a) Hillary will not run and if she does will not win.
b) Any rumor you hear about the Clintons believe it until proven otherwise.
c) Tea Party were not to blame for Republican loss because losses ran the gamut but incumbent upon Tea Party crowd and establishment Republicans to get together, talk and resolve issues.
d) Claim that 47% of Americans are dependent upon government is a ruse and John challenged the questioner where he got this and he admitted he was repeating what he had heard.
e) Another state will soon seek to turn back union powers but John would not identify the state.
f) Teachers overwhelmingly vote against their union's knowing the education children are getting is not what it should be.
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This is compulsory brain washing crap our government spends tax dollars on and it makes my blood boil. Outrageous! What about you? (See 1 below.)
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Fed study concludes assault weapons not major contributor to crime.
Is assault weapon argument just another single wedge issue designed to stir up voter emotions and create Republican division? Do we not have enough with abortion, climate change, fracking, same sex marriage, education etc.? (See 2 below.)
Is 2a believable? You decide (See 2a below.)
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Foregone conclusion - al Qaeda is alive and well and ready to continue attacking. (See 3 below)
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The W.U. understands radicalization of education remains a key soft underbelly method for bringing our republic to its knees.
'The Dumbing Down of America' by Professor Bloom was written a long, long time ago and is more prophetic today then when he wrote it as is Orwell's "1984."(See 5 below.)
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I would like to try and put what sequestering means in perspective for you.
First, it amounts to a nickel (5 cents) of every dollar 'increase' in future spending! If sequestering were put into effect we would still have an additional five or so trillion in added debt.
Second, Congress has the power to modify its effect from a one size fits all across the board cut.
Third, Obama wanted sequestering because he did not believe Republicans would go along. Thus, he could blame them for backing down on cutting spending.
Obama is interested in the creating 'Tower of Babble' circumstances so he can defeat Republicans. He has no interest in doing what is best for our nation. He only knows how to make 'wedge lettuce salad!
(See 6 below.)
--
Will Golan fighting erupt as a result of Syrian radicals taking over? Say tuned. (See 7 below.)
---l
Dick
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1)INTERNAL VIDEO EXPOSES USDA STAFFERS CHANTING ‘THE PILGRIMS WERE ILLEGAL ALIENS’ DURING TAXPAYER-FUNDED CULTURAL SENSITIVITY TRAINING
By
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is coming under fire for hosting a “compulsory”* ”Cultural Sensitivity Training” program that required some intriguing participation of those in attendance. In addition to being implored to bang on tables, everyone in the room was instructed to chant, in unison, “The pilgrims were illegal aliens.”
But that’s not the full extent of the curious elements surrounding the session, as the lead trainer also joked that he doesn’t like the word “minorities” and that he prefers to replace it with “emerging majorities.”
After nine months of waiting for the government to release the video content, clips of the three-hour session were published this week by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group. It was on May 18, 2012, that the organization first made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to secure the footage.
Judicial Watch was originally tipped off by a whistle-blower who offered information about the expensive diversity sessions (the USDA has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the program). Here’s how the organization describes the resulting controversy:
The sensitivity training sessions, described as “a huge expense” by diversity awareness trainer and self-described “citizen of the world” Samuel Betances, were held on USDA premises. The diversity event is apparently part of what USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack described in a memo sent to all agency employees as a “new era of Civil Rights” and “a broader effort towards cultural transformation at USDA.” In 2011 and 2012, the USDA paid Betances and his firm nearly $200,000 for their part in the “cultural transformation” program.USDA Training Administrator, Vincent Loran, in an October 10, 2011, email previously revealed by Judicial Watch, asked Betances for a copy of a training video vowing to keep it secret. “It will not be used for or show [sic] in any way shape or form,” Loran promised. Nevertheless, Judicial Watch was able to obtain the video.
While it has taken quite some time to secure the footage, this story was first presented to the public in Oct. 2012. At the time, Judicial Watch didn’t yet have footage, but was relying upon documents surrounding the trainings to make determinations about the program.
The organization charged that at least one of the sessions (the one caught on video) reinforced political ideas and even seemed to validate illegal immigration, however a USDA official denied these claims. Additionally, the notion that participants were told to chant was also rebuffed.
“Participants did not chant during these workshops,” said an official at the time, according to Fox News. “In one portion of the session, the presenter had participants repeat provocative and potentially offensive phrases as part of an exercise to examine stereotypes. The statements were not reflective of USDA or its policy.”
However, in one of the clips released by Judicial Watch, it appears as though the audience is, indeed, asked to chant that the “pilgrims were illegal aliens” (and they comply).
“I want you to say that American was founded by outsiders – say that – who are today’s insiders, who are very nervous about today’s outsiders,” he said. “I want you to say, ‘The pilgrims were illegal aliens.’ Say, ‘The pilgrims never gave their passports to the Indians.’”
Watch this all unfold, below:
And at another point in the training, Betances jokes with the audience that he prefers to replace the word “minorities” with “emerging majorities.” Some outlets seem to allege that this was uttered in an effort to encourage others to adopt the rhetoric, but upon examining the video, it’s clear he was being humorous:
TheBlaze spoke with Jill Farrell, Judicial Watch’s director of public affairs, to learn more about the program. She said that it appears as though the agreement between Betances’ firm and the USDA may still be ongoing.
To see the controversial session in its entirety, watch below:
Certainly some would argue that there is inherent value in cultural sensitivity training, but critics would also point out — at least in this case — that the monumental cost as well as the controversial ideological constructs being presented raise eyebrows.
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2)FEDS ADMIT: GUN LAWS WON'T SLOW CRIME
Department of Justice report undermines bans
A study by the Department of Justice’s research wing, the National Institute of Justice, has the feds admitting that so-called “assault weapons” are not a major contributor to gun crime.org
The study also concluded those weapons are not a major factor in deaths caused by firearms, nor would an “assault weapons” ban be effective.
