I am Calling Pot Black!

Today I am going to get on my soap box and protest the growing trend to legalize marijuana.

Geographically speaking we are a two coast nation of dumbbells connected by a strong centrist bar.
As we become a more dependent society we have also become a more self-serving society. A society more willing to engage in behaviour that might be detrimental to the freedoms we enjoy.

Our recent enthusiasm with zombies could be a forerunner of a self fulfilled desire.

Progressives premise their belief that taxing social behaviour is acceptable because if you cannot defeat them then you should join them.  Thus, since man is inclined to gamble it is socially acceptable to tax gambling and use the proceeds for education, to tax alcohol use and dedicate the revenue for the betterment of society and now it is a growing trend in our nation to legalize the use of marijuana because we are incapable of stopping drug trafficking.

I personally have never indulged myself in the use of various drugs and do not claim to be an expert on their benefits or their downside.

I do believe the many articles I have read  suggest once you begin drugs it can lead to adverse circumstances and the tendency could  become increasingly acceptable among the young.  We already have evidence of  an increasing number of unwed births, of poverty among single parent families and I suspect pot smoking will eventually become commonplace among school children once legalized. If so, I question whether this will enhance their understanding of their school subjects or improve aberrant behaviour and bullying in the school yard. I doubt it will make them more willing to assume greater responsibility or be held accountable for their actions.

Once we invented anti-bacteria drugs there has been an increase in their  promiscuous use and now we have increasing instances of strain resistant bacteria.  Invent and they will come.

Yesterday, I posted an op ed piece discussing how our nation was losing the economic battle of freedom.  I daresay a society that is engaged in being high is more likely to fall over time an even possibly be increasingly incapable of defending itself.

Consider me old fashioned, consider me overly conservative in my views of right and wrong .  I willingly plead guilty.  I reject the progressive's argument that everything is relative and that there are no absolutes, no black and whites. I reject PC'ism.

There is nothing I can do to prevent the legalization of substances I consider adverse other than to express myself and to encourage my children, as I have, and my grandchildren, as I will, to avoid becoming one of the crowd in order to gain social acceptance. Perhaps I missed out on some 'flings' over the last 80 years of life but I have no regrets.  I have had a good life, I have tried to be a responsible citizen and I willingly went when my name was called to serve my country and I thank my lucky stars  I never experienced war first hand.

As readers of my memos know, I am not particularly enthralled by our nation's social trends though I readily admit we have made extraordinary progress in matters pertaining to civil rights and awareness and sensitivity to those less fortunate or physically handicapped. That said, I also am concerned that we have allowed government to grow beyond its effectiveness, have indebted future generations because we believed government was responsible for every societal ill some progressive and conservative  thought should be addressed and left unfunded.

I also unabashedly suggest  the election of Obama is the best evidence I can cite, that we have gone overboard in accepting the lowering of our standards for our nation's leadership and have unwittingly accepted lying as a commonplace defense of ineptness.

Where all of this leads I do not know.  They say, in the stock market, the trend is your friend. If that be the case I see some ominous trends for America down the road if we persist in our current behaviour and attitudes.

Lets hear some thoughts  from Tom Sowell. (See 1 below.)
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Joe The Plumber has an answer.  (See 2 below.)
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What difference does it make! (See 3 below.)
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What is good to goose Israel with may not be acceptable for the U.S. gander. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)  Christie, Hillary and Obama
By Thomas Sowell
The first time I saw New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on television, a few years ago, my first reaction was astonishment: "A talking Republican!"

It would scarcely have been more astonishing if there had been a talking giraffe. For reasons unknown, most Republican leaders seem to pay very little attention to articulation -- certainly as compared to leading Democrats, who seem to pay little attention to anything else.

Governor Christie's nearly two-hour-long press conference last week showed again that he is in a class by himself when it comes to Republicans who can express themselves in the heat of political battle.

When it comes to policies, I might prefer some other Republican as a 2016 presidential candidate. But the bottom line in politics is that you have to get elected, in order to have the power to accomplish anything. It doesn't matter how good your ideas are, if you can't be bothered to articulate them in a way that the voting public can understand.

Chris Christie's press conference showed that, unlike Barack Obama, Christie did not duck the media or sidestep questions. Nor did he resort to euphemisms or cry out, like Hillary Clinton, "What difference, at this point, does it make?"

He met the questions head on and gave unequivocal answers -- the kind of answers that could, and should, destroy his political future if they are not true.

More important, Governor Christie quickly fired the people he held responsible for deliberately creating a traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge. Contrast that with the many scandals in Washington for which President Obama has not fired anyone.

While the creation of a traffic jam in a small New Jersey town shows the calloused ugliness too often found among political operators puffed up with their own power, this cannot compare with the threat to freedom when the Internal Revenue Service targets the administration's political opponents during an election year.

