174,301 people or 6 fish; Californians battle bureaucrats over water releases for just 6 fish

 

Manteca Bulletin   "Correspondence between the National Marine Fisheries Service and Congressman Jeff Denham’s office shows the Bureau of Reclamation wants to flush as much as 15,000 acre feet of water down the Stanislaus River in order to “save” six fish.
"In an email Sunny Snider of the federal fish protection agency sent to Denham Chief of Staff Jason Larrabee, it indicated a previous pulse flow in March that significantly raised water levels on the Stanislaus River through Ripon despite being in the middle of a severe drought had moved out 76 percent of  the out-migrating steelhead by March 30.

"The email stated that National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) only expects 29 out-migrating steelhead a year and that their plan was to release 30,000 acre feet by the end of April to help them reach the Delta.

"That means there are six steelhead left that the Bureau ordered South San Joaquin Irrigation District and Oakdale Irrigation District to release water this week to help on their journey. The 15,000 acre feet of water based on a statewide per capita use average could supply 174,301 Californians with water for a year to the combined populations of Tracy and Santa Barbara. Combined with last month’s pulse flow release, the 30,000 acre feet of water is the equivalent of the combined annual water needs of the cities of Stockton, Lathrop, Ripon, and Escalon." . . .
Hat tip to Harley Standlee; Placerville, CA

The Iran deal: Anatomy of a disaster

 

Charles Krauthammer
“Negotiations . . . to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability . . . ”

— Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, the Wall Street Journal, April 8

 "It was but a year and a half ago that Barack Obama endorsed the objective of abolition when he said that Iran’s heavily fortified Fordow nuclear facility, its plutonium-producing heavy-water reactor and its advanced centrifuges were all unnecessary for a civilian nuclear program. The logic was clear: Since Iran was claiming to be pursuing an exclusively civilian program, these would have to go.

"Yet under the deal Obama is now trying to sell, not one of these is to be dismantled. Indeed, Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure is kept intact, just frozen or repurposed for the length of the deal (about a decade). Thus Fordow’s centrifuges will keep spinning. They will now be fed xenon, zinc and germanium instead of uranium. But that means they remain ready at any time to revert from the world’s most heavily (indeed comically) fortified medical isotope facility to a bomb-making factory.
. . . 
 "Obama imagines that this deal will bring Iran in from the cold, tempering its territorial ambitions and ideological radicalism. But this defies logic: With sanctions lifted, its economy booming and tens of billions injected into its treasury, why would Iran curb rather than expand its relentless drive for regional dominance?

"An overriding objective of these negotiations, as Obama has said, is to prevent the inevitable proliferation — Egypt, Turkey, the Gulf states — that would occur if Iran went nuclear. Yet the prospective agreement is so clearly a pathway to an Iranian bomb that the Saudis are signaling that the deal itself would impel them to go nuclear." . . .

Walter Scott’s Family Asks Al Sharpton to Keep His ‘Circus’ Away from the Funeral

PJ Tatler

 'We don't want another Ferguson circus': Walter Scott family 'bar Rev Al Sharpton from the funeral to avoid over-the-top attention'

 

Mother of Officer Michael Slager speaks out  

 Walter Scott’s Family Asks Al Sharpton to Keep His ‘Circus’ Away from the Funeral

Walter Scott’s family have asked Al Sharpton not to attend the funeral, it is claimed.

The New York-based Reverend became a prominent voice in the wake of Michael Brown’s shooting at the hands of a white police officer in Ferguson last August.

But as the nation’s attention turns to South Carolina and footage showing Officer Michael Slager shooting dead father-of-four Walter Scott, his parents and brothers have made plain that they do not want the same treatment.

According to the New York Daily News, the family told Rev Sharpton to ‘keep away’ from the relatives-only memorial service.

A source close to the Scotts told the paper: ‘We don’t want another Ferguson type of circus here.’

"Fingers crossed that this is true. Sharpton does nothing but compound misery when he shows up to “help” with cameras in tow. The man is a menace to law-abiding citizens and the fact that anyone respects him is all the indication you need as to the depths of progressive depravity.

"Let us also hope that Jesse Jackson doesn’t see an opportunity here."

DID IRAN PUNK OBAMA WITH CLASSIC MUSLIM PLOY?

 

  Overpasses for America
 Did President Obama get hoodwinked by the Iranians because of his ignorance of an ancient, time-tested negotiating tactic ingrained in Islamic law?

“ 'If one wishes to have even a basic understanding of the underlying principles involved in Middle East politics, then one must first understand the history and implications of the Treaty of Hudaibiyah,” Richardson told WND.
"He believes Obama committed a “brazenly amateur” gaffe by failing to understand who he was dealing with – an Iranian regime steeped in Islamic law.
"The rules the mullahs follow trace back to the life and example of Muhammad, he said. “And one of the most important tactical victories in Muhammad’s career is what is known as the Treaty of Hudaibiyah.”
"Muhammad made this treaty with the pagan Quraysh tribe of Mecca, which was the most powerful tribe in the region at the time.
"The Qurayshis entered into a 10-year peace pact with Muhammad and lived to regret it." . . .

