Tim Allen is one of the few conservative actors in Hollywood, and he isn’t afraid to let his opinion on political matters be known. In fact, Allen is not only outspoken about his views outside of work, but occasionally even slips a political shot or two into his hit sitcom “Last Man Standing.”
During a recent interview with Hollywood Reporter, Allen was asked why his show has taken shots at presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, yet not the Republican front-runner Donald Trump......As for the Clintons being similar to a certain sexually transmitted disease that never really goes away, well, it is a rather apt description, particularly regarding Bill’s history.....
To Read More
Saturday, January 30, 2016
New DeLorean Sports Cars Will Be Built In Texas
By Jerry Reynolds
The iconic DeLorean is going back to the future. And yes, it is as every bit as exciting as it sounds. Yes, brand new ”not refurbished” DeLoreans could hit the road as early as next year. The big news comes after the automaker announced it will soon start building the sleek, silver sports cars again for the first time in three decades. This good news comes after a change in federal law that allows for low-volume manufacturing.
"It's fantastic! It is a game changer for us. We've been wanting this to happen. That was a green light to go back into production," says Stephen Wynne, CEO of DeLorean Motors. There won't be an unlimited supply of the cars made famous by the 1985 flick Back to the Future. Wynne says he has enough original parts to build 300 of them and they'll go for around $100,000 each....
To Read More
My Take - Okay, what do you think is the most fascinating part of this story? The DeLorean is coming back? No. Someone bought all the parts and rights to this car back in the 80's? No. Even after all this time and all the infamy behind the originator people still are prepared to pay big time even for a used DeLorean? No. People will pay $100,000 for a new one? No. I think the most fascinating part of this story is there was some kind of federal law to prevent "low volume" manufacturing. How is it the federal government's business to decide how much a company can manufacture? Where in the Constitution do the find that authority? It certainly can't be the Interstate Commerce Clause, even if what's being manufactured is sold out of state because one has nothing to do with the other. But then again ...... when did the federal government and the Supreme Court ever find a rational boundary for the Commerce Clause?
The iconic DeLorean is going back to the future. And yes, it is as every bit as exciting as it sounds. Yes, brand new ”not refurbished” DeLoreans could hit the road as early as next year. The big news comes after the automaker announced it will soon start building the sleek, silver sports cars again for the first time in three decades. This good news comes after a change in federal law that allows for low-volume manufacturing.
"It's fantastic! It is a game changer for us. We've been wanting this to happen. That was a green light to go back into production," says Stephen Wynne, CEO of DeLorean Motors. There won't be an unlimited supply of the cars made famous by the 1985 flick Back to the Future. Wynne says he has enough original parts to build 300 of them and they'll go for around $100,000 each....
To Read More
My Take - Okay, what do you think is the most fascinating part of this story? The DeLorean is coming back? No. Someone bought all the parts and rights to this car back in the 80's? No. Even after all this time and all the infamy behind the originator people still are prepared to pay big time even for a used DeLorean? No. People will pay $100,000 for a new one? No. I think the most fascinating part of this story is there was some kind of federal law to prevent "low volume" manufacturing. How is it the federal government's business to decide how much a company can manufacture? Where in the Constitution do the find that authority? It certainly can't be the Interstate Commerce Clause, even if what's being manufactured is sold out of state because one has nothing to do with the other. But then again ...... when did the federal government and the Supreme Court ever find a rational boundary for the Commerce Clause?
The Left's Manufactured Muslim Crisis
Posted by Daniel Greenfield Friday, January 29, 2016
@ Sultan Knish Blog
(Emphasis added by me. RK)
Men and women, some whose clothes were still marked with gray ash, walked dazedly toward Union Square. Many did not know what to do or where to go. So they kept on walking. They knew the country was under attack, but they did not know how bad it was or what might still be heading for them.
Behind them lay a changed city and thousands of American dead. Ahead was the bronze statue of George Washington, facing into the devastation and raising his hand to lead his men forward in victory. Around its base, with the destruction of the World Trade Center as their backdrop, leftists had set up shop, coloring anti-war posters even while rescue workers were risking their lives at Ground Zero.
In the coming days, the statue of Washington would be repeatedly vandalized by leftists drawing peace signs and “No War” and “War is Not the Answer” slogans on it. But that moment crystallized my realization that while Muslim terrorists had carried out the attack, it was the left we would have to fight.
While some New Yorkers had gone to help the victims of Islamic terrorists, the left had rushed to aid the terrorists. Unlike the rest of us, they were not shocked or horrified by the attack. They were treasonously working on ways to spin the murder of thousands of Americans to protect the enemy.
The greatest obstacle to defeating Islamic terrorism is still the left.
The left helped create Islamic terrorism; its immigration policies import terrorism while its civil rights arm obstructs efforts to prevent it and its anti-war rallies attack any effort to fight it. In America, in Europe and in Israel, and around the world, to get at Islamic terrorists, you have to go through the left.
When a Muslim terrorist comes to America, it’s the left that agitates to admit him. Before he kills, it’s the left that fights to protect him from the FBI. Afterward, leftists offer to be his lawyers. The left creates the crisis and then it fights against any effort to deal with it except through surrender and appeasement.
Islamic violence against non-Muslims predated the left. But it’s the left that made it our problem. Islamic terrorism in America or France exists because of Muslim immigration. And the left is obsessed with finding new ways to import more Muslims. Merkel is praised for opening up a Europe already under siege by Islamic terror, Sharia police, no-go zones and sex grooming and groping gangs, to millions.
The left feverishly demands that the whole world follow her lead. Bill Gates would like America to be just like Germany. Israel’s deranged Labor Party leader Herzog urged the Jewish State to open its doors.
And then, after the next round of stabbings, car burnings and terror attacks, they blame the West for not “integrating” the un-integratable millions who had no more interest in being integrated than their leftist patrons do in moving to Pakistan and praying to Allah on a threadbare rug. But “integration” is a euphemism for a raft of leftist agenda items from social services spending to punishing hate speech (though never that of the Imams crying for blood and death, but only of their native victims) to a foreign policy based on appeasement and surrender. Islamic terrorists kill and leftists profit from the carnage.
The ongoing threat of Islamic terrorism is a manufactured crisis that the left cultivates because that gives it power. In a world without 9/11, the Obama presidency would never have existed. Neither would the Arab Spring and the resulting migration and wholesale transformation of Western countries.
In the UK, Labour used Muslim immigration as a deliberate political program to “change the country.” In Israel, Labor struck an illegal deal with Arafat that put sizable portions of the country under the control of terrorists while forcing the Jewish State into a series of concessions to terrorists and the left. The same fundamental pattern of Labour and Labor and the whole left is behind the rise of Islamic terrorism.
Muslim terrorism creates pressure that the left uses to achieve policy goals. Even when it can’t win elections, Muslim terrorism allows the left to create a crisis and then to set an agenda.
The left’s patronage of Islamic terrorists for its own political purposes follows a thread back to the origin of Islamic terrorism. Islamic violence against non-Muslims dates back to the founding of Islam, but the tactics of modern Islamic terrorism owe as much to Lenin as they do to Mohammed.
Today’s Islamic terrorist is the product of traditional Islamic theology and Soviet tactics. The USSR did not intend to create Al Qaeda, but they provided training and doctrine to terrorists from the Muslim world. The “secular” and “progressive” terrorists of the left either grew Islamist, like Arafat, or their tactics were copied and expanded on, like the PFLP, by a new generation of Islamic terrorists.
