Google shut down outgoing mail for 24 hours, concerned I was sending Spam. I may have to go to a Google Group you subscribe to in order to get notices out. If you want off my email notices, just send me a short request. Slammed lately, passed on a lot of incoming email, much still not looked at. Tuesday afternoon we were invited to the Wisconsin Capital for the investiture of Justice Rebecca Bradley. Interesting time but it ate up half the day. ~Bob
Book Recommendation: Sneaking Into the Flying Circus: How the Media Turn Our Presidential Campaigns into Freak Shows. By Alexandra Pelosi
Pelosi was a political reporter, covering the 2000 and 2004 campaigns and traveling with candidates. This is an insider's look at the campaign of 2004, the candidates and especially the media coverage, made perhaps more interesting now that time has passed and passions cooled--some of them anyway. I would never have read, let alone expected to recommend a book by Nancy Pelosi's daughter. However, someone gave it to my wife thinking I might be interested, so I cracked it open. First, Pelosi makes no bones about the fact that she is a liberal Democrat and her opinion of George W. Bush is about the same of my opinion of her mother. That said, it has lots of great insights and insider stuff on the candidates and on the media covering--or more often creating--the political news. I loved the quote from Wes Clark, Jr. (the General's Son) on the political press: "They do a huge disservice to the American people. They are a threat to democracy. They don't care about reporting the facts. They don't care about getting your story out. It's about getting people excited enough to watch the news and the political coverage. What can you learn by following the circus around other than that it's a circus?" (P-162) Hard to disagree. Or this by Howard Dean: "The New York Times did some really bad things by putting stuff in the paper that they knew wasn't accurate...Most people under thirty-five don't think the New York Times has any more credibility than whatever they want to read on the Internet." (P-179) This book will be of interest to political buffs, even conservative ones like me.
Must see video: Donald Trump: Rock-Ribbed Conservative
A Rose By Any Other Name. By Tom Kratman
Excerpt: Now about that liberal cargo cultism with regard to terminology and titles…
A couple of weeks ago the Secretary of the Navy, one Ray Mabus, ordered the Navy2 and Marine Corps3 to eliminate any titles that weren’t gender neutral. Of course, not wishing to appear anything but “hip” (do we still say that?) and “with it” (do we still say that, too?) or multiculturally sensitive and gender inclusive (I know we say silly shit like that), I support SecNav completely. Yes, of course I do. After all, as all right thinking people know, changing of titles can perform fantastic feats of magic, like reducing the weight of a tank’s treads by as much as 97% and lowering the weight of a one hundred and fifty pound rucksack to less than forty pounds. Moreover, science shows that, once titles are changed, no young men will thereafter be willing to do physical work for women – who, of course, become equally as strong as men by virtue of the changed title – for sexual favors, while no young women, being so terribly strong, any more have to put on the kneepads to get some young man (or men) to change heavy truck tires or carry their extra ammo. And, since changing the titles will make women every bit as physically capable as men, rape will go away as a problem, except in cases where women have morning after regrets. What’s not to love about this program? (Tom Kratman is a retired USA LtCol, an occasional contributor to this blog, and an outstand author of military science fiction, including the A Desert Called Peace series
. http://www.amazon.com/Desert-Called-Peace-Carrera-Book-ebook/dp/B00B5HJOFY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426715332&sr=8-1&keywords=Peace+Kratman I expect that in 20 years they will move his novel
Caliphate to the history section. ~Bob)
NYPD: Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat
Residents Flee Pool After Migrants Masturbate Into Jacuzzi, Defecate In Kid’s Pool, Invade Girls Changing Rooms
Excerpt: Sex attacks by Muslim migrants on non-Muslim girls in public pools got so bad,
one public pool banned migrants. But the swimming pool
lifted the migrant bather ban after left-wing pressure, just 24 hours after four children were molested. Of course the left stands in defense of violence, oppression and subjugation. In the 21st century they run to cover for Islam, jihad and sharia. Last century, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Mao and the other leftist monsters wreaked havoc on humanity in the war on freedom. (It's their culture. Who are we...? If today's progressives were around in the 1943, they would have said, "We can't condemn Nazis for the Holocaust--its their culture and all cultures are equally valid." ~Bob)
They'll turn up...German Government Can't Account for 600,000 Refugees
Excerpt: German government statistics show that more than 600,000 refugees seeking asylum have failed to make a formal application to remain in country and the government doesn't know where they are. Slow processing of asylum applications may account for some of the missing. And there's a good chance that many refugees have left Germany for other European countries.
