Hillary Clinton email scandal

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News/Politics 6-3-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. Thoughts?

From LifeNews  “Last month, LifeNews covered quotes from a United Methodist Pastor who wrote years ago about how he thinks caring about unborn babies who die in abortions is “idolatry.”

Minister John M Swomley is an ordained United Methodist minister and, from 1960 to 1984 he was professor of Christian Ethics at St. Paul’s school of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. At the time he was active in ministry, he was president of Americans for Religious Liberty and a longtime board member and sometimes vice president of the American Civil Liberties Union and chair of its Church – State committee. So here is a Christian pastor serving on the board of a prominent pro-abortion group.

Sarah Terzo, who has a knack for documenting the history of the abortion debate and the abortion advocacy movement by posting quotes from pro-abortion activists through the years, posted the controversial quotes on her blog.

Now, Terzo has uncovered more quotes from Swomley arguing that unborn babies are not “innocent” as pro-lifers claim, but are actually guilty – guilty enough, he implies, to justify aborting them. Swomley first tries to refute the baby’s claim to innocence using theology.

“The first claim is that society should protect innocent human life that is unable to protect itself. The term “innocent,” originally used by various popes, refers to fetal life which has committed no sin. Yet the Roman Catholic Church has proclaimed only one person, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as having an immaculate conception and hence free from original sin. In any event, public policy cannot be founded on theological claims to innocence.

There is another meaning of “innocence” which comes from two Latin words, in (not) and nocere (to harm), and therefore means “not harmful or dangerous.” However, it is precisely the fact that some pregnant women (and their physicians) view the fetus as harmful or threatening to their health or welfare and hence leads them to consider abortion.”

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2. Someone needs to be indicted. 

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Bill Clinton’s foundation set up a fundraising arm in Sweden that collected $26 million in donations at the same time that country was lobbying Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department to forgo sanctions that threatened its thriving business with Iran, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Times.

The Swedish entity, called the William J. Clinton Foundation Insamlingsstiftelse, was never disclosed to or cleared by State Department ethics officials, even though one of its largest sources of donations was a Swedish government-sanctioned lottery.

As the money flowed to the foundation from Sweden, Mrs. Clinton’s team in Washington declined to blacklist any Swedish firms despite warnings from career officials at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm that Sweden was growing its economic ties with Iran and potentially undercutting Western efforts to end Tehran’s rogue nuclear program, diplomatic cables show.”

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3. Again, not following federal law, so someone needs to be indicted. 

From FoxNews  “Over a five-year span, senior officials at the National Archives and Records Administrations (NARA) voiced growing alarm about Hillary Clinton’s record-keeping practices as secretary of state, according to internal documents shared with Fox News.

During Clinton’s final days in office, Paul Wester, the director of Modern Records Programs at NARA – essentially the agency’s chief records custodian – privatelyemailed five NARA colleagues to confide his fear that Clinton would take her official records with her when she left office, in violation of federal statutes.

Referring to a colleague whose full name is unknown, Wester wrote on December 11, 2012: “Tom heard (or thought he heard) from the Clinton Library Director that there are or may be plans afoot for taking her records from State to Little Rock.” That was a reference to the possibility that Clinton might seek to house her records at the Clinton Presidential Center, which was largely funded by the Clinton Foundation.

“[W]e need to discuss what we know, and how we should delicately go about learning more about…the transition plans for Secretary Clinton’s departure from State,” Wester added. He did not specify why the situation required “delicate” handling, but added that colleagues had “continued to invoke the specter of the Henry Kissinger experience vis-à-vis Hilary [sic] Clinton.””

“The Wester email and 72 other internal documents released by NARA and the State Department earlier this month show NARA officers repeatedly expressed concerns that Clinton and her office were not observing the federal laws and regulations that govern recordkeeping – but that NARA never did much about it.”

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4. The “White Privilege” racket. 