“The existing stock of assault weapons is large, undercutting the effectiveness of bans with exemptions,” it said. “Therefore a complete elimination of assault weapons would not have a large impact on gun homicides.”
The report finds no significant link between “assault weapons” and murders.
“Since assault weapons are not a major contributor to U.S. gun homicides and the existing stock of guns is large, an assault weapon ban is unlikely to have an impact on gun violence,” the report said.
The document, titled “Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies,” also sees no epidemic of mass shootings.
“Fatalities from mass shootings (those with 4 or more victims in a particular place and time) account on average for 35 fatalities per year,” the report said.
The report advises a more comprehensive approach.
“Policies that address the larger firearm homicide issue will have a far greater impact even if they do not address the particular issues of mass shootings,” the report said.
The study also found a number of reasons why gun buybacks are ineffective as generally implemented: “1. The buybacks are too small to have an impact. 2. The guns turned in are at low risk of ever being used in a crime. 3. Replacement guns are easily acquired. Unless these three points are overcome, a gun buyback cannot be effective.”
The report, by Greg Ridgeway, deputy director, said restricting large capacity magazines has a “great potential to reduce lethality,” but that would require a massive reduction in the supply.
“In order to have an impact, large capacity magazine regulation needs to sharply curtail their availability to include restrictions on importation, manufacture, sale, and possession. An exemption for previously owned magazines would nearly eliminate any impact. The program would need to be coupled with an extensive buyback of existing large capacity magazines. With an exemption the impact of the restrictions would only be felt when the magazines degrade or when they no longer are compatible with guns in circulation. This would take decades to realize.”
The report undermines most of the talking points by the Obama administration in its pursuit of more limits on guns, ammunition and accessories.
The administration’s campaign was launched following the Newtown, Conn., massacre that killed 20 students and six adults.
The report noted that a 2000 study by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms revealed that 47 percent of crime guns are obtained through a straw purchase, and another 26 percent are stolen.
“These figures indicate informal transfers dominate the crime gun market. A perfect universal background check system can address the gun shows and might deter many unregulated private sellers. However this does not address the largest sources (straw purchase and theft), which would most likely become larger if background checks at gun shows and private sellers were addressed.”
2a)Does childhood TV viewing lead to criminal behavior?
By Monte Morin
Two recent studies linking childhood television viewing to antisocial behavior and criminal acts as adults are prompting some pediatricians to call for a national boob-tube intervention.
A commentary published alongside the studies in the journal Pediatrics on Monday lamented the fact that most parents have failed to limit their children's television viewing to no more than one or two hours a day — a recommendation made by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
On average, preschool-age children in the United States spend 4.4 hours per day in front of the television, either at home or in daycare.
"The problem is, they are not listening," wrote Dr. Claire McCarthy, a pediatrician at Boston Children's Hospital. "With our society of smartphones and YouTube and video streaming, screen time is becoming more a part of daily life, not less."
Now, based on evidence from a University of Washington study, McCarthy and others say pediatricians should focus instead on the type of television children are viewing. Parents should steer children toward educational or "prosocial" programming instead of shows featuring violence and aggression.
"It is a variation on the 'if you can't beat 'em join 'em' idea," McCarthy wrote. "If the screens are going to be on, let's concentrate on the content, and how we can make it work for children."
The consequences are significant, experts say.
A study conducted by the University of Otago in New Zealand concluded that every extra hour of television watched by children on a weeknight increased by 30 percent the risk of having a criminal conviction by age 26.
The study was based on 1,037 New Zealanders born in 1972 and 1973, and interviewed at regular intervals until age 26. It also involved a review of criminal and mental health records.
"Young adults who had spent more time watching television during childhood and adolescence were significantly more likely to have a criminal conviction, a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder and more aggressive personality traits compared with those who viewed less television," wrote Lindsay Robertson, the lead author and a public health researcher at Dunedin School of Medicine.
In the University of Washington study, researchers devised a "media diet intervention" in which parents were assisted in substituting prosocial and education programming for more violent fare. However, the parents were not asked to reduce their children's total viewing time.
The study involved 565 Seattle-area parents with children ages 3 to 5 and lasted a year. A control group of children were allowed to watch television as they usually did, while the intervention group was steered toward programming that featured nonviolent conflict resolution, cooperative problem solving, manners and empathy. (Examples of such shows included "Dora the Explorer," "Sesame Street" and "Super Why.")
Both groups of children were evaluated for their social competence after six months and after 12 months.
The intervention group showed "significant improvements" in social competence testing scores after six months, wrote Dr. Dimitri Christakis, lead author and pediatrics professor. Low-income boys appeared to benefit the most, authors said.
"Although television is frequently implicated as a cause of many problems in children, our research indicates that it may also be part of the solution," authors wrote.
The authors of both papers noted that the studies were limited in some respects.
Authors of the New Zealand study said it was possible that antisocial behavior itself led to more television viewing.
And authors of the Seattle study noted that while parents were not told of the purpose of the study, they may have figured it out and modified their behavior, biasing the results
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3)AL-QAIDA ALIVE AND WELL, READY TO ATTACK WEST
Training camps in Iran preparing terrorists for violence
By REZA KAHLILI
In an agreement between al-Qaida and the Islamic regime, three camps have been set up within Iran to train terrorists..
Al-Qaida members are trained to attack NATO forces in Afghanistan and collaborate with the Islamic regime on terrorist activities against Israel, the United States and some European countries, according to a source within the Revolutionary Guards intelligence division.
