Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Hillary Clinton has had enough of Bernie Sanders

Politico via Drudge
clinton1_lede_1160.jpg

"There’s an unmistakable Groundhog Day quality to this spring campaign swing by Hillary Clinton: the chain-chugged Diet Dr Peppers, the pained rasp and crisp pantsuits — and the once-commanding lead undercut by an underdog near enough to nip at her sensible heels.

"Seventeen years ago, the underdog was Rick Lazio, a forgettable Long Island Republican with a paperboy’s face and a war chest brimming with anti-Hillary millions who gave Clinton a brief scare in a triumphant Senate race that inaugurated her electoral career. This year, the foil is independent democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, a stubborn Brooklynite with a nearly nonexistent path to the nomination and a nearly unquenchable thirst for humiliating the Democratic front-runner in her home state’s April 19 primary.

"Clinton didn’t much care for Lazio and she’s clearly arrived at the enough-already stage with Bernie." . . .

The Shallowness of Bernie Sanders

"Bernie Sanders: Deep down he is shallow. And Marxist."
Thomas Lifson; Part one:  "Bernie Sanders is genuine left wing radical, and unless he has changed since the time he was mayor of Burlington, Vermont, believes that the shared misery of impoverished-by-communism Cuba is preferable to the unequally-distributed abundance of the United States. David Horowitz and others have made the point that unless a former communist explicitly rejects his former beliefs, [you] can assume that he or she still adheres to them.
In that [context], take a [look] at [the] excerpts from Sanders television interviews of yore dug up by Michael Moynihan of the Daily Best and John Stossel, and aired on Stossel’s Fox Business Network show, showing Sanders praising bread lines as a good thing:" . . .

Thomas Lifson; Part two  The thoughts of Chairman Bernie, as expressed in the transcript of a long interview he had with the editorial board of the New York Daily News, are remarkable. For their ignorance, banality and shallowness. Michael Cohen of theBoston Globe issued a hilarious series of tweets (hat tip: Instapundit) on the exchange, including this gem:
. . . "Huh? Thomas Edison had nothing to do with it? J.P. Morgan had nothing to do with it? This is Marxist magical thinking, that enterprises organize themselves, and that only workers, with no management necessary, create innovation, make efficient decisions on resource allocation, guide complex organizing efforts, designing, manufacturing, and marketing products.
"Only a Marxist believes anything like this. And adherence to this view creates poverty, bread lines, and mass misery. As communism has every time it is tried."
Huh? Thomas Edison had nothing to do with it? J.P. Morgan had nothing to do with it? This is Marxist magical thinking, that enterprises organize themselves, and that only workers, with no management necessary, create innovation, make efficient decisions on resource allocation, guide complex organizing efforts, designing, manufacturing, and marketing products.
Only a Marxist believes anything like this. And adherence to this view creates poverty, bread lines, and mass misery. As communism has every time it is tried.
Bernie Sanders: Deep down he is shallow. And Marxist.
And if Hillary is knocked out of the nomination process and Sanders supporters demand and get him as the Democrat nominee, with Trump continuing his walk to the GOP nod, Sanders would win the presidency, according to current polling.
No matter how hard I pinch myself, I can't seem to wake up from this nightmare.
"And if Hillary is knocked out of the nomination process and Sanders supporters demand and get him as the Democrat nominee, with Trump continuing his walk to the GOP nod, Sanders would win the presidency, according to current polling.

"No matter how hard I pinch myself, I can't seem to wake up from this nightmare."
Cartoons added by TD

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Windpower is blanketing the countryside; to what end?

