A True Story–I Personally Know The People Involved

This story was originally posted in 2010, it was a few years old then. The then-9-year-old will be entering college in September and the then-3-year-old is now in Middle School. There is now also a six-year old daughter to add to the mix.

The kids, (my 9 year old step-son and my 3 year old son), were looking over their Halloween haul after dinner tonight.  They spread the candy across opposite ends of the table and began to compare their favorites.  The 3 year old took every lollipop he could; most of the time he graciously refused when offered an additional piece of chocolate by a house that thought a mere lollipop wasn’t enough.  But he knew what he wanted.  The 9 year old is all about the chocolate bars – Snickers, Milky Way, Baby Ruth…

So I asked my step son if he would like to take the candy back to his mother’s house.  Why not?  It’s his candy!  He said no, he would like to leave it at our house to enjoy over the coming weeks.  It seems that his mother dumps all of the candy from all of the kids into one bowl and anyone is free to take what they want when they want.  I suppose that leaves only a few bags of pretzels and boxes of milk duds at the end of a few days.  You have to gorge yourself to get your favorites before someone else does.

“That’s candy socialism”, I cried.  “You walked to those houses, you rang those doorbells, you picked out your favorites.  You are free to walk through any neighborhood you want to, even the ones you know have the good candy.  Why should you have to give your favorites to someone that didn’t want to go to as many houses or go to a better area?”

“We are a free market capitalism candy household.  It is your candy to do as you please.”

My husband than chimed in, “I’ll be taking a few pieces of your candy from your bag.  That’s called taxes.  I’m the government.”

A few minutes later, in an attempt to drive home the lesson, I asked him, “So tell me, what is free market capitalism?”

He said, “You get to keep what you get”, then he paused a minute and said, “No, you get to keep what you earn!”

I was so proud.

Then my 3 year old walked over and offered me a snack size bag of Cheetos that he had gotten.  “Here mom, you like these.  You don’t have a candy bag.”

I said, “That’s charitable giving and that’s important too.”

If a 9 year old can get it, why can’t the rest of the nation get it?

Something To Consider When Watching The Presidential Endorsements

Breitbart posted a story today about the fact that The Financial Times has endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. It is amazing that anyone would support someone who has so consistently flouted the law and has obviously jeopardized America’s national security. Just to add to the mix, there is a rumor going around that the leaked emails are not coming from Russia, but are the work of NSA employees who fear for the safety of America if Hillary Clinton is elected. So why would The Financial Times endorse such a flawed candidate–because she will maintain the status quo and continue the slide toward global governance.

Breitbart quotes the endorsement:

Rarely in a US presidential election has the choice been so stark and the stakes so high. The contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has provided high drama, amply demonstrated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s reckless, last-minute intervention in the saga of Mrs Clinton’s emails. But there must be no doubt about the gravity of the 2016 election, for America and the world.

The international order of the past 70 years is fraying, maybe even breaking down. The Brexit vote in June likely removes a pillar of the EU. The Middle East points to a shattered system; further east, in the Pacific, China is becoming more assertive, challenging America’s dominant role in the region and the postwar Bretton Woods system. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has become emboldened, threatening Nato’s borders, spreading havoc in Syria, and apparently orchestrating leaks to influence the US election itself.

This is a moment for the renewal of American leadership. One candidate has the credentials. Mrs Clinton has served as first lady, senator for New York and US secretary of state. Mr Trump deals in denigration not diplomacy. He has abused allies, threatening to remove east Asia’s nuclear umbrella, sideline Nato and unleash trade wars. Mr Trump casts himself in the role of a western strongman to stand alongside the likes of Mr Putin.

This is called spin. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have done more to damage the reputation of the United States around the world than any of their predecessors. As I write this, the Philippine government is moving away from America and toward China, Russia is amassing troops in Europe for a move against Ukraine and the Baltic states before Obama leaves office, and the “Arab Spring” loved by President Obama and Secretary Clinton has turned the Middle East into a war zone and Iraq into an Iranian satellite. The diplomacy of President Obama and Secretary Clinton has been damaging to America and to the world. Even without the emails and the mishandling of classified information, Hillary Clinton would be a disaster as President. However, she does represent the status quo and the continuing move toward global governance. The enemies of American sovereignty love Hillary Clinton for President.

We Have A Warrant

Sources have it that the re-opening of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails is related to emails found on Anthony Weiner‘s laptop. Rumor has it that the Justice Department does not have a warrant to look at those emails. Well, as of yesterday, that rumor is false.

NBC News reported yesterday:

The FBI obtained a warrant to search emails related to the probe of Hillary Clinton’s private server that were discovered on ex-congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop, law enforcement officials confirmed Sunday.

The warrant came two days after FBI Director James Comey revealed the existence of the emails, which law enforcement sources said were linked to Weiner’s estranged wife, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. The sources said Abedin used the same laptop to send thousands of emails to Clinton.

The FBI already had a warrant to search Weiner’s laptop, but that only applied to evidence of his allegedly illicit communications with an underage girl.

