op ed review 6/15
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
In an upset for the ages, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of
Virginia, the second-most powerful man in the House, was dethroned Tuesday by a
little-known, tea party-backed Republican primary challenger carried to victory
on a wave of public anger over calls for looser immigration laws.
GOP Leadership in 'Chaos' After Eric Cantor's Loss
"We're absolutely stunned."
“Why Cantor’s loss is especially bad news for big business”
Meet Dave Brat, an economics and ethics professor at
Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, who launched a long-shot -- and
ultimately successful -- bid to oust Cantor from his seat representing
Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.
Insurgents inspired by al-Qaeda rapidly pressed toward
Baghdad on Wednesday, confronting little resistance from Iraq’s collapsing army
and security forces, and expanding an arc of control that now includes a wide
swath of the country.
Veterans watch as insurgents undo their sacrifices in Iraq
“Foreign fighters are
attracted to Isis because of its utopian offering of fighting for a promised
Islamic state…….What is concerning is that the ability of Britain or the US to
influence this situation is negligible.”
Lies, lies. Former
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that President Obama only found
about the VA wait-list scandal from watching the news, but it turns out the
Obama administration knew about allegations of secret waiting lists at the
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as early as 2010,
“Central America Newspapers Tout Open US Door for Illegal
Minors”
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/central-america-illegal-children-newspapers/2014/06/10/id/576257#ixzz34LDkHkLh
In recent weeks, a tide of young, unaccompanied minors crossing the
Texas border illegally has pushed the US immigration system to its breaking point.
The Obama administration announced a program that will
provide attorneys for the young illegal immigrant children crossing in waves
over the U.S.-Mexico border.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/8/holder-seeks-legal-team-for-children-on-border/#ixzz349aBi622
An organization of former Border Patrol agents charged that the federal
government is deliberately arranging for the flood of immigrant children to
arrive in America for political purposes. “This is not a humanitarian crisis.
It is a predictable, orchestrated and contrived assault on the compassionate
side of Americans by her political leaders that knowingly puts minor illegal
alien children at risk for purely political purposes,” said the statement released
by the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers.
Border patrol agents say we’re now letting in teen age gang
members. “Agents who recognize the gang-affiliated tattoos of minors crossing
the border must treat them the same as anybody else. He says these people are
afforded the same rights provided to anyone crossing the border.” “I’ve
heard people come in and say, ‘You’re going to let me go, just like you let my
mother go, just like you let my sister go. You’re going to let me go as well,
and the government’s going to take care of us,’”
President Obama’s senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett
held a series of meetings with illegal immigrant activists during Obama’s first
term and concluded that “They are the best that we have.”
One of the five senior Taliban leaders exchanged for Sgt.
Bowe Bergdahl played a key role in 9/11.
But Hillary Clinton says the Taliban 5 are "not a
threat to the United States."
Bergdahl swap is latest last straw for top Democrats
frustrated with president’s leadership.
Confirmed by Wikileaks: Bowe Bergdahl deserted and tried to
contact the Taliban
The FBI announced Tuesday in Savannah,
Georgia that eighty-eight people have been charged in "one of the largest
federal food program frauds ever prosecuted. " In all, over $18
million was laundered in this way in at least nine cities in Georgia.”
“IRS Gave FBI 1.1
Million Pages Of Taxpayer Data To Encourage Prosecution Of Conservatives”
Attorney General Eric Holder says that the Boy Scouts of
America perpetuates “the worst stereotypes” by barring gay people from becoming
Scout leaders.
The Washington National Cathedral is welcoming the first
openly transgendered Episcopal priest to its altar this month.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is seeking a
conservative alliance among "like-minded" countries, aiming to
dismantle global moves to introduce carbon pricing, and undermine a push by US
President Obama to push the case for action through forums such as the G20.
