The Freedom Caucus Kills the Health Care Bill

Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard  "Before Republicans captured Washington, the conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus were a nuisance. Then, with the GOP in control of the House, Senate, and White House, they became a roadblock. Now, in single-handedly killing the legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare, they've turned into gang of renegades running amok inside the House GOP. Neither President Trump nor House speaker Paul Ryan can sway the 30 or so Freedom Caucus members, much less control them. Trump, the supposed closer, was unable to forge a deal with them. Ryan offered changes in the bill, but that only egged on the Freedom Caucus to demand more.

"The political damage from this stinging defeat could be enormous. Any effect it has on Trump's first-year agenda won't be good. Recall that the president started with repeal and replace of Obamacare partly because that would clear the way for a bigger tax cut. Its downfall now "makes tax reform more difficult," Ryan said. "We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future."

Meanwhile Democrats taunt and mock those of us who voted for Trump and the Republicans.

'They own Obamacare!' Furious Trump lashes out at Democrats after House Republicans' health care vote fiasco

UK Daily Mail  "President Donald Trump blamed Democrats in Congress on Friday after House Republicans were forced to cancel a vote on their health care bill – warning the opposition party that they will continue to 'own Obamacare' as it spins in a death spiral.

The stunning uppercut came on the day he failed to deliver – for now, at least – on the promise he made in hundreds of campaign appearances, to 'repeal and replace Obamacare.' 

"Shortly after the vote was called off, a resigned House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters that Obamacare was still 'the law of the land. It's going to remain the law of the land until it's replaced.'

"Although it was GOP infighting that caused the legislative crisis, the president predicted that Obamacare will ultimately crash and burn – forcing Democrats to come crawling to the White House for his help in crafting a workable replacement 'when it explodes – which it will soon.' 

" 'The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,' Trump claimed, naming the Democratic Party's leaders in the House and Senate, 'because now they own Obamacare. They own it. One hundred per cent own it.'

" 'They have Obamacare for a little while longer until it ceases to exist, which it will at some point in the near future.'

" 'And just remember,' Trump warned: 'This is not our bill. This is their bill. Now when they all become civilized and get together and try to work out a great health care bill for the people of this country, we're open to it.'  . . .

Democrats have taunted Republicans and TEA Partiers for years as here, on the first passage of Obamacare. They mocked and taunted half the American population.

Reboot  . . . "Republicans more or less fell into a losing strategy. They began by thinking they could quickly repeal Obamacare and then replace it at leisure. To their credit, they substantially modified their plan in response to criticism, attempting to do portions of both repeal and replace in one bill. But this new approach was a bad fit for the old schedule. A viable repeal-and-replace plan could not be slapped together as fast as Republicans wanted to move. Compounding the problems were Speaker Ryan’s high-handedness and President Trump’s erratic leadership.
"This week’s embarrassments make it hard to see the opening that remains for Republicans. The fact is that Republicans reached a fair degree of consensus during this process."
. . . 
"They have spent seven years saying they were going to replace Obamacare. They didn’t say they were going to spend a few weeks on a half-baked plan and then give up. Back to work, ladies and gentlemen."  Full National Review article

Professor Hypocrite, Tear Down This Door!

Mike Adams

"One of my conservative friends recently suggested that leftist professors should be prohibited from putting political posters and bumper stickers on their office doors. I strongly disagreed and told him I would defend the leftists if he ever tried to interfere with their political speech. But I wouldn’t do it for reasons of principle. I would do it because I enjoy the wealth of good writing material supplied by my more extreme left wing colleagues – most of them self-described feminists. A case in point is the recent MoveOn.org poster that is making its way onto so many faculty office doors on campuses across America. In case you haven’t seen one, here is the exact wording of the poster: [see photo above]."

"It’s hard to comprehend so much idiocy crammed into such a small space. So just in case you missed some of the more intellectually herniated nuances, let me break them down for you. In just five lines, the leftist professor sporting this sign manages to call attention to five distinct things about her character, her professionalism, and her worldview. They follow in no particular order of importance:" . . .

