Monthly Archives: September 2016

What The Gridlock In Congress Is Really About

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Unions and corporations make donations to Congressional candidates. Some groups that take money from the government also lobby Congress and make campaign contributions. That’s not really the way it should be, but that is the way it is. One of the largest contributors to Democratic campaign coffers is Planned Parenthood. They generally get their money’s worth. This has become very obvious in the debate over funding the battle against the Zika virus.

Yesterday Life News posted an article about the battle over Zika virus funding.

The article reports:

Pro-abortion Democrats are still holding up aid funding for the Zika virus with demands that more taxpayer dollars go to the abortion giant Planned Parenthood.

Democrats both in the U.S. House and Senate have been blocking aid bills to combat the virus for months because it doesn’t include funding for a few Planned Parenthood facilities in Puerto Rico.

On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said they would continue to block the aid funding unless the abortion chain gets more funding. The pro-abortion Democrat said she is willing to compromise with Republicans on other issues but not on the Planned Parenthood funding, The Hill reports.

Abortion has become a major issue related to the Zika virus because of a possible link to birth defects. New research suggests the virus may not be to blame for the uptick in birth defects in some areas affected by the virus. Still, abortion advocates have been using the virus as an excuse to push for more abortions on babies with disabilities. Some pro-abortion groups even have been scaring women into aborting their unborn babies without knowing if they have Zika or if their unborn baby has a disability.

Senate Democrats blocked the latest version of the aid bill on Tuesday because it prohibited funding from going to the abortion giant. Pro-abortion legislators claim that the abortion giant is essential in the fight against the Zika virus because it provides contraception and other health services to women.

Planned Parenthood’s main mission is not to provide health services to women–it may do that, but it is not how the organization makes its money.

In September 2015, the Heritage Foundation reported:

Although Planned Parenthood Federation of America reportedly requires all affiliates to have at least one clinic that performs abortions,[4] Planned Parenthood’s annual report does not identify the number of affiliated clinics that provide abortion services or how much of Planned Parenthood’s total revenue results from abortions. Instead, the report claims that abortions account for only 3 percent of the medical services Planned Parenthood affiliates provide.[5]

How does the Planned Parenthood annual report arrive at the 3 percent figure? The calculation counts each “discrete clinical interaction” as a separate “medical service,” meaning simple tests or routine provision of birth control are given the same weight as surgical or chemical abortions.[6] For example, if a woman in the course of a year receives a free condom, a pregnancy test, a sexually transmitted infection (STI) test, and an abortion, Planned Parenthood would say abortion was only 25 percent of the services provided.

Even with Planned Parenthood’s broad definition of “medical service,” data reported in the organization’s annual report suggest that roughly 12 percent of people who received a service from Planned Parenthood affiliates received an abortion during the reporting year.[7]

Despite a nearly 20 percent decline in the number of abortions in the country between 2000 and 2011,[8] the number of abortions Planned Parenthood performed during that time increased from 197,070 to 333,964, thereby more than doubling its share of the abortion market from 15 percent in 2000 to 32 percent in 2011,[9] the latest year for which national data are available.

Planned Parenthood affiliates perform about 20 abortions for every prenatal care visit and about 200 abortions for every adoption referral based on the approximately 300,000 abortions they perform each year.[10]

Follow the link above to the Heritage Foundation article to review the references.

This is another ‘follow the money’ story about Washington, D.C. As a voter, you are responsible for putting the current Congress in office. If you don’t like what they are doing, get involved and vote them out.

The Zika virus may not get the funding to stop it because the Democrats want to reward one of their major campaign donors. If that bothers you, it’s time to get involved.

 

Putting Roadblocks In Front Of People Looking For The Truth

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For those of you sick and tired of hearing about Hillary’s emails–I am too. However, why is the investigation taking so long? Well, The Washington Examiner posted an article today that may explain that. Keep in mind that emails have already been released that show collusion between Hillary Clinton and the Congressional Committee that was investigating her.

The article reports:

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., blasted the State Department on Thursday for moving quickly to provide a requested email from Hillary Clinton’s server to Democrats on the House Oversight Committee while stonewalling requests from Republicans and the public.

