Monday, March 31, 2014

The eyes are the window to the soul

Delta Airlines brings a fallen soldier home with honor


Hat tip to Janie Sanford, Santa Maria, CA

Christians should get more involved in politics?

Consider Again   "At the moment, the reputation of Christians in public life is disastrous. Religious people are often seen as fanatical fundamentalists, leading massive hate campaigns complete with picket signs and boycotts.

"This projection is not representative of most Christians. Yes, there are those who use religion as a weapon, perceiving a divine backing of their actions though they intend only to attack and insult."
....
"A Christian that engages in firestorm attacks, offensive insults, or unfounded accusations reflects poorly on the whole faith community. We have a duty to glorify God by striving to maintain kindness and understanding in all of our actions.

“ 'We need Christians in politics who believe in conversation and reasoned discourse,” Judge Ken Starr, president of Baylor University, told me in an interview. “What we don’t need, regardless of faith journey, is people who simply yell at one another or shout the other side down. To my mind, that’s not a very Christ-like attitude.' ”

Via Danny Huizinga at Conservative Bloggers on Facebook

Local couple upset after receiving pre-marked voter registration card from Covered California

ABC10 News  "LA MESA, Calif. - A local couple called 10News concerned after they received an envelope from the state's Obamacare website, Covered California. Inside was a letter discussing voter registration and a registration card pre-marked with an "x" in the box next to Democratic Party.
The couple – who did not want their identity revealed – received the letter and voter registration card from their health insurance provider Covered California, the state-run agency that implements President Obama's Affordable Care Act."

Covered California Confusion ... " Behind the statistics are the actual experiences of individuals and families who have applied for healthcare insurance through Covered California.  Their stories offer insight into the realities of the application process and also help explain why more Californians are not applying for healthcare coverage." ... 

Sunday, March 30, 2014

The miserable experience of a D-Day rehearsal

WW2 Today; March 30, 1944
Commandos, Britain's shock troops, practising assault tactics at the Combined Operations School at Dundonald Camp. Here they are landing from a dummy landing craft into a shallow pit filled with water so as to simulate a true amphibious landing.
 
"Commandos, Britain’s shock troops, practising assault tactics at the Combined Operations School at Dundonald Camp. Here they are landing from a dummy landing craft into a shallow pit filled with water so as to simulate a true amphibious landing."

Archaeologist at Treblinka Nazi death camp finds evidence of gas chambers

Jerusalem Post   "Documentary TV series "One is Treblinka: Hitler’s Killing Machine" features tile with Star of David said to be affixed to chamber."  

 
" LOS ANGELES – An archaeologist featured on a TV documentary series unearthed what may be some of the only physical evidence of the gas chambers at the death camp.

"In the series "One is Treblinka: Hitler’s Killing Machine" Caroline Sturdy Colls, a forensic archaeologist from Staffordshire University in the UK, uncovers new scientific evidence on the existence and mechanism of the death camp.

"While Auschwitz has become shorthand for the Holocaust and a pilgrimage site for more than a million visitors each year, very few pay homage to the victims at the other death factory, Treblinka.

"The reason is simple.

"The complex, 65 miles northeast of Warsaw, consisted of Treblinka I, primarily a forced labor camp, and Treblinka II, the site of the killing machine, closed in 1943 after 24 months of operation.

"During that timespan, its 10 gas chambers asphyxiated 900,000 men, women, and children. The grisly work done, the Nazis went to extraordinary lengths to erase every trace of the camp’s existence."....

BBC: Treblinka: Revealing the hidden graves of the Holocaust 
Map of Treblinka shown by investigations of Caroline Sturdy Colls
"When the Nazis left Treblinka in 1943 they thought they had destroyed it. They had knocked down the buildings and levelled the earth. They had built a farmhouse and installed a Ukrainian "farmer". They had planted trees, and - contemporary reports suggest - lupins.
"But if they thought they had removed all evidence of their crime, they hadn't. For a forensic archaeologist, there is a vast amount to study.
"The destruction of buildings rarely results in the complete removal of all traces of them. And even on the surface there are still artefacts and other subtle clues that point to the real purpose of the site." ...
 
 

 

A whole lotta Democrat corruption going on

pelosi1Michelle Malkin    "Has Nancy Pelosi seen a newspaper lately? (Pro tip, hon: Like the Obamacare monstrosity, you have to read it to find out what’s in it.) I’d love to see her face in the wake of the veritable epidemic of Democratic corruption now sweeping the country. Pelosi’s blink count must be off the charts.

"I’m going to make it easy on Pelosi and put all of the latest cases in one handy rogue’s gallery reference list. But let’s not be naive. It’s clear to me that the Barack Obama/Eric Holder DOJ is clearing the decks before the midterms. Prediction: The FBI’s GOP corruption shoe will drop right before the elections for maximum distraction and damage. For now, let’s take stock of the jackassery:
....
"Remember: Nancy Pelosi famously promised to “drain the moral swamp” and end the “culture of corruption.” She cast herself and her minions as America’s political clean-up crew. But once again, the culture of corruption boomerang has swung back around to smack Democrats in their smug mugs.

