Sunday, September 8, 2019

The Insanity of Pocahontas. Lefties Rolling In Dough! Barr Says Bar National Injunctions. A Friend's Book Review. Omar Challenged.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The insanity of Democrat candidates was best exemplified by Pocahontas' comment she will shut all fracking the day after she is elected.  Hillary wanted to put coal miners out of work and now The Cherokee from Mass. wants to put most of the petroleum and gas industry out of work and return us to dependency on the Middle East and boost Russia's ability to control Europe energy wise.

Meanwhile, Merkel buddies up to China.

What next?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Lefty Democrats/liberals are rolling in dough.Bless their hearts.  (See 1 below.)

And:

I had just written a memo about radical California Federal Judges and their use of nationwide injunctions to throw sand in Trump's gears as a result of anti-Trumper  Court Shopping. (See 1a below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Finally, Omar challenged by her own. (See 2 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This from a very old and dear friend and fellow memo reader in response to something I wrote in previous memo. (See 3 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NYT journalist can't sleep: NYT columnist discloses 'insomnia' she's had since 'cursed night' of Trump's election.
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you enjoy long articles and intrigue then open this link.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/09/no_author/from-spook-air-to-the-lolita-express-the-genesis-and-evolution-of-the-jeffrey-epstein-bill-clinton-relationship/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Some interesting articles:
The Cure for Confused Male/Female Relationships By Lloyd MarcusAmerica is suffering the dire consequences of allowing radical feminists and progressive anti-biblical ideology to dominate our culture.  More
  +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Dick
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1) The Left’s Lucrative Nonprofits

‘Powerful interests’ and ‘dark money’ are mostly on the Democratic side. 

By Kimberley A. Strassel


This year’s Democratic presidential candidates have a favorite whipping boy: “powerful interests.” Get ready to hear again in coming weeks how the National Rifle Association rules Washington, how the Koch empire dominates politics, how the right is pouring “dark money” into its agenda. And then remember that these are among the biggest whoppers of the 2020 election. One side will do battle with the aid of a huge and savvy nonprofit political empire—and it isn’t the right. Though the sooner Republicans understand that, the better.

A helpful tutorial arrived this week, “Power Grab,” a new book by Republican former Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah. Mr. Chaffetz has been digging into nonprofits since his time as House Oversight Committee chairman, and the book details how powerful the liberal nonprofit sector has grown. It may surprise many Americans—those who read daily stories about conservative “influence”—that the likes of the NRA, Judicial Watch and the National Organization for Marriage barely rank by comparison to the assets and revenue of Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union or the Nature Conservancy.
These aren’t only big political players; they’re the biggest political players. In 2018 the nonprofit watchdog Capital Research Center analyzed grants handed out in the 2014 election year by six big foundations on the right (including the Bradley and Charles Koch foundations) versus six on the left (including the Open Society and Tides foundations). Liberal public-policy charities, organized under chapter 501(c)(3) of the tax code, bagged $7.4 billion of this foundation money in 2014. For conservative charities, the figure was a mere $2.2 billion. That $7.4 billion also dwarfed total 2013-14 campaign receipts to federal, state and local campaigns ($4.1 billion) and spending that cycle by independent groups ($830 million).
Mr. Chaffetz’s contribution is to refocus attention on the way liberal charities channel their huge funds into political work that benefits the Democratic Party. We’ve long known that some of them engage in nominally nonpartisan voter registration, conveniently only in places likely to yield Democratic votes. The Chaffetz book adds new data highlighting contracts between liberal charities and overt political organizations.
The book showcases Planned Parenthood, which according to its tax filings has for at least eight years spent tens of millions of dollars in total on contracts with Grassroots Campaigns Inc. GCI is a for-profit political outfit, which brags about activating Democratic voters. Technically, Planned Parenthood hires GCI for “consulting” and “fundraising.” The latter involves rolling out GCI employees to knock on doors or stand on the street asking for Planned Parenthood donations. This solicitation is netting someone somewhere an extraordinary list of potential Democratic voters and recruits. And here’s the kicker: Tax filings show that Planned Parenthood consistently pays more to GCI annually than GCI raises for Planned Parenthood. Other enormous liberal charities use GCI in the same way, and consistently run losses.

