Category Archives: Us vs. Them

When the GOP tries to…

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…out liberal the democrats, can any good come from it?

Many insiders believe SCOTUS is going to declare Obamacare subsidies to be unconstitutional. ‘Pubbies everywhere should celebrate! Let Obamacare implode and when the screams get the loudest push through a total repeal and allow insurance companies to provide healthcare insurance like they did before Obamacare. Those companies who dropped out of the healthcare market will return when there’s money to be made once again. The greatest healthcare system in the world, available to everyone regardless of their ability to pay, will return, albeit over a couple of years.

What is the GOP establishment doing? They are planning to pass legislation to reinstate subsidies!

House Republicans craft Obamacare subsidies alternative ahead of Supreme Court ruling

By Tom Howell Jr. – The Washington Times – Wednesday, June 17, 2015
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“I think it’s a good plan. It’s a good start,” Rep. Charles W. Boustany Jr., Louisiana Republican, said after huddling with the GOP caucus behind closed doors. (Associated Press)

House Republicans settled on the outlines of a plan Wednesday to wean the country off of Obamacare’s subsidies in anticipation of a Supreme Court ruling this month that could throw the massive health program into chaos.

Described as a “work in progress,” the plan would continue to pay full subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to all beneficiaries regardless of where they live, but starting next year states could begin to opt out of Obamacare, taking the money as a block grant to help their residents obtain insurance however local officials see fit. (Read the entire column here.)

Conservative groups, like the Heritage Foundation, are agast!

Don’t Fix Obamacare

Mike Needham / /

Many Republicans are watching ongoing developments in the King v. Burwell Obamacare case with trepidation. In the abstract, most recognize the opportunity such a case represents to roll back Obamacare and force a debate about real, pro-market insurance reform.

But as the decision looms, many now have second thoughts, convinced that the country will blame them for disruption in the ruling’s wake and that eventually, the only politically tolerable option will be to cave and restore the Obamacare subsidies eliminated by the Supreme Court.

That assumption is wrong, and Republicans will do more harm than good for their cause if they act on it.

According to a new poll conducted by the American Perceptions Initiative at The Heritage Foundation, the fear that Republicans, not Democrats, will take the blame for any disruption caused by the ruling appears to be unfounded. Only 36 percent of Americans will blame congressional Republicans, with 58 percent of the blame split between President Obama and congressional Democrats.

Also wrong is the presumption that most Americans will look past their general opposition to Obamacare and push for Congress to extend the subsidies to prevent disruption. A staggering supermajority—69 percent—told pollsters they agreed that “Passing new legislation to continue the Obamacare subsidies doesn’t fix the problem – it just prolongs it.”

Moreover, restoring the subsidies appears likely to shift more rather than less blame to Republicans for the situation. According to Heritage’s survey, 67 percent of Americans agree that if Republicans extend the law’s subsidies for the short term, “they will bear the blame when the time comes to take those subsidies away.” (more here.)

By reinstating the subsidies, the GOP will then own every piece of Obamacare. It was the GOP who kept it in force. It was the GOP who provided funding for Obamacare in last year’s Cromnibus bill instead of allowing Obamacare to starve for funds. Now if they provide funding for subsidies, Obamacare will not be a democrat albatross, it will a republican one—exactly what the GOP establishment claims to fear!

Last week the House voted to kill, with a number of democrats, the TPA portion of Obama’s trade bill. Obama’s bill was split into two parts, TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) the fast-track trade authority, and the TPP (TransPacific Pact).

The TPP was filled with kickbacks, union payoffs and a multitude of items unrelated to trade. TPA, on the other hand, gave Obama a rubber stamp to do whatever he wanted to do. Congress would NOT be able to make any amendments to future trade bills, just an Up/Down vote. With the well-demonstrated lack of backbone among the GOP leadership in both Houses of Congress, any trade bill brought before them would likely be approved.

When you see the GOP supporting Obama against the democrats, you know something is very, very wrong in the GOP DC establishment. Now, McConnell and Boehner are about to try again.

GOP leaders vow to resurrect Obama trade deal

By Dave Boyer and Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times – Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Republican leaders will try to resurrect the trade deal Democrats sank less than a week ago, planning a revote Thursday and insisting they will corral enough votes to approve fast-track negotiating powers that President Obama needs to complete a legacy-building Pacific Rim agreement.

Mr. Obama met Wednesday afternoon with Democratic lawmakers who support free trade to make sure they will vote for the plan, and House Republican leaders began the process of forcing a revote on powers known as Trade Promotion Authority, which is favored in their party, and Trade Adjustment Assistance, which is generally a Democratic priority.

Democrats last week voted against Trade Adjustment Assistance as a way of poisoning the package, so Republican leaders have decided to split the bill and pass Trade Promotion Authority first, then leave it to Mr. Obama to rally enough Democrats to pass Trade Adjustment Assistance.

“We are committed to ensuring both TPA and TAA get votes in the House and Senate and are sent to the president for signature,” said a joint statement by House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, rejecting claims that the issue was dead.

The republican party appears to have made an alliance with democrats and the GOP establishment is acting in concert with democrats to fulfill democrat agendas and policies. That begs the question, “Are there two political parties in Washington or only one?” More and more it appears to be just one.

Being a Republican (note the capital R) is more than just winning elections, it is a political philosophy. It does no one any good to win elections if the result is the same as if democrats had won.

I used to think a 3rd party would allow democrats to control Congress for at least two election cycles before being effective and in that time, democrats could gut our liberties and the Constitution blocking any 3rd party from power. Watching the actions of McConnell, Ryan, Boehner, et. al., I’m beginning to believe that has already happened.