During a hearing about the agency’s handling of Freedom of Information Act requests, Meadows questioned why the State Department handed over an email chain between Colin Powell and Clinton just five days after Rep. Elijah Cummings, the committee’s top Democrat, and seven other minority members asked for it while ignoring a FOIA request for that same email since 2014.

“We try to the best of our ability to respond to committees of Congress,” said Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary for management at the State Department, in defense of his agency’s treatment of records requests.

This is disgusting. We simply need to relocate everyone who has worked in Washington for the past eight years (possibly much longer), and replace them with honest people. Can government bureaucrats be honest people? I don’t know, but it seems that we should be able to do better than the corrupt bunch that is currently running our government. The political and bureaucratic class is doing everything it can to protect its corrupt rear end. The only people who can stop this are the voters. In November it will be obvious whether or not we are going to be a country or a banana republic.

For Your Consideration

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I hope this isn’t true, but I have no reason to believe that it’s a lie. Free Republic posted a story today claiming that Hillary Clinton was wearing an earpiece last night during the candidate forum.

The article reports:

While Clinton was fielding questions from NBC’s Matt Lauer and the public Wednesday night on live television, a quiet buzz started circulating in New York law enforcement circles about Hillary’s left ear. NYPD sources confirm Clinton was wearing an ‘inductive earpiece,’ the same technology employed by almost all lead Broadway actors to receive forgotten lines and stealth off-stage cues from directors. The flesh-colored earbud is easily concealed. There are no wires running directly to the ear like you see with the units employed by Secret Service protection detail personnel.

The skin-tone piece Clinton was wearing, however, was somewhat different from the standard issued stealth earpiece and is much different in appearance from a hearing aid. This unit is considered a “micro” earbud which contains all the technology but is a fraction of the size with a very high price tag. In fact, most of the units this size, approximately 3mm or comparable to a small pearl stud earring, are normally issued to law enforcement or corporate security teams, sources said. At a size that small, the earbud is designed to sit inside the opening of the ear canal, almost invisible to anyone. However, the unit does move and shift along with its wearer and at times can slightly pop out of the canal and require a quick readjustment, experts said.

Ironically, the revelation that Clinton was wearing such a unit might have only been recognized because of astute NYPD officers attached to her security detail who are accustomed to seeing the stealth apparatus at stage shows, conventions and security personnel of VIPs and international dignitaries at the United nations and elsewhere in the five boroughs. Likewise, NYPD detectives employ a parallel technology to communicate during undercover Ops.

Based on experts familiar with the technology, the stealth earpiece operates on a bandwidth from 300 Hz to 4KHz. Many such units are powered by SONY. The range of the unit can be unlimited depending on how the back end is set up. Technically, you could receive cues from 100 feet away or from someone sitting in Washington D.C. while you sat in New York City, experts said. The set up and range is flexible based on need and use. The unit does not require Bluetooth to operate via short distances but long range operations would require Bluetooth, which is easily configured.

This is the picture:

hillaryearbudIf anyone has a better explanation of what this is, please leave a comment. I would love to hear that she wasn’t cheating, but her history makes that doubtful. The really sad part is that she seems to think she can do anything dishonest that she wants and either no one will know or no one will care.

 

The High Cost Of A Feckless President

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The U.S. Naval Institute is reporting today that a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker flew within ten feet of an American Navy P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft over the Black Sea today.

The article reports:

The incident between the Navy P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft and a Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker occurred at about 11:20 A.M. local time in international airspace over the Black Sea, according to a statement provided to USNI News.

“During the intercept, which lasted approximately 19 minutes, the Su-27 initially maintained a 30 foot separation distance then closed to within 10 feet of the P-8A, which is considered unsafe and unprofessional,” read the statement.

“We have deep concerns when there is an unsafe maneuver. These actions have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries, and could result in a miscalculation or accident which results in serious injury or death.

The article concludes:

U.S. Navy aircraft and ships routinely interact with Russian units in the area and most interactions are safe and professional. However, we have deep concerns when there is an unsafe maneuver. These actions have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries, and could result in a miscalculation or accident which results in serious injury or death.

This is a reflection of what Vladimir Putin thinks of the Obama Administration. Things will not change if Hillary Clinton is elected.

If We Had An Honest Media, This Video Would Be Unnecessary

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The following video was posted on YouTube yesterday. The video is an interview of Julian Assange. Regardless of how you feel about this man, it is a very interesting interview.