From EAGNews  “In 2010, the St. Paul school district began a contractual relationship with the Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based organization that tries to help public schools deal with achievement and disciplinary issues involving black students. PEG packages and sells the concept of victimization, for a very high price.

It claims that the American education system is built around white culture, tradition and social norms – aka “white privilege” – to the unfair detriment of black students.

PEG believes that black students will only achieve if school curricula are customized to meet their cultural specifications. It also rejects the concept of using suspensions or expulsions to discipline black students.”

“Not long after PEG started working with St. Paul school officials, crucial policy changes were made, according to various news reports.

Special needs students with behavioral issues were mainstreamed into regular classrooms, a position openly advocated by PEG. Student suspensions were replaced by “time outs,” and school officials starting forgiving or ignoring violence and other unacceptable behavior, according to various sources.

“The disciplinary changes came out of meetings with an organization called Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based operation that has been consulting with the district dating back to 2010,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

The result has been general chaos throughout the district, with far too many students out of control because they know there are no real consequences for their actions.””

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5. How NOT to win a war……

From TheDailyBeast  “A centerpiece of the U.S. war plan against ISIS is in danger of collapsing. A key rebel commander and his men are ready to ready to pull out in frustration of the U.S. program to train a rebel army to beat back the terror group in Syria, The Daily Beast has learned.

The news comes as ISIS is marching on the suburbs of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city. Rebels fighting the jihadists there told The Daily Beast that the U.S.-led coalition isn’t even bothering to respond to their calls for airstrikes to stop the jihadist army.”

“Mustapha Sejari, one of the rebels already approved for the U.S. training program, told The Daily Beast that he and his 1,000 men are on the verge of withdrawing from the program. The issue: the American government’s demand that the rebels can’t use any of their newfound battlefield prowess or U.S.-provided weaponry against the army of Bashar al-Assad or any of its manifold proxies and allies, which include Iranian-built militias such as Lebanese Hezbollah. They must only fight ISIS, Washington insists.”

“In another uninspiring development for the Levantine arm of the war, a major rebel commander has told The Daily Beast that no matter how hard he tries, he still cannot get the coalition’s attention for directing airstrikes against ISIS. And that’s allowing the jihadists to make major gains near the city of Aleppo, a stronghold of both moderate and Islamist rebels.”

The Pentagon denies everything, of course. But the reality is getting hard to ignore. ISIS is now in control of Aleppo.

More here, from TheWashingtonPost/MSN  “Syrian rebels appealed for U.S. airstrikes to counter a new offensive by the Islamic State in the northern province of Aleppo that could reshape the battlefield in Syria.

The surprise assault, launched over the weekend, opened a new front in the multi-pronged war being waged by the extremist group across Iraq and Syria, and it underscored the Islamic State’s capacity to catch its enemies off guard.

The push — which came on the heels of the miltants’ capture of the Syrian city of Palmyraand the western Iraqi city of Ramadi late last month — took them within reach of the strategically vital town of Azaz on the Turkish border.

The offensive reinforces the impression that the Islamic State is regaining momentum despite more than eight months of U.S. led-airstrikes.”

““Automatically, the Islamic State would gain control of Aleppo city,” said Abu Mohammed, the nom de guerre of a leader of the rebel group Thuwar al-Sham, based in the Turkish town of Gaziantep. “The situation is dire.”

If the Islamic State seized the area, it would also extend its reach along the Turkish border, amplifying its capacity to secure supplies and smuggle in foreign fighters at a time when Turkey’s government has imposed severe restrictions on travelers along its 580-mile border with Syria.”

And the rebels aren’t the only ones frustrated by Obama’s so-called strategy. 

From FoxNews  “U.S. military pilots carrying out the air war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are voicing growing discontent over what they say are heavy-handed rules of engagement hindering them from striking targets.

They blame a bureaucracy that does not allow for quick decision-making. One Navy F-18 pilot who has flown missions against ISIS voiced his frustration to Fox News, saying: “There were times I had groups of ISIS fighters in my sights, but couldn’t get clearance to engage.”

