Southern Humor? Conservative Professors!
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Back from Miami by way of Orlando.
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I have always maintained Southern Humor is based on squirrel logic. Jeff Foxworthy must have been descended from squirrels.
I have also maintained Liberals are humorless and cannot laugh at themselves because life is a very serious matter and most are too anal. (See 1 below.)
This is just good humor that even Liberals might find funny. (See 1a below.)
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Hillary - poor little rich girl. (See 2 below.)
Everyone thought Reagan was a B Grade actor, a simpleton and would be a disastrous president.
Actually he understood this country and its people far better than his detractors, he was a union leader who negotiated contracts with a tough Louis B Mayer, he was profoundly logical and had a marvelous sense of humor.. We need him now but probably would still not be wise enough to listen to him.
Alas, we are still dumb enough to believe the Bernie's and Hillary's have the answers.
I will go out on a limb and state that if Donald becomes president he will be far better than his detractors would have you believe because he truly wants to succeed, has proven he is logical, will surround himself with good people and will listen to them because, unlike the buffoon we currently have as president, knows he does not know everything.
I still believe Trump is a high risk candidate but far better than the Democrat alternatives.
Click here: GOVERNOR REAGAN AS GUEST WITH JOHNNY CARSON - 03/15/75 - YouTube
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I submit Shia Sunni tribal antagonism is the root casue of much of the world's challenges and they have little, if anything , to do with the Israeli Palestinian conflict which is a contrived matter in order to earn billions in shakedowns from Western lunacy. (See 3 below.)
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The SIRC provides some excellent forums for the folks at The Landings. This past Wednesday they had an opportunity to learn about the recent State Legislative Session from our House and Senate Representatives.
The SIRC really does community service by holding these programs which are open to the public.
This is a review by one of the board members. (See 4 below.)
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A thoughtful article of why Conservatives are mostly persona non gratis on college and university campuses and that is depriving and cheating those overpaying for high priced educations.
One would think those engaged in intellectual honestly would welcome ideas that are different. (See 5 below.)
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This is not the first time Biden has sought to put pressure on Israel. It did not work then and will not now.
Prime Minister Begin was a very close personal friend of Lynn's great uncle Avram Appel. (See 6 below.)
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Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1)This is straight forward country thinking.
by Jeff Foxworthy
Which side of the fence?
If you ever wondered which side of the fence you sit on, this is a great test!
If a Republican doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one.
If a Democrat doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.
If a Republican is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat.
If a Democrat is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.
If a Republican is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a Democrat is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.
If a Republican is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
If a Democrat is down-and-out he wonders who is going to take care of him.
If a Republican doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels.
A Democrat demands that those they don't like be shut down.
If a Republican is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.
A Democrat non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.
If a Republican decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
If a Democrat decides he needs health care, he demands that the rest of us pay for his.
If a Republican reads this, he'll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.
A Democrat will delete it because he's "offended".
Well, I forwarded it.
1a) If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.~Jay Leno~
The problem with political jokes is they get elected.~Henry Cate, VII~
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office ~Aesop~
If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these State of the Union speeches, there wouldn't be any inducement to go to heaven.~Will Rogers~
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.~Nikita Khrushchev~
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.~Clarence Darrow~
Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.~John Quinton~
Why pay money to have your family tree traced; go into politics and your opponents will do it for you.~Author unknown~
Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.~Oscar Ameringer
I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them. Adlai Stevenson, 1952~
A politician is a fellow who will lay
down your life for his country. Tex Guinan~
I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. ~Charles de Gaulle~
Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.~Doug Larson~
There ought to be one day -- just one -- when there is open season on Congressmen. ~Will Rogers
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2)Here is the list of the 92 “conversations” that Clinton has had in just the past three years.
2)Here is the list of the 92 “conversations” that Clinton has had in just the past three years.
The total: $21.7 million. What could she possibly say that would be worth that much or cause one to sit on their behind to listen to her? Did pearls of wisdom descend from her lips?
