Posts on Sunday, May 12, 2019
Does Brian Sims hear himself?
replies
How to explain Brian Sims? None of the three most likely possibilities — that he is not very bright, that he is insane, that he is a fanatic — speaks very well of the Pennsylvania state representative, who for some reason decided to accost an elderly woman praying silently in front of an abortion facility, to film the attack and then to boast about it on Twitter. It is tempting to lean toward stupidity as an explanation for Mr. Sims’ shenanigans, if only because that is the most statistically likely
As a mother, there are many things I hope to teach my children. Sometimes lessons happen in conversations, and other times they take root through lived experiences — including challenging, adversarial ones. The best learning takes place, I’ve found, when conversations and experiences come together and my children see words turn into actions. On Holy Thursday, April 18, I went to the Planned Parenthood in downtown Philadelphia to pray with my two teenage daughters and one of their friends. It was important for us to be there in person, standing in front of the
Up until now, Brexit has been a dreay spectacle to watch because Britain´s Tory leadership seems to be botching it so badly. What´s so hard about just pulling up stakes and getting out? That was what the voters voted for. Doesn´t ´leave´ mean leave? There have been so many yes-but failures and failures to reach a sign-out deal that one almost doesn´t want to watch. Why is this so hard for Britain´s political leaders, now in talks with each other to cut a deal, to understand? The latest news suggests that something big is happening
Taylor Schertz stayed on the move as she considered the four pig carcasses dangling in front of her, their hooves pierced by gleaming silver hooks. A clockwise sweep to the left to gauge their exposed innards. A dip back to the right for a better view of the flanks dotted by inspection stamps. A plunge forward to inspect each veined hide up close.
John Durham, US Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced Friday that a federal grand jury in New Haven returned a 16-count indictment charging Gary Joseph Gavelle, AKA Roland Prejean, 51, with threatening to kill President Trump and other federal and state officials. According to the indictment, in September of 2018, used mail, email and telephone to threaten to kill and harm officials, including President Trump. Graville sent a letter threatening to kill President Trump — the envelope contained a white powdery substance with a handwritten message that said, “You Die.” The white powdery substance turned out to be a
Laura Bush´s mother and the Bush twins´ grandmother has passed away. Jenna Welch, who is the namesake of Jenna Bush Hager, died on Friday at age 99 at her home in Midland, Texas. The Bush family took to Instagram on Sunday and posted tributes to Welch in honor of Mother´s Day (Photos) ´Waking up thinking of my precious namesake, Jenna Welch who passed away Friday,´ Bush Hager wrote to her 917,000 followers.´How lucky I was to be named after a woman who taught me how to slow down and appreciate every bird, and every plant in West Texas.´She read us
Yankees fans are calling for a boycott in response to the team’s banning of Kate Smith’s version of God Bless America. The team ditched the late singer’s rendition after a they learned Smith had also sung some controversial songs about blacks back in the 1930s. According to the New York Post Yankees fans have been bombarding social media with a multitude of criticism for the team’s decision to ban the singer from Yankee Stadium. For instance, one fan wrote, “boycotting the Yankees until Kate Smith is back, otherwise I am kissing a half century of loyalty goodbye.”Die-hard Yankees fan James
My mother is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat from Oakland, California. My father is a lifelong Republican who hails from Omaha, Nebraska. They made it work. Both aged ninety-one, they just celebrated their seventieth anniversary. Mom crossed party lines and joined Dad twice in her presidential voting history, casting ballots for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. Dad voted for Mom’s candidate once, John F. Kennedy, in 1960, though he would later vote for JFK’s opponent that year, Richard Nixon, twice, in 1968 and 1972. Dad has been known to sit out elections because he didn’t like the choices. Mom, who grew from