PJ Media posted an article that included the video yesterday.

The article includes the following:

Assange claimed that Clinton knew full well what the (C) was for —  because she has used it thousands of times herself. He dropped the bombshell at the end of his interview with Sean Hannity.

“In the FBI report released Friday, I agree with your analysis, it is very strange that was released Friday afternoon on a Labor weekend,” Assange said. “I do think it draws questions to what sort of game the FBI is trying to play. … Hillary Clinton says that she can’t remember what a ‘C’ in brackets stands for. Everyone in positions of government and in WikiLeaks knows it stands for classified, confidential. And in fact, we have already released thousands of cables by Hillary Clinton…with a ‘C’ in brackets right there,” said Assange while producing one of the documents. “Thousands of examples, where she herself has used a ‘C’ in brackets, and signed it off, and more than 22,000 times that she has received cables from others with this ‘C’ in brackets. So, it’s absolutely incredible for Clinton to lie. She is lying about not knowing what that is, but it’s a bit disturbing that James Comey goes along with that game.”

Here is the video:

 

Draw your own conclusions.

Our Coming Election Is Beginning To Look Like A Soviet Election

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Hillary Clinton is not doing well in the polls. Donald Trump is gaining. The federal government from the top down has become totally politicized under President Obama, so it only makes sense that the full force of that federal government would be used to skew the results of the election in November. What am I talking about? Judicial Watch has the story.

Some of the hightlights:

Months after the Obama administration spent $19 million to register new immigrant voters that will likely support Democrats in November, it’s dedicating an additional $10 million in a final push as the presidential election approaches. The money is distributed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Homeland Security agency that oversees lawful immigration, to organizations that help enhance pathways to naturalization by offering immigrants free citizenship instruction, English, U.S. history and civics courses. Officially, they’re known as “citizenship integration grants.”

Since 2009 USCIS has doled out $63 million in these grants to prepare more than 156,000 resident immigrants in dozens of states for U.S. citizenship, according to the agency’s figures. Besides the free classes, Uncle Sam also offers immigrants free “naturalization legal services,” the latest USCIS grant announcement states. “Recipient organizations serve both traditional immigrant destinations and new immigrant getaway cities in 21 states,” the USCIS document reads. The latest $10 million investment will prepare approximately 25,000 residents from more than 50 countries, according to the agency. More than a dozen states—including California, New York, Florida, Washington and Ohio—with large resident immigrant populations are being targeted as well as cities with huge immigrant populations such as Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington D.C.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been aggressive in promoting its citizen integration grant program this year, offering large sums to recruit new groups that can offer immigrants the services they need to become citizens. Clearly, the ultimate goal is qualifying as many immigrants as possible to vote since they tend to cast ballots for Democrats. “We intend to award about $1 million to first-time recipients in the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program for fiscal year 2016,” the agency’s grant announcement states. “If you represent one of these organizations, or know of an interested organization, we strongly encourage that organization to consider applying. Additionally, another $9 million will fund programs that provide both citizenship instruction and instruction and naturalization application services.” Some might consider this a cash giveaway.

These new citizens have not been here long enough to understand voting in America. They are simply being programmed to vote Democrat. The dream of the Obama Administration is that they will overwhelm the votes of any Americans who vote for Trump.

The article continues:

This is part of a broader, government-wide initiative launched by the president to “strengthen federal immigrant and refugee integration infrastructure.” The mission is to facilitate life in the U.S. for immigrants and refugees by enhancing pathways to naturalization, building welcoming communities and providing “mobile immigration services in underserved communities.” To carry out this important mission Obama created a special Task Force on New Americans chaired by his Domestic Policy Director, Cecilia Muñoz, the former vice president of the powerful open borders group National Council of La Raza (NCLR). Millions of taxpayer dollars have funded the task force’s various enterprises, including multilingual media campaigns promoting immigrant rights. The goal is to “strengthen civic, economic and linguistic integration and to build strong and welcoming communities,” according to a report issued by the task force. In the end communities will be strengthened by welcoming all residents, the administration assures.