Dogs are
conservative? A study shows “Dogs prefer
to EARN treats by solving problems, rather than receiving handouts.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2656101/Clever-boy-Dogs-prefer-EARN-treats-solving-problems-receiving-handouts.html#ixzz34T911qel
______________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Thomas Sowell 6/10
People are arguing
about what the United States got out of the deal that swapped five top level
terrorist leaders for one American soldier who was, at best, absent from his
post in a war zone. Soldiers who served in the same unit with him call him a
deserter. The key to this deal, however, is less likely to be what the United
States got out of the deal than it is about what Barack Obama got out of the
deal. If nothing else, it instantly got the veterans’ hospitals scandals off
the front pages of newspapers and pushed these scandals aside on television
news programs.
It was a clear
winner for Barack Obama. And that may be all that matters to Barack Obama. People
who are questioning the president’s competence seem not to want to believe that
any President of the United States would knowingly damage this country’s interests.
One of the problems
of many fundamentally decent people is that they find it hard to understand
people who are not fundamentally decent, or whose moral compass points in a
different direction from theirs. Many people who are painfully disappointed
with President Obama have no real reason to be. The man’s whole previous
history, from childhood on, was shaped by a whole series of people, beginning
with his mother, whose vision of America was very much like that of the
Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose church Barack Obama belonged to for 20 long
years.
Obama is not a
stupid man. There is no way that he could have sat in that church all that time
without knowing how Jeremiah Wright hated America, and how his vision of the
world was one in which “white folks’ greed runs a world in need.” Even if the
Reverend Wright had been the only such person in Barack Obama’s life — and he
was not — it should have been enough to keep him out of the White House.
“Innocent until
proven guilty” is a good rule in a court of law, which has the power to deprive
a defendant of liberty or life. But it is mindless and dangerous nonsense to
apply that standard outside that context — especially when choosing a President
of the United States, who holds in his hands the liberty and lives of millions
of Americans.
People who are
disappointed with Barack Obama have no right to be. It is they whom others have
a right to be disappointed with. Instead of taking their role as citizens
seriously, they chose to vote on the basis of racial symbolism, glib rhetoric,
and wishful thinking. Moreover, many are already talking about choosing the
next President of the United States on the basis of demographic symbolism — to
have “the first woman president.” And if she is elected on that basis, will any
criticism of what she does in the White House be denounced as based on
anti-woman bias, as criticisms of President Obama have been repeatedly
denounced as racism?
And what if we have
the first Hispanic president or the first Jewish president? Will any criticism
of their actions in the White House be silenced by accusations of prejudice? We
may yet become the first nation to die from a terminal case of frivolity. Other
great nations in history have been threatened by barbarians at the gates. We
may be the first to be threatened by self-indulgent silliness inside the gates.
As for Barack Obama,
you cannot judge any President’s competence by the results of his policies,
without first knowing what he was trying to achieve. Many wise and decent
people assume automatically that President Obama was trying to serve the
interests of America. From that standpoint, he has failed abysmally, both at
home and abroad. And that should legitimately call his competence into
question.
But what if his
vision of the world is one in which the wealth and power of those at the top,
whether at home or internationally, are deeply resented, and have been
throughout his life, under the tutelage of a whole series of resenters? And
what if his goal is to redress that imbalance? Who can say that he has failed,
when the fundamental institutions of this country have been successfully and
perhaps irretrievably undermined, and when the positions of America and its
allies on the world stage have been similarly, and even more dangerously, undermined
around the world?
________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“Republicans in Congress seem to be drawn toward the
immigration issue like a moth toward a flame. How turning illegal immigrants
into Democratic voters, while demoralizing the Republican base, will help
either the country or the Republicans is a mystery. If ever there was a
high-risk, low-yield investment, this is it.”
-Thomas
Sowell
_______________________________________________________________________
BOOKS, FILM
Political commentator and columnist Katie Kieffer’s first
book, “Let Me Be Clear: Barack Obama’s War on Millennials, and One Woman’s Case
for Hope”, is a searing and withering expose profiling the many ways in which
the president of the United States has misled, cajoled, and conned millennials
into voting for him. Through glib rhetoric and knowingly false campaign
promises, she argues, the 44th president built both of his national
campaigns on an edifice of lies and falsehoods for one singular purpose: the
attainment and consolidation of power.