Prosecutor: Seattle man charged with killing 4 was on terrorism watch list
REVEALED: Full List Of 1,049 Victims, Crimes Committed During Cologne New Year’s Sex Assaults. The North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state government has released the full log of offences recorded in the city centre on New Year’s Eve, which lists in detail the forms of crimes committed, and the genders of those attacked.
The PC authorities in Germany tried hard to gloss over what happened in Cologne and a lot of other places, but the news was spread by citizens through the social media and in the end it all broke loose. The chief cop in Cologne is out of a job now, and the furor among many Germans has risen a lot and is not going away. My friends in Germany tell me that by now there is no longer much doubt that this huge influx of people, only 40% of whom are actually holding documents from Syria, and of whom 60% are young men, is becoming a much larger challenge than Angela Merkel and the rest of the super generous politicians expected or want to acknowledge. Reality finally bites when you have ignored it coming at you while you kept your rose-colored glass clamped onto your face. --Del
Palestinian Authority Antisemitism: Overview of 2015. By Itamar Marcus
Excerpt: Since the Palestinian Authority (PA) was established, and continuing throughout 2015, it has systematically used Antisemitism to indoctrinate young and old to hate Israelis and Jews. The PA has actively promoted religious hatred by demonizing Judaism and Jews, spreading libels that present Jews as endangering Palestinians, Arabs, and all humanity.
Worth Reading: The Task You Have Taken Upon Yourself. By Hugh Fitzgerald
Excerpt: In the Western world, almost 15 years after the 9/11 attacks, and after many thousands of other terrorist attacks by Muslims, why are Western publics still so ill-informed about Islam? ... Along with Distraction, life throws up the obstacle of Boredom. Islam is a tremendous challenge for Unbelievers, not because it is objectively hard, but because it is simply not very interesting for those who do not share the fanatical faith. It takes great mental stamina for non-Muslims to engage with all the sacred rigmarole of Islam — just to follow the isnad-chain of a single hadith can be exhausting. And the plot and the dramatis personae of Islam are not attractive. Islam’s history is bloody, and one is not riveted, but repelled, by that bloody history. You can only take so much.
“Christian Girls Are Only Meant for the Pleasure of Muslim Men”
Excerpt: Three Christian girls in Pakistan, who rejected the advances of some wealthy Muslim young men, were recently mauled by them. One of the girls died.
Denmark approves controversial migrant assets bill
Excerpt: The Danish parliament has backed a controversial proposal to confiscate asylum seekers' valuables to pay for their upkeep. Police will be able to seize valuables worth more than 10,000 kroner (1,340 euros; £1,000) from refugees to cover housing and food costs. MPs also approved plans to delay family reunions for asylum seekers.
The Battle of Benghazi and Obama's Refusal to Issue "Cross Border Authority." By Capt Joseph R. John
Excerpt: The below listed video can be viewed by clicking on the link, it explains that a 130 man US Army In-Extremis Force, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group known as C-1/10, that stages out of Stuttgart, Germany, C-1/10 that was activated is under the operational command of Special Operational Command Europe. The In-Extremis Force was fully manned and ready on the tarmac in Sigonella, Sicily, 45 minutes away from Benghazi. They were awaiting orders to launch, but that their rescue mission was held on the tarmac for 12 hours because The White House refused to issue “Cross Border Authority.“ (This is a real killer concept, that there were well equipped special troops 45 minutes away from Benghazi that were not allowed to go to the aid of the people under attack. If this can be confirmed, it will lay the deaths of those two former SEALs directly on Mr. Obama, or whomever he left in charge when he went to be to rest up for his apparently critical to the nation trip to Las Vegas the next day. Why/how those perfect resources were not allowed to go into action is a question that really has to be answered. Not that anyone in power or in the media will want to go there, of course. --Del)
FBI arrests Milwaukee man said to be planning temple attack
Excerpt: A Milwaukee man faces federal charges after he allegedly purchased two machine guns from undercover agents as part of a plan to attack a Masonic temple.