Agents will now compare the latest batch of messages with those that have already been investigated to determine whether any classified information was sent from Clinton’s server.

Combined with any surprises coming in the next few days from Wikileaks, this information will make for an interesting week. Get out the popcorn and watch the spin!

 

I Guess It Depends On Whose Ox Is Being Gored

I have to admit that I have somewhat mixed emotions about watching the Clintons squirm as new information about the email investigation comes out. Although Hillary Clinton is the only person responsible for the mess she is in, the mess beautifully reflects the ethics of the Democratic party and the Justice Department in recent elections. The difference is that after the election, if Hillary Clinton loses, the charges won’t go away. Handling classified information is a serious responsibility. People who have positions that require a security clearance are investigated thoroughly and educated on the handling procedures for classified information. Whether this was done in the case of Hillary Clinton remains a question.

Yesterday Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article about the email investigation.

He reminded us:

The prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens — found to be without merit and, indeed, abusive by a federal judge — influenced the Senator’s election (he lost a close one). Comey’s statement this summer that Hillary Clinton would not be charged was viewed, correctly, as influencing the election. (I didn’t hear anyone complain that Comey announced that decision, though there were complaints about the decision he announced, as well as his lengthy summary of the evidence). Comey’s decision to investigate Clinton in the first place also had the potential to influence the election.

Paul Mirengoff also reminded us that the claim that the letter to Congress stating that the investigation was being reopened was against Justice Department policy is not entirely true:

“Comey’s decision contrary to policy,” shrieked the lead headline in today’s Washington Post (paper edition; online headline is similar). But what policy did Comey violate?

At the very end of their article Post writers Sari Horowitz, Tom Hamburger and Ellen Nakashima cite a 2012 Justice Department memo by Eric Holder. It states that employees “must be particularly sensitive to safeguarding the Department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality, and nonpartisanship.” If anything, it seems to me that Comey has been too sensitive about playing the Clinton investigation down the middle, giving something to both sides in the election.

Holder’s memo went on to say that if an employee faces “a question regarding the timing of charges or overt investigative steps near the time of a primary or general election,” he should contact the department’s public integrity section “for further guidance.” Comey reportedly did seek guidance from top Justice Department officials (I’m not sure about the public integrity section). As one Justice Department official told the Post, “Director Comey understood our position; he heard it from Justice leadership.”

This is the same Justice Department that began its term by dropping the voter intimidation  charges against the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia. Frankly, I find tall people with billy clubs intimidating, evidently the Justice Department didn’t see it that way.

Remember the video?

The Justice Department dismissed the charges against the New Black Panthers, which later resulted in various lawsuits charging that political appointees in the Obama Administration interfered with the handling of the case.

The Justice Department under President Obama has been political. I don’t know how easily that can be fixed. I do know that if Hillary Clinton is elected, it will get worse. If Donald Trump is elected, considering the way some Republicans have treated him, he will not really have an allegiance to either political party. That would be a good thing. There might be some serious house cleaning in Washington.

A Tale Of Two Investigations

When the FBI is not interfered with, it conducts a thorough, complete investigation. The investigation of Anthony Weiner for sexting an underage girl was well done; the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server was a sham. That is the reason FBI Director James Comey was forced to reopen the investigation into Hillary’s private email server and the security risks created by Hillary Clinton and her staff’s careless handling of classified information.

On Friday, The New York Post posted an article about the impact the Weiner case has had on the email scandal.

The article stated the following:

It appears the FBI agents investigating Anthony Weiner for sexting an underaged girl have done the job that the FBI agents investigating Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information didn’t or weren’t allowed to do.

Agents reportedly found thousands of State Department-related emails ostensibly containing classified information on the electronic devices belonging to Weiner and his wife and top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. The discovery has prompted FBI Director James Comey to, on the eve of the election, reopen the Clinton case he prematurely closed last July.

How did agents examine the devices? By seizing them. It’s a common practice in criminal investigations, but one that clearly was not applied in the case of Clinton or her top aide — even though agents assigned to that case knew Abedin hoarded classified emails on her electronic devices.

Contrast the seizure of the devices in the Weiner case with the way electronic devices were handled in the Clinton case (as reported here on October 12):

The bombshell this week is that Loretta Lynch and James Comey not only gave immunity to Hillary’s closest co-conspirators Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson—who, despite being attorneys, destroyed evidence right and left—but, in a secret side deal, agreed to limit the FBI’s review of the Clinton team laptops to pre-January 2015 and to destroy the laptops when the FBI review was complete.

Congress and every law-abiding citizen in this country should be outraged. This blatant destruction of evidence is obstruction of justice itself.

I can’t help but think that if Hillary Clinton had cooperated with the investigation from the beginning, it might have all blown over by now. On the other hand, she might be sitting in a jail cell pondering her future and waiting for a pardon from President Obama.

 

Deal With Karma Carefully

The Washington Examiner reminds us today of some not-so-recent history.

An article posted today takes us back to 1992:

…24 years ago, as former President George H.W. Bush was surging back against challenger Bill Clinton, a special prosecutor raised new charges against Bush in the Iran-Contra probe, prompting Clinton to claim he was running against a “culture of corruption.”

