Category Archives: Bureaucrats

Tuesday’s Thoughts, June 9, 2015

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Common Box Turtle

It appears the migration has started once again. Several decades ago, in the late ’70s or early ’80s, there was a massive migration of land terrapins, or, as some call them, box turtles.

During that time, I made a business trip to Jeff City driving on US-50. On one two-lane section of the highway, literally thousands of turtles had been killed trying to cross the road. It was so bad that the highway was slick with blood and gore and a number of cars were off the highway onto the shoulders because their drivers had lost control of their vehicles.

In the last week, I’ve seen a number of smaller box turtles crossing the highway. I haven’t hit any but I’ve seen where many turtles didn’t make it across the road. If you see a little bump slowly moving across the highway, give’em a pass. It’ll save you from having to wash your car to remove turtle gore.

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An article appeared on the St Louis Public Radio website late yesterday. The headline reads, “Missouri ranks 10th in high school graduation rate. Is that as good as it sounds?”

The short answer is, “No!” Graduation rates do not equal education rates. From the article, any student, or person filling a seat, can get a high school diploma in Missouri simply by showing up. I had a link once to an article that exposed the Kansas City School district’s failure: 22% of the 2012 KC high school graduates were functionally illiterate. The link is now broken, the article has been blocked. Here’s a link to a page with a graph that supports my older post. You can read my 2012 post on the KC school district here.

The bottom line of the NPR story is that Missouri has increased the number of high school graduates. They’ve done so by dumbing down the curriculum and eliminating any real requirements for graduation…except, perhaps, for that oh-so-important social and community service requirement. This is what state (and federal) control of our schools have wrought.

When phonics was removed as a teaching aid for reading, reading skills dropped. My wife once tutored the daughter of a friend. She had trouble reading. Her school, a public school, used ‘sight’ reading as the method of choice. It turned out, if I remember correctly, the girl was dyslexic.

Finally, her parents removed her from public school and placed her in a private school. It was not an issue of the public school being unable to teach her. They would not because they were confined to one technique that does not work for dyslexic kids. The private school was more interested in results instead of methodology.

An important item frequently overlooked by those who stand with sight reading over phonics is the argument that some words, such as hot, hope, hook, hoot, house, hoist, horse, horizon, honey, hour, honest, can’t be taught by phonics alone. That’s true. The English language is filled with exceptions. That’s why, along with reading, it is important to teach SPELLING!

Spelling, as it was once done, taught those exceptions, spelling taught the proper use of the word, it’s relationship to other words, it’s root(s) and its meaning(s). Spelling is another skill that is being dropped in many public schools. Spelling does not support the goal of passing the standardized tests. Rote memorization, with or without understanding, does.

When ‘No Child Left Behind,’ was introduced, the teachers claimed, rightly so, that the result would be to teach the tests. Remember, the purpose of the Education Mafia is not education but job security. When NCLB was passed, the teacher’s union promptly changed methodology and started teaching the new tests. That choice, teaching the test, has carried over and is institutionalized in Common Core.

Remember, behind every headline, there is a core of truth…and a lie. It’s up to you to discover which is which.

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All the news the MSM is afraid to report

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There was a murder in Chapel Hill, NC, recently. A man, his wife and his wife’s sister were killed. All three were muslims. The MSM and Al Jazeera had a field day. It wasn’t long until a suspect was in custody.

Then, suddenly, the story dropped from the news! If it weren’t for the British and Israeli press, the story would have completely disappeared. Why? The suspect wasn’t a bible thumpin’, gun-totin’, red-neck Tea Partier. No, he was a liberal, atheist whose favorite news outlet was MSNBC and his favorite news-reader was Rachel Maddow.

By-the-way, if the FCC has its way, you wouldn’t be able to find news in the foreign press. The FCC wants the internet to be ‘equal’, read controlled and censored.

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I’ve been writing this blog since 2008. I’ve ruffled the fur of politicos from my local city council, a couple of county office holders, some state Representatives and Senators, and I have a running battle with the RINOs in Washington and my local Congresswoman. Obama has a solution. It just appeared on the Drudge Report.

Federal Election Commission to Consider Regulating Online Political Speech

By Rudy Takala, February 11, 2015 – 10:15 AM

(CNSNews.com) — The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is holding a hearing today to receive public feedback on whether it should create new rules regulating political speech, including political speech on the Internet that one commissioner warned could affect blogs, YouTube videos and even websites like the Drudge Report.

The hearing is a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC last year, which struck down the FEC’s previous cap on aggregate campaign contributions from a single donor in an election cycle.

Before the decision, individuals were limited to a combined total of $46,200 in contributions to all federal candidates, and $70,800 to federal political action committees and parties.

Individuals are no longer restricted by aggregate limits, which Chief Justice John Roberts said “intrude without justification on a citizen’s ability to exercise ‘the most fundamental First Amendment activities’.”

They may now “contribute up to $2,600 per election to a federal candidate, $10,000 per calendar year to a state party committee, $32,400 per calendar year to a national party committee, and $5,000 per calendar year to a PAC [political action committee],” according to the FEC.

The commission, which consists of three Republican and three Democratic members, last considered such regulations in 2005. However, intense opposition from First Amendment groups resulted in rules that were limited to paid advertisements from political campaigns, parties, and PACs.

