Right Wing Granny

News behind the news. This picture is me (white spot) standing on the bridge connecting European and North American tectonic plates. It is located in the Reykjanes area of Iceland. By-the-way, this is a color picture.

Right Wing Granny

This Day In History

(Originally posted on December 7, 2020.)

From The American Patriot’s Daily Almanac:

Pearl Harbor

Sunday, December 7, 1941, began as a serene morning at the U.S. Navy base on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. The warships of America’s Pacific Fleet rested at anchor. Many sailors were preparing for church or relaxing, and all was quiet at Pearl Harbor.

At about 7:55 a.m. a buzz from the sky broke the calm as a dive-bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan dropped out of the clouds. Seconds later, a swarm of Japanese warplanes followed. Sirens wailed as explosions sounded across the harbor and black smoke poured into the sky.

American sailors scrambled to battle stations while the Japanese planes screamed in for the kill. The main targets were several huge battleships moored in the harbor. Antiaircraft guns roared to life, but they did little good. Bombs and torpedoes hit ship after ship: the Arizona, the Oklahoma, the California, the West Virginia, the Utah, the Maryland, the Pennsylvania, the Tennessee, the  Nevada.

Sailors fought to save their ships, their comrades, and their own lives. Much of the California’s crew abandoned ship after flames engulfed its stern. When the captain determined the battleship might be saved, Yeoman Durrell Conner hoisted the American flag from the stern. At the sight of the colors, the sailors returned to fight the fires and keep her afloat.

Despite such heroism, the attack reduced much of the fleet to smoldering wreckage. The Japanese planes disappeared into the sky, leaving 2,400 dead, 1,200 wounded, and 18 ships and more than 300 American planes destroyed or damaged.

News of the disaster left Americans stunned, but not for long. A remark attributed to Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who planned the attack, sums up the result of Pearl Harbor: “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and instilled in him a terrible resolve.”

The Vaccine Is Not One Hundred Percent Effective Against Covid-19

Yesterday The Epoch Times reported that the Hawaii Department of Health has reported that three people who were fully vaccinated against Covid-19 have come down with the virus.

The article reports:

All three patients had received both doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, reported KITV4. They all experienced mild symptoms and did not appear to spread the disease to others, the DOH told the news station.

COVID-19 vaccines don’t prevent infection, however they mitigate severe symptoms and lower the risk of hospitalization, health experts say.

One of the patients, an Oahu-based health care worker, received the second and final dose of the vaccine in January. The worker traveled to several U.S. cities about a month later, and tested positive following routine testing upon returning to Hawaii as per travel protocol.

Contact tracing hasn’t identified any additional infections among close contacts of the health care worker.

It isn’t clear which vaccines each of the three patients received.

The article notes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that even people who have had the virus get the vaccine because they are not sure how long the immunity lasts. It sounds as if they really don’t know a whole lot about how the entire disease works.

The article also notes the following:

Lt. Gov. of Hawaii, Josh Green, urged people not to be discouraged by the news, as the vaccines work “in a huge percentage of people.”

“Remember, 95 percent of people get immunity from the vaccines and five percent don’t from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine,” Green told news station KHON2.

As someone who has had the coronavirus and recovered from it, I think I will take my chances with my own antibodies.

Changing The Rules As You Go Along

The Democrat party claims to be the party of diversity, yet after a number of primary elections in which mainly Democrats voted, there were only three candidates left–two old white men and one woman. Now they have changed the debate rules so that the woman won’t be eligible to participate in the next Democrat debate. Doesn’t sound very diverse to me.

The Washington Free Beacon reported yesterday that under the newly announced rules for the March 15th Democrat debate, Representative Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat who represents Hawaii, is not eligible to participate.

The article reports:

Under the newly announced rules for the March 15 CNN/Univision debate, candidates must have at least 20 percent of the awarded pledged delegates in order to qualify.

…Elderly white male candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have already locked up the required delegates, but the rule change makes it nearly impossible for Gabbard to qualify, even with a strong showing in the next round of primaries. The congresswoman needs 335 more delegates to lock up 20 percent by March 15, but only 352 are up for grabs on March 10.