=====================================================================3)Robert Gehl is a college professor in
Phoenix, Arizona. He has over 15 years journalism experience, including two
Associated Press awards. He lives in Glendale with his wife and two young
children.
The Sunni-Shi'ite Proxy War Heats Up
by Jonathan Schanzer and Max Peck
Defense Dossier
Defense Dossier
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Beneath the recent ferment of a highly volatile Middle East lies the region's deepest geopolitical fault line: the decades-long rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This modern-day contest, rooted in centuries of sectarian enmity, has been best described as the "new Middle East cold war." The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 made that competition a defining feature of the region's geopolitics. It has since been spurred on by the so-called "Arab Spring" and the ensuing civil wars in Yemen and Syria. And as unrest has spread, both sides have supported their sectarian allies, elevating previously local conflicts to zero-sum grudge matches in a series of increasingly dangerous proxy wars.
The current enmity between these two geopolitical rivals is fueled in part by a vacuum left by the United States, which, under President Barack Obama, has pursued a policy of disengagement from the region. Over the past several years, the administration's clear and unambiguous goal has been to unshackle the United States from what it views as costly and painful engagements in a region that offers little hope of reform or meaningful change.
This strategy can be seen in Washington's dithering in Syria, and in the collapse of America's negotiating positions in the nuclear accord signed with Iran last year. But the end result, much to the chagrin of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Arab states, has been an undeniable boost to Iranian power, both hard and soft.
A RISING IRAN... AND A SUNNI RESPONSE
Assessments, such as that of veteran Iranian diplomat Sadegh Kharrazi, neatly encapsulate the fears of Sunni governments across the region. As Kharrazi described the nuclear talks: "Iran is now at its peak of power in centuries. Iran's sphere of influence stretches from the Mediterranean to the Indian peninsula, from Kazakhstan to Yemen. This is why the world superpowers have been negotiating with us for so long, that's why we were able to reach a deal which guarantees our interests." This resonates among the Sunni Gulf states, which have since felt compelled to take a more assertive role in defending their interests. The result has been an inflammation of sectarian tensions across the Arab world.
Over the past year, the regional contest stemming from the rise of Iran has assumed new and dangerous dimensions. In what were once wars by proxy, Saudi and Iranian troops are now directly engaged in combat – albeit in separate theaters. Both parties have suffered mounting losses, attesting to the depth of their involvement and providing some truth to the charges that Saudi Arabia is "occupying" Yemen and Iran is "occupying Arab lands" in Syria.
In the former case, Riyadh has long regarded the Houthi rebels, the Shi'a group waging an insurgency against the Yemeni government, as an Iranian proxy seeking to exploit the soft underbelly of the Saudi Kingdom. To support this assessment, the Saudis point to the spike in Iranian weapons entering the country, and to statements by Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) comparing the Houthis to Iran's longtime client Hezbollah in Lebanon. Late in 2014, alarm in Riyadh reached new heights after the Houthis broke out of their strongholds in the northwest and seized the capital of Sana'a, eventually forcing the Saudi-backed president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, into exile. This prompted Saudi Arabia to forge a coalition of nine Arab states and lead it into a war against the rebels. The resulting conflict has inflicted severe damage on the Houthis, but there have also been scores of painful combat losses on the Gulf states, including more than 50 soldiers killed on a single day.
Concurrently, Iran finds itself in an analogous position of defending a Shi'ite ally against an armed Sunni rebellion. Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in March 2011, Iran has been providing its longtime ally and proxy, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, with financial and military assistance, including the deployment of Afghan, Pakistani, and Lebanese Shi'a militias to augment the depleted ranks of his army. Its most capable proxy, Hezbollah, has taken on a prominent role in fighting the Syrian opposition, sending an estimated 8,000 troops next door with some 1,000 (perhaps more) returning in body bags. Despite these losses, it remains committed to the end. As Sheikh Nabil Qawooq, the head of Hezbollah's Executive Committee, has underscored: "We insist on defeating the terrorists and gaining victory against the takfiri plots... because if Syria turns into a center or passage for [the Islamic State] and other terrorist groups, they will not show mercy to Lebanon either."