This time around, organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned that some Democrats on the commission would like to impose much more burdensome regulations that could serve as the equivalent of spending caps in restricting political speech.

The article continues at the website. You can read it all, here.

What the FEC and FCC wants is to plant commissars in every newsroom, every TV station and to license all news outlets. It would effectively kill independent bloggers like me. Shades of the KBG and the Soviet Union. This is what the liberals and the democrats want. After all, Joe Stalin was such a great leader and brought Russia out of feudalism…by starving millions of people in the Ukraine when he collectivized agriculture. He murdered more across the former Soviet Union and in his subjugated East European countries. In fact Russia, Putin, is still killing anyone who opposes him and in the Ukraine. You won’t hear about that from the MSM, either.

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If you do a bit of research, you will also find that the Cold War has returned. Obama and the democrats ignore the signs but they are there.

WEST: NORAD Head Says Russia Increasing Arctic Long Range Air Patrols

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US Air Force F-22 Raptor escorting a Russian Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bomber. US Air Force Photo

SAN DIEGO, CALIF. – While Russian military aircraft have stepped up their activity everywhere from the North Sea to the Baltic to the Black Sea in the last year they have also been spotted more frequently closer to the U.S. territory in the Arctic, the head of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) told USNI News on Tuesday.

In particular – flights of Tupolev Tu-95 Bear ‘H’ Bombers have increased recently NORTHCOM’s Adm. Bill Gortney said.

“They’ve been very aggressive – under my NORAD hat – for us in the Arctic,” he said to USNI News following a keynote address at the WEST 2015 conference.
“Aggressive in the amount of flights, not aggressive in how they fly.”

Since the March seizure of the Ukrainian region of Crimea by Russian forces Moscow has significantly stepped up air patrols in Europe, Asia and near the Americas.

The flights extend as far North as the edge of American air space near Alaska and as far South as U.S. holdings in Guam.

In December, two Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18 Hornets intercepted a two Bears near the Beaufort Sea entering a U.S. and Canadian Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ).

A Russian Tupolev Tu-95 Bear 'H' off the coast of Scotland in 2014. UK Royal Air Force Photo

A Russian Tupolev Tu-95 Bear ‘H’ off the coast of Scotland in 2014. UK Royal Air Force Photo.

NATO interdicted a record number of Russian flights in 2014 and the Russians claim likewise the U.S. has stepped up its own flights near Russian territory.

During the Cold War, Russian long-range aircraft routinely patrolled the edges of U.S. and Canadian airspace probing NORAD defenses, but largely stopped after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

As for the current round of patrols, the bomber flights are being used as a “messaging tool,” Gortney said.
“Obviously it’s pretty clear that they’re doing that. So they’re flying in places… where they’ve never flown before.”

At the height of the Cold War, Americans stationed in Moscow were continuously harassed by the KGB. Embassy employees sometimes were sequestered on the Embassy grounds for their protection. Non-governmental Americans, news reporters and others, were assigned a ‘minder’ to insure they neither saw nor reported anything contrary to the official Soviet agenda.

Those times are returning. This time it’s Putin’s Federal Security Service disguised as the Russian mob who are targeting Americans.

Report: Crime, Anti-American Harassment in Russia Grows

New Security Dangers Follow Moscow’s Annexation of Crimea

BY: ,

Anti-American sentiment and criminal activities have increased in Moscow since Russian forces took over Ukraine’s Crimea and continue to destabilize eastern Ukraine, a recent State Department security report reveals.

Security threats in Moscow and Russia include petty crime, physical attacks, activities by organized crime groups, corrupt law enforcement and security officials, widespread cyber crime, and economic espionage, according to the Feb. 6 report produced by the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), a State Department group that supports American businesses abroad.

“The social and political unrest in Ukraine has led to increasing political tensions between the Russian Federation and the U.S. and other Western nations,” the report, based on reports from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, said. “As a result, anti-American and anti-Western sentiment appears to be increasing, especially in certain media outlets.”

A copy of the internal report was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The report said U.S.-Russia ties were “greatly strained” after Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.

Embassy reports indicate a number of Americans were verbally harassed and physically assaulted in the last part of 2014, but the report said so far no major campaign of targeted attacks against Americans was detected.

“Immediately following the imposition of economic sanctions on Russia by the U.S. and Europe, some American ‘iconic brand’ companies were heavily scrutinized by the Russian authorities, and in some cases, closed, if only temporarily,” the report said.

The report concluded that Russia’s political, economic, and social climate “changed markedly as a result of the country’s illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, ongoing support for military separatists in eastern Ukraine, U.S./Western economic sanctions, and a dramatic drop in the price of oil that significantly weakened the value of the Russian ruble.”

On cyber threats, the report said: “The cybercrime threat is acute. The risk of infection, compromise, and theft via malware, spam email, sophisticated spear phishing, and social engineering attacks is significant.”

The report warned all U.S. businesses and citizens to exercise caution and adhere to all cyber security best practices.

The report also said Russian economic espionage and theft of intellectual property poses a threat to Americans.

“American businesses are susceptible to economic and industrial espionage,” the report said. “Information theft, especially from insufficiently protected computer networks, is common. It is recommended that businesses employ counter-surveillance techniques, such as video monitoring devices, alarm systems, and computer network protection programs.”

