Had 1st post op this morning...xrays look good both hip and knee...pain in knee is not uncommon after hip replacement and should eventually go away and I can drive myself...all good news.. Hip Hip Hooray.
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BIBI speaks out regarding Gaza. (See 1 below.)
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As I noted previously when Morris Dees began the SPLC he was courageous and tough and truly dedicated to destroying the KKK etc. I also knew he was interested in living a good life and he turned the SPLC into a money machine and, obviously, drifted because he thought he could drink his own bath water.. (See 2 below.)
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I do believe it would be good for the country if Adam Schiff resigned but that is not likely.
I also believe Trump should move forward in governing the nation and let surrogates defend him. That probably will not happen either.
Finally, I do hope there is a full investigation of of the genesis of the Russian Collusion so the public will know the other side's involvement. That may happen and Sen. Graham will do a good job given the opportunity.
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Dick
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1)Netanyahu visits Gaza border: ‘I’ve instructed forces to prepare for a broad campaign’
Netanyahu visited the Gaza border where he received security assessments amid the ongoing tensions with Hamas.
By David Isaac, World Israel News
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also acting defense minister, visited the Gaza border on Thursday morning as tensions remain high after terrorists launched a rocket that struck an Israeli home in central Israel on Sunday.
Netanyahu said after meeting with Israel Defense Force commanders: “We are tightening the security ring around the Gaza Strip.”
“In the past few days, I have instructed forces, to add tools, to be prepared for a broad campaign,” Netanyahu said. “All citizens of Israel know that if we need a broad campaign, we will enter into it strong and confident – and after we’ve exhausted all other options.”
Netanyahu also praised U.S. President Donald Trump for formally recognizing Israeli control on the Golan Heights in Israel’s north. “We’re operating on several fronts at the same time. Not far from here is the Golan Heights, where President Trump recognized our sovereignty over three days ago,” Netanyahu said.
“Beyond the Golan Heights is Syria and also Iran. Iran is constantly trying to bring long-range precision missiles into Syria, very advanced and very lethal. We won’t have it and our action against Iran’s attempts to entrench militarily in Syria are ongoing at all times,” he said.
Iran also supports Hamas, the terrorist rulers of the Gaza Strip. After three rockets were launched at Israel on Tuesday night, Hamas denied responsibility. It later blamed Iran for ordering another terror group the Islamic Republic supports, the Islamic Jihad, to carry out the strike.
Israel launched some 80 air strikes in response overnight Tuesday going into Wednesday morning across the Gaza Strip, hitting Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets and destroying the offices of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
According to Israeli daily Ma’ariv quoting the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat, the Egyptians are holding marathon meetings with Palestinian terror factions in the Gaza Strip in an attempt to prevent a major military confrontation.
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2)
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which turned fighting “hate” into big business, is taking a long look in the mirror. Two weeks ago the SPLC fired its co-founder, Morris Dees, with only a vague statement that employee conduct must reflect the organization’s values.
The SPLC then hired Tina Tchen, a former chief of staff for Michelle Obama, to conduct what the board chairman called a “top-to-bottom external review of our workplace culture and our past practices and policies.” Then last Friday the SPLC’s president, Richard Cohen, stepped down “to give the organization the best chance to heal.”
2)
Who Watches the ‘Hate’ Watchers?
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s recent turmoil is a sad irony.
The Editorial Board
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which turned fighting “hate” into big business, is taking a long look in the mirror. Two weeks ago the SPLC fired its co-founder, Morris Dees, with only a vague statement that employee conduct must reflect the organization’s values.
The SPLC then hired Tina Tchen, a former chief of staff for Michelle Obama, to conduct what the board chairman called a “top-to-bottom external review of our workplace culture and our past practices and policies.” Then last Friday the SPLC’s president, Richard Cohen, stepped down “to give the organization the best chance to heal.”
News reports detail a staff revolt. In a letter to management, employees complained that “allegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism threaten the moral authority of this organization.” Women reportedly claimed inappropriate remarks and touching by Mr. Dees, though he denies this.
Last month it breathlessly reported that, thanks to Donald Trump, “the number of hate groups operating across America rose to a record high—1,020.” But they include, for example, the Alliance Defending Freedom. That nonprofit won a Supreme Court case last year on behalf of Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker who didn’t want to make a cake for a gay wedding.
