bob)

Gun News


Judge Tosses Suit from Aurora Theater Victim’s Family, Orders Them to Pay Ammo Company’s Court Costs
http://patriotoutdoornews.com/13706/judge-tosses-suit-from-aurora-theater-victims-family-orders-them-to-pay-ammo-companys-court-costs
Excerpt: In late March, Senior District Judge Richard Matsch threw out the suit and held that Lucky Gunner and the others “are entitled to an award of reasonable attorney fees and costs.” The National Shooting Sports Foundation reported that “Brady Center lawyers representing the family members alleged that the Internet business practices of the FFLs did not include ‘reasonable safeguards’ to prevent persons such as Holmes from purchasing their respective products.”

Arlington Homeowner Kills Teen Intruder: Police
Excerpt: A suspected burglar is dead and another is behind bars Thursday night after a deadly encounter with a south Arlington homeowner. Officers responded to a shooting call in the 900 block of Highcrest Drive about 4:15 p.m., where they said a homeowner confronted two people who had broken into his home.

Suspected burglar shot dead in Camilla Bottoms
Excerpt: “The resident called for the male to stop, however, the male ignored the resident and the male lunged. The resident fired one shot in the direction of the suspect, however, the resident lost sight of the suspect. The resident went to check the building and discovered the suspect had been shot and was down between the buildings. The resident went back to his home and called 911.”

Liberals will now demand a three-day waiting period and a background check to buy a shovel. But when shovels are outlawed, only outlaws will have shovels. ~Bob

Race Card News

Excerpt: About a dozen Native American actors walked off the set of Adam Sandler’s new movie The Ridiculous Six because of insulting and degrading language in the script directed toward women and elders. This piece in the Native American publication Indian Country gives some examples that are incredibly embarrassing and border on racism.... Given recent film productions involving Native Americans from that period being meticulously recreated with authentic costumes and great attention paid to cultural details, it appears that Sandler and his production team were either too lazy or too racist to make the effort: ...They just told us, ‘If you guys are so sensitive, you should leave.’

"You're Greener than Gore" News

Global Warming? Global Sea Ice Levels Defy Alarmist Predictions. By Michael Bastasch
Excerpt: An Arctic death spiral? An Antarctic meltdown? Maybe not, according to the latest global sea ice data that shows the Arctic retreating while simultaneously the Antarctic is gaining.
The phenomenon was noted by climate scientist Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr., who tweeted out a chart of sea ice levels showing that while Arctic sea ice levels may be low, sea ice from the south pole is booming, leading to a resurgence of global sea ice levels to well above normal.

Religion of Peace News

WSJ Says Obama's Iran 'Obsession' Has Sunk the Democrats. Deputy editor Henninger assesses how Obama's Iran 'legacy' will turn into another hostage crisis-like fiasco a la Carter for his party.
Excerpt: US President Barack Obama has saddled the Democratic party with a political time bomb in his "obsession" for a nuclear deal with Iran, according to Pulitzer prize finalist Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Writing in an op-ed for the paper entitled "The Democrats Own Iran," Henninger wrote this week that, "the Democrats now own Iran- lock, stock and smoking centrifuges." Aside from being stuck with responsibility for the deal allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium, he added, "the Democrats own Iran’s entire penetration in the region - Yemen, the Gulf of Aden, IraqSyriaLebanon- pretty much anywhere Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants to take them.


Lutfur Rahman played the Islamophobia card to silence his critics. And too many on the left fell for it
Excerpt: An election court today found that Rahman had "driven a coach and horses" through local authority law and "engaged in corrupt and illegal practices" to win elections. According to the Court, which ruled on a case brought against the Mayor for ballot-rigging, intimidation and racism in the electoral campaign of 2014, rather than being a "democratic success story", Rahman trashed the electoral process in a "ruthless and dishonest manner". To make matters worse the Mayor silenced critics using spurious accusations of Islamophobia and racism.

Terrorist group changes name to ‘Islamic State in West Africa.’ The group is said to have released new photos of its members and announced its new name, BBC Africa reports. By 'Jola Sotubo
A terrorist by any other name is just as vile. ~Bob

Muslim Chief of Police Under Fire For Refusing to Salute Flag During Pledge of Allegiance
Excerpt: Fraternal Order of Police President Javier Ortiz was livid after he witnessed assistant chief of police Anita Najiy disrespecting the American flag as she refused to put her hand over her heart during the pledge of allegiance.

Excerpt: The Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, and its allies have declared victory over the Syrian regime in the city of Jisr Al Shughur. The city was considered one of the regime’s last remaining strongholds in the northwestern province of Idlib. Late last month, the jihadists launched a major offensive in the province, sweeping Assad’s forces out of the provincial capital. The battle for Jisr Al Shughur was the next major step in the jihadists’ plan to consolidate their control over the area.

*****
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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