WindTurbineBoiler

Wind-power subsidies? No thanks.  From April 1, 2013  . . ."Government subsidies to new wind farms have only made the industry less focused on reducing costs. In turn, the industry produces a product that isn’t as efficient or cheap as it might be if we focused less on working the political system and more on research and development. After the 2009 subsidy became available, wind farms were increasingly built in less-windy locations, according to the Department of Energy’s “2011 Wind Technologies Market Report.” The average wind-power project built in 2011 was located in an area with wind conditions 16% worse than those of the average project in 1998-99.
"The Department of Energy admits that this trend is due at least in part to the 2009 federal subsidy: Because the grants that companies receive aren’t based on how much power they produce, “it is possible that developers have seized this limited opportunity to build out the less-energetic sites.” Meanwhile, wind-power prices have increased to an average $54 per megawatt-hour, compared with $37 in 2005.
"If our communities can’t reasonably afford to purchase and rely on the wind power we sell, it is difficult to make the moral case for our businesses, let alone an economic one." . . .
Big Wind's Bogus Subsidies   "Giving tax credits to the wind energy industry is a waste of time and money."
"If private companies like Berkshire Hathaway are not willing to jump in without government incentives, it is a sign that the energy technology is a bad investment. It simply does not make sense for the government to subsidize energy technologies that are economically unviable, while attempting to restrict other options that provide reliable and affordable energy for everyday Americans." . . .

Monday, April 4, 2016

Europe's karmic destiny


Phyllis Chesler  "Europe's actions, now and in the past, have led to the reaping of a horrible harvest.
. . . "In addition, for having aided and abetted the contemporary scapegoating of Israel (which is a new form of anti-Semitism); for having attempted to appease the Jihadists in their midst by throwing Israel as a bone to them, Europeans are now facing a thousand rape attacks and bombing jihads.   

"One hopes that Europeans will finally understand that this is precisely what Israel has been suffering and that appeasement is not an option.

"I am not holding my breath. Here’s why.

"There are too many European (and Americans) who prefer to see the suffering of the immigrants over and above the murderous violence of the Jihadists; the desire of immigrants to escape the hot wars in the Muslim world for the freedom and opportunities in the West over and above their almost guaranteed further radicalization and the consequent growth of intolerance, conformity, and censorship in the West; the immigrant willingness to procreate and work at low-paying jobs over and above the face masking of woman, the spread of polygamy, forced child marriage, and FGM.

"America is the last country standing which represents the Western enterprise. The presidential election which is upon us will decide the fate of the world. We had better choose wisely."

Yet the liberals will not understand - cannot be made to understand - the dark sky that has formed in the Middle East and is moving ever stronger toward Europe and our hemisphere. 
Think not? After the massacres, assaults and rapes in Europe, there are cartoonists who still create messages like this:

Wait What? Obama Regime Tells Landlords They Can’t Refuse Renting To Criminals Because That Could Be ‘Racist’

Weasel Zippers

Screen Shot 2016-04-04 at 9.24.06 PM

"Isn’t this equating black people with criminals? Who would ever rent to people again if you could not screen out criminals or bad people as tenants?
The Obama administration released a warning Monday telling the nation’s landlords that it may be discriminatory for them to refuse to rent to those with criminal records.
The Fair Housing Act doesn’t include criminals as a protected class, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) says refusing to rent based on a criminal record is a form of racial discrimination, due to racial imbalances in the U.S. justice system.

Was Obama sending a message when flashing the peace sign?

There will be no peace in the world so long as there are terrorism-enabling progressives like Obama and his successors in the White House

Canada Free Press  "Was President Barack Hussein Obama really only playing the clown and “bemusing” world leaders by flashing the peace sign in Washington’s nuclear security summit ‘team photo’?

“ 'He gave the peace sign as the group stood together for a ‘team photo’-bemusing dozens of the world’s politicians.” (Daily Mail, April 2, 2016).
"If the grinning jokers in the nuclear summit “team photo” are the world’s best hope against nuclear attack, then God help civil society. 
"But as there has been no peace in America,  or in much of the Free World since Obama was installed in the Oval Office, one has to wonder if there was some kind of surrealistic message in his pictorial flashing the Peace Sign at the world.
"After eight long years of his antics, many know that Obama would do most anything to turn a group photo-op into another selfie.  Performing ‘The Wave’ at a baseball game with Cuban president Raul Castro, his stand-still tango in Argentina are only the two most recent.
. . . 
"The nano-second flashing of the peace sign should go down in history as Obama’s signature effort toward elusive world peace." . . .
Like most of the deadbeat 1960s ‘Give Peace a Chance’ progressives, Obama thinks flashing the peace sign during a photo-op or having a daughter whose favorite T-shirt shows off the peace symbol is gifting humanity with peace in our time.
This is what peace, Barack Obama style, is doing right now in Raqqa, where Moslem jihadists have taken an entire city hostage.