Dark, powerful money? The left has a monopoly here, too, via the creation of a new “sponsor” model. Take Arabella Advisers, also the subject of a Capital Research Center report. Arabella is a for-profit, privately held entity. It manages four generously funded liberal nonprofits, which according to tax filings between 2013 and 2017 received $1.6 billion in donations. Those four entities in turn collectively “sponsor” dozens of political outfits. The beauty of this arrangement, for the left, is that the “projects” don’t have to disclose any information—salaries, vendors, original funders, boards, nothing. They are black holes.

And they are influential. Just one of these recent “pop-up” groups is Demand Justice, a “project” of Arabella’s Sixteen Thirty Fund. The outfit got rolling in early 2018, with the express purpose of combating Republican judicial nominees, and was a major player in the drive-by hit on Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Almost nothing is known about Demand Justice beyond that it is run by former Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon. Where are all those media sleuths when you need them to sniff out “dark money”?
The history of campaign-finance laws is largely a history of groups getting around them. As the power of liberal charities grows, so too will the calls for new rules or investigations. Conservatives would be wiser to educate themselves about this rapidly changing money environment, and get in the game. Elections are increasingly about identifying voters, engaging them, and getting them to the polls. One person at a time.
Conservatives can also start fighting more aggressively the nonsense media and Democratic claims that wealthy networks of conservative or corporate donors run the country. The reality is completely opposite, and the money Goliath is the left.


1a) End Nationwide Injunctions

The Dreamers case shows how willful courts can ruin the chance for political compromise.

By William P Barr

When a federal court issues an order against enforcement of a government policy, the ruling traditionally applies only to the plaintiff in that case. Over the past several decades, however, some lower court federal judges have increasingly resorted to a procedural device—the “nationwide injunction”—to prevent the government from enforcing a policy against anyone in the country. Shrewd lawyers have learned to “shop” for a sympathetic judge willing to issue such an injunction. These days, virtually every significant congressional or presidential initiative is enjoined—often within hours—threatening our democratic system and undermining the rule of law.
During the eight years of the Obama administration, 20 nationwide injunctions were issued while the Trump administration has already faced nearly 40. Partisans who cheer this trend should realize that someday the shoe will be on the other foot. One can easily imagine the signature policies of a future Democratic administration—say, on climate change, immigration or health care—being stymied by courts for years on end.
The best example of the harm done by these nationwide injunctions is the current litigation over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. In 2012, after Congress repeatedly failed to grant legal status to so-called Dreamers, the Obama administration declined to enforce the immigration laws against them. Five years later, the Trump administration announced it would restore enforcement of federal law, prompting Democrats to negotiate in search of a broad solution. Just as a compromise appeared near, a district court judge in San Francisco entered a nationwide injunction prohibiting the Trump administration from ending DACA, thus awarding the Democrats by judicial fiat what they had been seeking through a political compromise.
Far from solving the problem, the DACA injunction proved catastrophic. The program’s recipients remain in legal limbo after nearly two years of bitter political division over immigration, including a government shutdown. A humanitarian crisis—including a surge of unaccompanied children—swells at the southern border, while legislative efforts remain frozen pending Supreme Court resolution of the DACA case.
Under Article III of the Constitution, courts are supposed to apply the law to the parties before them—not to thousands or millions of third parties. The Framers rejected the idea that the courts should act as a “council of revision” with sweeping authority to reach beyond concrete controversies and rule on the legality of actions taken by the political branches. Moreover, the power of federal courts to issue injunctions derives from English practice, which allowed courts to restrain a defendant to the extent necessary to protect the rights of the plaintiffs in the case. Nationwide injunctions are a modern invention with no basis in the Constitution or common law.
Nationwide injunctions are also inconsistent with the mechanism the law recognizes to provide relief to nonparties: a class action, in which class members are bound by the result, win or lose, unless they opt out. Nationwide injunctions, by contrast, create an unfair, one-way system in which the democratically accountable government must fend off case after case to put its policy into effect, while those challenging the policy need only find a single sympathetic judge.
Proponents of nationwide injunctions argue that they are necessary to ensure that the law is uniform throughout the country. But the federal judiciary wasn’t made to produce instant legal uniformity. To the contrary, the system—in which local district courts are supervised by regional courts of appeal—was constructed to allow a diversity of initial rulings until a single, national rule could be decided by the Supreme Court.
This system has many virtues. It prevents a solitary, unelected, life-tenured judge from overriding the political branches and imposing on the nation potentially idiosyncratic or mistaken views of the law. A Supreme Court justice must convince at least four colleagues to bind the federal government nationwide, whereas a district court judge issuing a nationwide injunction needn’t convince anyone.
When the system works as it should, it encourages what one leading jurist has called “percolation”—the salutary process by which many lower federal courts offer competing and increasingly refined views on a legal issue before higher courts definitively resolve it. Allowing a single district court judge to issue a nationwide injunction against the government short-circuits this process. The first judge to issue an injunction effectively nullifies the decisions of all other courts that have already been issued—not only other courts’ decisions, but even those of higher appellate courts in other circuits.
For example, even though the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia—often called the second-highest court in the land—vacated an injunction against the Trump administration’s policy on transgender military service, that decision had no practical effect. Two district judges had enjoined the policy nationwide. The Supreme Court’s intervention was necessary to fix this backward state of affairs.
By short-circuiting the process of percolation, nationwide injunctions cause critical policies to be litigated through a truncated, emergency process. When an important statute or policy is enjoined, the Justice Department must seek emergency relief from higher courts. The alternative is for the government to wait years for an appeals court to overturn the injunction before implementing a statute or policy. As a result, nationwide injunctions threaten to turn every case into an emergency for the executive and judicial branches.
Nationwide injunctions “are legally and historically dubious,” noted Justice Clarence Thomas, concurring in Trump v. Hawaii (2018). “If federal courts continue to issue them, this Court is dutybound to adjudicate their authority to do so.” It is indeed well past time for our judiciary to re-examine a practice that embitters the political life of the nation, flouts constitutional principles, and stultifies sound judicial administration, all at the cost of public confidence in our institutions.
Mr. Barr is U.S. attorney general
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2)