Practically every federal agency is participating in the effort by contributing resources and creating programs to help immigrants. For example the Department of Labor (DOL) is implementing “new workforce programs” for the “new Americans” and the Department of Education is promoting “funding opportunities” to assure that the immigrants “are provided the tools they need to succeed.” The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is collaborating with other agencies to release a career and credentialing toolkit on “immigrant-focused career-pathways programs.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) and USCIS are making sure the new Americans have worker rights and protections and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is launching a two-year pilot to assure that non English speakers have “meaningful access to housing programs” subsidized by American taxpayers.

If we do not get the current politicians out of Washington in November, we will officially become a banana republic. Americans will wonder where their freedoms and standards of living went. This is a serious threat to our republic.

Irony

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This is irony at its best–it’s sad, but it is irony at its best.

Daniel Pipes is the president of The Middle East Forum. He is an affiliate professor at the University of Haifa. His bi-weekly column appears regularly in the Washington Times and in newspapers around the globe, including the Israel Hayom (Israel), La Razón (Spain), L’Opinione (Italy), and the Australian. His special interests include the role of Islam in public life, Turkey, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and U.S. foreign policy.

Mr. Pipes posted an article today on his blog that is totally ironic.

The article reports:

A local source in the Iraqi province of Nineveh announced on Friday, September 2, that the [ISIS] terrorist group has released an order, based on which no woman is allowed to be wearing niqab or burqa when entering the security and military centres. The decision, according to the source, came after some fully veiled women killed a number of ISIS commanders and members in the past months.

The article notes the irony:

(1) First irony: The ISIS rulers first require the burqa and then, realizing what a perfect cover it provides to attack themselves, ban it from sensitive areas. Should attacks on them continue, perhaps ISIS will have to ban the burqa from all public places, which would be quite a change.

2) Second irony: The most retrograde, extreme, and morbid Islamist regime on earth recognizes burqas as a danger to public security while the modern, moderate, and democratic states in the West remain clueless.

(3) Despite my frustration on this issue, I do believe it’s just a matter of more assaults and more time before Westerners wake up to this problem. But how many more must be gratuitously robbed, raped, and killed before that happens? (September 6, 2016)

It is time for the west to wake up to the danger the burqa represents. Even partially covering your face in your driver’s license picture represents a security risk. It’s time to put the safety of Americans before someone else’s dress code.

Does This Bother Anyone?

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Fox News is reporting today that emails obtained by Citizens United as part of its ongoing Freedom of Information Act request to the State Department show collusion between Hillary Clinton and the Democrats of the Senate Committee that was investigating Benghazi.

This is a screen shot of the emails (taken from the Fox News article):

emailsBenghaziHearingSo Senator Menendez was not interested in finding out what actually happened at Behghazi–he was interested in advancing Hillary’s political ambitions. I know there were people on that committee that cared about the truth, but they were blocked by committee members that were playing politics.

The article reports:

The emails were obtained by the group Citizens United as part of its ongoing Freedom of Information Act request to the State Department for emails from Chelsea Clinton and Hillary Clinton’s closest aides.  

“This email chain provides a rare behind the scenes look at which Benghazi-related issues the Clinton camp had concerns about going into Secretary Clinton’s January 2013 testimony on Capitol Hill, and what they had apparently plotted out beforehand with a Democrat committee member to deal with those concerns,” Citizens United said in a statement. “Citizens United will continue to release all new Benghazi emails we receive through our FOIA lawsuits as they come in — the American people have a right to know the full picture.”

Fox News asked the Clinton campaign as well as Menendez’s office if they coordinated before the 2013 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing; what was meant by the term “wired;” and how the email exchange was consistent with the principle of independent congressional oversight. There was no immediate response from either.

In 2013, the New Jersey senator — who is now facing federal public corruption charges — at the time of the hearing was about to become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, replacing John Kerry who was in line to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Menendez has denied any wrongdoing.

Washington no longer represents the interests of Americans. It is time to clean house.

Is Anyone Paying Attention?

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The Clarion Project reported today that U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson recently spoke at the annual Islamic Society of America (ISNA) event.

The article reports:

ISNA is a group with Muslim Brotherhood origins and an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror-financing trial. In fact, the Holy Land Foundation was based within the ISNA building. ISNA also deposited checks into its account that were made out to the “Palestinian Mujahadeen [jihadi fighters],” the name used at the time for Hamas’s military wing. The funding was transferred to the Holy Land Foundation.