Russia’s Federal Security Service also can take action against Americans doing business with the Russian military-industrial complex.

“Any misunderstanding or dispute in such transactions can attract the involvement of the security services and lead to investigation or prosecution for espionage,” the report said.

In a section on Russian government surveillance, the report said, “OSAC constituents have no expectation of privacy.”

All telephone and electronic communications are subject to monitoring and surveillance, something that “can potentially compromise sensitive information.”

“The Russian System for Operational-Investigative Activities (SORM) permits authorities to monitor and record all data that traverses Russia’s networks lawfully,” the report said. “Travelers should assume all communications are monitored.”

The article continues here.

The rot in Washington extends much further than allowing a massive influx of illegal aliens bent on usurping citizen’s rights and money. It extends to purposely alienating long-term allies all the while intentionally ignoring real threats to our national security.

It is a truism that people get the government they deserve. It’s unfortunate the rest of us have to endure that same government along with the sycophants.

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A new push for Obamacare in Missouri

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The new push is medicaid expansion, a part of Obamacare. Missouri has been successful pushing back on this part of Obamacare but that hasn’t deterred the big-city progressives. Their newest tactic is to hire a former ‘Pub state senator, Charlie Shields, to be their front-man in their continued search for more money.

In Kansas City, the issue is the failing Truman medical system, two publicly funded hospitals with a track record of failure. Jackson County hopes their new man will succeed when their democrat puppet didn’t.

Hospital CEO Contends With Medicaid Conundrum

Former Lawmaker Needs to Prod Legislature Into Expanding Federal-State Health Plan or Face Losses

By Anna Wilde Mathews,
https://trumed.org/images/news/WSJ_Shields.jpg

Charlie Shields, CEO, Truman Medical Centers

KANSAS CITY, Mo.—The future of Truman Medical Centers, a two-hospital safety-net system here, depends on the state legislature—and no one understands that better than its new chief executive, Charlie Shields.

Mr. Shields, a genial 55-year-old, spent 20 years as a Republican lawmaker, ending up as the leader of the Missouri Senate before term limits forced him to step down. In 2010, he became chief operating officer of one of Truman’s hospitals, and in July he succeeded longtime Truman CEO John W. Bluford III.

Now Mr. Shields, whose office décor includes a collection of elephant statues, must press the legislature’s current Republican leaders to accept the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state insurance for low-income people. Expanded Medicaid would be a financial lifeline for Truman, which is losing money as it cares for a large population of uninsured patients.

Mr. Shields said he tells lawmakers he understands their situation: “I’ve been in your shoes. I’ve made these tough decisions.” Indeed, he voted for a major retrenchment of Missouri’s Medicaid program in 2005, when about 100,000 people were cut from the rolls. He said the move was difficult but necessary amid a budget crunch, and that he always aimed for it to be reversed when there was funding to do so.

Today, Mr. Shields argues, with federal money available because of the health law, the expansion makes sense. Under the law, the U.S. is supposed to pay the full cost of Medicaid expansion through 2016, and then a share that will phase down to 90% in 2020 and beyond.

Still, he acknowledged the political challenge for Republicans who don’t want to be seen as endorsing a law that is unpopular with many constituents. In polling performed by the Kaiser Family Foundation between January and October of this year, 34% of Missouri residents favored the law, while 52% viewed it unfavorably.

As a middle ground, Mr. Shields said, lawmakers could craft a “Missouri-specific solution” that could potentially occur under a federal waiver, and “there are a lot of things that would work” as a structure for expanding coverage.

You can read the rest of the column at the WSJ website.

Perhaps what Mr. Shields needs to do is to explore something different, something Jackson County progressives would never consider. He has a reasonably conservative history during his time in the Missouri Legislature. With that history, he may be open to something radical like—privatizing the Truman Medical System, privatize both hospitals.

If the county is unable to manage these two hospitals and keep them in the black, perhaps it is time to pass them on to an organization who can. There are numerous hospitals and hospital organizations across the country who are privately owned and not only stay in the black, but actually make a (horrors!) profit.

When a CEO in a business can’t make his company profitable, the stake-holders have two choices, get rid of the CEO and hire one who can succeed, or close the doors. That truism holds true for publicly owned institutions as well.

The progressive’s solution is more taxpayer money in the form of expanded medicaid included in Obamacare. Missouri has rejected both realizing that within a few years, if that, it would be the state would who be picking up the tab for the increased expenditures of medicaid—money the state does not have unless something else is cut equally. Stealing from Peter to pay Paul is not a viable solution for Missouri.

Government, like all of us, must learn that the public money-well is not bottomless.

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Different vision

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It’s amazing how the libs and conservatives can see the same thing and interpret that ‘thing’ so differently. Wishful thinking? Partially. Self-deception? That, too. What are we talking about? The Iowa Senate race.

Yesterday, an article appeared on Drudge. The headline read, POLL SHOCK: Dems now have 51% chance of holding Senate. According to the Washington Post, the Iowa Senate race 'leans' left towards democrat candidate Bruce Braley. The article states that two weeks ago, Joni Ernst led Braley.

