Observations From the Back Row

Lead Story!!! Wisconsin Supreme Court ends 'John Doe' investigations - By Rick Moran

The nightmare for Wisconsin conservatives is over. The Wisconsin state Supreme Court has ruled 4-2 that the "John Doe" investigations targeting Governor Walker and several conservative groups in the state should be ended, and that no violations of the campaign finance law occurred. Thus ends one of the most bizarre and frightening chapters in the history of American law enforcement. The investigation into whether the Walker campaign colluded with outside groups was marked by pre-dawn SWAT raids on ordinary people's homes, as the hyper-partisan prosecutor – whose wife was an official with a local teachers' union – sought to intimidate conservatives statewide. Justice Michael Gableman summed up the efforts of Milwaukee County prosecutor John Chisolm's and Special Prosecutor Francis Schmitz's efforts to make a collusion case in stark, accusatory language:

"It is utterly clear that the special prosecutor has employed theories of law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing," Gableman wrote……Read more:

Actually, the Planned Parenthood Body Parts Business is Likely Very Illegal, By Rachel Alexander

The Center for Medical Progress released an undercover video this week showing Planned Parenthood's Senior Director of Medical Services, Deborah Nucatola telling actors posing as potential buyers from a startup biologics company how they can buy fetal body parts from the organization. She dances around the legalities, but drops numerous hints throughout the conversation that Planned Parenthood is not really complying with the law.

If "Jeb!" is Right About "The Donald", My Party Just Took a Wrong Left Turn, By Jonathan Henderson

The fast-sinking Titanic we know to be the Republican Party is unwittingly authoring its demise. Personally, if the rise of the Tea Party and "The Donald" trump the most unprincipled politicians on Earth, I will not shed one tear in sweet sorrow for the mercifully departed. Instead, I will stand first in line to shovel the dirt atop that white elephant's grave. And what the establishment fails to grasp is Mr. Trump is drawing to the public forum those who place Mexico and Latin American illegality before the rights of American citizens.

Government Crushes People - Then Writes Them Checks, By Seton Motley

A computer programming maxim is "Garbage in - garbage out." (C)omputers, since they operate by logical processes, will unquestioningly process unintended, even nonsensical, input data ("garbage in") and produce undesired, often nonsensical, output ("garbage out"). No one or nothing produces more garbage than government. And their trash has nowhere to go except all over the private sector - us. The federal government alone spends almost $4 trillion a year - that is a LOT of garbage. Hundreds of billions of that is borrowed, which is debt and interest for which We the People are responsible - more garbage. Then there's what they do with so much of that money - create ever more regulations. More garbage.

AG Pesticide residuals are no risk–chemophobes stand down, Posted on July 16, 2015

These people who are afraid of anything with a chemical name are apoplectic about insecticides–oooooh so scary. Repeat after me–dose makes the poison. Pascal–very long time ago said it–still true. Too much heart medicine–poison, too much water, makes cerebral edema, hyponatremia–get it? Here’s a big international study on ag herbicides/pesticides that make for better crop production. I am certified by the State of Texas to use pesticides and herbicides–not as a commercial but as a private operator–I assure you that herbicides are not dangerous for humans with few exceptions, but inesecticides have poisonous effects in adequate exposures. In fact military warfare toxins in some cases act like insecticides.

Disaster: Today's Warrior Purge in the U.S. military, By Robert K. Wilcox

That memorable line comes from James Mitchner’s Korean War novel, The Bridges of Toko-Ri. It refers to intrepid aviators lifting from a carrier, flying into untold danger. They know they may not return. They launch anyway. In boldness unfathomable to many, they willingly, artfully fly into peril. They are warriors, men of rare talent, intellect, and courage – a combination essential for victory. Needed warriors are now being purged from the U.S. military. If America went to war right now with China or Russia, we could lose because of these purges. We’re losing top-level warrior-leaders to make the crucial differences in battle. They’re being systematically drummed out as politically incorrect. When the going gets tough, political correctness (PC) is useless. Then the brilliant, wily fighters, the coolest heads, the most courageous warriors, are needed to lead regardless of social views or record.

They Stripped Marriage Of Its Sacredness To Sell Gay Marriage, by Ryan Landry

The top-down imposition of gay marriage is now in the rearview mirror for America’s leftward drift. Will it grant legitimacy to such unions? No. Legitimacy comes from widespread acceptance, not from imposition. Negative referendums, brow-beating by the media and volunteer thought police and five Supreme Court justices are not the sign of widespread acceptance. William Safire was right over a decade ago when he wrote that this gay marriage push was all over one word “marriage” and the legitimacy and approval that it granted. Those shocked at how fast this all happened may point to gay propaganda, but it is not just that. The media and academia smeared marriage long enough to remove the sacredness of the institution. Many point to the skyrocketing support for gay marriage that has occurred in recent years. There are large, well-respected polls going back to the mid ’90s that show support around 25% and even in the mid ’00s support around 35%. It was a minority opinion to support gay marriage, but the conceptual granting of some recognition was not a minority. Tracking right along those same polls that showed a majority against gay marriage, were polls that showed a near majority or clear majority supported recognition of civil unions for homosexuals. A couple of decades of ‘gay is okay’ and ‘just like us’ propaganda did help put gay marriage over the top, as did five Supreme Court justices and every major corporation not named Chik-Fil-A.

Merkel firm stand on illegal immigrants tested by crying teen, By Rick Moran

Germany is in crisis this summer as illegal immigrants pour across the Bavarian border in ever increasing numbers. Already, there have been more illegals entering Germany to date than entered all of last year. And the German people are fed up. Chancellor Angela Merkel is saying simply that Germany can't help everyone. And that policy was tested yesterday when she was confronted by a crying Palestinian teen who came with her family to Germany four years ago seeking asylum.

A new application of a label? By Thomas Lifson

A reader from Cleveland writes: It was a subtle change and you may have missed it. But I suspect it will be significant. Until yesterday, the term domestic terrorist was mostly used to describe misanthropic white Americans who lean right. Apparently, now Kuwaiti born ISIS inspired Muslim radicals are also domestic terrorists. Who knew? According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), abortion clinic bombers, white separatists, tax protestors, sovereign citizen movements and right wing militias have been held up as examples of domestic terrorist threats for over 30 years. But with the exception of the Oklahoma City Bombing and a few abortion clinic bombings, the existential threat posed by paunchy white guys from Idaho never materialized.

TAKEDOWN: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left has Sabotaged Family and Marriage – By Herbert E. Meyer

As Samuel Johnson famously wrote, we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed. And it is precisely to remind us of the central role that marriage and family play in our civilization – and of the left’s never-ending efforts to undermine this role – that the superb historian and commentator Paul Kengor has written TAKEDOWN. His timing couldn’t be better. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that there’s a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage – a ruling whose net effect is to legalize same-sex marriage throughout the U.S. – marriage and family once again are at the top of our national political arena. Good. That’s where they belong. In TAKEDOWN, Kengor reminds us that marriage and family have been under attack from the left since 1848, when Marx and Engels called for “Abolition of the family!” in their Communist Manifestoand predicted that “the bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course.”