Joe Biden

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News/Politics 4-8-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Well that didn’t take long.

Less than 2 hours after Rand Paul announces his candidacy, MSN and the NY Times were already out with the story of why he can’t win. Just like with Walker and Cruz. And for good measure, they make sure to take some shots at libertarians. They’re so predictable. 🙄

From MSN/NYT  “It has become fashionable in recent years to refer to a growing libertarian wing of the Republican Party, and Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator who announced his candidacy for the presidency on Tuesday, hopes to become the first serious candidate to make it part of a winning primary coalition.

Perhaps in a decade or two, a representative of the libertarian wing of the party will have an easy time winning the nomination. It’s just unlikely to happen in 2016.

The libertarians remain too young and too few to present Senator Paul with a realistic path to the nomination. He has to win over a much larger share of more reliable Republican primary voters, who will have considerable reservations about Mr. Paul’s policies. The other problem he faces: Many of the voters most receptive to libertarian views tend not to vote.

In one sense, you could argue that the libertarian wing of the Republican Party barely exists at all. According to a large Pew Research survey in 2014 of 10,000 respondents, 11 percent of Americans and 12 percent of self-identified Republicans considered themselves libertarian. They met a basic threshold for knowing what the term meant. But there wasn’t much “libertarian” about these voters; over all, their views were startlingly similar to those of the public as a whole.”

So basically the Times wants you to abandon all hope and vote for Bush or some other RINO. Again.

No thanks.

I have 3 I’d vote for, Paul is one of them. If it’s not one of them, I stay home with the supposedly (according to the NYT) mythical libertarians, and watch Pant Suits rule the world for 8 years.

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2. Are California’s water problems man-made? Is it caused by environmentalists and their liberal enablers/benefactors in DC? Carly Fiorina makes a good case that it is. Others are as well.

From TheWashingtonTimes  ““With different policies over the last 20 years, all of this could be avoided,” Ms. Fiorina said in an interview Monday on Glenn Beck’s radio show, The Blaze reported. “Despite the fact that California has suffered from droughts for millennia, liberal environmentalists have prevented the building of a single new reservoir or a single new water conveyance system over decades during a period in which California’s population has doubled.”

Ms. Fiorina said that as a result, 70 percent of California’s rainfall “washes out to sea” every year, The Blaze reported. “California is a classic case of liberals being willing to sacrifice other people’s lives and livelihoods at the altar of their ideology. It is a tragedy,” Ms. Fiorina said.

“Government has grown so huge, so powerful, so costly, so complex, it is literally crushing the life out of this country,” she argued. “It is crushing small and family-owned businesses, which are the economic engine of our nation. It is crushing possibilities out of people’s lives by entangling them in a web of dependence from which they cannot escape. The weight, the cost and the power of government are literally crushing the potential of the nation.””

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More here, from HotAir  “In 2014, National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke filed a dispatch from California’s Central Valley, an area that was once an agricultural hub and has now been reduced to a virtual dust bowl as a result of drought combined with severe and unnecessary resource mismanagement. That misallocation of resources is not the result of a frustrating tradeoff between the needs of Central Valley farmers and the desert-dwelling populations of Los Angeles and San Diego, but the eternally threatened smelt.”

“This is a classic tale of activist government run amok — and, too, of the peculiarly suicidal instincts that rich and educated societies exhibit when they reach maturity. Were its consequences not so hideously injurious, the details would be almost comical. As a direct result of the overwrought concern that a few well-connected interest groups and their political allies have displayed for a fish — and of a federal Endangered Species Act that is in need of serious revision — hundreds of billions of gallons of water that would in other areas have been sent to parched farmland have been diverted away from the Central Valley and deliberately pushed out under the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Pacific Ocean, wasted forever, to the raucous applause of Luddites, misanthropes, and their powerful enablers. The later chapters of “The Decline and Fall of the United States” will make interesting reading.

Make no mistake: The rare, hard-done-by, and rightly protected manatee the Delta smelt is not. According to some estimates, there are no more than 3,000 manatees left in the United States, and, when left unchecked, human beings have had a nasty tendency to maim and kill them in the service of nothing more exalted than speedboating. By contrast, when the Great Smelt Freakout of 2007 began, there were 35,000 to well over 100,000 of the little buggers, depending on whom you ask. And yet the powers that be have seen fit to decree that no more than 305 of them may be killed in a given year. As an exasperated Harry Cline, of the Western Farm Press, put it in February 2012, last year “800,000 acre-feet of water went to waste based on the science of four buckets of minnows. That is enough water to produce crops on 200,000 acres or 10 million tons of tomatoes; 200 million boxes of lettuce; 20 million tons of grapes. You get the picture?”