Ilhan Omar Challenged in Minnesota by Muslim Reformers

Clarion Project
Muslim reformers are challenging the Islamist narrative Congresswoman Ilhan Omar represents — and they’re taking this challenge straight to her district in Minnesota by holding a “Muslim town hall.”
The video is a dig at Omar who bashed Ani Zonneveld, president of Muslims for Progressive Values, for asking Omar a question about female genital mutilation (FGM). Zonneveld asked Omar to make a statement against FGM, to which Omar launched into a tirade against Zonneveld, calling her request an “appaling question.”On the eve of the 18th anniversary of 9/11, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, Asra Nomani and Clarion Project’s Shireen Qudosi, along with local Minnesotan Ayah Abuserrieh, will host an open conversation at the University of Minnesota. The September 10th town hall will also be attended by Iraqi journalist and refugee Dalia Al-Aqidi, who in recent days trended on Twitter for challenging Ilhan Omar to an interview.
The event is also attracting other special guests, many of whom are traveling from out of state to support the reform initiative. The Muslim Reform Movement is poised to host other town halls and local events in the months ahead, as part of a grassroots initiative to meet with the community.
For Clarion Project’s National Correspondent, Shireen Qudosi, the move is a vital next step in the fight against the Islamist narrative.
“A ground game is critical for us at this juncture. We’re winning battle of ideas. It’s time to win the hearts and minds of people in the community, many of whom do agree with us but are afraid to speak out. In coming together, they get to meet other members of their community who are like-minded. The counter Islamist narrative is real and it has the numbers. We just need to bring those numbers out.”
In addition to serving as a wellspring for new alliances, there’s local history of a Muslim vs. Islamist struggle. Local Minnesotans have challenged the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the past. CAIR is a steadfast supporter and ally of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
That’s a history that goes back to 2011. As Clarion Project reported, two local Minneapolis Muslim American activists were branded as “anti-Muslim” for their participation in a seminar which included a discussion about an Islamic terrorist group in Somalia.3)
The West
By Raymond Ibrahim

Another of the 2018 Christmas books given me by G----.  This one recommended by Pat Robertson of the 700 Club of which I had mentioned to G----.  I had read the Koran which was presented and which I interpreted as a book of peace, but Sword and Scimitar has dispelled that view.  Islam’s creed of Jihad with its unbridled terrorism is scary.   