The earlier phase of Islamic organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, had been inspired by fascists who were seeking to use them in their own wars. Over this layer of secret societies plotting takeovers and building networks of front groups, the Soviet Union added the terror tactics that had been employed by the left. And the leftist mad bomber became the Muslim suicide bomber. Terrorism in the Muslim world has evolved from functioning as a Third World proxy army for the left, in much the same way as guerrillas and terrorists from Asia, Africa and Latin America had, to a diaspora whose migrations lend a domestic terror arm to a Western left whose own spiteful activists have grown unwilling to put their lives on the line and go beyond tweeting words to throwing bombs.
With the Muslim Brotherhood, the origin organization of Al Qaeda, ISIS and Hamas, among many others, so tightly integrated into the American and European left that it is often hard to see where one begins and the other ends, Islam has become the militant arm of the purportedly secular left. Western leftists and Islamists have formed the same poisonous relationship as Middle Eastern leftists and Islamists did leading to the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Arab Spring. Leftists expected Islamists to do the dirty work while they would take over. Instead the Islamists won and killed them.
Having learned nothing from the Hitler-Stalin pact, the left has replayed the same betrayal with the Mohammed-Stalin pact in the Middle East and now in the West. But the end of the Mohammed-Stalin pact will not be a Socialist totalitarian utopia, but an Islamic theocracy of slaves, terror and death.
On September 11, I saw with my own eyes how eager and willing leftists were to rush to the aid of Islamic terrorists even while their fellow Americans were dying. Nothing has changed. Every Islamic act of brutality is met with lies and spin, with mass distraction and deception by the treasonous left. Every effort to fight Islamic terrorists is sabotaged, undermined and protested by the enemy within.
Since September 11, the left has trashed the FBI’s counterterrorism and has now succeeded in destroying the NYPD’s counterrorism while transforming the FDNY into an affirmative action project. What the September 11 hijackers could never accomplish on their own, the leftists did for them by defeating the three forces that had stood against Islamic terrorists on that day. And it would not surprise me at all if some of the “No War” scribblers have gone on to play an influential role in that treason.
The left has crippled domestic and international counterterrorism. American soldiers are not allowed to shoot terrorists and the FBI and NYPD can’t monitor mosques or even be taught what to look for. Islamic terrorism has achieved unprecedented influence and power under Obama. ISIS has created the first functioning caliphate and Iran marches toward the first Jihadist nuclear bomb. The mass Muslim migration is beginning a process that will Islamize Europe far more rapidly than anyone expects.
The Jihad would not be a significant threat without the collaboration of the left. Without the left standing in the way, it’s a problem that could be solved in a matter of years. With the aid of the left, it threatens human civilization with a dark age that will erase our culture, our future and our freedom.
We cannot defeat Islam without defeating the left. That is the lesson I learned on September 11. It is a lesson that appears truer every single year as the left finds new ways to endanger us all.
(Emphasis added by me. RK)
Men and women, some whose clothes were still marked with gray ash, walked dazedly toward Union Square. Many did not know what to do or where to go. So they kept on walking. They knew the country was under attack, but they did not know how bad it was or what might still be heading for them.
Behind them lay a changed city and thousands of American dead. Ahead was the bronze statue of George Washington, facing into the devastation and raising his hand to lead his men forward in victory. Around its base, with the destruction of the World Trade Center as their backdrop, leftists had set up shop, coloring anti-war posters even while rescue workers were risking their lives at Ground Zero.In the coming days, the statue of Washington would be repeatedly vandalized by leftists drawing peace signs and “No War” and “War is Not the Answer” slogans on it. But that moment crystallized my realization that while Muslim terrorists had carried out the attack, it was the left we would have to fight.
While some New Yorkers had gone to help the victims of Islamic terrorists, the left had rushed to aid the terrorists. Unlike the rest of us, they were not shocked or horrified by the attack. They were treasonously working on ways to spin the murder of thousands of Americans to protect the enemy.
The greatest obstacle to defeating Islamic terrorism is still the left.
The left helped create Islamic terrorism; its immigration policies import terrorism while its civil rights arm obstructs efforts to prevent it and its anti-war rallies attack any effort to fight it. In America, in Europe and in Israel, and around the world, to get at Islamic terrorists, you have to go through the left.
When a Muslim terrorist comes to America, it’s the left that agitates to admit him. Before he kills, it’s the left that fights to protect him from the FBI. Afterward, leftists offer to be his lawyers. The left creates the crisis and then it fights against any effort to deal with it except through surrender and appeasement.
Islamic violence against non-Muslims predated the left. But it’s the left that made it our problem. Islamic terrorism in America or France exists because of Muslim immigration. And the left is obsessed with finding new ways to import more Muslims. Merkel is praised for opening up a Europe already under siege by Islamic terror, Sharia police, no-go zones and sex grooming and groping gangs, to millions.
The left feverishly demands that the whole world follow her lead. Bill Gates would like America to be just like Germany. Israel’s deranged Labor Party leader Herzog urged the Jewish State to open its doors.
And then, after the next round of stabbings, car burnings and terror attacks, they blame the West for not “integrating” the un-integratable millions who had no more interest in being integrated than their leftist patrons do in moving to Pakistan and praying to Allah on a threadbare rug. But “integration” is a euphemism for a raft of leftist agenda items from social services spending to punishing hate speech (though never that of the Imams crying for blood and death, but only of their native victims) to a foreign policy based on appeasement and surrender. Islamic terrorists kill and leftists profit from the carnage.
The ongoing threat of Islamic terrorism is a manufactured crisis that the left cultivates because that gives it power. In a world without 9/11, the Obama presidency would never have existed. Neither would the Arab Spring and the resulting migration and wholesale transformation of Western countries.
In the UK, Labour used Muslim immigration as a deliberate political program to “change the country.” In Israel, Labor struck an illegal deal with Arafat that put sizable portions of the country under the control of terrorists while forcing the Jewish State into a series of concessions to terrorists and the left. The same fundamental pattern of Labour and Labor and the whole left is behind the rise of Islamic terrorism.
Muslim terrorism creates pressure that the left uses to achieve policy goals. Even when it can’t win elections, Muslim terrorism allows the left to create a crisis and then to set an agenda.
The left’s patronage of Islamic terrorists for its own political purposes follows a thread back to the origin of Islamic terrorism. Islamic violence against non-Muslims dates back to the founding of Islam, but the tactics of modern Islamic terrorism owe as much to Lenin as they do to Mohammed.
Today’s Islamic terrorist is the product of traditional Islamic theology and Soviet tactics. The USSR did not intend to create Al Qaeda, but they provided training and doctrine to terrorists from the Muslim world. The “secular” and “progressive” terrorists of the left either grew Islamist, like Arafat, or their tactics were copied and expanded on, like the PFLP, by a new generation of Islamic terrorists.
The earlier phase of Islamic organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, had been inspired by fascists who were seeking to use them in their own wars. Over this layer of secret societies plotting takeovers and building networks of front groups, the Soviet Union added the terror tactics that had been employed by the left. And the leftist mad bomber became the Muslim suicide bomber. Terrorism in the Muslim world has evolved from functioning as a Third World proxy army for the left, in much the same way as guerrillas and terrorists from Asia, Africa and Latin America had, to a diaspora whose migrations lend a domestic terror arm to a Western left whose own spiteful activists have grown unwilling to put their lives on the line and go beyond tweeting words to throwing bombs.