The present crisis is not entirely California-based; Washington also plays a role. In December, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would have pumped water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta into Central and Southern California, but it died an unceremonious death in the Democrat-dominated Senate. If the measure had passed both chambers of Congress, President Barack Obama pledged to veto it. Why? Environmental groups feared the threat it posed to the smelt.

“That’s the tragedy of California, because of liberal environmentalists’ insistence — despite the fact that California has suffered from droughts for millennia, liberal environmentalists have prevented the building of a single new reservoir or a single new water conveyance system over decades during a period in which California’s population has doubled,” said former CEO and U.S. Senate candidate from the Golden State Carly Fiorina. “There is a man-made lack of water in California — and Washington manages the water for the farmers.”

The entire NationalReview piece is here.

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3. Ever wonder why gay issues are always so front and center everywhere, when they make up such a small amount of the population? The answer is simple, they’re well-funded and connected.

From Bloomberg  “For those fighting for marriage equality, these are heady times, with the Supreme Court set to hear oral arguments on gay marriage later this month and a favorable decision widely anticipated this summer. And they haven’t forgotten Biden. On April 30th, some of the biggest philanthropists involved in this fight will gather in Dallas for “OutGiving,” an annual conference organized by Tim Gill, the founder of Quark and an important behind-the-scenes figure in the gay rights movement, who over the last decade has worked to organize the political strategy for a large group of wealthy gay donors. (Read all about it here.)

On May 2, Biden will be a keynote speaker (per the Vice President’s office, reporters will have an opportunity to cover his remarks).

For Biden, it’s a chance to soak up some love as the Obama administration draws to a close and attention turns to Hillary Clinton. And if Clinton should get beamed up by an alien spacecraft or is otherwise incapacitated, Gill’s network will be a invaluable fundraising source, should Biden make his own run for the White House.

From its outset 10 years ago (described in Atlantic profile), Gill’s political strategy has been built upon secrecy and the element of surprise—swooping in at the last moment with his network to donors to turn races against unsuspecting anti-gay politicians. Also, the details surrounding this year’s OutGiving conference are so shrouded in secrecy that they’d only reveal to me the city in which it’s being held, not even the hotel.”

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Here’s the old but good read on who they are and how they operate. From TheAtlantic

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4. This one…….. CONTENT WARNING!!!!!! for adult material.

I honestly have no clue on the answer here. But here’s the question….

Is it, or isn’t it, OK for a married couple to continue a sexual relationship when one becomes stricken with dementia and/or Alzheimer’s?

I can say I never thought about it. But now that I have, it raises so many questions….

And could you account for such a situation in your medical instructions in a living will?

From MSN/TheAP  “When Henry and Donna Lou Rayhons married seven years ago in their northern Iowa hometown, it was a second chance at love for the devoted couple, both previously widowed. But their domestic routine of church activities and political functions unraveled as Donna’s health began to fail.

Last year, the 78-year-old woman was moved into a nursing home, suffering from dementia and Alzheimers. According to Henry Rayhon’s family, this was decided by her daughters from a previous marriage. Conflict developed over how to care for Donna Lou Rayhons, culminating in a meeting in which staff told Henry Rayhons that his wife was no longer mentally capable of legally consenting to have sex.

State prosecutors say Henry Rayhons — a long-serving state lawmaker — ignored that message. On Wednesday, he will stand trial for sexually assaulting his wife, who died last August. The charges were filed days after she died.

Many couples experience the hardships of illness, mental decline and living apart, but what happened with the Rayhons has little precedent. Experts could not think of another rape case that happened because a previously consenting spouse could no longer legally acquiesce.”

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More here, from TheWashingtonPost  ““This is maybe the last great frontier of questions about capacity and dementia,” she said. “… Any partner in a marriage has the right to say no. What we haven’t completely understood is, as in this case, at what point in dementia do you lose the right to say yes?”