…When it came, Clinton seized on it, saying for example, “Secretary Weinberger‘s note clearly shows that President Bush has not been telling the truth when he says he was out of the loop.” Clinton added, “It demonstrates that President Bush knew and approved of President Reagan‘s secret deal to swap arms for hostages.”

Paul Mirengoff of Power Line has stated:

Shortly after the election, a federal judge threw out the new indictment because it violated the five-year statute of limitations and improperly broadened the original charges. President Bush then pardoned Weinberger.

What goes around comes around.

The thing to remember here is that the media loved Bill Clinton and made the most of the charges against Casper Weinberger. The media today is supporting Hillary Clinton and will play down the new information as much as possible.

 

Will It Make A Difference?

I don’t know whether the fact that FBI Director James Comey is reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails will matter to anyone or not. Everyone (including me) is tired of hearing about Hillary’s private server. I suspect if you took a poll you would find out that half of the people polled believe that whatever new information the FBI finds will not make a difference in her support and the other half believe that whatever new information the FBI finds will never lead to any penalty for her actions.

However, John Hinderaker at Power Line had an interesting take on this story. He posted a story today that pointed out the fact that the first instinct of the Clinton campaign when faced with this story was to lie.

The article reports:

I find it revealing that when the Clinton campaign launched its attack on Comey, it led off with a lie. In her press conference last night, Hillary Clinton accused Comey of partisanship, falsely claiming that he had sent his letter only to Congressional Republicans. In fact, Comey followed the standard protocol, addressing his letter to the chairmen of the relevant committees and sending copies to the ranking minority members of each committee:

This statement in the Power Line article is followed by a complete copy of the letter, including the people it was addressed to. Follow the link to Power Line to see the letter.

The article concludes:

But that’s not all: Hillary’s campaign manager, John Podesta, echoed Hillary’s smear:

“FBI Director Comey should immediately provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter he sent to eight Republican committee chairmen,” Podesta said in a statement.

Note that this was a written statement, not an off the cuff characterization at a press conference. So the campaign’s lie–Comey is a partisan, he only communicated with Republicans!–was deliberate. That being the case, it is hard to take the Democrats’ indignation seriously.

It is unfortunate that this is coming up a week or so before the election, but all this could have been avoided by not using a private server or by complying with subpoena requests when they were made. The only person responsible for this scandal is Hillary Clinton. Her staff simply reflected her handling of classified material. Had she cooperated with the investigation, it would simply be an unhappy memory by now, but that is not the way the Clintons historically handle their own bad behavior. Bill Clinton, as President, rode out his numerous scandals by delaying, distracting, and lying. That seems to be a popular strategy in the Clinton family.

What Do You Want Washington To Do With ObamaCare?

Drastic premium increases are coming this year in ObamaCare. Scott Johnson at Power Line posted a story today about those increases. The article included this picture of a sign on a Minnesota VW:

healthinsurancepremiumsThe article points out:

Obamacare premium rate hikes have hit big time in Minnesota, which has gone all in on Obamacare courtesy of Governor Mark Dayton. Governor Dayton professes himself shocked that the Affordable Care Act is “no longer affordable.” Thanks, guy. Gee, who could have seen it coming?

Dayton is trying to create some distance between Democrats standing for election to the legislature and the unfolding catastrophe of Obamacare. He must think we’re really, really stupid and, like President Obama, he’s got the electoral success to prove it.

The answer to the healthcare insurance problem is a free market system that operates with minimum interference from the government. Government regulation tends to skew the market, making health insurance more expensive by impacting competition, and creating a situation where companies will withdraw from the market. That is part of the problem with ObamaCare. There needs to be enough regulation to ensure that everyone can get insurance, but not enough to skew the market. Insurance companies use actuary tables to calculate rates. When the government got involved in health insurance, they had no knowledge of how these tables worked. Therefore, they managed to ruin a health insurance system that was working for most Americans. The Democrats who voted for ObamaCare (there were no Republican votes for ObamaCare) have managed to ruin healthcare for a majority of Americans. If you want full government healthcare, vote Democrat, but before you do that you might want to look at the wait times for medical care in the United Kingdom, which has government healthcare. If you want healthcare to be a private enterprise that actually works, vote Republican. It is that simple.

 

While You Were Watching The Election…

The mainstream media in America is focused on Donald Trump to the point where they are ignoring a lot of things–they are not saying a lot about the emails released by Wikileaks and they are not saying much about the military buildup that is happening in Europe. When you read this story, please keep in mind how much of a threat Donald Trump is to the political establishment and how much of a change he will represent to American foreign policy. Also remember the things said about Ronald Reagan when he ran for office. Donald Trump is not Ronald Reagan, but he would be a strong President who would keep his word and defend America. There are people in this country who have a problem with that.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday about the move toward war in Europe. Somehow The New York Times has missed the story, but the U.K. Daily Mail is covering it.

