Data from Curiosity rover excites those seeking life on Mars Continued

"The rounded appendages certainly don’t look like any kind of
rock feature I’ve seen before. We’ll have to keep an eye out for
xenomorphs once we get the manned missions going."

DiscoveryTheWord   "Thanks to science and the increasing development of technology, we now know exactly what Mars looks like, seeing as NASA has managed to put two rovers on our neighboring planet. For years, the rovers traveled across the surface of the planet, taking photographs and performing tests on the soil. In the process, they have made some incredible discoveries that may prove the existence of life on Mars.
. . . 
"Among all the data which has been sent over the years have been more than a few interesting things, some of which point to the very likely fact that Mars once hosted life. It may not be the kind of little green aliens books and movies have told us about, but it remains incredible, nonetheless."

Liquid Life   "If finding liquid water is the primary goal of NASA in regards to Mars, maybe they’ve already found it. Keen-eyed folk noticed this picture taken by the Mars rover which appears to show liquid water flowing from a rock formation, creating mud down the hillside. Could this be the proof NASA needs?"  Via NY Daily News.

A deafening media silence on the Obama-Hezbollah scandal

NY Post

"Politico published a jaw-dropping, meticulously sourced investigative piece this week detailing how the Obama administration had secretly undermined US law enforcement agency efforts to shut down an international drug-trafficking ring run by the terror group Hezbollah. The effort was part of a wider push by the administration to placate Iran and ensure the signing of the nuclear deal.

SEE ALSO

Obama protected Hezbollah drug ring to save Iran nukes deal

"Now swap out “Trump” for “Obama” and “Russia” for “Iran” and imagine the eruption these revelations would generate. Because, by any conceivable journalistic standard, this scandal should’ve triggered widespread coverage and been plastered on front pages across the country. By any historic standard, the scandal should elicit outrage regarding the corrosion of governing norms from pundits and editorial boards.

"Yet, as it turns out, there’s an exceptionally good chance most of your neighbors and colleagues haven’t heard anything about it.

"Days after the news broke, in fact, neither NBC News, ABC News nor CBS News — whose shows can boast a collective 20 million viewers — had been able to find the time to relay the story to its sizeable audiences. Other than Fox News, cable news largely ignored the revelations as well.

"Most major newspapers, which have been sanctimoniously patting themselves on the back for the past year, couldn’t shoehorn into their pages a story about potential collusion between the former president and a terror-supporting state.

"Perhaps if President Trump had tweeted about the story, outlets would’ve squeezed something in.

"Even when outlets did decide to cover the story, they typically framed it as a he-said/she-said." . . .

How Obama manipulated sensitive secret intelligence for political gain

Washington Times

Cartoon added byTD

"They wanted him dead.

"For years, a clandestine U.S. intelligence team had tracked a man they knew was high in the leadership of al Qaeda — an operative some believed had a hand in plotting the gruesome 2009 suicide attack in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA officers.

"Their pursuit was personal, and by early 2014, according to a source directly involved in the operation, the agency had the target under tight drone surveillance. “We literally had a bead on this guy’s head and just needed authorization from Washington to pull the trigger,” said the source.

"Then something unexpected happened. While agents waited for the green light, the al Qaeda operative’s name, as well as information about the CIA’s classified surveillance and plan to kill him in Pakistan, suddenly appeared in the U.S. press.

"Abdullah al-Shami, it turned out, was an American citizen, and President Obama and his national security advisers were torn over whether the benefits of killing him would outweigh the political and civil liberties backlash that was sure to follow." . . .

HuffPo Contributor Apologizes to Sen. Scott for His Prop Tweet

Legal Insurrection

Tim Scott

✔@SenatorTimScott

Uh probably because I helped write the bill for the past year, have multiple provisions included, got multiple Senators on board over the last week and have worked on tax reform my entire time in Congress. But if you'd rather just see my skin color, pls feel free. https://twitter.com/andyostroy/status/943575916424450049 …

3:23 PM - Dec 20, 2017

"BOOM! Of course people quickly quickly came to Scott’s side to defend the senator.

"Ostroy deleted the tweet and apologized to Scott." . . .

