Friday, April 17, 2015

More Political news and opinion

Update

I have an aneurysm?
I received a letter today (Friday) from my Primary Care Doc at the VA. She said my CT scan of my lungs in July revealed I have a 4.5 CM aneurysm, and she is going to schedule another CT scan his summer to re-evaluate this. Unfortunately, I got the mail to late too call her. I am surprised to learn of this nine months later, as I have always understood that aneurysms are life threatening, and 4.5 CM (1.77 inches) seems pretty large. Guess I'll find out Monday what the deal is. ~Bob

From a blog reader
26th Marines Association 2015 Reunion. August 21, 22 and 23, 2015. Denver Colorado
26'ers from all times, Regiment, MAU and MEU. All battalions, Iwo to current, and supporting units. See www.26thMarines.com for details or contact. Sonny Hollub 512-312-4168 or sonnyusmc@gmail.com. (My regiment in Vietnam, so I was happy to include this at his request. ~Bob)

General News and Comment

Morning Plum: Hillary evolves on issues important to the left. By Greg Sargent
Excerpt: It is probably too late for any Democrat to mount a credible primary challenge to Hillary Clinton, who appears to have sewn up much of the sort of the hidden elite support and backing from party actors that tends to influence voters’ choice of a nominee. Yet on some issues, at least, Clinton is acting as if she has a lot of work to do in terms of securing support from liberal Democrats who might be tempted to give someone else a second look. This is not lost on former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who has now taken a subtle shot at Clinton for shifting on issues important to rank and file Dems.

Worth Reading: She rides by van: The Hillary Clinton launch. By Charles Krauthammer 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-queen-travels-by-van/2015/04/16/4ca7c956-e46c-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions&wpmm=1
Excerpt: See Hillary ride in a van! Watch her meet everyday Americans! Witness her ordering! Which she did wearing shades, as did her chief aide Huma Abedin, yielding security-camera pictures that made them look (to borrow from Karl Rove) like fugitives on the lam, wanted in seven states for a failed foreign policy. There’s something surreal about Hillary Clinton’s Marie Antoinette tour, sampling cake and commoners.

Video: Former FOIA Chief: 'No Doubt’ Hillary Knew Server Would Stop Oversight http://americanactionnews.com/videos/former-foia-chief-no-doubt-hillary-knew-server-would-stop-oversight.html

Foreign money will fuel a shameless Clinton's career
Excerpt: On Thursday, citizens of the Internet had a good chuckle over Hillary Clinton's meeting with local Democratic officials in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The video footage from after the meeting revealed the rather flagrant parking of her campaign van in a handicapped parking space, despite the availability of a regular spot immediately in front of it. That particular misstep can probably be laid at the feet of the Secret Service agent who chauffeurs Clinton. Not so the many times in Clinton's career in public life where she has similarly displayed the attitude that rules are for little people, and not herself or her family.

Clinton Campaign Chaos. By Matthew Vadum 
Excerpt: Charles Krauthammer mocked Mrs. Clinton and her ongoing tour of flyover country. She wants to get the big money out of politics, he said, but she is aiming to generate an unprecedented campaign war chest of $2.5 billion. “She has been taking in money ever since she took the silverware from the White House when they left in 2001,” Krauthammer said. “I mean, it really is a stretch. I just find this rather amusing. This is her Marie Antoinette cake tour.” “The problem with her is the inauthenticity has reached a point where nothing you see is believable,” the conservative columnist said. “Even if she were sincere about anything you wouldn’t be able to tell it.”

Hillary Clinton’s astroturfed grandparents
Excerpt: But now Hillary Clinton is branching out into Joe Biden country. Back in 1988, Joe Biden was forced to end his presidential bid when it was discovered that the tales he told of his hardscrabble coal-mining father were actually borrowed from stump speeches by British socialist Neil Kinnock and Biden’s father was a middle class professional.

A 'Postcard' From Twentynine Palms, California - With Heart (as in Purple) - About a Great Marine. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: Big Mac Dube was a fine man, Marine, and American. He was a patriot. He was not only a proud citizen of his community but a selfless servant thereof. He was the essence of Smith's opening quote.