Friends and family say that Donna Lou and Henry Rayhons, a member of the Iowa House of Representatives from 1997 until this year, were besotted with one another throughout their relationship. She often accompanied him to the state Capitol in Des Moines. He bought her dresses and acquired a bee suit so he could join her in her beekeeping.

“He treated her like a queen,” Charity McCauley Andeweg, who clerked for Rayhons, told Bloomberg.”

“On March 29, Donna was moved to Concord Care Center in Garner, Iowa, a five-minute drive from her home with Rayhons. Rayhons reportedly resisted the move and clashed with Donna’s daughters — both from her first marriage — over how she should be cared for at the facility.

In May, Dunshee and Donna’s other daughter, Suzan Brunes, met with Concord staff and drew up a care plan for Donna, according to a state affidavit. At the meeting, the women and doctors concluded that Donna was no longer able to consent to sex, a fact Rayhons was informed of.”

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5. Why are they not banned from re-entering the US? They committed treason. If allowed to return it should be for arrest, trial, and prison.

From TheFreeBeacon  “Rep. Tim Bishop (D., N.Y.) warned during a recent speech that up to 40 radicalized U.S. citizens who have fought alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS) have already returned to the United States, where they could pose a terrorist threat.

Bishop claims that of the 100 or so Americans who have traveled to the Middle East to join ISIL’s ranks, some 40 have returned and are currently being surveilled by the FBI, according to his remarks, which were filmed and uploaded to YouTube last week.

“One of the concerns is the number of U.S. citizens who have left our country to go join up with ISIS,” Bishop said during the speech. “It is believed there have been some number up to 100 that have done that.”

“It is also believed that some 40 of those who left this country to join up with ISIS have now returned to our country,” Bishop said, eliciting shocked responses from some in the crowd.

These 40 individuals, Bishop said, “are under FBI attention and surveillance. So they are known and being tracked by the FBI.””

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The Obama admin refuses to be honest about terrorist threats.

From JudicialWatch  “Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) to obtain records regarding its response to the January 1, 2014, explosion of an apartment building in the largely Muslim Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The FOIA lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch v U. S. Department of Justice (No.1:14-cv-02212)).

The FOIA lawsuit, filed after the DOJ failed to respond to a March 12, 2014, FOIA request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), seeks:

Any and all records regarding, concerning or related to the investigation of the January 1, 2014 explosion and fire at the Cedar-Riverside apartment complex in Minneapolis, Minnesota, based on searches of the FBI’s Electronic Case File system, Central Records System and Electronic Surveillance records, as well as any cross-referenced files concerning the explosion and fire.

At 8:16 a.m. on New Year’s Day in Minneapolis, a building at 516 Cedar Avenue containing a grocery store and several apartments exploded, killing three people and injuring 13. All of the apartments were occupied by single men. Many were hurt while jumping out of the burning building’s windows in order to escape the carnage.

The building was owned by Garad Nor, the owner of a money-transfer company, who had initially been implicated as a terrorist financier by the U.S Treasury Department.”

“Before the building’s destruction, G. Schmitz, fire investigator for the Minneapolis Fire Department, and the official investigating the scene on the day of the explosion reported, “The origin of the fire is undetermined.” And suggestions by some that the fire may have been caused by “some kind of gas leak,” were quickly refuted by Minnesota’s Centerpoint Energy spokeswoman Becca Virden, who stated, “We have specialized a gas leak that can detect a gas leak even when you can’t detect it – highly sensitive equipment,” she said. “They have checked there were no gas leaks reported before and there are no gas leaks in the area now.” Virden added, “We had no natural gas in the area.”

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by

News/Politics 3-20-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Democrats paid bribed to oppose voter ID laws in their state? 🙄 Say it isn’t so….

And don’t think for a minute this is the only state it’s happened in.

I’m sure Holder will be all over this, like he was with Bob McConnell, a Republican indicted for allegations of the same thing. Yep, any minute now….

From PJMedia  “Pennsylvania Democrats were caught on surveillance tape reportedly accepting cash bribes in return for opposing voter ID in the Pennsylvania legislature. Gifts of Tiffany’s jewelry were also given to Democrat legislators from Philadelphia, reportedly in exchange for “NO” votes on a Pennsylvania voter ID bill that passed in 2012. Despite this evidence, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane has not charged any officials. Kane is a Democrat.