Power Line reports:

It seems to be a closely guarded secret, but preparations for war are going on in Europe. A Russian fleet that includes that country’s only aircraft carrier made a point of sailing through the English Channel and along the European coast en route to Syria. Nuclear-capable Russian ships are making a demonstration in the Baltic Sea, and Russian troops, reportedly equipped with nuclear weapons, have moved near Russia’s borders with Poland and Lithuania. In response, NATO countries are hurrying troops and ships into the potential war zone.

The U.K. Daily Mail article includes the following picture:

russiantroopbuildupI realize the picture above is hard to read, a bigger version can be found in either the Power Line or U.K Mail article.

Just a few observations–Putin has sized up President Obama and concluded that America will not challenge Russia right now. If Donald Trump is elected, that may change. President Obama has already proven that he will not stand up to Putin. We also need to remember that on March 26, 2012, major news sources reported that President Obama had told outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev he will have “more flexibility” to deal with contentious issues like missile defense after the U.S. presidential election.

I understand that the mainstream media (and the Clinton campaign), which are pretty much the same thing, would like to convince everyone that electing Donald Trump as President is going to cause a war with Russia. I would like to point out that they said the same thing about Ronald Reagan. At this time we need a strong and possibly unpredictable President–weakness will bring war.

Meanwhile, Russia just completed a nuclear drill for 40 million citizens.

This is what Europe is doing about the current threat of war:

europeantroopbuildupPlease follow the link to the U.K. Daily Mail article to read the entire story.

Unfortunately Voter Fraud Is Real

These two videos are from YouTube.

This is a picture of a voting machine that wants to vote for you:

This is a short video commenting on the problems with the machines:

Our county uses paper ballots. I didn’t understand why until yesterday when I talked to a person who had the machine change his vote in the 2010 Primary Election. He had to touch the square five times before it registered on his candidate. The first four times, the machine switched his vote to the other candidate. There is a county is Texas that has switched to paper ballots for early voting because voters complained that the machine was changing their votes. This is totally unacceptable. We need an honest election.

Are We Losing Our Religious Freedom?

Yesterday Fox News reported the story of Eric Walsh, a lay minister in Georgia. The State of Georgia has asked that Dr. Walsh turn over copies of his sermons.

The article reports:

“Please produce a copy of your sermon notes and/or transcripts,” Attorney General Samuel Olens wrote to attorneys representing Dr. Eric Walsh.

…Walsh, a Seventh-day Adventist lay minister had been hired in May 2014 by as a District Health Director with the Georgia Department of Public Health. A week later, a government official asked him to submit copies of his sermons for review. He complied and two days later he was fired.

His attorneys said the government was curious about sermons Dr. Walsh delivered on health, marriage, sexuality, world religions, science and creationism. He also preached on what the Bible says regarding homosexuality.

He has since filed a federal lawsuit charging state officials with engaging in religious discrimination.

“He was fired for something he said in a sermon,” attorney Jeremy Dys told me. “If the government is allowed to fire someone over what he said in his sermons, they can come after any of us for our beliefs on anything.”

Dr. Walsh has assembled a powerhouse legal team comprised of Parks, Chesin & Walbert along with First Liberty Institute, one of the nation’s most prominent religious liberty law firms.

“It’s an incredible intrusion on the sanctity of the pulpit,” Dys said. “This is probably the most invasive reach into the pulpit by the state that I’ve ever seen.”

The First Amendment applies to churches. The government has no right to examine or control what is preached from America‘s pulpits. Although separation of church and state is not part of the Constitution (the concept is based on a letter from Thomas Jefferson), the Constitution states that the government does not have the right to interfere with the free exercise of religion.

This is not the first time a pastor has been asked to submit his sermons to the government. About two years ago I posted an article about a similar request in Texas.

These requests are unconstitutional. We need to make sure that they are not allowed to stand.

 

In Case You Were Wondering

As the leaked emails flow from Wikileaks, have you wondered if they are accurate and really from the source claimed? I have, but evidently that is partially due to my limited knowledge of electronics and how the Internet works.

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article explaining how to verify the content (and, I assume, sender and recipient of an email).

The article explains:

A digital key buried in the emails sent by Hillary Clinton’s staff shows that many of the most important emails released via Wikileaks have not been modified or falsified, according to a series of tests conducted by security experts and by Breitbart News.

The tests are important because they undermine efforts by Democrats to deter media coverage of the Wikileaks emails with vague claims that the messages cannot be verified, or could be faked, or modified. So far, those claims have been made by Donna Brazile, the interim head of the Democratic National Committee, and by Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s choice for her vice-president.

On Tuesday, for example, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Tuesday that “I can’t verify the integrity of these emails,” when he was asked about an email which showed Clinton’s staff knew that President Barack Obama was communicating with Clinton via her secret home-made email system. The email contradicts Obama’s March 2015 claim that he learned about Clinton’s server at “the same time everybody else learned it through news reports.”

But Breitbart News used commercial software and a basic e-mail verification system to confirm that the Clinton staff email — “he has emails from her — they do not say state.gov” — is valid, true and unmodified.

The article includes pictures of some of the emails and explains the method of verifying that they are real and have not been altered. As I previously explained, electronics is not my strong point, so I won’t try to explain the process.