_______________________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
“The climate change crusaders, who have been at it for a
quarter-century, appear to be going clinically mad. Start with the rhetorical
monotony and worship of authority (“97 percent of all scientists agree!”), add
the Salem witch trial-style intimidation and persecution of dissenters, and the
categorical demand that debate about science or policy is over because
the matter is settled, and you have the profile of a cult-like
sectarianism that has descended into paranoia and reflexive bullying. Never
mind the scattered and not fully suppressed findings of climate scientists that
the narrative of catastrophic global warming is overstated, like nearly every
previous predicted environmental apocalypse. It matters not. The recent
crescendo of scary government climate reports and dutiful media alarm has paved
the way for the Obama administration to throw its weight around in ways that
would make Woodrow Wilson blush.”
___________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
A “progressive” New York City principal has banned her
school's pre-kindergarten class from singing "Stand Up For the Red,
White, and Blue' at their graduation ceremony next week. When the class of four-year-olds was
rehearsing the song in their auditorium and waving mini American
flags, Hawkins halted the rehearsal and scolded the teachers, saying, “You
didn’t ask permission to do it.” The flags were also banned, as they were
unapproved materials, she said. In 2012, the same principal banned the singing
of “God Bless the USA,” reportedly telling teachers that it may offend other
cultures. She also eliminated the daily
singing of “America the Beautiful,” this past September.
Objecting to a recent column, a leftist woman's rights group
garnered 87,000 names on a petition urging The Washington Post to fire
Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist George Will.
Some dictionaries use “right-wing” in their definition of
bigotry.
____________________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
“…..the man who was compared by his abetters in the
mainstream media overculture in 2008 and 2009 to not just FDR, JFK and Lincoln,
but to Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, James Bond, and God Himself, was revealed
this past week to actually be a scrawny middle-aged man using tiny beginners’
weights in a Marriott hotel gym in Warsaw…..It’s amusing to see the sad little
man behind the giant face of Oz.”
Colon: “When
Metrosexuals Rule the Nation: Obama's
exercise video proves he's one”
Hillary Clinton, who recently raked in $5 million dollars in
speaking fees in 15 months, recounted to Diane Sawyer the sad tale of her
former destitution, telling her, “We came out of the White House not only dead
broke but in debt.” According to Clinton, she and her husband, who has made
over $100 million since leaving the White House, “struggled to, you know, piece
together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea’s education, you
know, it was not easy.”
“Here Are The Two Multi-Million Dollar Mansions Hillary Says
She “Struggled” To Pay Mortgage On”
The evidence is clear that Eric
Holder and his political subordinates have politicized the Justice Department
to an unprecedented degree — “worse than John Mitchell under Richard Nixon” one
former Justice Department lawyer told the authors.
“I attended the Texas Republican Convention held in Ft.
Worth, Texas from June 5-7 2014 as a delegate and the big takeaway was that the
Tea Party has effectively taken over the Republican Party in Texas....”
“World’s Greatest Spin Doctor Commits Malpractice on Himself”
IBD: “What is at the top of the Republican wish
list? A vibrant economy? An America strong and respected in the world?
Capturing the Senate? A Republican elected to the White House in 2016? Nah. The
GOP wants amnesty for illegal aliens. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.,
made that abundantly clear in an interview with a local Virginia TV station WTVR
last Friday.”
_________________________________________________________________________
WEBSITES
Causes of Death in 1900 vs. Today: One Chart Puts Firearms
& Natural Disasters Threat in Perspective
_________________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
How times change. William Jennings Bryan was the Democrat presidential
nominee in 1896. "We cannot insure
to the vicious the fruits of a virtuous life; we would not invade the home of
the provident in order to supply the wants of the spendthrift; we do not
propose to transfer the rewards of industry to the lap of indolence.” Today's Democrats do all those things that
Bryan rejected.
posted by gary at
12:55 PM
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