This support has been countered in kind by the Sunni countries, which see a rare opportunity to go on the offensive and dislodge Iran's oldest ally in the Arab world. Accordingly, they have funded and armed the thousands of foreign fighters who have streamed across Turkey's southeastern frontier to join the fight. In turn, as Syria has descended deeper into a civil war, the Gulf states have taken this support to another level, providing rebel groups with lethal weaponry, such as the highly effective American-made TOW antitank missiles, and forged new powerful rebel coalitions.
These efforts have proven relatively successful. By mid-2015, the Assad regime had lost control over 83 percent of its territory, retreating to its coastal enclave, which is surrounded on all sides by hostile forces. As was the case with Saudi Arabia after the Houthi offensive in Yemen, a sense of panic jolted Tehran to take more decisive action. In late July, with the ink barely dry on the nuclear deal, IRGC Qods Force Major General Qassem Soleimani flew to Moscow to coordinate a joint intervention to rescue Assad. Weeks later, hundreds of IRGC ground troops began arriving in the country. Under the cover of Russian air support and backed by allied Shi'a militias, Iran helped the Syrian Arab Army launch a counteroffensive in rebel-held areas in Homs and Aleppo to the north of Assad's stronghold. Though Iran has insisted its troops are only "military advisers," the high rate of casualties – approaching one soldier killed per day – makes it clear that this is now Iran's war.
Increasingly frustrated by Tehran's success on the battlefield, the Gulf Cooperation Council took the unprecedented step in February of designating Hezbollah a terrorist organization. This followed Saudi Arabia's decision to impose sanctions on several Hezbollah entities last November. For his part, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah now lists the Saudi leadership alongside its traditional enemies of Israel and the United States. His supporters accordingly added the chant "Death to the Saud family" to their repertoire during the Shiite holiday of Ashura.
In the latest indication that Saudi Arabia is losing ground in this regional contest, Riyadh appears to have walked away from the country that had long served as a battleground between the two powers. In 2005, Saudi Arabia had been an early supporter of the March 14 coalition and its Sunni political movement against Hezbollah and Syrian influence in Lebanon. But in February 2016, Saudi Arabia decided to punish Lebanon for not condemning the attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran the previous month. Riyadh announced it was stopping payment on $4 billion worth of military aid and other support to the Lebanese Armed Forces, effectively ceding the coastal state to Iranian influence. Referencing the many conflicts in which Saudi Arabia is now engaged, one diplomat explained that Lebanon was "just not a priority anymore."
ADVANTAGE: IRAN
The escalating Sunni-Shi'ite proxy war has also destabilized the region in another way: by facilitating the rise of the Islamic State (IS) and fomenting an intra-Sunni war. Whereas various Shi'a groups have progressively united behind Iranian leadership, the Sunnis have splintered. Indeed, the jihadi groups spawned by the chaos generated by IS activity are at odds with the Saudi Kingdom, in part because of its overt alliance with the United States, even though the Saudis have in the recent past served as patrons to similar movements. In the last year, IS has made the kingdom a target of its terrorist activities (most conspicuously, by attacking Shi'ite mosques in Saudi Arabia as a means to enrage the population of the oil-rich eastern province to destabilize the Saudi monarchy). The Saudis thus find themselves in the unenviable position of simultaneously opposing their strategic foe, Iran, and confronting more immediate security threats from within their own sectarian camp.
Meanwhile, the meteoric rise of IS in Iraq and Syria has led to deeper Iranian entrenchment in those countries. As the Islamic State conquers swaths of Iraq, Baghdad has grown even more dependent on Tehran for its security, especially because the Obama administration has made clear that it will not commit extensive deployments in order to recover Iraqi territory. This has led Baghdad to lean on the Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias, which have filled the security void left by the retreating Iraqi army. Yet the abuses committed by these Shi'ite militias, organized under the "Popular Mobilization Forces," have the effect of further radicalizing the Sunni populations they encounter, thereby increasing the appeal of extremist Sunni groups that purport to fight for their interests. This vicious cycle thus strengthens both the Shi'a and radical Sunni enemies of the Sunni states, intensifying the violence across the region.