The bottom line here is that the negative information that is coming out about Hillary Clinton is real. It is also now proven that President Obama emailed Hillary Clinton at her private server. That means that he lied to America when he said that he found out about Hillary Clinton’s private server when he read it in the newspaper.

So why is the Obama Administration aiding in the coverup of the Hillary Clinton scandals? What we are watching is the Washington establishment (both parties) trying desperately to cling to power. If Donald Trump is elected, he may keep his promise to ‘drain the swamp’ that Washington has become. That is a serious threat to the financial and physical well being of a lot of very powerful people. It is also something that is desperately needed. The best thing all of us can do at this point is ignore anything reported by the mainstream media or said by an establishment politician for the next ten days. I think the next week or so is going to contain an awful lot of mud aimed at Donald Trump. I doubt that any of what is reported will be accurate.

This Isn’t Really A Surprise

How many promises that were made so that ObamaCare would pass Congress have been broken? Do you remember that not one Republican voted for ObamaCare and that the certification of the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts was delayed long enough so that he would not be seated in time to vote against ObamaCare? Do you remember Nancy Pelosi saying, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it away from the fog of the controversy?” Was it a fog of controversy or a fog of deception? Right now it looks as if it might have been a fog of deception. Remember, “If you like your plan, you can keep it?” Remember, “If you like your doctor, you can keep him?” How is that working for you?

CBS New York posted a story yesterday about the upcoming rise in ObamaCare premiums.

The story reports:

The Department of Health and Human Services revealed Monday that premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25 percent across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, and that about 1 in 5 consumers will have plans only from a single insurer to pick from, after major national carriers such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Aetna scaled back their roles.

However, in Arizona, unsubsidized premiums for a hypothetical 27-year-old buying a benchmark “second-lowest cost silver plan” will jump by 116 percent, from $196 to $422, according to the administration report.

The Obama Administration claims that along with these increases in premiums there will be increases in the subsidies paid to Americans buying health insurance. Who pays the subsidies? The subsidies are paid for by taxpaying Americans (most of whom are not eligible for the subsidies). This plan essentially uses the cover of health insurance to redistribute wealth. It takes money away from the working middle class and gives it to the underclasses, insuring future votes from the underclass who don’t want the free ride to end.

ObamaCare was designed to fail. The eventual goal is government healthcare–where the government controls who receives treatment and what treatment they receive. It it important to note that many Canadians come to America for surgery to avoid their own government healthcare. That should tell us all we need to know about the quality of government healthcare.

A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for government healthcare. It is also a vote for higher taxes on people who work for a living. It is also a vote for limits on free speech and limits on gun ownership. That is the world she represents.

 

We Have Lost Our Perspective On Life

Last week The Washington Times posted an article about Stephanie Packer, a California woman suffering from a terminal form of scleroderma (a cancer).

The article reports:

Stephanie Packer, a wife and mother of four who was diagnosed with a terminal form of scleroderma, said her insurance company initially indicated it would pay for her to switch to a different chemotherapy drug at the recommendation of her doctors.

“For a while, five months or so, we’ve been trying to get me on a different chemotherapy drug for the infusions, because my doctor felt that it would be less toxic than some of the other drugs that we were going to be using,” Ms. Packer said in a video distributed by The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network on Monday.

“And I was going back and forth, and finally I had heard back from them, and they said, ‘Yes, we’re going to get it covered, we just have to fix a couple of things,’” she continued.

But shortly after California’s End of Life Option Act, which authorizes physicians to diagnose a life-ending dose of medication to patients with a prognosis of six months or less to live, went into effect, Ms. Packer’s insurance company had a change of heart.

“And when the law was passed, it was a week later I received a letter in the mail saying they were going to deny coverage for the chemotherapy that we were asking for,” Ms. Packer said.

The article goes on to explain that when Ms. Packer called the insurance company to ask about their decision, she asked if they would cover suicide pills. The representative explained that suicide pills would be covered under her plan.

The article further reports:

Her story comes as the D.C. Council considers permitting physician-assisted suicide. Modeled on Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, the District’s legislation would allow terminally ill patients to self-administer life-ending drugs at home.

The “Death With Dignity Act” will go before the D.C. Council for a final vote on Nov. 1.

After the right-to-die movement began garnering national attention, Ms. Packer said she noticed a change in tone at her support groups for terminally ill patients. While the meetings were formerly positive and encouraging, she said the specter of suicide now hangs above them like a dark cloud.

“And people, once they became depressed, it became negative, and it started consuming people,” she said in the video. “And then they said, ‘You know what? I wish I could just end it.’”

It is cheaper to kill someone than to treat their disease, so how do you make it acceptable? Simple, you paint the murder with nice words–it is compassionate to kill someone who is suffering, it is compassionate to save the family and the healthcare provider the cost of treatment, it is compassionate to protect the family from seeing their loved one suffer. No matter how you phrase it, you have decided to murder someone for the sake of convenience. We have reached the point where murder is only against the law when it does not apply to the unborn and the sick. We will soon reach the point where murder is only against the law when it does not apply to the elderly. Then it will be murder is not against the law when it applies to the handicapped. You get the picture.