Boy howdy, Maria Bartiromo has the big picture of the 2015/2016 political weaponization of the intelligence apparatus exactly right. In this interesting interview with Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham both Bartriromo and Graham discuss the scale and scope of the 2015/2016 effort to stop Trump. Interestingly, in a shift of tone, Senator Graham outlines what this surveillance operation means when contrast against the structures of our constitutional government. (Video) Traditionally Lindsey Graham would bury any issue adverse to the institutions of the DC administrative state. So there’s two possibilities here: (A) Graham has fundamentally changed his outlook toward the dangers
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s former chief of staff Josh Holmes, still a top ally of the Kentucky Senator, ripped a rogue subpoena from Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) to President Donald Trump’s eldest son Donald Trump, Jr., on Sunday. Appearing on a panel on Fox News Sunday, Holmes said that the president’s family has been “harassed” too much and predicted that the Senate will not enforce the subpoena in any way against Trump, Jr. “Look, in terms of the president’s family, I think we can all agree that they have been harassed far beyond where they
LOS ANGELES — The mayor of Los Angeles was attempting to praise Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the press, but Mr. Biden’s aides were more focused on shooing the press away. At the end of a made-for-cameras lunch he shared with Mr. Biden at a taco stand last week, Mayor Eric Garcetti had to raise his voice over a phalanx of Biden staff members, who were attempting to end the question-and-answer session between the former vice president and about 40 reporters and photographers swarming their table. “I want to say one last thing,” the mayor twice said over the din
The USS Abraham Lincoln, now deployed to the Middle East, is meant to be symbolically visible to the press but not to the Iranians. The Lincoln, like the rest of the surface fleet operating under the doctrine of "Distributed Lethality" has a fair chance of remaining unseen by enforcing very strict emission controls and relying on passive detectors and networked remote sensors to provide situational awareness. (Snip) Networked sensors make it possible for some other asset, not necessarily the ships themselves, to be the "eyes of the fleet" until the time comes to uncloak. To find American units the enemy
Kamala Harris has always had a problem with authenticity - dating from her political start at Willie Brown´s knee, so to speak, to her claim that she went to a racism-infested Berkeley high school in the 1980s, to her claims to smoking pot as a ´Jamaican´ thang, something her real Jamaican father publicly corrected her on. Now she´s stepped in it again, posing in an apron and pearls and perfect makeup to whip up some of her famous jerk chicken marinade in her kitchen for her husband´s Twitter feed. Twitchy has some choice tweets
US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are likely to meet during a G20 summit in Japan at the end of June and discuss trade, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow says. "Let me repeat again the strong possibility that the two presidents will meet in Japan at G20," Kudlow told Fox News Sunday, adding there were no other fresh talks scheduled between Beijing and Washington for now. (Snip) Over the past couple of weeks, China had backtracked from some its commitments, Kudlow said. The sticking point right now was to ensure Beijing put the changes it had promised into law, he added.
The bag police
replies
If left unchecked, politicians would allow America’s Nanny State to grow to immeasurable proportions. Government bureaucrats and elected officials believe they know better than we mere mortals when it comes to making personal choices about health care, child rearing, diet, smoking and countless other subjects. The environment is another favorite vehicle for proponents of the Nanny State. Straws, styrofoam and coffee pods have all been recently targeted by green groups. Some jurisdictions have banned plastic shopping bags. And if New Jersey legislators have their way, paper grocery bags would be outlawed, as well.
The Brexit Party will earn more votes than Labour and the Conservatives combined in the European Parliament elections, and could even beat the Tories in a General election, two extraordinary polls revealed this morning. In an Opinium poll in the Observer, focused on this month´s European elections, Nigel Farage´s new party is predicted to hoover up 34 per cent of the vote. The same poll gave Labour 21 per cent and put the Tories in a miserable fourth place with 11 per cent.
