No it was hard to read. (See 1 below.)
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This is the kind of anger that drives Trump's popularity.
America's political, economic and social fabric have been in decline for years. Obama simply sped up the process with his misplaced Hope and Change mirage, administrative incompetency, feckless and apologetic foreign policy and out of the mainstream ideology.
Consequently the political vacuum Obama created has resulted in an anti-establishment surge.
America's demographics have also been changing at light speed. Consequently, are we experiencing the last and dying gasp of Caucasian America? Has their heightened anger and feelings of abandonment resulted in the rising appeal of non-politicians the likes of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump? I believe the answer is yes.
America's middle class has been decimated, job loss is on the rise and belief that traditional politicians are more interested in re-election than attacking the viral dry rot that seems to be spreading is driving their increasing frustration and sense of hopelessness.
Obviously the spreading threat of Islamist terrorism, which Obama cannot even bring himself to characterize and name, has also become a motivating factor as well as Obama's utter disregard of the overwhelming penetration of our borders.
Anger and pique often result in emotional decisions that are not based on reasoning. Trump is a master at showmanship and senses this heightened frustration among Caucasians. To date he has effectively tapped into their dispirited mood.
Furthermore, the opposition has belched up two questionable candidates. One is an untrustworthy retread, the other an out of the mainstream self-affirmed Socialist. Neither bring much comfort to those supporting Trump. In fact, they reinforce their fear and utter disgust with our nation's direction.
How all of this will shake out is anybody's guess but one thing seems assured. This presidential cycle is unlike any we have experienced but then so are the external and internal pressures engulfing America.
Will the best person win? That remains to be seen.
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When a weapons program is launched it frequently, in fact all too often, is changed along the way, is made more cumbersome and eventually is incapable of meeting its initial objective as the cost escalates. So what is new? (See 3 below.)
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Arrest the hen and free the fox? Texas justice? (See 4 below.)
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Israelis should moon Ban Ki-moon! (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)Well the Exalted One, the Smartest Man in Any Room, dictates the $15/hour minimum wage, then American business inserts that input into their VERY successful business model spreadsheet…………..and guess what? NONE of the stores in marginal markets, read poor neighborhoods, that the $15 was supposed to help, can make any profit. Sooo they don’t get built, the jobs don’t show up, and neither does the $15/hour. WHO KNEW??
Just waiting for Rev Al to start marching against Whitey Capitalism, NO JOBS, NO PEACE!!
JEEZ, think I’ve seen this movie…………………. but it will not win an Oscar.
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Killing the golden goose of capitalism
Jan. 21, 2016Updated 12:00 a.m.By ADAM B. SUMMERS / Staff columnistThe financial world, and quite a few employees, were taken aback recently when Wal-Mart announced that it will be closing 269 of its 11,600 stores, including 154 in the U.S., although it still plans to open 300 stores worldwide in the coming year.Oakland officials “expressed shock” at Wal-Mart’s decision, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, and Washington, D.C., leaders were “furious,” according to a Washington Post headline.They only have themselves to blame.While Wal-Mart President and CEO Doug McMillon was quick to dispel the notion that Wal-Mart’s voluntary “investment in wages” had anything to do with the store closures, some have noted a pattern among the more poorly performing stores getting the axe: they tend to be located in cities with high government-imposed minimum wages and other costly anti-business policies.A San Francisco Chronicle report noted that Wal-Mart stores were closing in San Jose and Oakland, which each adopted minimum wages higher than the state rate – currently $10.30 and hour and $12.55 an hour, respectively – while the two stores in San Leandro, a city that did not increase the minimum wage, will remain open.“I think it really is a little discouraging,” Oakland Councilman Larry Reid told the Chronicle. “The minimum wage in the city of Oakland played a factor, was one of the factors, they considered in closing the stores.”Among the seven stores closing in Southern California are two in the city of Los Angeles (Chinatown and the Crenshaw District), L.A. County (Altadena) and Long Beach (on East Fifth Street). Both the city and county of L.A. adopted ordinances last summer that will hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. Long Beach just approved a measure Wednesday that will raise the minimum wage to $13 an hour by 2019, and possibly to $15 by 2021.City officials were also upset in the District of Columbia, where Wal-Mart is keeping its three existing stores but announced that it could no longer move ahead with plans for two additional stores in poor areas east of the Anacostia River, where the jobs they would bring were eagerly anticipated (as was the sales tax revenue they would generate for the district). The retailer had only been allowed to operate in the city by virtue of a “handshake deal” in 2013 whereby it agreed to open stores in poorer neighborhoods.