What’s interesting in the news today?
1. Why does this not surprise me? 🙄
From TheWashingtonTimes “The Justice Department selected an avowed political supporter of President Obama to lead the criminal probe into the IRS targeting of tea party groups, according to top Republicans who said Wednesday that the move has ruined the entire investigation.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, and regulatory affairs subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, said they have discovered that the head of the investigation is Barbara Kay Bosserman, a trial lawyer in the Justice Department who donated more than $6,000 to Mr. Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, as well as several hundred dollars to the national Democratic Party.
“The department has created a startling conflict of interest,” Mr. Issa and Mr. Jordan said in a letter sent Wednesday and reviewed by The Washington Times. “It is unbelievable that the department would choose such an individual to examine the federal government’s systematic targeting and harassment of organizations opposed to the president’s policies.”
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2. For this one, we’ll start with a reminder of what Pres. Obama had to say a while back.
“A day after 9/11, we are reminded that a new tower rises above the New York skyline, but al Qaeda is on the path to defeat and bin Laden is dead.”
From CNN “From around Aleppo in western Syria to small areas of Falluja in central Iraq, al Qaeda now controls territory that stretches more than 400 miles across the heart of the Middle East, according to English and Arab language news accounts as well as accounts on jihadist websites.
Indeed, al Qaeda appears to control more territory in the Arab world than it has done at any time in its history.”
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3. Once again the Obama admin is sees racism everywhere. They seem to think it’s the schools fault that these kids end up in prison. Apparently the consequences for their criminal behavior is the schools fault because they reported it.
From HuffPost ” The Obama administration is urging schools to abandon overly zealous discipline policies that civil rights advocates have long said lead to a school-to-prison pipeline that discriminates against minority students.
The wide-ranging series of guidelines issued Wednesday in essence tells schools that they must adhere to the principle of fairness and equity in student discipline or face strong action if they don’t. The American Civil Liberties Union called the recommendations “ground-breaking.”
“A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal’s office, not in a police precinct,” Attorney General Eric Holder said.
Holder said the problem often stems from well intentioned “zero-tolerance” policies that too often inject the criminal justice system into the resolution of problems. Zero-tolerance policies, a tool that became popular in the 1990s, often spell out uniform and swift punishment for offenses such as truancy, smoking or carrying a weapon. Violators can lose classroom time or become saddled with a criminal record.”
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4. Spiritual, but not religious. Sure… 🙄
Also from HuffPost “From its historic black churches to large Jewish enclaves to landmark Catholic and Protestant churches, New York City is the ultimate religious melting pot. And now, overseeing it all is a new mayor whose only religious identity seems to be “spiritual but not religious.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio is now perhaps the nation’s most visible “none,” an icon of one of the nation’s fastest-growing religious groups — those without any formal religious identification.
His election could reflect a new kind of American politician — one who is shaped by religion and religious values but is not expected to talk about or bow to religion as in years past, said Jennifer Jones Austin, co-chairwoman of de Blasio’s transition team and the daughter of a pastor.
“What drives him are his fundamental beliefs about liberation theology when it comes to social justice, our responsibility to care for all who are on this earth,” Jones Austin said. “I heard him on several occasions say ‘Amen’ when he felt very strongly about something.”
Oh goody, liberation theology. Yay.
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Wandering Views 
It’s the reason school’s now call the police that they are not allowed to do anything else?
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Pertaining toevery item but the last.
Obama has no interest in foreign policy. Everything that happens beyond our borders is just another thing that interfears with his goal of transforming America into his socialist vision.
We have hired a community organizer to lead us in a global conflict.
That’s what the people wanted.
That what we got.
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😯
I agree with Holder on something.
“Zero tolerance” policies always eventually lead to something stupid.
Always,
A guy pointing his finger like a gun.
Cutting a pizza to odd shapes, etc.
A guy kissing a girls hand is harassment.
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I think the original reason for zero policy is that they are afraid the thug who is suspended for having a gun in his locker will sue because the Eagle scout with a camping axe in his trunk didn’t get the same punishment.
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As a matter of fact, I believe of the stupid stuff schools do are out of fear of lawsuits, then they get sued anyway for doing the stupid thing.
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Here is some good news.
http://liveactionnews.org/north-dakota-becomes-first-state-ban-abortion-syndrome/
“A federal judge has dismissed part of a lawsuit challenging a new North Dakota law that blocks abortions based on unwanted gender or a genetic defect, such as Down syndrome.”
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Thank you Linda. That’s great news. 🙂
I posted it to Facebook because I have some friends who will be happy to hear it too. It’s time other states did the same.