Earlier this month, California began to join the growing chorus of Democrat-run states that are restricting which candidates may be listed on the presidential ballot. Normally, Democrats decry any limits on ballot access, be they for candidates or voters, but this bill is different. Why? Because it is an undisguised attempt to keep Donald Trump off the ballot, and when Trump enters the equation, his opponents throw all other calculations out the window. The bill is dressed up as a law to compel the president to release his tax returns, but it is really a form of nullification
Dennis Rodman and others accused of stealing 400-pound crystal from yoga studio in Newport Beach
replies
A Newport Beach yoga studio claims former NBA star Dennis Rodman entered the business twice in two days this week and helped other people, including a former employee of the studio, steal more than $3,500 in merchandise, including a 400-pound amethyst crystal. Ali Shah, who with his wife, Ariana, owns Vibes Hot Yoga at 100 W. Coast Highway, said he watched the events unfold on live security video. Shah said a man whom he identified as Rodman walked into the shop with a former Vibes employee and another man and woman just before the shop was scheduled
Sunday on ABC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) discussed a report from The New York Times on questions of former vice president Joe Biden’s potential conflict of interest.(Snip) STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, lets start where Chairman Schiff just left off right there that perhaps Congress should consider making it illegal to engage foreign governments, foreign assistance in campaigns. You agree? PAUL: Well I think the American people will be shocked and dismayed to know that Joe Biden’s son was making $50,000 a month just a couple of months after he was dishonorably discharged from the
LOS ANGELES — No mayor has ever ascended directly to the White House. So, Pete Buttigieg’s surprising performance in the Democratic primary has been met with a dose of excitement in the nation’s city halls — along with some humility.(Snip) “Everybody’s going to laugh at him” if he runs, said Doug Herman, a Democratic strategist. “The irony is that the South Bend mayor is being taken seriously, and the New York mayor’s not.” And it isn’t just de Blasio. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who considered running for president before demurring earlier this year, has been asked more than
Nigel Farage just totally destroyed a BBC interviewer on TV this morning. And, in doing so, Farage reminded us exactly why his Brexit Party is flying so high in the polls, why he’s being tipped as a future prime minister, and why the current shambles of a Conservative party is so inadequate to the task of beating him… Interviewer Andrew Marr began by making the huge mistake of treating Farage like the BBC treats all politicians to the right of Lenin: with unutterable contempt, as if he were a dangerous idiot with wacky views which no civilised person could
Meeting my childhood hero Lee Majors, I am gripped with a sudden urge to make a confession. In the Seventies, when he was the biggest star on global television, I worked on a market stall in Manchester selling unauthorised Six Million Dollar Man T-shirts. So when, 40 years later, I meet him, I feel obliged to tell him of my foray into contraband. ‘Oh so it was you,’ he smiles. ‘You’re the reason I’m not sitting on my own private island. You’re why I’m still working at my age.’It is hard to exaggerate what a figure Majors, now 80, cut
Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) proclaimed America could not survive another four years of Donald Trump as president. Schiff said, “I don’t think this country could survive another four years with a president like this who gets up every day trying to find new and inventive ways to divide us.” He added, “He doesn’t seem to understand that a fundamental aspect of his job is to try to make us a more perfect union, but that’s not at all where he’s coming from. He’s going to be defeated.
Google´s bias towards left-wing media outlets has been laid bare by an algorithm which detected that it favors sites including CNN and The New York Times over others. According to data compiled by researchers from Northwestern University, the search engine promoted those sites over others repeatedly in November 2017. Of the 6,302 articles that appeared in Google´s ´top stories´ page that month after a term was searched, more than 10 percent were by CNN. The New York Times was the second most favored and accounted for 6.5 percent of articles. The Washington Post was third with 5.6 percent. By contrast, Fox
Rose Bove is willing to put her money where her mouth is. So in addition to telling friends about her support for President Trump, she’s been donating to his campaign. “It’s dribs and drabs,” said the Staten Island resident. “I give $3 here, $5 there.” But it all adds up.(Snip) More than 45 percent of the itemized individual contributions to Trump’s campaign for the first three months of the year came from women, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group that tracks money in US contests. Woman accounted for nearly $1.5 million in Trump contributions.
