My muse is wandering around somewhere in the information wilderness and has not returned. It’s disgusted with all the liberal and democrat acts of lawfare and their attempts to eliminate or change a segment of American history.
There will likely be no post tomorrow. A shootin’ buddy and I are headed for the range to try out his new pistol, a S&W Shield. I need to hunt up some blasting ammo, too. I’ll return on Friday.
The Canadian Press – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures while addressing the 2015 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference in Washington, Monday, March 2, 2015
In less than an hour Bibi Netanyahu will speak before a joint session of Congress—at the invitation of Congress much to the chagrin of the democrats. He spoke yesterday before AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, laying the groundwork for today’s speech.
I’m keeping an ear on CSPAN. Mrs. Crucis is watching upstairs. John Kerry’s State Department is twitting passages from a radical Islamic cleric protesting Netanyahu. The cleric blames ‘Zionists’ for all the world’s ills.
I’m not surprised that Obama and his minions are siding the Islamists. All you need to do is read articles by the administration, listen to them on TV and on internet videos, listen to them being interviewed by the MSM. They’re all in bed with the Islamists.
This isn’t something Obama brought to government. Look at the remarks of Jimmah Cahtah and others over the years. They were, are, all siding with not only Islamists, but radical, America-hating Islamists.
Frankly, I don’t know why they support those who kill and plan to kill us. It’s psychotic. It could be they hate America, perhaps they are anti-Semitic, or, more likely, both. Regardless, Bibi will have his time before Congress concerning Obama’s efforts to allow Iran to build nuclear weapons. Bibi will warn Congress, again, and will say, I expect, that Israel reserves the right to strike in self-defense. When Iran and the Islamists say they will destroy Israel and kill all the Jews, we should take them at their words—and act accordingly.
But, the US will dither, blame Israel and inevitably, at some point, nukes will fly. Maybe today is the day Israel will announce they have nukes of their own. Seven nations, eight if the Norks finally make one that works, are known to have nuclear weapons. It is likely several more have them as well including Israel. Various intelligence agencies estimate that Israel has approximately 300 nukes of various sizes. South Africa had some but disassembled them, so they say, as did the former USSR republics of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine. Then there is Japan, South Korea and Taiwan that have the capability of building nukes but haven’t as far as we know. In South America, both Brazil and Argentina have been thought at various times to be building nukes.
Bibi will have his day before Congress, less those democrats who hate Israel. He will be eloquent and explain his position and ask the US to assist Israel in blocking Iran’s nuclear infrastructure to build a weapon. He will not succeed. The US will do nothing to assist Israel and everything to help the Islamists and our internal divide will deepen and broaden.
State Department Spokeswoman, Marie Harf.
I listened to the interview given by State Department spokesman, oops, spokeswoman, Marie Harf. After listening to her babble for a bit, I was struck with the realization that Ms Harf was the source of every blond joke I’ve ever heard. She continued to be the poster-girl of blond jokes by claiming, later to critics of her statements, that her remarks were, “too nuanced,” for the common people to understand.
I’m filing this episode of the liberal mindset under, “Reality beats fiction.”
Late yesterday, a Federal Judge in Texas issued a temporary restraining order against Obama Executive Order that game ‘amnesty’ for illegal aliens. The Judge is hearing a 26-state suit against Obama’s use of executive orders to bypass Congress, specifically opening the nations doors to millions of illegal aliens within and perched on our borders.
BAIER TRACKS: COURT SHAKES UP AMNESTY FIGHT ON HILL…
“As is so often the case, states lead the way. A lawsuit filed by 26 states against President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, took a big step forward. On Monday, a federal judge blocked the president’s actions granting legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen’s decision puts a freeze on the president’s plan, the first phase of which was supposed to begin Wednesday. While the administration will no doubt appeal the ruling, this decision could provide a legislative opening for the Homeland Security funding bill that is stalled in the Senate. The bill is being blocked by Democrats and would also be certainly vetoed by the President should it pass. So what is the way out of the standoff? The Republican argument may be to ask how they could fund anything that has been blocked by the courts and go full steam ahead on offense. Or, Republicans may be so encouraged about the chance for legal remedy that the looming showdown is drained of some of its urgency and move toward compromise. We’ll see what they choose.” – Bret Baier. — FOXNews Newsletter, February 17, 2015.
