Update
Why you should read the Old Jarhead Blog for a wide view of the news:
Most Voters Expect Biased News Coverage of 2016 Presidential Race
Excerpt: In the wake of the George Stephanopoulos scandal, most voters doubt the accuracy of political news coverage and think most reporters will slant their coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% of Likely U.S. Voters now do not trust the political news they are getting.
General News and Comment
Excerpt: A federal court took action on the scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton's private email use for the first time Friday when it demanded the State Department review emails Clinton submitted late last year to determine if the batch contained any that should have been released in a 2012 case.
Hillary Clinton Continues to Get Away With Murder. By Chris Markowski
Excerpt: Rules are created for a reason, and people who break those rules are usually punished accordingly. So why is it the rules seem to not apply to certain people, especially those that deserve to face consequences? We’ve seen this in the media spotlight for weeks with Hillary Clinton and her email scandal. Whether you’re a celebrity or an average Joe, if you do something illegal you should be punished accordingly. (Victor Davis Hanson: "When the law becomes negotiable, civilization collapses." ~Bob)
Excerpt: What happens when the public does not wish to live out the utopian dreams of its elite leaders? Usually, the answer for those leaders is to seek more coercion and less liberty to force people to think progressively. Here at home, President Barack Obama came into power in 2009 with a Democratic Congress, a sympathetic press, and allies in Hollywood , academia, unions, and philanthropic and activist foundations. Yet all that support was not sufficient to ensure “correct” public attitudes about Obama’s agenda on health care, entitlements, taxes, guns, abortion and cultural issues.
Inside the stunning fall and war-crimes investigation of an Army Green Beret war hero. By Dan Lamothe
Excerpt: According to Army documents, the young officer disclosed to CIA personnel during a 2011 job interview that he had killed an unarmed Taliban fighter he suspected of being a bombmaker. The documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, also suggest an elaborate cover-up that, if true, could amount to serious war crimes involving not only Golsteyn but fellow Green Beret soldiers. ... Two days later, Golsteyn braved enemy fire repeatedly after watching a Taliban sniper round nearly hit another Marine who was manning a rooftop observation post on their base. Golsteyn was credited with launching a mission to find the enemy marksmen, slogging through muddy fields under fire to help an Afghan soldier who had been wounded, returning fire with a powerful anti-tank weapon, and coordinating repeated airstrikes by F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets and a Predator drone. For those actions, he was awarded the Silver Star, the Army’s third-highest award for valor. (This case will make you want to scream or weep. And some wonder that many of the best young officers are bailing out when their enlistment ends? Why stay in an organization where the lawyers and generals are just waiting for some way, any way, to come down on you? --Del (
Atrocious: Fox News Will Limit Debate Participation to Ten, Based On... The Polls
Excerpt: What the hell good are the polls right now? People don't know enough to make informed judgments yet. That is the point of a debate -- and that's the point of a first debate, surely. We are in the very beginnings of this process, and Fox News is using polls of uninformed people (and I don't mean that negatively; most of us are uniformed at this point) to decide who is allowed to run for President. And yes, this poll -- based on nothing but name recognition -- will in fact knock five or six people out of the contest entirely.
Worth Reading : Saint Louis
Excerpt: When I was a little boy, growing up in Baku , my mother told me I could become the world chess champion someday. I don’t know if anyone else believed her, but I believed her. Years later, the sports authorities in the Soviet Union told me that I was a troublemaker, and that I could not become the world chess champion. Well, in 1985 I did become world champion, and this taught me the first important lesson I wish to share with you all today: listen to your mother! Six years after that, the Soviet Union and all of its sports authorities ceased to exist while my mother is still going strong. .. Every day we make choices large or small: individuals, companies, entire nations. Are those choices guided by the values we treasure? Are we loyal to the principles of individual freedom, of faith, of excellence, of compassion, of the value of human life? Or do we trade them away, bit by bit, for material goods, for a quiet life, and to pass the problems of today on to the next generation? These moral values are also the values of innovation and the free market, by the way. It is no coincidence that these founding American values created the greatest democracy in the world and also the greatest economy in the world. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus urged his believers to be a “City on a Hill,” a shining example to the world, a phrase used to describe America by John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. I saw that America from the other side of the Iron Curtain and I can tell you that it mattered. And it matters still. If America is to continue as a “light of the world” it will be up to you and to your generation to hold fast to these values and not to trade them away for a safe and stagnant status quo.
