The Steep Cost of Politicians’ Scapegoating the Police in Baltimore

http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/crucified-cops/

Thomas Sowell   "Baltimore is now paying the price for irresponsible words and actions, not only by young thugs in the streets, but also by its mayor and the state prosecutor, both of whom threw the police to the wolves, in order to curry favor with local voters.

 "Now murders in Baltimore in May have been more than double what they were in May last year, and higher than in any May in the past 15 years. Meanwhile, the number of arrests is down by more than 50 percent.

"Various other communities across the country are experiencing very similar explosions of crime and reductions of arrests, in the wake of anti-police mob rampages from coast to coast that the media sanitize as “protests.' ” . . .

Unfortunately, when some people experience years of safety, they assume that means that there are no dangers. That is why New York’s current mayor is moving back in the direction of Mayor Dinkins. It is also the politically expedient thing to do. 

And innocent men, women and children — most of them black — will pay with their lives in New York, as they have in Baltimore and elsewhere.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His website is www.tsowell.com.

George Will Gives The Commencement Speech Every College Grad Should Hear

 From Prager University. This is spot on, and it hits on three fundamental deficiencies with respect to American higher education which must be addressed aggressively and soon if the institutions

The Hayride

 

"First, the government-inflated bubble which has incentivized too many marginal students, both in academic terms and in financial terms, to attend college. The student loan bubble is now larger than the housing bubble was and there is more student debt than credit card or auto loan debt. As Will notes, there are people graduating from college with, essentially, a mortgage and no house.

"And second, many of the students at American colleges are getting degrees in what can only be described as trash fields. Virtually any degree with “Studies” in its major description is guaranteed not to equip its holder with skills the American economy needs and therefore, as Will says, students are not equipped to add value to the economy. Thus the debt run up to attain that degree is money wasted, and the student has been bilked out of both time and tuition. The fact that students are getting better grades and learning less further contributes to the adult-day-care quality of much of higher education in this country.

"Third, the asinine political correctness and Robespierran witch-hunts which exemplify university governance in America make the academy a place thoroughly divorced from actual American society. The limitation of free speech and the assault on free association and individual rights in the guise of speech codes and diversity, together with the moronic “safe spaces” and fight against campus “rape culture” have created expectations on the part of college students that make them completely unsuitable to survive in the real world. Employers are screaming about the poor quality of current college graduates in terms of “soft skills” – how they’re able to get along with others, take orders and so forth.
"
It all adds up to a bad product being produced by our universities; a product which is getting worse by the year. Will is correct in skewering American higher education."

IMMIGRATION ADVOCATES FRIGHTENED BY 99-POUND BLONDE

 

Ann Coulter   "Third World immigration advocates Frank Sharry, Ali Noorani and Marc Andreessen aren't shy about rushing to the press with pabulum quotes about how wonderful immigration is, but they don't want to debate me, even to lie about all those benefits.

"They don't want you to think about immigration at all.

"Although you will miss the lush analytical context of the full case made in my smash new book, Adios, America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole, here are some more startling facts from my book that the anti-American crowd doesn't want you to know: 

. . .
 Full article here that closes with these following thoughts:

"-- In 2010, New York state prisons held more than 4,000 inmates from 10 Latin American and Caribbean nations, and fewer than 150 inmates from all of Western Europe (most of whom were probably Muslims).

"-- There are already more Hispanics than whites in two states, New Mexico and California, and Hispanics are the largest minority group in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

"How about letting these facts "come out of the shadows"? "

Mr. Obama, funny you don't look Jewish

Obama’s Cynical Synagogue Speech  " President Obama’s speech a week and a half ago at Washington D.C. synagogue Adas Israel was alternatively promoted as both an opportunity to address the scourge of anti-semitism, and a chance to reach out to American Jews. The speech did nothing to advance either goal and was tone-deaf to any Jews, or Americans for that matter, who don’t buy into the president’s foreign policy."