The White House says it will appeal.
***
There is a column posted on the American Thinker website that would be hilarious…if it weren’t so true. The subject? “Illegal aliens complain about life in suburbia.”
It seems that life here is sooo…difficult. They can’t drive because they can’t get licenses. If they settle away from urban areas, there aren’t any lawyers with immigration experience…and the lawyers that do, want to be paid! By the illegal aliens! Up front in many cases!
Not only that, but many schools have no or limited bilingual education. They seem to think children speak English!
Boo! Hoo!
Illegal aliens complaining about life in suburbia
By Pedro Gonzales, February 17, 2015
I think I’m recovered now. Our neighboring town had a Veteran’s Day parade on Saturday and I walked in it with Mrs. Crucis and some friends. The parade wasn’t too long, a mile and a half, perhaps, but the wind was strong and cool. According to my pedometer, we walked about 3,000 steps. I normally walk 4,000 steps, almost two miles, three times a week.
But, if you’ve ever walked in a parade, you know it is not a steady walk. The parade bunches up and you’re standing around waiting for the group ahead of you to move. Then they do, and you’re almost running to catch up. Repeat for the duration of the parade.
I think it was the cool wind and the approaching cold front that did me in. Temperatures overnight dropped to 16, locally last night. But today I’m inside perched next to my heater in my office and all is right in the world.
***
The Obamacare news continues to get worse. According to Rasmussen, 55% of those polled want Obamacare to be repealed. The latest news, is that Obamacare, again, targets a specific segment of the country with less benefits than others—the military. One of the features of Obamacare that Obama and the libs have been bragging is that your adult children, until they are 26, can be added to your, the parents, health insurance. That’s true…unless you are active or retired military. Perhaps, that denial is a good thing.
Military members, veterans missing out on key ObamaCare provision
FoxNews.com
One of the most touted benefits of President Obama’s health care overhaul law is the provision allows parents to keep their adult children on their health insurance until age 26.
However, Trace Gallagher reported on “The Kelly File” Monday, this benefit is not being extended to a significant group of Americans: members of the U.S. military.
TRICARE, the Department of Defense program that provides health coverage to active duty and retired military members and their families, only covers young adult dependents up until age 21, or age 23 if they are enrolled full-time in college.
TRICARE recipients can then purchase a plan for their young adult dependents, according to their website.
Air Force veteran Eddie Grooms said he was disappointed to learn he could not add his 21-year-old daughter to his insurance provided by the military, as he thought he had been promised under the health care overhaul.
“It’d be nice if they leveled with everybody and let them know so that people could make plans, because this is going to hit all, I mean it’s going to hit thousands of retirees over time,” Grooms said.
Jessie Jane Duff of Concerned Veterans for America told Megyn Kelly the reason the benefit has not been extended to military members is the rates under TRICARE are very low because they are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.
She said “unfortunately” this means adult children cannot be covered, saying there has to be some “give and take” for the reduced rates.
“We’ve been very fortunate because legislation was passed that exempted TRICARE from a lot of the ObamaCare standings, so that actually has benefited veterans to keep the rates that they’ve had,” Duff said.
***
If you’ve been watching the news from south of the border, Venezuela is back in the headlines. The communists are still in power and still as stupid as ever. Those of you who have read anything from Ayn Rand, will recognize the term, ‘looters.’ Venezuela has become a nation of looters supported in their looting by the country’s military.
In their latest adventure, the army seized some retail outlets and forced them to sell their merchandise at a loss. They now expect to do the same to other retailers. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that when a company is forced to sell at a loss, it will soon cease to exist. No profit, no company, and no jobs, either.