Court documents show federal prosecutors charged 23-year-old Samy Mohamed Hamzeh on Tuesday with unlawfully possessing a machine gun and unlawfully receiving and possessing firearms not registered to him. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had an attorney. (Probably an Amish militant. Nothing to do with Islam. ~Bob)
15-year-old refugee brutally stabs, kills his Swedish caretaker
Excerpt: Swedish police responded to 322 reports of violence at refugee homes in 2015 — more than twice as many as in 2014. A knife fight between asylum seekers in the city of Halmstad ended in multiple reported stabbings just last week. The unprecedented violence is putting a huge strain on resources at the moment, according to National Chief of Police Dan Eliasson
Madness: 'Flee': Message to ISIS oil tanker drivers released by Pentagon
Excerpt: The exact message from the Pentagon to ISIS' tanker drivers just before U.S. warplanes decimated the terrorist army's oil convoys last November has been revealed.
Text of leaflets dropped before bombing began, warning truck drivers to run for their lives, was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the blog
War is Boring. “Warning. Airstrikes are coming, oil trucks will be destroyed,” read one leaflet. “Get away from your oil trucks immediately. Do not risk your life.”
India: Gandhi statue defaced with Islamic State slogan and threats
Encouraging polygamy: UK: New reforms give immigrants with more than one wife extra benefits
Answer: Who Really Is Guilty of Hijacking Islam? Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (Ret.)
Excerpt: The 2016 presidential race provides the ideal venue for addressing a critical question yet to be asked of any candidate. Its answer is critical both to the conduct of our nation’s foreign policy and protection of our homeland. Yet, if asked, not a single candidate is qualified to respond. In a world plagued by “
violent extremism“—President Barack Obama’s non-descript term for “terrorism”-by those allegedly acting in Islam’s name—
a link he will not make—the question is: Does the disconnect between Islam and terrorism stem from Islamic extremists hijacking a peaceful religion, giving it a violent interpretation, or from Islamic moderates hijacking a violent religion, giving it a peaceful interpretation? (OK, the colonel has just read and understood what is really there in Islam, and has dared to talk about it very plainly and simply. He will now be of course vilified as an Islamophobe, intolerant racist, and generally nasty guy. But everything he says below is only too true. The "theology" of Islam is so flawed logically that any real theologian can pick it to pieces in no time at all. It envisions a harsh God who changes His mind by whim, and considers women to really be second class creations. Its idea of heaven is unlimited sex with gorgeous ever virgin women, at least that's it for men, what it is for women is hard to figure out. No concept of true spirituality, of a loving God who values all His creatures. And more can be said, but that's more than enough for now. --
Del)
Worth Hearing: Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL
Danish teen fought off her attacker - now she'll face fine. A 17-year-old girl who was physically and sexually attacked in Sønderborg will herself face charges for using pepper spray to fend off her assailant.