He added, “They probably killed innocent people and spread evil because of my inability to kill them. It was frustrating.”

Sources close to the air war against ISIS told Fox News that strike missions take, on average, just under an hour, from a pilot requesting permission to strike an ISIS target to a weapon leaving the wing.”

And again, the Pentagon and Central Command are in denial. Denying the obvious isn’t a foreign policy strategy, or a plan for winning this war. But it’s all the Obama admin seems to have in their playbook. 

They keep denying while the evidence to the contrary mounts. Like with everything in this administration, even the “bombing” numbers are just propaganda and fuzzy math. 

From Forbes  “Three out of every four times that Obama dispatches American warplanes over Iraq, they return to base without dropping any bombs or firing any missiles.

“Seventy-five percent of the sorties that we’re currently running with our attack aircraft come back without dropping bombs, mostly because they cannot acquire the target or properly identify the target,” said U.S. Army General (ret) Jack Keane in testimony before the U.S. Senate last week.

That’s why White House and Pentagon briefers usually talk about the number of sorties, not the number of air strikes. The number of missions flown is four times larger than the number of bombing runs.

Gen. Keane offered a straightforward solution. “Forward air controllers fix that problem,” he said.”

“America’s swift seizure of territory in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya was largely due to such specialists, but the administration has been reluctant to send them against ISIS. Obama officials fear that additional “boots on the ground” would anger antiwar activists and combat deaths would be unpopular with the general public. Without effective air strikes, the U.S. is fighting a phony war against ISIS.”

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by

News/Politics 5-29-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. I always wondered why the arms supply operation the White House and State Dept. were running to arm Islamic extremists in Libya didn’t get more attention from Republicans. Well now we know why, at least one top Republican was in on it, which is why Republicans left it alone.

From FoxNews  “Another email released by the State Department shows that five days earlier, on April 3, 2011, Bill Clinton said he would not rule out arming the Libyan opposition. The story was circulated by Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton’s principal personal adviser at the State Department, to “H.” While it’s not clear who “H” is, based on the message traffic it is likely Hillary Clinton or possibly adviser Huma Abedin. Later that same year, a Sept. 10, 2011 email with a subject line “Rogers” said, “Apparently wants to see you to talk Libya/weapons.”

At the time, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was Mike Rogers, who abruptly announced he would not seek re-election in the spring of 2014. Rogers did not immediately respond to questions seeking comment. Fox News also filed its own Freedom of Information Act request for the documents in October 2012.

Current and former intelligence and administration officials consistently have skirted questions about weapons shipments, first documented by Fox News in October 2012, one month after the Benghazi terrorist attack, and what role the movement played in arming extremist groups the U.S. government is now trying to defeat in Syria and Iraq.

Through shipping records, Fox News confirmed that the Libyan-flagged vessel Al Entisar, which means “The Victory,” was received in the Turkish port of Iskenderun — 35 miles from the Syrian border — on Sept. 6, 2012, five days before the Benghazi terrorist attack. The cargo reportedly included surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, RPG’s and Russian-designed shoulder-launched missiles known as MANPADS.

On the movement of weapons, in an interview broadcast May 11, former acting CIA director Mike Morell said the CIA and U.S. government “played no role. Now whether we were watching other people do it, I can’t talk about it.”

Heavily redacted congressional testimony, declassified after the House intelligence committee’s Benghazi investigation concluded in 2014, shows conflicting accounts about the movement of weapons from Libya to Syria were apparently given to lawmakers.”

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2. Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert has been indicted on federal charges. 

From Reuters/MSN  “Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert was indicted on Thursday on federal charges including making false statements to the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago said.

The Illinois Republican, who left office in 2007, was charged with structuring the withdrawal of $952,000 in cash in order to evade the requirement that banks report cash transactions over $10,000, and lying to the FBI about his withdrawals, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Each count of the two-count indictment carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Hastert, 73, was not immediately available for comment.