"The cynical Swamp Drainers just hope you forget it all by election time. Don’t."
Limousine Liberal

International Women's Day -- why America's politically correct feminists dishonor human rights

Phyllis Chesler
 
"As a young bride, I once lived in a harem in Afghanistan. It was a nearly fatal adventure but I survived, escaped, and learned about gender and religious apartheid long before the Taliban.  My firebrand American feminism was probably forged in purdah in the early 1960s. However, something called me Eastward and I have remained involved with the Islamic world.

"Today, decades later, I work with Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents and feminists. They do not understand why Western feminists do not stand with them as they oppose normalized honor based violence, extreme state violence (think Iran, Saudi Arabia), and utter lawlessness when it comes to the torture and murder of girls and women.
....
"But feminists have been taken in by the false campaign against “Islamophobia,” (which does not really exist), and have backed President Obama’s approach to the Muslim world: Appeasement, flattery, a refusal to back the bravest Muslim dissidents who are fighting against barbaric totalitarian regimes, and a wholesale acceptance of Muslim women’s subordinate status in the United States."

Logical Fallacies to be avoided in argument

From Sense of Events

Purdue: Logical vocabulary, logical fallacies, and other types of logos-based reasoning.
"Fallacies are common errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic of your argument. Fallacies can be either illegitimate arguments or irrelevant points, and are often identified because they lack evidence that supports their claim. Avoid these common fallacies in your own arguments and watch for them in the arguments of others."

Links to this post
 
  Harpo & Co. - Fight the Power - Blogger

Republicans and Blacks

Thomas Sowell
 
"Recently former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice added her voice to those who have long been urging the Republican Party to reach out to black voters. Not only is that long overdue, what is also long overdue is putting some time -- and, above all, some serious thought -- into how to go about doing it.

"Too many Republicans seem to think that the way to "reach out" is to offer blacks and other minorities what the Democrats are offering them. Some have even suggested that the channels to use are organizations like the NAACP and black "leaders" like Jesse Jackson -- that is, people tied irrevocably to the Democrats.

"Voters who want what the Democrats offer can get it from the Democrats. Why should they vote for Republicans who act like make-believe Democrats?

"Yet there are issues where Republicans have a big advantage over Democrats -- if they will use that advantage. But an advantage that you don't use might as well not exist." ... 

Distinguished person of the week

Jennifer Rubin
U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Pope Francis at the Vatican March 27, 2014. Despite differences on moral issues, Obama will find in Pope Francis a welcome ally on issues of poverty and social justice during their meeting. Obama has sparred with the Catholic Church hierarchy in the United States over his support for abortion rights, gay marriage and the "contraception mandate" that requires employers to provide health insurance cover for artificial birth control. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (VATICAN - Tags: POLITICS RELIGION)
 
... "President Obama went to the Holy See hoping some papal popularity would rub off on him. But Pope Francis’s humility and pious devotion to his flock aren’t transferable, especially to a president so hostile to religious liberty back home. The White House made it seem like a meeting the DNC — lots of talk of inequality, spun the White House. The Vatican press office was having none of it and issued the following (making it seem more like oral argument at the Hobby Lobby case):" ...

Obamacare is an American Catastrophe

Warning Signs
 
... "A March 28 Associated Press poll revealed that only 26% of Americans support Obamacare, a point less than December 2013 and January 2014.
"The Republicans in the House of Representatives have voted more than 60 times to repeal or dismantle Obamacare. The Senate, namely Harry Reid its Majority Leader, has killed all efforts to address what is clearly a national catastrophe. When passed in 2009, not one Republican member of Congress voted for it. When it was passed, then Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, famously said they had to pass the 2,700 page act in order to find out what was in it.

 
"In 2010, voters gave power in the House to Republicans, but the Senate remained under Democrat control." ... 

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Valerie Jarrett Admits Pushing Obamacare to Hollywood Writers (Video)

The Gateway Pundit
"That’s why it’s called the Democrat-Media Complex. "White House advisor Valerie Jarrett is out in Los Angeles this week meeting with television and movie producers to encourage them to include favorable Obamacare mentions in their scripts." 

 
... “ 'You name it,” said Jarrett. “That’s part of why I’m in L.A. I’m meeting with writers of various TV shows and movies to try to get it into the scripts.” When Jarrett says “it into the scripts,” she’s referring to getting references to Obamacare, the president’s signature legislation, into the scripts of TV shows and movies."

White House looks to regulate cow flatulence as part of climate agenda

When flatulence is outlawed, only outlaws will have flatulence.

Daily Caller
"As part of its plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the Obama administration is targeting the dairy industry to reduce methane emissions in their operations.