Venezuela Becomes A Nation Of Looters
IBD Editorial, Posted 11/11/2013 06:48 PM ET
Looters: Venezuelan troops storm a local electronics retailer in the name of enforcing “fair prices,” brazenly blaming the private sector for state policies. Sounds familiar — and not just because it’s a communist takeover.
With municipal elections just around the corner on Dec. 8, it’s no surprise to see Venezuela’s failing socialist government turning to pork-barrel handouts to lure voters — as it always has.
Shovel the goodies to the red-shirted low-information voters and gain just enough votes in upcoming elections to claim a dictatorship is really a democracy.
Not coincidentally, President Nicolas Maduro declared that Venezuela would celebrate the beginning of Christmas in October — to distribute goodies.
But there’s a new twist here: Venezuela is out of money to shovel pork. Its foreign reserves have fallen to $21.4 billion as oil prices slump. Instead of using its vast oil earnings to buy votes, as in the past, Venezuela’s Marxist government is now making do by stealing from Venezuela’s battered private sector.
Which is what brought the bizarre spectacle of the Venezuelan military occupation of Daka — the country’s five-store equivalent of Best Buy, loaded with the flat-screen TVs, computers and smartphones favored by looters everywhere.
As troops stood by, crowds looted one Daka store, stripping its shelves bare. Call it government by looting.
Or in reality, call it communism. Because such destruction of private property in the name of redistribution has been a feature of every communist takeover from Russia to China, to Vietnam, to Cuba.
Defending his government-of-looters, Maduro officially blamed the store for charging “unfair prices,” a preposterous statement since Daka’s prices weren’t inconsistent with the official inflation rate of 56% in an economy that must pay for 90% of its goods imports, including consumer electronics, with dollars.
There is even some speculation, by bloggers such as Miguel Octavio of the Devil’s Excrement, that the viciousness of the government action could be due to the company engaging in high-profit arbitrage on the country’s two-tier exchange rates.
There’s also no doubt the government was sending a message to other retailers not to raise prices by making an example of one of them. Message received.
But the bottom line is, horrendous government policies forced retailers to do what they have. It wasn’t Daka that created price controls or a corrupt two-tier exchange system that made the resulting inflation.
The black market currency rate is now 10 times higher than the official rate, meaning they’re on the verge of hyperinflation due to a government that can’t stop spending. This explains why imported basic commodities, such as chicken, milk and toilet paper, are now scarce, just as in the old Soviet Union, or in today’s Cuba.
Were Venezuela a true democracy, such a destructive economic record would bring down the ruling party.
But this is Venezuela. It has benefited not just from having the U.S. as its top oil customer and consumer goods supplier, but also from a lot of White House love — from President Obama’s and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s embrace of late strongman Hugo Chavez at a 2009 summit, to ex-President Jimmy Carter’s dishonest endorsement of Venezuela’s fraudulent 2004 recall, which the Bush White House meekly accepted.
And now the results: Venezuelan troops occupy electronics retailers while yelling about “fairness.”
Doesn’t this tale sound familiar? If you substitute Obama ‘phones, welfare EBT cards and Food Stamps, isn’t our federal government doing much the same? Delving into history, I hear the refrain, “BREAD and CIRCUSES!” The Roman emperors kept the Roman mob satisfied with bread and circuses—food and entertainment, (now you understand why the liberal elite controls Hollywood,) while looting the empire to pay for the bread and the circuses, and to quiet the mob. In the end, the empire could no longer pay, having been picked clean by Roman tax collectors and the Roman empire collapsed to the barbarians outside the empire…and the barbarians within.
Now, with Obama’s Redistribution of Wealth, we’re facing the same situation as did the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire is just a memory from history, its cities are a pile of rubble, some carefully preserved but most destroyed for the materials in them.
What will the United States be in a few hundred years? A viable nation leading the world, or a pile of picked rubble, destroyed by the liberal tax collectors and the Washington mob?