Gabbard suggested on Thursday that she would attend the debate if invited, tweeting that she would “welcome the opportunity to raise & discuss the foreign policy challenges we face.”

DNC spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa appeared to downplay the prospect of Gabbard making the debates in a Super Tuesday tweet, saying, “of course the threshold will go up.”

It’s  interesting to me that they changed the rules to let Mayor Bloomberg participate and now they have changed to rules to exclude Tulsi Gabbard. I suspect her presence would make for a much more interesting debate.

The article concludes:

The exclusion of Gabbard comes one day after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) suspended her campaign, leaving the race with only one female candidate and prompting extensive soul-searching and criticism from Democratic women and media figures.

“I so wish that we had a woman president of the United States, and we came so close to doing that,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “I do think there’s a certain element of misogyny.”

Former presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) omitted Gabbard entirely in her reaction to Warren’s departure, telling reporters, “Look at what’s happened. There are no women currently in this race.”

The Democrat presidential primary has reached the point where it is a soap opera that is moving very slowly toward something. I think it’s time to get out the popcorn!

How You Word The Question Is Important

On Tuesday, YouTube posted a video of Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono speaking at a pro-abortion rally in Washington, D.C. The Blaze posted some of her remarks.

The article reports:

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono used her time in front of the crowd to fire up the protesters with a tale of school kids in Hawaii who are worried about their abortion rights and to brag about how she rallied those children.

“I just left 60 eighth-graders from a public school in Hawaii, and I told them I was coming to a rally in front of the Supreme Court, and they said, ‘Why?'” Hirono said. “I said it’s because we are — we have to fight for abortion rights, and they knew all about it.”

…”I asked the girls in that group of eighth graders: How many of you girls think that government should be telling us, women, when and if we want to have babies? Not a single one of them raised their hands,” she continued.

Getting kids to love abortion is apparently pretty popular with the protesters because they cheered wildly at this.

“And then, the boys who were there among the 60, I told them, you know, it’s kind of hard for a woman to get pregnant without you guys,” she said, and the crowd laughed. “They got it.”

Lots of gender assumptions and cis-hetero posturing there, but we’ll move on.

She said she asked the male students, “How many of you boys think that government should be telling girls and women when and if we’re going to have babies? And not a single one of them raised their hand,” again to great excitement from the gathered abortion enthusiasts.

First of all, most eighth graders respond to peer pressure. I would not call this a reliable poll.  Second of all, it’s all in how you word the question. The government is not telling women when to have babies–the government is attempting to protect the lives of the unborn. The government is not telling women to engage in activities that might result in pregnancy–that is a choice women make.

It offends me that the Senator took it upon herself to talk to eighth graders about abortion. This is a subject that the children should discuss with their parents. There was no consideration given to children whose parents have raised them in religious settings where abortion is considered immoral. I think the Senator was totally out of line in talking to the eighth graders and then using them to promote something that is not universally supported.

The video is up at YouTube and included in the article at The Blaze. I chose not to post it here.

The Coast Guard Will Get Paid

Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported the following:

Concerned about U.S. Coast Guard forces losing a paycheck in the partial government shutdown, President Trump personally urged his team to find a solution that would allow the administration to make this week’s $75 million payroll, according to officials.

Trump stepped in on Wednesday, calling on top lawyers and staffers to determine if the Coast Guard could make payroll despite being included in the shutdown that has impacted about 25 percent of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, which houses the Coast Guard.

Military personnel under the Department of Defense are not included in the shutdown, because their appropriations were approved earlier in Congress.

Officials said that Trump was keen to find a “way we can fix this” as news media stories about the Coast Guardsmen’s plight started to pile up.

At his urging, the Office of Management and Budget, DHS and the Coast Guard determined that the rules governing pay to Coast Guard forces requires it be made through the end of the year. To make it, the lawyers said that unused funding could be tapped for pay. The service had a bit more than the needed $75 million left over from its past continuing resolution appropriation, enough to make this month’s last payroll check.