Anti-American UN General Assembly vote presents Trump an opportunity to turn a loss into a win

Legal Insurrection

"Shrink the size of the UN bureaucracy, and undo Obama’s legacy of leveraging the UN against America and Israel."

. . . "Needless to say, the Palestinian leadership, which funnels an enormous percentage of its budget to paying rewards to terrorists and their families, declared it a big victory:

“The vote is a victory for Palestine,” said Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah. “We will continue our efforts in the United Nations and at all international forums to put an end to this occupation and to establish our Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.”

"Anti-Israel extremist group “Jewish Voice for Peace” portrayed it as a loss for Trump’s alleged evangelical Christian base:

The number of countries that voted with Palestine today affirms that a U.S. foreign policy designed to bolster Trump’s donors and evangelical Christian base will only serve to further isolate both the U.S. and Israel and inspire a global movement to realize Palestinian rights.

"A more sober view is that while it was a loss for the U.S. and Trump, it wasn’t as big a loss as Israel usually received in the General Assembly. Raphael Ahrens at The Times of Israel writes, Why Israel’s massive defeat at the UN isn’t quite as bad as it looks:

In Israeli diplomacy, everything is relative.

Was the outcome of Thursday’s vote at the United Nations General Assembly on the status of Jerusalem a stinging loss or a surprising success for Israel? Depends on how you look at it. But it certainly wasn’t as bad as many expected.

Palestinian officials, naturally, emphasized the fact that there were a whopping 128 yays and only 9 nays….

Israeli officials, however, chose to look at the other side of the coin, focusing on those that countries that did not support the resolution….

The fact that a total of 65 nations did not actively vote against US President Donald Trump’s December 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his announced intention to move the US embassy to the holy city was “hugely significant,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nachshon cheered.

 . . . 

Nikki Haley's Finest Hour

"Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.  That's a fact.  It will remain a fact.  It has been US policy to recognize that fact since 1995, reaffirmed overwhelmingly by Congress this past summer."

Guy Benson  "Aside from the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to replace Justice Scalia on the US Supreme Court, I'm not sure I've ever been any prouder of the Trump administration than I was during Nikki Haley's scathing and righteous speech before the UN General Assembly on Thursday. Katie wrote up Haley's remarks and the subsequent vote, in which the large majority of the UN's "community of nations" purported to declare the United States' decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel (which it is) 'null and void.' Your empty, symbolic votes to single out America for our unwavering support for a country you loathe mean nothing, Haley warned delegates. We've made our decision as a sovereign nation, and there's nothing you can do about it -- but we will remember your actions the next time you come, hat in hand, begging us for more money. Here's the video, in case you missed Amb. Haley's tour de force:

Text of Ambassador Haley's Remarks Before a UN General Assembly Vote on Jerusalem

. . . "Contrast that moral clarity with the shameful and craven actions of the previous administration, and the gratuitous and disloyal votes of normal US allies.  Good for her.  Israel was one of just eight nations who joined the United States on this vote, with a few dozen more abstaining.  Haley is hosting a 'friendship reception' for the nations that chose not to vote against the US on this issue  Israel's Prime Minister tweeted a short video thanking America and Amb. Haley for their leadership:"   Here:

Thank you, Ambassador Haley. On Hanukkah, you spoke like a Maccabi. You lit a candle of truth. You dispel the darkness. One defeated the many. Truth defeated lies. Thank you, President Trump. Thank you, Nikki Haley.

Haley Hammers the UN: America Doesn't Pay for the Privilege of Being Disrespected

Jonathan S. Tobin writes, Nikki Haley’s Right: Time to Start ‘Taking Names’ at the U.N.  . . . "That is especially true when recipients not only lack gratitude for American largesse but actively resent their indebtedness to Washington. 
"Trump’s predecessor encouraged this attitude, since he often seemed more inclined to apologize for America’s sins, and to deprecate the presumption that it could teach the world a thing or two about freedom, than to make demands on international organizations. Career diplomats may loathe language they think makes the U.S. appear to be a bully. But one needn’t embrace Trump’s “America First” mantra — though the foreign-policy doctrine published under that name is more realist than isolationist — to understand that the U.S. has every right to call aid recipients and allies to account when they cross the line into unfair attacks on Washington."