The Sword and Scimitar is a history of Jihad.  Muhammed founded Islam in the seventh century.  He claimed revelations from God and thus to be God’s messenger.  His first message was that God is the one and only god which was in opposition to the prevailing Arabic belief of polytheism.  After ten years of preaching monotheism, love and peace, Muhammed had about one hundred followers, mostly family members, until the polytheist threw him out of Mecca.  Then new messages from God revealed the righteousness of Jihad, conquering non‑believers.  Non-believers were those who did not submit to God or in other words to Muhammed.  God revealed Jihad’s rewards on earth and in heaven.  On earth, Jihad justified all the spoils of war:  conquest, rape, murder, torture, pillage, domination, humiliation, extortion, slavery, sex trafficking and harems.  In heaven, those who died waging Jihad were forgiven all their sins, given a crown with a ruby greater than the world and all it contains, food, drink, eternally young boys, and copulation with seventy‑two Houris, wide‑eyed, big‑bosomed supernatural celestial women.  And oh, forgiveness of sins meant that on earth a Jihadist could ignore Islam’s edicts of righteous living.  Muhammed led Jihad to consolidate regional power before returning to and conquering Mecca.  Before he died three years later, Muhammed’s Jihad conquered all of Saudi Arabia and Christianity’s most holy land.

The book chronicles Jihad in eight chapters, each ending with one of Jihad’s turning point battles in winning or losing Christian lands.  Three points impressed me most.  One, big battles aside, Jihad has been a constant since the founding of Islam.  Two, Jihad’s atrocities have been remarkably consistent over the centuries, current atrocities are nothing new.  [The book responsibly cites Christian atrocities but makes clear they were responses to and not the cause of Jihad.]  And three, as with any good history book, details are thoroughly documented with references to source material not only from current experts but also from periodic sources both Islamic and Christian.  My only regret is that Sword and Scimitar did not address Jihad’s history against the rest of the non‑Christian world, specifically Africa, Asia and Indonesia.

S------
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Right To Bear Arms Is It An Individual One As Well? Ross Rants Again. America Is Splitting and China Is Ascending. New York's Orthodox Jew's New Plight.



Why the Right to Bear Arms Is an Individual Right, Not for Militias Only
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This essay was attributed to Clint Eastwood. It pretty much sums up my own reasons for how and why I support Trump over the alternative radical choices served up by lunatic Democrats.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Another Ross Rant! (See 1 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
America is slowly separating into two distinct philosophical and geographical spheres

California and New York, America's bookends, have decided Federal Laws need not be obeyed if they conflict with the thinking of their governors.  In New York, energy independence is anathema  to Coumo and in California, their governor has decided they will be a sanctuary state where you do not need to assist police, illegals are welcome and the homeless can take over entire cities etc.

Federal Courts in these two states have judges who seem to delight in believing they can rule against Trump at the drop of a hat notwithstanding the fact most of their rulings are subsequently over turned on appeal.  At least their decisions gum up The Administration's gears for a while and that plays well with the Hollywood Crowd and assorted  "Big Apple"fruitcakes.

Meanwhile, when California forests catch on fire they expect the federal government is obligated to come to their aid and the same in New York, when tragedy strikes.

In California, there are several cities (San Francisco and Los Angeles predominantly) whose tails wag the state whereas in New York the Mayor of The Big Apple seems to be the dog whose tail wags the most.

The current New York Mayor aspires to being president but does not stand much of a chance and California's Governor is laying the foundation for a future try so he is honing his current radical ideas in anticipation.

California is also the home of Hollywood and that industry has been ruled by radical liberals for decades.These same liberals are among America's biggest hypocrites. They believe their ideas are precious and suited for everyone else. They are very "green" and care about the downtrodden.
Californians are "edgy" types and  believe anything they say and do goes.

Whereas, New Yorker's tend to believe they too are superior beings and everything they have, believe, say and do qualifies them to be the nation's trend setters.  Everything about New York is basically better. Extremes are commonplace.

I readily admit the above comments are broad generalizations but I also believe the essence of what I have written to be factual.

While we are tearing our nation apart, China is expanding its influence throughout the world.  They are lending money to nations who are in need of capital to build infrastructure, mainly ports,.  This is done so that China's navy will be able to expand and be increasingly prominent.  These loans are going to be difficult for many of the debtor nations to repay thus, increasing China's influence and economic control of entire regions.  The recent hurricane, Dorian,  and destruction in the Bahamas has given China an unanticipated opportunity to expand their presence in our own region and sphere of influence.