“The president is trying to make the shutdown as painless as possible for workers, and this case proved it,” said an official.

Remember that only 1/4 of the government is shut down because President Trump had the forethought to get the rest of the budget passed previously. The Democrats (who in the past voted for a fence (a.k.a. wall) have changed their minds and shut down the government because President Trump wants a wall. At least President Trump is attempting to make the shutdown as painless as possible while Representative Nancy Pelosi (who should be in Washington negotiating) vacations in Hawaii.

Going Against Conventional Wisdom

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about a recent study of which states are the wealthiest and which are the poorest. Then Breitbart compared those results with the voting records of the people in those states. The results were surprising.

The article reports:

Democrats paint themselves as the party looking out for the little guy and more interested than Republicans in representing the poor and their best interests.

But according to Ken Fisher, the founder and executive chairman of Fisher Investments, best-selling author and one of the richest men in the United States, a USA Today study released earlier this month that shows the economic profile of all 50 states, ranked by household income, reveals much more.

When Fisher read what he called “a breathtaking economic profile” of the states he found in it something that was “embedded” in it that reveals what he believes is “arguably the greatest unseen political truth of our time.”

This is the surprising correlation:

USA Today headlined its story reporting on its findings: “Wealth in America: Where are the richest and poorest states based on household income?”

But Fisher headlined his commentary about the study published in USA Today on Sunday: “Midterms: Poorest states have Republican legislatures, and richest have Democratic ones.”

“Fathom it, and you will see how politics may unexpectedly affect economics and wealth for years to come,” Fisher wrote.

The article points out that the five richest states have legislatures controlled by Democrats. He doesn’t mention that those states also have some of the highest tax rates in the country. Those states are Maryland, New Jersey, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.  According to an article at Wallet Hub, a website that ranks states according to tax rates, Maryland ranks 44th, New Jersey ranks 47th, Hawaii ranks 51st, Massachusetts ranks 45th, and Connecticut ranks 49th in the list of states with the lowest tax rates. Yes, I know there are not 51 states, but the District of Columbia was included in the list.

I guess you have to move to a state with a legislature controlled by Republicans if you want lower taxes.

Some Thoughts On Hawaii’s Mistaken Alert

Rush Limbaugh said some very interesting (and true) things about Hawaii’s false missile alert. I would like to share them here.

This is part of the transcript of what Rush Limbaugh said yesterday on his radio show:

You know, I mentioned on this program countless times that one of — you know, we all have pet peeves. And one of my biggest pet peeves is arrogant condescension. People who know less than I do who think they know more than everybody else, and they’re arrogant about it. And then they condescend, treat you like you’re an idiot, treat you like you can’t possibly know what you’re talking about.

The second — and it’s kind of related — the second pet peeve that I have is people insulting my intelligence, and it happens frequently. And we are in the midst of it right now with this explanation of what happened in Hawaii with the, “Oops, the guy hit the wrong button!” And for 34 minutes, the people of Hawaii thought they were dead. Yeah, he hit the wrong button twice.

Have any of you — don’t do this if you haven’t — have any of you on your iPhone ever had to erase the whole thing for whatever reason to start over? It’s called settings, general, reset. And there are many different things you can reset. You can reset network settings, you can reset the whole damn thing, which means that you are going to erase everything on the phone. You have to confirm that a minimum of three times.

Apple will not let you do that accidentally.  And it’s an iPhone and there’s not a single nuclear code on an iPhone.  All there is is your personal data.  All of your passwords, your settings, whatever is on the phone, if you have to erase it, which you can do, you will get three different alerts asking you if that’s what you really intend to do, if you’re really certain about it. And there are areas like this all over the iPhone.

