Update
Saturday was lovely, sunny and mid-sixties. So we basically
took the day off, drove up to the Amish country, bought some plants in an Amish
greenhouse, some goods at an Amish bakery, and a lot of different foods--like
no-sugar-added apple butter--at an Amish country store. Sorry about the limited
post. ~Bob
Quote
We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance,
and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he
can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was
before he entered it. --Thomas H. Huxley
General News and Comment
Tech Challenged? Hillary’s nerd squad: Clinton
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/hillarys-nerd-squad-116402.html#ixzz3X0g9RBRa
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/hillarys-nerd-squad-116402.html#ixzz3X0g9RBRa
Excerpt: With the hiring of 2012 Obama campaign alumni Teddy
Goff as chief digital strategist, Elan Kriegel as analytics director and Andrew
Bleeker as a top outside adviser, the campaign is indicating a greater emphasis
on the kinds of cutting-edge techniques that both parties now routinely use to
tap into every possible fundraising dollar and seek out every available
voter. ... Interviews for more tech-focused slots are happening “on
the half hour for what will be dozens of early hires,” one longtime Clinton
aide explained of the operation, which could see its technology fleet grow
roughly three times larger than Obama’s 2012 reelection effort....Clinton’s
growing operation also will include longtime aide Katie Dowd as the campaign’s
digital director, EMILY’s List’s Jenna Lowenstein as a digital deputy and Matt
Ortega in a central role connecting the communications and digital teams. (But
the server has to be in her basement and she can only use one email device.
~Bob)
Keller @ Large: Deval
Patrick’s Sorry Legacy
Excerpt: I could drag you through the litany of failures
that especially plagued his last couple of years in office: the demolition of
our functioning health-care website for purely partisan political reasons; the
horrible oversight of the Department for Children and Families, the Department
of Health, and numerous other failed boards and commissions; the scattershot
economic development schemes that didn’t pay off, and so on. But the sorry
legacy of the Patrick years can be summed up in just four letters – MBTA.
Excerpt: Gunnery Sergeant Brian Jacklin will receive the
Navy Cross this week for his acts of heroism during a 2012 battle in Afghanistan .
The gunnery sergeant endured intense enemy fire in order to save his fellow Marines, the Military Times reported. The Navy Cross is
the second-highest military decoration for valor that may be awarded to a member of
the United States Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, or U.S. Coast Guard (when operating under
the Department of the Navy) for extraordinary heroism in combat.
Journalism is dead: Rolling Stone’s damaging
journalism. By Kathleen Parker
Excerpt: In his note to readers, Rolling Stone Managing
Editor Will Dana wondered how this could have happened. Was it the process? The
people? The fact-checkers? Poor everybody. Let’s start here: If, as every
reporter knows, you’re supposed to check it out if your mother says she loves
you, wouldn’t one insist upon an even-higher standard for a stranger with a
wild tale? (Journalism no longer reports stories and facts. Now we have
"Narrative Journalism," where they only report facts and--or what
they claim are facts--and only report stories, that support the political
narrative--usually progressive--they wish to advance. ~Bob)
Former Reagan Budget
Director Warns ‘ALL HELL TO BREAK LOOSE’
Excerpt: Convinced that the entire “economic recovery” is
fake . . . that it has merely been propped up by reckless money printing,
interest rate cuts, and bailouts for Wall Street . . . Stockman is urging
average Americans to prepare for an unstoppable economic collapse. ...Harry
Dent’s concern is that the government’s unprecedented intervention through QE
(Quantitative Easing) and other measures is creating the worst case scenario.
Which is why his next words painfully hang in the air: “The next crash is going
to be worse than the last one.”
Jindal: 'Unholy
alliance' gutted religious freedom laws
Excerpt: Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) on
Friday blamed an “unholy alliance” of liberal interests for gutting
religious freedom legislation in Arkansas and Indiana . “The liberal
elitists believe CNN should have First Amendment freedoms but not small
businesses,” Jindal said at the National Rifle Association Leadership Forum
in Nashville .
“The only freedom I think they engage in is the freedom to engage in absolute
hypocrisy,” he argued.
Obamas paid $93K in
taxes
President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama reported an
adjusted gross income of $477,383 and paid $93,362 in federal taxes for 2014,
the White House said Friday. The Obamas' tax documents show they
donated $70,712, which is 14.8 percent of their income, to 33 different
charities. ...The family’s effective federal income tax rate was 19.6 percent.
(All those holidays paid for by US citizens were work-related expenses versus
benefits? One trip would just about equal their cited total adjusted gross
income. --Barb)
Misreading Alinsky:
Rules for Radicals: a strategy for giving the radical left the power
needed to win.