"This comes despite falling methane emission levels across the economy since 1990.

"The White House has proposed cutting methane emissions from the dairy industry by 25 percent by 2020." (This would be laughable if not for this administration and it's oppressive regulations)
....

"Some of these methane emissions come from cow flatulence, exhaling and belching — other livestock animals release methane as well.

"“Cows emit a massive amount of methane through belching, with a lesser amount through flatulence,” according to How Stuff Works. “Statistics vary regarding how much methane the average dairy cow expels. Some experts say 100 liters to 200 liters a day…

Cow Flatulence Tax
cow-flatulence-tax
2009: Op-Ed: Taxing Cow Flatulence is Butt of Many a Joke   'It has to be the most outlandish idea internalized then externalized so far, and is bound to be the butt of many jokes. A flat flatulence tax per head (excuse me, per petute) on dairy and beef cattle. It’s a hoot when cows toot from their petutes.
 
"G’head. Laugh. And while you’re laughing, make up your own jokes.
They’re proposing a tax of $50 per dairy cow; $35 per beef cow. Ah. You noticed the difference. Dairy cows are corn-fed and they’re allergic to corn, ergo more noxious methane expelled into the air. 

Russia May Threaten the Baltics but Estonia Knows How to Fight Back

The Foreign Policy Initiative
 "As president of a small Baltic republic that was occupied by the Soviet Union for more than four decades, Estonia’s Toomas Hendrik Ilves is all too familiar with the way Russia has treated its neighbors. For years he’s warned about the revanchist agenda and aggressive behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin. And now that the world has seen the Kremlin’s reckless, ruthless actions in Ukraine and Crimea, influential leaders in the respectable salons of Washington, Brussels and other European capitals are starting to pay attention. Or, at least, they should be.

"What’s most threatening about Russia’s behavior, in Ilves’s view, is that “the old rules don’t apply.” But it should not have taken the invasion of Crimea to get that message across. The Helsinki Accords of 1975 were supposed to have established the territorial integrity of European nations, he says, and since Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia it’s been clear that Putin would just ignore them when he saw fit."
Political Cartoons by Michael Ramirez

Latinos Teach Vital Lesson to Obama, Democrats: Lying Has Consequences!

Voice of Lillpop    "Obama’s wanton, wicked aversion to truth has even  alienated Latinos, until now one of the most loyal constituencies of the Democrat Party, owing to Obama’s  irresponsible flaunting of the rule of law, US sovereignty, US borders, and disregard for the welfare and well-being of American citizens, in deference to illegal aliens.

"As reported at the reference, Obama’s lying ways have boomeranged against the president and his Marxist health-care scam known as Obamacare:"
....Latinos, who are younger on average than the population as a whole and who make up more than 60 percent of the uninsured in California, will need to sign up for insurance in the state in droves in order to offset the costs of sicker, older people. The same holds true around the country: A third of all non-elderly, uninsured Americans are Latino, nearly 16 million in total.

The Odious Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid

Peter Wehner  "MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough interviewed Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, asking him about the charge by Majority Leader Harry Reid that the conservative philanthropist David Koch is “un-American.” Scarborough asked Schumer whether he associated himself with Reid’s statement.
DonkeyHotey

"Senator Schumer began his answer by ducking and weaving, shifting attention from Reid’s claim to Schumer’s disagreement with the Kochs’ preferred policies.
....
"“ 'But, senator, can’t we have a disagreement about how charity is funded without calling somebody un-American?” Scarborough countered. He continued to press Schumer to answer his question. “Do you think David Koch is un-American?”
....
"I wonder if people quite appreciate how disgusting this all is. Here we have two Democratic senators labeling a private citizen as being “un-American” because that citizen is vocally advocating public policies they disagree with."
....
"Senators Reid and Schumer, small and mean men, are trying to usher in a new age of unreason. This is no time for those who oppose them to keep silent. Because we cannot escape responsibility for the result."
Emphasis added, TD

Friday, March 28, 2014

Condi Rice Blasts Obama on Weakness, Leadership

....


STEPHEN F. HAYES  "Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Barack Obama of dramatically weakening the United States' position in the world, drawing a straight line between Obama’s ever-yielding foreign policy and the increasing troubles around the world."
"Citing Bashar al Assad’s slaughter in Syria, Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, al Qaeda’s triumphant return to Fallujah, Iraq, and China’s nationalist fervor, she concluded: “When America steps back and there is a vacuum, trouble will fill that vacuum.”
 
"Rice – measured in tone, but very tough on substance – excoriated Obama administration policies without ever mentioning the president by name. She mocked the naïve hope that “international norms” would fill the vacuum left by U.S. retreat and blasted the president for hiding behind the weariness of the public.