Kane’s excuse for her inaction? Racism: some of the legislators caught on tape accepting bribes were black Democrats from Philadelphia. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“Those who favored the sting believe Kane killed a solid investigation, led by experienced prosecutor Frank G. Fina, that had ensnared several public officials and had the potential to capture more. They said they were outraged at Kane’s allegation that race had played a role in the case.

Before Kane ended the investigation, sources familiar with the inquiry said, prosecutors amassed 400 hours of audio and videotape that documented at least four city Democrats taking payments in cash or money orders, and in one case a $2,000 Tiffany bracelet.”

Disgusting. As a state resident I’m ashamed that these people are still sitting in positions of authority. They should be indicted and impeached.

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2. Looks like ObamaCare’s gonna need another illegal re-write, and another insurer bailout to keep them quiet.

From TheHill  “Health industry officials say ObamaCare-related premiums will double in some parts of the country, countering claims recently made by the administration.

The expected rate hikes will be announced in the coming months amid an intense election year, when control of the Senate is up for grabs. The sticker shock would likely bolster the GOP’s prospects in November and hamper ObamaCare insurance enrollment efforts in 2015.

The industry complaints come less than a week after Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sought to downplay concerns about rising premiums in the healthcare sector. She told lawmakers rates would increase in 2015 but grow more slowly than in the past. “The increases are far less significant than what they were prior to the Affordable Care Act,” the secretary said in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Her comment baffled insurance officials, who said it runs counter to the industry’s consensus about next year.”

She’s fibbin’ and she knows it.

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3. The CBO director says it’s time for some painful choices, and the sooner the better.

From CNSNews  “The United States faces “fundamental fiscal challenges” stemming from the growth in spending for Social Security and major health care programs,” CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told a gathering in Washington on Tuesday.

The rising cost of those programs leaves Americans with “unpleasant” choices to make, but the sooner they’re made, the better, he said: 

“So we have a choice as a society to either scale back those programs relative to what is promised under current law; or to raise tax revenue above its historical average to pay for the expansion of those programs; or to cut back on all other spending even more sharply than we already are,” Elmendorf said.”

“Elmendorf said Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and Obamacare will be much more expensive relative to GDP in future years because health care costs are rising, subsidized health insurance is expanding, and the population is aging: “There will be a third more people receiving Social Security Medicare benefits a decade from now than there are today,” he noted.”

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4. So they’re saying that even though federal and state law says it’s illegal to discriminate based on religion, that they can because it’s only Christians they’re excluding?

Giving special consideration to some religions while excluding others is discrimination. It’s nothing more than a religious version of affirmative action.

From EAGNews  ” The teachers union contract in Ferndale Public Schools in Oakland County gives “special consideration” to applicants that are of “the non-Christian faith.”

Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in employment and public services on the basis of religion. The state constitution says it, “shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.” And the Federal Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination based on religion.”

“Should there be two (2) or more of these applicants with equal qualifications for the position and one (1) or more of these applicants with equal qualifications is a current employee, the current employee with the greatest seniority shall be assigned. Special consideration shall be given to women and/or minority defined as: Native American, Asian American, Latino, African American and those of the non-Christian faith. However, in all appointments to vacant positions, the Board’s decision shall be final.

Earlier in the contract is a “no discrimination clause” that states no employee can be discriminated against based on their religion.”

Liberals love non-discrimination laws and push for them for just about every group. Shouldn’t they take care to follow their own rules?

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5. Biden says the US will respond to any Russian aggression. Eventually. No really, he’s totally serious.

But it will already be over by the time they type up their next strongly worded reprimand.

From YahooNews  “Ukraine’s government said Wednesday it has begun drawing up plans to pull its troops from Crimea, where Russia is steadily taking formal control as its armed forces seize military installations across the disputed peninsula.

In a warning to Moscow, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden declared the United States will respond to any aggression against its NATO allies, which include neighbors to Russia.

Standing side by side with a pair of Baltic leaders in Vilnius, Lithuania, Biden said the U.S. was “absolutely committed” to defending its allies, adding that President Barack Obama plans to seek concrete commitments from NATO members to ensure the alliance can safeguard its collective security.

“Russia cannot escape the fact that the world is changing and rejecting outright their behavior,” Biden said, after meeting in Vilnius with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite and Latvian President Andris Berzins.”