Excerpt: The teenager told police that she was attacked in central Sønderborg on Wednesday at around 10pm by an English-speaking man in dark clothing. She said the man knocked her to the ground and then unbuttoned her pants and attempted to undress her. (Yep, dare to defend yourself with a non-deadly weapon and you are in trouble for it. Illegal to possess or use pepper spray? What set of morons passed a law like that? (I'm guessing a personal firearm is out of the question, also any knife longer than an inch, probably a hammer or screwdriver too. You're supposed to depend on screaming or persuasion to get your attacker to desist. Sure, that usually works. --Del)
Worth Reading: Do Emotions Trump Facts? By Dr. Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: Those of us who like to believe that human beings are rational can sometimes have a hard time trying to explain what is going on in politics. It is still a puzzle to me how millions of patriotic Americans could have voted in 2008 for a man who for 20 years — TWENTY YEARS — was a follower of a preacher who poured out his hatred for America in the most gross gutter terms. Today's big puzzle is how so many otherwise rational people have become enamored of Donald Trump, projecting onto him virtues and principles that he clearly does not have, and ignoring gross defects that are all too blatant. There was a time when someone who publicly mocked a handicapped man would have told us all we needed to know about his character, and his political fling would have been over. But that was before we became a society where common decency is optional.
Worth Reading: Do Emotions Trump Facts? Part II. By Dr. Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: Former governor Sarah Palin is an intelligent person, contrary to how liberals have tried to portray her. So it seemed to me that, if anybody could explain why they were promoting the candidacy of Donald Trump, it would be Governor Palin. But I listened in vain for any evidence or logic that would provide a reason to vote for Donald Trump for the office of President of the United States. There were lots of ringing assertions, just as in Trump's own speeches, but no convincing facts or demonstrable reasons. After all these months, no coherent plans have emerged from the rhetoric of "The Donald"— just sweeping boasts about all the things he says he will achieve. But boasts about the unknown future are hardly reassuring.
Trump won’t make it past Iowa. By Neill Ferguson
Excerpt: Harvard University’s Niall Ferguson says the public mood is mad as hell, but he’s not convinced Donald Trump will even make it to Super Tuesday.
Trump in 2011: Participating in Debates Takes Courage! By Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt
Excerpt: Donald Trump is out of Thursday night’s debate? Fine. Back in 2011, Trump
planned to moderate a GOP debate in Iowa; only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum agreed to participate. In an interview with Megyn Kelly at the time -- pause for irony -- Trump said, “We’re not seeing a lot of courage here, are we? Not lots of courage, these Republicans. They’re supposed to be brave.” He went on to add, “Say what you want about Newt, Newt heard about the debate, ‘I want to do it.’ So there’s a certain courage or confidence or something.” A joking exchange with Kelly later: KELLY: “Do you really think you’re a better moderator than I am?” TRUMP: “No. I could never beat you. That wouldn’t even be close. That would be no contest. You’ve done a great job. I mean it.’
Rick Perry endorses Ted Cruz
Excerpt: Perry, who also sought the GOP nomination before dropping out in September, said he now sees the race as one that is between Cruz, a fellow Texan, and Donald Trump. Through phone calls and during a December day spent driving around his Round Top, Texas, home in his truck with Cruz, Perry said he found the senator to be a good listener who respects the Tenth Amendment, “knows what he does not know” and is more conservative than Trump. “Of those individuals who have a chance to win the Republican primary, at this juncture, from my perspective, Ted Cruz is by far the most consistent conservative in that crowd,” Perry said. “And that appears to be down to two people."
Worth Reading: Is Donald Trump Conservative? Here’s the Rundown
Important: Hillary’s team copied intel off top-secret server to email. By Paul Sperry
Excerpt: The FBI is investigating whether members of Hillary Clinton’s inner circle “cut and pasted” material from the government’s classified network so that it could be sent to her private email address, former State Department security officials say. Clinton and her top aides had access to a Pentagon-run classified network that goes up to the Secret level, as well as a separate system used for Top Secret communications. (
If this is true, the Department of Justice should be spitting out indictments like a Pez dispenser: --Jim Geraghty,
Morning Jolt)
Interesting: Poll: Sanders Outperforms Clinton in Matchup Against Trump
Excerpt: Sanders leads Trump by 15 points nationally over Trump, 54 percent to 39 percent, while Clinton's advantage over Trump is 10 points, 51 percent to 41 percent.