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Can we survive…

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…Obama’s last months in office without civil war? A couple of articles triggered that thought as I perused the headlines this morning. In one article, I saw that the DoJ is funding a study about ‘right-wing’ use of social media. They’ve thrown in a few Islamic sites but the real emphasis is us, you and me.

Justice Department Studying ‘Far-Right’ Social Media Use

$585,719 study to combat violent extremism

BY: , June 1, 2015 5:00 am

The Department of Justice is concentrating on “far-right” groups in a new study of social media usage aimed at combatting violent extremism.

The Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) awarded Michigan State University $585,719 for the study, which was praised by Eric Holder, the former attorney general, earlier this year.

“There is currently limited knowledge of the role of technology and computer mediated communications (CMCs), such as Facebook and Twitter, in the dissemination of messages that promote extremist agendas and radicalize individuals to violence,” according to the NIJ grant. “The proposed study will address this gap through a series of qualitative and quantitative analyses of posts from various forms of CMC used by members of both the far-right and Islamic extremist movements.”

The study draws more upon right-wing forums than upon the corners of the web inhabited by Islamist extremists.

“We will collect posts made in four active forums used by members of the far-right and three from the Islamic Extremist community, as well as posts made in Facebook, LiveJournal, Twitter, YouTube, and Pastebin accounts used by members of each movement,” the grant said.

“The findings will be used to document both the prevalence and variation in the ideological content of posts from members of each movement,” the grant continued. “In addition, we will assess the value of these messages in the social status of the individual posting the message and the function of radical messages in the larger on-line identity of participants in extremist communities generally.”

The project will also “identify the hidden networks of individuals who engage in extremist movements based on geographic location and ideological similarities.” (This column continues at the Free Beacon website.)

Given Obama’s and Holder’s track record on curbing Islamic extremists, does anyone really believe the emphasis will be on them instead of you and me? I don’t.

The second article was about schools teaching “white privilege,” spending millions to the exclusion of funding other dire needs. Children are being taught that the root of all ills is “white privilege,” whatever that is. When I was growing up, I wish I had some. My father was a coal miner. My mother a school teacher. My father had, at best, an eighth grade education. My mother started teaching in the 1920s because she had a high school diploma. She took college courses all her life but never got a BS Ed. I’m sure she wished she had some “white privilege.”

What is happening is nothing more than indoctrination and the setting of false expectations.  If the children are taught failure is external, they will never look to improve themselves through their own efforts, “because it’s white privilege that makes you fail, not a lack of effort on the children’s and teacher’s part.”

Teachers complain, chaos reigns as St. Paul schools spend millions on ‘white privilege’ training

Steve Gunn , June 2, 2015

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Have the taxpayers of St. Paul spent nearly $3 million over the past five years to bring chaos and danger to their schools and students?

Apparently so.

In 2010, the St. Paul school district began a contractual relationship with the Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based organization that tries to help public schools deal with achievement and disciplinary issues involving black students.

PEG packages and sells the concept of victimization, for a very high price.

It claims that the American education system is built around white culture, tradition and social norms – aka “white privilege” – to the unfair detriment of black students.

PEG believes that black students will only achieve if school curricula are customized to meet their cultural specifications. It also rejects the concept of using suspensions or expulsions to discipline black students.

…

According to information provided by the district to EAGnews through a freedom of information request, St. Paul schools spent at least the following amounts on PEG consultations services over the past five years:

* $137,720 in 2010-11,
* $366,800 in 2011-12,
* $598,900 in 2012-13,
* $489,150 in 2013-14 and
* $285,895 in 2014-15.

The district also reported spending “matched amounts” of $132,072 (2010-11), $363,260 (2011-12) and $537,900 (2012-13) on PEG, without explaining what that term means.

Not long after PEG started working with St. Paul school officials, crucial policy changes were made, according to various news reports.

Special needs students with behavioral issues were mainstreamed into regular classrooms, a position openly advocated by PEG.

Student suspensions were replaced by “time outs,” and school officials starting forgiving or ignoring violence and other unacceptable behavior, according to various sources.

“The disciplinary changes came out of meetings with an organization called Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based operation that has been consulting with the district dating back to 2010,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

The result has been general chaos throughout the district, with far too many students out of control because they know there are no real consequences for their actions.

A  local publication called CityPages recently told the story of Becky McQueen, an educator at St. Paul’s Harding High School.

“Last spring, when she stepped into a fight between two basketball players, one grabbed her shoulder and head, throwing her aside,” the CityPages article explained. “The kid was only sent home for a couple of days.

“In March, when a student barged into her class, McQueen happened to be standing in the doorway and got crushed into a shelf. The following week, two boys came storming in, hit a girl in the head, then skipped back out. One of them had already been written up more than 30 times.

“Yet another student who repeatedly drops into her class has hit kids and cursed at an aide, once telling McQueen he would “fry” her ass. She tried to make a joke of it — ‘Ooh, I could use a little weight loss.’ Her students interjected: ‘No, that means he’s gonna kill you.’”

McQueen now has her students use a secret knock on the classroom door, so she will know who to allow in, the article said.

It seems strange to me this indoctrination only seems to occur in metropolitan areas were the students are primarily black. In all these articles, not a word is said about the white students who remain in these schools. Aren’t they worthy of education, too? Or, is that reserved only to those with “black privilege?”