“It’s an outrage,” former mayor Vincent C. Gray told the Washington Post. “A deal’s a deal,” snapped Councilman Jack Evans.Such a deal is ridiculous on its face, however, since business owners in a free society are not blackmailed or otherwise coerced to operate or not operate in certain areas. They open their stores where they deem fit and profitable, and consumers make the ultimate decision about the wisdom of their location decisions.As Councilman Evans related to the Post, Wal-Mart’s decision was influenced by the city’s $11.50 hourly minimum wage – which could rise to $15 an hour if voters approve a ballot measure in November – and proposals to require a minimum number of hours for hourly workers and force employers to pay into a fund for employees’ family and medical leave.It is unfortunate that those in poor neighborhoods who are most in need of the jobs, and wide selection of goods and produce at cheap prices that Wal-Mart offers will be deprived of these things due to the greedy and shortsighted policies of their governments, which make it too costly to operate at all. Wal-Mart is a business, not a charity. It is an employer, not a make-work jobs program.For too long, big government elected officials and advocates have treated businesses as cash cows for their pet programs, many of which are used to buy votes at election time. It is time that they learned that they cannot keep biting the hand that feeds them without deleterious consequences.
3)
Well....., what the hell is happening to us?????Democrats and
Republicans
('different' ONLY in name)Someone please tell me what the HELL's wrong withAll the people that run this
country!!!!!!Both Democrats and
RepublicansSay,
"We're broke"
And can't
help our own
Seniors,Veterans,Orphans,Homeless,Etc.,?????
But, over the
last several years THEY
have provided
direct cash aid
to....
Hamas - $351 M,Libya - $1.45 B ,Egypt - $397 M,Mexico - $622 M,Russia - $380 M,
Haiti - $1.4 B,Jordan - $463 M,Kenya - $816 M,Sudan - $870 M,Nigeria - $456 M,Uganda - $451 M,Congo - $359 M,Ethiopia - $981 M,Pakistan - $2 B ,South Africa - $566 M,Senegal - $698 M,Mozambique - $404 M,Zambia - $331 M,Kazakhstan - $304 M,Iraq - $1.08 B ,Tanzania - $554 M,..with literally Billions of Dollars
and th ey still hate us!!!!But on the other hand,
Our retired seniors,Living on a 'fixed income,'Receive NO aid!
Nor do they get any breaks, while our governmentAnd religious organizations will pourHundreds of Billions Of
$$$$$$'sand Tons of Food to
Foreign Countries!
Someone needs to
explain to them thatCharity begins
AT HOME!!!And another atrocity....
We have Hundreds of adoptable
American
Children who are shoved asideTo make room forThe adoption ofForeign orphans.AMERICA : A
country where we have
Countless
Homeless without shelter,
Children going to
bed hungry,
Elderly going without needed
medication
and the Mentally ill without
treatment -- etc.YET ..........They will have a 'Benefit' Show
For the people of Haiti , on 12
TV Stations ;Ships and planes lining up with food, water, tentsclothes, bedding, doctors and medical supplies.Now Just Imagine if
Our own *GOVERNMENT*Gave 'US' the same support they give to foreign countries.Sad, isn't it?=================================================================
5 Reasons Why Our F-35s Are Too Dangerous to Fly
The F-35 has been around as long as global warming. The aircraft had its origin in the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program started by the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy in 1993. The word "Strike" in the designation of this program indicates that it was oriented toward developing a light bomber. The following year, the JAST program absorbed the Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter program and a separate short take-off/vertical landing program. This became the Joint Strike Fighter program, with the aim of producing a common airframe and engine across the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps. This aircraft was claimed to be 20 percent cheaper to acquire and operate than legacy aircraft such as the F-16. That was the intent. Lockheed Martin won the flyoff against Boeing in 2001.
Many years then passed. The production prototype F-35 first flew in 2006.
The flying characteristics of an aircraft can be determined from its statistics – that is, things like the weight divided by the wing area, weight relative to thrust, etc. The F-35 was still a light bomber. Its engine is optimized for operating at about 20,000 feet. By 2008, simulations had shown that the F-35 was not fit to be a fighter aircraft. This was in a RAND study by Dr. John Stillion, which concluded that the F-35 "can't turn, can't climb, can't run."