Where this all leads and how and when it ends will determine whether America continues to lead the world, as we have for many decades, or whether our success withers away because we lost sight of what made us great and no longer cared about tending to the vine, so to speak. (See 2 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I recently received my copy of The Naval War College Review.  This issue was far more technical than most and beyond my intellectual pay grade but I will call attention to one article which discussed our expanded military numbers in relation to recruitment of necessary staffing  numbers among qualified candidates  Based on the  Millennial Generation current recruiting efforts do not align with the needs.  First,  71% of the qualified age group does not qualify because of lack of education, poor health or criminal records.Those Millennial's who do qualify have other issues. They would rather lose a car than a cell phone, they do no interact well and they are less supportive, than their elders, when it comes to national security than a progressive social agenda. Family considerations lead to issues regarding permanent change of station.

The bottom line is a voluntary military, which is expanding its numbers, must adopt to the changing demands of millennial's in order to meet qualified military's personnel demands and that means an overhaul of current recruitment efforts.

Voluntary military service in China is not a personal option and though our armed forces are well trained and motivated filling the ranks is becoming a critical issue.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you live in New York and are an Orthodox Jew you are increasingly vulnerable to physical attacks from those in the black community.  Liberal Jews tend to ignore and/or speak out about this new trend and would rather focus on other issues but if they do touch on the subject they are more likely  to associate Trump with Charlottesville as the cause.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)For the past ten months we have been deluged by opinions about inverted yield curves. Some recent research was done that shows that as rates dropped, there was a rush to refi, and that means prepay mortgages.  That means institutions holding mortgage backed bonds were left with unbalanced portfolios, and had to buy other new hedges, or new bonds of longer duration in order to better match the duration of their liabilities to pay pensions or annuities.  That was triggered in most cases by algorithms that manage the portfolio balance. That triggers buying large quantities of longer dated bonds including ten and thirty year maturities as the cash from prepayments rolls in. One expert postulated that rates  would be as much as 25BP higher if it were not for the rush of institutional investment to reinvest proceeds from prepaid bonds as rates declined, thereby triggering more ten and thirty year bond buying. Bottom line, don't take the inversion as a clear sign of pending recession. It might be partially due to technical factors driven by algorithms.

In another study covering whether it is best to float or fix, they concluded several things. Ignore economists' predictions of rates. They are mostly wrong. In fact, most bond traders, and other pundits, are wrong if they try to predict rates over the next 5 years. Old time bond traders from Solomon Bros days mostly said trying to predict where rates will be over several years is usually a losing exercise. We have seen this to be true over the recent periods. So as a general rule, when rates are very low, as now, fix, and when rates are high and rising stay floating, and over time the net cost of interest will be lower than if you fix at high points and pay the premium that long term fixed carries over floating. If you fix when rates go high thinking you will protect from even higher rates, you will likely make the wrong decision. There has been extensive long term research to show this. It pays, if you float, to examine if a good hedging strategy is needed, and at what strike price. I am not an interest rate expert, nor very knowledgeable about hedging, so go to a good firm that does those things for specific advice. Just keep in mind that when a bank sells you a cap or hedge, they are trying to make a profit on that trade, so it is best to go to an independent firm that does interest rate management, and let then help you decide, and then let them buy the hedge for you. It will normally be less costly and will be documented better for you.

What to make of Brexit now is another impossible exercise. Johnson has lost control of events. Johnson was right to threaten the EU with a hard Brexit, but Parliament, like Congress had no understanding of how to negotiate  these things. Parliament made a mess of this, again. I thought nobody was more stupid than the US congress, but now I think Parliament has surpassed us. The deal May struck was terrible, and what Johnson was attempting to do was materially improve it to  make it the Brexit that people voted for.  By trying to force another 3 month delay, Parliament told the EU, just stand firm, and it is OK to screw us. Similar to what the Dems are trying to with Iran negotiations, USMCA, and the border. It is now unclear if Brexit ever happens, given that the deal on the table was rejected three times, but now the EU has no reason to agree to any changes. It is clear now that the UK is a mess, and it is not going to get better for quite a while. In the US, since there is no longer any bipartisanship, Trump has to go it alone. If he let the Dems have their way we would be back to the terrible Iran deal Obama made, and the bad NAFTA deal, and the Iranians, Putin and Chinese would run all over us, as they did with Obama. The world would be much worse off. Just look at Micron trying to help Iran cheat and get $15 billion cash so they agree to comply with what they already agreed to do, and nothing more. How stupid is that. Macron acts just as Obama did, so the Iranians can continue to pay Hezbollah and Hamas, and support attacks on Israel, and the Saudis. Macron is who the liberals want as part of the US negotiating team with XI, along with others from the EU. It demonstrates how weak the EU really is. I am sure Putin is noting all this. They have the same issues in Britain as we do- a legislative branch that has no clue about how to negotiate, and is trying to undercut the chief executive to the detriment of the country.