One Doctor’s Viral Letter Exposes the Harrowing Reality of Obamacare’s ‘War Against Doctors’


    "One doctor's viral letter exposes the harrowing
    Reality of Obamacare’s ‘War Against Doctors’

    One voice speaking for all and it's terrifying."   Lucianne

    Independent Journal Review   "In an address to the House on Wednesday, Alabama Representative Mo Brooks read aloud a letter sent to him by Dr. Marlin Gill of Decatur. The letter holds nothing back while detailing the excessive costs and regulations that Dr. Gill calls Obamacare’s “war against doctors.' ”  More here.

    Dear Congressman Brooks,
     
    As a practicing family physician, I plead for help against what I can best characterize as Washington’s war against doctors.
     
    The medical profession has never before remotely approached today’s stress, work hours, wasted costs, decreased efficiency, and declining ability to focus on patient care.
     
    In our community alone, at least 6 doctors have left patient care for administrative positions, to start a concierge practice, or retire altogether.
     
    Doctors are smothered by destructive regulations that add costs, raise our overhead and ‘gum up the works,’ making patient treatment slower and less efficient, thus forcing doctors to focus on things other than patient care and reduce the number of patients we can help each day.
     
    I spend more time at work than at any time in my 27 years of practice and more of that time is spent on administrative tasks and entering useless data into a computer rather than helping sick patients.
     
    Doctors have been forced by ill-informed bureaucrats to implement electronic medical records (“EMR”) that, in our four doctor practice, costs well over $100,000 plus continuing yearly operational costs . . . all of which does not help take care of one patient while driving up the cost of every patient’s health care.
     
    Washington’s electronic medical records requirement makes our medical practice much slower and less efficient, forcing our doctors to treat fewer patients per day than we did before the EMR mandate.
     
    To make matters worse, Washington forces doctors to demonstrate ‘meaningful use’ of EMR or risk not being fully paid for the help we give.
     
    In addition to the electronic medical records burden, we face a mandate to use the ICD-10  coding system, a new set of reimbursement diagnosis codes.
     
    The current ICD-9 coding system uses roughly 13,000 codes. The new ICD-10 coding system uses a staggering 70,000 new and completely different codes, thus dramatically slowing doctors down due to the unnecessary complexity and sheer numbers of codes that must be learned.
     
    The cost of this new ICD-10 coding system for our small practice is roughly $80,000, again driving up health care costs without one iota of improvement in health care quality.
     
    Finally, doctors face nonpayment by patients with ObamaCare. These patients may or may not be paying their premiums and we have no way of verifying this. No business can operate with that much uncertainty.
     
    On behalf of the medical profession, I ask that Washington stop the implementation of the ICD-10 coding system, repeal the Affordable Care Act, and replace it with a better law written with the input of real doctors who will actually treat patients covered by it.
     
    America has enjoyed the best health care the world has ever known. That health care is in jeopardy because physicians cannot survive Washington’s ‘war on doctors’ without relief.
     
    Eventually the problems for doctors will become problems for patients, and we are all patients at some point.

    Signed ...

    The Good Must Associate: Key Strategies in the Counterjihad Movement

    Infidel Bloggers   "To prevail against orthodox Islam's relentless encroachment, we need to employ three essential strategies: gather allies, coordinate our efforts, and concentrate our forces at decisive points. Let me explain these in more detail:" ... Excerpts follow:

    1. Gather allies. 
    ...If three of us demonstrate outside a mosque, and five hundred Muslims protest our demonstration, we will look like a small, unpopular fringe group and the Muslims will look like the mainstream majority opinion. This kind of thing has a psychological impact on anyone watching this on television because of the principle of social proof. But if five hundred Muslims demonstrate and ten thousand counterjihadists protest their demonstration, it sends an entirely different message to anyone watching on television or participating in the demonstration. Numbers count.

    2. Coordinate efforts.
    If there were a hundred thousand active counterjihadists, but each worked on different projects, we wouldn't accomplish much. But if most of us worked on a few central projects, those projects would be much more likely to succeed.

    3. Concentrate force at a decisive point.
    Many times in history, a military force was outnumbered and yet won the battle. Often it was because the principle of concentration of force does not require absolute superiority in numbers. It only requires a local superiority at a decisive point.

    Edmund Burke once wrote, "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

    Obamacare Navigators Helping People Enroll At Mexican Consulates

    Big Government   "The Obama administration has been helping to facilitate a series of events nationwide at Mexican Consulate offices to enroll people in Obamacare – and a key activist says the efforts are “our responsibility” regardless of citizenship.

    “ 'Whether they’re Mexican nationals or whether they’re United States citizens or whether they’re in transition-- and if they’re there it is our responsibility within all of America to educate on the Affordable Care Act,” Enroll America Field Organizer Jose Medrano told Breitbart News on Wednesday."
    Video at the link.
     