What programs like the Pacific Education Group accomplish is further division within the nation. When these children graduate—with a minimum of real education but a plate-full of indoctrination, they will ‘see’ the world through the indoctrinated bias. Failure is because of ‘white privilege,’ not due to their own efforts, or lack thereof. PEG continues to reinforce a culture of dependency, slavery to the government for a livelihood because those former students, now adults, are unable to provide for themselves.

What will be the result? Riots of course. Riots aided and abetted by the liberal, black politicians and activists who supports the mob against the agencies of law and order. In the case of Baltimore, the local State Attorney is siding with the mob to create more chaos.

And with chaos comes…what? Possibly civil war. We already see acts of civil war occurring daily in Baltimore, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, all the cities with liberal, black, local governments. Cities controlled by those unable and unwilling to do the job they were elected to do.

Obama has approximately eighteen months remaining in his term. The question is, “Will a nation-wide civil war occur before or after his term expires?” The cities are filled with false and unrealistic expectations. When the public trough runs empty, who will be blamed? You know the answer to that question as well as do I.

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Pluses and Minuses

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A plus for Carly Fiorina. She opposed the GOP’s trade deal. What is it? It would allow Obama to ‘fast-track’ trade treaties with nations along the Pacific Rim, i.e., the PRC. That is the People’s Republic of China for those of you who are acronym deficient.

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on Sunday came out in opposition to giving President Obama the authority to fast track a massive trade deal with Pacific Rim countries, breaking with the GOP’s free-trade agenda.

Mrs. Fiorina, a former chief executive officer of Hewlett Packard, insisted that she supports free trade but said she doesn’t trust Mr. Obama to make a good deal for American workers and businesses.

“The devil is usually in the details, and that is particularly true with this president. The truth is we don’t know what’s in this deal,” she said on NBC”s “Meet the Press.”

“This administration unfortunately has a track record of burying things in fine print … that turn out to be very different from their selling points,” said Mrs. Fiorina, who announced her White House bid last week.

The Senate this week is scheduled to take the first votes on fast-track authority, or trade promotion authority, which would make it much easier for the president to pass the 12-country Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. — The Washington Times.

The GOP is about to sell out US businesses in exchange for what? Campaign funds? Oh, that’s illegal although it didn’t stop Bill Clinton from receiving laundered ChiCom money. Remember all those Buddhist monks giving thousands upon thousands of dollars to Bill’s campaign? I do.

As Fiorina claims, the devil is in the details and in this treaty, no one really knows what is in it. Again! Issues like this make you wonder how much McConnell’s and Boehner’s cuts will be from the kick-backs.

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Have you heard about the gender trail that going on in the Army? By trial, I mean…a test. A test to see if women can successfully pass the Ranger course.

Ranger School is the toughest course in the US Army. It is physical and mental torture. It is the closest to actual combat the Army can create in a training scenario. The washout rate among men, enlisted and commissioned, is high.

One of the goals of the course is to teach leaders, Officers and NCO, just how hard they can push their troops and the physical and mental impacts that combat inflicts on the troops. The Ranger graduates know. They’ve been there and know how to care for their troops to get the most and best out of them.

In the ‘new’ gender-neutral military, the liberals want women in combat. The Army was willing to see if women can endure the same conditions as men. Not so much as line troops, but as leaders—platoon and company commanders leading troops in the field, in combat. It’s important. You can not have a fighting unit whose lowest denominator is the physical and mental condition of its commander.

Passing Ranger school is also a career builder…or destroyer. If a candidate gives up, he/she is classified as “lacking motivation.” and “leadership skills.” No claims the women applicants, volunteers, all, lack motivation. Some have displayed enormous stubbornness to succeed. Unfortunately, none, to date, has passed the first stage of Ranger training.

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Male and female trainees in the US Army’s Ranger School.

The eight women who remained in the first gender-integrated class of Army Ranger training will not move onto the next round of training, Fort Benning announced on Friday.

That means all 19 women who began the training in April have washed out in the first phase.

The eight women, together with 101 men who washed out of the Darby phase, will retry the first part of the Army’s most elite training course beginning May 14, the release said.

“I had the opportunity to visit the Ranger students yesterday and was impressed that whether going forward to the mountains or recycling the Darby phase they were motivated to continue training and focused on successfully completing the Ranger Course,” said Maj. Gen. Scott Miller, commanding general of the Maneuver Center of Excellence. “They’re a strong group of soldiers, who are working their way through the U.S. Army’s most physically and mentally demanding course.”

Thirty-five male soldiers failed to meet the standards of Ranger school and will not attempt the course again, the release said.

About 15 percent of soldiers repeat the first phase, called Darby phase, however, about 75 percent of those who make it through the first week of the program will eventually pass the Darby phase and move onto the mountains, according to the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade’s website.

About 37 percent of all students recycle at least one phase of Ranger training, the site said. — The Washington Times.

The Army appears, at least, to be enforcing a single standard for both male and female trainees. There are male and female observers present to insure the rules are enforced equally. There is no favoritism of male over female, nor of female over male. As least as far as we know. There was one instance where the male trainees were ‘smoked’, i.e, went through a series of strenuous exercises before commencing one of the Darby-phase full-pack hikes. The women were not. The men started the hike exhausted. The women were fresh.

But that was a minor detail and not uncommon throughout the school. Each trainee is evaluated how they perform under pressure and stress. I would hope the Army does not relent to political correctness and change the standards for women to be less than those for the men. To do so would only lead to unnecessary causalities in wartime. Combat is no place for political correctness.

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Monday’s Talking Points

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Headlines on various news outlets this morning: 

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Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel

Hagel Fired for Contradicting Obama over ISIS threat!