Nor can a traffic jam compare with the Department of Justice's gun-running operation that led to the death of an American Border Patrol agent in the southwest or the State Department's actions and inactions that led to the deaths of four American officials killed by terrorists in Benghazi.

Nevertheless, media coverage of the traffic jam in New Jersey was several times as extensive as any -- or all -- of these far more consequential scandals in Washington. Moreover, many of these media reactions simply assumed that Governor Christie must have known about the traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge.

Does anyone who thinks that a traffic jam at the George Washington Bridge should attract a governor's attention have any idea how many traffic jams there are on the various highways leading into Manhattan?

The Long Island Expressway, for example, long ago acquired the title, "the world's longest parking lot." Traffic backed up heading into, or out of, the Holland Tunnel or the Lincoln Tunnel is nothing new. My recollections of driving on highways in and around Manhattan include very few memories of free-flowing traffic.

Any governor who devoted his time to looking into traffic jams between New Jersey and New York would have very little time left for doing anything else.

If anything good comes out of this shabby episode of political vindictiveness by Governor Christie's staffers, it showed what a skewed sense of perspective most of the media have on what kinds of issues are important. It is not that the media consider traffic jams more important than human lives. But the fact that Christie is the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 -- and is ahead of Hillary Clinton in the polls -- makes him a target for a partisan media.

Given that blatant partisanship, the need for a Republican candidate in 2016 who can make his case to the public, in spite of the media, is especially acute -- even though it is much too early to try to predict who that candidate will be.

Whatever the political fate of Governor Christie, he has provided an example of the kind of articulation that is needed -- indeed, imperative -- if the Republicans are to have any chance of rescuing this country from the ruinous policies of the past few years.

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2)Barack Obama discovers a leak under his sink, so he calls Joe the Plumber 

> to come and fix it. Joe drives to Obama's house, which is located in a very
> nice neighborhood, where it's clear that all the residents make more than
> $250,000 per year.
>
> Joe arrives and takes his tools into the house. Joe is led to the room 
> that> contains the leaky pipe under a sink. Joe assesses the problem and tells
> Obama, who is standing near the door, that it's an easy repair that will
> take less than 10 minutes.
>
> Obama asks Joe how much it will cost. Joe immediately says, "$9,500."
>
> "$9,500?" Obama asks, stunned, "But you said it's an easy repair!"
>
> "Yes, but what I do is charge a lot more to my clients who make more than
> $250,000 per year so I can fix the plumbing of everybody who makes less 
> than> that for free," explains Joe. "It's always been my philosophy. As a matter
> of fact, I lobbied government to pass this philosophy as law, and it did
> pass earlier this year, so now all plumbers have to do business this way.
> It's known as 'Joe's Affordable Plumbing Act of 2013.' Surprised you 
> haven't> heard of it."
>
> In spite of that, Obama tells Joe there's no way he's paying that much for 
> a small plumbing repair, so Joe leaves. Obama spends the next hour flipping
> through the phone book looking for another plumber, but he finds that all
> other plumbing businesses listed have gone out of business. Not wanting to
> pay Joe's price, Obama does nothing. The leak under Obama's sink goes
> unrepaired for the next several days.
>
> A week later the leak is so bad that Obama has had to put a bucket under 
> the sink. The bucket fills up quickly and has to be emptied every hour, and
> there's a risk that the room will flood, so Obama calls Joe and pleads 
> with him to return. Joe goes back to Obama's house, looks at the leaky pipe, 
> and says, "Let's see - this will cost you about $21,000."
>
> "A few days ago you told me it would cost $9,500!" Obama quickly fires 
> back.
>
> Joe explains the reason for the dramatic increase. "Well, because of 
> 'Joe's Affordable Plumbing Act,' a lot of rich people are learning how to fix 
> their own plumbing, so there are fewer of you paying for all the free plumbing 
> I'm doing for the people who make less than $250,000. As a result, the rate I
> have to charge my wealthy paying customers rises every day.
>
> "Not only that, but for some reason the demand for plumbing work from the
> group of people who get it free has skyrocketed, and there's a long 
> waiting list of those who need repairs. This has put a lot of my fellow plumbers 
> out of business, and they're not being replaced - nobody is going into the
> plumbing business because they know they won't make any money. I'm hurting
> now too - all thanks to greedy rich people like you who won't pay their 
> fair share."
>
> Obama tries to straighten out the plumber: "Of course you're hurting, Joe!
> Don't you get it? If all the rich people learn how to fix their own 
> plumbing and you refuse to charge the poorer people for your services, you'll be
> broke, and then what will you do?"
>
> Joe immediately replies, "Run for president."
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3)Who is Ed Mezvinsky?

Edward "Ed" Mezvinsky born January 17, 1937, is a former Democrat congressman.
As a Democrat, he represented Iowa 's 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives for two terms, from 1973 to 1977.

He sat on the House Judiciary Committee that decided the fate of Richard Nixon.

He & the Clintons were very politically intertwined for YEARS!!!