I would like to say that a patient always has the option of refusing treatment if they chose not to go through the rigors of chemotherapy; however, that is different than taking suicide pills and ending your life. As people, we are not in charge of life and death–that is seriously above our pay grade. It is a mistake to think that insurance companies or the government have the right to determine who lives and who dies.

Why We Need Financial Accountability In Washington

On Monday, The Los Angeles Times posted an article about the Pentagon‘s request that California members of the National Guard pay back their re-enlistment bonuses.

The article reports:

The California National Guard told the state’s members of Congress two years ago that the Pentagon was trying to claw back reenlistment bonuses from thousands of soldiers, and even offered a proposal to mitigate the problem, but Congress took no action, according to a senior National Guard official.

The official added that improper bonuses had been paid to National Guard members in every state, raising the possibility that many more soldiers may owe large debts to the Pentagon.

“This is a national issue and affects all states,” Andreas Mueller, the chief of federal policy for the California Guard, wrote in an email to the state’s congressional delegation Monday. Attention had focused on California because it was “the only state that audited” bonus payments at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he added.

In the email, Mueller reminded members of Congress that the Guard had informed them about the issue two years ago. Whether members of Congress understood the scope of the problem at the time is unclear.

Nothing like punishing the little people for the mistakes of the bureaucracy.

The article goes on to report the following:

Army Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe, the California Guard’s incentive manager, pleaded guilty in 2011 to filing false claims of $15.2 million and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. Three officers also pleaded guilty to fraud and were put on probation after paying restitution.

This is a disgrace. Promises were made, and even if those promises were made in error, they still need to be kept. To ask the members of the National Guard, who generally don’t earn much to begin with, to pay back thousands of dollars because the bureaucracy made a mistake is simply wrong. I also wonder why the California Congressional delegation chose to be quiet about the matter for two years.

When You Vote, Make Sure The Machine Gets It Right

There are numerous stories floating around the Internet today about voting machines changing the votes of the people voting. Breitbart posted a story today about a Texas county that has switched to paper ballots until they get their voting machines re calibrated.

The article reports:

Chambers County Clerk Heather Hawthorne told Breitbart Texas Tuesday morning that all electronic voting was temporarily halted until her office completes a “software update” on ES&S machines that otherwise “omit one race” when a straight ticket option is selected for either major party. The Texas 14th Court of Appeals race was reported to be the contest in which voters commonly experienced the glitch.

Hawthorne explained that she expects the technical difficulties to be completely addressed by end of business Tuesday. In the interim, regular paper ballots will be used. The county clerk told Breitbart Texas that before the machines were pulled, poll workers were instructed to alert voters to the glitch and double-check their selections.

There have been reports of similar incidents in other states also. Hopefully, the problems will be corrected, and votes will be counted accurately.

How Does This Accurately Inform The American People?

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article based on Wikileaks information about the relationship between the Clinton campaign and the media.

The article reports:

Thanks to Wikileaks we now know that at least 65 mainstream reporters were working closely with the Clinton campaign this election year. They were invited to top elitist dinners with Hillary Campaign Chairman John Podesta or Chief Campaign strategist Joel Benenson.

NO FOX NEWS REPORTERS MADE THE LIST!

…We also know that Politico’s chief political correspondent Glenn Thrush was sending the Hillary campaign articles for their review before publishing.

We know CNBC and New York Times reporter John Harwood was working with the Clinton campaign to help Hillary.

At least 65 mainstream media reporters were chummy with the Hillary campaign from the beginning.\

How are Americans supposed to make intelligent decisions about voting when a large portion of the media is working with one of the candidates? Please follow the link above to read the entire article and see the list of media people included.

Science For Fun And Profit

The Daily Caller posted a story about climate research at the global warming research center at the London School of Economics.

The article reports:

The UK government gave $11 million dollars to the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP) in exchange for research that the organization reportedly never actually did.

Many papers CCCEP claimed to have published to get government money weren’t about global warming, were written before the organization was even founded, or were written by researchers unaffiliated with CCCEP. The government never checked CCCEP’s supposed publication lists, saying they were “taken on trust,” according to the report.

…“It is serious misconduct to claim credit for a paper you haven’t supported, and it’s fraud to use that in a bid to renew a grant,” Professor Richard Tol, a climate economics expert from Sussex University whose research was reportedly stolen by CCCEP, told The Daily Mail. “I’ve never come across anything like it before. It stinks.”

Meanwhile, the CCCEP was attempting to get another $5.4 million from the government to pay for operations until 2018.

The article also reports:

The author who received $3.65 million, Charles Driscoll, even admitted to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the result of his study was predetermined, saying “in doing this study we wanted to bring attention to the additional benefits from carbon controls.”

Now think about that for a minute. If the results of the study were predetermined, why did they do the study? Also, what does that tell us about the scientific aspect of the studies on climate control–are those results predetermined also? Even with my limited knowledge of the Scientific Method, I know there is something wrong with reaching the conclusion before you do the research (or without doing the research).