The ISNA conference that Johnson spoke at included extremist speakers, as it has done in previous years. This year’s speakers included Jamal Badawi, a founder of another Brotherhood entity, the Muslim American Society. Badawi has praised the terrorist organization Hamas, preached in support of “combative jihad” and was personally listed in a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood directory.

Another conference speaker was Nihad Awad, found and executive director of the Council on Islamic American Relations (CAIR), another U.S. Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land terror financing case.

Johnson told conference participants, “Your story is the quintessential American story,” and was described by the Post as the “highest-ranking U.S. official to address an ISNA conference.”

However, the Post’s description of Johnson is misleading as President Obama himself addressed the 2013 ISNA convention in which he  praised the group for its partnership with his administration. That convention also featured a roster of speakers including many extremists.

One of Obama’s senior advisers, Valerie Jarrett, also spoke at ISNA’s 2009 convention. 

This is not a group we want to give any amount of credibility to. Their goal is to infiltrate the American government with the purpose of instituting Sharia Law. This is the link to one of the government exhibits from the Holy Land Foundation Trial. The first section is in Arabic, but the second section is the government’s translation. The document details the Muslim Brotherhood’s Plan to subvert American freedom and replace with Sharia Law. Take the time to follow the link and read the exhibit. It illustrates why it does not make sense to have Mr. Johnson as the head of Homeland Security or Valerie Jarrett as a Presidential advisor.

The Real Cost Of War

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I have a friend who was born in Japan in the late 1930’s. She is now an American citizen. A few years ago she shared her story with a local newspaper. I would like to share some highlights of her story here.

In March of 1945, she and one of her sisters were sent away from Tokyo to her grandparents’ home in Miyazaki on Kyushu to keep them safe. Her father remained behind. Her father was a high-ranking officer in the Japanese military.

She shares a story of a day at her grandparents’ home when she was pretending to go to school (her sisters went, but she was still too young) and heard the air raid warning siren. She laid down on the concrete road as flat as she could, then ran home as soon as the airplanes passed. Following that incident, she stayed close to her grandparents’ home where she could seek shelter in the bushes in the backyard.

During the time at her grandparents’ house, she traveled to Hiroshima with her mother and sisters to see cousins. While there, her mother received a call from her father to leave immediately. Her mother quickly left and returned to Miyazaki. The family later learned that their cousins had been killed in the bombing of Hiroshima.

She then traveled with her mother and sisters to visit friends in Nagasaki. Within two days of their arrival, her father called and told them to return to Miyazaki. They later found out that the friends they were visiting in Nagasaki were killed in the bombing.

She shares the story of spending a lot of time in an underground bunker at her grandparents’ home. They were in the bunker when they heard the news of the Japanese surrender. The day after the announcement, her father called and asked the family to return to Tokyo immediately. They boarded a train to Tokyo and were treated very well when some of the military officers on board recognized them and realized that they were related to their former superior officer (her father). They were escorted to the front of the train where there were soldiers carrying square wooden boxes wrapped in white scarves. Each soldier had an empty seat next to him reserved for his wooden box. Each box contained the ashes of a fallen soldier. In her story, she notes that as the train passed through Hiroshima, all the shutters were drawn so that the passengers could not see the devastation.

When the family arrived back in Tokyo, there were only a handful of houses left standing. Everything was flat and burnt.

There is more to the story. The lady telling this story was the daughter of a high-ranking Japanese officer who attempted to persuade the emperor to end the war in order to avoid the bombing of Japan that he knew was coming. Obviously the emperor ignored the advice. Her father was eventually relieved of his command just before the end of World War II.

I share this story for a number of reasons. The main reason is to illustrate that although war is sometimes necessary, it is a horrible thing. It has a great impact on the society and culture that is involved in the fighting. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a horrible first step into the atomic age, but without those bombs, many more lives would have been lost and the Japanese culture would have probably been destroyed as a result of an invasion of Japan.

The lesson here is that although war is a horrible thing, there are times when it must be fought. When it is fought, it must be fought hard in order to end quickly the death and destruction that it brings. That is the lesson we seem to have forgotten since the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I hope we never see another atomic bomb dropped, but I also hope we have the wisdom and courage to do what we need to do in order to end quickly any war that we must fight.