When veterans return, their children also deal with the invisible wounds of war. By Emily Wax-Thibodeaux
Excerpt: Twice a day, Koen Hughes’s medicine alarm beeps and sputters. He yells out across the kitchen to his father, retired Army Staff Sgt. Jonah Hughes, an Iraq war veteran, who suffers from such a severe brain injury that it’s hard for him to remember things like whether he showered, and sometimes how to shower. Koen is always there, reminding him to take his anti-seizure pills, nervously double-checking his medicine box and squinting as he monitors his father’s behavior. Koen is 10.

The Establishment and the Tea Party Face Off in Illinois. By John Fund
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417055/establishment-and-tea-party-face-illinois-john-fund
Excerpt: LaHood is about as establishment a choice as one could imagine. He is the son of Representative Ray LaHood, the very moderate Republican who represented about half of the current district in Congress until 2009. He then left office to become President Obama’s Transportation Secretary, where he promoted pork-barrel spending and dubious high-speed-rail projects. His son’s supporters say his politics are distinct from those of his father, but clearly the LaHood name will be a mixed blessing in a primary. On the one hand, it brings strong name identification for Darin LaHood. But on the other, it leaves many of the district’s conservatives looking for a fresh, non–status quo alternative.

Important: Whatever happened to Obama’s pivot to Asia? By Fareed Zakaria 
Excerpt: The Obama administration’s foreign policy energies are fully engaged in the Middle East — negotiating the Iran deal, sending Special Operations forces into Iraq, supporting Saudi airstrikes in Yemen, working with the Syrian rebels. Whatever happened to the pivot to Asia? (I highly recommend The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower by Michael Pillsbury, http://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Year-Marathon-Strategy-Replace-Superpower/dp/1627790101/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2_har?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429019870&sr=1-1&keywords=hundred+year+marathon
which I am reading now. ~Bob)

Interesting: Ballistic Bombast. By Michael Fabey
Excerpt: China may be able to take out an American aircraft carrier with its feared DF-21 antiship ballistic missile (ASBM) without even taking a shot. For years the U.S. Navy has been warning of the potential of the DF-21 to strike a carrier as part of the justification for updating the systems and networks of shielding that protect the country’s most visible – and some say most vulnerable – military icons. The Navy brass did a good job making its case. Maybe too good. Now some powerful people in DC are looking to reduce the fleet by a carrier or two in the belief that the DF-21 will make it too dangerous for the ships even to get close to Chinese territorial waters. 

IRS Files Tax Lien Against MSNBC Host. By Leah Barkoukis
Excerpt: Earlier this month the IRS placed a $70,000 tax lien against MSNBC host Melissa Harris Perry, who is perhaps best known for wearing tampon earrings and mocking Mitt Romney’s black grandchild. The lien seems to have come as a surprise to Harris-Perry, who once tweeted that she would pay her taxes “with a smile.” (Must be a mistake--the IRS usually goes after conservatives. ~Bob)

Excerpt: Phoenix has been ruled by liberal Democrats for many years. The ethnically diverse culture of downtown Phoenix is an island smack dab in the center of a largely conservative state. So, back in 2008 Phoenix decided to go into business and buy themselves a Sheraton Hotel. They invested more than half a billion dollars in the place. Then they staffed it with their favorite unions and kept workers happy with juicy pay and benefits packages and bumped their salaries up each year. Not surprisingly, the Phoenix owned Sheraton is bleeding money...so much so that the city is nearly bankrupt and can't finance municipal needs. They've hiked parking rates (which drove downtown shoppers to the suburbs), they implemented a tax on food, and you need a bankroll to pay for the various city fees they assess to even talk to a municipal bureaucrat. 

Free Speech Losing to Campus Thought Police
Excerpt: Attention parents of college students across America. Apparently, your children may not be safe. This isn't a warning about real physical dangers on campus, from assault to random shootings. Rather, some advocacy groups say college students are at risk – maybe you'd better sit down for this – of being exposed to ideas and opinions they may not like. It's getting so bad that this week, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) New York chapter demanded that Brooklyn College "take measures to ensure the safety of Muslim and Arab-American students" because of an upcoming speech by a harsh critic of Islam.

Gun News

Cops: Man shot intruder during Orlando apartment burglary
Excerpt: "During the victim and suspect encounter, the victim shot the suspect multiple times," Orlando Police Lt. Darnell Hill said.