When I was young and brash and full of dreams for the future (and in the process of making them come true), had anyone told me I would embrace motherhood joyfully, I would have scoffed.(Snip) Somehow, in these moments, you are finally in touch with a love so intense that you could not have imagined it existed. Somehow, when you hear childish peals of laughter after you blow raspberries on a chubby toddler stomach, your delight surpasses all other forms you have experienced. Somehow when you watch your first child walk out your front door
Las Vegas— Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg described Saturday his public coming out as a gay man in 2015 and how the exclusion he experienced made him conscious of what it means to belong and the need to overcome divisions. The 37-year-old described “a crisis of belonging in this country” experienced by LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, people of color, people with disabilities, workers and more and the need for “hopeful and audacious voices” to unite people in a changing time. “What every gay person has in common with every excluded person of any kind is knowing what it’s
‘Heartbeat’ abortion bans advance in South, Midwest: ‘For pro-life folks, these are huge victories’
replies
If a new Mississippi law survives a court challenge, it will be nearly impossible for most pregnant women to get an abortion there. Or, potentially, in neighboring Louisiana. Or Alabama. Or Georgia. The Louisiana legislature is halfway toward passing a law-like the ones enacted in Mississippi and Georgia-that will ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, about six weeks into a pregnancy and before many women know they’re pregnant. Alabama is on the cusp of approving an even more restrictive bill.(Snip). Their hope is that a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court will approve, spelling the end
Actress and former model Peggy Lipton, who rose to stardom in the late 1960s on the counterculture police series "The Mod Squad" and later starred on TV´s "Twin Peaks," has died. Her death from cancer was announced Saturday by Kidada and Rashida Jones, her daughters from a marriage to famed music producer Quincy Jones. "She made her journey peacefully with her daughters and nieces by her side," Lipton´s daughters said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. "We feel so lucky for every moment we spent with her." Born in New York on Aug. 30, 1946, Lipton began modeling
Oh gosh, this is funny. Politico had a phone interview with President Trump where they asked him for opinion of Democrat candidate Pete Buttigieg. President Trump responded with a one-liner: …“Alfred E. Neuman cannot become president of the United States.”So immediately everyone starting to look at the Mad Magazine character and compare the images. Too funny, Pete Buttigieg really does look like Alfred E Neuman. Making things funnier, Buttigieg had no idea who the character was.
Something extraordinary happened at Harvard yesterday: a black professor who had done nothing wrong was removed from a prestigious position that carries the title of “dean.” In the process, the implicit pecking order among grievance-mongering identity groups was clarified, even though fig leaves were employed to provide deniability to the administrators who delivered the blow. (snip) The non-renewal of Sullivan’s position was the prerogative of Harvard College’s Dean Rakesh Khurana, and had no formal input from the Faculty of Law, where Sullivan and his wife actually work
We just got a glimpse of the coming lines of defense for the deposed political cabal that formerly ran the FBI, as well as the limits of loyalty among them. Former FBI General Counsel James Baker spoke in public Friday, before a very friendly crowd at the Brookings Institution, where James Comey´s pal Benjamin Wittes, a fellow there, organized a public event where the two men spoke. He revealed some useful indications of what’s going on among the cabal that weaponized the FBI’s counterintelligence apparatus against candidate and then President Donald Trump.