Sanders gains 17 points in South Carolina according to new poll
Clinton’s email excuses are falling apart . By Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post
Hillary Clinton’s historical problem with honesty
2016 Election: Clinton vs. Trump. This isn't a popularity contest™
Excerpt: This map will track the electoral vote count for a prospective
Clinton vs. Trump 2016 race.
States that have been polled are based on a polling average, while unpolled states are shown based on the 2012 result for that state.
The Businessman: Trump Worth $10 Billion Less Than If He’d Simply Invested in Index Funds
You Hate It From Barack Obama. But You Love It From Donald Trump.
Trump once wrote Hillary Clinton would be 'great president'
Excerpt: Donald Trump praised Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, saying that she would make a “great president.” BuzzFeed News unearthed the comments, made in a 2008
blog post. “Hillary Clinton said she’d consider naming Barack Obama as her vice-president when she gets the nomination, but she’s nowhere near a shoo-in,” the real estate mogul wrote about the tight 2008 Democratic primary between
Clinton and then-Illinois Sen. Obama. (Sarah Palin endorsing Trump didn't move me an inch in his direction. It made me suspect that my liberal friends were right about her. ~Bob)
Trump Is Popular Because Americans Don’t Want Conservative Change. By Steve Berman
Excerpt: And then Donald Trump walks on to the mound, never throws a pitch and holds us on the base with merely a look–we’re too scared to even try. I’m not so sure the country even wants conservative values anymore. We’re too hooked on what the government does for us. We know
Jefferson said, “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”
But it just feels so good. (
Can you recall Trump ever talking at length about making the government smaller? He accused Republicans of “attacking Social Security -- the Republicans -- they’re attacking Medicare and Medicaid” and he praised the infrastructure spending in the stimulus. His health-care plan is, “Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now. I would make a deal with existing hospitals to take care of people. The government’s gonna pay for it.” Why do we need that in the Republican presidential nominee? We already get that from the Democratic nominee. A reader noted that the three guys who left the GOP presidential race first -- Rick Perry, Scott Walker, and Bobby Jindal -- were the ones who campaigned most explicitly on smaller government. --Jim Geraghty,
Morning Jolt)
Worth Reading: 10 Questions Donald Trump Supporters Need To Consider. By Mary Ramirez
Hillary: THERE THERE, THERE'S THERE THERE. By Col. Andy Weddington, USMC (Ret)
Interesting: With Trump and Palin, Republicans get what they deserve. By Kathleen Parker
Excerpt: The challenge for those of us in the observation business is to illuminate what’s plainly obvious without offending those who prefer not to see. But there’s no winning once passions are engaged, and hating the messenger is a time-honored tradition. Even though it was, in fact, obvious in 2008 that Palin was out of her league, as I out in a column, her fans wouldn’t hear of it. About 20,000 of them took time out of their busy schedules to send me emails expressing their displeasure. (I’ve kept them all for nursing-home share time.) The whole episode was instructive in multiple ways, but most important, it foretold a dumbing down of the GOP that eight years later may prove irreversible.
Michael Reagan: Trump is no Reagan Republican
Excerpt: Mr. Trump, I knew Ronald Reagan. And you’re no Ronald Reagan! Of course, I am stealing that line — with a twist. Donald Trump shouldn’t mind. He’s been stealing my dad for his own purposes. Trump frequently invokes Ronald Reagan’s name to defend his sudden, 180-degree switch from being a life-long, pro-Clinton Democrat to a Reagan Republican.
Must Hear: The Trump Tapes: Vol. 1
Excerpt: Donald Trump: “He’s a smart guy that knows what’s going on really big league and I think he is not going to want to destroy New York.” Voice Over: That was Donald Trump a little over two years ago, endorsing PC Socialist Bill de Blasio for New York Mayor. Donald Trump: “I think pretty strongly that he’ll end up being a good mayor, maybe a very good mayor.” De Blasio ran on class warfare, sanctuary cities and ending stop and frisk. De Blasio’s sided with looters and cop killers against the police, with teachers unions against schoolchildren and with PC liberals to let the homeless run wild on city streets. ... “I think he is going to want to make New York great.”