The Washington Post says,

* Iowa: Two weeks ago, the model gave state Sen. Joni Ernst (R) a 72 percent chance of winning. Today she has a 59 percent chance.

The Washington Post’s own poll has Joni Ernst leading Braley 59% to 41% and they say the state is ‘leaning’ left to Braley. FOXNews ran an article about the same Iowa race using another poll. Their poll, too, had Ernst well out in front by 6 percentage points. The astounding item in all this is that the Washington Post poll has Ernst further ahead than the FOXNews/Quinnipiac University poll. Both sides see the same fact, Joni Ernst is well out in front, and both sides report that fact oppositely.

I believe the dems are grasping at straws. It is common knowledge that the closer we approach the election, the tighter the races appear. To the dems, Ernst dropping from 72% to 59%, according to their poll, means Ernst is losing.

FOX just reports that Ernst continues to poll higher than Braley by 6%. That, my friends, is the difference between FOX and the Main Stream Media. The MSM filters all news through their bias, FOX just reports the facts as they are.

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Have you heard about the new Form 4473? What is the Form 4473? It’s the form you must complete to buy a firearm through a federally licensed dealer. What has been changed? The new form requires the buyer to state his race and ethnicity. The Obama administration changed the form, quietly, without little fanfare—until it hit the dealers.

Obama administration forcing new gun buyers to declare race, ethnicity

ATF policy irks dealers, risks privacy intrusion, racial profiling: critics
By Kelly Riddell – The Washington Times – Tuesday, September 16, 2014

The Obama administration quietly has been forcing new gun buyers to declare their race and ethnicity, a policy change that critics say provides little law enforcement value while creating the risk of privacy intrusions and racial profiling.

With little fanfare, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in 2012 amended its Form 4473 — the transactional record the government requires gun purchasers and sellers to fill out when buying a firearm — to identify buyers as either Hispanic, Latino or not. Then a buyer must check his or her race: Indian, Asian, black, Pacific Islander or white.

The amendment is causing a headache for gun retailers, as each box needs to be checked off or else it’s an ATF violation — severe enough for the government to shut a business down. Many times people skip over the Hispanic/Latino box and only check their race, or vice versa — both of which are federal errors that can be held against the dealer.

Requiring the race and ethnic information of gun buyers is not required by federal law and provides little law enforcement value, legal experts say. And gun industry officials worry about how the information is being used and whether it constitutes an unnecessary intrusion on privacy.

“This issue concerns me deeply because, first, it’s offensive, and, secondly, there’s no need for it,” said Evan Nappen, a private practice firearms lawyer in New Jersey. “If there’s no need for an amendment, then there’s usually a political reason for the change. What this indicates is it was done for political reasons, not law enforcement reasons.”

ATF said the change came about because it needed to update its forms to comply with an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reporting standard put into effect during the Clinton administration. The ATF declined to comment on why race and ethnicity information are needed in the first place or what they are used for. On its prior 4473 forms, the bureau had been collecting race data.

The BATFE is blaming Bill Clinton for this change. It’s strange that for eight years of the Bush Administration and four years of the Obama Administration, the BATFE saw no need to change the Form 4473. I don’t believe their excuse.

“OMB’s race and ethnicity standards require agencies to ask both race and ethnicity in a specific manner (as done on [Form 4473]), and agencies may not ask for one without asking for the other,” wrote Elizabeth Gosselin, a spokeswoman for the ATF, in an emailed response to The Washington Times. She did not say why the agency suddenly made the change in response to a rule that was more than a decade old.

For ATF to ask for a purchaser’s race and ethnicity is not specifically authorized under federal statute, and since a government-issued photo ID — like a driver’s license — and a background check are already required by law to purchase a gun, the ethnicity/race boxes aren’t there for identification reasons, Mr. Nappen said.

“There is nothing [in ATF or OMB’s website links addressing the change in policy] that supports the requirement that ATF collect race-based information. The OMB guidance merely describes what categories of race should look like if information is collected,” Laura Murphy, the American Civil Liberties Union director for legislative affairs in Washington, said in an emailed statement.

In addition, Mrs. Murphy notes, the OMB guidance was supposed to be implemented by 2003; there’s no information given why ATF decided to make this change almost a decade later, she said.

“If there is a civil rights enforcement reason for the ATF to collect this data, I have not heard that explanation from ATF or any other federal agency,” said Mrs. Murphy.

Both the NAACP and the National Council of La Raza — the nation’s largest national Hispanic civil rights group — declined comment. — The Washington Times. 

The column continues at the Washington Times website. You can read the entire column here.

There is no justification, nor federal requirement for Obama to collect this information. Why are they? What purpose does it server? Perhaps, just to intimidate those who want to buy a weapon.

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If you like single-malt Scots whisky, you may see prices going up if Scotland votes to secede from the United Kingdom.

Scottish Secession a Sobering Prospect for Scotch Whiskey Drinkers

Sep 16, 2014, 1:41 PM ET, By

Scotch drinkers might want to brace themselves if Scots vote to secede from the United Kingdom and, consequently, the European Union Thursday.

Among the likely outcomes would be higher prices for Americans and others who import the brown elixir from secession saddled producers with rising costs.