Israel doesn't stand much of a chance with liberal cartoonists You will see here that the left and Arab cartoonists are of the same mind. With this exception:

Appeals court orders military to recruit from the mentally ill

So much for keeping firearms away from the mentally unstable.

Ed Straker  . . . "The Fifth Amendment basically talks about giving people due process when they are charged with a crime and protection against taking of private property.  What does that have to do with mentally ill people joining the military?

"The answer: absolutely nothing.

"But the judiciary is so riddled with hardcore leftists that they are creating imaginary rights as easily as they ignore actual ones they don't like, like the ones protected by the Second Amendment.

"Here are some interesting facts.

1) During most of the Obama administration, it wasn't legal for transvestites to join the military.  Right before President Obama stepped out the door, he issued an executive order saying the military should permit transvestites but should start admitting them only after he had left office.  Perhaps Obama was rightly worried about the disruption that would be caused by a whole platoon of Mary Poppinses or Corporal Klingers and didn't want to take the heat when his efforts at social engineering in the military went bad.

2) Before Obama issued this executive order, transvestites didn't have the right to join the military.  And yet until that time, not a single court found the "right" for cross-dressers to join the military.  This "right" was discovered only after Obama legalized it, and his ability to legalize it, without an act of Congress, was questionable at best.

3) This "right" is a lot more than just allowing cross-dressers to join the military.  It is a way for them to get free surgery and hormones so they can "Dr. Frankenstein" themselves at taxpayer expense.

Black, female ex-Charlie Rose staffer suggests racism because he didn't harass her

Thomas Lifson  "It's always something," as the late Gilda Radner's comedy character Roseanne Roseannadanna would conclude – usually about trivial or completely misguided complaints she voiced (a classic example here).  Those words echoed in my mind as I read the litany of complaints one of Charlie Rose's former staffers lodged in the pages of Esquire earlier this month.  Ms. Rebecca Carroll wrote:

His language around race felt consistently coded. Charlie demanded I book the black guests he wanted but previously had been unable to get – black guests of a perceived level of respectability and intelligence (Sidney Poitier) – while dismissing the black guests I pitched, (Vivica Fox, for example). He accused me of pushing my own agenda several times, memorably when I pitched a panel on hip-hop. (I did not hear my white colleagues receive criticism that they were pushing any sort of agenda when they pitched potential guests and segments.)

 "It is unclear if being asked to book black guests he wanted was in itself offensive to her.  One could argue that this was racist – segregating the booking process.  But one could also argue that not asking her to book black guests was racist, as in "keeping it within the community" or "cultural appropriation" claims of turf.

"But she was just warming up.  A similar ambivalence attends her words about sexual harassment:    (Wait for it, here it comes:)

[W]hile many of us on staff were subject to Charlie's unsolicited shoulder massages and physical intimidation, as he towered above us at a height over six feet tall, the women Charlie preferred and preyed upon – at least that I witnessed – were white. It was an environment that all but erased me, while simultaneously exploiting me as a black woman. . . . 

Good Riddance, Evangelicalism Incorporated

American Thinker  "Trump's base in 2016 was defined not by race or class, but by belief in God.  Evangelical Christians and Catholics came together and pushed Trump to the win, in defiance of the media, academia, Hollywood, the professional class, elite Republicans, the Democrat masses, libertarians, and self-professed moralists.

"Both the pope and many prominent Protestant leaders expressed antagonism toward Trump, so this mass of religious voters defied their church elders as well.

"This was nothing less than stunning.  It was perhaps one of the great revolutions in America's religious history.  Rather than a serious study of this event, we have had a spasmic flood of pedantry from the very people whose authority these Christian voters rejected in the first place.

"I count myself among evangelical Trump voters.  As I am sure this issue is for almost everyone in America, the historical questions feel very personal.

"I resent being mocked and reviled by secular liberals who I know hate all religion.

"My patience has worn thin with people claiming to embrace a new liberal Christianity that I recognize as a warmed over version of the liberation theology my radical leftist family held in the 1970s and 1980s.

"Conservative Christians who position themselves as valiant defenders of the Bible and Trump opponents have been exposed in brutal ways as the "Evangelical Deep State.' " . . .