The Senate ‘Pub leadership sided with the dems and didn’t fight cloture on the Gang of Eight’s bill. McConnell and others thought it would be too much work to fight this monstrosity and caved—as usual.
The bill contains all the worst that could be imagined. Amnesty for 30 million illegals and their families and much, much more. It also has some surprises.
…and, more. The problem with these provisions is that they are all amendments and each amendment must be voted before the Senate and receive at least 60 votes. Given Harry Reid’s ham-fisted treatment of amendments on other bills, I doubt any contrary amendments, if any, will be presented for votes. Our best hope is that this entire bill dies on the Senate floor.
On top of it, Marko Rubio has destroyed his reputation as a conservative and any chance for higher office—or, perhaps, his re-election. He sold out to La Raza, hook, line and sinker. For all of his claims to conservatism and limited government, Rubio has proven that he will sell out those principles. He has lost our trust.
Rubio still claims that stiffer border security is in the bill. Obama has proved, many times, that he can ignore law at will and his lib syncopates in Congress will turn a blind eye on any such actions.
I don’t know if Rubio is a dupe or a willing accomplice. Either way, he cannot be trusted on any conservative issue—he’s proven that he, like McConnell, McCain, Graham, and Boehner, will sell us out on any issue.
There are so many items to post about today that it’s almost overwhelming. Where shall we start?
How about some bullet items.
As you can see, there are numerous subjects for a post. However, everyone is focused on the revelation that the NSA has been seizing call data for ALL (I’m still not sure that is accurate,) Verizon subscribers—and Verizon isn’t the only carrier involved!
What people are overlooking, is that this isn’t new. What is new is the volume of the data and the scope of the data seized.
The movies have misrepresented call tracing since the advent of the digital switch. Way back in the ’30s and ’40s, telephone switches were analog. In order to trace a call, you can to follow, trace a call, through the internal connections of the switch. It was a slow and laborious process.
With the advent and deployment of digital switches and modern call routing techniques, it’s much, much easier. A call detail record is created when the call is dialed. More data is added when the connection is made and additional data, timestamps, is added until the call is terminated. If either the originating or destination number is known, a carrier can retrieve the call data in seconds—a minute or two at most.
What is NOT available is the conversation.
You see, when digital switches were deployed in the ’60s and ’70s, the audio of the calls were digitalized, compressed, to better utilize and manage the telephone circuits between switches. If you tapped in on a circuit, you’d hear nothing. It’s digital data, not analog audio. The only place to tap is what is known as “the last mile,” the circuit between your home and the local switch. When wiretaps were granted, the taps had to be placed at or near the subject’s premises.
Digital central office and long distance switches weren’t designed to enable tapping and many, most perhaps, still aren’t. It’s extremely difficult. The FedGov, using FISA, asked the major telco carriers, in the early years of the 21st Century, to develop switches to enable tapping and to retrofit existing switches. It would be extremely expensive to retrofit the deployed switches and the carriers told to FedGov to pound sand.
The carriers did, as new switches were added and older switches replaced for added capacity, comply with the FedGov’s directives. Eventually, their networks will be replaced with switches that will have the capability of listening in on live conversations—but that time is still in the future. The transition will continue for several years, maybe a decade or more. Businesses just won’t replace a large, significant portion of their infrastructure at a whim of bureaucrats. The expense would put them out of business.
However, the FedGov has carriers over a barrel…and a club called the FCC. The FCC licenses telecommunications carriers and using the threat to withdraw that license, can coerce the carriers into doing whatever the Feds want—within some fiscal reason. That’s why the transition has and will take significant time.
So, we have a reprieve for awhile. I don’t know how long. Years, maybe? A decade, possibly? We must put that time into good use. First, by electing a CONSERVATIVE congress. Next, repeal the Patriot ACT and disband DHS, or, failing that, severely curtail their power and scope.
It’s not too late…yet, if we are to preserve out liberty.