There is a feature that hardly anybody knows about.  It’s well hidden.  It happens to be one of my favorite features that Apple will not divulge anything about.  It’s called significant locations.  I’m not even gonna bother to tell you where it is.  That’s not the point.  But you can clear the location history from your phone if you want to.  Your phone records, where you’ve been.  I happen to think that’s marvelous and magic and great and I love it.  And I use it.  Other people are paranoid about it.  They think Tim Cook is spying on everything they do, just like Zuckerberg spying on every Facebook user and the Twitter people — (laughing) it turns out the Twitter people are spying on you!  O’Keefe has yet another video from Project Veritas.

They’re collecting everything at Twitter on you, everything, including your photos.  They’re creating a sexual file of all of their users.  They’re creating a data file on everybody at Twitter, by their own admission.  More details on that.  Anyway, if you want to clear your location. Let’s say you have effectively been made paranoid about your phone recording where you’ve been.  And you find out about it, “Oh, no, I want to get rid of that.”  Okay.  You go into significant locations, and you tap on “clear history.”

You will have to do it three times.  You’ll have to confirm that’s what you want to do three times. Just like if you want to erase the whole phone, you’ll have to confirm that three times. “Are you sure you want to?”  Yes.  “Are you really, really sure?  This is gonna erase everything on your phone, and you can’t go back and undo this.  Are you sure you want to do it?”  You tap “yes.”

It comes back, “Do you really know what you’re doing here?  Are you certain that you want to take this phone and make it like it’s brand-new out of the box?”  And yet we’re told that on a nuclear warning test, the guy hit the wrong button twice.  We’re now told the guy hasn’t been fired.  He’s barely been reprimanded.  We don’t know his name.  He’s going to be reassigned.

…And we’re told, “Ah, the guy hit the wrong button.”

I just can’t accept this, not within the context of everything that has gone on that has been originated in or perpetrated by the American left and our administrative state. The Hawaii emergency management administrator, Vern Miyagi, reported one of his employees clicked the wrong button twice, said, “It’s embarrassing, but again, it’s a mistake.”

Why hasn’t it happened before? If it’s this easy to make this kind of mistake, why hasn’t it happened before? And why did it take 34 minutes to correct this mistake? People were living in abject fear, except for one guy who kept playing golf. I like that guy. He said (paraphrasing), “Even if it’s true, I’m going out doing what I love. To hell with it. I’m not hiding in some sewer drain.” But that’s what people were doing. They were hiding their kids everywhere they could. I mean, for 34 minutes the Hawaii emergency management administration allowed abject fear to percolate in the state of Hawaii.

“Vern Miyagi, the administrator, said, that he “was supposed to select the option for a drill. Instead, he chose the real thing twice. ‘A missile may impact on land or sea within minutes. This is not a drill.’” Grab audio sound bite number 17. Here is what it sounded like…

VOICE: The U.S. Pacific Command has detected a missile threat to Hawaii. A missile may impact on land or sea within minutes. This is not a drill. If you are indoors, say indoors. If you are outdoors, seek immediate shelter in a building. Remain indoors well away from windows. If you are driving, pull safely to the side of the road and seek shelter in a building or lay on the floor.

So let’s say the employee did this on purpose. Thank God America did not respond. The military would have known if there actually were missiles in the air, so they would have known the alert was a mistake. Did the military scramble? Did they know about the alert?

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the person who pushed the button thought that if he could get a dangerous response out of President Trump, President Trump could be declared unfit for office. Having watched the media for the past year, I am convinced that there are some people out there who would put the safety of America at risk to bring down President Trump. The irrational hatred of President Trump is totally amazing. Was this person willing to start World War III in order to prevent President Trump from succeeding? I don’t know. I do know that Microsoft Word won’t even let me close down its window without telling me that I am going to lose what I have typed. Surely, our missile alert system is better than that.

Hopefully This Was Not A Practice Run

The problem with terrorists is that they are always probing–looking for new ways to create problems for the rest of us. One reason the attacks of 9/11 were so successful is that no one actually believed terrorists would fly planes into a buildings. Now we know that this is not unthinkable. Americans have also learned that terrorists often do practice runs to test our security in various areas. Terrorists also engage in ‘lawfare’ to create court cases that result in changes to security rules and make it easier to attack us in the future. There was an incident on Friday on a flight from Los Angeles to Hawaii that might cause our security people to sleep a little less soundly.