Excerpt: Since the year before his disciple, Barack Obama,
was elected president, many of us have been raising alarms about how Saul
Alinsky’s brass-knuckles tactics have been mainstreamed by Democrats. It was
thus refreshing to find an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this week,
by Pete Peterson of Pepperdine’s School of Public
Policy
Too Soon to Go Full
Totalitarian
Excerpt: Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia , in 2012, wrote to his
congregation on abortion. He told them, “Evil talks about tolerance only when
it’s weak. When it gains the upper hand, its vanity always requires the
destruction of the good and the innocent, because the example of good and
innocent lives is an ongoing witness against it. ... And America has no special
immunity to becoming an enemy of its own founding beliefs about human freedom,
human dignity, the limited power of the state and the sovereignty of God.”
PJ Media Monitor: Top
Ten Underreported Stories of the Week. What ever happened to government
transparency? And what's going on with the labor force?
http://pjmedia.com/blog/pj-media-monitor-top-ten-underreported-stories-of-the-week/#ixzz3WzEoaszK
http://pjmedia.com/blog/pj-media-monitor-top-ten-underreported-stories-of-the-week/#ixzz3WzEoaszK
Excerpt: Every week we scour the Internet to find the
stories that apparently aren’t fit to print. This week we’re looking at:
what happened to government transparency; an Iran deal so bad that
the Washington Post and Saudi Arabia both say it’s
dangerous; the consequences to women, black Americans and — oh, that’s
right, everybody – of Obama’s economic policies; and a crazy “robot
city” soon to open where you can test your driverless car of the future. Share
this page with friends and family who rarely see the news your views are based
on!
Who's anti-science? California vaccine bill sparks
acidic debate, Nazi links
Excerpt: A California bill
that would sharply limit vaccination waivers after a measles outbreak at Disneyland has generated such an acidic debate that the
proposal's author was under added security this week. Authorities wouldn't
specify the extra protections around state Sen. Richard Pan on Friday, but
the level of anger over the measure has been clear....It would prevent parents
from sending unvaccinated kids to school using waivers for religious or
personal beliefs. ... Before the
bill's first legislative hearing this week, hundreds of opponents attended a rally
that featured an appearance from Robert
F. Kennedy Jr., who has said the number of children injured by vaccines
amounts to "a holocaust."
Bird flu confirmed at
North Dakota turkey farm, 4 more in Minnesota
Excerpt: A deadly bird flu strain was
confirmed Friday at one North Dakota turkey farm and at four more
in Minnesota , raising the number of farms
affected across the Midwest to 20
and the toll to almost 1.1 million birds since the outbreak was first confirmed
in early March. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the new cases in
Minnesota of the highly contagious H5N2 strain are in Cottonwood, Lyon,
Watonwan and Stearns counties....In North Dakota, State Veterinarian Susan
Keller said the National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Iowa confirmed the
H5N2 strain of avian influenza in a flock of 40,000 turkeys in Dickey County.
(Crickets for Thanksgiving dinner? --Barb)
Senators seek probe
of claims US workers fired, forced to train foreign replacements
Excerpt: A popular visa program allegedly is being misused
by U.S. companies
to lay off thousands of American workers and replace them with foreign labor. And,
adding insult to injury, many of the laid-off workers allegedly have been
forced to train their replacements, in what one anonymous whistleblower called
a “humiliating” experience. The allegations have caught the attention of a
bipartisan group of senators -- including immigration hawk Sen. Jeff Sessions,
R-Ala., and the No. 2 Senate Democrat, Illinois ’ Dick Durbin -- who are calling for
a federal probe.
Here’s How Businesses
Are Responding to Oakland’s Minimum Wage Hike
Excerpt: A report recently released issued by the Employment
Policies Institute makes it abundantly clear that this raise in wages actually
wound up hurting
the poor instead. A whopping 56 percent of small Oakland business owners reported that the
increase caused a spike in labor costs. This in turn provoked the owners into
reducing hours for some employees, terminating others, raising prices and
delaying plans for expansion. Furthermore, one in 10 Oakland small businesses are now “very
likely” to close, while another 18 percent are “somewhat likely” to close.
Gun News
Burglary victim, 70,
shares story after deadly officer-involved shooting
Excerpt: The 70-year-old homeowner who confronted the man
captured on camera leaving his home with his belongings told his story KOCO.