Wounded Warrior Warning. Emotional Appeals? Caveat Emptor. By Mark Alexander
Excerpt: WWP received a “D” rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy and only a C+ by Charity Watch. Indeed, WWP ranks substantially below other national veteran support groups like Foundation, Operation and the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. Wow's CEO Steven Narcissi, a lawyer who now receives a $375,000 salary, served up a legalese rebuttal to the evaluations from Charity Watch and Charity Navigator, insisting in The Chronicle of Philanthropy that those rating organizations were “horribly ineffective and misinformed.”
“Please refer your readers to: http://www.standunited.org/petition/stop-antiwar-radicals-from-smearing-vietnam-vets-again. The petition has some interesting comments by the signers, but we would like to see a lot more names on the list than we already have.” -- Army vet Steve Sherman:
Excerpt: A high school teacher in rural central Illinois is under investigation and has been placed on administrative leave after he allegedly threw an American flag on the floor and stomped on it in front of a class full of flabbergasted students last week.
Marco Rubio, the older Republican's favorite younger Republican
Excerpt: Broken down by age, Rubio's favorability rating is off the scale among Republicans age 65 and older: three-quarters of them view Rubio favorably, higher than any other Republican's rating in any age group. The full results: Rubio is viewed favorably by 39 percent among Republicans age 18 to 44; by 50 percent of those 45 to 64; and by 75 percent of those age 65 and older.
51 Percent Of Democrats Pretty Much Want To Destroy The First Amendment. By Matt Vespa
Excerpt: So, National Review’s Charlie Cooke found an interesting poll showing that a majority of Democrats–and a substantial proportion of Republicans–want to upend the foundation of First Amendment law in the United States . They want to criminalize so-called hate speech. Nevertheless, 60 percent of Americans say that it’s “okay” publish Muhammad cartoons, and over 70 percent approve of our right to offend. So, what’s going on here? (I'm okay with outlawing hate speech--if I get to determine what constitutes hate speech. You see the problem here. ~Bob)
Excerpt: She can't yet legally order a beer or rent a car, but 19-year-old college student Yvonne Dean-Bailey was elected yesterday to New Hampshire 's House of Representatives in a special election to fill the vacant seat in Rockingham District 32. Dean-Bailey, a Republican, defeated Democrat candidate Maureen Mann in a race that involved an unusual number of high-profile endorsements for both candidates.
Excerpt: Democrats and Republicans alike tell me that Barack Obama used Jacksonville as a testing ground for his campaign strategy and technology in helping Democrats take the city. Registered Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts, but the city has largely been held by Republicans. It is in the swing state of Florida . Jacksonville is one of the largest cities in the United States . ... Jacksonville was just taken back by the Republicans.
Rising Dragon News
The South China Sea ’s Gathering Storm. By James Webb, The Wall Street Journal
Excerpt: Since World War II, despite the costly flare-ups in Korea and Vietnam , the United States has proved to be the essential guarantor of stability in the Asian-Pacific region, even as the power cycle shifted from Japan to the Soviet Union and most recently to China . The benefits of our involvement are one of the great success stories of American and Asian history, providing the so-called second tier countries in the region the opportunity to grow economically and to mature politically. As the region has grown more prosperous, the sovereignty issues have become more fierce. Over the past two years Japan and China have openly clashed in the Sneak Islands , east of Taiwan and west of Okinawa , whose administration is internationally recognized to be under Japanese control.