Some of her bullet points discussed in more detail in the article:

• She really isn’t looking to bring refugees and immigrants into her office; she is looking to bring like-minded disciples into her classes. . . .
• There is no Muslim ban but the professor is too misinformed to know it (or ms-informed if she is a feminist) . . .
• She locks her doors instead of adopting an open borders practice in her day-to-day living . . .
• She works in a profession lacking diversity.  . . .
• She is a mouthpiece for Marxist propaganda. . . .

Remember Ken Starr? His plane just disappeared on his way to DC to testify.

Fake News Update: Fake News: Ken Starr NOT Killed In Plane Crash On The Way To DC To Testify

Several fake news websites have copied an article from satirical fake news site The Resistance: The Last Line of Defense which was titled: "Remember Ken Starr? His Plane Just Disappeared On His Way To DC To Tesitify". Various other sites have relabeled it as "BREAKING: Ken Starr's Plane Just Disappeared On His Way To DC To Testify Against Hillary", probably to fix the spelling error. The original article begins:

Ken Starr, the lead prosecutor who helped congress impeach Bill Clinton, was on his way to Washington DC this morning when his plane disappeared from radar. A plume of smoke in the area the plane was seen after the plane was spotted just outside of Wilkershire, Maryland.

The NTSB says the tower in Philadelphia lost contact with the plane about ten minutes before the explosion and that without a significant development, it appears all five people on board were killed.

As of 1:12 CST, this is the only source reporting this event other than one other linking to this as did I. TD . . .

The original story:
Open Magazines  "Ken Starr, the lead prosecutor who helped congress impeach Bill Clinton, was on his way to Washington DC this morning when his plane disappeared from radar. A plume of smoke in the area the plane was seen after the plane was spotted just outside of Wilkershire, Maryland. 
As Elaine once told Jerry Seinfeld, "Fake, fake, fake, fake."

In Defense of Devin Nunes

Bloomberg  "One of the strangest turns in the story of Russia and the Trump campaign has been the recent outrage from Democrats over politicization of the investigation. 
"This all centers on Chairman Devin Nunes, the Republican who is leading the House Intelligence Committee's investigation. He was an adviser to the Trump presidential transition. The White House asked him last month to talk to a reporter to rebut news stories that alleged Trump associates had many contacts with Russian intelligence officers. On Wednesday, Nunes briefed the president about new information he had regarding dozens of widely disseminated intelligence reports on the Trump transition. "He did this before he briefed his committee's Democrats.

" All of this has prompted an outbreak of high dudgeon from the party of Clinton. Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, says Nunes must choose whether he wants to lead a credible investigation or be a surrogate of the Trump White House. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says Nunes is a "stooge.' " . . .
Via Lucianne:
Benghazi Liar Adam Schiff Slimes Devin Nunes  . . . "Schiff has had no problem in himself acting as a surrogate for Team Obama or Team Hillary. That deafening silence you hear is the 
outrage he has expressed over the leaking of classified information to the press designed to fatally wound the Trump transition. Schiff had no problem repeating claims without evidence that Team Trump was colluding with the Russians. Now he is troubled by Nunes citing reports proving President Trump was right about his team being monitored." . . .

Did Obama Surveil Trump? Sure Looks That Way  . . . " 'I recently confirmed that on numerous occasions the intelligence community ... collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition," Nunes told reporters.
"Nunes immediately came under intense criticism from congressional Democrats for his revelations. What's both hilarious and sad is that these are the very same Democrats who have been nearly silent as a series of illegal leaks from the intelligence bureaucracy have made their way into the mainstream media, in a transparent attempt by unnamed intelligence officials to damage Trump's presidency." . . .

Freedom Watch Notifies Congress of “Deep State” Intelligence Whistle-Blower – full pdf…

The Last Refuge  "Freedom Watch notifies congress of a “Deep State” intelligence community whistle blower, Dennis Montgomery, with hundreds of millions of documents showing CIA and FBI and Intelligence Committees were spying on, and conducting surveillance on, American citizens for political purposes.