According to the indictment, the misconduct involved payments to an unnamed individual who had been a Yorkville, Illinois, resident and had known Hastert for most of the person’s life.

Around 2010, Hastert met with the person several times and discussed past misconduct by Hastert. Eventually, Hastert agreed to pay the person $3.5 million in compensation and to conceal unspecified misconduct, the indictment said.”

Rumor has it that the misconduct involved blackmail and happened during Hastert’s stint as a wrestling coach before running for elected office. 

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3. Hypocrites. So typical.

From TheLATimes  “Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces.

The push to include an exception to the mandated wage increase for companies that let their employees collectively bargain was the latest unexpected detour as the city nears approval of its landmark legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.

For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business owners, such as restaurateurs, who said they would have trouble complying with the mandated pay increase.

But Rusty Hicks, who heads the county Federation of Labor and helps lead the Raise the Wage coalition, said Tuesday night that companies with workers represented by unions should have leeway to negotiate a wage below that mandated by the law.”

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4. More waste, fraud, and abuse. 

From TheFreeBeacon  “The State Department has undertaken the costly construction of new embassies across the globe.

The new embassy in London is estimated to cost around $1 billion. Glass for the London build was shipped back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean for cutting and framing. The new Afghanistan embassy exceeded $150 million.

The current embassy in Mexico City is currently crumbling, unsafe, and overcrowded. The build was supposed to cost $600 million but has increased at least a third, all before the start of construction. The new site for the embassy was bought four years ago for $120 million and was in a former industry area that was once site to a Colgate Palmolive factory that left hazardous waste.

Colgate Palmolive has been in the process of cleaning site for the past three and a half years, and the land is still not ready. The cost of construction rose from $577 million to $763 million. With the cost of the land and the cost of the new embassy, the project will cost well over $939 million, making it one of the most expensive embassies in the world.

‘The State Department changed the way that they build these,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah). “They went from standard embassy designs, which were coming in under budget. They were coming in swifter. They are now to the point where they’ve got a new process and it’s much more expensive and a lot slower.””

Here’s the CBS report. 

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5. How sad. So much potential lost at the altar of selfishness. 

From CNSNews  “The number of American babies who have been aborted in the years since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision has already exceeded the entire population of the United States as recorded in the 1880 Census.

This is according to numbers published by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Guttmacher Institute.

In 1880, according to the Census Bureau, there were 50,189,209 people in the United States. These included, the Census Bureau notes, Mark Twain, who had not yet written The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Thomas Edison, who would start his electrical company two years later; and Booker T. Washington, who would open the Tuskegee Institute the next year.

The Guttmacher Institute has estimated the number of abortions in the United States in each year from 1973 through 2011. They add up to 51,376,750—or 1,187,541 more than the entire population of the nation as of 1880. In each of the last 36 straight years for which Guttmacher has published an estimate of the number of abortions, the number has exceeded 1 million.”

Our nation should hang it’s head in shame, but especially those who support/endorse this atrocity. 

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6. Maybe the coach should change the team name to the Clemson Cowards. 

From TruthRevolt  “Under pressure from LGBT groups and the South Carolina House minority leader, Clemson University Head Football Coach Dabo Swinney has announced that he will no longer attend a fundraiser held by a Christian nonprofit organization.

The June 2 fundraiser will be hosted by the Palmetto Family Council, a South Carolina-based Christian nonprofit which describes itself as dedicated to promoting “biblical principles,” particularly “the values and virtues of marriage, the traditional family model, and sexual purity.”  The group supports traditional marriage, endorsed the state’s partial birth abortion law, and is dedicated to promoting religious freedom.

Swinney was to be honored at the fundraiser for his work with his own All In Foundation, which focuses on raising awareness around the state about health issues. Though Swinney explained that he had not official association with the Palmetto Family Council and was attending on behalf of all involved in the work of his foundation, the uproar from gay rights activists had made attending too much of a “distraction.” 