    The October Surprise that Could Cripple the Practice of Medicine

    American Thinker    "You won’t read about the International Classification of Disease (ICD) on TMZ or hear it discussed on The View, but it has the potential to be an unpleasant October surprise in the health care world.  It is a list of codes that physicians and hospitals use when billing insurance companies.  These codes cover all manner of medical diagnoses for diseases, conditions, and injuries."
    ...
    "First, medical practices and hospitals must know and have all of these 68 thousand codes readily available to add to the medical record in order to bill correctly and hope to be paid.  One more distraction for physicians, aside from all of the daily distractions of electronic records.  When physicians pay more attention to their computer screen or tablet than to the patient, guess who suffers.  This is the reason why texting and driving is illegal."
     

    Leland Yee; when guns are outlawed, only outlaws yada, yada, yada...

    NY Times Op-ed: Obama’s Anemic Speech in Europe

    NY Times editorial   "Better late than never: The Russian president has benefited from the perception of a United States in full-tilt, war-weary retrenchment; of American red lines turning amber and then green; of a divided European Union; and a hollow NATO living more on the past than any vision of a 21st-century future. Obama has been making up for lost ground.

    "Still, his Brussels speech, presented as a capstone of his visit and one of those Obama specials designed to offset with eloquence a deficit of deeds, was a poor performance overall, a jejune collection of nostrums about binding values of free-market Western societies and their appeal to the hearts (and pocketbooks) of people throughout the world, not least Ukrainians."

    Krauthammer; Obama vs. Putin: The mismatch

    Charles Krauthammer  

    The United States does not view Europe as a battleground between East and West, nor do we see the situation in Ukraine as a zero-sum game. That’s the kind of thinking that should have ended with the Cold War.”
    — Barack Obama, March 24

    "Should. Lovely sentiment. As lovely as what Obama said five years ago to the United Nations: “No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.”

    "That’s the kind of sentiment you expect from a Miss America contestant asked to name her fondest wish, not from the leader of the free world explaining his foreign policy."
    ....
    ... "Asked whether he’d misjudged Russia, whether it really is our greatest geopolitical foe, he disdainfully replied that Russia is nothing but “a regional power” acting “out of weakness.”
    Political Cartoons by Michael Ramirez
    "Where does one begin? Hitler’s Germany and Tojo’s Japan were also regional powers, yet managed to leave behind at least 50 million dead. And yes, Russia should be no match for the American superpower. Yet under this president, Russia has run rings around America, from the attempted ingratiation of the “reset” to America’s empty threats of “consequences” were Russia to annex Crimea."
    ....
    "Indeed, Obama’s dismissal of Russia as a regional power makes his own leadership of the one superpower all the more embarrassing. For seven decades since the Japanese surrender, our role under 11 presidents had been as offshore balancer protecting smaller allies from potential regional hegemons.

    "What are the allies thinking now? Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and other Pacific Rim friends are wondering where this America will be as China expands its reach and claims."....     Full article...

    Thursday, March 27, 2014

    Hobby Lobby and Conestoga vs. the power of this Democrat Administration

    NRO 
     
    "Thank goodness there are women on the Supreme Court: That was a common sentiment I heard on cable news Wednesday in the wake of oral arguments at the Supreme Court challenging the Obama administration’s abortion-pill, contraception, and sterilization mandate on the Hobby Lobby arts-and-crafts chain and Conestoga Wood Specialties, a Mennonite cabinetmaker in Pennsylvania. Lori Windham is part of Hobby Lobby’s legal team and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. She talks with National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez about women, religious freedom, Hobby Lobby’s day in Court, and more."
    ....
    "WINDHAM: I hope they understand that this case is about Americans, women and men, living out their faith. Whether you agree or disagree with the Green family about religion, I hope you will agree that the government should not have unfettered authority to strip family-business owners of fundamental freedoms." 

     
    The War on Hobby Lobby; The Obama administration wants to win this to prove a point.   "Hobby Lobby went from an inoffensive business to a scofflaw and an alleged combatant in the “war on women” in no time at all — and without changing any significant employment or business practice. Thus is the transformation wrought by the coercive sweep of Obamacare, which risks doing as much damage to conscience rights as it has done to the insurance market.

    "Hobby Lobby is trying to fend off the federal government via the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law that Democrats used to support before they realized how inconvenient it would prove to the Obama-era project of running roughshod over moral traditionalists. " ...

    "Make no mistake, the culture war is alive and well, and the aggressor isn’t Hobby Lobby. The Greens will be happy to go back to minding their own business — if the federal government sees fit to permit them."

    Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com . © 2014 King Features Syndicate

    Professors school anti-Israel divestment forum, and get results

    Legal Insurrection   "Anti-Israel vitriol from Max Blumenthal and others at U. Michigan fell flat as two professors methodically laid out the history."
    Michigan Student Assembly Divest
    "The University of Michigan student assembly rejected the anti-Israel divestment resolution pushed by a coalition of student groups."
     