MSN News posted a story this morning stating that on Friday two Air Force fighter jets were scrambled to escort an American Airlines jet into Honolulu International Airport after a disturbance involving a Turkish passenger aboard the plane was reported.

The article reports:

Federal authorities were preparing a criminal complaint to charge Turkish national Anil Uskanil, 25, with interference with a flight crew, Federal Bureau of Investigation special-agent-in charge Paul Delacourt said at a Honolulu news conference.

Delacourt, when asked by a reporter if Uskanil tried to break into the cockpit, said the Turkish man was in the aisle of the plane and it was “unclear what his motivation was”.

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) police said separately that Uskanil had been detained, questioned and released hours earlier after he was caught by security there going through a terminal concourse door leading out to the airfield.

Los Angeles airport police spokesman Rob Pedregon said Uskanil was a ticketed American Airlines passenger with a boarding pass who had cleared security screening but claimed that he lost his way because he was tipsy from drinking.

As he did not appear to meet the criteria for public drunkenness, police let him go with a citation for misdemeanor trespassing, Pedregon said. He was escorted to the street in front of the terminal when released, Pedregon said.

Because the LAX incident occurred at about 2:45 a.m. Pacific time, nearly three hours before the first flights of the day, he would have had ample time to get through security again and catch a plane to Hawaii as scheduled.

This is how someone could probe airport security–go through a door they were not supposed to go through to see what happens next and then claim to be drunk and lost. This is not a comforting story. However, one of my sons-in-law just reminded me that Americans will not allow an airplane to be hijacked again–we have learned our lesson. The article states that the man was subdued by an off-duty law enforcement officer and others aboard the aircraft. The only way to prevent future hijackings is for everyone on an airplane to take responsibility for the safety of the plane. If you are young and fit, you can attack a potential hijacker. If you are older or not fit, you can throw something. There are many ways to stop a potential hijacker. Meanwhile, we have to be alert to probes of the security at our airports and on our airplanes.

We Saw How Well It Worked For The Indians

Today’s Daily Caller posted an article about a suggestion the Obama Administration has made to change the legal system in Hawaii.

The article reports:

President Barack Obama’s administration has quietly suggested it is willing to create a two-tier race-based legal system in Hawaii, where one set of taxes, spending and law enforcement will govern one race, and the second set of laws will govern every other race.

The diversity proposal is portrayed as an effort to create a separate in-state government for people who are “native Hawaiians.”

The problem with this suggestion is that it is unconstitutional:

But the proposed measure to increase legal diversity is illegal because the president doesn’t have the power to grant one group of Americans the status of a separate government, she said.

“There is no constitutional basis for conferring such status, and Congress has repeatedly refused to confer this status,” said Carissa Mulder, a spokeswoman for two members of the federal Commission on Civil Rights.

“This seems to be yet another case of the Obama administration ignoring the law to achieve its policy objectives,” she added.

This proposal will not bring unity to Americans–it will separate a group of Americans along racial lines. That sort of separation is not good for the country or the people involved. We saw how well it worked for the Indians.

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Friends Are More Valuable Than Government

Yesterday The Blaze posted an update on a story about a soldier’s home in Florida that had been taken over by squatters.

The article reports what happened when Army Spc. Michael Sharkey, a soldier currently station in Hawaii, asked law enforcement to remove the squatters from his house:

Indeed Sharkey tried going through law enforcement to remove Ortiz and Cardoso, but that turned out to be in vain — sheriffs said it’s a civil matter and would take a court order to evict them since they established residency.

As you might guess, all of this has made other veterans and supporters of Sharkey absolutely livid.

That’s where the idea that it is good to have friends comes in.

The article reports:

Then WFLA reported that two Tampa motorcycle clubs filled with veterans were planning to ride over to the Sharkey residence on Sunday “and peacefully make the squatters uncomfortable.”

With that, Ortiz started packing up, noting the planned biker visit was one of the reasons he and Cardoso were leaving, WFLA said.