“I appreciate the recognition of my and the foundation’s efforts,” Swinney said. “However, after much thought, in order to avoid a distraction for the team and the entire football program, I’ve decided it is in the best interests of all involved that I not attend the event on June 2.”

“It was my understanding that the nomination and selection for this award was based on the work done by our All In Foundation and the difference it is making in our community,” explained Swinney. “My acceptance of this award was to be on behalf of all the volunteers that make our foundation a success. The work of our foundation is intended to build a better community and be a positive influence.”

“Recently, my scheduled participation in this event has been perceived incorrectly as an endorsement of certain viewpoints and has entered the political arena. I have been out of town since last Thursday and am disappointed that this has become a distraction for me, my team and many others. I have been and continue to be very open about my personal beliefs. However, I do not inject those beliefs or the work of the foundation into the political process.””

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by

News/Politics 5-27-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. Hillary’s Jedi mind trick. These are not the emails you’re looking for………

Which means they are. 

From TheDailyCaller  “Sidney Blumenthal emailed Hillary Clinton at least two intelligence reports about Libya which were not included in the trove of 296 emails released by the State Department on Friday.

Clinton has claimed that in December she turned over all official government emails she sent or received from her personal account while in office. In turn, the agency has claimed it turned all Clinton emails related to Libya or Benghazi over to the House Select Committee investigating the Benghazi attack.

But a screenshot of Blumenthal’s email inbox, which the Romanian hacker Guccifer published in March 2013, shows two reports about Libya emailed to Clinton which were not released in Friday’s batch.”

“The State Department release — which was published on the agency’s Freedom of Information Act portal — does not include those two reports. It does, however, include some 20 other intelligence reports Blumenthal sent Clinton about Libya and Benghazi between March 2, 2011. and Dec. 18, 2012.

The discrepancy suggests that the system that Clinton and the State Department have in place to account for her emails failed in some regard. It also raises questions over whether other emails are unaccounted for.”

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2. This is why activities like this should be illegal for current office holders/appointees. Even if it’s all legit, it now appears questionable. 

From InternationalBusinessTimes  “Even by the standards of arms deals between the United States and Saudi Arabia, this one was enormous. A consortium of American defense contractors led by Boeing would deliver $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets to the United States’ oil-rich ally in the Middle East.”

“But now, in late 2011, Hillary Clinton’s State Department was formally clearing the sale, asserting that it was in the national interest. At a press conference in Washington to announce the department’s approval, an assistant secretary of state, Andrew Shapiro, declared that the deal had been “a top priority” for Clinton personally. Shapiro, a longtime aide to Clinton since her Senate days, added that the “U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army have excellent relationships in Saudi Arabia.”

These were not the only relationships bridging leaders of the two nations. In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic enterprise she has overseen with her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Just two months before the deal was finalized, Boeing — the defense contractor that manufactures one of the fighter jets the Saudis were especially keen to acquire, the F-15 — contributed$900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to a company press release.

The Saudi deal was one of dozens of arms sales approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department that placed weapons in the hands of governments that had also donated money to the Clinton family philanthropic empire, an International Business Times investigation has found.

Under Clinton’s leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data. That figure — derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary of State (from October 2010 to September 2012) — represented nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.

The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase incompleted sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration. These extra sales were part of a broad increase in American military exports that accompanied Obama’s arrival in the White House.”

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3. Sure Barry, it’s the 3 judges in 2 courts who are “misinterpreting” the law. It couldn’t possibly be the “constitutional scholar” who always seems to be wrong. 🙄

From Breitbart  “The White House reacted to the news that the Fifth Circuit court of appeals denied an appeal from the Obama administration to lift a stay on his executive amnesty plan, accusing two judges in the decision of interpreting the law incorrectly.