 “The takeaway is that Muslims today look to the example of Muhammad and the Treaty of Hudaibiyah as one of the primary go-to strategies to defeat their enemies,” Richardson said. “Enter into a treaty, a covenant, a ceasefire. But it is only for the purpose of gaining strength to eventually defeat your enemy.

“Muslims today clearly understand ‘Hudaibiya’ to be a code-word which, in brief, means ‘kiss the hand of your enemy until you have the opportunity to cut it off.’”     Hat tip to  Sheila Freeman

Standing against radical Islamic treachery, our nation has this:


‘A lot of big words and big thoughts’ – State Dept. on Kissinger Op-ed

"The State Department stepped in it. Again."

"Now infamous for her dippy soundbites, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf might have topped her “ISIS just needs jobs” gaffe today." . . .

 Bret Baier: "Kissinger, Schultz and Marie Harf"; laughter ensues

April 9, 1865. The Surrender at Appomattox

RedState

 

APPOMATTOX COURT-HOUSE, VA.
April 9, 1865

General R. E. LEE:

In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th instant, I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an officer to be designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged; and each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by U. S. authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.

U.S. GRANT,
Lieutenant-General.

Screw the Left; this nation had honorable leaders that we can be proud of. As Bruce Catton once wrote of former Civil War enemies, veterans of the Boyne and Culloden did not see wars end in such a way. TD

The Alinsky Way of Governing

 

Powerline   "My School of Public Policy colleague (and top statewide GOP vote-getter in California last November) Pete Peterson has a nice piece in today’s Wall Street Journal on “The Alinsky Way of Governing” that details the degrading effect Alinskyist politics is having on today’s generation of liberals.  (Keep in mind that Hillary Clinton wrote her senior thesis at Wellesley on the greatness of Alinsky.)

 "Since the article is behind the Journal‘s paywall, a couple of excerpts:'

. . .  More broadly, what has happened is that a generation of American politicians who came of age during Saul Alinsky’s lifetime has moved into positions of institutional power that he so often derided as “the enemy.” They are showing an inability to leave behind Alinsky’s tactics that were intended for the weak against the strong. Civil discourse and academic freedom suffer while the “Prince” becomes more powerful. " . . .

Another Alinsky technique: don't confront opposition with reasons; mock them, and fabricateb"straw man" arguments.

In California, liberals have been a natural disaster

 Victor Davis Hanson: The Drought: California Apocalypto  "The proverbial thin veneer of civilization has never been thinner in California, as if nature has conspired to create even greater chaos than what man here has already wrought. What follows below was a fairly typical seven-day period in the land of the highest sales, fuel, and income taxes that have led to the nearly worst freeways, schools, and general infrastructure in the nation." . . .
. . . "Even those in Malibu, Bel Air, and Old Pasadena must use the unusable 405. Even Hetch Hetchy and other water projects cannot supply the Bay Area’s voracious appetite for water.  Putting phase one of high-speed rail down among the yokels of Central California does no good unless it is linked up with a messy, smelly, dirty construction site in the Bay Area." . . . 

A hot water issue in the California drought discussion   . . . " In addition, simple ideas like increasing our total water storage by building three new dams have been mired in unnecessary environmental legal challenges for years.  California voters recently passed the Proposition 1 water bond, which despite promises will likely never result in actual construction of additional water storage – just more money for pet projects and empty rhetoric from the Democrats in Sacramento." . . .

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015

 Marijuana Plants Soak Up Billions of Gallons of Water in California  . . . " California’s terrible drought has become -- like just about everything else in the United States -- a political issue. Many liberals have taken to blaming anthropogenic climate change for the drought, while some conservatives have placed the blame at the feet of “liberal environmentalists.” The political point-scoring is tiring and just plain silly, given that the drought is almost certainly a result of natural processes -- processes that we humans, conservatives and liberals alike, have precious little to do with" . . .

Stuff Bush Didn't Do, Illustrated; President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts

 

      Doug Ross Journal

President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts 
. . .  • First President to Barricade Open-Air Government Monuments During a Partial Government Shutdown (Source: Rep. Steve Stockman) . . .

The Modern University Is Failing Students in Every Respect

From cost to employment prospects, the state of American higher education is dismal for students.

Victor Davis Hanson

 . . . "Second, campuses encouraged edgy speech and raucous expression — and exposure to all sorts of weird ideas and mostly unpopular thoughts. College talk was never envisioned as boring, politically correct megaphones echoing orthodox pieties.

. . .

" There are far too many special studies courses and trendy majors — and far too few liberal-arts surveys of literature, history, art, music, math, and science that for centuries were the sole hallowed methods of instilling knowledge.