The teachers union has now convinced virtually every Democrat governor and Mayor to stop charter schools.  None are being opened at this moment. The waiting line of minority kids to get in is very long and growing. No matter what teaching methods are introduced, including all kids having computers and online work, reading and math scores in minority schools have not improved, or have declined. More computers and more money has done nothing for the kids. They are still failing, and their futures are being sacrificed to the teachers unions and pensions. Disruptive kids are not punished now in urban schools because that is deemed to be racist and unfair. So all the kids suffer badly because learning is disrupted. Political correctness is destroying thousands of minority kids hope for a better future. Charters do not tolerate that crap.  The well run charters way out perform public schools. Until minority parents take an active interest, and demand a change of polices, and a change to non-union schools, and until the community culture of assumed failure is ended and replaced with the hard work drive for success of the Asian culture, we are going to have failing schools and a lack of opportunity for thousands of black kids.  It is not discrimination that has the Asian kids outperforming even white kids in school, and black kids being materially behind as measured by the standard tests. There is no evidence that diversity in university makes education and future success any better for anyone, and there is plenty of evidence it makes it worse for black kids who are accepted to schools where they are not qualified just to fill the black quota.

There were 7 young black men murdered this past weekend in Chicago. 30 more were shot, in just one weekend, in just this one city. That is the same number who died in the random shooting in Odessa. There were lots more black on black murders last week in Baltimore, St Louis, Newark, LA, and other urban cities run by Democrats. Over the past 5 years there were 65 US soldiers who died in Afghanistan in combat. They kill that many young blacks in Chicago in less than two months.  Do you hear a word from any Democrat about this carnage. All you hear is attacks on Republicans and Trump over gun laws. Shooters in Chicago do not buy guns legally.  They buy them on the street where they are readily available. Yet Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in America. So now the mayor blames the Republicans for the gun violence claiming it is because gun sales are legal in Indiana. Classic. She takes no responsibility at all, and does nothing, but blame the GOP. The real problem is the city agreed to an ACLU agreement which keeps the cops from doing their job. Now judges let them out with no bail or minor bail, so the violence continues. A step NYC has just taken to have no arrests for many misdemeanors and no bail. Congrats to the ACLU for materially increasing the number of murders and shootings in Chicago. In the past two weeks the arrest rate in NYC dropped 13% since the Pantilo decision by the commissioner. The Dems just do not get it. Giuliani showed how it is done, but the left thinks letting cops stop and frisk and take guns off the street, and be aggressive, is racist, so instead black kids die or get shot, and black neighborhoods become worse than actual war zones. And you wonder why these kids act out in school?  It is just like the school problem. Do not touch the black kids, and do not really punish them, so instead they all fail or die. That is current left wing policy at work.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2)  Children of the Greatest Generation

 If you were born in the 1930s to the mid 1940s, you exist as a very special age group.   You are the smallest group of children born since the early 1900s.

You are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war, which rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.

You are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.

You saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans.

You saw cars up on blocks because tires weren't available.

You can remember milk being delivered to your house early in the morning and placed in the “milk box” on the porch.

You are the last to see the gold stars in the front windows of our grieving neighbors whose sons died in the War.

You saw the 'boys' home from the war, build their little houses.

You are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, we imagined what we heard on the radio.
 
As you all like to brag, with no TV, you spent your childhood "playing outside.”   The lack of television in your early years meant, for most of you, that you had little real understanding of what the world was like.

On Saturday afternoons, the movies gave you newsreels sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons that were at least a week old.
 
There was no little league. There was no city playground for kids. Soccer was unheard of.

Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party lines) and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no cares about privacy).

Computers were called calculators; they were hand cranked; typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.   The 'INTERNET’ and ‘GOOGLE’ were words that did not exist.

Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on our radio in the evening by Paul Harvey, Walter Winchell and Gabriel Heater.

As you grew up, the country was exploding with growth. The G.I. Bill gave returning veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow.

VA loans fanned a housing boom. Pent up demand coupled with new installment payment plans opened many factories for work.

New highways would bring jobs and mobility. New cars averaged $2,000 full price.

The veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics.

The radio network expanded from three stations to thousands .
We weren't neglected, but we weren't today's all-consuming family focus.

They were glad you played by yourselves until the street lights came on or Mom called you for supper.   They were busy discovering the post war world.   Although depression poverty was deeply remembered.

Polio was still a crippler.

You came of age in the 50s and 60s.   The Korean War was a dark passage in the early 50s and by mid-decade school children were ducking under desks for air-raid training.   Russia built the “Iron Curtain” and China became Red China.   Eisenhower sent the first 'Army Advisers' to Vietnam.   Castro took over in Cuba and Khrushchev came to power in Russia.

You are the last generation to experience an interlude when there were no threats to our homeland.
The war was over and the cold war, Muslim terrorism, “global warming” and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with unease.

Only your generation can remember both a time of a great war, and a time when your world was secure. You lived through both. You grew up at a time when the world was getting better, not worse.

You are "The Last Ones."   More than 99% of you are retired and we feel privileged to have "lived in the best of times"!
 
HOW BLESSED WE WERE AND NEVER REALIZED HOW LITTLE WE HAD. BUT IT WAS GOOD TRAINING FOR THE FUTURE WHICH OUR CHILDREN NEVER GOT.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

Friday, September 6, 2019

Wake Up America. The Sneaky French. Salena Sends Articles.



WAKE UP AMERICA BEFORE IT’S TOO 
LATE! Radical Islam never sleeps.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Always those sneaky French. (See 1 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Two commentaries from Salena. One her own and another she forwarded to me (See 2 and 2a below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
1) U.S. blocks U.N. Security Council statement on Israel, Lebanon – report
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

The US opposed the fact that the statement failed to specifically condemn Hezbollah and that it put Israel's right of self-determination on an equal footing with the terrorist group.
The United States blocked a statement about the recent tensions between Israel and Hezbollah by the United Nations Security Council, the AFP reported on Thursday.

According to the report, the statement drafted by France stated that "members of the security council condemned all violations of the Blue Line, both by air and ground, and strongly calls upon all parties to respect the cessation of hostilities."

Diplomatic sources told the AFP that the US opposed the fact that the statement failed to specifically condemn Hezbollah and that it put Israel's right of self-determination on an equal footing with the terrorist group.

Earlier this week, Hezbollah and Israel exchanged blows along the Lebanese border in a retaliative attempt by the Iranian-backed guerrilla organization to exact a price from Israel for the bombing of a terror cell in Syria late in August.

While no IDF troops were injured, Israel fired over a hundred artillery shells toward targets in south Lebanon in response to the attack.


All UN Security Council statements need to be approved by the entire 15 members council, which include the five permanent members – the US, the UK, France, Russia, and China – and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly.

The latest currently include Belgium, Germany, Poland, Côte d'Ivoire, South Africa, Indonesia, Kuwait, Equatorial Guinea, Dominican Republic and Peru.

Several countries did not agree on the language suggested by the US, according to AFP. The statement was eventually abandoned.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2) Coming Home
No matter where you lived in America on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, the story often begins with a sapphire sky filled with airy white clouds perfectly contrasted against the expansive blue, a picture-perfect backdrop shattered by the deadliest attack on American soil in the country's history. 
Nineteen men, trained by al Qaeda, boarded four passenger aircraft that morning, seeking to carry out a devastating coordinated attack aimed at symbols of American freedom: the World Trade Center, the Capitol, and the Pentagon. Three hit their target. Flight 93, the plane targeting the Capitol, crashed in an isolated field in Somerset, Pa., thanks to brave passengers who wrested control of the plane from the hijackers. More than 3,000 people lost their lives that day, 400 of whom were New York City’s first responders. 
Sean Parnell, Joni Ernst, Taylor Cleveland, Lloyd Austin, and Victor Lewis are five people whose lives were changed by the terror attacks. They were separated by geography, age, and life experience, but for them, 9/11 proved to be a common call of duty to serve their country.