Obama's Bizarre Iranian Love Affair Continues

Political Cartoons by Lisa Benson

Roger L. Simon  "It's a shame the Republican candidates continue to waste time hectoring each other over the most trivial matters when over the last few days it has become increasingly clear how completely the president of the United States sold out the interests of our country and the West to the Islamic Republic of Iran -- by far (it isn't even close) the biggest state sponsor of terrorism. The candidates are missing an extraordinary teaching moment about something of monumental significance, assuming they are paying attention to it themselves.

"The media -- only a very few of whom (like Bloomberg's Eli Lake and our own Michael Ledeen) seem even faintly interested in what is going on with Iran -- is equally complicit and even more culpable in this fascination with the tangential.

"What the supposed journalists are missing is a chance to solve the greatest mystery of our times -- why Barack Obama decided to sell out those Western interests to Iran; and why, at least for the moment, he has taken the Shiite side in the thirteen hundred year plus Sunni-Shiite civil war and in so doing placed humanity in jeopardy, making the mullahs stronger and virtually assuring they will eventually have atomic weapons." . . .

A Nation of Laws—Sort Of

Victor Davis Hanson


. . . "And it is evident that Clinton went to such extraordinary lengths in order to mask her communications and shield them from the sort of Freedom of Information Act suits that now are plaguing her—and that she arbitrarily decided which of her private server emails were public and which private, and then simply destroyed thousands of them without audit.

"If she is not indicted by the Obama administration for violations of federal laws or conspiracy to obstruct justice, in the future it will be almost impossible to prosecute successfully any federal employee for violating government protocols about the handling of classified information. If Clinton avoids indictment, it will make a mockery of the Obama Justice Department that sought to prosecute Gen. David Petraeus for showing his personal journals, which contained classified information, to his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell. The government leveraged Petraeus on the basis that he knew his notebooks contained classified information though they were not formally identified as such; Hillary Clinton knew the same about her own communications, but unlike Petraeus was sneaky enough not to admit to that fact on tape or to associates." . . .

Hillary's lack of Political Correctness is the only sin leftists will not tolerate

Hillary Clinton can freely fire workers on a whim, enrich herself by doing favors for other nations, grovel before adversaries of America, openly lie to victims of terrorism, get $600 haircuts, show contempt for national honor in general and still be adored by liberals. But to commit the sin of being un-PC in her use of words is something liberals will not tolerate.
Prepare today for her "hostage" video with the use of words such as "misspeak" and "tired" along with her expounding on the words of Donald Trump. Then all will be OK with the liberals she has offended. Nothing to see here, people; move on. 
When asked about it, she will at some point resort to her old standby, the cackle. 
The Tunnel Dweller

Hillary commits major abortion gaffe  "A gaffe, as Michael Kinsley famously explained it, is when a politician accidentally tells the truth.  And Hillary Clinton did exactly that on Meet the Press yesterday, violating the rulebook of Planned Parenthood to use language that obscures the nature of abortion, substituting words like “choice” and “fetal tissue mass” to mask the taking of a human a life.

"Hillary’s sin?  Stating her view that “an unborn person does not have constitutional rights.”  Acknowledging that an “unborn person” is what is being killed, or terminated, as the abortion industry prefers to euphemize it, creates legal conceptual difficulties.  Bradford Richardson explains in the Washington Times:. . . 
. . . "CLINTON: "Well, under our laws currently, that is not something that exists. The unborn person doesn't have constitutional rights. " . . .
 