With the Muslim Brotherhood, the origin organization of Al Qaeda, ISIS and Hamas, among many others, so tightly integrated into the American and European left that it is often hard to see where one begins and the other ends, Islam has become the militant arm of the purportedly secular left. Western leftists and Islamists have formed the same poisonous relationship as Middle Eastern leftists and Islamists did leading to the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Arab Spring. Leftists expected Islamists to do the dirty work while they would take over. Instead the Islamists won and killed them.
Having learned nothing from the Hitler-Stalin pact, the left has replayed the same betrayal with the Mohammed-Stalin pact in the Middle East and now in the West. But the end of the Mohammed-Stalin pact will not be a Socialist totalitarian utopia, but an Islamic theocracy of slaves, terror and death.
On September 11, I saw with my own eyes how eager and willing leftists were to rush to the aid of Islamic terrorists even while their fellow Americans were dying. Nothing has changed. Every Islamic act of brutality is met with lies and spin, with mass distraction and deception by the treasonous left. Every effort to fight Islamic terrorists is sabotaged, undermined and protested by the enemy within.
Since September 11, the left has trashed the FBI’s counterterrorism and has now succeeded in destroying the NYPD’s counterrorism while transforming the FDNY into an affirmative action project. What the September 11 hijackers could never accomplish on their own, the leftists did for them by defeating the three forces that had stood against Islamic terrorists on that day. And it would not surprise me at all if some of the “No War” scribblers have gone on to play an influential role in that treason.
The left has crippled domestic and international counterterrorism. American soldiers are not allowed to shoot terrorists and the FBI and NYPD can’t monitor mosques or even be taught what to look for. Islamic terrorism has achieved unprecedented influence and power under Obama. ISIS has created the first functioning caliphate and Iran marches toward the first Jihadist nuclear bomb. The mass Muslim migration is beginning a process that will Islamize Europe far more rapidly than anyone expects.
The Jihad would not be a significant threat without the collaboration of the left. Without the left standing in the way, it’s a problem that could be solved in a matter of years. With the aid of the left, it threatens human civilization with a dark age that will erase our culture, our future and our freedom.
We cannot defeat Islam without defeating the left. That is the lesson I learned on September 11. It is a lesson that appears truer every single year as the left finds new ways to endanger us all.
Trumping hydrocarbon fuels and consumers
Too many presidential candidates court corporate cash by promoting ethanol
Paul Driessen
Donald Trump loves to tout his poll numbers. But if he’s doing so well, why does he pander to Iowa’s ethanol interests?
The gambit might garner a few caucus votes among corn growers and ethanol producers. It certainly brings plaudits from renewable energy lobbyists and their political enablers. But it could (and should) cost him votes in many other quarters – beyond the Corn Ethanol Belt and even in Iowa.
The fact is, the 14.5-billion-gallon-per-year ethanol mandate prolongs policies that are bad for consumers and the environment. And yet many presidential candidates and other politicians support it.
The ethanol mandate forces refiners to blend ethanol into gasoline. It’s the epitome of feel-good government programs run amok. Congress enacted the steadily expanding ethanol blending requirement to stave off the “imminent” depletion of crude oil worldwide, decrease US imports of oil whose price was “only going to increase,” reduce gasoline costs for motorists, and prevent manmade climate change.
We now know all these concerns were misplaced. In fact, the ethanol mandate fails every economic and environmental test.
The “fracking revolution” (horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing) has unleashed a gusher of US oil and gas production. Domestic oil production in 2014 reached its highest level in 114 years, and the United States is now the world’s biggest hydrocarbon producer. Global crude and American gasoline prices have plummeted. Fracking technology can be applied to shale deposits anywhere in the world, and even to conventional oil fields, ensuring that the world has at least another century of oil and natural gas supplies – and ample time to develop new energy technologies that we cannot even conceive of today.
Since ethanol gets a third less mileage than pure gasoline, adding ethanol to fuel actually increases fuel costs per tank, especially when crude oil fetches less than $30 per barrel and regular gasoline is under $2 per gallon in most states. For motorists driving 15,000 miles a year, $1.85-per-gallon gas means $1,200 in savings, compared to April 2012 prices. Ending the ethanol mandate would save them even more.
As to climate change, numerous studies demonstrate that there is no credible evidence that manmade carbon dioxide is causing dangerous global warming. Moreover, rising CO2 emissions from China, India and other rapidly developing nations overwhelm any imaginable US reductions.
The ethanol mandate has devolved into a black hole that sucks hard-earned cash from consumers’ wallets, while padding the pockets of special interests and their political patrons. Poor, minority, middle class and blue-collar families are especially hard hit.
Devoting 40% of America’s corn crop to ethanol production has significantly increased corn prices and thus the price of all foods that utilize the grain: beef, milk, pork, chicken, eggs, farm-raised fish, and countless products that include corn syrup. The corn converted into biofuel each year could feed more than 400,000,000 malnourished people in impoverished and war-torn countries.
Ethanol is corrosive and mixes easily with water, resulting in serious damage to gaskets and engines. Consumers have spent billions “degunking” and repairing cars, trucks, boats, snowmobiles, chain saws and other small engine equipment, to prevent (or in the aftermath of) fuel leaks, engine failures and even fires. Vehicle, outdoor equipment and marine engine manufacturers warn against using gasoline blends containing more than 10% ethanol.
The mandate raised fuel costs nationwide by an estimated $83 billion between 2007 and 2014. In New England it is expected to cost the economy $20 billion, reduce labor income by $7.3 billion, and eliminate more than 7,000 jobs annually between 2005 and 2024. It has cost Californians $13.1 billion in higher fuel costs since 2005, and could inflict $28.8 billion in additional costs there by 2025.
Corn ethanol’s ecological impacts have convinced the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Environmental Working Group (EWG) and other organizations to oppose further extensions of the mandate. More than 35,000,000 acres (an area larger than Iowa) are now devoted to growing corn for ethanol, and the EWG says the mandate encourages farmers to convert extensive wetlands and grasslands into cornfields.
Growing corn, turning it into ethanol and trucking it to refineries (since it attracts water, it cannot be carried by pipeline) also requires vast amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides, diesel fuel and natural gas. Only a tiny fraction of that acreage, water and fuel is required to produce far more energy via fracking.
Contrary to Environmental Protection Agency claims that ethanol helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions, those lands released an additional 27,000,000 tons of CO2 in 2014, the EWG calculates. In fact, the group says, corn ethanol results in more carbon dioxide emissions than estimated for the Keystone XL pipeline.
The United States also imports sugarcane ethanol from Brazil. The American Energy Alliance says the EPA does not account for the associated greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, EPA calls sugarcane ethanol an “advanced” fuel, even though it has been around since the 1920s.
The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) set expectations for biofuel development based on aspirations, not reality. It assumed switch-grass and wood waste could be converted into advanced cellulosic fuels, but the process has proven very costly and difficult. In an effort to hide this inconvenient truth, EPA now defines even some kinds of liquefied natural gas, compressed natural gas and electricity as derived from cellulosic fuels, in an effort to meet the mandate – even though none of these fuels can be blended into gasoline.
Many consumers are rejecting ethanol-blended fuels, and sales of straight gasoline have climbed from just over 3% of total US gasoline demand in 2012 to nearly 7% in 2014.
Simply put, the ethanol mandate is a disaster. When the government writes fuel recipes and meddles in the free market system, everyone loses except ethanol special interests. Texas Senator Ted Cruz is right: ethanol mandates and energy subsidies should all be terminated. Let biofuel, wind and solar power compete on their own merits, instead of being force-fed to consumers and taxpayers.
However, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad has made support for ethanol a litmus test for the February 1 presidential caucuses. He wants Senator Cruz defeated for opposing the ethanol mandate. The governor’s stance also reflects the fact his son heads up the pro-ethanol America’s Energy Future lobbying group, and ethanol interests have contributed sizable amounts to the six-term Republican governor’s reelection campaigns.
There’s even a pro-ethanol van following Mr. Cruz around Iowa, to change recent polling results that found half of Iowa voters do not care much or at all about preserving the federal corn ethanol mandate.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump still thinks the mandate should be increased from this year’s 14.5 billion gallons to the full 15 billion gallons allowed under the antiquated RFS law. Jeb Bush and Chris Christy also support ethanol coercion. While this position might be politically expedient in Iowa, its affect on voters beyond the Hawkeye State is likely negative.
Mr. Trump and other candidates often say they will surround themselves with experts who know their stuff on important issues. Their pro-ethanol stance makes you wonder which wunderkinds are advising them right now. Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, by contrast, share Senator Cruz’s disdain for energy mandates and subsidies.
The issue is a small but important indication of what’s at stake in the 2016 presidential election.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death. © January 2016
Friday, January 29, 2016
Europe’s Moral Bankruptcy
January 28, 2016 by Dan Mitchell
I wrote last year about the moral vacuum that exists in Europe because gun control laws in nations like France make it very difficult for Jews to protect themselves from barbaric attacks.
But the principle applies more broadly. All law-abiding people should have the human right to protect themselves.
Politicians in Denmark don’t seem to understand this principle. Or maybe the do understand the principle, but they are so morally bankrupt that don’t care. Not only do they have gun control, they even have laws against pepper spray. And they are so fanatical in their desire to turn people into sheep that the government apparently will prosecute a girl who used pepper spray to save herself from rape.
Here are some excerpts from a report in the U.K.-based Daily Mail.
And what makes the situation especially frustrating is that the criminals and terrorists in Europe obviously don’t have any problem obtaining firearms.
So the only practical effect of gun control (or bans on pepper spray) is to make life easier for the scum of society.
And the real insult to injury is that a teenage girl who should be hailed as a hero now faces the threat of punishment. Just like the unfortunate British woman who was persecuted for using a knife to deter some thugs.
And here’s some of what the BBC reported about
Moreover, officials from one nation should not make over-the-top demands when visiting other countries. Just as it would be wrong for French officials to demand wine at state dinners in Iran, it’s also wrong for Iranian officials to demand the absence of wine at meals in France. After all, it’s not as if they would be expected to partake.
In the grand scheme of things, though, the kerfuffle about wine and statues doesn’t matter compared to the potentially life-and-death issue of whether Europeans should be allowed to defend themselves.
That’s why Europe isn’t merely in trouble because of fiscal bankruptcy, but also because of moral bankruptcy.
P.S. While having the ability to protect your life or to guard against rape isn’t a human right in most European nations, take a look at some of the things that are “rights.”
But the principle applies more broadly. All law-abiding people should have the human right to protect themselves.
Politicians in Denmark don’t seem to understand this principle. Or maybe the do understand the principle, but they are so morally bankrupt that don’t care. Not only do they have gun control, they even have laws against pepper spray. And they are so fanatical in their desire to turn people into sheep that the government apparently will prosecute a girl who used pepper spray to save herself from rape.Here are some excerpts from a report in the U.K.-based Daily Mail.
A Danish teenager who was sexually assaulted near a migrant asylum centre has been told she will be prosecuted after using pepper spray to fend off her attacker. …she managed to prevent the man from attacking her further by spraying the substance at him. …However, as it is illegal to use pepper spray, the teenage girl is set to face charges.How disgusting.
And what makes the situation especially frustrating is that the criminals and terrorists in Europe obviously don’t have any problem obtaining firearms.
So the only practical effect of gun control (or bans on pepper spray) is to make life easier for the scum of society.
And the real insult to injury is that a teenage girl who should be hailed as a hero now faces the threat of punishment. Just like the unfortunate British woman who was persecuted for using a knife to deter some thugs.
And here’s some of what the BBC reported about
Italian hospitality for the visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has stretched to covering up nude statues. Italy also chose not to serve wine at official mealsPathetic. Particularly since the Italians bent over backwards for a truly heinous regime. Kudos to President Hollande in France, by contrast. The Daily Mail notes that he held firm.
A lunch between the French and Iranian presidents in Paris was scrapped today because France refused to remove wine from the menu.By the way, there clearly is a role for common courtesy and diplomatic protocol. It obviously would be gratuitously rude for a nation to serve pork at a dinner for officials from Israel or any Muslim nation, just as it would inappropriate and insensitive to serve beef for an event for officials from India.
Moreover, officials from one nation should not make over-the-top demands when visiting other countries. Just as it would be wrong for French officials to demand wine at state dinners in Iran, it’s also wrong for Iranian officials to demand the absence of wine at meals in France. After all, it’s not as if they would be expected to partake.
In the grand scheme of things, though, the kerfuffle about wine and statues doesn’t matter compared to the potentially life-and-death issue of whether Europeans should be allowed to defend themselves.
That’s why Europe isn’t merely in trouble because of fiscal bankruptcy, but also because of moral bankruptcy.
P.S. While having the ability to protect your life or to guard against rape isn’t a human right in most European nations, take a look at some of the things that are “rights.”
- A committee from the Council of Europe claims there is a right to other people’s money.
- Across Europe, a satellite dish is now a human right.
- In Finland, broadband access is a basic right.
- In France, it is against the law to say your husband is under-endowed or that your wife is fat.
- There’s now an entitlement for free soccer broadcasts in Europe.
- In Italy, you have the right to…um…your testicles.