 Each have faced their own personal battles,  ghosts, successes and traumas since they’ve returned home, I sat down with all five of them to take a look at these American heroes called to the highest service to our country 18 years later.

Click here for the full story

2a)

The Shiite Crescent and Regional Disaster

For decades, the concept of a “Shiite Crescent” anchored by the radical Shiite supremacists in Iran and passing through Iraq, Syria, and Hezb’allah to the Mediterranean Sea has been understood. It would provide Iran not only with closer access to Israel, but also spread across the northern borders of two key Sunni adversaries — pro-American Jordan, and its most important enemy, Saudi Arabia, guardian of Mecca and Medina. It would further split off Sunni Turkey (a historic foe) from the other Sunni Middle East states.
The Crescent is, for Iran, a single battlefront and the Islamic Republic has spent decades successfully undermining and wrecking each subsidiary member.
Iraq is hardly a functional country. But as a staging ground for Iranian militias and weapons depots headed west, Iraq is a prize. Syria is largely a dead zone. But as a launching pad for Iranian military bases and attacks on Israel, Syria is a bonanza. Lebanon is a corrupt satrap of Syria and Iran, governed by a terror organization with a foreign legion and an international money/drug/weapons racket. But its very weakness and its border with Israel make Lebanon invaluable.
Each member of this “gang of four” maintains a state of war with Israel and threatens it on a regular basis. Israel’s attacks on weapons centers Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are not an escalation of a fragile situation — they are a defensive response to a  high-tech military buildup orchestrated by Iran across the region.
Israel has the support of the United States for its defensive actions. But until now, U.S. foreign and defense policy have actually made things worse for Israel and others in the region by empowering Iran – and even now, when the administration is aware of its malign nature, and has reimposed economic sanctions on Tehran, it needs a strategy against Iranian gains on the ground.
Concern for Iranian expansion was the reason the United States supported the tyrant Saddam Hussein in the war he instigated against Iran in the 1980s. The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, however, was a step too far for America. The tide began to turn on Saddam and on the concept of a bulwark against Iranian expansion.
The year 2011 was key. The “Arab Spring” undermined and overthrew — with American support — the anti-jihadist, anti-Muslim-Brotherhood Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, ushering in a year of Brotherhood rule that saw jihadists released from prison and weapons imported across Sinai from Iran. The Egyptian military has spent years — with some assistance from Israel — trying to restore calm to the area.
The anti-jihadist Moammar Qadaffi in Libya was next on the Obama list. Today, the country remains in turmoil with “militias” of every stripe fighting for territory and oil.
Whatever the merits of the U.S. entering Iraq in 2003, leaving in 2011 was an unmitigated disaster for Iraqis and everyone else. ISIS, followed by Iranian-commanded Shiite militias, ravaged the country, killing and enslaving Yazidis and Kurds, and erasing the border with Syria. With the (temporary?) territorial demise of ISIS, the Iranian militias stayed behind to wreak their own form of havoc in the western, Sunni area of Iraq and bulldoze a path for Iranian weapons into Syria for better access to Israel.
American policy on Syria during the Obama administration, included pinkish lines against the use of chemical weapons instead of clear red ones, and on-again-off-again threats of military action. As Syria crumbled and Iran built and commanded militias in support of Assad, the administration poured arms and political support into what it called “secular, anti-Assad militias,” in the hopes of avoiding the deployment of American troops. “Our” militias, however, had their own ideas about their enemies and their friends — and it isn’t altogether wrong to say that the U.S. ended up supporting ISIS and ISIS-related terror groups in Syria one or two steps removed.
It was the Trump administration that forced the definition of friends and enemies and actually wrested ISIS from its primary territorial base. But in a region bereft of stable government, it will appear again in some form.
Israel has regional red lines, which have been discussed with both the United States and Russia. These include ensuring that neither Iran nor Hezb’allah has military bases in southern Syria near the Israeli border; ensuring no use of chemical weapons; not permitting Iran to build weapons factories — particularly nuclear-related or precision missile factories in other countries; and not permitting the movement of certain types of munitions across the Crescent.
Israeli action has certainly set back Iran’s aspirations. But it will need the continued support of the United States — and others, including the EU and the Sunni Arab States — to come to terms with the “gang of four” and the havoc that is not limited to Israel, but has implications far beyond. And it will have to focus on Iran as the lynchpin of regional disaster.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++