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From The Washington Times
As the armed forces shrink and withdraw from some global hot spots, their agenda for the battle of the sexes grows.
The Pentagon under the Obama administration has devoted considerable hours in public and private to sorting out same-sex relationships, the roles of women in the foxhole and ways to stop sexual assaults. Now, another issue has arisen: gender transformation.
The sexual revolution has some traditionalists wondering whether the Pentagon is taking its eye off the ball — the enemy.
“Every conceivable form of PC is being enforced upon our hard-pressed military with a zeal that only a Russian army zampolit — a political officer — would truly appreciate,” said Ken Allard, a retired Army colonel and commentator. “We are seemingly concerned about everything except the most basic thing: how to fight and win the nation’s wars. If we have forgotten that constraint, let me assure you that our enemies have not, from the Taliban to the drug cartels to the Iranian Quds Force.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/1/providing-for-common-defense-a-lower-priority-as-p/#ixzz2puyXvTgw
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
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AJ, how does one go about finding you on FB?
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And I see Gov. Christie is in a (traffic) jam. Whether he knew of his aides’ actions or not, the problem is that his quick-to-anger image fits a payback move like that. One of the biggest strikes against him as a candidate for president is his volatile temperament.
On Obama, it will be interesting to see the take historians have on this presidency, which is simply one of the strangest I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. It’s all left me scratching (and alternately shaking) my head for the most part.
2-1/2 more years.
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Linda,
I sent you a friend request, that should do it.
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Donna,
Sigh. If only the press was half this interested in any of Obama’s numerous, and much worse, scandals. But lap dogs will be lap dogs I guess. Plus they think he’ll be Hillary’s opponent, so they’re starting in on him early.
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Fascinating overview of the fall of Rome, with echoes of, well, you know . . .
Click to access 20130620_FEEAreWeRomeCover1V5.pdf
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Michelle,
Good read. Thank you.
The similarities are striking. We’ve replaced bread and shows with EBT cards and Hollywood/reality TV.
Like Roman we have Senators promising handouts for votes, and a whole group of folks selling their votes for the same.
We have states surrendering control and liberty to an overbearing, overregulating, nanny, who sends them money to spend in order to ensure it’s power. They too have become fenced in pigs, except they’re helping build the fence too. Real pigs are smarter than that at least.
Class warfare, it’s all there. Same as it ever was I guess.
Sadly, we seem headed for the same end as well.
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Thank you for that link, Michelle. That was 3rd Arrow’s history lesson for the day. A very good one.
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Good link, michelle. But 😦
AJ, true about Christie and the surge of interest in a negative story about him. But that said, it is quite a story.
Talk about a vindictive use of power — if not by him directly, by his top staff. Stunning.
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Don’t mess with traffic.
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Donna,
Edited because I left part out.
Here’s the part you’re not hearing about. While they closed lanes from Ft. Lee unto the bridge and that made things horrible for those coming from there, it made traffic flow better for everyone else. The closures were for a traffic study on how to alleviate the problem. That was the original purpose behind the closures, to speed traffic on the bridge. The area is a choke point. Traffic enters right at the bridge area causing the entire flow already on the road to back up. The closures were supposed to be for the purpose of studying and rectifying the problem. These idiots used the opportunity for political payback, and said so in their emails, and now they’re paying for it.
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But here’s Christie’s political problem:
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/09/.Us8k0qeWE80.twitter
“… South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said that a controversy involving a Christie aide’s retaliation against a local Democratic mayor reinforces the image of the Republican governor as a bully.
” ‘It seems to me that this whole bridge thing reinforces a narrative that’s troublesome about the guy, he’s kind of a bully,’ Graham told NBC News on Thursday on Capitol Hill, referring to the scandal over land closures on the George Washington Bridge that’s engulfed Christie over the past two days.
“Graham suggested that Christie’s staffers wouldn’t have sent such emails if it weren’t part of the way Christie governed.”
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What it would be like to buy coffee, if it was like Obamacare…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TELH3PE9REo
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2. al Qaeda is fairly amorphous. The al-qaeda of 9/11 led by bin Ladin is dead but the ideology remains and finds a fertile soil wherever there is instability. The current version of al-queda in Syria has its origins in the disorder in Iraq not Afghanistan.
3. Zero tolerance was an other idea conservative Canadians imported from the US. And without the racial angle its been a failure here too. Its also led to deliberate blindness in which administrator pretended nothing happened in order to avoid bringing the heavy hand of the law into the child’s life. And thus the policy accomplished the exact opposite of its intention.
Liability is the one issue that is always present. And accounts for about every silly directive that comes my way.
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