New Study Allays Monsoon Alarm
Good News Ignored By International News Media
India’s monsoon is in no danger of catastrophic collapse in response to global warming and air pollution, two atmospheric scientists said today, refuting earlier predictions that the monsoon could shut down within 100 years. Their results contradict earlier forecasts by scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany portending frequent and severe failures and even a breakdown of the monsoon, which is critical to India’s food, water resources and economy. The earlier modelling exercises had predicted that the monsoon, under the influence of global warming and air pollution, would experience a “tipping point” that would lead to a sharp drop in rainfall over India. Boos and his colleague Trude Storelvmo have now shown that the theory and models that were used to predict such “tipping points” had omitted a key term in climate behaviour, ignoring the fact that air cools as it rises in the atmosphere. --G.S. Mudur, The Calcutta Telegraph, 26 January 2016
The latest postponement of the Hinkley Point nuclear reactor project is the most serious delay of many because it shows that the plan is fundamentally uneconomic for the owners as well as for consumers. What does this mean for UK energy policy? Britain has two choices. The first is to fund the project. If George Osborne, the chancellor, were to pursue that route he would probably have to override the formal advice of officials on the proper use of public funds. The second alternative is to rewrite existing energy policy: substituting gas for nuclear and perhaps extending the life of coal-fired stations beyond 2025. Neither of these options is politically or economically attractive but it is hard to see what else the government can do. --Nick Butler, Financial Times, 27 January 2016
A series of studies by Tsinghua University, whose alumni includes the incumbent president, showed electric vehicles charged in China produce two to five times as much particulate matter and chemicals that contribute to smog versus petrol-engine cars. Hybrid vehicles fare little better. Tsinghua’s studies call into question the wisdom of aggressively promoting vehicles which the university said could not be considered environmentally friendly for at least a decade in many areas of China unless grid reform accelerates. --Reuters, 27 January 2016
Greens would have you believe that electric vehicles are by nature environmentally friendly, but that glosses over an important point: how the electricity used by those cars is produced. In China, coal is going to be the cheapest option more often than not, and while the recent effort to get more EVs on the road might save emissions at the tailpipe, it is increasing localized air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired plants. This serves as a timely reminder of the dangers of buying into green hype. Many of the policy prescriptions they’d have governments champion have unintended consequences or, as is the case here, don’t actually accomplish the environmental achievements that they claim. --The American Interest, 27 January 2016
Thanks to generous tax incentives, the share of electric vehicles has grown faster in the Netherlands than in nearly any other country in the world. But behind the green growth is a filthy secret: In a nation famous for its windmills, electricity is coming from a far dirtier source. Three new coal-fired power plants, including two here on the Rotterdam harbor, are supplying much of the power to fuel the Netherlands’ electric-car boom. --Michael Birnbaum, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 November 2015
Spain didn’t install a single megawatt of wind power capacity in 2015, the first time the industry has had a dead year since the 1980s. Spanish renewable energy companies that once reaped Europe’s biggest subsidies have looked abroad for projects since the domestic market stagnated following a moratorium on support for new wind farms and solar parks in 2012. The standstill has left Spain needing an additional 6,400 megawatts of wind energy capacity by 2020 in order to meet binding European renewables targets, according to the association. --Alex Morales, Bloomberg, 26 January 2016
Books about science tend to fall into two categories: those that explain it to lay people in the hope of cultivating a wide readership, and those that try to persuade fellow scientists to support a new theory, usually with equations. Books that achieve both — changing science and reaching the public — are rare. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) was one. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is another. From the moment of its publication 40 years ago, it has been a sparkling best-seller and a scientific game-changer. --Matt Ridley, Nature, 28 January 2016
A Tale of Two Tapes
Michelle Malkin
The crack media buzzed this week with the discovery of a totally front-page, news-breaking, breathtaking videotape. GOP presidential candidate and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, CNN reported, was caught on camera confessing how he "sought 'world domination.'"
Gasp! This is something voters need to know.
Left-wing rag Mother Jones vigilantly covered the damning film clip and dove into the "eerie" details of Cruz's "five-year plan" in which he "began plotting his path to the White House." The New York Daily News ominously reported that the "unearthed" video showed that "Even when he was a teenager, 2016 contender Ted Cruz craved power." Yep, teenager. The supposedly blockbuster viral videotape leaked by an anonymous classmate was made twenty-eight years ago, back when VHS players still existed and Cruz was a snarky, glib and overly grandiose 18-year old-high school student........In 2003, when Obama was a 42-year-old state senator and rising Democratic star in Illinois, he delivered a gushing address at a farewell gala for Rashid Khalidi.......In the 1970s, Palestinian-American Khalidi was quoted extensively as a de facto mouthpiece for Yasser Arafat and his State Department-designated terrorist outfit, the Palestinian Liberation Organization.....This is transparency, liberal media-style: Teen Cruz video goes viral. Terror-coddler Obama video gets deep-sixed. As always, selective media coverage of our politicians' pasts reveals more than it conceals.
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The crack media buzzed this week with the discovery of a totally front-page, news-breaking, breathtaking videotape. GOP presidential candidate and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, CNN reported, was caught on camera confessing how he "sought 'world domination.'"
Gasp! This is something voters need to know.
Left-wing rag Mother Jones vigilantly covered the damning film clip and dove into the "eerie" details of Cruz's "five-year plan" in which he "began plotting his path to the White House." The New York Daily News ominously reported that the "unearthed" video showed that "Even when he was a teenager, 2016 contender Ted Cruz craved power." Yep, teenager. The supposedly blockbuster viral videotape leaked by an anonymous classmate was made twenty-eight years ago, back when VHS players still existed and Cruz was a snarky, glib and overly grandiose 18-year old-high school student........In 2003, when Obama was a 42-year-old state senator and rising Democratic star in Illinois, he delivered a gushing address at a farewell gala for Rashid Khalidi.......In the 1970s, Palestinian-American Khalidi was quoted extensively as a de facto mouthpiece for Yasser Arafat and his State Department-designated terrorist outfit, the Palestinian Liberation Organization.....This is transparency, liberal media-style: Teen Cruz video goes viral. Terror-coddler Obama video gets deep-sixed. As always, selective media coverage of our politicians' pasts reveals more than it conceals.
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What is at Stake for America in Bernie vs. Hillary
The revolution will either destroy America or the Left.
Daniel Greenfield
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are the same candidate. They’re both leftist radicals with degrees in political science who held back some of their more radical ideas to pursue political office. In the two years that they served together in the Senate, they voted the same way 93 percent of the time.
They’re also political opportunists. Bernie Sanders, no less than Hillary, reinvented his political views, including his allegiance to Socialism, numerous times over the years. Sanders moderated his positions on everything from gun control to Israel when it helped his political career. He’s now modifying plenty of positions all over again in order to appeal to new and different voters.....The real struggle isn’t over beliefs, but over tactics......Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are how the Democratic Party and its leftist masters are having a bar fight about how fast and how hard to move the country toward the left.......Sanders, like Obama, doesn’t really matter. It’s the people around him who set his agenda......Revolution is the crucible in which the left destroys societies, but also ultimately itself.......That revolution will either destroy America or the left.
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Daniel Greenfield
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are the same candidate. They’re both leftist radicals with degrees in political science who held back some of their more radical ideas to pursue political office. In the two years that they served together in the Senate, they voted the same way 93 percent of the time.
They’re also political opportunists. Bernie Sanders, no less than Hillary, reinvented his political views, including his allegiance to Socialism, numerous times over the years. Sanders moderated his positions on everything from gun control to Israel when it helped his political career. He’s now modifying plenty of positions all over again in order to appeal to new and different voters.....The real struggle isn’t over beliefs, but over tactics......Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are how the Democratic Party and its leftist masters are having a bar fight about how fast and how hard to move the country toward the left.......Sanders, like Obama, doesn’t really matter. It’s the people around him who set his agenda......Revolution is the crucible in which the left destroys societies, but also ultimately itself.......That revolution will either destroy America or the left.
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Iran Shows the U.S. Who’s in Charge
John Kerry’s “safer world” grows more perilous by the day.
Robert Spencer
When the U.N. certified that the Iranians were in compliance with the nuclear agreement and sanctions were removed in mid-January, John Kerry proclaimed, “The world is safer today.” That was on January 18. On January 27, Iran warned the U.S. that a Navy vessel and fighter jet had gotten too close to an Iranian military drill, and told the Americans to back off. It was just the latest of numerous indications that in John Kerry’s safer world, Iran is in charge.
This warning followed a tweet last Sunday from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, featuring a photo of the American sailors that Iran captured and briefly held hostage earlier in January. The sailors were kneeling with their hands behind their heads. Khamenei added other photos of himself smiling with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) forces that captured the Americans along with a text congratulating them......
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Robert Spencer
When the U.N. certified that the Iranians were in compliance with the nuclear agreement and sanctions were removed in mid-January, John Kerry proclaimed, “The world is safer today.” That was on January 18. On January 27, Iran warned the U.S. that a Navy vessel and fighter jet had gotten too close to an Iranian military drill, and told the Americans to back off. It was just the latest of numerous indications that in John Kerry’s safer world, Iran is in charge.