From FOX News…

OBAMA FINDS MIDTERM SCAPEGOAT IN HAGEL
In another strong sign of President Obama’s hard tack left in the wake of a midterm drubbing, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is heading for the exits. First reported by the NYT, the cashiering of the Pentagon boss comes after “the two men mutually agreed” that it was time for the only Republican in Obama’s cabinet to go. But given the fact that the White House was the one pushing out the story, it seems more likely that the president had grown tired of the ongoing pressure from Hagel and members of the top brass to take a more aggressive stance on national security threats abroad. The conflict went public back in August when Hagel openly contradicted White House talking points on the threat posed by Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria. While Obama succumbed to the pressure, Hagel’s ouster shows the president seeking to reassert control over his foundering foreign policy. — FOX Newsletter, November 24, 2014

Never let it be said that Obama lets anyone on his staff disagree with him. I wonder which hand-puppet will be chosen next for Sec’y of Defense?

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Rand Paul has been the fair-haired boy of Libertarians and the Paulbot wing of the GOP. He has been viewed as an opponent of the GOP Washington establishment. When Ted Cruz and Mike Lee stood up in opposition to Harry Reid, and occasionally Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul stood in the background giving the impression of supporting Cruz and Lee but seldom actually doing so on the floor of the Senate.

I’ve never trusted Rand Paul. In my view, he is too much like his Dad—inconsistent, a bit unstable with a tin-foil hat firmly in place. My view, again, has been vindicated. The reports today have Rand Paul cozing up to Mitch McConnell, worming his way into the establishment and the Ruling Class.

Paul strengthens McConnell ties with fundraiser hire – National Review: “[Sen.] Rand Paul [R-Ky.] is bringing on [Sen.] Mitch McConnell’s [R-Ky.] national finance director, Laura Sequeira, to play a key fundraising role at his political-action committee ahead of an expected 2016 presidential campaign.”

[Flashback: “We’ve developed a very tight relationship, and I’m for him…I don’t think he’s made a final decision on that. But he’ll be able to count on me.” – Senate Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell in a post-election interview.] — FOX Newsletter, November 24, 2014.

McConnell, immediately following the election, betrayed the GOP by publicly stating the Senate would not use the only real weapons of Congress against a rogue President—impeachment and removal from office, and the power of the purse—defunding Obama’s acts of defiance to Congress and strictures of the Constitution. When asked what McConnell would do to oppose Obama, McConnell, in essence, said he’d rollover and do nothing. That allows Obama to continue his lawless edicts without opposition…and now Rand Paul will help McConnell to do…nothing.

***

I have been called, on occasion, a Grammar-Nazi. I accept that label. Why is grammar necessary, and spelling, too? Because correct grammar and spelling enhances communication and decreases confusion and misunderstanding.

It is a failing of education when schools no longer teach grammar, sentence structure and construction, spelling and writing. Not cursive hand-writing, although that should be taught, too, but writing as in Writing an Essay. Clear, concise writing, with proper sentence and paragraph structure, is fading. Others agree with me.

Descriptive versus Prescriptive: Another Left-Wing Scam

By Bruce Deitrick Price, November 24, 2014

Everywhere we look, we’ve got pompous professors telling us they don’t dare prescribe what’s right in language.  No, no, no, no.  It’s not their role.  Nor yours either, that’s for sure.  People can express themselves as they wish.  It’s America, the 21st century.  God forbid we should tell anybody how to do anything.“Weird Al” Yankovic put out a popular video called “Word Crimes.”  It’s gotten almost 20,000,000 views.  In effect, he says: “Hey, moron, do it the right way.”  He got everybody talking about correct grammar.  Boy, we needed that.  Thanks, Weird Al.

Naturally, all the primly pontificating nuisances crawled out of the woodwork to tell us: hey, stop all that prescribing!  You can only describe. 

And why?  Because when anthropologists go in the jungle to study a primitive culture, they must remember that the natives are the experts on their own language.  Great.  That’s fine and dandy.  But that has nothing to do with how we should deal with our own language. In our case, you ask the relevant experts (teachers, novelists, journalists), average the answers, and that’s probably a good guide.  But you certainly don’t listen to left-wing scam artists telling you that our experts are not allowed to speak, because anything they say would be prescriptive, and we don’t allow that when we go into the jungle on anthropological expeditions.  Doesn’t this sophistry almost make your head spin?

But look again, and it turns out there is a second sophistry on top of the first one.  These discussions about natives, experts, and ourselves casually presuppose that we are talking about adults.  But many times, without ever acknowledging it, the discussion shifts over to school and the teaching of children.  Isn’t it obvious that the freedom you might give to adults is not appropriately given to children?

In other words, when liberal sophisticates start discussing this issue, they always pose it in terms of freedom, creativity, self-expression, laissez-faire, do your own thing, and gather ye rosebuds while ye may.  Sure, if you insist, adults can wear clothes inside-out and stay drunk.  Let’s not waste time discussing it.  If you want to arrange your sentences backward and break every grammatical rule, go for it.

What we’re discussing now is what’s appropriate in the early grades at school.  Teaching is typically prescriptive, and that’s how it should be.  Schools should teach the right ways to do things.  (This approach has got to be far more efficient than what many public schools are now doing: teach no ways at all, or teach all the ways as if none is preferable.) 

Bottom line, what newspapers call Standard English should be taught first.  That seems to be what our left-wing professors are eager to stop.

So what are the pros and cons?  Do you let a child do anything the child wants?  Are you doing children a favor if you allow them to go out with dirty faces or raggedy clothes?  Isn’t it foolish to pretend that children live and learn in a vacuum?