And you and the President can’t escape the fact that it just changed because of Russia, and that they continue to reject your attempts to stop them. You’re a day late and a dollar short Joe.

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by

News/Politics 1-8-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. President Obama is taking heat from the nation’s largest police union over his selection for Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the DoJ. And rightfully so.

From JudicialWatch  “Obama’s nominee to be Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice (DOJ), Debo Adegbile, spent more than a decade in various leadership positions—including director—at the Legal Defense and Education Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During Adegbile’s leadership the NAACP volunteered its services to represent Mumia Abu-Jamal, a member of the Black Panthers who murdered a police officer (Daniel Faulkner) in Philadelphia three decades ago.

Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death by the jury that convicted him in 1982 and his supporters—including the man who could soon be an Assistant Attorney General—have long claimed that he was the victim of a racist legal system. Nevertheless, Abu-Jamal has lost multiple appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court has twice rejected his case. In 2012, under the leadership of Adegbile, the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund represented Abu-Jamal in his latest appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The cop murderer lost that one too, but the fact remains that Adegbile continues fighting on his behalf.

Understandably, this is upsetting to hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers represented by the National Fraternal Order of Police. In a hard-hitting letter to President Obama, the group expresses “extreme disappointment, displeasure and vehement opposition” to Adegbile’s nomination. “As word of this nomination spreads through the law enforcement community, reactions range from anger to incredulity,” the letter says, reminding that there is no disputing that Officer Faulkner was murdered by the “thug” who Adegbile continues defending.”

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2. He’s also taking some harsh criticism from the former Sec. of Def. Robert Gates in a new book. Much of it confirms what we already knew.

From TheWaPo  “In a new memoir, former defense secretary Robert Gates unleashes harsh judgments about President Obama’s leadership and his commitment to the Afghanistan war, writing that by early 2010 he had concluded the president “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

Leveling one of the more serious charges that a defense secretary could make against a commander-in-chief sending forces into combat, Gates asserts that Obama had more than doubts about the course he had charted in Afghanistan. The president was “skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail,” Gates writes in “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.”

“Biden is accused of “poisoning the well” against the military leadership. Thomas Donilon, initially Obama’s deputy national security adviser, and then-Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, the White House coordinator for the wars, are described as regularly engaged in “aggressive, suspicious, and sometimes condescending and insulting questioning of our military leaders.”

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3. More here from the NYT. He doesn’t appear to be a big fan of Joe Biden, shocking as that is. 🙂

From TheNYTimes  “Mr. Gates describes his running policy battles within Mr. Obama’s inner circle, among them Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.; Tom Donilon, who served as national security adviser; and Douglas E. Lute, the Army lieutenant general who managed Afghan policy issues at the time.       

Mr. Gates calls Mr. Biden “a man of integrity,” but questions his judgment. “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” Mr. Gates writes. He has high praise for Hillary Rodham Clinton, who served as secretary of state when he was at the Pentagon and was a frequent ally on national security issues.       

But Mr. Gates does say that, in defending her support for the Afghan surge, she confided that her opposition to Mr. Bush’s Iraq surge when she was in the Senate and a presidential candidate “had been political,” since she was facing Mr. Obama, then an antiwar senator, in the Iowa primary. In the same conversation, Mr. Obama “conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political,” Mr. Gates recalls. “To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.”       

Mr. Gates discloses that he almost quit in September 2009 after a dispute-filled meeting to assess the way ahead in Afghanistan, including the number of troops that were needed. “I was deeply uneasy with the Obama White House’s lack of appreciation — from the top down — of the uncertainties and unpredictability of war,” he recalls. “I came closer to resigning that day than at any other time in my tenure.”

Like I said, not surprising. It was always obvious that they’d chosen to make Iraq a political football.

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4. Here’s an update to a story I posted a while back on the govt. setting up “voluntary checkpoints” which coerced people into giving blood and saliva samples, as well as taking breath samples. The use of uniformed officers gives the appearance that they have the authority to even ask.

From USAToday  “A tactic used by the federal government to gather information for anti-drunken and drugged driving programs is coming under criticism in cities around the country, and some local police agencies say they will no longer take part.

The tactic involves a subcontractor for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration  that uses off-duty but uniformed police at voluntary roadside checkpoints where motorists are asked  on their behavior behind the wheel.  In some cases, workers at the checkpoints collect blood and saliva samples,  in addition to breath samples. NHTSA has said previously that the surveys do not collect any DNA. Drivers are not charged at the checkpoints.”