Recently release FOIA documents into the special counsel team of Robert Mueller reveal the remarkable trail of a 2017 entrapment scheme conducted by Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann to target George Papadopoulos.Before digging into the details it is important to note this is a DOJ/FBI entrapment operation being conducted in 2017 by the special counsel; this is not prior to the 2016 election. (Snip) In 2017 George Papadopoulos and his wife Simona were approached in Greece by a known CIA/FBI operative, Charles Tawil. Mr. Tawil enlisted George as a business consultant, under the auspices of energy development interests, and
In two separate court filings Roger Stone is challenging the DOJ to produce evidence of their predicate claim the Russians “hacked” the DNC servers. The first filing is a motion to compel [SEE HERE] and requests the DOJ provide unredacted documents to support their framework of evidence that Russian’s “hacked” the DNC. The second filing is a motion to suppress [SEE HERE] any downstream evidence, extracted by the use of search warrants, built upon upon the predicate claim of Russians “hacking” the DNC.In essence Roger Stone is challenging the U.S. government to prove the DNC
As Spygate proceeds to its certain conclusion -- the trials of those who engaged in this scandalous coup attempt -- we receive the details of the scheme only in dribs and drabs. Too many were involved and have too much to lose at this point by not revealing to the investigators their role in exchange for more lenient treatment, which is why I believe all will soon be revealed. So for the moment let’s turn to the broader picture that explains in large part why so many officials were so determined to keep Donald Trump from the White House and
A former U.S. Air Force pilot famous for dropping candy to starving children during the Berlin Airlift of 1948 and 1949 has returned to the German capital as a guest of honor 70 years after the end of the crisis. Gail Halvorsen, 98, received a hero´s welcome as he donned his military uniform, signed autographs, and posed for photos with city residents on Saturday. Halvorsen became known as the ´Candy Bomber´ after inventing the idea to airdrop small bags of sweets to children in West Berlin, who were going hungry after the Soviet Union blocked railway, road and canal access
On Friday, Pras Michel, a rapper for the group ‘The Fugees,’ was indicted by the U.S. government for funneling millions of dollars of foreign money to Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. In a DOJ statement, the feds announced Michel and a Malaysian financier were charged with four counts “for conspiring to make and conceal foreign and conduit campaign contributions.” Michel, 46, and Low Taek Jho, 37, aka”Jho Low,” were charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and for making foreign and conduit campaign contributions. Michel also was charged with one count of a scheme to conceal material facts and
It is stunning to think this was happening in America today. It’s as if there is NO opposition party to the radical Democrats in Washington DC. Thank God for President Trump and HUD Director Dr. Ben Carson. Illegals will no longer qualify for free housing paid for by American taxpayers. (Photo) FOX News reported: The Trump administration on Friday moved forward with a proposed rule to make it harder for illegal immigrants to access federally subsidized housing — the latest crackdown by the administration on immigrants who use public assistance. The rule, proposed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development
In June of 1965, I graduated from high school in Knoxville, left my job as a bagboy at the A&P, and became a salesman at Sears, making $1.25 an hour. I worked full-time that summer and part-time after starting at the University of Tennessee in late September. I have enjoyed shocking students at U.T. in recent years by telling them it was $90 a quarter my freshman year — $270 for the school year. Telling students about my tuition has allowed me to then tell them a simple but important lesson that they have seemingly never been taught: that costs
Former Texas congressman and 2020 Democratic primary candidate Robert "Beto" O’Rourke is in a tough spot. There is no real, animating principle behind his White House bid — nothing deeper than “Hey, why not me?” — and the people who billed him last year as the latest, greatest, most exciting political prodigy since former President Barack Obama have taken notice. Never mind that O’Rourke’s vacuity was obvious when he ran against Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. How major newsrooms managed to miss this even as they built up the Democratic candidate as God’s gift to the electorate is anyone’s guess.
America: #56 in Mass Shootings
replies
That the U.S. leads the world in mass shooting events, and that the cause is our liberal gun laws, are articles of faith on the Left. Barack Obama, for example, said: The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world. This belief, while pervasive in our culture, is untrue. John Lott and Michael Weisser explode the myth, while at the same time demolishing a widely-cited but bogus “study” by one Adam Lankford: Lankford’s claim received coverage
The Real Democratic Agenda
replies
And you thought Democrats won the House out of fear Republicans would drop coverage of preexisting conditions. That they wanted to spend this Congress addressing the cost of prescription drugs, building roads and bridges, resolving the legal status of DACA recipients, expanding gun background checks. Don´t be silly! Rashida Tlaib let spill the real Democratic agenda back in January, when she said they were going to "impeach the motherf—er." Democrats have a problem. The base wants to impeach President Trump, ASAP, but the public does not.