"Mr. Montgomery is trying to use a legal “whistle-blower” process and not follow the same approach as Edward Snowden." . . .

Page one of eleven:

K-12: No Joy In Reading. That's the Plan.

Bruce Deitrick Price  . . . "To start with, Sight-words are the worst way to start.  Instead of learning letters and the sounds they represent, children memorize graphic designs.  Rudolf Flesch (Chapter V of Why Johnny Can't Read) said that as of 1948, eleven studies had been conducted; all found that phonics is superior.  (So the Education Establishment has always known that if you want a society to have low literacy, you will promote Sight-words.  And that is what they relentlessly do.) 

Children who rely entirely on Sight-words will invariably end up semi-literate (aka functionally illiterate).  However, it's also true that the more verbal children will in time figure out that Sight-words are not efficient.  These children will notice that certain letter-shapes represent certain sounds.  And by the third grade, many children will be reading phonetically even though they were never taught to do so!" . . .

Bruce Deitrick Price explains educational theories and methods on his site, Improve-Education.org. For info about his four new books, see his literary site, Lit4u.com.

The Reading Wars; Phonics versus Whole Language  . . . "Phonics proponents led by Rudolph Flesh in his 1955 book Why Johnny Can't Read attacked the whole word  
approach because it did not get students into reading children's stories that did not have carefully controlled vocabularies. Phonics advocates focus their efforts on the primary grades and emphasize the importance of students being able to sound out (read) words based on how they are spelled. A problem with English is that it does not have a one-to-one sound symbol relationship that would make reading much easier. The many homonyms in English such as to, too, and two create difficulties for students, even at the university level in regard to spelling.

"While knowing basic phonetic rules helps students sound out words, other very common "outlaw words" still need to be memorized as sight words because they don't follow any but the most complicated rules. It is estimated about half the words in the English language cannot be pronounced correctly using commonly taught phonic rules. Other problems with phonics include the differing size of students' vocabularies and differing dialects of English that vary in their pronunciation rules

"Phonics is considered a "bottom up" approach where students "decode" the meaning of a text. The advantage of phonics, especially for students who come to schools with large vocabularies, is that once students get the basics down, they can go to the library and read a wide variety of children's literature." . . .

UK Guardian: Fabulous Phonics: a creative approach to teaching reading and writing

"Last week, I spent a fascinating afternoon at John Donne primary school with 24 early years and foundation stage (EYFS) teachers listening to deputy head and early years specialist Ruth Moyler share her creative approach to teaching phonics." . . .

Her resources:

Phase 2 of Fabulous Phonics for reception teachers: 'SAT' 'PIN' 'MDG'Phase 2 Fabulous Phonics for reception teachers: 'OCK' 'CK' E U 'RHB'Phase 3 of Fabulous Phonics for reception teachersFunny phrases for phase 3 phonicsPhase 2 phonics suggestions for real 'sound' objectsPhase 3 phonics suggestions for real 'sound' objects

Whole Language: What It Is, What It Isn't  This author prefers phonics.

Whole language "describes a literacy philosophy which emphasizes that children should focus on meaning and strategy instruction. It is often contrasted with phonics-based methods of teaching reading and writing which emphasize instruction for decoding and spelling. However, from whole language practitioners' perspective, this view is erroneous and sets up a false dichotomy. Whole language practitioners teach to develop a knowledge of language including the graphophonic, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of language. Within a whole language perspective, language is treated as a complete meaning-making system, the parts of which function in relational ways. It has drawn criticism by those who advocate "back to basics" pedagogy or reading instruction because whole language is based on a limited body of scientific research."