It seems to be common sense and common decency to tell children what is typically done.  With regard to language, this might require explaining regional variations, work-related slang, and even class differences.  Most children can understand these ideas at a fairly young age.  They probably already speak a different way with their friends from how they do with their parents.

To pretend that all these nuances don’t exist is the opposite of teaching.  To pretend that everything is equally acceptable is a nasty sort of nihilism.

Question is, why are liberals so eager to drown children in permissiveness and relativism?  Who is being served?  Just recently reports came out about a Chicago school that was teaching anal sex to fifth-graders.  And this would be for whose benefit?  The children’s?  No, this is surely liberals trying to break down the last barriers.

Presumably we’re seeing that same worldview when schools refuse to teach grammar.  The point, always, is power – in this case, the power to make the rules.  That’s why the left always maneuvers to control language, semantics, and education.

The sophistry prohibiting prescriptive grammar is not about grammar at all.  It’s about the left being able to tell everybody else how to talk, and how to think.  (Note that the anti-prescriptive diktat is itself prescriptive.)

Liberals always want to play their ideological games, using kids as guinea pigs.  If you don’t tell the kids what the prevailing rules are, the kids will be left in an intellectual wasteland.  To excuse this, you have a whole Education Establishment boldly proclaiming that whatever little children say is just fine, whatever it is.  No rules, guessing, and invented spelling – that’s what elementary education is for many.

But how can they justify all this logically?  Well, some genius thought, why don’t we just bring back anthropological field work to our own society?  We’ll announce (and argue with great indignation) that professional authors, English professors, and smart citizens who have used the language expertly for a lifetime have absolutely no special standing.  They should shut up, lest they be guilty of the crime of prescription.  The left has gotten away with this fluff for 75 years.

Aren’t you tired of left-wing professors using lame sophistries to dumb down the schools and the society?  Here’s a plan: don’t accept lame sophistries.

Sophistry. That’s a word I’ve not seen for a long, long time. Truthfully, now, how many of you know what it means? Don’t know? Here’s the definition. If you and your children don’t know, it’s a good topic for teaching both of you.

soph·ist·ry
ˈsäfəstrē/
noun
noun: sophistry
  1. the use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.
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Friday Follies for November 14, 2014

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I haven’t used the ‘Follies’ headline for awhile. I do so when there are a number of items appearing on the ‘net but none worthy for a longer post nor discussion.

We won the mid-term ten days ago. We should be celebrating but we’re not. Why? Because we are watching the Washington GOP leadership selling us down the river0—again. The day after the election, McConnell tells a reporter he will not use Congress’ more potent weapon, the power of the purse. “We won’t shut down the government!” he declares meaning he will continue with the stream of CRs and upholding Harry Reid’s plan for funding everything we’re against—Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, open border, and governmental tyranny across the nation.

“Throw the bum out!”  Too late, McConnell has been re-elected as Majority leader. Boehner was re-elected Speaker of the House with only three dissenting votes.

McConnell chosen as next Senate majority leader, Boehner re-elected as House speaker

WASHINGTON –  Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell joined House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio on Thursday at the pinnacle of the congressional and Republican power structures in Washington — two establishment deal-cutters, each on occasion frustrated by the other’s inability to rein in their party’s most zealous ideologues.

The pair, formally selected Thursday to lead their party’s new majority control of Congress, will be charged with guiding Republicans on Capitol Hill for the final two years of President Obama’s presidency. Their success or failure could determine whether the GOP can take back the White House in 2016.

McConnell, 72, is taciturn and rarely cracks a smile. “Why don’t you get a life?” he joked to photographers trying to snap photos of him after he was unanimously chosen by his Senate GOP colleagues Thursday to serve as the new majority leader starting in January.

The article blathers on here, if you’ve the stomach to read it.

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For some good news, Sullivan has been declared the winner in the Alaska Senate race. Begich continues to wallow in his fantasy and has not, as far as I know, conceded the race. No class. A common fault of democrats.

Sullivan brings up the number of GOP Senators to 53. The last race still to be determined is Cassidy vs. Landrieu in Louisiana. Landrieu is pushing the Keystone Pipeline bill in an attempt to gain votes but it doesn’t appears to have helped.

‘Her campaign is running on fumes’: Final Senate race looks to be a Louisiana laugher as internal polls show GOP’s Bill Cassidy opening up 16-point lead over Sen. Mary Landrieu

  • Poll commissioned by GOP candidate’s campaign shows massive advantage leading up to Dec. 6 runoff 
  • Win by GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy would bring total Republican pickup to a whopping 10 seats
  • Landrieu is hoping a long-awaited vote on the Keystone XL pipeline will improve her fortunes
  • Poll was leaked in Washington to send a message to energy lobbyists who think she can prevail
  • Survey is an ‘automated’ phone poll that Landrieu’s campaign considers less credible than traditional surveys conducted by voice
  • ‘Her campaign is running on fumes,’ the pollster told MailOnline 

Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu is trailing her Republican challenger by a giant 16-point margin in a runoff for one of Louisiana’s two U.S. Senate seats, according to poll results obtained by MailOnline.

The survey, commissioned by GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy’s campaign, was leaked to media in order to fire a shot over the senator’s bow and send a signal to energy lobbyists that her ship is taking on water.

It suggests that Democrats’ worst fears have been realized even though Landrieu edged Cassidy by 1 percentage point on Election Day.

…

A second Republican candidate, Rob Maness, won 14 per cent of the vote on Nov. 4, enough to deny them both the 50-percent showing required to avoid a December 6 runoff. 

Now Maness has endorsed Cassidy, helping him erase his 1-point deficit with Landrieu and adding far more.