A Confession: What I Think of Pastors For Trump. By Erick Erickson
Excerpt: I totally and completely get American angst that drives people to Donald Trump. I get it. I may disagree with it, but I am not unsympathetic to it and I do understand it. What I do not understand, however, are preachers and theologians gravitating to Donald Trump. It should be harder for those engaged in daily theology to bifurcate their Christian world view from their citizenry. In fact, as I have spent more time in seminary, I find it harder and harder to balance politics and faith. It is surely possible, but when I read 1 Timothy 6, I see warning signs that some would dismiss rapidly as “that’s about preachers, not politicians.”
24"-30" in VA: Winter Storm Jonas: Latest Updates
Excerpt: The first 30 inch snowfall totals have come in from near Winchester, Virginia, ... Up to 24 inches of snow has now fallen southwest of Washington, D.C. in Manassas, Virginia.
But Remember This? Robert Kennedy Jr : “Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don’t own a sled.”
Excerpt: In Virginia, the weather also has changed dramatically. Recently arrived residents in the northern suburbs, accustomed to today’s anemic winters, might find it astonishing to learn that there were once ski runs on Ballantrae Hill in McLean, with a rope tow and local ski club. Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don’t own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers.
Christians, Conservatives, Men, and White People Are Not Responsible For Your Problems. By John Hawkins
Lou Holtz once said, "Don't tell your problems to people: eighty percent don't care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them." Unfortunately, Lou Holtz is a man out-of-step with our whiny age. Today, people will not shut up about their problems. They want to let you know about every issue they have, every “microaggression” and every time they’re offended. It’s a bottomless sea of discontent. Worse yet, our generation of complainers never seems to blame themselves for their own problems. Instead they’ve picked out a group of designated fall guys that it’s always okay to blame for every problem they have: Christians, conservatives, men or white people. Every time a Muslim engages in a terrorist attack, we get a lecture on the crusades which ended in 1291.
Worth Reading: No, 2015 Was Not The Hottest Year Evah…
Explanation: What is happening in Moldova
Worth Reading: Establishment tribes beat drums against Ted Cruz. BY ANGELO CODEVILLA
Excerpt: Simultaneously, as if signals from a council of sachems had summoned them to the warpath, the Republican establishment’s warriors took after Ted Cruz. Pat Buchanan encapsulated this establishment: “… officeholders past and present, donors, lobbyists, think-tankers angling for jobs, party hacks and talking heads [who] discuss how to frustrate the rising rebellion against what they have done to America.” The establishmentarian drumbeat against Cruz has involved but a whiff of argument on policy, and a few twisted or out of context attributions. But it has consisted mostly of attacks on the man’s character. Fox News led the way with characterizations ranging from flip-flopper to “servile.” ... Angelo M. Codevilla is professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University, and a member of the Hoover Institution’s working group on military history. He is the author of fourteen books, including Informing Statecraft, War, ends And Means, The Character of Nations, Advice to War Presidents, and To Make and Keep Peace. (Codevilla defends Cruz against establishment attacks. I thought I detected a Codevillian note in Cruz during the last Repub debate. That recommends him to me over Trump (of course) and Rubio. --Bill T. I am an admirer of Dr. Codevilla, though I still think Rubio is the conservative with the best chance to win. ~Bob)
Interesting: Gates on White House: ‘This Micromanagement Is a Problem’
Excerpt: Gates also said there was a direct line to a White House staffer when he visited a Special Operations command center in Afghanistan. “I stood there and I said, ‘you rip that out while I’m standing here and watching’ and I told our commanders, I said, ‘If you get a call from a White House staffer or an NSC staffer, you tell them you’re not authorized to take the call and refer them to my office and tell them I said to go to hell,’” he said. Gates, who has worked under Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Brent Scowcroft, told the audience he would have been fired if he had called a four-star commander as a National Security Council staffer.