The camps are in the Sistan and Baluchestan provinces of Iran bordering Pakistan, where the al-Qaida members are trained in terrorism and guerrilla-warfare tactics.
The al-Qaida members, under the pretext of conducting commerce, enter Iran through local bazaars along the Pakistani-Iranian border, the source said. After completing the course, each al-Qaida member is paid the equivalent of $12,000 in appreciation of their participation and further collaboration with the regime’s Quds Forces.
Three training bases have been set up:
- The Revolutionary Guards base of the 763rd Infantry Division, close to the airport and near Azadi Square in the city of Zahedan. It is equipped with a unit for bomb-making and explosives.
- Zaboli, a camp built in the desert adjacent to the city of Zabol. It has a harsh 45-day training program.
- The third site is south in the city of Nikshahr, though recently it was transformed into a type of hospital. It’s not clear what kind of activity occurred there.
Pakistan has collaborated with Iran for well over a decade on the terrorism training, according to the source. He said officials from the Pakistani Consulate across from the 763rd Infantry Division base routinely watch the training.
Google Earth 2012 image: The Revolutionary Guards base of the 763rd Infantry Division
As reported exclusively by WND Dec. 18, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, took on a greater role in the terrorist movement after the death of Osama bin Laden. He has held meetings with al-Qaida commanders, including bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Adam Yahiye Gadahn, the American who makes videos for al-Qaida, to coordinate terror attacks in France and Germany. After the Tehran meetings in December, members of the regime’s Quds Forces met with al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan to finalize the terrorist plots.
Two Quds Forces commanders, Col. Hamidreza Monfared and Col. Ebrahim Tanabandeh, oversee the training, the source said. Before being transferred to the training sites, they served in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and were involved in plans to blow up the bridge linking Bahrain to Saudi Arabia. The plot was foiled when a terrorist cell was exposed in late 2011.
According to the source, Monfared disclosed in a private meeting with other high-ranking officers that the leader of the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia was Guard commander Jafar Sefri, who once served as the liaison between the Revolutionary Guards and the Sadr forces in Iraq. In the Khobar bombing, Sefri used al-Qaida operatives.
The June 25, 1996, truck bomb killed 19 U.S. servicemen and injured nearly 500 others of many nationalities. After a lengthy investigation, the FBI concluded Iran was involved in the attack.
The source said another Guard commander, Abass Agha Zamani, was instrumental in the Khobar bombing by arranging the transfer of funds and explosives for the mission.
Google Earth 2012 image - The Revolutionary Guards base of the 763rd Infantry Division - Bomb making facility
Nicknamed Abu Sharif, Zamani was a key figure early on after the Islamic Revolution in the formation of the Revolutionary Guards. At one time he served as Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan.
Another figure, Mohammad Faghir Gomshadzehi, is active in transferring explosives into Pakistan from border villages. But the source believes the activity is outside the Pakistan-Iran agreement and is being done without the knowledge of the Pakistanis.
The source named five other Guard commanders involved in the training of al-Qaida members: Capt. Hassan Tanabandeh, Lt. Ejdar Hashemi, Lt. Mohammad Hassan Nik Pey, Lt. Rasool Assadollahi and Lt. Kamal Ahmadi.
Khamenei has repeatedly warned America that should war break out, not only will Iran destroy Israel but it also will attack the U.S. homeland. The source said the regime, through its terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah and al-Qaida, is preparing terror attacks to destabilize the West if sanctions become unbearable for the regime or if a military confrontation takes place over its illicit nuclear program
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4)How the Left Dupes Conservative Voters
By J. R. Dunn
Too little serious conservative analysis of the 2012 presidential campaign has yet appeared. This is understandable. The results of the election were disheartening to the point of shock. The campaign defied all historical precedent, all commonsense interpretation. The Romney ticket should not have lost and did not deserve to lose. The Democrats, fielding the least worthy ticket in the past century -- and that's saying something -- did not deserve to win.
The reasons they did are myriad and complex. But before we get too far down the road, there is one lesson that has to be grasped: the left has our number. As far as electoral politics in the United States is concerned, the progressive political machine has figured out how to manipulate conservatives in order to get the political results that they desire. They have done this repeatedly, and with mounting success. They will continue to do so as long as they are allowed to get away with it.
The left is not manipulating conservatism as a whole, but they don't need conservatism as a whole. They need only a small percentage of conservative voters. In many cases a few percentage points are all that is required to swing a close election. By trial and error over the past decade, the American left has developed a method of obtaining control over those few percentage points in a limited but crucial number of contests.
This method is aimed at the most unworldly and least experienced members of the conservative coalition: religious believers, single-issue voters such as gun owners, and newly-recruited voters who became involved in the tea party movement over the past four years. The program operates counterintuitively, by manipulating the beliefs and convictions of the voters to misdirect or negate their political activities. Rather than persuade voters to act against their own interests or to vote against their convictions, the left, with the aid of the media, manipulates those very convictions -- public morality with religious voters, conservative ideology with traditionalists or tea party voters, and various stances on single issues, to persuade voters to waste their votes on obscure or bogus candidates, to throw support to hopeless or seriously flawed "pure" candidates, and in some cases not to vote at all.
This tactic surfaced in the 2000 election, almost by sheer accident. On November 2, WPXT reporter Erin Fehlbau seemingly stumbled over a story of national significance while covering an unrelated trial. According to a local cop, somebody had unearthed evidence that George W. Bush had been involved in a 1976 drunk-driving case.
"Somebody" turned out to be Tom Connolly, a Democratic political operative who had acted as a delegate to the national convention and had previously run for state governor. Connolly, lo and behold, was right around the corner, and was able to give Fehlbau the complete lowdown, including dates and docket number. Fehlbau happily ran off with her story, morally certain that she had been in no way manipulated -- a claim she makes to this day.