Excerpt: A Chinese university denied on Thursday U.S. espionage charges filed against three of its staff who are among six Chinese people the United States has accused of stealing technology often used in military systems. The U.S. Justice Department announced the charges against the six on Tuesday, the third time in as many years that U.S. authorities have made accusations of economic espionage conducted on behalf of China, an issue Washington has termed a top national security concern.
Gun News
Neighbors Help Rescue Woman
http://www.wearecentralpa.com/story/d/story/neighbors-help-rescue-woman/10752/f9G2uaGOj0qCgHe0eXxsLA
Excerpt: Another neighbor Nicky Mimics said, "He’s on top of her just punching her in the face. He got up and started stomping her in the face." That's when another neighbor, Henry Oppenheim, saw what was going on and sprung into action. "So I quickly ran into my room grabbed my gun and went out to defend her," said Oppenheim “I said let her go. And then he finally did it." Oppenheim has a concealed carry permit and says he brings his gun almost everywhere he goes.
Nice shooting: 1 Burglar Killed, 1 Hurt in Shooting in Redland: Miami-Dade Police
Excerpt: One burglar was killed and another hospitalized after a 77-year-old homeowner shot at them at a home in southwest Miami-Dade Monday, officials said.
Dialysis patient pulls gun on man to prevent robbery
Excerpt: The suspect stood at the passenger side of the vehicle and asked for the victim’s wallet, police said. The victim refused, and the suspect pulled a small revolver from inside his foodie.
The victim told police he then pulled his own gun on the suspect and said, “Do you really want to do this?” The suspect responded, “Have a nice day,” and ran back into the wooded area, the victim told police.
Race Card News
#Whitelivesmatter: Omaha
Excerpt: A 29-year-old police officer who had put off maternity leave after giving birth prematurely to a daughter in February was being mourned Thursday, a day after she was gunned down in a shootout with a fugitive. Kerrie Orozco, the first female officer from Omaha 's police department to die in the line of duty, had only recently given birth to a daughter, and also was stepmother to two children ages 6 and 7, according to authorities. (Black thug, white cop. Protests riots and looting to follow? Obama to send delegation to the funeral? ~Bob)
#Whitelivesmatter: Suspect in 4 D.C. killings identified after DNA is found on pizza sent to burned home
Excerpt: D.C. police said late Wednesday that they have identified a suspect in the killings of Savvas Savopoulos, his wife, young son and housekeeper, who authorities believe were held captive in the family’s Northwest Washington home. Police said they had obtained a warrant for the arrest of Daron Dylon Wint, who they said is 34 and is from Maryland . (Black thug, white family, Hispanic housekeeper. Protests riots and looting to follow? Obama to send delegation to the funeral? ~Bob)
Racists: Harvard fairer to some than others
Excerpt: This week, more than 60 Asian-American organizations filed a federal complaint against Harvard University
The complaint claims, with some evidence, that the prestigious school, which takes a great deal of federal money, has conspired to limit the number of Asians enrolled at any given time to somewhere between 15-18 percent of the student population. The school uses a number of subtle ways to determine Asian ancestry in its admission process — for example, asking applicants' parents' place of birth and mothers' maiden name. The complaint alleges that the school admits more or fewer Asians in any given class to keep the overall proportion stable, suggesting a hidden racial quota system.
Excerpt: Conservatives say "you can be somebody." Liberals say "you should hate somebody." The latter mentality is exactly what we've seen play out in Ferguson and Baltimore . Black riots, dead cops at the hands of black youths, thugs memorialized as heroes and our first lady who's grown up privileged, gives a speech at Tuskegee University in front of more privileged blacks as if she just dried off after being hosed down by Democrat Bull Connor. Give me a break! Students who are inheriting a post-civil rights America have been conditioned to believe they're getting a pre-civil rights America thanks to our first black president and first lady.