“However, the mere presence of uniformed officers gives the checkpoints an aura of authority, says Mary Catherine Roper, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. She is studying the issue there after motorists complained about a survey checkpoint last month in Reading.

“We have a whole bunch of rules about when police can pull you over,” she says. “It looks like an exercise of official authority when a cop pulls you over. People assume it’s mandatory, and of course you’re going to stop. That’s a constitutional problem right there.”

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5. Who needs laws and a legislature when you can just rule by presidential decree? This is what happens when you have a weak Senate that won’t do their job, and a House that can’t because what they send up never makes it out of the Senate.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “The Obama administration made up for the lack of laws passed in Congress last year, issuing a whopping 3,659 rules regulations, crushing claims that Washington isn’t doing anything.

Only 65 public laws were signed by President Obama in 2013, meaning that his government issued an average of 56 new regulations for every one, a record high ratio, according to the annual analysis by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The surge in regulations has led critics to charge that Congress is now a bystander to federal regulatory agencies.”

“Said CEI’s Wayne Crews, who provided Secrets with his new analysis, “The deterioration of the Constitution’s separation of, and balance of, powers means that regulators and bureaucrats now make most laws. Congress is so 1789, after all. The executive branch increasingly imposes its will: President Obama and his administration repeatedly say they are not going to wait for Congress, so brace yourselves.”

Harry Reid seems OK with it. He would rather just spout partisan nonsense as the White House lackey instead of doing his job anyway.

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6. It’s the end of the world as we know it, or something…. 🙄

From LifeNews  “For those of us so very blessed to have raised our personal white flag in mankind’s inherently fruitless struggle against the Creator, there can be no joy in watching God-deniers continue to labor under the grandest of all deceptions. Regardless of how nasty they may be as individuals, there can be only sadness, genuine pity and prayer. Still, it is instructive.

When the atheist gives voice to his or her God-denial, it provides those in Truth a small glimpse into the same dark spirit – old as Adam – that prompted the psalmist to observe: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good” (Psalm 14:1).

Valerie Tarico is one such God-denier. She’s on a fool’s errand. A steadfast disciple to the unholy trinity of “LGBT,” atheist and pro-abortion activism, Ms. Tarico proudly sits on the Board of Advocates for Planned Parenthood – America’s premier one-stop-death-shop.”

“For “progressives” like Tarico, the term “religious fundamentalism” is a euphemism for orthodox Christianity. In a tedious, though unintentionally funny screed recently published at Salon.com under the headline: “10 signs that religious fundamentalism is going down,” Ms. Tarico gives empty hope to her fellow hopeless with a word salad steeped in anti-Christian bigotry and wishful thinking. I share excerpts only because they so clearly encapsulate the broader secular-”progressive” mindset. Ms. Tarico’s reflections are so hyperbolic – so far removed from reality – that they require little additional commentary.”

You can read more of her delusions at the link. But something tells me her tales of our demise are greatly exaggerated. 🙂

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by

News/Politics 11-22-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Reid has exercised the “nuclear option” and changed the Senate rules on filibustering. They seek to pack the courts and govt bureaucracies with liberal activists. The President and VP have come out in strong support. Hypocrites, every single one.

Yesterday the President said “So I support the step a majority of senators today took to change the way that Washington is doing business, more specifically, the way the Senate does business.”

But here’s what he had to say when his party was the minority and the Republicans were considering it.

“In 2008, Mr. Reid himself swore that as long as he was leader, he would never turn to the nuclear option, saying it would be a “black chapter in the history of the Senate.”

Here’s what Biden had to say in 2005.

Yeah. Hypocrites.

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2. Democrats better come up with a plan quick. This could get real ugly for them.

From FoxNews  “A new and independent analysis of ObamaCare warns of a ticking time bomb, predicting a second wave of 50 million to 100 million insurance policy cancellations next fall — right before the mid-term elections. 

 The next round of cancellations and premium hikes is expected to hit employees, particularly of small businesses. While the administration has tried to downplay the cancellation notices hitting policyholders on the individual market by noting they represent a relatively small fraction of the population, the swath of people who will be affected by the shakeup in employer-sponsored coverage will be much broader. 