 

 What kind of Jew is President Obama?     "Mr. Obama is a frustrated man: "Obama's close advisor David Axelrod ... recalled Obama venting in a moment of contemplation, telling him, 'You know, I think I am the closest thing to a Jew* that has ever sat in this office. For people to say that I am anti-Israel, or, even worse,  anti-Semitic, it hurts.'"

"Clearly, Mr. Obama, while perhaps "the closest thing to a Jew," is not sufficiently Jewish to know that a Jew is a thing that comes in many forms. 

"Isn't a member of J Street a Jew?  Of course – a Jew who condemns Israel for engaging in self-defense, and demands that Israelis do not respond to rockets fired at them from Gaza. 

"Isn't a member of Jewish Voice for Peace a Jew?  Yes – a Jew belonging to the organization designated by the Anti-Defamation League as one of the top 10 anti-Israel groups in the U.S.     

"Any such self-hating Jew is undeniably a Jew – but what's the use? 

"What good is a Jew who is, to quote Mr. Obama, "anti-Israel, or, even worse, anti-Semitic"?
And what good does it do to Israel and the Jews to have in the White House the "next thing" to such a Jew?"

* remember Henry Kissinger?

The "Lie of the Century"

http://terrellaftermath.com/

 Divider in Chief: ‘I Will Never Engage in a Politics in Which I’m Trying to Divide People…’ 

During remarks before a group of Southeast Asian leaders visiting the White House today, the president told what some are calling “the lie of the century.”

“One of my core principles is that I will never engage in a politics in which I’m trying to divide people,” Obama told the group with a straight face.

This president has based his entire career — from his community organizing days to his time in the White House — on the politics of division.

Employing the Alinsky model, Obama has established a long track record of “rubbing raw the resentments of the people” and  exploiting divisions on class, race, ethnicity, and sex. By the Spring of 2012, Charles Krauthammer had dubbed him “the  Divider In Chief.”

Bing

 . . . "Discover the Networks has an extensive compilation of Obama’s tendency to pit populations and interests against each other for political gain. This tendency to fan the flames of division has been an unhealthy scourge on the nation for six and a half years.
This president has told a lot of lies throughout his tenure, but this one has to be his “most in your face” and obnoxious whopper yet." . . .

.... Read more...

The Alarmist-in-Chief Rallies the Troops against Climate Change

 If climate change were a true enemy of the United States, President Obama would extend a hand of peace, or declare victory and go home.

Rich Lowry at NRO   "President Barack Obama is less than stalwart in the fight against ISIS and doesn’t seem overly concerned about Vladimir Putin’s predation in Ukraine or China’s aggression in the South China Sea. It is the fight against climate change, an allegedly dire threat to the nation’s security, that brings out his inner Churchill. In remarks at the Coast Guard Academy commencement, Obama pledged his undying hostility to climate change and his determination to fight it on the beaches and in the fields. 

""He called it “one of the most severe threats” we face and “an immediate risk to our national security.” President Obama is to climate change what Cato the Elder was to Carthage.

  

"He hailed the Coast Guard for building more fuel-efficient cutters, and the Marines for deploying with portable solar panels. It was one of the most insipid calls to arms ever made by an American commander-in-chief, and there is unlikely to be much competition until President Elizabeth Warren rallies the U.S. Navy against income inequality." Full article

 

On Democrats

What is wrong with Democrats? . . . "Regulations and the overseers who impose them on us add to my misery, as do tax forms that are needlessly complicated and filled with loopholes that the rich can afford to exploit.  I find the fruits of our labor are harvested and enjoyed by others.

"I see the Constitution trampled to advance agendas I do not share.  Free speech is all too often rejected as “hate speech” while watchers for “trigger words” are all too ready to censor the speech of others. 