In truth, she had been manipulated as thoroughly and completely as the average Philip K. Dick character. At least two other reporters, Susan Kimball of the Portland NBC affiliate WCSH-TV and David Hench, police reporter for the Portland Press Herald, were tipped at the same time. Somebody really wanted the story to roll.
And roll it did. Fehlbau was featured on that evening's Nightline, and the story ran on front pages (remember those?) across the country the next day. The consensus was that Bush had lied (he'd done no such thing, he merely hadn't mentioned a piece of ancient history), that he probably still drank, and there might well be truth in rumors about hard drug use.
Connolly leapt into the picture, patting himself on the back for his heroism and cleverness, claiming to have changed history, and even providing a rationale -- according to him, the number of drunk drivers was already dangerously high without putting one in the White House. Unmentioned then or later was who else was involved. (Political insiders believe that it was Gore campaign panjandrum Chris LeHane, who was from Maine and had plenty of connections in the area, including Connolly himself.)
The story had a clear effect on the campaign. Bush, who had been steadily gaining momentum and led in several polls, began to stall out. The weekend left him little time to refute the story, and the election went down to the wire as a nail biter. The endgame was in fact historic: Bush eked out a bare victory by hanging onto Florida's electors with little over 500 votes. Aided by several bizarre rulings by the Florida Supreme Court, the Gore campaign did everything possible to overthrow the vote count. Five weeks passed before the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to bring the circus to an end.
Karl Rove, whose somewhat mysterious reputation as electoral wizard did not easily survive the incident, states that the stratagem cost Bush 2% of the vote, losing him at least four states by 1% or less -- New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Oregon. The voters lost were mostly Fundamentalists or Evangelicals deeply disturbed to learn that Bush was a man who took a drink.
The episode left serious marks on the American body politic. It crippled the Bush administration at its very start, even as the Jihadis were preparing to strike. It provided a stab-in-the-back myth for the Democrats, which they used to rally their more loopy followers. It blessed Al Gore with a bogus halo of martyrdom, which he parlayed into vast wealth as a kind of revival-tent environmentalist and at last as a spokesman and partner with the Jihadi-supporting Al Jazeera network. None of those involved, from Connolly to LeHane, has ever expressed a word of regret. Why should they? They had a whole new tactic to exploit.
Corruption goes back a long way in American presidential politics, as the "Corrupt Bargain" and Watergate will attest. But the drunk-driving stratagem was something new -- never before had anyone nearly pocketed the White House by subverting a candidate's deepest and most serious supporters. This tactic had vast possibilities, possibilities that the Democrats have explored in many an election since.
In 2006, after two elections spent banging their heads against Bush's early popularity, the Democrats hit on the tactic of running Blue Dogs -- Democrats with a few surface conservative characteristics. One of the most important from an electoral standpoint was a good rating with the NRA, something possessed by a number of candidates, among them James Webb of Virginia. Although the NRA was questioned over this, it refused to modify its policy of endorsing highly-rated candidates and ended up doing exactly what the Democrats hoped: funneling voters toward an entire squadron of Trojan horse candidates. Numerous voters to whom gun rights were dominant voted according to their usual practice for candidates supported by the NRA, despite the fact that this new run of Blue Dogs opposed everything else they might believe. It was a case of missing the forest in favor of a single tree. While the candidate in question might well be a hunter or an avid gun collector, his election accomplished nothing beyond providing numbers and support for a party adamantly opposed to both the NRA and gun owners everywhere.
The tactic played out superbly (despite the presence of the GOP's resident Merlin Karl Rove working the opposite side), contributing strongly to that year's turnaround in Democratic fortunes. Many of the Blue Dogs won, including Webb -- granted that Republican George Allen gave him a welcome hand with the "Macaca" fiasco. (In short order, Webb wrecked his own political career, ironically enough by means of a confused scandal involving an illegal pistol, in the process humiliating not only himself, but also Congress and the NRA, an unusual triple-header.)
But the new Democratic tactics came onto their own in the wake of 2008 and the appearance of the tea parties as a political force. The tea parties in large part involved the influx of large numbers of Americans who, for a variety of reasons, had previously avoided or overlooked politics. With the election of Obama came the realization that this was no longer a viable option. What followed was a mass internal migration into active politics. The problem lay in the fact that many of these voters, though often of high intelligence and educational achievement, had no previous experience with politics. They had no idea of the amount of sleaze, corruption, and dishonesty that surrounded even the simplest political operation. This naiveté made them easy prey for any determined political operative. The fact that the Republican and conservative establishments chose to regard them as an annoyance rather than potential allies left them wide open to exploitation by the Democrats.
The 2010 Nevada senate race opened as a single combat between Harry Reid and Sharron Angle. But then a third-party candidate named Scott Ashjian appeared, representing the "Tea Party of Nevada." Ashjian gave no speeches, did no campaigning, and granted no interviews, simply ran ads underlining his tea party credentials, though no one in the movement had either heard of or would vouch for him. Ashjian, it turned out, was a lawyer with Democratic connections whose claim to fame was representing John Wayne Bobbit, the noted near-eunuch and porn star.
The Ashjian campaign provided just enough confusion and distraction to undermine GOP efforts. Reid, who needed all the help he could get, squeezed out a victory and returned to Washington to not lead the Senate, not offer budgets, and not get bills passed.
But it was 2012 when the technique reached its apotheosis with the campaign of Todd Akin. Claire McCaskill of Missouri was (and is) an incompetent senator of no discernable attainment, widely considered to be the most vulnerable incumbent in the country. Two personable and capable conservatives, Sarah Steelman and John Brunner, were vying for the opportunity to run against her.