“Today, two judges of the Fifth Circuit chose to misinterpret the facts and the law in denying the government’s request for a stay,” White House spokesperson Brandi Hoffine said in a statement to Breitbart News.

The court ruled against Obama administrations appeal with a 2-1 vote.

In response Hoffine cited the dissent from Judge Stephen Higginson, who was appointed by President Obama.”

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More here from Reuters/MSN  “The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday in favor of 26 states challenging President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, potentially paving the way for a Supreme Court decision on the issue.

Two judges on the three-judge panel ruled that the executive action, which would grant an estimated 4.7 million undocumented immigrants relief from deportation, should remain on hold while the government appeals its blocking.

The immigration order was first put on hold by Texas Judge Andrew Hanen in February after the states, all led by Republican governors, alleged that taking in migrants would be overly burdensome.

“The President’s attempt to bypass the will of the American people was successfully checked again today,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in a news release.”

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4. Cowards, every last one of them.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The United Nations said Tuesday that Boko Haram is responsible for an “alarming spike” of suicide bombings in Nigeria that have been carried about by women and children.

Girls between the ages of 7 and 17 years have been used for three-quarters of all such attacks in the region since 2014, the U.N. children’s agency reported. There have been 27 suicide bombings in the region over five months, compared to 26 in all of 2014.

“Children are not instigating these suicide attacks; they are used intentionally by adults in the most horrific way. They are first and foremost victims — not perpetrators,” said Jean Gough, UNICEF representative in Nigeria.

UNICEF estimates that 743,000 have been displaced over the past six years because of Boko Haram’s campaign of terror.”

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by

News/Politics 5-20-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. Are atheists their own worst enemies? Sure looks like it. It turns out when you get people thinking about death, their no hope for an afterlife approach isn’t really appealing. And their so-called values don’t have any foundation that people can relate to. 

From LiveScience  “Atheists consistently rank among the lowest of the low in the court of American public opinion. Now, research suggests one reason why: Thinking about atheists reminds people of death.

In fact, prompting people to think about atheism triggered death-related thoughts just as strongly as, well, directly prompting people to think about death, a new study finds. These death thoughts help trigger a subconscious dislike of atheists, said study leader Corey Cook, a social psychologist at the University of Washington, Tacoma. Not only do thoughts of death put people in a negative frame of mind, Cook told Live Science, but they also prompt people to hold more tightly onto their own values.

“There’s a little circular thing going on where encountering atheism will make people grasp their values closer and then become more negative because atheists are perceived as not having values,” Cook said.”

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2. Another secret email.

From TheNYPost  “A second secret email address used by Hillary Rodham Clinton while she was secretary of state was revealed Monday.

The email address, published by The New York Times, was used in exchanges between Clinton and longtime adviser Sydney Blumenthal, and is from the same private email server that was uncovered earlier this year.

“Fyi. The idea of using private security experts to arm the opposition should be considered,” Clinton wrote Blumenthal from the ­email address HRod17@clintonemail.com.

The two were discussing strategies to help the opposition rebels oust Moammar Khadafy in Libya as that country descended into chaos in 2011.

Clinton’s office insisted just two months ago that the only private email address used by the former secretary of state during her tenure was hdr22@clintonemail.com.”

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3. So now we have proof that the Ferguson protest and others weren’t really grass-roots at all. Just more paid agitation from Soros and company. 

From WeaselZippers  “More Proof Of Paid Protesters: Ad Asking For Protesters To Travel To Protest, List Of Payouts To #Ferguson Protest Organizers”

“MORE and OBS, two groups funded by George Soros, advertised money available for people willing to travel to protest.”

“After protesters protested not getting their checks from MORE on May 14th, MORE allegedly distributed the following list as to who was paid to protest in Ferguson and elsewhere, to show where the money had been going.”

“You can see money paid out to Lisa Fithian, $1,127.75 for ‘visit expenses’.