MORE TO COME
Given the flagging American leadership, surging Iranian influence, and expanding Saudi engagements under King Salman, a protracted battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran seems inevitable. But the longer Iran and Saudi Arabia jostle for dominance in the region, the deeper they will be pulled into local conflicts, as they already have in Syria and Yemen, and the more they will find sectarian violence visited upon them and their allies.
The events of the past year demonstrate that the Sunni-Shiite proxy war is not just escalating. It is entering a new phase, the dangers of which we are only beginning to understand.
Jonathan Schanzer is vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Max Peck is a research analyst. Follow them on Twitter @JSchanzer and @Maxwell_Peck
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4)State senator Ben Watson and State Rep Jesse Petrea did a “tag-team” presentation of the State of the State,. Which I find a refreshingly good way to do this annual presentation.
They emphasized that Georgia’s constitution demands a balanced budget and that much of their legislative effort was expended in making this happen. Expenditures in 2016 are budgeted at $ 23.7 billion, the largest ever. However, population growth has increased far more rapidly than expenditures. GA ranks 49th in tax revenues per individual!The session ended relatively early, primarily recognizing the May 24th General primary, which is very early also.The Religious Freedom bill, combined with the House’s Pastor Protection act, passed with 2/3 majority in both houses. Neither could easily explain the Governor’s veto. Both professed that their intent is to eventually make that law.Senator Watson was especially proud of a fireworks ordnance which both passes control to local officials and establishes an excise tax which will be used to cover fireworks-related expenses.In the budget were funds for a 3% raise for teachers and public employees. These funds will be passed to local officials who may choose to use them for some other purpose.The Parole Partisan board was a subject of much controversy. The threat of a bill demanding notice before release generated a voluntary agreement that six months notice will be given before release of a violent criminal. Much copncer expressed re the real meaning of sentences. .Apparently some decades ago, 30 years didn’t mean 30 years but meant parole possibility in a much shorter time. They will address this issue before and during the next session.Good questions from the audience, including a self-incriminating question re cellphone texting in a car by Don McNeely, capped the excellent presentation. We are well-represented!God Bless AmericaDick Miller, Savannah
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++5) Campus Unicorns: Conservative Teachers
One professor told us he was ‘lying to people all the time’ to hide his politics.
Everyone knows that academia is predominantly liberal: Only 6.6% of professors in the social sciences are Republicans, according to a 2007 study. But what is life like for the pioneering conservatives who slip through the ivory tower’s gates? We decided to find out by interviewing 153 of them.
By
Many conservative professors said they felt socially isolated. A political scientist told us that he became a local pariah for defending the Iraq war in his New England college town, which he called “Cuba with bad weather.” One sociologist stated the problem well: “To say a strong conservative political opinion with conviction in an academic gathering is analogous to uttering an obscenity.” A prominent social scientist at a major research university spoke of the strain of concealing his political views from his colleagues—of “lying to people all the time.”
Some even said that bias had complicated their career advancement. A historian of Latin America told us that he suffered professionally after writing a dissertation on “middle-class white guys” when it was fashionable to focus on the “agency of subaltern peoples.” Though he doesn’t think the work branded him as a conservative, it certainly didn’t excite the intellectual interest of his peers.
A similarly retrograde literature professor sought advice from a colleague after struggling to land a tenure-track job. He was told that he had “a nice resume for 1940.” As Neil Grosshas shown, liberal professors often believe that conservatives are closed-minded. If you got to choose your colleagues, would you hire someone you thought fit that description?
Yet the professors we spoke to were surprisingly sympathetic toward their liberal colleagues. “The majority always thinks it’s treating the minority well,” said the tormented social scientist mentioned above. “That’s a basic psychological trick we all play on ourselves.” Reflecting on bias in the peer-review process, a sociologist told us: “I don’t think there is conscious bad faith going on. I think when people read things they wish to politically sympathize with, it adds brightness points.”