"I see unions corrupt politics and teachers’ unions protect their interests  and the future of their pensions over protecting the future of our children we place in their care.  The work ethic is being eviscerated.  People who build things are derided by President Obama as having not built things or dismissed as “lottery winners.”  Doctors do not heal, they are greedy people who yank out tonsils and lop off legs solely for profit -- or so says the Democrats’ leader, Barack Obama, and the Democrats who cheer him.  People who work in finance are “fat cats” and “one- percenters” who must be “toppled” -- or so sayeth the one percent of one percenter, Hillary Clinton, probably the most hypocritical person in America.  Why do Democrats worship her?

"So I have come to just throw my hands in the air and ask, “What is wrong with Democrats?” Let’s begin the inquiry.". . . Read more:

Video: MSNBC panel stunned at lack of enthusiasm for coronation

. . . "In fact, Hillary can’t fire up enough enthusiasm to find 125 women for a fundraiser — in New York City. At the last minute, organizers had to expand access to men after only 50 women bought tickets for the max-contribution event … but Jazz had more on that earlier today, so you already know that." . . .

Americans gave their lives to defeat the Nazis. The Dutch have never forgotten.

 Much appreciation for this article goes to the milblog Blackfive and their post,  Never Forgotten

WaPo

 

"They haven’t forgotten. For 70 years, the Dutch have come to a verdant U.S. cemetery outside this small village to care for the graves of Americans killed in World War II.

"On Sunday, they came again, bearing
Memorial Day bouquets for men and women they never knew, but whose 8,300 headstones the people of the Netherlands have adopted as their own.

"For the American relatives of the fallen, it was an outpouring of gratitude almost as stunning as the rows of white marble crosses and Jewish Stars of David at the Netherlands American Cemetery. Each grave has been adopted by a Dutch or, in some cases, Belgian or German family, as well as local schools, companies and military organizations. More than 100 people are on a waiting list to become caretakers." . . .

.....
. . . "Roebroeks’s 84-year-old mother, Gerda Roebroeks-Nelissen, keeps a photo of one American soldier, Ohioan Henry Wolf, on a mantelpiece by a lit candle. Wolf and a few other soldiers stayed with her family after the liberation, when she was 13 years old.

“ 'For my father, Henry was like a child of his,” she remembered.

"He was devastated after Wolf was killed in Germany on June 11, 1945. The private’s body was brought back to Margraten, where he was buried in Plot K, Row 2, Grave 22. Roebroeks-Nelissen’s family has cared for Wolf’s grave ever since." . . .

Some silent footage of the 1945 Memorial Day events.

Please read all of this moving article.

 Now, many Dutch adopters can find a soldier’s next-of-kin through Ancestory.com. In the United States, relatives of soldiers seeking their Dutch adopters often contact the American World War II Orphans Network, which organizes periodic trips to the cemetery.

 The Drill Sergeant posted these thoughts:   "One of the saddest sights I ever saw was near Arnhem, while touring Market Garden Locations in the late '70's.

"West of town there is a British Army cemetery. Probably on the DZ's. "A little piece of England" as the story goes. Unlike the beautiful golf course lawns of the American locations, this was like a UK country Church cemetery, down to the black wrought iron fence and the individualized headstones with inscription by the families.all good...

"Next to it was the cemetery of the 1st Polish Para Brigade. Run down and forgotten. For those who don't know, there were London Poles and Moscow Poles and the Red Army installed Moscow Poles in Warsaw. Any London Poles foolish enough to return after the war went to the Gulag, in a later day Katyn Forest. And of course, the Polish families could not visit the West.

"Brave Men, who died fighting Nazi's, but who ended up on the wrong side of the cold war."

Comedian Argus Hamilton on the Clintons

"Bill Clinton is reported Friday to have accepted donations from FIFA on behalf of the Clinton Foundation while he was lobbying FIFA to allow the U.S. to host the World Cup tournament. Let's just enjoy him while we can. It's a little late in life to be asking Bill Clinton to reject an international body.