But then appeared Todd Akin, an engineer with a spotty and unimpressive political record. No sooner had Akin announced than a parade of TV ads appeared accusing him of being the "most conservative candidate", far more so than his rivals. The odd thing was that these were paid for by the Democratic Party. Opposing parties do not usually run ads involving one another's primaries. Yet the Democrats spent something on the order of $1.5 to $2 million on a series of don't-throw-me-in-that-briar-patch ads transparently designed to call attention to Akin.
They worked. Missouri's Republican voters turned out to vote for Akin with the alacrity of Pavlov's dogs sensing a treat. While it was more than apparent what had transpired, there was little to be done on the national level but shrug and hope for the best.
Until, that is, Akin began a series of obtuse blurts the most well-known of which was his 12th-century treatise on female biology. Like a heat-seeking warhead, Akin had aimed himself at the most sensitive bloc of independent voters, extremely skittish and suspicious of the GOP, blowing apart any chance of holding onto it.
National media moved in like hyenas. GOP candidates across the country condemned Akin (as if they had any choice) while the GOP vowed to deprive him of funding. Requests from around the compass were made for Akin to step down.
It is here that case pressed by Akin supporters (and they do exist, even today) falls apart. Any candidate of principle, on learning that he was the handpicked favorite of the opposition, would think twice, would reconsider his options, would at least condemn the attempt to utilize him against his own party. Akin did none of those things. He simply trundled on blank-eyed, like a cyborg sent back by Skywatch to destroy the GOP.
The NRC relented and granted Akin funding. Several of the more thoughtful and discerning GOP politicians, among them Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, came out in his support. It all availed nothing. Akin went down to inevitable defeat and the worst senator in the country returned to Washington for another term.
The Akin candidacy had effects far beyond Missouri. Democrats used it in attempts to tar other Republicans, including vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan. It played directly into the favorite media stereotype of conservatives as medieval halfwits. It nullified GOP efforts to woo undecided female voters.
But more than that, it served as proof of concept, demonstrating that it was possible to make an entire state's roster of conservative voters behave as if they'd been Tasered. This is a remarkable achievement, whatever you may think of Akin or his Democratic manipulators, one that points toward even more extravagant possibilities in the future.
(Akin himself has not completely dropped out of sight. AT received an email from him several weeks ago speculating on the upcoming and inevitable Rapture. Which begs the question as to why he was running for the Senate in first place. Speaking for myself, about the last place I'd want to be caught on Judgment Day, apart from a whorehouse or an adult bookstore, would be the U.S. Congress.)
As for the presidential election, damping the Romney vote would have been child's play for a political organization capable of pulling off the Akin maneuver. Was such an attempt made? It's doubtful that the Dems let the opportunity simply pass. If we consider that the biggest factor in Romney's defeat was the large but unknowable number of diehards who refused to vote for the RINO (some estimates put the number being as high as 2 to 3 million), some light begins to dawn. There were throughout 2012 no end of comment threads, tweets, and Facebook postings urging exactly such action, by people operating anonymously who vanished as soon as the election was over. It's more than likely many of these were on somebody's payroll. Their effect is impossible to gauge, but that they did damp the Romney vote to some extent is just as difficult to deny. Such efforts will become more common, heated, and open in upcoming elections.
Efforts to manipulate the 2014 election are already apparent. Recently, the Democrats launched an attempt to manipulate the Kentucky senatorial elections by forming an alliance with local tea parties. The president of the Louisville Tea Party, Sarah Durand, was approached by Democratic operatives promising a seven-figure investment in the overthrow of Mitch McConnell, the GOP bête noire of many of the woollier tea party factions. The Democratic organizations included MoveOn and Progress Kentucky along with the party SuperPAC.
In truth, the Kentucky effort appears to be aimed at Rand Paul, the state's junior senator and one of the big tea party success stories. Paul struck up an unexpected friendship with McConnell (which in itself tends to undercut the case against the minority leader). McConnell's experience and skill coupled with Paul's brashness and enthusiastic following represents a nightmare for Democratic planners. It should be expected that they'd go to extreme lengths to break any such team up. Do Durand and the other state tea party leaders grasp this? (Sen. Paul himself has doubts that the Kentucky tea parties will become involved in any such effort.)
This puts a new perspective on Karl Rove's recent announcement concerning his "Conservative Victory Project" to vet and support winning GOP congressional candidates. There is in fact an argument for close examination of potential candidates to avoid another Akin -- that is, a candidate selected and supported by liberal Democrats for the sole purpose of undercutting the GOP. But that's not how Rove chose to put it. With his customary combination of perspicacity and class, he instead portrayed himself as the last man on the establishment ramparts, defending traditional blue-blazer Republicanism from the unwashed hordes in their NASCAR ballcaps. With his rhetoric, his posturing, and his choice of a media platform (that conservative stalwart the New York Times), Rove could not have done more to provoke the Republican rank and file. A political technician of good will would have reached out to the tea parties, called a conference, gone over the problem, and presented alternative solutions acceptable to all sides of the conservative coalition. Rove did none of those things in favor of something on the order of a nuclear first strike carried out with the help of left-wing media allies. Unfortunately for him, most of his missiles seem to have exploded in their silos.
Which leaves the problem itself unaddressed. We can only hope that Rove's actions have not rendered the topic radioactive. Some form of organizational and institutional countermeasures must be put in place. We cannot depend on people with otherwise busy lives and full days to attain a lifetime worth of political sophistication in the period of a few years. Those who do dedicate their lives to practical politics must act as watchmen. They must be doubly careful in choosing and promoting candidates. They must be honest and honorable. They must look past the single issues. They must keep an eye open for torpedoes launched only to destroy the conservative cause.
The left has been conning us. But as the old saying goes, you can't con an honest man. If we live up to our best selves, as conservatives and Americans, we can beat this tactic.