If You Haven’t Been Paying Attention This Weekend…

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Oddly enough, the FBI chose the holiday weekend to release the investigation notes of Hillary Clinton’s email practices. This is traditionally a time when no one is paying much attention to the news. Whether that is by design or not, we can’t be sure–but we sure can wonder.

So what was in the notes released? The American Thinker posted a summary yesterday.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

First and foremost: Hillary has blamed her head injuries for startling memory lapses.

Julia Edwards of Reuters reported that “Hillary Clinton told federal investigators she did not recall all the briefings she received on handling government records while U.S. secretary of state because of a concussion suffered in 2012.”

A moment’s reflection reveals that Hillary Clinton has admitted that she was unable to adequately perform job functions directly related to national security because of a brain injury.  Donald Trump is already pushing this issue, but it is also critically important that a major campaign against the NFL – which is opening its pre-season now – stressing the seriousness of concussions’ effects on mental functions has been underway.  The American public, especially males, is on notice to take concussions very seriously.

Hillary Clinton has admitted to a disability due to her brain injury.

We have no way of knowing how serious that brain injury was or if it is currently impacting her intellectual capacities.

The article continues:

Second, the documents reveal that Hillary, who justified her private server on the grounds that she wanted to carry only one handheld device, actually had 13 of them in a four-year period.  What on Earth is the story there?  Almost everyone who votes carries a cell phone, and I daresay the percentage who have needed to have 13 different devices in the space of four years is well below a tenth of one percent.

…Third, if we believe the story offered by Hillary, a laptop computer full of classified documents – her email archive disappeared when mailed with the USPS:

A laptop containing a copy, or “archive,” of the emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server was apparently lost—in the postal mail—according to an FBI report released Friday. Along with it, a thumb drive that also contained an archive of Clinton’s emails has been lost and is not in the FBI’s possession.

This is stunning negligence, and absolutely striking news: that some of the nation’s highest secrets were made available to any foreign power monitoring the secretary of state and willing to snatch mail from the capable hands of the Post Office.  Who on Earth would subject national security to the tender mercies of the USPS?

Where was the nationwide alert to recapture the missing archive?  Did the Clinton campaign notify security agencies?

This is disqualifying negligence.

The negligence and lack of regard for national security on the part of Secretary of State Clinton is obvious. Would she show the same negligence if (horrors) she were elected President? I don’t know. What I do suspect is that all of this information will not make a bit of difference to her supporters. I also wonder what Mrs. Clinton is going to look like at the debates. Make-up can hide a lot of things, but mental lapses would be very obvious in a debate setting. I don’t know if all the talk of health issues is out there to lower expectations of her debate performance. I have no doubt that the only way she wins a debate with Donald Trump is to push his buttons until he loses his cool. Hopefully his handlers have coached him thoroughly enough so that will not happen. We shall see.

Really??!!

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This article is based on information posted on The Federalist Papers Project.

There will be three Presidential debates and one Vice-Presidential debate before the election. That’s good news. Americans will get to see how the candidates respond to questions and charges, etc. However, the choice of moderators is simply ridiculous.

The first “Commander in Chief” forum on September 7 will be moderated by Matt Lauer, Mr. Lauer is a ‘notable’ member of the Clinton Global Initiative. Does anyone really believe that he will be an impartial moderator?

The first Presidential debate will be moderated by Lester Holt, Anchor, NBC Nightly News. Mr. Holt can be expected to be somewhat less than even-handed.

The second Presidential debate will be moderated by Martha Raddatz, Chief Global Affairs Correspondent and Co-Anchor of “This Week,” ABC and Anderson Cooper, Anchor, CNN. If you are okay with this, remember Candy Crowley in the Obama/Romney debate. It came out later that Romney was telling the truth and Candy Crowley was lying, but at that point the truth didn’t matter. Expect the same sort of tactics in this debate. I would like to note that this debate is up against an NFL football game between the Giants and the Packers.

The third Presidential debate will be hosted by Chris Wallace. This is an attempt to appease the Republicans. Chris Wallace is not a horrible choice–he is probably the most neutral moderator possible considering who controls the media. At least he occasionally has been know to hold Hillary Clinton‘s feet to the fire when she is lying.

Regardless of moderators, schedules, etc., there will be some things learned during these debates. How does Hillary look? It seems that in the course of her questioning by the FBI about her emails, she talked about a brain injury from a fall and the fact that she was only able to return to work part time. How will she look to the American voters? Make-up can do wonderful things, but it can’t hide memory loss or mental confusion. We shall see.