"Administrators should decide whether they see students as mature, independent adults who handle life’s vicissitudes with courage and without need for restrictions on free expression. Or should students remain perennial weepy adolescents, requiring constant sheltering, solicitousness, and self-esteem building?

"Diversity might be better redefined in its most ancient and idealistic sense as differences in opinion and thought rather than just variety in appearance, race, gender, or religion." . . .

Rand stands up to liberal media attack; left said he was picking on a girl

Rand Paul comes out swinging...at interviewers  "In a round of interviews yesterday, Rand Paul took on questions he found unfair, and got into an argument with Savannah Guthrie of the Today show. The predictable result was return fire from talking head pundits, unhappy over his refusal to play the game on the ground rules the media likes to set.  In the words of T. Beckett Adams of the Washington Examiner, it was a “media pile-on.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., became the target of media criticism Wednesday after he accused NBC News' Savannah Guthrie during an interview of "editorializing" her questions. . . .

Megyn Kelly to Male Reporters: ‘Butt Out’—Women ‘Don’t Need Your Help’ Handling Rand Paul  . . . “I, as a female reporter, will say to Chuck Todd and the Guardian: We don’t need your help,” Kelly said. “You are entitled to push back on the interviewer just as much as you would if it were a man, so these male commentators can butt out. We can give as good as we get.” “To me, it’s ironic that the people trying to step in and ‘protect’ these female interviewers are themselves being sexist while they’re suggesting you were being sexist because you didn’t kowtow and you weren’t polite enough to your female interviewers,” she added.

According to Their Male Defenders, Female Interviewers Can’t Handle Rand Paul
 . . .  "After  Paul got into a testy exchange over abortion yesterday with Philip Elliott, a reporter from the Associated Press, no one ran to poor Philip’s defense.

"But Philip is a MAN who can handle a Rand Paul without having MEN parachute in to protect his precious little snowflake status.
"Sadly, even women in the mainstream media seem to be admitting they are the weaker sex. Todd was talking to Andrea Mitchell, who claims to be a feminist. She did not, though, reach across the desk and slap Todd. She agreed with him."  . . .

 

Rand: The Press Should Ask Dems if it’s OK to Kill Babies in the Womb     . . . "When a reporter asked Paul about a recent Associated Press report that suggested he had avoided answering questions about abortion, he responded in frustration, suggesting the media ask Democrats this question instead:

"Why don't you ask the DNC, 'Is it OK to kill a seven-pound baby in the uterus?'" 

"You go back and you ask Debbie Wasserman Schultz if she's okay with killing a seven-pound baby that is just not yet born yet. Ask her when life begins, and you ask Debbie when she's willing to protect life," he said. "When you get an answer from Debbie, come back to me."

" He didn't have to wait long. 

"Here's an answer," she said in an emailed statement. "I support letting women and their doctors make this decision without government getting involved. Period. End of story. Now your turn, Senator Paul."

"CNN's Wolf Blitzer read Wasserman Schultz's statement to Paul later that afternoon, to which Paul offered a translation:

"Sounds like her answer is yes, that she's okay with killing a seven-pound baby."

 

Assessment of Obama true; we just don't know who actually said it

 

Snopes  "The following statement was attributed to Czech politician Václav Klaus, who served as the second President of the Czech Republic from 2003 to 2013"

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their President."

"Origins:   An item circulated in November 2012 supposedly reproduced an article critical of those who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, supposedly published in "the Prague newspaper, Prager Zeitungon." That mention appeared to be a misspelled reference to Prager Zeitung ("Prague Newspaper"), a German language weekly newspaper from the Czech Republic which is also circulated
in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

"However, the version of this item circulated online provided no other contextual information (such as a publication date or headline) to help track down if and when it was actually published in Prager Zeitung. A search of that newspaper's web site at that time pulled up only one article that mentioned Barack Obama, and that article included only an incidental reference about the level of security provided to a U.S. president. " . . .

http://comicallyincorrect.com/

Last IOC in Marine infantry experiment drops female officers

 

Marine Times  "The two-and-a-half year period in which the Marine Corps' Infantry Officer Course became gender-integrated for research will end without a single female graduate.

"The final iteration of IOC to accept female Marines on a volunteer basis began April 2 with two female participants. One was a volunteer and one was a member of the newly integrated ground intelligence track.

"Both were dropped that same day during the grueling initial Combat Endurance Test, said Capt. Maureen Krebs, a spokeswoman for Headquarters Marine Corps. Nine of the 90 men who began the course were also cut."
. . .
"In an effort to achieve their goal of 100 female volunteers cycling through IOC, the Marine Corps opened the course to female company-grade officers in October 2014, making hundreds more Marines eligible for the course. The Corps also began requiring that volunteers get a first-class score on the male version of the service's Physical Fitness Test in an effort to better prepare them for the rigors of IOC." . . .