... The farmer threw his gun in the passenger seat and gave chase. “When he was
pulled up at the stop sign he took a couple of shots out of the door and then
he turned and he shot and he hit my pickup,” said the homeowner. The bullets
were fired from his own stolen gun. During the 15-minute chase, Rose spun his
truck sideways and the farmer rammed into him. ... Pottawatomie County Shawnee Lake
NRA sees new Obama
gun control push after bullet ban fail
Excerpt: Fresh from beating back the administration's bullet
ban, the NRA's top executives said Saturday that the group is bracing for
further anti-gun moves by the lame duck president and
warned that Hillary Clinton's gun control efforts as president would make
President Obama "look like an amateur." Chris Cox, executive director
of the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action, told the
group's annual meeting, said, "Obama says he's not going anywhere for the
next 650 days. Well we have news for the president, neither are we."
NRA chief: Clinton
Excerpt: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will
bring a "permanent darkness of deceit and despair" to the United States if
elected president, National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre
said Friday. "Do we really want to put the country through
another Clinton term
of scandal and deceit and self-serving behavior?" he said while speaking
at the NRA-Institute for Legislative Action Leadership Forum.... “Hillary
Clinton has more gates than a South Texas cattle
ranch,” he joked, to laughter from the crowd
Sex Offender Refuses
to Get Off 61-Year-Old Woman’s Property… Gets What’s Coming to Him
Excerpt: After a convicted sex offender refused to leave her
property, Eddie L. Manley responded the only way she knew how. The 61-year-old
Madison County, Ga., woman shot the sex
offender, teaching him a lesson about when to realize you’re not wanted.
(unless she can demonstrate she feared bodily harm to her or another, she is
likely in trouble. ~Bob)
Obamacare/Government Healthcare News
Are People Getting More Health Care Because of ObamaCare?
By John C. Goodman
Excerpt: To avoid the effects of the 2008
financial crisis, the recession, and the slow recovery, John Graham
compared the latest estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) with their survey from a decade ago. The result: "The
proportion of people of all ages with a 'usual place to go for medical care'
was 87.8 percent last year, the same as it was in 2002-2003. Further, 5.7
percent reported that they failed to obtain needed medical care due to cost
last year, the same as it was in 2003-2004."
Religion of Peace News
But of course, it's been a long time since Democrats cared
what the voters thought on a range of issues: Keystone, Voter ID, Late Term
Abortion, IRS, Fast and Furious, Benghazi , now Iran
Don't bet on 13 Democrats with courage: Containing Iran
Excerpt: Obama’s disdain for constitutional etiquette — his
contempt for the institutional self-restraint that enables equilibrium under
the separation of powers — has been primarily in domestic policy. His
anti-constitutional actions have involved the Affordable Care Act;
environmental, education, welfare and immigration policies; Internet
regulation; and judicially rebuked recess appointments, among other matters.
Now, however, Congress’s revival comes regarding foreign policy, where
constitutional logic and historical precedents are most supportive of
presidential discretion. Corker proposes legislation to prevent
Obama from unilaterally ending sanctions that Congress wrote into law. If all
54 Republicans and 13 Democrats agree on this point of constitutional integrity and
institutional dignity, Obama’s promised veto of Corker’s legislation will be
overridden.
Rep. Will Hurd is
first black GOP Congressman in Texas
Excerpt: The first African-American Republican elected to
the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas
since the Reconstruction Era, Rep. Will Hurd was interviewed by
Steven Scully of C-SPAN on
his upset victory over incumbent Democrat Rep. Pete Gallego in 2014.
In the election, Hurd beat Gallego, with 49.8 percent of the vote
over 47.7 for the incumbent. He represents the23rd congressional district
of Texas , which encompasses 5,000 square miles
and 800 miles of the international border shared with Mexico . In
addition, both San Antonio and El Paso lie within his district.
Competing Pressures
on Iran
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/iran-democrats-divided-senate/2015/04/10/id/637790/?ns_mail_uid=96812916&ns_mail_job=1616429_04112015&s=al&dkt_nbr=qauxjk72
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/iran-democrats-divided-senate/2015/04/10/id/637790/?ns_mail_uid=96812916&ns_mail_job=1616429_04112015&s=al&dkt_nbr=qauxjk72
Excerpt: Democratic senators
backing a bill that would give Congress authority to review an
Iran
nuclear deal are caught between the White House and the pro-Israel lobby as
they assert their prerogative to vet foreign policy. The Republican bill,
co-sponsored by New York Senator Charles Schumer and eight other Democrats,
would allow Congress to block the U.S.
from lifting sanctions against Iran .
President Barack Obama’s administration says the measure could imperil the nuclear
talks and that he would veto it. (The question should
not be a choice between supporting the president or supporting Israel , but supporting the USA and that makes the choice easy.