This warning followed a tweet last Sunday from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, featuring a photo of the American sailors that Iran captured and briefly held hostage earlier in January. The sailors were kneeling with their hands behind their heads. Khamenei added other photos of himself smiling with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) forces that captured the Americans along with a text congratulating them......
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If You Complain About Refugees, Dutch Cops Will Come to Your House
Daniel Greenfield
This is what criminalizing speech in the name of tolerance eventually leads to. An intolerant state where if you say anything the authorities don't like, the cops come over to your house with a warning. It's ironic that the supposed advocates for migrants who claim to be fleeing a dictatorship turn free countries into police states on their behalf.......So if you say that something the government is doing is a "bad plan", the cops will pound on your door and let you know that you better watch what you say. Isn't liberalism awesome?....
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This is what criminalizing speech in the name of tolerance eventually leads to. An intolerant state where if you say anything the authorities don't like, the cops come over to your house with a warning. It's ironic that the supposed advocates for migrants who claim to be fleeing a dictatorship turn free countries into police states on their behalf.......So if you say that something the government is doing is a "bad plan", the cops will pound on your door and let you know that you better watch what you say. Isn't liberalism awesome?....
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Swedish Cops Called to Stop Migrants Raping Boy, Make Horrifying Move Once They Arrive
An entire team of 10 police officers was routed from a refugee center in Sweden when they were surrounded by a mob of outraged migrants. The patrol had gone to the center to rescue a 10-year-old boy after receiving reports that he was being repeatedly raped at the center........However, even the patrol was unable to pull the boy when the police, surrounded and wildly outnumbered, were forced to flee through an emergency exit out the back of the building.........However, it is clear that these are the kinds of dangers President Obama is willing to bring to the United States.
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Refugees Are Stealing Everything in Sight, So 1 Country Makes Epic Move to "Steal" Right Back
On Tuesday, Denmark passed a bill that granted the government the right to take cash, jewelry and other valuables from newly arriving refugees to help defray the cost of Danish welfare while they wait to hear about their asylum applications. This bill, described by some as an ethical disaster, nonetheless passed my a landslide vote of 81-27, according to The Daily Caller. The bill is not without limits; first, the item must be valued at roughly 440 dollars or more. Second, the item cannot be of sentimental value — like a wedding ring......
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Muslims Are ‘Different’, ‘Won’t Integrate’, ‘See World Differently’ Says Ex-Equality Chief
Muslim communities are “unlike others in Britain” and “will not integrate in the same way”, Labour’s former head of Britain’s equalities watchdog has stated.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission under Tony Blair, argued that it was disrespectful to merely assume that Muslim communities would integrate like other groups. Addressing a meeting at the Policy Exchange think tank in Westminster on Monday, he said that Muslims “see the world differently from the rest of us”, the Times reports. He added: “Continuously pretending that a group is somehow eventually going to become like the rest of us is perhaps the deepest form of disrespect”.....
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Child brides allowed at Danish Asylum Centers,”Children allowed to sleep with their older husbands on the weekends”
By Pamlea Geller
With the mass Muslim migration into Eurabia comes the Islamic law and its attendant misogyny, pedophilia and misogyny. That’s to be expected. What was not expected when I began to engage in this fight 15 years ago, was the sanction of this brutal and extreme ideology by Western leaders in academia, media and politics.
NYC: Uber Muslim Driver REFUSES Pregnant Passenger Because of Service Dog, THEN BEATS SERVICE DOG - New Yorkers or any city dweller who relies on car services would do well to think twice before taking a ride with a devout Muslim driver, especially if you are gay or a single young female in a skirt above the knees, or visibly Jewish. Muslim cab drivers refusing rides with service dogs (or any dogs) are a problem across the country.
These attacks by rabid Muslims are now daily. Muslims are urged to slaughter Jews from their imams, politicians and TV broadcasts. But there exhortations to genocide as well as these terror murders are all but ignored by the enemedia. If a Jew defends him or herself, then all hell breaks loose and the world goes mad....
Florida Muslim Leader Refers to Jews as ‘Pigs’ and ‘Monkeys’ - It’s in the Quran, so it must be true. Right? Mind you, if a non-Muslim leader referred to Muslims as pigs and monkeys, it would be worldwide news. Will the islamofauxbia never end, and all that tripe. But this? Nary a murmur or complaint by the enemedia. Obama say, “more Muslim immigrants!”.....
Muslims fill refugee camps with swastikas, anti-Semitic graffiti in Germany - And Merkel keeps bringing in millions of Muslim Jew-haters, while cautioning about “young people from countries where hatred of Israel and anti-Semitism is widespread. Islamic Jew-hatred is a core tenet of Islam. Is it any wonder that Jews are fleeing the continent in record numbers? But that is not enough. Islamic supremacists and their leftist lapdogs are working hard to destroy the only truly safe place for Jews to go — the Jewish homeland, Israel....
With the mass Muslim migration into Eurabia comes the Islamic law and its attendant misogyny, pedophilia and misogyny. That’s to be expected. What was not expected when I began to engage in this fight 15 years ago, was the sanction of this brutal and extreme ideology by Western leaders in academia, media and politics.
Child brides present at Danish asylum centers, & the leaders allow it! By DioDK, January 27, 2016: That is according to MetroXpress (Denmark's most popular free newspaper) Girls down to the age of 14 seek asylum in Denmark as child brides. The younger ones stay at a special asylum center for children. Many of them have a husband with a residence permit. They are allowed to sleep with their older...Swedish police: We do not have enough officers to stop escalating Muslim migrant violence - So what is the solution devised by lily-livered Swedes and EU poltroons? More Muslim migrants, of course. And after seeing how police responded (or should I say didn’t respond) to the mass attacks on New Years Eve, I am not sure more police would make much difference. 50,000 more migrants poured into Europe this week. Wait until the Spring and the weather is more forgiving.....
NYC: Uber Muslim Driver REFUSES Pregnant Passenger Because of Service Dog, THEN BEATS SERVICE DOG - New Yorkers or any city dweller who relies on car services would do well to think twice before taking a ride with a devout Muslim driver, especially if you are gay or a single young female in a skirt above the knees, or visibly Jewish. Muslim cab drivers refusing rides with service dogs (or any dogs) are a problem across the country.
“Uber Driver Slams Service Dog to Ground After Fight with Owner, Police Say,” DNA Info, January 27, 2016: MIDTOWN - An Uber driver viciously slammed a passenger's service dog onto the ground after telling her she couldn't have the pooch in his car leaving the animal with a dislocated hip and an injured knee that required surgery, police said. The 30-year-old Manhattan resident had....VIDEO: Merkel’s Muslim Migrants STAB father who flees onto FROZEN LAKE with his infant….ICE BREAKS - The horror. And still Merkel’s migrants come by the hundreds of thousands. The baby is in intensive care —
Thanks to 10 News.Dk:
ANOTHER Jewish woman STABBED TO DEATH by Muslims screaming ALLAHU AKBAR -In Hamburg.... two foreigners attacked a 24-year-old man and chased him with his infant nearly into their death. Around 22.30 clock local residents heard the cries for help of man and the rescue service was called to the place. Police first tried to pull the man with a lifeline to the shore. A little later a diver from the fire brigade were able to save the 24-year-old.
The 24-year-old father stated that he fled the attackers late Monday night onto the ice. The baby, who had to be revived by rescuers, is located in the University Hospital Eppendorf in the ICU. The...