Cassidy is ‘trying to shut K Street down for Mary’ by selectively releasing the polling data, a source close to his campaign in Louisiana told MailOnline.

‘The energy folks, the lobbyists, keep trying to say she has a chance to win. That’s why it was leaked.’

Landrieu has lined up for what Republican Capitol Hill aides are calling the ‘Hail Mary XL,’ a legislative strategy to save her Senate seat by winning a vote to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring 700,000 barrels of oil daily from the Canadian province of Alberta to the Gulf coast.

From the information I’ve been able to gather, Landrieu is toast. Cassidy will bring the total number of GOP Senators to 54. It would be nice if McConnell would use that number as leverage dealing with Obama and the democrats but my expectation for that is…nil.

One question I have…why do we see these breaking news stories in the UK Daily Mail instead of a US news outlet? Our country is in sad shape when we have to use foreign sources for news here in the US.

***

I wrote yesterday about the push to expand Missouri’s medicaid using the three-year funding promised as part of Obamacare. What the advocates for that expansion don’t bother to tell you is that the state would be responsible for the added ocsts after that third year. Why is Jackson County and Truman Medical Centers in such dire straits? Increased cost of medical care compounded by the cost of complying with federal regulations.

Those increased cost are having another negative medical impact—rural hospitals.

Rural hospitals in critical condition

Rural hospitals serve many of society’s most vulnerable.

Jayne O’Donnell and Laura Ungar, USA TODAY

RICHLAND, Ga. — Stewart-Webster Hospital had only 25 beds when it still treated patients. The rural hospital served this small town of 1,400 residents and those in the surrounding farms and crossroads for more than six decades.

But since the hospital closed in the spring of last year, many of those in need have to travel up to 40 miles to other hospitals. That’s roughly the same distance it takes to get from Times Square to Greenwich, Conn., or from the White House to Baltimore, or from downtown San Francisco to San Jose.

Those trips would be unthinkable for city residents, but it’s becoming a common way of life for many rural residents in this state, and across the nation.

Since the beginning of 2010, 43 rural hospitals — with a total of more than 1,500 beds — have closed, according to data from the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. The pace of closures has quickened: from 3 in 2010 to 13 in 2013, and 12 already this year. Georgia alone has lost five rural hospitals since 2012, and at least six more are teetering on the brink of collapse. Each of the state’s closed hospitals served about 10,000 people — a lot for remaining area hospitals to absorb.

The Affordable Care Act was designed to improve access to health care for all Americans and will give them another chance at getting health insurance during open enrollment starting this Saturday. But critics say the ACA is also accelerating the demise of rural outposts that cater to many of society’s most vulnerable. These hospitals treat some of the sickest and poorest patients — those least aware of how to stay healthy. Hospital officials contend that the law’s penalties for having to re-admit patients soon after they’re released are impossible to avoid and create a crushing burden.

“The stand-alone, community hospital is going the way of the dinosaur,” says Angela Mattie, chairwoman of the health care management and organizational leadership department at Connecticut’s Quinnipiac University, known for its public opinion surveys on issues including public health.

The closings threaten to decimate a network of rural hospitals the federal government first established beginning in the late 1940s to ensure that no one would be without health care. It was a theme that resonated during the push for the new health law. But rural hospital officials and others say that federal regulators — along with state governments — are now starving the hospitals they created with policies and reimbursement rates that make it nearly impossible for them to stay afloat.

Low Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements hurt these hospitals more than others because it’s how most of their patients are insured, if they are at all. Here in Stewart County, it’s a problem that expanding Medicaid to all of the poorest patients -– which the ACA intended but 23 states including Georgia have not done, according to the federal government — would help, but wouldn’t solve.

“They set the whole rural system up for failure,” says Jimmy Lewis, CEO of Hometown Health, an association representing rural hospitals in Georgia and Alabama, believed to be the next state facing mass closures. “Through entitlements and a mandate to provide service without regard to condition, they got us to (the highest reimbursements), and now they’re pulling the rug out from under us.”

For many rural hospitals, partnering with big health systems is the only hope for survival. Some have resorted to begging large hospitals for mergers or at least money to help them pay their bills. But Douglas Leonard, president of the Indiana Hospital Association, said these days, “I’m not sure they can get anyone to answer the phone when they call.”

The article continues at the website. Obamacare does not just increase the cost of an individual’s medical care, it also reduces the reimbursement of those services to hospitals and physicians. In the end, we all suffer. The institutions with tighter cash flows are hit first and worse.

Wow! What a weekend.

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I had a real busy weekend. I had a real busy week. My shootin’ buddy and I spent Thursday at the range practicing for a pistol match coming up next month. Saturday night was a Friends of the NRA dinner and auction in H’ville. Then Sunday afternoon was the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance 25th Anniversary picnic.

I’m pretty much whooped.  Still…I’d do it again in a second.

***

The Kansas Senatorial race continues to be in the front of the news. I’ve had some friends ask me what the controversy is all about. It’s this, as briefly as I can explain.

There are (were) three candidates running for US Senator; Pat Roberts, the incumbent on the Republican Ticket, Chad Taylor on the democrat ticket, and Greg Orman, a democrat who the democrats wouldn’t let run against Taylor in the primary. Orman decided to run as an ‘independent.’ In reality, it’s two democrats running against one ‘Pub. Ordinarily, this would be a shoo-in for Roberts because Orman would split the democrat votes with Taylor.