Meanwhile, stay tuned and get out the popcorn–there is going to be a show!

 

Remember The Constitution

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The following is from the U.S. Senate website explaining the U.S. Constitution:

Article II

Section 2

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. The Constitution gives the Senate a share in foreign policy by requiring Senate consent, by a two-thirds vote, to any treaty before it may go into effect. The president may enter into “executive agreements” with other nations without the Senate’s consent, but if these involve more than minor matters they may prove controversial.

The president must also submit judicial and major executive branch nominations to the Senate for its advice and consent. The Constitution makes no provision for the removal of executive officers, which has remained largely at the discretion of the president.

The boldface type was added by me.

The Washington Times is reporting today:

Deliberately sidestepping Congress, President Obama formally entered the U.S. into an international climate-change agreement Saturday with China and dozens of other nations to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

In a ceremony in Hangzhou, China, Mr. Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping deposited each country’s official “instrument of acceptance” with U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon to join the agreement.

“Some day we may see this as the moment when we decided to save our planet,” Mr. Obama said. “History will judge today’s efforts as pivotal.”

Separately, Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi agreed on a side deal aimed at curbing other pollutants in the U.S. and China. They committed to “freeze” the production of hydrofluorocarbons, the chemicals often used in air conditioning and refrigeration, and cut aviation emissions by an unspecified date, possibly as early as 2021.

The U.N. climate-change pact cannot take effect until 55 nations representing 55 percent of worldwide carbon emissions formally ratify the agreement. The U.S. and China, the world’s two largest emitters, represent about 38 percent of total global emissions.

Man-made climate change is a hoax. There is no agreement by scientists on this matter. The reason many scientists support the concept is that supporting the idea of man-made climate change results in grant money. If you claim a crisis, you get money. One of the best sites on the Internet for good climate change information is wattsupwiththat.com. I strongly recommend that anytime you read an article in the mainstream media about climate change you check that site.

Meanwhile, the President is openly violating the U.S. Constitution. Is the Senate going to push back? If the Senate Republicans do not protect the Constitution (as they have sworn to do so in their oath of office), they deserve to be voted out of office. The Democrats cannot be expected to protest because they put politics first. I would be totally surprised if more than five Senators protest. This lack of action on the part of the Senate is the reason for the success of Donald Trump as a candidate. Many (if not most) Americans are tired of politicians who do not uphold their oath of office.

Let’s see if any Senators protest this move.

I Am Told That This Is Not A Joke

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At the bottom of the article I am about to mention, the Associated Press copyright appears. The article is from KPIX in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am not making this up.

The article reports:

California’s Legislature has approved regulations on cow flatulence and manure – both blamed for releasing greenhouse gases.

The measure was approved shortly before the end of the legislative session Wednesday after its author, Democratic Senator Ricardo Lara of Bell Gardens, agreed to give dairy farms more time to comply.

In 2014, The Daily Caller reported:

As part of its plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the Obama administration is targeting the dairy industry to reduce methane emissions in their operations.

This comes despite falling methane emission levels across the economy since 1990.

The White House has proposed cutting methane emissions from the dairy industry by 25 percent by 2020. Although U.S. agriculture only accounts for about 9 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, it makes up a sizeable portion of methane emissions — which is a very potent greenhouse gas.

Some of these methane emissions come from cow flatulence, exhaling and belching — other livestock animals release methane as well.

I suspect that there may be some wives out there reading this that want to find a way to apply this law to their husbands. Just sayin’.

One Way To Pay For The Wall

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I have heard a number of suggestions as to how to pay for a border wall on America‘s southern border. One idea is to place a small tax on any money wired out of America to Mexico. It seems that many illegal aliens work ‘under the table,’ don’t pay taxes, and send money home to their families. While sending money home to your family is a noble idea, working ‘under the table’ doesn’t help the deficit or the American economy. Taxing that money would probably raise more than enough to pay for a wall. However, there is another idea that is also worth investigating.

Yesterday Gateway Pundit posted an article about paying for a wall on our southern border.

The article quotes a Lifezette report:

To fund construction of a new U.S. border wall, Donald Trump and senior advisers are considering various ideas, including the use of assets seized from drug cartels and others in the illicit drug trade.