Defending Whole Language: The Limits of Phonics Instruction and the
Efficacy of Whole Language Instruction  pdf

Today's media: Tokyo Rose by another name

Mason Weaver  "If you were a lonely soldier on a Pacific island during World War ll and you only got your news about the war from Tokyo Rose, you would be depressed, disheartened, confused, angry and scared. You would feel like your values had been abandoned and your fight had no value. The G.I. listened to Tokyo Rose because she played American music and had news from home, but they knew she was against them. The Tokyo Rose phenomena is still alive and has taken over the American press. From the New York Times bureau of Tokyo Rose to the L.A. Times bureau of a Tokyo Rose, the mainstream press constantly blankets the public with inaccurate, slanted hit pieces portrayed as news. They have become no more that the propaganda wing of the left.

"When you read a story that is rich in describing motives, you can be suspicious of its honesty. When the story has the description of someone’s unmeasurable state of mind, like racist, mean-spirited, attacker, viciousness, homophobic or the new one, anti-Muslim, you can be sure it is a biased story. How can you measure “racism”? Who determines if you are “mean-spirited”? What are the journalistic standards used to label someone “hateful”? There are no such standards; these are just trigger words designed to guide your opinion or shame you because of your opinion. What it is not is journalism.

"Do you find yourself turning off the TV news, completely avoiding the news section of your paper or change the station on the radio when the news comes on? We are all suffering from the obvious attempt of the press to persuade instead of inform, attack instead of research and to ignore the truth as often as possible.

"We don’t want “fair and balanced”; we want the truth. Would you prepare a great meal and add garbage to achieve balance? We have grown skeptical of our press because the press is a dishonest organization. We have made up our minds. We don’t need to be told why our culture is wrong. We do not need to hear from “the other side.” We just want the truth." . . .

Just in from Tokyo Rose! CNN floats conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is afraid of stairs

Actress Patricia Arquette suggests London terror attack a set-up by Trump, calls attack a ‘false flag’

LA Times Gushes “Like Her Mother, Chelsea Clinton Never Takes A Break”

The rise of the networked Left

Caroline Glick   "An acrid stench of repression is spreading through America.

Last Thursday, conservative political scientist Charles Murray from the American Enterprise Institute was attacked by a leftist mob at Middlebury College.

"Murray was invited to Middlebury by the college’s AEI club. He was to discuss his new book, Coming Apart, which discusses the plight of white working class Americans. Middlebury’s liberal political science professor Allison Stanger was set to ask him questions about his work.

"As has been widely reported, a mob of leftist students prevented Murray from speaking. They shouted him down with a stream of epithets that went on without interruption, until Murray and Stanger were spirited out of the lecture hall.

"They were brought to another location where they carried out their conversation in front of a camera that was livestreaming to students blocked by the mob from hearing them in person. The mob followed them to the new location and rioted outside the room as they spoke.

"The rioters assaulted them as they made their way from the second location to their car. They hurt Stanger in the neck.

"The assault continued after the professors entered their getaway car and at the restaurant where they tried to dine at with students.

"In the end Murray and his companions were forced to leave town in order to have dinner away from the rioters. Stanger was later treated for her wounds at a local hospital." . . .

Surveillance Sauce for the Goose

comicallyincorrect.com

Volokh Conspiracy  "Having trouble understanding what President Trump and Rep. Nunes are banging on about?  Try putting the shoe on the other foot…

"It’s 2020. Kamala Harris finishes a close second in New Hampshire, beating expectations that Elizabeth Warren would sweep her neighboring state (and its shared media market).  Harris roars into South Carolina, where she suddenly leads in the polls with a message of repudiating what she calls the Trump administration’s  dangerous foreign brinksmanship.

"Whatever you call it, you can’t call it dull.  President Trump has forced Iran to renegotiate the nuclear deal by the simple expedient of expanding US sanctions to include the seizure and impoundment of any tanker carrying Iranian oil.  The oil market remains stable, buoyed by record US oil and gas production.  But the move prompts a diplomatic rupture and some tense maritime confrontations with India and China. Undeterred, the President says North Korea is next in line for what he calls, “Sanctions that work. Unlike the last guy’s. Not a leader!”

"But it will only take one foreign mishap to make Harris tough to beat.  She’s fresh and virtually untouched by Warren’s surprised oppo research team.  The Trump team vows that it won’t be caught similarly flat-footed.