Suddenly, the environment changed. Polls indicated that Orman was running better against Roberts than Taylor. To the democrats, this meant one of their candidates was a possible winner, especially since Roberts pissed off much of the grass-roots conservatives who had backed Milton Wolf. A significant percentage of those Wolf supporters declared they would either vote for Orman or stay home.

The democrats were now in a dilemma. Orman, a democrat in an independent’s costume, was ahead of Taylor. They decided to have Taylor quit. That would allow the democrats to vote for Orman instead of splitting their votes between the two democrat candidates.

The Kansas democrat leaders forced Chad Taylor to quit.

After a series of legal shenanigans, with the aid of their left-leaning KS Supreme Court, they got Taylor off the ticket. Bad news for Roberts. But Orman isn’t the clean-cut, scandal-free candidate the democrats and he projects. He is being sued for failure to pay royalties to another company for the use of their patented technology.

The establishment ‘Pubs are rallying around Roberts and Orman is facing more scrutiny from the national press. Surprise, surprise! Orman is keeping closed-mouth about what his political views?

Greg Orman, a political enigma, faces growing scrutiny in Kansas Senate race

By Philip Rucker September 28 at 8:53 PM

WICHITA — Greg Orman, the upstart Senate candidate threatening to unseat longtime Republican incumbent Pat Roberts in Kansas, says it’s liberating to run as an independent: “I can go to Washington as a problem solver, not a partisan.”

But not having a party also liberates Orman from taking positions — especially on controversial issues that might alienate partisans.

Greenlight the Keystone XL pipeline? Orman said he doesn’t have enough information to say yes or no.

What about gun control? He said gun restrictions should be “strengthened” but would not specify whether he backs an assault-weapons ban.

And on the biggest question of all — Would he caucus with Democrats or Republicans? — Orman insists he’s not sure.

Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, left, and independent candidate Greg Orman talk after a debate at the Kansas State Fair Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014, in Hutchinson, Kansas. (Charlie Riedel/AP)

“It’s not in the best interests for us to say that,” Orman said in an interview here last week.

Orman has said he would caucus with whichever party has the majority after November’s midterm elections. But what if the Senate is evenly divided and Orman’s decision swings the balance? He said that would be “a wonderful opportunity for Kansas.”

Orman’s rise has transformed deep-red Kansas into the year’s unlikeliest political battleground. Many voters say Roberts has lost touch with the state he’s represented in Congress since 1981.

Since Democratic nominee Chad Taylor withdrew his name from the ballot this month, Roberts has been in a two-man race with Orman, who has previous ties to the Democratic Party but preaches independence. Public polling has been unreliable, but both sides believe the race is very tight.

Orman, who entered the race in June, has surged on the strength of his pitch to fix a broken Washington without any allegiance to a political party. But now the enigma is under increasing pressure from voters to provide a clearer sense of his ideology and politics, while facing attacks from the Roberts camp over his business ties and Democratic past.

“I’ve been impressed with Greg so far, but we’re still in the ‘I’m an independent’ stage,” said Lynda Neff, 68, a retired teacher. “I’m ready to move past that and hear about some issues. . . . I will support him if he gives me a little more information.”

Perhaps the biggest test for Orman, a multi­millionaire investor who is partially funding his campaign, is surviving the intensifying public scrutiny of his business and personal relationships with Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs board member who was convicted in 2012 of insider trading and is serving a federal prison sentence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dre/politics/election-lab-2014

Election Lab: See our current forecast for every congressional race in 2014.

View Graphic

Roberts and his Republican allies have launched a barrage of attacks designed to make Orman appear untrustworthy. On the campaign trail in Kansas last week, a parade of top Republicans alleged that Orman is a liberal Democrat in disguise.

“Anybody with a liberal record like Greg’s . . . that’s not independence. That’s someone who’s trying to snooker you, Kansas,” Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee, said Thursday in Independence.

Palin’s 2008 running mate, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), told voters a day earlier in suburban Overland Park: “Let’s be honest — he’s a Democrat. He walks like a duck and he quacks like a duck and he is a duck.”

Robert J. Dole, a former Senate Republican leader and 91-year-old Kansas legend, said Monday night in Dodge City, “There’s a multimillionaire who claims he’s an independent, but really [he’s] in the other party.”

In Kinsley on Tuesday, after reporters asked whether he trusted Orman to govern as an independent, Roberts said, “All of a sudden, if there’s a metamorphosis and the caterpillar changed — why, I just don’t think that’s in the cards.”

Orman argues that the Republicans are reading him wrong. He said he voted for Obama in 2008, and public records show that in the middle of that decade he made donations mostly to Democrats, including Obama and Sen. Al ­Franken (Minn.). In 2008, he briefly ran for Senate against Roberts as a Democrat before dropping out.

The column by the Washington Post is long. You can read it completely on their website.

I was surprised that the Washington Post says the new Senate will be ‘Pub controlled, 62 to 48 given their history of biased reporting. Joni Ernst now leads Braley, 44 percent to 38 percent. Most of the polling over the last month or more has Ernst in the lead but the MSM claimed otherwise and called Iowa a ‘leaning blue’ state.

Des Moines Register: “The ground under Bruce Braley has shifted. The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate is 6 points behind his GOP rival, Joni Ernst, according to The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll of likely voters. Ernst leads 44 percent to 38 percent in a race that has for months been considered deadlocked…. One potential reason: Two-thirds of likely voters who live in the country are bothered by a remark he made about Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley that’s been perceived as besmirching farmers.”

Braley should have known that dissing farmers in Iowa is not a career-enhancing tactic.