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If your church's new pastor had a long and well-known history of atheism, contradicting church doctrine, or fire-bombing churches, would you trust him to serve the church community in good faith, and to do everything in his power to uphold the church's principles and practices? More to the point, would you continue to attend that church, and to take your children there?
If people dedicated to the complete destruction of the United States as a constitutional republic became power-players in the public school establishment, would you expect them to build an education system that fostered and preserved the tenets of republican citizenship as understood by America's founders? Would you continue to support the public schools, and send your children there?
For a hundred years, the main intellectual force behind America's educational establishment has been John Dewey, a socialist and open critic of the Enlightenment, American individualism, and American constitutional government. What kind of education system should people have expected Dewey and his admirers to promote? Should anyone be surprised that the public school establishment built largely according to his theories has become an anti-American cesspool of collectivism, irrationalism, and immorality?
Today, the educational insanity has reached new heights. The public school establishment has devolved from following the wisdom of men who hoped to remodel America in a Marxist image to following men who have actively sought to instigate violent revolution. The church leadership, as it were, has devolved from atheists to fire-bombers.
Bill Ayers, a leader of the Weather Underground terrorist organization, became a "respected" professor of education -- a teacher of teachers -- and a leading theorist on early childhood education. If you are one of those who wish to remain blissfully in the fog about this fact or its implications, you had better stop reading now.
Larry Grathwohl is the military veteran who volunteered to infiltrate the Weather Underground as an FBI operative in 1969. He is probably best-known for his firsthand account of a Weatherman meeting at which the organization's leadership, including the future Professor Ayers, discussed the logistics of how, after the communist revolution they were trying to spearhead, they would murder the ten percent of the American population that would likely remain resistant to the communists' re-education program.
Grathwohl has often been interviewed about that meeting and about his days among the Weather Underground (WU). The focus of those interviews used to be on the radicals and their terrorist operations. More recently, interviewers have turned to Grathwohl to help them highlight Barack Obama's own radicalism, by reminding people of the true nature of the "guy in Obama's neighborhood."
Rather than retrace these (important) angles, I chose to tie Grathwohl's knowledge of Ayers and the rest of the WU leadership to the issue of public education. Alarming as it is that the president of the United States has, and has carefully concealed, a personal association with a lifelong revolutionary communist, I believe that even that pales in comparison with the mainstream influence and respectability that Ayers, and some of his old cohorts, have come to enjoy in the field of childhood education. A president with Marxist inclinations and attitudes is a great threat. Entire generations of children receiving their first years of moral and intellectual education at de facto Marxist re-education camps -- that is a societal catastrophe.
Recently, I have been urging anyone who will listen to stop making excuses for allowing the government to continue controlling the education of their children, and to get any child under their influence out of the public education system now. Stop rationalizing inaction: modern public education, as the few intelligent, noble, suffering teachers in the system can tell you, is a Dewey-rigged atrocity, a forced-retardation machine. In America, that machine is now, increasingly, being reprogrammed as a direct socialist indoctrination system. One of the leading programmers is Bill Ayers.
From my own interview experiences, I know that one often feels dissatisfied with one's answers after the fact and wishes one could go back and refine one's statements. With this in mind, I conducted my interview with Larry Grathwohl in writing. I sent him my questions, in the order presented here, and he answered at his leisure. I trust that you will find his responses as bracing and thought-provoking as I do.
Daren Jonescu: From your time among the WU, what was your understanding of the relationship between the group's members and the Cuban DGI? Were they just basically admirers of Castro, or did the WU have some kind of genuine operational relationship with the DGI, KGB, or any such organization?
Larry Grathwohl: In my knowledge of the connections the WU maintained with the Cuban DGI and with other communist-bloc countries, it was extensive. The WU created an organization called the Venceremos Brigade with the sole purpose of sending members of their underground cells to Cuba for training in the administrative functions of organizing a revolution, as well as being trained in the creation and the use of explosives. The Venceremos Brigade itself was composed of young students who were sent to Cuba under the guise of being there to help harvest sugarcane, but included were members of the WU whose reason for being there was to receive this specialized training from the DGI.
Additionally, these trips to Cuba were utilized in order to maintain contacts with the North Vietnamese and other communist-bloc countries. As an example, Kathy Boudin traveled extensively through the Eastern Bloc countries of that time frame and also attended the University of Moscow.
At one time it was intended for me to travel to Cuba for this indoctrination and training; however, I was able to convince the WU leadership that I didn't require this kind of training, being that I had been in the U.S. military. Therefore, my name was taken off the list, and someone else was sent in my place. I did have the opportunity to meet and discuss their experiences in Cuba with some of the individuals who were part of the first Venceremos Brigade.
This connection between the Cubans and the WU was so extensive that in the event that an individual lost contact, they could go to a Cuban Embassy in Canada and simply tell them that they were (the first name didn't matter) Delgado, which was a codename to be used to re-establish contact with the WU. I also know of at least one incident where Bill Ayers and Naomi Jaffe traveled to Canada to make contact with the Cubans in the Québec Liberation Front in order to obtain funds in the amount of at least seven to ten thousand dollars. They returned to Buffalo, New York, after having been gone for a day and a half, with this money.
I have no direct knowledge of how involved the KGB was in directing the DGI and therefore the effect it may have had on the WU. However, it is my understanding from intelligence sources I have since come in contact with that the DGI was essentially run by the KGB. Again, I have no direct knowledge of this, but it seems apparent from other information that I have seen and developed through the years that this was the relationship that existed between the Soviet Union and the Cubans.
DJ: Why exactly did the WU want to overthrow the U.S. government? In favor of what?