In March 2001, Mezvinsky was indicted and later pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 charges of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud.

He was sentenced to 80 months in (Federal) prison.

Ed Mezvinsky embezzled more than $10 million dollars from people via both a Ponzi scheme and the notorious Nigerian e-mail scams.

After serving five years in federal prison, he was released in April 2008. He remained on federal probation through 2011, and still owes $9.4 million in restitution to his victims.

So who is he?.
.
.
.
.

.

Marc and Chelsea Mezvinsky

He's Chelsea Clinton's father-in law.

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4)

A Disturbing Double Standard

By Sarah N. Stern


Afghan President Hamid Karzi has recently authorized the release of 72 prisoners, regarded as a threat to the security of the United States. The State Department has vociferously objected to that decision. On Thursday, Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman said, "These 72 detainees are dangerous criminals against whom there is strong evidence linking them to terror-related crimes, including the use of improvised explosive devises, the largest killer of Afghan civilians."

White House spokesman Jay Carney added, "We are very concerned about the release of any detainees who would pose a threat to U.S. forces."

Yet, just in order to get the Palestinian Authority to deign to sit down at the negotiating table with Israel, the United States pressured the Israelis to release 104 terrorists, all of whom are responsible for the most heinous crimes imaginable. It is an absolute fallacy to believe that the terrorists that murder Israeli or American Jews on the streets of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv are any less a threat to the survival of Western civilization as we know it, then those released on the streets of Afghanistan.

Any one of them, whether they be from a Sunni Islamic group such as Al Qaeda, Hamas, Fatah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Ansar al Sharia, or a Shiite Islamic group such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Al Quds Force of Hizb'allah, delights equally in the murder of either American or Israeli civilians. Not to believe this is to make a distinction without a difference.

On August 9th, 2001, Malki Roth, a 15-year-old American citizen, went to eat pizza in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem. Malki was a beautiful, vivacious young girl, an accomplished violinist, who wanted to devote her life to special education. Malki was profoundly affected by having a younger sister with severe learning disabilities, and wanted to do something to help those who were less fortunate than she.

Unfortunately, Malki's dream of teaching learning disabled children was not meant to be. Her life was cut short when she sat down to eat pizza that day. A suicide bomber, Izz al Dehn Shuhail al Massri, blew himself up, killing 15 others and wounding 130. The person who orchestrated and planned that attack, AhlamTamimi, was released in an earlier prisoner exchange, and was welcomed home as a conquering hero. She now lives in Jordan where she has her own, Hamas-sponsored television show.

In a YouTube clip translated by MEMRI, AhlamTamimi actually boasts about the act.

This is a product of the culture of incitement and hatred that has metastasized throughout the body politic of the Palestinians, and has spread throughout much of the Muslim and Arab world. The United States bears much of the responsibility for this by willfully blinding itself to this fact, and by reinforcing the growing sense of Palestinian triumphalism by insisting upon these prisoner releases.

Oslo, Hebron, Wye, the Roadmap to Peace in the Middle East, and all subsequent agreements had always been predicated around one concept: Israel was to exchange something very real and tangible, land, for the end of terrorism and the end of incitement to terrorism. Yet, scarcely a day goes by when there is not some egregious incident of incitement to terror, classic anti-Semitic demonization and vilification of Israelis and Jews, a substitution of the entire map of Israel with "Palestine" and glorification of martyrdom and exhortation to become a "Shahid", (martyr).

Secretary of State John Kerry has just completed his tenth trip to the region. On his way home, he made a stop in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and met with King Abdullah to praise him and to reassure him that his 2002 "Arab Peace Initiative" remained "a part of the framework we have been piecing together." Of course, any framework that has been accepted by the Arab league, which has never accepted Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state already shows the inherent biases of this administration.

In fact, the actual intentions of the Palestinian Authority as regards these negotiations was very clearly stated on December 23, 2013 by Abbas Zaki, a senior Palestinian official and close friend and confidant of P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas. When a Syrian television interviewer remarked, "When they (the US), talk about imposing a solution, we know it will be deficient," Mr. Zaki vehemently responded, "You can relax. Even the most extreme among us, Hamas, or the fighting forces, want a state within the 1967 borders. Afterwards, we will all have something to say, because the inspiring idea cannot be achieved all at once. (Rather) in stages." (With thanks to Palestinian Media Watch).

Irrespective of how generous the borders, and what the shape and contours of a future map of "Palestine" will look like, any society that celebrates the killing of innocents like Malki Roth, and that nurtures a culture of incitement and hatred such as this, could not be trusted to make a "peace agreement" that will endure, after the ink on the paper is dry.

Shame on us for imposing on Israel conditions that we, ourselves, could never find acceptable to live with.

Sarah N Stern is Founder and President of EMET, the Endowment for Middle East Truth, an unabashedly pro-American and pro-Israel think tank and policy shop in our nation's capital.

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