HopeNChangeCartoons

"So, let’s get this straight.  Hillary Clinton admits that unborn children are, in fact, people.  She just draws the line at allowing them rights.
"But illegal immigrants?  Sure, they can have rights, no problem.  Any special interest group in society?  Yes, of course, make sure they all have rights.  She would tell you she wants “equal” rights for all." . . .Video

Yet Hillary still stokes excitement in her followers!  "Hillary Is So Exciting, Supporter Just Can’t Stop Yawning" 
Sound turned down; this video is more fun with the sound off. 

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Former defense secretary Gates on the presidency of Barack Obama

Former defense secretary Gates says Obama 'double crossed' him
. . . "You have to wonder how widespread the following observation by General Flynn is among military leaders:
“I think he sees the military actually as something that is more dangerous to the world,” Flynn added. “I think that he looks at the United States military and sees it as a threatening application around the world, than actually as a useful tool.”
"You can apply that observation to Obama's entire view of the US role in international affairs. He is the first president in US history to not see the US as a force for good in the world. His constant, groveling and gladhanding with murderous thugs and dictators and his numerous, humiliating apologies may please his lefty base in the US and radicals around the world, but a president is supposed to stand up for American interests, not apologize for defending them." . . .

Gates: Obama White House was unable to understand Libya military strategy  The entire column is about the ineptness of the Rev. Wright / Bill Ayres - mentored president and their foreign policy.
. . . "Absolutely amazing. We have a $700 billion military and Obama would rather listen to the 25 cent advice coming from Samantha Power.
"The result of this ignorance is plain to see around the globe. Everybody is taking advantage of us and we are flailing about against our enemies with no real strategy to defeat them. Since Obama is even more clueless than his staff, nobody who knows much of anything at all about military policy has any input.
"But it's all good because we have "smart power.' "


Political Cartoons by Michael Ramirez
Sec. Gates is not the only one unimpressed by this president:
Camera Just Caught The Moment Obama Embarrassed America At Global Nuclear Summit  . . . “ 'The President has come under fire for his relaxed attitude in recent weeks. On a state visit to Argentina, he was seen dancing the tango with an attractive female dancer. On a historic visit to Cuba, he went to a baseball game instead of returning to the United States to respond to the horrific terrorist attacks in Brussels,” it wrote.
“ 'Before that, Obama chose not to attend the funeral of former first lady Nancy Reagan, electing to go to a music festival and eat tacos instead,” it added."

Rumor checks

Snopes  "Welcome to snopes.com, the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation."
Rumors such as these:

Disney Bans Tattoos in Theme Parks

"A report that Disney had banned customers bearing tattoos from their theme parks was an April Fool's Day joke." Read More

Hillary Clinton Arrested by FBI

"Several "too good to be true" fake news articles published on April Fools' Day reported that Hillary Clinton had been arrested by the feds." Read More

Donald Trump Blames Muslims for Death of Jesus

"A news article that reported that Donald Trump said he didn't like Muslims because they killed Jesus originated from a site that specializes in satire stories." Read More
Snopes tells us about sites such as "PunkShare (a prank generator similar to FeedNewz), which enabled social media users to generate shocking false headlines for sharing on social media. The user-generated pranks tended to get away from their intended audiences and into the wilds of social media rather quickly, and often involved rumors claiming popular chain stores or restaurants were closing nationwide. In March 2016, a spate of similar sites created constellations of false rumors about celebrities moving to small towns."

Mob Studies: Coming to a University Near You

Mike Adams

"Our nation is turning slowly into Greece. If you are not frightened by the idea of violent mobs negating free speech then you probably haven’t been watching the news. If you are all surprised that this is happening in America then you probably haven’t been reading my columns. I’ve been warning about it for years. Mob rule has been the norm on campus for years. Now, it is finally spilling over into the larger culture.
"You may have already heard about the most recent episode of campus mob violence in response to the Republican takeover of the University of North Carolina (UNC) higher administration. The Board of Governors (BOG) is now solidly Republican and so is the new UNC system president. Consequently, we are now getting down to business and making some long overdue program cuts. Naturally, not everyone is happy about the proposed budget cuts." . . .