Scotch whiskey, commonly referred to as Scotch and spelled without the “e” in Great Britain, is a tightly regulated spirit that can only come from oak casks that have matured for at least three years in Scotland. Exports are a giant piece of business for the Scotch industry, which says it ships 40 bottles overseas each second, while Scotch accounts for a quarter of U.K.’s food and drink exports.

The prospect of a Scotch trade interruption alone is enough to rattle the industry.

David Frost, the chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association in Edinburgh, said “any regulatory divergence between Scotland and the rest of the U.K. may increase costs to business,” according to his group’s annual review in May.

And Frost isn’t just bluffing. In the European Union, Scotch producers can export the stuff tariff-free to the region, and the geographical indication of “Scotch Whisky” is protected by E.U. law. Only 109 distilleries are licensed to produce Scotch, according to the association.

“But even a temporary interruption of E.U. membership involving exclusion from the single market or the customs union, if this were a consequence of independence, would be damaging and difficult to manage,” Frost wrote in the annual review.

I guess all you Scotch drinkers will have to switch to Bourbon.

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Da-Dump!

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Da-Dump? That the sound of someone being tossed under the bus and the wheels pass over the body. Anyone close to DC should be familiar with the sound, it’s happened enough around the White House.

It is now being heard elsewhere, Hawaii for instance. In this case it is a long-time democrat pol being thrown under the bus during a primary election. The democrat establishment candidate for US Senator is losing in the primary by 1,600 votes. Two precincts weren’t able to vote due to storms that knocked out power and blocked roads. Those two precincts will vote today, despite an attempt to postpone voting to give her more time to deluge the two precincts with last minute campaigning. The Judge wouldn’t play along.

Da-dump!

DECISION DAY IN HEATED HAWAII VOTE
Pacific Business News: “A Hawaii judge on Thursday rejected a request by U.S. Rep. and Senate candidate Colleen Hanabusa [D-Hawaii] to delay opening the polls on Friday in the areas of the Big Island where voters were unable to vote in the primary election because of Tropical Storm Iselle. Hanabusa, who trails U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz [D-Hawaii] by 1,635 votes in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, had filed for a temporary restraining order Wednesday in the 3rd Circuit Court in Hilo, seeking to stop the state Office of Elections from holding the election Friday for the two precincts in Puna that were unable to vote in Saturday’s primary because of power outages and blocked roads caused by the storm the day before. … 3rd Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura rejected Hanabusa’s argument and ruled that the election should proceed as planned.” Polls close at midnight (ET). — FOXNewsletter, August 15, 2014.

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http://www.rushimg.com/cimages//media/images/obamahillarypix/1290729-1-eng-GB/ObamaHillaryPIX.jpgA number of recent news stories have been circulating this last week with a common theme: the US has no foreign policy. If there is one, it must be, “let’s wait and see what happens?” That lack was covered yesterday on Rush and other news sites. Hillary is jumping in as well trying to distance herself saying that the White House made policy and she was just the powerless front man. No one believes her, either.

Clinton versus Obama on Syria and foreign policy

By: streiff (Diary)  |  August 14th, 2014 at 03:00 PM

The kerfuffle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is all in the news right now. Clinton, who sees her coronation as Democrat presidential candidate for the 2016 as a done deal, is trying to establish some daylight between herself and her former boss on foreign policy. There is a good reason for that. Other than coasting through 2009 with an “I’m not George Bush” strategy (which we’re seeing play out in the long run as a “I’m an incompetent boob”) this administration has had no identifiable foreign policy. For a while it seemed to embrace the feel-good but impractical Responsibility to Protect doctrine. This was abandoned before the first Syrian chemical attack and since that time the administration simply staggered from one crisis to the next failure.

The conflict comes from an interview Clinton gave The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg titled Hillary Clinton: ‘Failure’ to Help Syrian Rebels Led to the Rise of ISIS. It is unusual not because of any insights we gain into what passes for foreign policy in the Age of Obama but we see a secretary of state disavowing herself from the foreign policy she formulated and carried out. The key pull quotes follow:

Well, his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, isn’t buying it. In an interview with me earlier this week, she used her sharpest language yet to describe the “failure” that resulted from the decision to keep the U.S. on the sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian uprising.

“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” Clinton said.

As she writes in her memoir of her State Department years, Hard Choices, she was an inside-the-administration advocate of doing more to help the Syrian rebellion. Now, her supporters argue, her position has been vindicated by recent events.

…

…At one point, I mentioned the slogan President Obama recently coined to describe his foreign-policy doctrine: “Don’t do stupid shit” (an expression often rendered as “Don’t do stupid stuff” in less-than-private encounters).

This is what Clinton said about Obama’s slogan: “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

When one looks at the record one is strained to conceive how what Clinton says in the interview actually differs from her actions. In fact, her concern that aiding the Syrian opposition could result in arming al Qaeda was, and is, spot on. In fact, by September 2013 it was being reported that Syrian opposition fighters were rallying to the al Qaeda because the al Qaeda were actually fighting.