These attacks by rabid Muslims are now daily. Muslims are urged to slaughter Jews from their imams, politicians and TV broadcasts. But there exhortations to genocide as well as these terror murders are all but ignored by the enemedia. If a Jew defends him or herself, then all hell breaks loose and the world goes mad....
Florida Muslim Leader Refers to Jews as ‘Pigs’ and ‘Monkeys’ - It’s in the Quran, so it must be true. Right? Mind you, if a non-Muslim leader referred to Muslims as pigs and monkeys, it would be worldwide news. Will the islamofauxbia never end, and all that tripe. But this? Nary a murmur or complaint by the enemedia. Obama say, “more Muslim immigrants!”.....
Muslims fill refugee camps with swastikas, anti-Semitic graffiti in Germany - And Merkel keeps bringing in millions of Muslim Jew-haters, while cautioning about “young people from countries where hatred of Israel and anti-Semitism is widespread. Islamic Jew-hatred is a core tenet of Islam. Is it any wonder that Jews are fleeing the continent in record numbers? But that is not enough. Islamic supremacists and their leftist lapdogs are working hard to destroy the only truly safe place for Jews to go — the Jewish homeland, Israel....
Student punished for refusing to recite Islamic profession of faith Lawsuit: Hands out failing grades, then threatens her father for objecting
A Maryland high school punished a student for refusing to profess faith in Islam, gave her failing grades for a series of assignments that violated her Christian beliefs then threatened her father with arrest for complaining, a federal lawsuit charges. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court against the Charles County Public Schools in La Plata, Maryland, its board of education, Principal Evelyn Arnold and Vice Principal Shannon Morris by the Thomas More Law Center. A spokeswoman for the district told WND that officials were aware of the issue but said Arnold and Morris would not be commenting. Plaintiffs are Marine Corps veteran John Kevin Wood and his wife, Melissa, who “refuse[d] to allow their teenage daughter to be subjected to Islamic indoctrination and propaganda in her high school world history class.”....
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My Take - It's hard to believe public education has sunk to such depths. Public education needs to be taken back over by the parents, the teachers unions need to be dismantled, and teachers need to be fired. And we should start with the boards of education, and the superintendents.
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My Take - It's hard to believe public education has sunk to such depths. Public education needs to be taken back over by the parents, the teachers unions need to be dismantled, and teachers need to be fired. And we should start with the boards of education, and the superintendents.
Hillary's Parade is Over: Part VII
Ex-Hillary Campaign Manager Goes Rogue, Confirms Huge Trump Accusation Is RIGHT- According to the podcast “The Axe Files,” Solis Doyle, a former aide on Democrat front-runner Hillary Clinton’s senatorial and presidential campaigns, stated that Clinton “gets tired” and “does it (campaigning) dutifully.” “You know, (Clinton’s) tired. She gets tired. She does it. She does it dutifully. Is it her most fun thing to do? No,” Doyle said. “Would she rather be looking at policy and going through legislation and working with a bunch of experts on how to, you know, improve the Affordable Care Act? Absolutely.” David Axelrod, the show’s host, jumped in: “I was in a discussion today and I quoted the famous Mario Cuomo about campaigning — ‘you campaign in poetry and govern in prose.’ She doesn’t seem all that comfortable with the poetry.”.....
Hillary Decides What’s Top Secret, What’s Not - Hillary Clinton and her campaign minions are trying mightily to dismiss the conclusions of the intelligence community inspector general that highly classified Special Access Protocol (SAP) documents were transferred to Clinton’s unsecured private server. The first line of Clinton’s defense is (as usual) that the allegations are 1) nothing new and 2) politically motivated. But beyond this usual rote Clintonian response is the additional claim that the documents were also 1) not so classified when Clinton received them and 2) even if they were classified documents the information they contained was public knowledge anyway, so no harm, no foul.
Hillary's email scandal now potentially a matter of high treason - Memories of the Walker family spy ring and British double agent Kim Philby could be resurrected if a new angle of the FBI investigation works toward its logical conclusion. Catherine Herridge of Fox News reports that the FBI is going directly to the intelligence agencies that generated the assessments to determine the original classification level. The investigators "will go directly to depose specific individuals in agencies who generated the highly classified materials."
Hillary Clinton Throws Support Behind #OscarsSoWhite Movement - Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton has weighed in on the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, saying in a recent interview that the recent rule changes implemented at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to promote diversity were “overdue.” I think it is overdue, but the Academy announced that they are going to be making some changes as they should,” Hillary Clinton told AOL.com during a campaign stop in Iowa.
Hillary Clinton on sexual assault issues: Crusader or hypocrite - Many say it’s unfair for anyone to bring President Bill Clinton’s sex scandals into his wife’s presidential campaign. Are they right? The Factual Feminist explores the evidence.
Hillary Decides What’s Top Secret, What’s Not - Hillary Clinton and her campaign minions are trying mightily to dismiss the conclusions of the intelligence community inspector general that highly classified Special Access Protocol (SAP) documents were transferred to Clinton’s unsecured private server. The first line of Clinton’s defense is (as usual) that the allegations are 1) nothing new and 2) politically motivated. But beyond this usual rote Clintonian response is the additional claim that the documents were also 1) not so classified when Clinton received them and 2) even if they were classified documents the information they contained was public knowledge anyway, so no harm, no foul.
Hillary's email scandal now potentially a matter of high treason - Memories of the Walker family spy ring and British double agent Kim Philby could be resurrected if a new angle of the FBI investigation works toward its logical conclusion. Catherine Herridge of Fox News reports that the FBI is going directly to the intelligence agencies that generated the assessments to determine the original classification level. The investigators "will go directly to depose specific individuals in agencies who generated the highly classified materials."
Hillary Clinton Throws Support Behind #OscarsSoWhite Movement - Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton has weighed in on the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, saying in a recent interview that the recent rule changes implemented at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to promote diversity were “overdue.” I think it is overdue, but the Academy announced that they are going to be making some changes as they should,” Hillary Clinton told AOL.com during a campaign stop in Iowa.
Hillary Clinton on sexual assault issues: Crusader or hypocrite - Many say it’s unfair for anyone to bring President Bill Clinton’s sex scandals into his wife’s presidential campaign. Are they right? The Factual Feminist explores the evidence.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Ted Cruz Super PACs Offer $1.5 Million for Veterans if Donald Trump Will Debate Him One-on-One In Iowa
A pair of Pro-Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX Super PACs just offered $1.5 million for veterans if Donald Trump will debate Cruz one-on-one in Iowa before Sunday evening. Keep The Promise I and Keep The Promise II offered up the sizable donation for America’s veterans on Wednesday evening. The principal donors of Keep the Promise I, the Mercer family, and Keep the Promise II, the Neugebauer family, in a joint statement released Wednesday evening said:
Senator Cruz and Mr. Trump both respect the veterans and hold them in the highest regard but Senator Cruz respects the process and we are calling on Mr. Trump to do the same and debates are the purest form of democracy. Iowans – and Americans – deserve to hear from the frontrunners in this ‘two-man race’ one last time. Not only would this be a heck of a debate, but it would also be a terrific opportunity to generate millions of dollars for the veterans.The press release made clear the parameters of the pro-Cruz Super PACs’ offer: The debate must be between just Trump and Cruz, must take place on or before Sunday Jan. 31 in Iowa, must be one-hour long, and the candidates can pick a jointly-agreed-to moderator themselves....“We have a venue, we have a time — all we’re missing is a candidate,” Cruz said
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My Take - Brilliant! I'm sure almost no one remmebers this, and even more never heard this story, but in 1922 Fiorello H. La Guardia, New Yorks first Itilian mayor was accused of anti-Semitism by Henry Frank. La Guardia responded by challenging him to an open debate ENTIRELY IN YIDDISH. Although Frank was Jewish he couldn't speak Yiddish. What he didn't know was Fiorello was half Jewish on his mothers side - and did speak Yiddish. Frank never showed and La Guardia won the election. Trump has declared he wants to support the vets - ok - let's see what happens, this is especially touchy because "he has balked at facing Megyn Kelly at the Republican debate, Donald Trump will be embracing heroes.....claiming he "will instead host an event in Iowa to raise money for the Veterans and Wounded Warriors, who have been treated so horribly by our all talk, no action politicians.” Somebody in the Cruz camp has read an history book or two. As I said - brillant!