In case you are a new reader of this blog, I would like to recommend wattsupwiththat.com as the best, most honest website on the Internet dealing with climate change.

How To Undermine An Investigation

Wikileaks is giving us tremendous insight into the corruption that seems to encompass Washington politics, but there are still some people who are doing investigative reporting and posting the information on the internet for everyone to see. This article is a combination of an article citing information from Wikileaks and an article that is the result of some good investigative reporting.

Yesterday Lifezette posted an article about some emails released by Wikileaks relating to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

The article reports:

The email in question is a list of recent voicemail messages left for Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta around Oct. 6, 2015, including one from McCaskill. “Give me a call back at your convenient [sic] on my cell or at home. Got some info about the state department IG,” she said. “You guys should digest and figure out what if anything we can do.”

…Adam Jentleson, a top aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, planted a story in The New York Times alleging a past connection between a single staffer in the IG’s office and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley was evidence of “fishy” activity.

Jentleson noted the deputy inspector general at the State Department was Emilia DiSanto, who had previously been a top aide to Grassley and alleged DiSanto could be improperly feeding information on the State Department inquiry to her former boss.

“There does seem to be a fishy pattern here, and a fishy connection,” Jentleson told The New York Times.

A separate email released by WikiLeaks last week seems to confirm the Clinton camp had put Reid’s office up to the attack on the IG’s credibility.

Let’s get something straight. Hillary Clinton’s private email server was a threat to national security. There is little doubt that the server was hacked by any foreign intelligence service worth its salt. This is a national security matter–not a political matter. It speaks volumes that the Democratic party and The New York Times were willing to turn it into a political matter.

Now to go to the investigative reporting part of the story. Twitchy posted an article yesterday about another aspect of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server.

The article reports:

The quick and dirty summary is that Gov. McAuliffe’s super PAC donated the $467,500 in a failed attempt to elect Dr. Jill McCabe to the state senate in 2015. She lost the race to the incumbent Republican, but shortly after the election her husband — Andrew McCabe — was promoted to Deputy Director of the FBI and one of his jobs was an “oversight role in the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails.”

It is long past time to clean house in Washington. Americans have become the victims of political incest!

If You Repeat A Lie Often Enough, People Accept It As Truth

On Thursday, Fred Fleitz posted an article at National Review about Hillary Clinton‘s claim that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies determined that Russia was responsible for the wikileaks release of damaging DNC emails and damaging Hillary Clinton emails. That statement does not line up with the facts.

The article reports:

What Clinton said was false and misleading. First of all, only two intelligence entities – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – have weighed in on this issue, not 17 intelligence agencies. And what they said was ambiguous about Russian involvement. An unclassified October 7, 2016 joint DNI-DHS statement on this issue said the hacks. . . are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europa and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.

The author of the article explains the problem he has with that statement:

My problem with the DNI/DHS unclassified statement is that it appeared to be another effort by the Obama administration to politicize U.S. intelligence. Make no mistake, U.S. intelligence agencies issued this unprecedented unclassified statement a month before a presidential election that was so useful to one party because the Clinton campaign asked for it. The Obama administration was happy to comply.

This is another example of the fact that the Obama Administration has totally politicized every aspect of our government. Government agencies that need to operate independently of partisan politics has not operated that way under President Obama. It is a safe bet that they will be equally political under a President Hillary Clinton.

The article at National Review concludes:

Maybe the Russians are behind the WikiLeak hacks of Democrat e-mails, possibly to influence the 2016 presidential election. I’m not convinced of this. I’m more concerned that these constant leaks of Democratic e-mails demonstrate that Democratic officials appear to have no understanding of the need for Internet security. This makes me wonder if John Podesta’s e-mail password is “password.” These are the people Clinton will be giving senior jobs with high-level security clearances. That is the real security scandal that no one is talking about.

Fred Fleitz is a senior vice president for policy and programs with the Center for Security Policy. He worked in national-security positions for 25 years with the CIA, the State Department, and the House Intelligence Committee.

 

 

I Don’t Understand How This Is Legal

The Common Core Diva posted an article today about the money being spent on the data mining of our students under Common Core. The article includes the following:

commoncoreushouse-appropriationsI guess I just don’t understand how this works–how is it legal to use Medicaid funds for education.

The article explains what is going on:

If you’re not sure how the Library and Museum Grants are going to be used against us and help shift our community culture to an aligned ‘one for all’ compliant group:
https://commoncorediva.wordpress.com/2016/07/03/hitting-the-books-part-2/

Related and  a bit dated (2015), I exposed how Medicaid would be used to help align our students via loans, education, and all kinds of other federal overreach (for example: American Apprenticeships). At the crux? Sen. Lamar Alexander! See:
https://commoncorediva.wordpress.com/2015/09/27/weekend-news-tracking-the-ccsscteworkforce-aligned-society/

So, what else is this Report hiding? Below is a short list of hidden federal overreaches in education.
a) Continued use of taxpayer money  without our consent. Congress covered its backside with this excerpt: “Within the funds provided, the Committee has focused increases on priority areas and reduced funding for programs that are no longer authorized, are of limited scope or effectiveness, or do not have a clear Federal role.”