    But the stars of the night were the opening guest speakers.
    The pro-divestment group picked Max Blumenthal, who gave a predictably flame-throwing anti-Israel speech. 
    ....
    "First up was Michigan State – James Madison College Associate Professor Yael Aronoff, who responded directly to Blumenthal. She spoke somewhat quickly so as to leave time for other guest speakers against the resolution, but basically destroyed Blumenthal by pointing out the one sided presentation and the resolution: "

     
    "The next speaker was U. Michigan Professor of History Victor Lieberman. Resolution supporters on Twitter were furious with his presentation, which quite accurately reflected the history of Arab rejectionism. While I have some quibbles with his take on international law, by and large his presentation was fair and balanced."  Watch it here.

    THE END of the California Orange

    Take this article for what it is worth to you. TD

    Dams intentionally completely drained to destroy California agriculture.
     
    Before It's News 

    "FACT:  Many of the orchards and prime agricultural zones have already been intentionally killed via denial of water by the choice of the elite. This was caused by draining all the dams and flushing all the water out to the ocean ON PURPOSE.  Here is what is really going on -"...

    The San Joaquin agricultural zone was far too much of an asset for America’s conquerors to tolerate having around, so they just took control via government corruption afforded by rigged elections and shut off the water.
    ... "Now there are hundreds of miles of dead orchards there, stretching as far as the eye can see. And the State mandates that the growers cut these dead orchards down, so six years into this war there are equally vast expanses of dead earth that were only a short time ago fertile orchards." ...
     

    The San Joaquin agricultural zone was far too much of an asset for America’s conquerors to tolerate having around, so they just took control via government corruption afforded by rigged elections and shut off the water. 

    Now there are hundreds of miles of dead orchards there, stretching as far as the eye can see. And the State mandates that the growers cut these dead orchards down, so six years into this war there are equally vast expanses of dead earth that were only a short time ago fertile orchards.

    Even in 2010 and 2011 the liars in the MSM talked all about how little rain California got, and the chart proves that those were both very wet years. But people still trust the MSM, even when getting soaked. The subsequent years were NOT BAD ENOUGH TO MAKE THE DAMS LOOK LIKE THIS:
     
     Full article  No emphases are mine, TD

    On Global Warm....er....Climate Change

    Alan Caruba: A History of the Disastrous Global Warming Hoax    " 'It is the greatest deception in history and the extent of the damage has yet to be exposed and measured,” says Dr. Tim Ball in his new book, “The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science”.

    "Dr. Ball has been a climatologist for more than forty years and was one of the earliest critics of the global warming hoax that was initiated by the United Nations environmental program that was established in 1972 and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) established in 1988."

    But...but.... climate change is settled science!  Settled, I tell you!
     
    Unsettling “Settled Science”    ... "The Earth was flat and the sun revolved around it. Bleedings were prescribed for healing at one point by science. But we don’t need to go back that far to find confusion and contradictions in “settled science.' ” ...
    The Coming Paradigm Shift on Climate  ... "Watch for it: We may be on the threshold of a tipping point in climate history.  No, I’m not talking about a tipping point in the sense that the Earth will be covered with ice or become hellishly hot.  I’m talking about a tipping point in our views of what controls the climate -- whether it’s mainly humans or whether it’s mainly natural.  It makes an enormous difference in climate policy: Do we try to mitigate, at huge cost, or do we merely adapt to natural changes -- as our ancestors did for many millennia?

    Smearing Climate Skeptics

    No Joke: Feds Spend $700,000 On “Climate Change Musical”…
     

    'Cesar Chavez' Review: Biopic Hijacked by Modern Propaganda, Reagan Bashing

    Big Hollywood
    "This directorial effort from actor Diego Luna starts nobly enough, as Michael Pena plays well-regarded figure Cesar Chavez talking about the plight of workers in the CA fields. We watch as workers are forced to pay for the water they drink while enduring the long, hot days. We meet Cesar's family, settling into a new home. We find Cesar's intentions to be genuine in helping improve wages and working conditions, all seen through Diego's up-front directorial narrative.

    "Cesar eventually decides to take on the landowners who employ the workers, the most prominent featured being Bogdanovich Senior played by John Malkovich, and decides to do so by means of non-violence.

    "Sadly, this is where the film's nobility ends." ...

    Untruthful and Untrustworthy Government

    The massaging of critical data undermines our society.

    Victor Davis Hanson   ... "Presidents fib. The nation gets outraged. The independent media dig out the truth. And so the system of trust repairs itself.

    "What distinguishes democracies from tinhorn dictatorships and totalitarian monstrosities are our permanent meritocratic government bureaus that remain nonpartisan and honestly report the truth."
    ....
    "It is no longer crackpot to doubt the once impeccable and nonpartisan IRS. When it assured the public that it was not making decisions about tax-exempt status based on politics, it lied. One of its top commissioners, Lois Lerner, resigned and invoked the Fifth Amendment.