"Bill Clinton accepted a five hundred thousand dollar fee from a small charity called Happy Hearts last year. It raises money for Indonesian kids victimized by the tsunami. He gave the half million to the Clinton Foundation, which raises money for Arkansas kids victimized by the vast right- wing conspiracy.

"Hillary Clinton's campaign revealed she'll announce for president at a rally next week in New York. She'll kick off the day by giving an interview to George Stephanopoulos of ABC News. The announcement was made by Hillary Clinton's press spokesman, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News." . . .Comedian Argus Hamilton

No army in Mid East is challenging ISIS. Iran regroups to defend S. Iraqi Shiites, Assad to save Damascus

DEBKAfile   "The Iraqi army, for its part, has been virtually wiped out, along with the many billions of dollars the US spent on training and weapons. There is no longer any military force in Iraq, whether Sunni or Shiite, able to take on ISIS and loosen its grip on the central and western regions.

"The Kurdish peshmerga army, to whom President Barack refused to provide armaments for combating the Islamists, has run out of steam. An new offensive would expose the two main towns of the semi-autonomous Kurdish Republic – the capital Irbil and the oil city of Kirkuk – to the depredations of the Islamist belligerents."

. . . 

 "The Obama administration can no longer pretend that the pro-Iranian Shiite militias are the panacea for the ISIS peril. Like Assad, Tehran too is being forced to regroup. It is abandoning the effort to uproot the Islamists from central and western Iraq and mustering all its Shiite military assets, such as the Badr Brigade, to defend the Shiite south - the shrine towns of Najef and Karbala, Babil (ancient Babylon) and Qadisiya – as well as planting an obstacle in the path of the Islamists to Iraq’s biggest oil fields and only port of Basra." . . .

Brace yourself for Obamacare sticker shock.

 

Instapundit/ PJ Media
" BUT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO SAVE $2,500 PER YEAR!: Brace yourself for Obamacare sticker shock."

Health insurers are proposing to raise Obamacare rates more than in the past — some by more than 70 percent — now that they are finally equipped with all the information they need to price those plans.
Plans wanting to raise rates by at least 10 percent next year posted the proposed increase online Monday, as required by the 2010 healthcare law. Insurers are allowed to raise rates each year, but they must publish significant increases ahead of time.
Insurers have sold plans in the law’s new insurance marketplaces for two years in a row. But the difference in 2016 is that for the first time, they have a full year of claims data from enrollees that tells them how high or low to set the price tag. . . .
While plans and rates vary by state, a look at rate increases published Monday on healthcare.gov shows many hovering around 10 to 30 percent in many states.
But there’s also a sprinkling of even bigger hikes. Blue Cross wants to raise its most expensive “platinum” plan in Alabama by 71 percent next year. Aetna wants to charge 59 percent more for one of its small group plans in Virginia. Time Insurance Co. is proposing a 64 percent hike for an individual plan in Georgia.

"Gosh, what happened to that $2500 per year savings we were promised? Same thing that happened to the “if you like your plan/doctor, you can keep it/him.”  I think we need trigger warnings for all Obamacare-related news items, since it inevitably causes painful flashbacks of these promises.  It’s like intellectual rape over and over again."

 

As Obama's Economy Falls, White House Excuses Boom

http://terrellaftermath.com/

IBD Editorials  "Economy: They must be getting pretty desperate in the White House economic shop these days. When the revised GDP numbers showed a first-quarter decline of 0.7%, they started blaming the estimates themselves.

"On the list of excuses for President Obama's ongoing failure to produce decent economic growth, we hadn't heard this one: A "seasonal adjustment" problem at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which compiles the GDP estimates.

"White House chief economist Jason Furman says that, despite its seasonal adjustments, the BEA might not be accurately accounting for the effect of winter weather on growth."

 

 Read More At Investor's Business Daily

 

Bush did it.