Pass the bill. --Don)
Worth Hearing: Take Them At Their Word: Iran
http://conservativevideos.com/take-them-at-their-word-iran-might-destroy-us/?utm_source=reembed&utm_medium=endscreen&utm_campaign=popular
http://conservativevideos.com/take-them-at-their-word-iran-might-destroy-us/?utm_source=reembed&utm_medium=endscreen&utm_campaign=popular
Excerpt: Politically, the most damage will probably come
from Khamenei’s declaration that nothing was agreed to at Lausanne , and that White House claims
otherwise are “incorrect and contrary to the substance of the negotiations.”
The statement is likely to boost increasingly vocal claims that the
administration exaggerated negotiators’ progress in
order to forestall Congressional action:
Obama's pals: IRAN
Excerpt: In the latest repressive measures taken against
religious minorities in Iran ,
Iranian Christians in a northwestern city have been barred from holding Easter
celebrations in churches.
On Saturday, the Iranian regime’s State Security Forces
(police) sent threatening letters to churches in the city of Urumiyeh warning them against holding
gatherings for Easter celebrations.
Excerpt: Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb's emir, Abdulmalek
Droukdel, has released an audio message praising the head of the Al Nusrah
Front, al Qaeda's official branch in Syria ,
for working with other Islamist and jihadist groups to capture the city of Idlib .
Excerpt: The Barry University student who helped
conservative firebrand James O’Keefe secretly record a video showing school
staff supposedly support ISIS could be facing criminal charges,
according to a local news station. Laura Loomer, a senior studying
communications, helped O’Keefe’s organization, Project Veritas, capture secret
video of staff members at Barry apparently offering advice on how to start a
pro-Islamic State organization. Loomer pretended that she wanted to start an
organization, dubbed Sympathetic Students in
Support of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria , which would
send humanitarian and financial aid to
the Islamic State.
Are we finally taking
the threat of an EMP seriously?
http://www.glennbeck.com/2015/04/10/are-we-finally-taking-the-threat-of-an-emp-seriously/?utm_source=glennbeck&utm_medium=contentcopy_link
http://www.glennbeck.com/2015/04/10/are-we-finally-taking-the-threat-of-an-emp-seriously/?utm_source=glennbeck&utm_medium=contentcopy_link
Excerpt: For years, Glenn has been warning that Iran has been preparing to launch an EMP
attack against the United
States . “Iran is detonating missiles at
exactly the altitude for an EMP,” Glenn said.... 90 percent of the population
dies within the first year,” Glenn said.
Islamic State: ISIS killers release horrific images showing 'man stoned
to death for being gay.' By Sam Rkaina, Stephanie Nebehay
Excerpt: The Islamic State have released
more horrific pictures showing the apparent stoning to death of a man accused
of being gay. The blindfolded victim is led into a field in Homs , Syria
Excerpt: Pakistan has
released the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, after the
country’s High Court ruled he must be granted bail until the end of his
trial. Zakuir Rehman Lakhvi is believed to be the operations chief of the
Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. In 2008, 10 members of the group
launched a series of attacks in Mumbai , India
Islamic Feminism: Syria
Excerpt: A group of Syrian female jihadists has apparently
established a training camp in the world's oldest Byzantine church near Aleppo (Darat
Izza)"to empower women to be the same as men" in the fight against
embattled president Bashar al-Assad, according to a video that
emerged online. The footage, which could not be independently verified
by IBTimes UK , depicts
around 45 black-clad AK-47-wielding women marching towards the church of Saint Simeon
Stylites , located in northwest Aleppo , while shouting out the takbir (Allahu
Akbar) and other religious slogans.
White House defends
trolling Netanyahu
Excerpt: The White House is standing by a tweet mocking
Israeli Prime Minister Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu despite concerns it
could further sour relations between the two countries. A White House tweet defending the framework nuclear agreement
with Iran contained
a cartoon bomb that was nearly identical to one in a chart used by Netanyahu in
a 2012 speech urging the U.S. to
take a harder line against Iran ’s
nuclear program. ... “It would make no sense for us to essentially
not make our case,” Rhodes said. (WH
displays grade school bullying on Twitter and Biden sucks pacifier taken from
baby....great week. America
transforming. --Barb)
Excerpt: A man who authorities say was sympathetic to the
self-declared Islamic State and plotting to carry out a suicide bombing at a U.S.
Army base in Kansas ,
has been arrested and charged following
a lengthy FBI sting operation. John T. Booker Jr., 20, of Topeka, was
apprehended Friday morning "while making final preparations for the
suicide car bomb attack" he'd been planning at Fort Riley, Kansas
Public Radio's Stephen Koranda reports.
*****
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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