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Wednesday’s Notes

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The news is filled with the riots, looting and arson occurring in and around Ferguson, Missouri. Rioters claim the police target blacks and that’s the reason for all the trouble. They claim blacks are arrested 34% more often than whites. The mainstream media and a state politician spread that bit of misinformation.

The truth is that the population of Ferguson and the surrounding area is 65% black. That means that it is a higher statical probability that more blacks will be meeting with police than whites. According to census data, the mean age of Ferguson is 33 years and the average income is $36,000 compared to Missouri’s state-wide average of $45,000. With that information, we can assume that the population of Ferguson, MO is mostly young, black and has lower incomes that the state’s average.

According to that same census bureau website, Ferguson’s crime rate is approximately 25% higher than the rest of the state. I’m not surprised more blacks are arrested in Ferguson than whites. The answer is that there are more blacks in Ferguson than other ethnic and racial groups.

I suppose that little bit of research is too difficult for the mainstream media to uncover.

***

If you weren’t aware, America’s manned space program is effectively grounded. The US has had no manned launch vehicles since the end of the shuttle program. NASA has to hitch a ride to the International Space Station from the Russians and with the current exchange of sanctions over Crimea and the Ukraine, that access will likely end…soon.

With that, what do we see in the news this morning? If Russia is the 1st in space, it now appears that communist China is second.

China To Send Orbiter To The Moon As U.S. Watches

Posted 08/12/2014 06:36 PM ETVisitors to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum view a depiction of space exploration on the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar...

Leadership: As our space program, once an example of American exceptionalism, now sits mainly in museums, Beijing’s ambitious program takes another leap forward toward an eventual return of man to the moon.

As the world unravels, efforts to leave it don’t seem very newsworthy, and efforts by our strategic rivals to do what we did decades before seem redundant and almost irrelevant to more immediate concerns. Yet China’s space program does matter, as it’s part of that country’s dream of world leadership and, yes, domination.

It represents a commitment to world leadership that we have lost under this administration.

Beijing sees its multibillion-dollar space program as a symbol of its rising global stature and mounting technical expertise as it builds a military with global reach and flexes its strategic muscle.

Its moon orbiter has been transported to the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in the southern province of Sichuan for launch later this year, according to a statement Sunday by China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

The orbiter will test technology for China’s ambitious Chang’e-5 mission, which aims to gather samples from the moon’s surface and return them to earth.

It will follow a free-trajectory path, circling behind the moon and then using its gravity to whiplash the orbiter back to earth, as our Apollo 13 did on its ill-fated moon mission.

It’s one more small step in China’s long march to the moon, which late last year saw China land a lunar rover.

The saddest part of all this is that when Obama is gone, the nation will be in such sad economic state that it will take decades to recover…and we’ll still be behind the others who will not stand still waiting for us to catch up.

***

Did you know that if you are conservative, a church-goer, an advocate for Right-to-Work and Voter-ID, own guns and believe in the Constitution that you are a “Neo-Confederate?” Yep, that’s right! It’s the new liberal name for us.

Liberals Urge Southern Secession on Gamechanger Salon

By: briansikma (Diary)  |  August 12th, 2014 at 11:06 AM

The nation would be better off if Southern states seceded from the union, and Republicans pushing for right-to-work, voter ID laws and other reforms are “neo-Confederates” according to a candid exchange between a major Democratic donor and liberal organizers on Gamechanger Salon. The forum, a secretive and exclusive digital gathering of over 1,000 leftwing leaders, activists and journalists, was recently made public by Media Trackers, and email exchanges between members offer fascinating insights into the group’s inner deliberations.

Gamechanger Salon participant Jon Stahl sparked a conversation last October about the role of the South in American politics when he posted a link to Michael Lind’s piece for Salon magazine entitled The South is Holding America Hostage. “I thought this was an impressive (if tough) piece of big-picture political strategy and prescription,” Stahl explained before remarking, “Would be interested to hear others’ opinions of whether he is on target or way off…and if so what that might imply.”

First to respond was Guy Saperstein, a wealthy California mega-donor to Democratic candidates and leftwing causes. “In the alternative, could we just let the South secede?” the part owner of the Oakland Athletics baseball team queried.

He was serious.

“My comment was not made in jest at all,” Saperstein wrote in a follow-up explanation. He expanded on his theory:

“For more than 100 years, the South has been dumbing down national politics, tilting the country in a conservative direction, supporting militarism, all while demanding huge financial subsidies from blue states. It would be 100% fine with me if the South was a separate nation, pursuing its own priorities and destiny. And if people like you succeed in blunting the conservatism of the South, more power to you.”

Saperstein is not a fringe activist hiding out on the far reaches of the left. He’s a well-heeled funder of Democratic campaigns, a former president of the Sierra Club Foundation, and founder of The Patriotic Millionaires, a group of self-conscious millionaires begging the government to raise their taxes.

Reached via email by Media Trackers, Saperstein doubled-down on his theory. Asked about the consequences for African Americans if secession became a reality, he said “secession would be a gradual process, giving any blacks who felt threatened time to relocate.”

According to Saperstein, civil rights victories “would not be lost for any blacks willing to relocate and the ones who relocated would do much better in their new environments.”

I’ve written about a possible future civil war before. Most, maybe all of my readers thought I was being facetious. I wasn’t. The column above proves that I’m not the only one who thinks about a breakup of the country. The difference is that I fear a civil war and will do my best to prevent one. On the other hand, liberals and democrats would welcome civil war believing they would come out on top.

If such a civil war occurs, the libs will be surprised that the ‘south’ is larger than they thought.

***

It’s always three…James Garner, Robin Williams, and Lauren Bacall. Rest in peace.

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