Sunday, April 26, 2015

op ed review 4/26



THIS WEEK’S NEWS
National Debt Tops $18 Trillion: Guess How Much You Owe? Answer  $154,161

Liberals Sputter As Scott Walker Proposes Bold New Immigration Platform.  “He’s not afraid to push for a legal immigration system that doesn’t box out American workers with a massive influx of inexpensive foreign labor.”

Obama burns 9000 gallons of fuel celebrating Earth Day
“Obama emitted 5 times the carbon in a day that most of us do in a year - to make a speech on climate change.”

How low can TV go?  “New Spouse-Swap Series Has Married Couples Sleeping With Strangers...”
More signs of decline:  Willie Nelson plans to roll out his own brand of marijuana that he intends to make "the best on the market."

Here they come:  “The FBI is investigating a possible ISIS-inspired terrorist threat in the United States, law enforcement officials said Saturday.”

One of the biggest benefactors to the Clinton Foundation has been trading with Iran and may be in breach of U.S. sanctions imposed on the country.
Coincidence?  “Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation as Russians Pressed for Control of Uranium Company”

Mitt Romney has finally taken the gloves off. If only he had done so in 2012, a lot more people in Syria, Libya, and elsewhere would be alive, and the American economy and Supreme Court would be in far better shape……Romney:  ” I’ve got to tell you, I was stunned by it. I mean, it looks like bribery. I mean, there is every appearance that Hillary Clinton was bribed to grease the sale of, what, 20% of America’s uranium production to Russia, and then it was covered up by lying about a meeting at her home with the principals, and by erasing emails.”

Exactly two years after President Obama's bid for gun control following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting died in Congress, a new poll has discovered a huge shift in public opinion to backing Second Amendment gun rights and away from controlling gun ownership. The reason: Americans now believe having a gun is the best way to protect against crime, 63 percent to 30 percent.

The VA sends veterans’ personal medical and financial information directly to the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which can seize their guns in home raids, if they are thought to be “dangerous.”

Red ink could kill California Obamacare

President Ronald Reagan is one of the most famous Americans of the 20th century. Between his acting career and his eight years as president, you would think that his face would be instantly recognizable to anyone with even a basic knowledge of recent American history.  Among college students you would be wrong.

That was then, this is now:  Watch Hillary Clinton in 2004 defend heterosexual marriage as a 'fundamental bedrock principle' going back "into the mists of history" that was primarily about raising children.

GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio says there is NO constitutional right to gay marriage. “It doesn’t exist. There is no federal constitutional right to same sex marriage…..You have to have a ridiculous reading of the U.S. constitution to reach the conclusion that people have a right to marry someone of the same sex.”
Thousands march in US capital against gay marriage

Republican 2016 contenders promise to restore strong U.S. support for Israel

A series of pro-life banners of images of 11-week-old fetuses in the womb saw mere hours of daylight at the University of Southern California on Tuesday prior to being removed by the same university organization that had initially approved them. They were replaced with hand-written signs reading, “Women deserve the right to choose.”
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Michael Goodwin  4/24/15
A passage from Ernest  Hemingway fits the moment. In “The Sun Also  Rises,” one character asks,  “How did you go bankrupt?” and another responds: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” The exchange captures Hillary Clinton’s red alert. She’s been going politically bankrupt for a long time, and now faces the prospect of sudden collapse. If she’s got a winning defense, she better be quick about it. The ghosts of scandals past are gaining on her and time is not on her side.

The compelling claims that she and Bill Clinton sold favors while she was secretary of state for tens of millions of dollars for themselves and their foundation don’t need to meet the legal standard for bribery. She’s on political trial in a country where Clinton Fatigue alone could be a fatal verdict. After 25 years of corner-cutting and dishonest behavior, accumulation is her enemy. Each day threatens to deliver the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It may already have happened and we’re just waiting for public opinion to catch up to the facts.
Meanwhile, her Houdini skills are being tested big time.

Hillary’s one big advantage is obvious — she’s the only serious contender for the Democratic nomination, and she beats most GOP opponents in head-to-head matchups. But everything else weighs against her, including momentum. Start with the fact that the sizzling reports of corrupt deals are coming from major news organizations that reliably tilt left. With supposed friends making the case against her, the tired Clinton defense that the ­attacks are partisan hit jobs has been demolished.

And after digging up so much dirt, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Reuters, Bloomberg News and others are not likely to be content with stonewalling and half-truths, especially given her recent lies about missing e-mails. No wonder the Times editorial page called on her to provide “straightforward answers” to the accusations.

I don’t see how she can meet that test. The outlines of cozy relationships and key transactions are not in dispute. The only issue is whether the millions the Clintons got amount to a quid pro quo. On the face of it, that’s certainly what they look like. There are several deals we know of, and more could emerge, that put money in the Clintons’ pockets while helping businesses, including some loathsome international figures, make a killing. It is preposterous to argue that it’s all a coincidence.