The real problem on this is that the only source we have for this disagreement in policy on Syria between Obama and Clinton is that it is based on alleged “behind the scenes” discussions, they are non-falsifiable. The non-falsifiable nature of Clinton’s assertions are further complicated by the fact that both principles and their inner circles are enthusiastic and inveterate liars. All things considered, it is difficult to see how arming any of the opposition groups earlier and more aggressively would have produced a better or different outcome. The other alternative is that Clinton means by “ help build up a credible fighting force” a significant US military presence to bolster our chosen faction. That idea, in the context of Obama facing an election in 2012, is so farfetched as to not merit discussion.

The column continues at the website. In essence, Hillary is blaming Obama for the lack of policy while Obama continues to blame, “the previous administration.” Both Hillary and Obama created our current mess, both were/are incompetent, and both are equally culpable. It’s laughable seeing the two trying to throw others; Hillary, in particular, throwing Obama under the bus.

Da-dump!

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In closing, I present this little positive item, off topic, Phyllis Schlafly is 90.

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The Weekend in Review

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Most of the internet news today revolves around two subjects—the continuing catastrophe of Obamacare, more and more people lose their coverage, and the latest book about Chris Christie when he was being vetted for Veep by Romney in 2012.

Both of these stories are significant. However I like to explore outside the headline news if I can. While performing that search this morning, what did I find?  The U. S. Navy has a new ship today—the USS North Dakota, a Virginia Class nuclear attack sub.

Navy christens attack submarine North Dakota

Posted: Nov 02, 2013 11:17 AM CDT Updated: Nov 02, 2013 11:17 AM CDT

GROTON, Conn. (AP) – The U.S. Navy has christened its newest attack submarine, a $2.6 billion vessel that can launch cruise missiles, deliver special forces commandos and carry out surveillance over areas at land and sea.

It is the first Navy vessel to carry the name North Dakota in nearly a century. Saturday’s christening coincides with the 124th anniversary of North Dakota becoming the 39th state of the Union.

With the smash of a champagne bottle against its hull, the 377-foot-long nuclear submarine was officially named North Dakota at the Groton shipyard of sub builder Electric Boat. It will become USS North Dakota and officially join the fleet when it is commissioned in May.

The submarine is the 11th in the Virginia class of ships, which have capabilities that allow them to perform better in shallow water than other subs.

It is significant that we have this new submarine. China is expanding their deep-water navy at a furious pace and adding more nuclear subs with missile capability at a time Obama continues to emasculate our military.

On the political sidelines today are two stories about Rove and McConnell attacking fellow ‘Pubs while supporting democrats. In one article from the American Spectator, Mark Levin accuses Karl Rove of supporting democrat McAulliife against Virginia Atty General Ken Cuccinnelli.

Levin: RINO’s, Rove, Push For McAuliffe Win

By on 11.4.13 @ 10:09AM

Leave it to Mark Levin to say exactly what many conservatives have believed but not said.

The RINO wing of the GOP — and Karl Rove specifically — do not want a Ken Cuccinnelli victory in Virginia.

In this corner we have believed this for some time. In its own way this reminds of the 1980 presidential race. The RINO in question than was one of Ronald Reagan’s GOP primary opponents — Illinois Congressman John Anderson. Anderson lost resoundingly to Reagan in the primaries, but as usual picked up a core of fans in the liberal media.

With Reagan now the nominee — and with Establishment Republicans like ex-President Gerald Ford having gone on record to insist Reagan was too “extreme” to ever win a national election — Anderson refused to support Reagan. Instead, he set out to make the claim that Reagan couldn’t win a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anderson decided to run for president in the fall election as a third party candidate, a deliberate attempt to sabotage Reagan. The bid failed, Reagan won in a 44-state landslide, humiliating both incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter and Anderson.

But the message was delivered. Establishment Republicans demand party unity — unless they lose to a conservative. Ken Cuccinelli — the man who led the fight against Obamacare — is now gaining rapidly on Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race, in no small part because Virginia voters are losing their health insurance because of Obamacare.

I could go on here – and on and on. But Mark Levin has done such a superb job of making this case that I thought this Monday before the Virginia election he should speak for himself here.

So below, Levin on the RINOs, Rove and what is really going on in Virginia:

The RINOs want a Terry McAuliffe victory in Virginia.

Many in the GOP establishment, from major fundraisers and consultants, to GOP officeholders such as the GOP Lt. Gov and mayor of Virginia Beach, have either trashed Attorney General Ken Cuccinnelli or endorsed McAuliffe outright. The GOP national machine has done next to nothing for Cuccinnelli. And GOP bag man, Karl Rove, is all over Fox without a word of support for Cuccinnelli, while he schemes and whispers behind the scenes against conservatives nationwide.

Having tried to sabotage Cuccinnelli’s candidacy from the start, these GOP actors are hoping for a Cuccinnelli loss and a big Chris Christie win (built on a Huey Long style of politics) to make the case that only big government Republicans can win and limited government, constitutional conservatives, such as Tea Party activists, are too extreme to prevail. They’ve already written the script.

In fact, the GOP establishment’s attacks on the Tea Party, which is an obvious assault on conservatives and conservatism generally, are increasingly difficult to distinguish from Obama and the Left’s attacks on the same folks. The ruling class in Washington is clearly united in one respect: to wipe out conservative resistance to their corruption, cronyism, and nation-killing policies.