"You're Greener than Gore" News
More Governments Fudging Climate Data. By Jordan Candler
Excerpt: Satellite data has found that the mean global temperature has been sitting on a plateau for more than 18 years now, which is in stark contrast to official government numbers. Just this week, NOAA reported that, at 1.33°F (0.74°C) above average, last month was the fourth warmest April recorded globally, and 2015 so far is the hottest on record. But as we’ve documented, the agency is currently mired in allegations of misconduct after it was discovered that historical data was manipulated to make post 1970s/1980s warming appear more alarming. And more and more foreign government agencies are engaging in the practice.
Religion of Peace News
Attention, D.C. Media: We’re Losing the War Against ISIS . Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt
See below articles:
ISIS controls 50 percent of Syria after takeover of Palmyra, activists say
Excerpt: The Islamic State terror group now controls over half of Syrian territory after seizing the village and archaeological site of Palmyra Thursday, activists monitoring Syria 's civil war said. Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the Associated Press the extremists overran the archaeological site, just to the southwest of the modern settlement on Palmyra , shortly after midnight local time.
Excerpt: A spokesman for the governor of Iraq 's Anbar province said Monday that about 500 people — both civilians and Iraqi soldiers — are estimated to have been killed over the past few days as the city of Ramadi fell to the Islamic State group. The estimates follow a shocking defeat as Islamic State seized control of the Anbar provincial capital on Sunday, sending Iraqi forces fleeing in a major loss despite the support of U.S.-led airstrikes targeting the extremists.
Gaddafi's home town falls to Islamic State in anarchic Libya
Excerpt: Standing guard at his frontline post, Libyan soldier Mohammed Abu Shager can see where Islamic State militants are holed up with their heavy weaponry less than a kilometer away.
The militants have effectively taken over former dictator Muammar Gaddafi's home city of Sirte as they exploit a civil war between two rival governments to expand in North Africa .
Islamic State Solidifies Foothold in Libya
Excerpt: Islamic State leaders in Syria have sent money, trainers and fighters to Libya in increasing numbers, raising new concerns for the U.S. that the militant group is gaining traction in its attempts to broaden its reach and expand its influence. In recent months, U.S. military officials said, Islamic State has solidified its foothold in Libya as it searches for ways to capitalize on rising popularity among extremist groups around the world.
ISIS’s Egypt
Excerpt: Cairo - Islamic State's Egypt affiliate on Wednesday urged followers to attack judges, declaring a new front in an Islamist militant insurgency in the world's most populous Arab state.
Excerpt: For one thing, a rethink would have to begin with the acknowledgment that the current strategy isn’t working. But although the White House is now willing to grudgingly concede that the fall of Ramadi is a “setback” (government-speak for a “defeat”), White House spokesman Josh Ernest still claims that “overall” the president’s anti-ISIS strategy is still working. “Are we going to light our hair on fire every time that there is a setback in the campaign against ISIL?” Ernest truculently demanded. In a similar vein, the Journal quotes a “senior defense official” as saying: “The Department believes the current course of action is the right one.” As long as the White House and Pentagon remain in a state of denial, they are unlikely to radically rethink their failing strategy.
Pataki: Send combat troops to fight ISIS
Excerpt: Former Gov. George Pataki, who is expected to launch a presidential bid next week, said Wednesday the U.S. should deploy troops to Iraq to fight ISIS . Pataki, a New York Republican, insisted that a deployment of U.S. combat troops would be a limited mission unlike the 2003 American invasion of Iraq -- a war then-President George W. Bush had insisted would be short-lived.
Oliver North on Ramadi
Voters See ISIS Winning in Iraq
Excerpt: Voters aren’t happy with the way President Obama is fighting the radical Islamic State group and increasingly suspect that ISIS is winning the war in Iraq . The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 43% of Likely U.S. Voters now believe ISIS is winning, up five points from 38% two months ago. Just 18% now think the United States and its allies are winning, compared to 25% who felt that way in mid-March. (The rest said, "Iraq ? Isn't that a town in Vietnam ?" ~Bob)
Delta’s Recent Raid In Syria May Have Revealed An Inconvenient Truth About Fighting ISIS . By Ivan Plis
Excerpt: Last weekend’s special forces raid, which killed a midlevel Islamic State commander, has revived the debate on overt U.S. military ground action in Syria and Iraq .