Now, ten years after the F-35 first flew, it remains in development, though 180 have been built. None of those aircraft can operate in combat; all will have to be modified if and when the final design has been settled on. There is not much point in doing that, because the F-35 has a number of show-stoppers that would kill it instantly in a rational world. These include:
- The F-35's engine is failing at too high a rate, and its reliability is not improving fast enough to be approved for operational use. The F-35 has a poorly designed, unreliable engine – the largest, hottest, and heaviest engine ever put in a fighter plane. It is a highly stressed derivative of the F119 engine, which powers the F-22. Because of the need to drive the F-35B lift fan, it is about 2,000 lbs heavier than other combat jet engines of comparable thrust. The project recognized the engine's limitations in 2012 by announcing an intention to change performance specifications for the F-35A, reducing sustained turn performance from 9.0g to 4.6g and extending the time for acceleration from 0.8 Mach to 1.2 Mach by 8 seconds. As in September 2014, the Government Accountability Office reported that "[d]ata provided by Pratt & Whitney indicate that the mean flight hours between failure for the F-35A engine is about 21 percent of where the engine was expected to be at this point in the program." But engine reliability is not improving; it has flatlined.
- The F-35 requires a runway at least 8,000 feet long to operate from. By comparison, the F-16's minimum runway length requirement is 3,000 feet.
- The F-35's operating cost of $50,000 per hour means that we won't be able to afford to give its pilots enough flying time to be fully proficient. The same problem afflicts the F-22 with its $70,000-per-hour operating cost. Raptor pilots get 10 to 12 hours per month in the cockpit when 20 hours are needed to be able to make split-second decisions in combat.
- Being designed as a light bomber, the F-35 is less maneuverable than fighter designs up to 50 years old and will be shot out of the sky by modern fighter aircraft. Thus, it wasn't a surprise when an F-16 outflew an F-35 in mock combat in early 2015, a result entirely predictable from simulation. What is telling is that the F-35 is not being flown against other aircraft types on an at least monthly basis. The latest derivative of the Su-27 Flanker, the Su-35, is expected to be able to shoot down 2.4 F-35s for every Su-35 lost. China is in the process of acquiring 24 Su-35s. In combat, those 24 Chinese Su-35s will shoot down 58 F-35s before all being shot down themselves. The Russians have followed the Su-35 with the T-50, which will be close to the F-22 in combat effectiveness but without the cost of maintaining the radar-absorbant material (RAM) coating.
- The F-35 uses its fuel for cooling its electronics. The aircraft won't start if its fuel is too warm, making deployment in warmer regions problematic. At the Yuma and Luke U.S. Air Force bases in Arizona, fuel trucks for the F-35 are painted white, parked in covered bays, and chilled with water mist systems because the jet won't even start if the fuel is already too warm to cool the electronics.
- The F-35 has a logistics system (ALIS) that requires an internet connection to a centralized maintenance system in the United States. ALIS is kept permanently informed of each aircraft's technical status and maintenance requirements. ALIS can, and has, prevented aircraft taking off because of an incomplete data file. If the internet link is down, the aircraft can't fly even if there is nothing wrong with it. This is one of the more bizarre problems. It could lead to a situation in which enemy aircraft are inbound and the F-35s are refueled and ready to go but can't take off to meet the threat.
Those are the known show-stoppers; the F-35 has many other mere deficiencies. Embarrased by having 180 aircraft that can't actually fight, the head of the F-35 program, General Bogden, has decided to make December 2016 the make-or-break date for the program.The Department of Defense has startedbacking away from it and is contemplating buying more F-15s and F-16s to fill the USAF's capability gap.This may be the year that the F-35 nightmare ends.
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4)
Message body
Pay No Attention to What Planned Parenthood Is Doing Behind the Curtain
Texas has refused to indict Planned Parenthood for violating a Texas statute that prohibits the attempted sale of human organs. (Photo: Flickr / American Life League / CC BY-NC 2.0)
Andrew R. Kloster is a legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, focusing on civil rights, the role of the federal courts and other constitutional issues. Read his research.
In an astonishing bit of legerdemain, a local grand jury in Harris County, Texas, has refused to indict Planned Parenthood for violating a Texas statute that prohibits the attempted sale of human organs, despite the video evidence to the contrary showing Planned Parenthood doctors and executives discussing organ sales.
But the very same grand jury has indicted David Daleiden, the founder of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), who organized, filmed, and released the undercover “60 Minutes”-style videos, for supposedly violating the very same Texas statute, which also prohibits the attempted purchase of human organs.