Facebook is not your friend
Worth Reading: Either Carry a Big Stick—Or Shut Up! By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: Such liberal self-moralizing is never termed chauvinistic or culturally arrogant, because its practitioners are so often liberals who want all others to become as liberal as themselves. Nonetheless, many of our current tensions in the world result from our enemies’ dislike of our smug sense of moral superiority. Lecturing Egypt to respect a "largely secular” Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral win means that the U.S. is safely distant when one-election/one-time Islamists dismantle the process that brought them to power and seek an Islamic state.
Question Insanity: What to Ask Progressives. BY OLEG ATBASHIAN
Excerpt: The two women who showed up early for my book signing at a small bookstore in
Houston, TX, never even bothered to open my book. Wearing knowing smiles, they engaged me in a bizarre discussion that wound up leaping all around the known and unknown universe. They hadn't the slightest curiosity about my ideas as an ex-Soviet immigrant in
America, or what I had to say about my experience working inside the two ideologically opposed systems. As it turned out, they had spotted my flyer in the store window the day before, and the book's title --
Shakedown Socialism -- had enraged them so much that they decided to return the following day and give me a piece of their collective mind. Their act almost made me feel as if I were back in the
USSR, where the harassment of people with my opinions was the norm.
East Chicago councilman charged with murder takes oath of office while behind bars
Deaths in Japan and Taiwan as record cold snap hits east Asia. At least 95 people die as record-low temperatures in region bring snow and ice cause flight cancellations and leave thousands stranded
Self-defense shootings spike in Albuquerque. By Elise Kaplan
Excerpt: Eleven months ago, police say a homeowner awoke to a strange noise, grabbed his gun and went to his kitchen, where he found a man crouching, clutching a knife. The homeowner opened fire, killing the suspected burglar. Detectives said the homeowner’s actions were justifiable and didn’t arrest him. Throughout 2015, similar scenarios played out over and over again across the city as civilians shot would-be burglars. Six of the eight justifiable homicides occurred during attempted burglaries or robberies – more than in the previous four years combined. (According to my friend in Albuquerque who sent me this article, Roger Finzel, the attorney cited in the article is a very liberal member of his local gun club. But being a Liberal in New Mexico doesn't mean you don't have and regularly practice with firearms. Note that only a fraction of shootings get judged to be justifiable, and that's the way it should be. No one should try to kill someone else without very clear need to take that drastic step as part of avoiding a very clear major danger to life and limb. --Del)
Whooping Crane Migration Project Ends. By Russ Niles
Excerpt: After 20 years and $20 million spent to try to create a new flock of cranes based in Wisconsin in the summer and Florida in the winter, it turns out that the cranes saw through the human-engineered plan. Although the flying part of it was pretty successful (about 250 cranes raised in Wisconsin were successfully led to Florida by the aircraft) the cranes didn't do their part. Only 10 chicks from the artificially raised cranes reached adulthood. There are now 93 birds in the flock, most of them lousy parents according to a USFWS official quoted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Why aren't the others getting it?" asked Peter Fasbender. "The common thread is this lack of parenting skills." Operation Migration, the Canada-based organization that does the flying part, isn't giving up without a fight, however. (So...a favorite do-good activity shown to not do as much good as stated. Is not, say the do-gooders. But the root cause of the failure: bad parenting. So goes the life. --George)
Interesting: The mood of Davos turns out to be quite wrong. By Neill Ferguson
Excerpt: “It’s a bit like reliving your college years, but with each year compressed into a day.” That was how one of my friends summed up the Davos World Economic Forum last week. “On Day One, you are a frisky freshman. There isn’t an invitation you don’t accept. But by Day Four, you are ready to graduate and return to the real world.”