An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, shows the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predict up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year. “

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3. And it looks like the Catholic Church has scored another legal victory against the Obama admin’s contraceptive mandate. 🙂

From Pittsburgh/CBSLocal  “A federal judge in western Pennsylvania says Catholic groups don’t immediately have to comply with mandates in the federal health care overhaul law.

The Diocese is challenging its participation in the health care program because it would be required to provide its employees with contraceptives.

There were strong words earlier this month from Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese leader Bishop David Zubik as he testified in federal court on the issue.”

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4. NBC being the Obama cheerleaders that they are, have blacked out coverage of the ObamaCare disaster.

From NewsBusters  “NBC News has completely censored any mention of the unfolding ObamaCare disaster  for the last 72 hours. Not one word about the millions of Americans losing their  health insurance nor the severe political damage that has been done to President  Obama and the Democratic Party.

In that same time period, both CBS and  ABC reported on major developments regarding the new law, including revelations  that much of ObamaCare’s infrastructure was still unfinished and that the  administration knew of serious problems with the HealthCare.gov website as early as  March.

The last time ObamaCare was even mentioned on the air waves of NBC News was  during Monday morning’s Today show, when White House correspondent  Peter Alexander touted a “to-do list” of damage control for the President and former  Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs was given a platform to spin for his former  boss.”

Straight propaganda, no chaser.

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5. A new study is out which proves yet again that govt. funded pre-k programs are a waste of money and resources. President Obama supports it, but let’s face it, he likes it because it’s money that can be pushed to the teachers unions. Outcome doesn’t matter, financing his supporters, who return the money to Dem coffers is what matters to him. The italicized remarks are his.

From HotAir  “Naturally, on the heels of these scientifically rigorous findings, the president announced his desire for a massive expansion of Head Start and state pre-K programs. Universal pre-K— Who could object to that?

“You know, study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road. But today, fewer than three in ten 4-year-olds are enrolled in a high-quality preschool program. Most middle-class parents can’t afford a few hundred bucks a week for private preschool. And for poor kids who need help the most, this lack of access to preschool education can shadow them for the rest of their lives. So, tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America.“

Making high-quality preschool available to every single child in America. So, what would we get for that money? And, more importantly, what do students get? A new study of Tennessee’s Voluntary Pre-K program suggests, once again, the answer is not much.”

“The relatively large effects of TN‐VPK on the Woodcock Johnson achievement measures found at the end of the pre‐k year were greatly diminished and no longer statistically significant at the end of the kindergarten year. The only exception was a marginally significant negative effect on Passage Comprehension such that non-participants had higher scores at the end of the kindergarten year than TN‐VPK participants.”

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6. I know it’s early, but it’s we have our first sighting…..

GRINCH ALERT!!!!

From AllianceDefendingFreedom  “On behalf of concerned parents, Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter Tuesday to a South Carolina public charter school whose band director prohibited students from performing the music to “Joy to the World” and “O Come All Ye Faithful.” A student also provided the letter to the school at a board meeting Tuesday night.

School officials claim they received some type of communication from either the American Civil Liberties Union or another group that prompted the ban after students had already begun rehearsing the pieces for a concert.

“Schools shouldn’t have to think twice about whether they can allow their bands to play the music to time-honored Christmas carols like these,” said Litigation Staff Counsel Rory Gray. “School districts can and should allow religious Christmas carols to be part of their school productions.”

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by

News/Politics 5-9-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

We’ll start with a bunch of Benghazi links for those interested.

Benghazi whistleblower: ‘I’ve been demoted’ for challenging Susan Rice’s claims, from the Washington Examiner

White House struggles to respond to new Benghazi revelations, from the Washington Times

Diplomat Says Questions Over Benghazi Led to Demotion, from the NY Times

Top U.S. Diplomat In Libya Says Hillary Clinton’s Top Aide Chewed Him Out For Talking With Investigators… from Weasel Zippers

Top Ranking U.S. Diplomat In Libya After Ambassador Stevens Death Says FBI Never Bothered To Interview Him During Their Investigation… from Weasel Zippers

And of course a Democrat blames it all on budget cuts, from The Weekly Standard

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A pair of new studies will make the gun debate a little tougher for one side. From TheWashingtonPost

“Gun homicides have dropped steeply in the United States since their 1993 peak, a pair of reports released Tuesday showed, adding fuel to Congress’ battle over whether to tighten restrictions on firearms.