As the debate over who will pay for the wall dominates the discussion on cable news, sources involved in the pre-planning of the GOP nominee’s Mexico trip told LifeZette the Trump camp is looking for innovative ways to pay for the construction of the border wall that both countries can support. Sensitivities in Mexico regarding Trump’s visit, and specifically paying for the border wall, are running high.

A senior Trump policy advisor stressed the proposal was just one of several funding options being discussed and said the idea was not raised during Trump’s meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

That would be a very efficient way to handle the problem.

 

Ret. Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn

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On August 23rd, Ret. Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, spoke at the Ahavath Torah Congregation in Stoughton, Massachusetts, as part of the Hausman Memorial Speaker Series. His topic was, “The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and its Allies.” The video below is that event. It is long, but it is worth watching.

 

 

The New York Times Posts A Favorable Opinion Article About Donald Trump

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Wow. The opinion page of the New York Times today posted an article entitled, “Why This Economy Needs Donald Trump.” The article was written by David Malpass, a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign.

Mr. Malpass explains:

There is no doubt who has the better plan. Our economy is growing at only 1.1 percent per year, a fraction of our average rate, and the Congressional Budget Office forecasts just 2 percent annual growth (in inflation-adjusted gross domestic product) for the next 10 years.

Yes, we went through a deep recession, but it ended in 2009. The recovery has been the weakest in decades, and the first that has actually pushed median incomes down. Business investment and profits are lower now than a year ago. Counterproductive federal policies squash small businesses with inane regulatory sprawl that affects hiring, taxes, credit and medical care.

The result is a stagnant economy that leaves out millions of Americans who would like to work and get ahead, and a devastating report card on the Obama White House.

To restart growth, Mr. Trump would immediately lower tax rates, including for middle-income voters, and simplify the tax code. Americans would be able to exempt average child-care expenses from taxes, and Mr. Trump’s administration would eliminate the death tax, which falls especially hard on some small businesses and farmers.

The article goes on to explain that simplifying the tax system while reducing corporate taxes and eliminating or capping many tax deductions would make us more competitive in the world market and create jobs in America. Mr. Malpass contrasts this with Hillary Clinton’s plan to raise taxes, creating an noncompetitive corporate tax rate and discouraging investment with higher estate and capital gains taxes. Obviously Mrs. Clinton is not familiar with the Laffer Curve. This is a picture of the Laffer Curve. What the curve illustrates is that there is a point of no return in raising taxes where increased taxes no longer result in increased revenue.LafferCurveMr. Malpass also points out that Donald Trump wants to halt the negative impact of federal regulations on business. These regulations represent a hidden tax that increases the cost of doing business so that the consumer is forced to pay higher prices for goods. Government overreach is expensive.

The article concludes:

Voters will have an opportunity to decide for or against a government that’s failing on health care, taxes, trade, cost control and regulation. One candidate wants higher tax rates. The other would lower them. One candidate thinks the economic recovery has been successful whereas the other thinks it left millions of Americans out. One candidate has spent her lifetime seeking the presidency. Mr. Trump hasn’t.

As Thomas Jefferson said, “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” It’s time for one now.

Agreed.

How To Lie With Statistics

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Ever wonder where the unemployment numbers come from? Ever wonder why you don’t seem to be moving forward and Washington is telling you how great the economic recovery is? Every wonder why you know a lot of Americans who have been unemployed for a long time and have given up searching for a job when the government keeps telling you that thousands of new jobs are being created every month? Ever wonder why your reality does not seem to agree with the reality you see reported on the news? Well, the world most of us live in is a little different from the world that the people writing the news, reporting the news, and working for the government live in.

This article doesn’t need words–it just needs charts and graphs.

From CNS News, the real unemployment picture:

BLMJobStatisticsThese are the real unemployment numbers–not the ones the Obama Administration is releasing–these numbers take into account the workforce participation rate.

This is the workforce participation rate taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

WorkforceParticipationRateSo why are those in Washington painting such a rosy picture of the economy? They are doing great. Here is a list of the wealthiest counties in America from Wikipedia. The list is from 2012, but I seriously doubt much has changed. Note where they are located:

wealthiestcountiesinAmericaOur representatives no longer represent us. Nor are the bureaucrats in government serving the American people. It is long past time to clean house!