In other words, a private individual whose only intent is to expose possibly illegal activity is under indictment for actions in connection with an undercover video operation, but the illegal actor itself—Planned Parenthood—is off the hook. This backward situation will undoubtedly chill journalistic activity in Texas and elsewhere.
According to copies of the two charging sheets filed with the Harris County Clerk’s Office that we obtained, Daleiden and his colleague, Sandra Merritt, were also indicted for tampering with a governmental record—specifically, making and presenting a falsified California driver’s license, which is a felony.
The charging sheet for the organ purchase violation is based on the Texas Penal Code §48.02: Prohibition of the Purchase and Sale of Human Organs.
A violation occurs if a person “knowingly or intentionally offers to buy, offers to sell, acquires, receives, sells, or otherwise transfers any human organ for valuable consideration.” This is a misdemeanor charge, and there are various exceptions, such as for “reimbursement of legal or medical expenses incurred for the benefit of the ultimate receiver of the organ.”
The undercover videos that CMP released certainly seem to show that Planned Parenthood employees were trying to receive much greater compensation for the organs of aborted babies than a simple reimbursement of costs. They talk about getting “top dollar” and discuss different prices for various organs. Handling and transportation costs are not going to change whether you are harvesting—what a euphemism for what is really going on—a liver or a heart.
You even have one Planned Parenthood executive caught saying she needed to get the right price for aborted organs because she wants “a Lamborghini,” which, if it was a joke, was an atrocious one.
The point, however, is that if the grand jury believes that Daleiden should be charged with offering to buy a human organ, based on the videos, it almost inconceivable that the same grand jury would not also conclude that Planned Parenthood should be charged with violating the same statute by offering to sell him human organs. The entire context of the video involves a complicated haggling process, but only one of the two parties appears to actually intend to go through with the illegal sale—and that party is Planned Parenthood.
Crucially, the Texas statute also has a clear intent standard: A violation requires the grand jury to find that CMP made its offer to buy “knowingly and intentionally.” Given that the grand jury knew that all of these videos were part of an undercover sting operation intended solely to show what Planned Parenthood was doing; that CMP was not actually in the business of purchasing organs like one of Planned Parenthood’s other partners, StemExpress; and that it was a fake offer, how could the grand jury possibly conclude that this intent standard was met? It is highly likely that no reasonable jury would ever convict under these admittedly unusual factual circumstances.
This indictment also sets a terrible precedent.
Over the past decades, there have been countless undercover video operations conducted by major news organizations at ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN, and others, as well as local at news stations all over the country. Today, the Internet has made it possible for citizen-journalists and investigators to employ the same techniques to expose wrongdoing without the need for the major resources required by shows like CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
While this is not the case with the Texas statutes at issue, there are even some federal laws that encourage this type of behavior. For example, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (the Fair Housing Act) authorizes private undercover testers and sponsoring organizations to recover damages if they discover discriminatory racial treatment in housing, even if they had no intention of moving in, or used fake identities (tampering with a government document!), or even if the conduct was illegal under state law!
Usually, a black individual or couple poses as prospective tenants in order to uncover racist housing policies. Should these individuals, reporters at major news operations, and citizen-journalists be treated as criminals or held civilly liable if they used a fake ID to expose wrongdoing? We should be encouraging undercover operations that root out illegal behavior, not criminalizing them.
Law professor Ron Rotunda, an expert on legal ethics who holds the Henley Chair and is a distinguished professor of jurisprudence at Chapman University, told us that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott should stop this abusive prosecution by pardoning the two defendants and then ask that a new prosecutor investigate Planned Parenthood’s apparent trafficking in body parts.
Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general, has already announced that the state’s investigation of Planned Parenthood and the “shameful disregard for human life of the abortion industry” is ongoing.
What we do know is that there are a lot of unanswered questions regarding the possible bias of the Harris County district attorney’s office, and its apparent fixation on prosecuting citizen-journalists rather than the malfeasance they exposed.
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5)
Today’s Top Stories
1. Another war of words between Israel and the UN: On the same day Israel buried terror victim Shlomit Krigman, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denounced Palestinian terror, then excused it, telling the Security Council, “It is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu fired back, saying “The secretary-general’s remarks provide a tailwind for terrorism. There is no justification for terrorism. Those Palestinians who murder do not want to build a state, they want to destroy a state and they say this openly.”
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