A study released Tuesday by the government’s Bureau of Justice Statistics found that gun-related homicides dropped from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011. That’s a 39 percent reduction.

Another report by the private Pew Research Center found a similar decline by looking at the rate of gun homicides, which compares the number of killings to the size of the country’s growing population. It found that the number of gun homicides per 100,000 people fell from 7 in 1993 to 3.6 in 2010, a drop of 49 percent.”

“Both reports also found that non-fatal crimes involving guns were down by roughly 70 percent over that period.”

Huh. You mean they’re being dishonest with their rhetoric? After all, they insist that booming gun sales are dangerous. Yet while ownership rose, deaths declined. Go figure. And yeah, it’s also funny that this comes just weeks after the Senate’s attempted regulations. Now you know why they were in a hurry.

Despite the actual facts, the public seems uninformed on the matter. Just like they and their media mouthpieces intended. Here’s more, from TheLATimes

“Gun crime has plunged in the United States since its peak in the middle of the 1990s, including gun killings, assaults, robberies and other crimes, two new studies of government data show.

Yet few Americans are aware of the dramatic drop, and more than half believe gun crime has risen, according to a newly released survey by the Pew Research Center.”

“Despite the remarkable drop in gun crime, only 12% of Americans surveyed said gun crime had declined compared with two decades ago, according to Pew, which surveyed  more than 900 adults this spring. Twenty-six percent said it had stayed the same, and 56% thought it had increased.

It’s unclear whether media coverage is driving the misconception that such violence is up. The mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., were among the news stories most closely watched by Americans last year, Pew found. Crime has also been a growing focus for national newscasts and morning network shows in the past five years but has become less common on local television news.”

Unclear? No. Not really.

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Joe Biden would like you to know that it’s immoral and callous to want Voter ID. From Politico

“Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday bashed voting rights requirements — calling them “immoral, callous” — and warned of political consequences for those  who try to impose barriers to casting a ballot.

“To me it is the most immoral, callous thing that can be done, the idea of  making it more difficult to vote,” Biden said at the annual gala dinner of the  Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a minority-focused public  policy organization.”

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More radical ties to Boston bombing suspect #1. From YahooNews

“Last year, when Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in the Russian region of Dagestan, he had a guide with an unusually deep knowledge of the local Islamist community: a distant cousin named Magomed Kartashov. Six years older than Tsarnaev, Kartashov is a former police officer and freestyle wrestler—and one of the region’s most prominent Islamists.

In 2011 Kartashov founded and became the leader of an organization called the Union of the Just, whose members campaign for sharia law and pan-Islamic unity in Dagestan, often speaking out against U.S. policies across the Muslim world. The group publicly renounces violence. But some of its members have close links to militants; others have served time in prison for weapons possession and abetting terrorism—charges they say were based on fabricated evidence. For Tsarnaev, these men formed a community of pious young Muslims with whom he could discuss his ideas of jihad. Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat, confirmed that her son is Kartashov’s third cousin. The two met for the first time in Dagestan, she said, and “became very close.””

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The chair of the Congressional Black Caucus is seeking leniency for Jesse Jackson Jr. From TheChicagoSunTimes

“Eight of the letters argued for a break. The most prominent advocate for Jesse Jackson was Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Fudge wrote that even though she and some congressional colleagues in hindsight saw signs of his bipolar illness “during the last 4 to 5 years,” nevertheless, he was a “tireless advocate for the poor and underserved.” He was also the charming “highlight of our karaoke nights.””

So it’s OK to steal campaign donations, as long as you can Karaoke. Got it. 🙄

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Jodi Arias is guilty, and she’d rather have the death penalty. From TheAP

“Jodi Arias spent 18 days on the stand sharing intimate, emotional and oftentimes X-rated details of her life before a rapt television and online audience. She had hoped it all might convince a jury that she killed her one-time boyfriend in self-defense.

But the eight men and four women on the panel didn’t buy it, convicting Arias of first-degree murder after only about 15 hours of deliberations. Jurors will return to court Thursday to begin the next phase of the trial that could set the stage for Arias receiving a death sentence.

It’s a punishment that Arias herself says she wants, telling a TV station minutes after her conviction that she would “prefer to die sooner than later.””

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