For those who do not know, Lisa Fithian is an infamous leftist organizer. She organized at Occupy, but has been used as a training organizer for many years before that. She spent time in Ferguson in 2014 training people to ‘simulate chaos’.”

A real President and AG would be coming down hard on these people for the damage their agitation and “chaos” caused. But we have a President and AG that agree with them, so they’ll ignore their jobs yet again.

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by

News/Politics 5-13-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. The court has taken action in the Hillary email scandal. 

From FoxNews  “A federal judge has agreed to reopen a lawsuit that seeks access to emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server. 

The federal judge’s decision marks the first time a court has taken action in the email scandal.

Judge Andrew Napolitano explained the particulars behind the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit this morning. 

Judicial Watch and the State Department – usually on opposite sides in these types of cases – are actually in agreement, with both asking Judge Reggie B. Walton for the documents to be turned over. 

Napolitano called Walton a “tough cookie” and “probably the last judge in Washington, D.C., [Clinton] wanted this issue to be in front of.””

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2. The First- and a half- Amendment. 

From NationalReview  “Free speech and artistic and intellectual expression have been controversial Western traditions since the rise of the classical-Greek city-state. When our Founding Fathers introduced guarantees of such freedoms to our new nation, they were never intended to protect thinkers whom we all admire or traditionalists who produce beloved movies like The Sound of Music.

The First Amendment to the Constitution instead was designed to protect the obnoxious, the provocative, the uncouth, and the creepy — on the principle that if the foulmouths can say or express what they wish and the public can put up with it, then everyone else is assured of free speech.”

“Apparently there is no longer a First Amendment as our Founders wrote it, but instead something like an Orwellian Amendment 1.5, which reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press — except if someone finds some speech hurtful, controversial, or not helpful.”

Cowardice abounds. When artists and writers mock Mormonism in a Broadway play like the Book of Mormon or use urine or excrement to deface Christian symbols, no Christian gang seeks to curb such distasteful expression — much less to kill anyone. Every religion but Islam knows that its iconography is fair game for caricature in the United States; none sanctions assassins. Jihadists seek to make this asymmetry quite clear to Western societies and thereby provide deterrence that gives Islam special exemption from Western satire and criticism in a way not accorded to other religions. And they are enabled by Westerners who prefer tranquility to freedom of expression.”

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3. Jonah Goldberg points out an uncomfortable truth about the left. They love anti-religious art, as long as it’s anti-Christian. 

From NationalReview  “Why aren’t liberals offering Pamela Geller a federal subsidy? Geller is the blogger-activist who organized the “Draw Muhammad” exhibition in Garland, Texas, which inspired some DIY jihadists to attack the event. The would-be terrorists chose poorly: They were cut down by Texas lawmen shortly after wounding a security guard.

Let’s hop in the WayBack Machine for a moment.

In 1986, the National Endowment of Arts paid about $20,000 for Andreas Serrano’s “Piss Christ.” Serrano peed in a glass, plunked a plastic icon of Jesus on the cross into it, and then snapped a picture. I will say the lighting was lovely. But, as strange as it seemed to the “arts community,” some people were offended.”

“But whenever Congress attempted to curtail funding of offensive art, editorial pages, faculty lounges, and museum boards launched a nationwide elite freak-out. In 1989, when the Senate voted to restrict some funding for offensive art, Richard Koshalek, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, told the New York Times that he felt that the vote was “a form of psychological tyranny, trying to put the art world into a state of terror.” Painter Robert Motherwell exclaimed that “for Congress to act as censor is outrageous. The ultimate end is fascism.”

“Note: None of the critics said such work should be banned. They said it shouldn’t be publicly showcased on their dime. And yet, opposition to a taxpayer subsidy was almost universally seen as unambiguous censorship and violence against the First Amendment. Another interesting tidbit: Christians didn’t try to murder these artists. Nor did Christian organizations exhort their members to do so.”