LG: Specifically, the WU intended, as their ultimate goal, the total destruction of U.S. imperialism and of course our government. They intended to replace our current government with what they referred to as "democratic centralism." They claimed that this was the current form of government of the Cuban islands, and this was what they intended to establish here in the United States. Additionally, they felt that certain portions of the United States would be occupied by third-world countries after our destruction. They estimated that 100 million citizens of the United States would have to be re-educated after the revolution had succeeded.
DJ: How would you answer people who say, "Oh, back then all the young people talked that way. Kids do all kinds of crazy things that they regret later."
LG: Yes, it is true that many people during that time spoke in extremely radical terms, especially regarding their government and what needed to take place in order to change what they saw as the evils of U.S. imperialism. Most of these groups, however, believed in a nonviolent means of achieving these goals, and it was only the WU who felt that the only possible way of achieving this change was through violent revolution. There are many who were part of this movement during this period of time who feel that the WU had undermined their activities and ultimately destroyed any possibility of their success. This is one of the great criticisms that exists of the WU and their tactics during that period.
Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, among others, claim today that they were merely an antiwar group, but this is not the truth. In all of their writings and all of their political manifestoes, they made it very clear that they were a violent revolutionary organization inside the belly of the beast, as they called it, and that their purpose was the destruction of the U.S. and what they called U.S. imperialism.
DJ: For many people, the hardest part about accepting the true motives of subversives like the WU is that when we see them on TV, or read their later writings, they often just seem relatively "normal." It's hard for people who think of "bad guys" in movie terms to accept that evil people really are "normal" for much of the day -- they are human beings, after all, and therefore they do many of the same things we all do.
Please give me some insight into this issue: did the WU, even during those violent early days, sometimes seem like relatively normal people? Could someone meeting them in a non-WU context see Bill Ayers or Mark Rudd as ordinary, or even likable?
LG: While there were some members of the WU that I took a personal liking to, I cannot say that of the individuals that I knew as members of the leadership collective. This would have included people like Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, Bernardine Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and others. These people were absolutely vicious in their dedication to overthrow the government by any means necessary, including the use of bombs and shrapnel in order to create the greatest injury and death to people they deemed enemies. There were some whom I knew as part of the operational personnel who were more to my liking, and the difficulty surrounding these individuals was knowing that I was betraying them and their friendship as I continued to pass information to the FBI. So the answer to this question is yes, there were some who were relatively normal and therefore likable, but this did not include the leadership, which was extremely focused and intent upon destroying every remnant of democracy, including innocent bystanders who might unfortunately be in the way.
DJ: The quote for which you are probably best-known is your account of the WU leadership's discussions of post-revolutionary "re-education camps in the southwest," and of the likelihood that ten percent of the U.S. population, the "diehard capitalists," would have to be killed. I would like to focus on the "re-education camps." To the best of your knowledge, how did the WU conceive of these camps?
LG: [T]his conversation took place in Cleveland, Ohio, at a meeting for the organization to begin its underground activities, which included what they referred to as strategic sabotage. Of course this meant bombing symbols of our government as well as individuals whose positions were meant to protect and defend. The conversation involving the re-education camps and the elimination of approximately 25 million people began as a result of my inquiring as to what we (the WU) would do when and if our revolution succeeded and we were forced to deal with the everyday operations and logistics of running a country. There was very little interest in what would need to be done in order to feed, house, clothe, and otherwise provide for the population. The main focus was what had to be done in order to protect themselves from what they construed as the counterrevolution, which they expected to occur shortly after they had seized power. Because of this it would be necessary to establish re-education centers in the Southwest with the purpose of indoctrinating people into the new order and beliefs of their revolution. They estimated that 25% [of the camps' 100 million occupants], or 25 million people, would not be able to assimilate or accommodate this re-education and therefore would have to be eliminated. [T]hese individuals could be worked to death, starved to death, or shot, depending upon what works best for the revolution.
While I cannot remember everyone who attended this meeting, I do remember that Mark Rudd, Cathy Wilkerson, Bill Ayers, Linda Evans, and other members of the leadership were present. The most remarkable thing that affected me at that time was the amount of education that these people had in comparison to myself and to the general population. Many had graduated with postgraduate degrees from some of the most prestigious universities in the country, and here they sat in a room on a cloudy afternoon, seriously discussing not only the need, but the means to eliminate 25 million people, with absolutely no pangs of conscience or hesitation.
Author's Note: I conclude Part 1 by emphasizing one aspect of Grathwohl's last point here. In noting their level of education, Grathwohl is reminding us of the WU leadership's ages. Ayers and Gilbert turned 25 the year Weatherman was formed; Dohrn was 27, Boudin and Jaffe 26. In 1980, when Ayers and Dohrn finally surrendered to police -- without apologies for their "underground" activities -- they turned 36 and 38. The following year, Boudin and Gilbert, aged 38 and 37, participated in a murderous Brinks armored car robbery with members of the Black Liberation Army. The haze of distance is a convenience for those inclined to dismiss any relation between the WU's "youthful" radicalism and their "mature" work in education and social justice -- a convenient lie, that is.
(To be continued in Part 2)
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6)Without Serious Spending Cuts, the Conservative Base Will Walk Away
By Jon N. Hall
The good news on taxes is that for the first time in twelve years Americans have permanent tax rates for the biggest source of revenue to the federal government, the Individual Income Tax. That not only gives Americans a measure of certainty, it also puts the issue to rest -- tax rates have been dealt with.
Members of Congress who voted for the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, the Fiscal Cliff deal, voted for tax cuts for 99 percent of income taxpayers. Remember, when Congress passed the deal January 1, the Bush tax rates had just expired and the Clinton tax rates had just gone into effect. So Congress was voting for tax cuts. How, then, has tax activist Grover Norquist's star in any way dimmed? It hasn't. Far from getting his comeuppance, Norquist could consider his mission accomplished and retire were he not having so much fun.