    "A system of voluntary tax reporting rests on trust. If the IRS itself is untruthful, will it be able to expect truthful compliance from taxpayers?

    "Many doubt the officially reported government unemployment rates. That statistic is vital in assessing economic growth and is of enormous political importance in the way citizens vote."

    Obama had indeed fundamentally transformed this nation, as he promised.
    Political Cartoons by Glenn McCoy
     

    Amal Alamuddin: George Clooney’s Anti-Israel Druze Arab Chick; My Encounter w Her & Alamuddin Family – EXCLUSIVE

    Debbie Schlussel
    georgeclooneyamalalamuddin
     
    "Over the past few months, actor George Clooney’s been photographed all over the place with Amal Alamuddin, a very anti-Israel Lebanese Arab who worked for the United Nations and represented Wikileaks’ anti-American former chief, Julian Assange. The Lebanese legal book she authored is extremely anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian. Alamuddin, who was Clooney’s date to the Obama White House last month, is not Muslim. She’s Druze, which is an offshoot of Islam. I’m familiar with Ms. Alamuddin (pronounced “Ah-lah-muh-DEEN”) and her family because I met her and them at the wedding of her cousin in the mid-1990s. They are extremely anti-Israel, and I was subjected to their absurd, non-stop anti-Israel questions and comments as the only non-Arab (other than the bride and her family) at a dinner the night before the wedding.

    MORE PROOF OF OBAMA'S DEEP ANTI-SEMITISM: OBAMA, GEORGE CLOONEY, AND GEORGE GALLOWAY

    Wednesday, March 26, 2014

    Screw You, Mickey Kaus*

    Political Cartoons by Bob Gorrell
    Ann Coulter  .... "Maybe Williams-Sonoma could pick up a few sales tricks from Ezekiel Emanuel! Oh, you'd like to see the bronze muffin tin? Sure, but first I'll need your Social Security number, date of birth and mother's maiden name. Sign here, here and here."....

     ..."That's not insurance! It's a huge transfer of wealth from people who work for a living to those who don't, accomplished by forcing the workers to buy insurance that's not insurance. Obamacare has made actual health insurance "illegal."

    "It's not "insurance" when what I want to insure against isn't covered, but paying for other people's health care needs -- defined broadly -- is mandatory. It's as if you wanted to buy a car, so you paid for a Toyota -- but then all you got was a 10-speed bike, with the rest of your purchase price going to buy cars, bikes and helmets for other people. "Or, more precisely, it would be like having the option of car insurance that covers either collisions or liability, but not both. Your car insurance premium would be gargantuan, because most of it would go to buy insurance, gas and air fresheners for other people in the plan.
    Political Cartoons by Gary Varvel
    "If you have employer-provided health care, you may not have to make the 400 phone calls I had to, but the result will be the same: You're not getting what is commonly known as "insurance." You're getting a massive bill to pay for other people's chiropractors, marriage counselors, birth control pills, smoking cessation programs, "preventive care" appointments and pre-existing conditions. "
    ....
    "You 99-percenters still unaffected by Obamacare will blithely go to the polls this November and vote on some teeny-tiny issue, completely unaware of the total destruction of health insurance in America. The waivers have worked."

    * Other than healthcare, Kaus doesn't seem too bad.
    Political Cartoons by Nate Beeler

    Richardson, TX and it's Islamic personality

    Weasel Zippers   "Exempt from common core?"
    QalamAcademy
     
    Via the Houston Chronicle   " 'The mosque is a significant community in Richardson," said Maczka who attended the school's opening ceremony March 1. "If you read the world news, you know the Islamic faith is the fastest-growing community in the world. As the population in Richardson grows, so does the Islamic faith."
     
    "In recent years, economic opportunities in Dallas and Richardson have brought Muslims from Chicago, California and New York, said Qazi, who came to the U.S. in 1990 to pursue his master's degree in physics from Idaho State University."
     
    "Richardson City Council member Amir Omar: "In addition, American-Iranian groups believe that Omar is the first Iranian-American to be elected to a municipal office in Texas.' "
    In May of 2013, Omar lost the race for mayor of Richardson to Laura Maczka, 10,000+ votes to 4000+.

    From The Muslim ObserverA Model for Muslim Political Involvement: The Richardson TX City Council Elections

    What Islam is All AboutMuslim beliefs inspire Richardson doctor’s free medical clinics    "The services are available to anyone in need, but most patients are Muslims."

    Texas: Hyatt of Richardson Enforces a Muslim-only Policy at a Special Muslim-related Event

    Sharia in Texas

    What Islam is All About   "The textbook is distributed by Noorart Publishing of Richardson, Texas. In short, this is a mainstream American-made textbook, written in clear standard American English, for the purpose of introducing Muslim-American children to the religion of Islam."