"Keep it in the ground" at work in New Mexico
By Marita Noon
New Mexico has the nation's highest jobless rate: 6.8%. You'd think its residents would welcome anyone who wants to come to the state and create jobs. Especially when that company is in the industry that has been hard hit by low oil prices and that is responsible for a third of New Mexico's state revenues.
But they don't. In fact, a major campaign has been mounted to prevent job creation in Sandoval County.
The company in question is Oklahoma-based SandRidge Energy Inc.--which leased the mineral rights from AMREP last year. Despite the drop in oil prices, it is moving ahead with plans to drill an exploratory well in Sandoval County. The well, which has already received approval from the state Oil and Conversation Division (OCD), is "about four miles outside of the Rio Rancho city limits," reported the Albuquerque Journal.
The SandRidge well will be vertical, drilled to a depth of 10,500 feet--which is expected to take about 25 days. Until the well is drilled and logged, engineers will not know whether or not the resource will warrant completion or, if it does, if it will require hydraulic fracturing. The OCD permit is to drill, complete, and produce the well. Jami Grindatto, president and CEO of the Sandoval Economic Alliance says the environmental footprint would be "small."
Several previous exploratory wells have been drilled in the Albuquerque Basin that were determined not to be economically viable--though oil was found. In northern Sandoval County there are already 600 wells on tribal or federal lands. According to the NM Tax Research Institute, in 2013, when oil prices were higher, Sandoval County producers shipped 1.08 million barrels of oil worth $86 million and 394.1 million MCF of natural gas worth $1.6 billion.
Tonight, January 28, the project is the topic of a special Sandoval County Planning and Zoning Committee meeting to consider the request for a special use permit. According to Albuquerque Business First, "the Sandoval County Planning and Zoning Division staff recommended denying a zone change request." The final say rests with the County Commissioners, not the Planning and Zoning Committee.
In December, Sandoval County Commissioner James Dominguez, District 1, said he "has some major concerns that the drilling could compromise the water supply and air quality in Rio Rancho." KOAT News cites Dominguez as saying: "I know that eventually, in time, it will pollute our water sources"--this despite mountains of contrary evidence. Several comments on the KOAT story echo Dominguez's hyperbole: "oil fracking destroys water supply forever" and "It is beyond reason that the city would allow ANY oil drilling operations within a dozen miles of water wells. I really believe ANY benefit of those would be greatly offset by ground water contamination. We NEED clean water more than oil."
One uninformed opponent, Marek Coston, wrote: "Of all the millions of acres of undeveloped land away from residence and major aquifers there is no justifiable reason to put it here." Marek, the reason is that is where the oil is. You can't just find oil anywhere. New Mexico is blessed with abundant oil and natural gas resources, but they are not found everywhere. SandRidge has done the seismology and believes there is economically recoverable resource at that location--though it may not be produced in the current oil price environment.
Yet, others were supportive: "A lot of jobs will come with this. I hope this passes for Sandoval county and Rio Rancho!!" and "People cry so much about jobs and how New Mexico is such a poor state. Now there's a good opportunity to bring in revenue and right away people want to shut it down."
The Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club is rallying folks to attend tonight's meeting to voice opposition to the exploration. Attendance is expected to be so large that the meeting will be held in either the commission chambers or the lobby of the county offices at 1500 Idalia Road in Bernalillo. While, due to stacked numbers, it is not expected that supporters will be allowed to speak, I am asking for your presence to bring some balance and reality to the misinformation.
With the New Mexico Legislature currently debating how to fill the "monster hole" in the state budget, denying economic development is deplorable. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports: "lawmakers must sweep dollars from every state program just to keep the lights on for existing services."
Because tonight's meeting is not the final decision, just a recommendation to the Commission--which they can consider or overrule, I am asking folks who truly understand the process to send emails to the County Commissioners to dispel the hyperbole (as I've highlighted) surrounding this project. Their contact information can be found here. Getting an email-statement on record is very important to the process.
The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc., and the companion educational organization, the Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America's Voice for Energy-which expands on the content of her weekly column. Follow her @EnergyRabbit
Bed Bugs Have Developed Resistance to Neonicotinoids
January 28, 2016 by
An article published in the Journal of Medical Entomology is the first to report that bed bugs have developed resistance to a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, or neonics, the shortened name. Neonics are the most widely used group of insecticides today, and several products have been developed for bed bug control over the past few years that combine neonics with pyrethroids, another class of insecticide. Dr. Alvaro Romero from New Mexico State University and Dr. Troy Anderson from Virginia Tech collected bed bugs from human dwellings in Cincinnati and Michigan and exposed them to four different neonics: acetamiprid, dinotefuran, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam. They also applied these neonics to a bed bug colony kept by Dr. Harold Harlan for more than 30 years without any insecticide exposure, and to a pyrethroid-resistant population from Jersey City that had not been exposed to neonics since they were collected in New Jersey in 2008....
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An article published in the Journal of Medical Entomology is the first to report that bed bugs have developed resistance to a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, or neonics, the shortened name. Neonics are the most widely used group of insecticides today, and several products have been developed for bed bug control over the past few years that combine neonics with pyrethroids, another class of insecticide. Dr. Alvaro Romero from New Mexico State University and Dr. Troy Anderson from Virginia Tech collected bed bugs from human dwellings in Cincinnati and Michigan and exposed them to four different neonics: acetamiprid, dinotefuran, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam. They also applied these neonics to a bed bug colony kept by Dr. Harold Harlan for more than 30 years without any insecticide exposure, and to a pyrethroid-resistant population from Jersey City that had not been exposed to neonics since they were collected in New Jersey in 2008....
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Breaking: Right After Fox News Announced Debate Lineup, Trump Campaign Makes HUGE Announcement
B. Christopher Agee January 26, 2016
Though his son predicted the opposite during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s Fox and Friends on Tuesday morning, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump revealed later that day that he will likely skip Thursday night’s debate. “I think ultimately he’ll be there,” Eric Trump said of his father, despite the candidate’s prior insinuations otherwise. Since the first presidential primary debate, which, like the next one, was hosted by Fox News, Trump has nursed a very public feud with network anchor Megyn Kelly.....As of the latest reports available, the Trump campaign has not officially informed Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus of his decision....
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Though his son predicted the opposite during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s Fox and Friends on Tuesday morning, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump revealed later that day that he will likely skip Thursday night’s debate. “I think ultimately he’ll be there,” Eric Trump said of his father, despite the candidate’s prior insinuations otherwise. Since the first presidential primary debate, which, like the next one, was hosted by Fox News, Trump has nursed a very public feud with network anchor Megyn Kelly.....As of the latest reports available, the Trump campaign has not officially informed Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus of his decision....
To Read More
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