"In July, the intelligence community picks up rumors that intelligence services from Iran, North Korea, and China are working together to ensure a Harris victory in November.

"The President erupts at an NSC meeting.  “This is intolerable!  I want to know everything about foreign interference in our election – and whether any Americans are colluding with Iran.  This is a top priority for all of our counterintelligence agencies.' ” . . .

What of medical care as of today?

Tony Branco

Republicans rebelling against health care risk Trump's wrath  . . . "The scheduled roll call vote for the bill backed by President Donald Trump is a crucial first test of whether Republicans are willing to defy the White House and face the wrath of a president who has bragged about never forgetting a slight. Trump has shown he's willing to use his megaphone and practiced counter-punch against his allies. But the vote comes as Trump's poll numbers have slouched and his White House is consumed with damaging distractions.

"A group of breakaway Republicans, including several members of the deeply conservative House Freedom Caucus, on Wednesday remain unbowed, taking comfort in the political safety they feel in their home districts.

"Members are well aware they face possible primary threats if they vote against the bill the White House has cast as the only chance to make good on a GOP promise to repeal and replace President Barack Obama's health care law.

"White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told holdout lawmakers Wednesday: "You all have to vote for this. We've got to do this. I know you don't like it, but you have to vote for this," according to several representatives present. The comment came after Trump told a group Tuesday that "many of you will lose your seats in 2018" if Republicans don't pass a health care bill." . . .

Obamacare’s Mistakes: GOP Sets Dial to Lather, Rinse, Repeat    "Republicans should slow down, write a better bill, and build the political support they need. It feels like 2009 all over again."

President must close the ‘deal’ on Obamacare  . . . "And given his low approval ratings, he needs a win.

"Dealing with the Obamacare mess has been the core focus of the Republican party for the past 7 years — not to mention a major campaign promise that helped propel Donald Trump to the White House. So it’s imperative that the president seal the deal and obtain the 216 House votes needed tomorrow to move the GOP replacement plan — unoffically dubbed “Ryancare” or “Trumpcare” — to the Senate floor.

"Given that health care is a pocketbook issue directly impacting voters — and it’s one-sixth of the U.S. economy — the stakes are extremely high for Trump and the Republicans to get this done right, and not ram through a clunker like Democrats did the first time around." . . .

Chuck Schumer announces he will oppose nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court

UK Independent

"Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer has announced he will oppose Donald Trump's nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

"The New York Democrat also said he would lead a filibuster against Mr Gorsuch's confirmation. He said Mr Gorsuch “almost instinctively favours the powerful over the weak.” 

"Mr Schumer said doesn't think Gorsuch would serve as a check on Mr Trump or be a mainstream Justice. He blasted Mr Gorsuch for refusing to answer “question after question after question” in hearings this week. " . . .

"If at least eight Democrats join the 52 Republicans and back Gorsuch, that will provide the 60 votes needed to pass a procedural motion letting the Senate move quickly to an up-or-down vote on his nomination, with only a simple majority for approval."

Rick Moran sees it just the opposite.  . . . "In truth, Senate Democrats are between a rock and a hard place on the Gorsuch nomination. Not only did Gorsuch do extremely well in the confirmation hearings, he has given Democrats no earthly reason to oppose him except partisan spite. Since the GOP and President Trump will almost certainly nuke the filibuster if they can't get the 60 votes needed to confirm Gorsuch, the thinking of some Democratic Senators is to run away and fight another day." . . .

Partisanship with the scent of Reid  . . . "The U.S. Senate looks more and more like a place for partisanship rather than statesmanship, as Michael Barone wrote:

Democrats have consistently been more willing to attempt to defeat or discredit nominees of Republican presidents than vice versa. 

Few Republican senators voted against confirmation of Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor or Kagan; many Democratic senators voted against confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.

Judging from the hearings, nearly all Democratic senators seem inclined to vote against the confirmation of Judge Gorsuch.  . . .