Worth Reading: The New Segregationism. The Oscar nominations have brought a corrosive racial politics to the fore. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: One of the stranger demands of various campus affiliates of Black Lives Matter was the call for “safe spaces.” That is a euphemism for designated racially segregated areas. In such zones, particular minority groups are reassured that no white students or faculty could enter — and thus by their mere presence supposedly remind them of institutionalized white bias. Left unmentioned is the surreal college enforcement of such segregation. What will happen if a half-white student, or a Brazilian, Peruvian, or Syrian foreign student, wanders into a safe space designated for blacks? Does the Dean of Diversity — presumably dressed in a sport coat with elbow patches rather than appearing as Lester Maddox with a bat — call security to expel the miscreants for their racist assumption that there should not be private areas set off by race?
The Demand for Villains. By Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: The latest tempest in a teapot controversy is over a lack of black nominees for this year's Academy Awards in Hollywood. The assumption seems to be that different groups would be proportionally represented if somebody were not doing somebody else wrong. That assumption carries great weight in far more important things than Academy Awards and in places more important than Hollywood, including the Supreme Court of the United States. In an earlier era, the groupthink assumption was that groups that did not succeed as often, or as well, were genetically inferior. But is our current groupthink assumption based on any more hard evidence?
We are witnessing the end of the House of Clinton
Surprise: Farrakhan Says Blacks Kill Each Other More Than White Cops Do
Must be the End Times when agree with BPs. --Barb
Worth Reading: This Woman Just Explained Economics In A Nutshell. And It's So True It Hurts.
Worth Reading: Wounded Warrior Project accused of wasting donation money
Excerpt: A CBS News investigation into a charity for wounded veterans, the Wounded Warrior Project, looks into how the charity spends its donation money. What caught our attention is how the Wounded Warrior Project spends donations compared to other long-respected charities. (This is just the first of a two-part series on serious criticism's of the WWP operation. Nothing in it is hard to believe, this kind of morphing into a real party attitude by upper management and staff has happened more than a few times before with really successful fundraising charities. The river of money coming in convinces everyone they deserve whatever little "perks" they can get, they become the really important people, not the people they actually say they exist to serve. --Del)
Test your news IQ
I was 12 for 12. ~Bob
Important: Pursuing critics, China reaches across borders. And nobody is stopping it.
Excerpt:
China’s campaign against dissent is going global. Amid extraordinary moves to
rein in criticism at home, Chinese security personnel are reaching confidently across borders, targeting Chinese and foreign citizens who dare to challenge the Communist Party line, in what one Western diplomat has called the “worst crackdown since Tiananmen Square.” A string of incidents, including
abductions from Thailand and Hong Kong, forced repatriations and the televised “
confessions” of two Swedish citizens, has crossed a new red line, according to diplomats in Beijing. Yet many foreign governments seem unwilling or unable to intervene, their public response limited to mild protests.
This show of anti-Semitism at an LGBT conference should bring change
A Tale Of Two Rivers: Obama Condemns Flint Disaster After Ignoring Colorado Mine Spill
Excerpt: The same cannot be said for his reaction to the thousands of people who had their drinking water tainted by the Gold King Mine spill in August — a spill caused by his own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It’s a tale of two rivers, both contaminated by government mismanagement, but only one provoked moral outrage from Obama. While Obama said
Michigan’s government shouldn’t “shortchange basic services that we provide to our people,” he was virtually silent when his own administration polluted rivers flowing through western states and
Indian territory. (Discrimination. One incident involved just Native Americans...What's it matter to the feds? They've always used and abused Native Americans, except when they want to make a trophy display of do-gooding. But the other river, well, they have footage of the poor black babies with rashes and not being able to have baths, and mommas griping about "having to use bottled water." At least they GOT bottled water.... If it is a black wronged, it fits the scenario and the agenda for TRANSFORMATION. Native Americans, too bad. Note that the federal government's OWN AGENCY, THE EPA, was liable for both of these incidents, causing the one in the West and burying the information in
Michigan. Yeah, POTUS didn't declare a state of emergency for the poor Indians. --Barb)