One dead after North Phoenix home invasion
Excerpt: During the home invasion, two men in their 20's were shot. Both of the men were transported to the hospital where one of them died from their injuries.

Deputies: Moon Lake man shoots home intruder
Excerpt: An intruder who broke into a New Port Richey home was shot multiple times during a confrontation with a resident early Thursday, authorities said.

Undocumented Democrat News

Good video: KISS' Gene Simmons: Immigrants to America Should 'Learn Goddamned English'

"You're Greener than Gore" News

Study: EPA Global Warming Rule To Kill Nearly 300,000 Jobs. By Michael Bastasch
Excerpt: The EPA’s carbon dioxide regulation could end up destroying nearly four times as many jobs as the agency said it would by 2030. A report by the American Action Forum found that job losses from EPA’s carbon rule could be as high as 296,000. AAF’s report found the EPA’s rule to fight global warming endangers the viability of more than 90 power plants across the country that produce 50 gigawatts of power. These plant closures, the EPA says, will put 80,000 people out of work by 2030. But once economy-wide impacts are taken into account, some 296,000 jobs could be lost during that time, notes AAF.

Excerpt: Jeff Leeds says installing SolarCity’s panels on the roof of his home in the Northern California city of El Granada was the sorriest day of his life. Agreeing to the company’s 20-year lease was like partnering with the devil, he claims. He says he has endured skyrocketing electric bills, installation of an inferior system and contract violations because SolarCity refuses to clean the panels or to provide a payment for his system’s poor performance. The latest surprise: a notice from his bank telling him that SolarCity had placed a lien on his home, and that his equity line of credit application could not proceed until the lien was removed.

Religion of Peace News

Important: The Obama ‘Framework’ for Israel’s Doom. By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn 
Excerpt: So now it turns out that Israel’s security, perhaps its very existence, will be jeopardized in order to give Barack Obama some post-presidential bragging points. It was recently revealed that the President intends to publicly endorse specific borders and other terms for a Palestinian state, which he hopes will go down in history as the “Obama Framework.” But it would be more truthful to call it what it is — the Palestinian Framework. (As long as Obama seeks to make Israel repent for the evils of Western colonialism by agreeing to suicide borders with the so-called Palestinians, he should issue an executive order so that the return CA, NV, AZ, NM, CO and WY to Mexico. After all, these areas were taken in a war of conquest, while Israel's accretion of territory was due to a war of defense. Now, let's talk about Russia in Ukraine, China in Tibet, Spain in Catalonia and Granada, England and Scotland, etc. Cordially, --Larry Greenberg.)

The Necessity of the Fighting Jew on Campus. By Elliott Hamilton 
Excerpt: The problem, of course, remains that most Jews do not fully comprehend the links between our contemporary victories and those of antiquity. Whenever a Jew hears the word “Zionism,” they are often reminded of a vicious Jew-hating campaign of the collectivists, the Islamist extremists, and the neo-Nazis to ostracize its champions. This remains especially true on college campuses, when Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace demonize the term completely out of historical context to uphold their deplorable, false narrative. Jewish or pro-Israel students do not repeat the true Zionist story, mostly out of fear of campus censorship initiated by opinionated professors and catalyzed by their intolerant peers.

PA President Abbas Honors Fatah Terrorists in Official Ceremony
Excerpt: Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas awarded medals to the first male and female jailed Fatah members and the group's first "martyred" terrorist, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reports. The awards came in advance of today's "Palestinian Prisoners Day." Fatima Bernawi was the first woman in Fatah jailed for terrorist activity, an article posted Thursday on Fatah's Egyptian website said.