    In hoping for a world where Muslims and non-Muslims can enjoy living side-by-side, one must always temper good feelings with awareness of how Muslims interact with those non-Muslims and how they are taught to deal with us. TD

    Always keep the word Taqiyya in mind, along with incidents such as this: Previously friendly Muslim neighbors turned on Christians of Maaloula .

    Maaloula Christians said, “We knew our Muslim neighbours all our lives,” Georgios says …. we thought they would never betray us. We ate with them. We are one people.    "Every time there is a conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims, "moderate" Muslims always join the jihadis. We've seen this time and time again all over the world."

    Enjoy your Muslim friends; grow close to them and watch your children play together through the years. But know that if Islamists grow strong in your community and come after you to persecute your family, fully expect your Islamic friends to turn on you.

    Hobby Lobby so far

    Did Hobby Lobby do well at Supreme Court oral argument?   "The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in the Hobby Lobby HHS mandate case.
    "After oral arguments had concluded, a member of Hobby Lobby’s counsel told the Daily Caller, “the general tenor of the questions [from the justices] were in our favor.' ”  However....
    http://youtu.be/empZxxB19nU
    "As the Daily Caller notes,  it’s not easy — or necessarily wise — to predict how the Justices will rule based on their line of questioning during oral argument.
    "Recall CNN legal analyst Jeffery Toobin’s musings following the Obamacare oral argument phase.
    “This was a train wreck for the Obama administration. This law looks like it’s going to be struck down,” Toobin said on CNN. “All of the predictions including mine that the justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong.”
    "Take every prediction with a grain of salt, especially those made in response to oral arguments.
    "The Supreme Court is slated to rule on the case before the term concludes this June."

    Sen. Ted Cruz rallies religious freedom activists at the Supreme Court in support of Hobby Lobby ..."Cruz pointed out that the Obama administration had given Obamacare exemptions to powerful special interests, but refused to exempt people of faith from the contraception mandate."

    Hobby Lobby, freedom, and compulsion
    Hobby Lobby, freedom, and compulsion
     
    "As the so-called “Hobby Lobby case” (which also includes another defendant, a company called Conestoga Wood Specialties Corporation) reaches the Supreme Court, several excellent summaries of the underlying issues have been created.  The Heritage Foundation produced a short video, which begins with the interesting approach of pointing out that the families who own these companies are the true defendants in this case, not faceless corporate interests:
     

     
    Sen. Patty Murray: 'Stunning to Me' That 9 Justices Will Decide Hobby Lobby Case -   ... "Murray said the "compelling" question for her is, "Should a private CEO of a corporation or their shareholders' religious rights trump the right of employees?' "

    Petition: 'Mr. President: Weakness Is Dangerous'

    Weekly Standard  ... " 'Bottom line: America's enemies don't fear us, our allies don't trust us, and the world is more dangerous. For decades, a national
    security policy of 'Peace through Strength' underwrote U.S. security at home and our interests abroad—but not any more. Mr. President, in just five short years, you have managed to gut our military, dismiss clear and present threats, and leave America's image and stature in tatters. We can't stand for this."

    Watch this Vets For Freedom video:

     
    Vets for Freedom Petition: Mr. President: Weakness is Dangerous
    Mr. President,
    For veterans of the Iraq War, watching the black flag of Al Qaeda fly over Fallujah—as the adjacent video outlines—is the ultimate symbol of weak and feckless national security policy. Dismissing this American battlefield is an insult to the sacrifice and honor of our warriors and their families. Unfortunately, it's just another recent example of your administration's dangerous approach to national security; let us briefly recount other ways.
    Afghanistan War veterans bemoan a failed 'surge then withdraw' strategy—costing lives and losing ground. In Syria, we set rhetorical red-lines that a Iranian-backed dictator ignored—and then did nothing. Speaking of Iran, their nuclear ambitions continue unabated—with Israel left standing alone. In Libya we 'led from behind'—with spiraling violence and a dead US ambassador in Benghazi to show for it. China’s increases their defense budget substantially—while we gut ours precipitously. And most recently, an empowered Russia had their way with a sovereign nation—while we did nothing. Other fault lines—in Pakistan, North Korea, Turkey and Egypt—haven't escaped our gaze either.
    Bottom line: America's enemies don't fear us, our allies don't trust us, and the world is more dangerous. For decades, a national security policy of 'Peace through Strength' underwrote U.S. security at home and our interests abroad—but not any more. Mr. President, in just five short years, you have managed to gut our military, dismiss clear and present threats, and leave America's image and stature in tatters. We can't stand for this.
    Join Vets for Freedom—veterans, military families, and patriotic Americans of all generations—by signing our White House petition and sending a clear message to the President: American Weakness is Dangerous.

    George Floyd Revisited: Derek Chauvin Was Wrongfully Convicted

      The American Spectator | USA News and Politics Derek Chauvin and his colleagues did not murder George Floyd. Chauvin’s prosecution and tri...

    https://spectator.org/