Keep an eye on RINO columnists like Washington Compost mouthpiece Jennifer Rubin, as well as Rove and other commentators on cable TV, who have and will continue to reveal it all through their myopic ruling class lenses in the days ahead. As I said, their propaganda is written and ready to spread. And they’ll be given soap box after soap box to spin away. 

Meanwhile, despite it all, including tens of millions of dollars in relentless leftwing smear ads funded by truly extreme groups hoping to beat Cuccinnelli and turn Virginia into Hillary Clinton territory in 2016, much of the big GOP money stays on the sidelines. Better to try to clear the field of conservatives who threaten the ruling class and its preferred nominees. Better to protect the RINO investment in big government than beat Hillary. The conservative grassroots is to be crushed and dispirited.

So, that’s the game. Still, recent polls show Cuccinnelli closing fast. This makes the Left and RINOs very nervous. The rest of us are cheering, and hopefully helping, the underdog. We identify with him, not the sleazy McAuliffe, his radical donors, and the ruling class. We won’t retreat. We won’t give up. We will fight for the last vote. What a sweet victory it would be! But make no mistake, this is one of many, many battles to come, win, lose, or recount.

What these people will never understand is that for most of us this isn’t about politics per se but preserving what’s left of our society, Constitution, and individual free will. It is about our families and our way of life. It is about who we are as Americans. We are not surrendering to this because we will not sit quietly while the ruling class continues to destroy our nation. We fight against growing oppression as many did before us. And we will fight like hell through the constitutional process. We will continue to learn, we will take names, and we will battle these people and groups at every turn, and in every election. We are not going anywhere.

And as the ruling class catastrophe continues to unfold, as with Obamacare, the monstrous debt, and suffocating regulations, and with the cycle of unsustainable spending and confiscatory taxing, the coerciveness of the ruling class and its federal agencies will only intensify. There will be a commensurate backlash.

The sleeping giant that is the American people is only beginning to awaken. It is only a matter of time until more people are roused to join this all important constitutional fight. We fight to hold Virginia today and we fight on thereafter.

There is another article, via this link, that reports the same events—Rove and establishment ‘Pubs supporting democrat McAuliffe.

The other story is how McConnell, and others, are attacking the Senate Conservative Fund, created by Jim DeMint, using the same tactics democrats used, and failed, against Rush Limbaugh.

Mitch McConnell Embraces the Anti-Rush Limbaugh Playbook

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  November 4th, 2013 at 03:30 AM

For the last year, the left has engaged in an organized campaign to drive Rush Limbaugh off the air. Knowing they cannot go after Rush Limbaugh directly, the left has launched repeated boycotts against any advertisers who dare advertise while Rush Limbaugh is on. Consequently, some advertisers decided to stop advertising at all on political talk radio, depriving the genre as a whole of resources.

And it still hasn’t hurt Rush Limbaugh.

Mitch McConnell has decided to embrace the same strategy in his war against the Senate Conservatives Fund. He can’t attack the Jim DeMint created Senate Conservatives Fund outright, so instead he will launch an all out war against anyone who does business with the Senate Conservatives Fund.

This story, from the New York Times, is intriguing. McConnell has demanded, via the National Republican Senatorial Committee, that anyone who wants GOP support stop hiring Jamestown Associates. The organization is used by a number of Republican elected leaders and candidates. In fact, Senator Ted Cruz uses Jamestown Associates. So does Governor Chris Christie. For that matter, Senators Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt, Mark Kirk, Dan Coats, and Pat Toomey have all benefited from Jamestown Associates. Outside groups hired Jamestown Associates to make independent expenditures on behalf of those Senators. [edit: JA did not directly work for those Senators, but handled independent expenditures on their behalf]

But McConnell is perfectly happy destroying a private company his Senate Republican colleagues use because Jamestown Associates also helps the Senate Conservatives Fund. And the Senate Conservatives Fund just endorsed Matt Bevin against Mitch McConnell.

McConnell would rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven. He’d rather be minority leader, than have a Republican Senate majority without him. Updated: From the comments by Darin H: “Apparently McConnell would rather serve in Hell than even bother with Heaven.”

It’s all the sadder still in that McConnell worked against Ted Cruz’s effort to defund Obamacare. 280,000 Kentuckians are losing their insurance. But McConnell would rather drive a private enterprise out of business than fight for those Kentuckians losing their health insurance. If only McConnell had put as much energy into stopping Obamacare as he has stopping a business that does work with the Senate Conservatives Fund.

Outside observers have listed the Kentucky Senate race as a toss up. It does not lean McConnell’s way. This is very important to note. This is very important to understand. The polling in the race is terrible for McConnell. Charitably it breaks even against an empty suit of a Democrat. McConnell has already spent over $6 million. He is the weakest Republican incumbent up for re-election in 2014. Were it another Senator, McConnell would be pressuring him to retire.

…

Mitch McConnell is the thug in the bar who controls through intimidation. He badgers, bullies, threatens, and cajoles others into giving him his way. Because of his position, most yield to his intimidation. And when others do not yield, he goes after their associates.

But there is a new paradigm of empowered grassroots activists at work. They are not intimidated. They will not be silenced. They do not fear McConnell. They hate him and want him out of office. McConnell has always relied on an alliance of staffers who’ve moved to K Street to get rich. He gives them access, they make lots of money, then they return money to his campaign coffers. It is a loyalty that extends to a lobbyist class now attacking the Senate Conservatives Fund because their gravy train may be ending. But it is a loyalty that does not exist at the grassroots level within the conservative movement or even Kentucky.