Abortion Racism in Pennsylvania
replies
Democrats are losing it over abortion. Sure, they’ve long been bad on the issue, but they’re suddenly escalating the vitriol. And by “Democrats,” I’m referring to elected ones. You could always find unhinged “pro-choice” liberals doing vulgar things. Elected Democrats, however, have tended to show a little more restraint. Not anymore. Look at Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York or Gov. Ralph Northam in Virginia, the latter of whom generously promises that an infant that survives an abortion will be “kept comfortable” amid final gasps without attempts at resuscitation. In Alabama, Democratic state rep. John Rogers
For the third time in her life, Hillary Clinton toured the nation, hoping to be loved. Hoping to break the cycle that the more people see of her, the less they like her. The third time wasn´t the charm. This weekend, the Clintons took the Hill and Bill Tour to The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., in what amounts to home turf for them these days. Thanks to low demand, ticket prices plummeted to as low as $2 each. And pundits who remark on the tour inevitably point out that she didn´t visit Wisconsin this time, either.
America needs a true opposition party. Instead, it has a crazed resistance movement stuck in 2016. Consider the evidence. Democrats in Congress are acting like teenagers auditioning for a school play. Rep. Jerry Nadler, finally in a starring role after decades in the shadows, is trying to gin up outrage at President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr but his amateur theatrics bear no relation to reality. Nadler’s insurmountable problem is that he wants to make the report of special counsel Robert Mueller something it’s not.
WASHINGTON — The witness rose from her seat, raised her right hand and swore to tell the truth before Congress. But four words were missing: “So help me God.” In the House of Representatives, to the winner go the spoils, and Democrats, the new decision makers, control everything, including what legislation gets a vote and the minutiae of procedural choices, such as whether witnesses must utter the traditional plea for divine aid. Democratic chairmen and chairwomen of several key committees have deemed no such entreaty is necessary.
IN THE LAST WEEK OF APRIL, nearly 23 percent of all traffic to news sites tracked by web analytics firm Parse.ly came from search engines. Google alone accounts for nearly half of external referral traffic—traffic, that is, that comes from platforms, apps, and other outside sources— to news sites. Together with the fact that Facebook referral traffic is on the wane, this means that Google’s search algorithm is now perhaps the most powerful mediator of online attention to news. But for all the influence Google has in directing attention, we know painfully little
A reporter declined to reveal his source. Then police showed up at his front door with guns.
replies
Bryan Carmody, a freelance reporter in San Francisco, awoke Friday to the sounds of someone trying to break into his house. About 10 officers from the San Francisco Police Department were bashing the front gate of his home in the Outer Richmond neighborhood with a sledgehammer, he said. It was just after 8 o’clock in the morning. Carmody called out and said he would let them into the house. The officers showed him a search warrant and proceeded to go through his home — from “top to bottom” he says — with their guns drawn.
A “We Build The Wall” GoFundMe campaign quickly raised $22 million in online donations, but months after its launch and still no construction, donors are beginning to ask what’s being done with their money. In the run-up to what became the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, all related to a debate over border wall spending, Purple Heart veteran Brian Kolfage launched a GoFundMe in December calling on people to privately fund a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. The activist currently promises that his campaign would “do it for a fraction” of the cost
National Rifle Association Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre billed the group’s ad agency $39,000 for one day of shopping at a Beverly Hills clothing boutique, $18,300 for a car and driver in Europe and had the agency cover $13,800 in rent for a summer intern, according to newly revealed NRA internal documents. The documents, posted anonymously on the internet, provide new details of the clothing, travel and other expenses totaling more than $542,000 that Ackerman McQueen Inc. alleges Mr. LaPierre billed to it. The travel expenses allegedly include more than $200,000 in “Air Transportation” costs
Andy Surabian, spokesman for President Donald Trump’s eldest son Donald Trump, Jr., said on Saturday that Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) should officially leave the Republican Party and join the Democrat Party because he has proven he is not a Republican by issuing a rogue subpoena of Trump, Jr. “You know why there has been serious backlash?” Surabian said when asked about the near-universal backlash against Burr from across the GOP, including by several of his own committee membe, in response to the subpoena issued in contravention of the Senate Majority Leader’s statement that the investigation is