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4. Is classical mythology too “triggering” to teach to college students? Or is it just too much to bear for these special little snowflakes? Or do they just need to shut up and stop whining? I’m goin’ with C. Final answer. 

From Reason.com  “In Columbia University’s student newspaper, four members of the school’s student Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board call on professors to be more sensitive when teaching provocative or controversial material… such as the Roman classical poet Ovid.

Ovid is best known for The Metamorphoses, a 15-book narrative poem that covers more than 250 mythological stories. Written entirely in dactylic hexameter, The Metamorphoses inspired future writers from Dante to Chaucer to Shakespeare. Whether or not it’s something today’s students should spend time on may be up for debate, but I think most people can understand why an instructor teaching it would focus on things like the language and imagery invoked. 

Not these Columbia students, however. See, some of the myths Ovid recounts involve sexual violence. Zeus’ daughter Persephone (aka Prosperina), for instance, is kidnapped, raped, and taken as a bride by Hades, king of the underworld. The op-ed writers suggest this ancient Greek and Roman myth is too triggering to be taught in today’s classroom: 

During the week spent on Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” the class was instructed to read the myths of Persephone and Daphne, both of which include vivid depictions of rape and sexual assault. As a survivor of sexual assault, the student described being triggered while reading such detailed accounts of rape throughout the work. However, the student said her professor focused on the beauty of the language and the splendor of the imagery when lecturing on the text. As a result, the student completely disengaged from the class discussion as a means of self-preservation. She did not feel safe in the class. When she approached her professor after class, the student said she was essentially dismissed, and her concerns were ignored.

Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” is a fixture of Lit Hum, but like so many texts in the Western canon, it contains triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom. These texts, wrought with histories and narratives of exclusion and oppression, can be difficult to read and discuss as a survivor, a person of color, or a student from a low-income background.”

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5. To finish up, we’ll let Kirsten Powers explain how liberals ruined college, but I think you already have an idea how after #4. 

From TheDailyBeast  “The root of nearly every free-speech infringement on campuses across the country is that someone—almost always a liberal—has been offended or has sniffed out a potential offense in the making. Then, the silencing campaign begins. The offender must be punished, not just for justice’s sake, but also to send the message to anyone else on campus that should he or she stray off the leftist script, they too might find themselves investigated, harassed, ostracized, or even expelled. If the illiberal left can preemptively silence opposing speakers or opposing groups— such as getting a speech or event canceled, or denying campus recognition for a group—even better.

In a 2014 interview with New York magazine, comedian Chris Rock told journalist Frank Rich that he had stopped playing college campuses because of how easily the audiences were offended. Rock said he realized some time around 2006 that “This is not as much fun as it used to be” and noted George Carlin had felt the same way before he died. Rock attributed it to “Kids raised on a culture of ‘We’re not going to keep score in the game because we don’t want anybody to lose.’ Or just ignoring race to a fault. You can’t say ‘the black kid over there.’ No, it’s ‘the guy with the red shoes.’ You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.” Sadly, Rock admitted that the climate of hypersensitivity had forced him and other comedians into self-censorship.

This Orwellian climate of intimidation and fear chills free speech and thought. On college campuses it is particularly insidious. Higher education should provide an environment to test new ideas, debate theories, encounter challenging information, and figure out what one believes. Campuses should be places where students are able to make mistakes without fear of retribution. If there is no margin for error, it is impossible to receive a meaningful education.

Instead, the politically correct university is a world of land mines, where faculty and students have no idea what innocuous comment might be seen as an offense. In December 2014, the president of Smith College, Kathleen McCartney, sent an email to the student body in the wake of the outcry over two different grand juries failing to indict police officers who killed African-American men. The subject heading read “All Lives Matter” and the email opened with, “As members of the Smith community we are struggling, and we are hurting.” She wrote, “We raise our voices in protest.” She outlined campus actions that would be taken to “heal those in pain” and to “teach, learn and share what we know” and to “work for equity and justice.””

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