The Veteran Warriors is organizing a cleanup and remodel of the house.

It’s good to have friends.

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Collecting Welfare Benefits In Massachusetts

I know that there are a lot of people collecting welfare benefits and that makes it hard to keep track of every penny, but Massachusetts has taken inefficiency to a new level. WCVB reported yesterday that an audit of the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance identified 1,164 cases where recipients continued to receive a total of $2.39 million in benefits from six to 27 months after they were reported to be deceased.

Boston.com also commented on the audit:

The report, which covered food stamps, cash, and other benefits to low-income families, estimated that recipients using a dead person’s Social Security number alone received at least $2.4 million in between July 2010 and April 2012. It also flagged another $15 million in suspicious transactions from electronic benefit cards during the two-and-a-half-year period the auditor reviewed.

Boston.com also reported:

The state auditor also found another $15 million in suspicious transitions on electronic benefit cards – including nearly $5 million where all the food benefits were withdrawn at once; $4.6 million in transactions from distant states or territories (including Hawaii, Florida, and Puerto Rico); $3.6 million where recipients made multiple purchases or withdrawals within an hour; $1.5 million where recipients regularly rang up transactions in even dollar amounts (such as $100) and $840,000 where a card number was manually entered into a retail terminal instead of being swiped (suggesting a card user may have stolen the card number, but didn’t have the actual card).

This is taxpayers’ money. If those responsible for spending it cannot do a better job of being responsible, we should stop giving them the money.

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I Don’t Know The Truth, But I Suspect That Someday We All Will

The Internet is abuzz today with news of the pamphlet released to publicize President Obama’s first book. The pamphlet describes the President as having been born in Kenya and raised in Hawaii. The story is at Breitbart.com and also at the Washington Examiner.

The Washington Examiner reports:

Miriam Goderich, whose literary agency described eventual-President Obama in 1991 as having been born in Kenya, said today that the description reflected “a simple mistake and nothing more.”

“You’re undoubtedly aware of the brouhaha stirred up by Breitbart about the erroneous statement in a client list Acton & Dystel published in 1991 (for circulation within the publishing industry only) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya,” Goderich said in a statement to Roll Call.  “This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me — an agency assistant at the time.” Roll Call’s Taegan Goddard added, for disclosure, that he is “a client of the same literary agency.”

This seems like a pretty major mistake to make in someone’s biography. I can see getting someone’s birthplace wrong if they were born in Illinois and someone wrote Indiana or North Carolina instead of South Carolina, but I would think you would notice Kenya vs. Hawaii.

I have two major questions about this story–will the major media pick it up as anything other than a typo or proofreading error? Is there more coming from Breitbart?

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Keeping It All In Perspective

The Hawaii State Capitol.Picture taken from at...

Image via Wikipedia

On Saturday, the Hawaii Reporter reported that while President Obama and his family are enjoying an estimated $4,113,038 vacation in Hawaii at taxpayer expense, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is also visiting Hawaii. Ms. Pelosi is spending her Christmas at the exotic Four Seasons Resort Hualalai at Historic Ka’upulehu in Kona on the island of Hawaii, at a cost of $10,000 a night. There has been a bit of a ruckus on some internet sites about this, but I am here to offer a different perspective.

Ms. Pelosi is married to a very successful businessman. Admittedly, there may have been some interesting aspects of Congress throwing business his way or insider trading, but the fact remains that he is a successful businessman. In my mind, he (and his wife) have earned the right to stay in a $10,000 a night hotel room. Good for them. Her visit has cost the local taxpayers in Hawaii $34,000 for police escorts, but again, as a Congresswoman, she is entitled to security.

When President Bush left Washington on vacation, most of the time he went to his ranch in Texas or his father’s house in Maine. The expense to the taxpayer was minimal. President Obama is a very expensive President. At a time when many taxpayers can’t even afford to go out to dinner and the government is in serious deficit, it seems a little excessive for the President to spend more than $4 million dollars on a vacation.

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