The operation was just the second publicized American combat action in Syria since the 2011 start of that country’s civil war.
Retired Army General at Committee Hearing: "We Are Losing This War. By Daniel Doherty
Excerpt: General Jack Keane, who was the first witness to testify, argued that the fall of Ramadi signals—and indeed proves—that the Obama administration's current strategy in the region has failed. "While there has been some progress and some success, looking at this strategy today, we know now that the conceptual plan is fundamentally flawed,” he stated. “The resources provided to support Iraq are far from adequate. The timing and urgency to provide arms, equipment, and training is insufficient. And as such we are not only failing, we are losing this war.”
Obama admin says “file footage of ISIL convoys operating in broad daylight” is “inaccurate” days before huge ISIL convoy in Ramadi. By Robert Spencer, JihadWatch.org
Excerpt: “We are urging broadcasters to avoid using the familiar B-roll that we’ve all seen before, file footage of ISIL convoys operating in broad daylight, moving in large formations with guns out, looking to wreak havoc. It’s inaccurate — that’s no longer how ISIL moves…” “A more accurate image, said Col. Steven Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, would be ‘one Toyota speeding down the road by itself at night with its headlights off.'” Either the Obama administration is woefully ignorant of the facts on the ground, or it’s lying brazenly to the American people and the world, knowing that most people are too busy or indifferent to notice.
Excerpt: Cyrus McGoldrick wasn’t at his home in Florida this past week. He spent the week in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Part of his time was devoted to sightseeing, and part of it was spent cursing his home country, the United States , while shilling for Iran on Iranian TV. He is currently back on U.S. soil, but his actions suggest that he instead renounce his citizenship and take up permanent residency in the terrorist state, where his mom was born. But before he leaves, he needs to be investigated. Cyrus McGoldrick converted to Islam, while attending Columbia University
Excerpt: A court in Pakistan has jailed a Muslim prayer leader for five years for inciting religious hatred. Qari Abubaker was convicted in the city of Lahore of calling minority Shia Muslims "infidels". At least six other clerics have been jailed for similar offences in the past two months in Lahore , officials say.
Excerpt: This month the left lost its mind over Ayelet Shaked. The daughter of an Iraqi Jewish immigrant, Ayelet Shaked was an infantry instructor who worked for Israel ’s elite Golani Brigade and a computer scientist who worked for Texas Instruments. Now she’s a mother of two married to a former fighter pilot. She’s also Israel ’s new Justice Minister. The New York Times compared her to Michele Bachmann and had her quoting Ayn Rand. The Financial Times compared her to Sarah Palin. So did Italian, Spanish and Norwegian media outlets. These analogies are not based on anything except the gender and politics of all three women. They are shorthand signals, telling liberal readers to hate Ayelet Shaked just as they hated Palin and Bachmann. (Oddly enough, a nation that exist in a sea of others who want to exterminate everyone living there, and who have tried to implement that extermination numerous times, still has in it people who are so intellectual that they can ignore the harsh realities around them and agitate for assorted really stupid policies for the nation. The Left vs Right tension in Israel is a major fact of political life, and now two conservative women have taken over high level offices, and the flak is flying thickly. The next months may be interesting over there. --Del )
Important: Adopts ‘One State Palestine
Excerpt: While Israeli politicians continue to debate the merits of the “two-state solution,” their Palestinian interlocutors have long moved beyond that model for the solution of the Middle East conflict. For Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the idea of a “greater Palestine ” – that would stretch from “the river to the sea” – is now an official policy. (If they get a one-state solution, Hamas will lead it. Having extirpated the Jews and Fatah, they will turn their attention to "The Great Satan." ~Bob)
*****
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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