Worth Reading: Islamic Jihad Comes to Campus. By David Horowitz 
Excerpt: According to the FBI, three-fifths of all religious hate crimes in America are now committed against Jews, while a recent Pew poll revealed that 54 percent of Jewish students have either been the subject of an anti-Semitic attack or witnessed one. The frequency of these attacks among college-aged students, moreover, is five times that of any other age group. The reason for this is obvious: Across the United States student groups associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, specifically Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Muslim Students Association, are engaged in a vitriolic campaign against Israel and those students who support its right to exist. These organizations promote the propaganda of the terrorist organization Hamas, and call for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Holocaust history and the lost generation
Excerpt: According to one Gallup poll conducted in the United States, less than half of those polled knew how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust, while only 44 percent could identify Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka as death camps. In another poll, 70 percent of those surveyed said they knew what the Holocaust was—but that means 30 percent didn’t. Holocaust knowledge in all areas was higher among older people, and lower among younger people. According to a poll in the United Kingdom, 28 percent of respondents ages 18-29 said they didn’t know if the Holocaust happened. Then there was the poll commissioned by the University of Haifa that said 40.5 percent of Israeli Arabs—40.5 percent!—don’t believe the Holocaust ever occurred. (George Santayana's famous statement, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," (The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905) should not be taken literally. However the shocking lack of historical knowledge among the educated young portends a blindness to unpleasant things in the world and their unpreparedness to face moral challenges. The interviews shown here are in Toronto, but I would bet that 90% of college educated people born after 1975 would be in this category. Cordially, Larry Greenberg)

Excerpt: Hezbollah Brigades, a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, is deploying forces to the western provincial capital of Ramadi to fight off an Islamic State offensive. The Iranian-backed Shiite militia continues to promote past attacks against US forces on its official website. Hezbollah Brigades has begun to release videos of its fighters operating in the western city, which has been contested for the past year. The Islamic State stepped up its offensive in Ramadi earlier this week. 

Iran Is Winning the War for Dominance of the Middle East. Tehran and Riyadh are engaged in a naked struggle for power in the region -- individual rights and good governance be damned. By Thanassis Cambanis
Excerpt: This drumbeat of headlines, however, should not distract us from the larger meaning of events in the Middle East. We are witnessing a struggle for regional dominance between two loose and shifting coalitions — one roughly grouped around Saudi Arabia and one around Iran. Despite the sectarian hue of the coalitions, Sunni-Shiite enmity is not the best explanation for today’s regional war. This is a naked struggle for power: Neither of these coalitions has fixed membership or a monolithic ideology, and neither has any commitment whatsoever to the bedrock issues that would promote good governance in the region. (an interesting analysis of what is going on in the Middle East. --Del)

Excerpt: In a newly released video showing the Islamic State’s assault on the Baiji oil refinery complex, one of the scenes shows two children using what appears to be a US-made M198 howitzer. The children fired the howitzer towards Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) positions in the complex. In the past, the group has highlighted the use of children as executioners, or as helpers in executions, many times.

Allah the Merciful: Police: Muslims threw Christians overboard during Med voyage
Excerpt: Italy's migration crisis took on a deadly new twist Thursday as police in Sicily reported that Muslim migrants had thrown 12 Christians overboard during a recent crossing from Libya, and an aid group said another 41 were feared drowned in a separate incident. Palermo police said they had detained 15 people suspected in the high seas assault, which they learned of while interviewing tearful survivors from Nigeria and Ghana who had arrived in Palermo Wednesday morning after being rescued at sea by the ship Ellensborg. The 15 were accused of multiple homicide aggravated by religious hatred, police said in a statement.

Iraqi officials: Top Saddam Hussein aide may have been killed in fighting
Excerpt: Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri was reportedly killed during fighting against Sunni insurgent forces, senior Iraqi officials claimed Friday, in a potential blow to factions opposing the government in Baghdad. But previous reports over the years about Douri’s death have proven wrong. 

An Invasion of Refugees. By Daniel Greenfield 
Excerpt: And now, Spartanburg faces a dangerous invasion with only a handful of patriots inspired by the urge of freedom to stand against it. The invasion is a silent and secret one. The soldiers come as refugees funneled through ratlines run by liberal churches and other pseudo-religious organizations. Tens of thousands of Muslim migrants come from conflict zones to small towns and cities across the country just like Spartanburg each year. But Spartanburg’s fighting spirit is still alive and Congressman Trey Gowdy, who represents the Spartanburg area, has challenged a plan to dump migrants, including possibly Syrians, there, inquiring whether they have criminal records and what background checks have been performed on them.

Netherlands: Families of those who joined Islamic State to sue government. By Robert Spencer, JihadWatch.org
Excerpt: The government should have done more to stop them, you see. Should these Muslim families have done more to stop them? Should they have not taught them the virtue of jihad against Infidels? Should they have tried to disabuse them of their jihadist notions? Of course not. It’s always the Infidel’s fault, you greasy Islamophobe. Don’t you know that by now?

*****
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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