b) Topping the priorities: biomedical research. Biggest ‘winner’? NIH (National Institutes of Health) I first wrote about the educational overreach via the NIH back in 2014. It has not only continued since then, but has increased its overreach, thanks to Congress. What is becoming more obvious is that the Affordable Health Care is being embedded in not only education, but every aspect of our lives.
See: https://commoncorediva.wordpress.com/2014/12/13/sic-em-saturday-more-fed-budget-watch/

c) The Brain Initiative is among the top priorities. It’s yet another White House led plan of overreach. Learn more: https://www.braininitiative.nih.gov/?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
Knowing how ESSA and its mandates include using students, teachers, and families as research subjects, this is a very big area of concern!

d) CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and SAMSHA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) also get boosts of taxpayer money. Thanks to ESSA and its abuse of Title One funding in addition to the RTIs (Responses to Intervention) and Behavior Intervention and Management, as well as the data mining/tracking, our schools are absolutely in harm’s way of more federal overreach in education. How? ESSA plainly states that anything and everything..as long as its in the name of ‘student success’ is permissible; thereby open to being funded..with OUR money!

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. The government overreach into our children’s minds is frightening. Parents need to wake up and see what is happening to our schools. Our children are not being educated–they are being indoctrinated and physiologically manipulated into becoming compliant citizens. Please carefully check your candidates to see where they stand on Common Core and the government takeover of education.

I Guess I Am More Than A Little Naive

The following story was posted at DaTechGuyBlog on October 14th:

This is exactly what happened:

Yesterday afternoon in sunny and hot Miami my friend answered the doorbell. I kept an eye from the window.

An average-sized man in his thirties, wearing a pink polo shirt and khakis, holding a clipboard, immediately said hello in Spanish, and asked her if she was [her name], registered at that address. She said yes.

At that point I moved closer to the entrance but he could not see me. I could hear the conversation very clearly. The entire conversation was in Spanish. He spoke very clear, native-speaker quality Spanish.

The man did not identify himself nor did he declare any affiliation with any political party or committee, polling organization, or business of any kind.

He handed her a cell phone with questions that he claimed were “on the issues affecting our community”, but the list of five questions in English were all negative statements about Donald Trump, “I do not like how he treats women,” “I do not like his stance of immigration,” among them. The statements were in large enough bold print she could read them without her reading glasses. He asked her to check the ones she agreed with.

Her reply was that she does not answer political questions, and gave him back the phone. She had to repeat this a couple of times, until the guy finally realized he was getting nowhere.

He then asked her if she would prefer that no further polls be conducted at her house. She said yes.

The man, still speaking Spanish, pulled a sheet of paper from his clipboard and asked her to fill in a form, telling her that, if she signed that form, she would not be approached again with any polls.

My friend was not wearing her reading glasses so she took the form indoors. I went to the door (this is the first time he saw me), excused myself and locked the door.

I did not stop long enough to see whether the man carried or wore any ID tags or anything showing any affiliation. None were apparent at first glance. I just wasn’t going to leave an unlocked door unattended.

I looked at the paper my friend was holding. It had three copies on one page of a form saying, in English,

I PLEDGE TO VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON,

followed by some more text in English, and three lines for the respondent to fill in their name and address.

Again, I repeat, the entire conversation was in Spanish.

But the form was in English. Only in English, with no Spanish translation anywhere.

I read it to her aloud, returned it to her and she opened the door, gave back the form to the man, and told him she did not appreciate being mislead. He asked her what she meant, and she told him that the form was a pledge to Hillary, not a do-not-call request.

He had the nerve to ask her why wouldn’t she pledge to Hillary, to which she curtly replied that she would not pledge for any political candidate since her vote is private. “Even for the best candidate?” he asked. She again said, “my vote is private.”

At this point, the guy thanked her, said good-bye and left.

I don’t know – and certainly I’m not about to ask – who she’s voting for, but Hillary did not make any friends there yesterday.

Parting questions: If there’s no intention to deceive, why no translation on the form? Why no disclosure of who he works for? Who is behind that survey?

To be very honest, this entire event would have gone entirely over my head, but DaTechGuy is considerably more savvy about these things than I am. His closing comment:

UPDATE DTG: I just read this piece and I don’t think Fausta gets what’s going on here. The reason for the form is obvious and that reason is fraud.

  1. Step 1: Go door to door in the spanish community for the purpose of getting signatures on a form pledging the non english reading voters for Hillary Clinton with the name and address and an authentic signature
  2. Step 2: Submit absentee ballots in the name of the above person for Hillary Clinton.

If the voter doesn’t show at the polls, perfect, they’re absentee ballot is counted for Hillary no questions asked.

If they show up the vote and attempt to vote causing said ballot to be questioned for any reason the signature sheet is produced.

This is actual fraud straight up and every person in that neighborhood is being targeted, and you can bet if it’s done at your friends house it’s being done everywhere else.

Fausta your friend needs to call the Florida AG and the local media STAT.

Wow.