The only tactic McConnell can respond with is driving private businesses into the ground if they dare help those opposed to him — no matter who else they help. Senate Republicans and challengers in the races to be decided next year need to understand the bottom line here — Mitch McConnell is making it the NRSC’s job preservation of Mitch McConnell, damn the rest of the candidates. Don’t believe me? Where are the other groups the NRSC is blackballing? Right now, the only ones being blackballed are the ones who are on the opposite side of Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.

There’s more at the Red State website. Go here to read the entire article. McConnell, like fellow RINO senator, Roy Blunt, must go.

In closing today, here’s a tidbit on what capitalism can do if left alone by government and regulation.

Audacious wildcatters trigger fracking revolution

By MICHAEL BARONE | NOVEMBER 1, 2013 AT 6:00 PM

Capitalism, said economist Joseph Schumpeter seven decades ago, is a process of creative destruction. New inventions, new processes, new methods of organization lead to the creation of new profitable and efficient businesses and to the destruction of old ones unable to compete.

There are few accounts of the creative side of Schumpeter’s phrase more vivid than Fracking: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters, a new book by Wall Street Journal writer Gregory Zuckerman.

For years politicians, policy experts and corporate executives have tried to reshape American energy policy and development. They have operated on a series of assumptions seemingly based on experience and logic.

One is that oil and gas production in the United States was inevitably in decline. Another is that we can move toward energy independence by increasing use of renewables like wind and solar energy.

Those assumptions seem to have been refuted in the course of this young century by a group of audacious outsiders who have made great fortunes — and in some cases lost them.

The Frackers tells their story. It tells the story of George Mitchell, son of a Greek immigrant, who was convinced that hydraulic fracturing — fracking — could bring in vast amounts of natural gas from the Barnett Shale in north Texas.

It tells the story of Aubrey McClendon and Tom Ward, whose Chesapeake firm bought mineral leases atop vast shale deposits, becoming America’s No. 2 gas producer but overexpanding disastrously.

It tells the story of Harold Hamm, a sharecropper’s son who rose from picking cotton to a $12 billion fortune by prying oil out of the Bakken shale of North Dakota.

And it tells the story of Charif Souki, Lebanese immigrant and proprietor of the Los Angeles restaurant where Nicole Simpson ate and Ronald Goldman served their last meals, who charmed others into financing a liquid natural gas export terminal in Louisiana.

…

Go, follow the link above and see what some entrepreneurs and capitalist are doing—in spite of government and the EPA.

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Friday Follies for June 21, 2013

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I was going to make a FB post yesterday and was distracted. It’s a little thing, personal only to me and my sister. Yesterday was my father’s birthday. If he were still alive, he would be 111.

Happy birthday, Dad.

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An item was disclosed this week about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that appears to violate the Constitution’s 4th Amendment.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. — 4th Amendment to the US Constitution.

It now appears that FISA modified part of the 4th Amendment.

Authorized by Section 702 of the amended Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the program did away with the traditional individual warrant for each foreign suspect whose communications would be collected in the United States. In its place, the FISA court, which oversees domestic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes and whose proceedings are secret, would certify the government’s procedures to target people overseas and ensure citizens’ privacy. — The Washington Post.

Instead of individual warrants as required by the 4th Amendment, NSA was given a blanket certificate—a hunting and fishing license, so to speak, that allowed them to search anyone, everyone, whether hard evidence for probable cause existed, or not.

A comment posted on the Washington Post article above said, “I’m beginning to think the FISA court was set-up by the executive branch to rubber stamp all executive branch demands. The world’s most secret self-licking ice cream cone.” (Panhandle Willy, 6/20/2013 8:03 PM CDT)

 

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Today is the anniversary of the ratification of the US Constitution. It received its 9th approving vote 225 years ago today by New Hampshire.

On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789. — www.history.com

Virginia and New York followed New Hampshire later in June but New Hampshire’s vote was sufficient to actually getting the new government running.

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The Tea Party was out in force, yesterday, with a rally in Washington DC to protest the actions of the IRS. A number of Congressmen attended as well, Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Rand Paul (Ky.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Reps. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and Dave Camp (Mich.). The question now is whether any of our Missouri Senators and Representatives were there?

I’ve not seen any of the Missouri delegation post about their presence at the rally. I’ve asked Vicky Hartzler and Jason Smith that question but I’ve received no answers yet.

We must remember those absences when the primaries come next year and candidates want Tea Party endorsements.

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Unsatisfied with the bureaucrats in your state and federal government? That makes you a terrorist says a Tennessee bureaucrat.

Unsatisfied with the quality of your water and eager to let the government know about it?

You might be a terrorist, according to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

“We take water quality very seriously. Very, very seriously,” deputy director of TDEC’s Division of Water Resources Sherwin Smith told a baffled and outraged audience in Maury County, Tennessee. “But you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there’s no water quality issues, that can be considered under Homeland Security an act of terrorism.”

Audience members saw the official’s answer as a means of deterring complaints from the public, according to a report in The Tennessean. — The Daily Caller.

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