Some professors suggested that there are compensating benefits to being out of place. For one, it’s easier to make innovative contributions. “I really do feel sorry for your absolutely conventional liberal scholar,” a political scientist told us. He imagined that it must be difficult to discover something new from “within the framework of their thinking.” Another made the point by posing a rhetorical question: “I mean, how many ways can you talk about inequality?” Other conservatives appreciated being held to a higher standard. “You can’t be lazy. You can’t—you’re not going to be cut any slack,” a philosopher said. “I think that’s a real advantage insofar as it makes the work better.”
That underlines an important point: Political bias expresses an intellectual orientation—one that inclines us to find some questions more important and some explanations more plausible. Because of this, none of us can rely on our fellow partisans to identify flaws in our thinking. Building an academic community with varied biases, then, is essential to the very health of the social sciences. Political uniformity makes it difficult to converge on the best approximation of the truth.
It’s true that in some happy cases social science is self-correcting. But it can take a very long time. Sociologists spent decades playing down the importance of two-parent households before finally admitting that family structure matters. As a conservative in the field told us: “Basically, sociology had to be dragged kicking and screaming until it recognized that broken families aren’t a good thing. It’s like, if you have to spend decades and millions of dollars in [National Science Foundation] grants to convince astronomers that the sun rises in the east.”
We certainly don’t think that faculty search committees should be required to consider conservative applicants. However, we do hope to persuade more liberal professors of the importance of viewpoint diversity—something that would require them to cultivate a distrust of their own reason and impartiality.
Colleges ought to experiment. The University of Colorado-Boulder has, since 2013, appointed a “visiting scholar in conservative thought.” Another idea might be an exchange program. What if the conservative Hillsdale College and the liberal Williams College swapped a professor or two for a couple of years?
Although movement conservatives must accept the durability of political bias on campus, they should also stop discouraging young Republicans from pursuing careers in academia. Yes, as conservatives we recognize the challenges of facing a roomful of colleagues who do not understand, much less share, our views. But we still think those challenges are manageable—and that there’s no better job than professor.
Mr. Shields is an associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. Mr. Dunn is an associate professor of political science at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. They are the authors of “Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University” (Oxford University Press, 2016).
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6)Menachem Begin To Joe Biden: I Am Not A Jew With Trembling Knees
6)Menachem Begin To Joe Biden: I Am Not A Jew With Trembling Knees
By: Ronn Torossian
Menachem Begin
While the Obama Administration continues their pressure on Israel, for at least Vice President Joe Biden, it would not be the first time that there has been personal animosity with an Israeli leader. The reality is that while some of the names change, this conflict is about Israel’s refusal to surrender to a Palestinian Arab enemy who seeks to destroy them. The United States is wrong to pressure Israel – yet, this too shall pass.
History often repeats itself.
On June 22 1982, Joe Biden was a Senator from Delaware and confronted then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin during his Senate Foreign Relations committee testimony, threatening to cut off aid to Israel. Begin forcefully responded, “Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”
As media reports that the United States Government continues to pressure Israel, the reality is that America must respect the will of the Israeli public, whom overwhelmingly re-elected a Netanyahu government. As a senior Israeli elected official noted, “Settlement building will be one of the basic guidelines of the next government and just as I don’t interfere in America if they build in Florida or California, they don’t need to interfere in building in Judea or Samaria.”
Senator Biden reportedly banged the table with his fist, and Begin retorted, “This desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don’t threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think that because the US lends us money it is entitled to impose on us what we must do? We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three thousand years of culture are behind me, and you will not frighten me with threats. Take note: we do not want a single soldier of yours to die for us.”
After the meeting, Sen. Moynihan approached Begin and praised him for his cutting reply. To which Begin answered with thanks, defining his stand against threats.
Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the leader of the Revisionist movement, which both Begin & Netanyahu emanate from noted in 1940 that, “We hold that Zionism is moral and just. And since it is moral and just, justice must be done, no matter whether Joseph or Simon or Ivan or Achmed agree with it or not.”
World leaders would be apt to remember these words and times.
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