What the Fiscal Cliff deal also illustrates is the utter mendacity of Democrats who for years droned on and on about the Bush tax rates as "tax cuts for the wealthy." The vast majority of Democrats (49 in the Senate and 172 in the House) voted to make the evil Bush tax rates permanent.
The lapdog media, however, contends that the president won big in the Fiscal Cliff deal. But in a terrific article at Forbes, Ralph Benko writes:
They are missing the strategic implications.
In retrospect, at the Battle at Fiscal Cliff, Boehner took President Obama to the cleaners. He did it suavely, without histrionics. While Obama churlishly, and in a politically amateurish manner, publicly strutted about having forced the Republicans to raise tax rates on "the wealthiest Americans" Boehner, quietly, was pocketing his winnings.
Dazzled by Obama's Ozymandias-scale sneer most liberals failed to notice that Boehner quietly made 99% of the Bush tax cuts permanent.
If conservatives, libertarians, and Tea Partiers are disappointed with Speaker Boehner and think he has been giving the farm away, they should read Benko's article pronto. They'll see that the lachrymose leader of the House may well be a master strategist. And just as heartening, he has a healthy hatred of debt.
Last year Speaker Boehner offered the president more revenue by closing exemptions for top earners. The president declined the offer and held out for rate hikes. However, now that the president has succeeded in getting higher tax rates for the top 1 percent of income earners, he now wants to eliminate their exemptions, which would hike their effective tax rates. That Democrats would raise rates and then press for the elimination of exemptions was predicted. But all the president wants is just "a little bit more."
Now that Congress has dealt with revenue, they must deal with spending cuts, the first installment of which is sequestration: the automatic spending cuts due to hit March 1. Given sequestration and the extra revenue from the Fiscal Cliff deal, with just a little discipline the deficit could, this year, sink below $1 trillion.
But when it comes to spending, Democrats don't do discipline. Indeed, in the president's State of the Union address, we were treated to a veritable smorgasbord of new spending initiatives. Mr. Obama, however, assured us: "Let me repeat -- nothing I'm proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime." The president also informed us that: "Over the last few years, both parties have worked together to reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion -- mostly through spending cuts, but also by raising tax rates on the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans."
The $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction the president refers to is, obviously, a projection; something that might happen when he's out of office. But the current government has no control over spending in the "out years." The current government can't tie the hands of future officials who may be elected precisely to undo everything now being done.
Democrats don't want to cut spending. On Fox News recently, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asserted that: "it is almost a false argument to say that we have a spending problem." (Perhaps that explains why the relief bill for victims of Hurricane Sandy was loaded up with pork.)
Given that Democrats don't think they have a spending problem and are likely to resist any cuts, Republicans should tell Americans that the federal deficit is on target to go below a trillion dollars for the first in four years and Democrats want to jeopardize that happy possibility by spending more and more money we don't have. Take it to the people, Mr. Boehner.
Republicans who voted against the Fiscal Cliff deal would do well to watch "Sequester Scare Tactics" from the February 15 episode of The Kudlow Report. In that six-minute segment we hear that if Republicans "flinch" on the spending cuts, "the base will walk away and the party will self-destruct."
When it comes to the debt ceiling, Republicans should use it to get more spending cuts. And the ceiling shouldn't be raised for such long time spans, either. Raise it for a month, close down the government if need be, and pocket savings from furloughed government workers. This business of giving the biggest wastrel in history and his spendthrift party a blank check for a year is no way to advance the cause of limited government.
So let the debt ceiling be a monthly affair. It's time for Speaker Boehner and House Republicans to give President Obama a case of "Ozymandias melancholia."That's what they were sent to D.C. to do -- that, and to cut spending.
Jon N. Hall is a programmer/analyst from Kansas City.
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7) PresidentBashar Assad has evacuated most of the troops of his 5th Army Division from their permanent bases on the Golan opposite Israeli forces and transferred the unit along with its artillery to Damascus,military sources report.The Syrian ruler’s step had three purposes:
1. To reinforce his Damascus defenses;
2. To carve out a buffer zone along the Israeli border and leave it under rebel control.
3. To provide the jihadists fighting in rebel ranks with access to the Israeli border fence. Senior officers in the IDF’s northern command believe it is just a matter of time before these al Qaeda-associated fighters hurl themselves at the border fence to break through, or target Israeli military targets from across the Syrian border.
Assad first practiced this stratagem on Syria’s northern frontier with Turkey.
Six months ago, he opened the door of his border region to let armed bands of the separatist PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party) through from Iraq and set up new strike bases opposite Turkey’s back door, to which they could flee after attacks.
The PKK took full advantage of this opportunity. Indeed, to curb the Kurdish offensive, Ankara was forced to enter into negotiations with PKK leaders for a settlement of their claims, although they are still poised in Syria to resume their attacks.
Israel does not have that option because most of the Islamists fighting with the Syrian rebels are associated with al Qaeda and committed to jihad against the Jewish state.
Saturday, Feb.16, Israeli government and military leaders were at odds over whether to extend medical treatment to seven Syrians injured in battle on the Golan. In the event, they were allowed to cross the border and transferred to hospital in Safed.
But because of the argument, the official communiqué said only that the decision was taken on humanitarian grounds but omitted to specify whether the injured Syrians were soldiers or rebels.
However, there was never any doubt that they were in fact Syrian conscripts wounded in the course of their unit’s withdrawal from the Golan. The argument against giving the soldiers medical treatment was that they were Bashar Assad’s troops and looking after them was tantamount to endorsing Assad’s hostile schemes and therefore unacceptable. It was settled by avoiding identifying the wounded men.
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