Warnings about a tidal wave of “hate” are what keep funds flowing into “Poverty Palace,” as some SPLC workers have called its headquarters. Its endowment is now $470 million. Donors should take this moment, if they haven’t already, to find a better cause.
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3) The Terminator Democrats
The party spent two years crawling across broken glass to take down a presidency.
By
With one big difference, the Democratic Party, since the day Donald Trump won the 2016 election, has looked like the killer android at the end of “The Terminator.”
Its flesh burned off, the Terminator’s endoskeleton continues to pursue Sarah and Kyle into a labyrinthine factory. A bomb blows off the Terminator’s legs, but the android still won’t stop. It drags the top half of its body across the floor and with its dying hand tries to crush Sarah, until a hydraulic press finally puts out the last blinking red light in its eyes.
The big difference? The Terminator was a programmed robot, while the Democrats, in theory, possess actual human intelligence. Beyond that, I’m hard put to see the difference between the relentless android and Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff, Tom Steyer or any of the other anti-Trumpers and NeverTrumpers who for two years have crawled across broken glass to terminate this presidency.
One may reasonably ask: What was that all about? That the opposition simply wanted to “get Trump” is an insufficient explanation for the scale of this obsession. Nor is it sufficient to say the opposition emerged from Mr. Trump’s rhetoric about immigrants and such.
None of that explains why so many once-sober Federal Bureau of Investigation bureaucrats went rogue in 2016. It doesn’t explain why after the election professional Democrats formed themselves into what they called “the Resistance,” as if suddenly they’d all become characters in “Les Misérables.”
Something snapped in the opposition’s psyche. They started wailing about “our democracy.” The panic over this presidency became Trump Derangement Syndrome.
A point arrived in the past year when any serious observer could have sensed that the Russian collusion narrative was losing elevation. The Beltway media divisions had chased the story’s Russia strands since January 2017 but failed to push it past peripheral figures in the Trump orbit, such as George Papadopoulos, or Roger Stone’s fever swamps.
You would have thought the Democrats might have started months ago to prepare their side for a soft landing. Instead, they took their midterm election success, with anti-Trump sentiment evident in many suburbs, as proof—however disconnected from political logic—that Robert Mueller’s prosecutors would deliver the president to them on a platter.
Now what? In the past 48 hours, some Democrats have started to recover from the Mueller neutron bomb. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is attempting to “pivot” to health care. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, is promoting its For the People agenda, which virtually no one has heard of.
The Pelosi pivot makes sense—unless Trump Derangement Syndrome is a habit that can’t be kicked. Is Rachel Maddow now going to do nightly riffs on the details of For the People? I don’t see a lot of late-night laughs in Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s pay-equity bill.
There may be one rationale for restarting Trump derangement with House hearings on whatever obstruction-of-justice crumbs the Mueller report reveals: It likely would enrage Mr. Trump and move him off the high of his Mueller win and back into the gutter with Messrs. Nadler and Schiff. Mrs. Pelosi knows how to play good-cop/bad-cop.
As to the media, they’ll be back. Watch for CNN’s Jim Acosta to test the Trump temper eventually. The not-crazy goal of reviving Mr. Trump’s road rage would be to separate him from the disaffected suburban voters who this week are giving him a second look.
Meanwhile, the AOC Effect isn’t going to disappear. If little else, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has proved that a tension now exists in politics between traditional policy substance and social-media emoting. Social media gets prime time. Straight policy gets next to nothing.
Still, Mitch McConnell’s forcing Senate Democrats into an embarrassing “present” vote on AOC’s Green New Deal suggests social-media pipe dreams aren’t ready yet for the reality of congressional vote-counting.
But what Congress does may be diminishing in importance if the big prize is winning the presidency, which itself is becoming more dependent on shaping mass opinion by using the skill sets of social media—and all that implies for our politics. Especially for the Democrats.
One thing it implies is you don’t have to be substantive or even serious. See the Beto O’Rourke phenomenon. His candidacy seems to be about attaching his persona to a political demographic whose main concern is feeling good about feeling good about themselves—and various vague beliefs. He didn’t originate the idea.
It also implies that a Democratic presidential candidate must conform to social media’s progressive values, on display this week in Joe Biden’s incredible grovel about how “the white man’s culture” has “got to change.”
One verity in our politics existed before the Mueller era and remains: Donald Trump is the incumbent U.S. president. History shows incumbent presidents are very hard to defeat. Defeating this one, derangement and all, just got harder.
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