Her position was further undercut when the family foundation announced it would refile five years of tax returns. In one three-year period, it omitted tens of millions in foreign contributions, reporting “zero” to the IRS. In another two-year period, it admitted to overreporting government grants by more than $100 million. A foundation aide described the errors as “typographical,” which is bizarre — and par for the Clinton course. To concede the errors during the firestorm must mean keeping them quiet was an even greater liability.

Sooner rather than later, Hillary will have to meet the press — but what can she possibly say to alter the story lines? If history is a guide, she’ll insist she did nothing wrong, offer ambiguous answers to specific questions, take offense at persistent reporters and end by playing the victim. She’ll follow up with a fund-raising pitch for money to keep “fighting for ­everyday Americans.”

To imagine that scenario is to realize it won’t fly, but I’m not sure what other options she has. She can’t tell the truth. It will sink her. Nor can she credibly demand to be trusted, given her past. A recent Quinnipiac poll finds 54 percent of Americans already say Clinton is not honest or trustworthy.

Swing-state surveys show similar lopsided findings and each new sordid revelation will deepen the trust deficit. At this point in her life, it would take a near-miracle to change people’s basic view of her. Her best hope is that a missing ingredient remains missing — a Democrat who could take the nomination from her, the way Barack Obama did in 2008. None of those already in the race or committed to it — Martin O’Malley, Bernie Sanders, even Joe Biden — comes close to measuring up.

The only possible rival who does is Elizabeth Warren, the fire-breathing senator from Massachusetts. Gender aside, she is everything Hillary isn’t — an anti-Wall Street conviction populist with a record to match her rhetoric. A movement to draft her started before Hillary hit the fan, so Warren would begin with a built-in constituency. So far, though, she insists she’s not running. Then again, that also could change suddenly.


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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“Headless bodies lie in the sand. Above those corpses stand the black-clad minions of ISIS, outlined against the coastline of Libya. This is the second video in three months depicting Islamic terrorists cutting the heads off of Christian captives. Bodies float in the Mediterranean Sea, face down. Twelve Christian bodies, thrown from a rubber boat by 15 Muslims. Their launch point: Libya. Approximately 700 more bodies float face down in the Mediterranean, victims of a smuggling operation gone wrong when their rickety craft sunk as it made its way to Italy. Its source location: Libya. Four American bodies in Benghazi, Libya. These are the wages of Hillary Clinton’s war. … Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy has promoted chaos around the world. Nowhere is that better illustrated than in her signal foreign policy legacy, the collapsed state of Libya.”
            -Ben Shapiro
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BOOKS
The book does not hit shelves until May 5, but already the Republican Rand Paul has called its findings “big news” that will “shock people” and make voters “question” the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer — a 186-page investigation of donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities — is proving the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy.
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GLOBALONEY
Still snowing in 23 states, as far south as New Mexico.

Saturday’s Global Citizen 2015 Earth Day rally, left the grounds of the Washington Monument smelling like “cow poop.”

Our climate models are WRONG: Global warming has slowed - and recent changes are down to ‘natural variability’, says study.
Top scientists start to examine fiddled global warming figures.  The Global Warming Policy Foundation has enlisted an international team of five distinguished scientists to carry out a full inquiry.

5 Things You´re Not Likely to Hear About on Earth Day
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ISLAM
A Pakistani man and his father have been arrested in the country's latest so-called "honour killing" after they set the son's wife on fire for leaving the house without asking his permission.

The Islamic State franchise in Libya released a 30-minute video over the showing two separate group executions of Ethiopian Christians. If you dive into the madness and try to follow ISIL's "logic," it seems these jihadis murdered 30 people for evading the tax on nonbelievers.
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LEFTIST WATCH
MSNBC, the liberal network that advocates at every turn for a progressive revenue system, is home to four tax delinquents who have all lectured their audience about tax fairness over the years.

“It is not true that regulation holds poor people down or regulation keeps the middle class from advancing. That’s kind of patently bulls—.”
             -former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley
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ARTICLES
The Environmental Protection Agency is putting the final touches on a rule requiring a 30% reduction of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-burning power plants by 2030. An independent analysis by The Heritage Foundation predicts "[a]n average employment shortfall of nearly 300,000 jobs," adding the U.S. may lose half a million jobs in the manufacturing sector and 45% of the jobs in the coal mining industry.

The Questions Hillary Clinton Doesn´t Want Answered About the Clinton Foundation

The number of voters who believe terrorists are winning the fight against the United States and its allies continues to grow, while views of Muslims in general and U.S. relations with the Islamic world have worsened.
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Tracking Hillary Clinton’s Use of Every American Accent East of the Mississippi
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WISE WORDS
“We may look up to armies for defense, but virtue is our best security. It is not possible that any state should long remain free, where virtue is not supremely honored.”
              -Samuel Adams

"Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind."
               -Dr. Benjamin Rush, 1783


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