op ed review 10/18
THIS WEEK’S
NEWS
Ben Carson now
running neck-and-neck with Donald Trump nationally, per a recent Fox News poll
FBI probe of
the Clinton email scandal focuses on “gross negligence” provision
Letting her
off the hook? “I don’t think it posed a
national security problem,” Mr. Obama said Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” He
said it was a mistake for Mrs. Clinton to use a private email account when she
was secretary of state, but “This is not a situation in which America’s
national security was endangered.” Those
statements angered F.B.I. agents who have been working for months to determine
whether Ms. Clinton’s email setup had in fact put any of the nation’s secrets
at risk, according to current and former law enforcement officials
Clinton had a
good laugh when asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper about the FBI investigation.
Investigation
into Hillary's email server focuses on Espionage Act and could get her 10 years
in jail as FBI agent says she could be prosecuted just for failing to tell
Obama
The federal
government took in a record of approximately $3.2 trillion dollars in taxes in
fiscal 2015 (which ended on Sept. 30). That
equaled approximately $21,833 for every person in the country who had either a
full-time or part-time job in September. It is also up about $212B from 2014.
Even with this, the federal government ran a deficit of $438B for the fiscal
year.
Obama:
‘Americans’ Suspicion Of Government Is Paralyzing’. President also suggests Christians are
holding back America from doing "big things"
Sheldon
Adelson, one of the Republican Party's most sought-after contributors, is
leaning increasingly toward supporting Marco Rubio — and the Florida senator is
racing to win the backing of other uncommitted megadonors who have the
potential to direct tens of millions of dollars his way and alter the contours
of the Republican primary fight.
Cost of
illegal immigration in one state: Tennessee:
$545 million
Muslim
'refugees' sue Germany for not paying benefits fast
enough.
A German
pro-migrant, open borders activist is reported to be “very sad” after being
stabbed twice in the back by a gang of “Arabs” as he stood outside a pizzeria
in Dresden, east Germany.
A school
district in Tennessee is blaming Obamacare for its decision to shut its doors…..
“the school board made its decision to cancel classes because of budget issues
that are related to government mandates that the district can´t afford.”
For the past year, the Obama administration has been running
an experiment: Is it possible to make policy more effective by using psychology
on citizens? The nickname is “nudging”—the idea that policymakers can change
people’s behavior just by presenting choices or information differently.
Putin: “Obama
Administration Has ‘Mush’ For Brains “
Corruption of
government officials is currently Americans’ number one fear, according to a
recent survey by researchers at Chapman University. The researchers asked a
random sample of 1,541 adults to rate the level of fear for 88 different fear
options across a variety of domains (like crime and natural disasters).
Like most
everyone else who watched last night’s Democratic debate, I thought Hillary
Clinton easily won. It helped, of course, that the four people on the stage
with her – Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb and (especially) Lincoln
Chafee — constituted the weakest field in the history of the human race.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Clinton proved she’s a formidable debater, her single
strength as a candidate, as best that I can tell. Her performance last night
will mute calls among Democrats for Vice President Joe Biden – himself a
gaffe-prone, two-time failure as a presidential candidate –to get into the
race.
The discovery
of huge oil reserves in Israel could transform the country´s energy policy,
turning it into a mass-producer of billions of barrels of oil.
FBI Director
James Comey said Wednesday the recruitment of potential homegrown terrorists by
the Islamic State group is widespread and goes on “24 hours a day” across the
United States. Hundreds of people are “consuming” social media efforts to
either draw them overseas to join the extremists “or if you can’t come, kill
where you are,”
______________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEKS
COLUMN
The GOP
Establishment’s War With the Base
Sally
Zelikovsky 10/15
…..The reason we are in this internecine battle within the
GOP is because the base has been ignored and marginalized by candidates and
consultants for too long. It is this
behavior that will rip the party apart if there is no change.
The fact is, 62% of Republicans feel betrayed by the party
and, to prove it, roughly 60% of primary voters are currently supporting
political outsiders like Trump, Fiorina, Carson and Cruz. This isn’t just
an ad hoc collection of misbegotten tea partiers hijacking the GOP for
kicks. Strip away ubiquitous campaign rhetoric about tapping into anger
and frustration, and we are left with the forgotten majority within the GOP --
the base -- taking a firm stand. They will no longer succumb to
elite pleas to vote for this guy because he’s the only one who can win, cross
the aisle and get the job done. They will no longer shore up Republicans who
support legislation that undermines their interests. If leadership foolishly
continues to turn a blind eye, that stand could very well be a last stand.
Imperious experts caution that this kind of intransigence
will not work in Washington -- it will prevent legislators from building the
consensus they need to legislate. But there are scant, if any issues, on
which there is true consensus. The party of intransigence is actually the
Democrats with their “our way or the highway” attitude. Republicans don’t have
an intransigence problem; they have a conciliatory problem. They lose
battle after battle because they are an ineffective counterweight to the
Democrat-Media Complex (DMC). They do not have an agenda or a list of
articulated conservative principles to serve as their guide. They do not
have a rapid response strategy, let alone a team to take congressional fights
to the media -- especially on issues where the country leans right, like the
Iran Deal, Planned Parenthood, tax reform, regulatory reform, enforcement of
immigration laws, Benghazi, Hillary’s emails, or TPP.
Republicans rarely call Democrats out. They do not protect their own when they are
attacked. They readily cave in to DMC
demands for resignations, retractions, recriminations and reprimand. Republican
leadership has been AWOL for too long. That is why John Boehner was
pressured to resign.
I once asked John Boehner about his strategy against the
Democrats in 2012: what their Achilles Heel was that he could exploit. I
was initially met with a blank stare but his eventual response was, “You know,
I’ve never been asked that before. I’ve really never thought about
it. I don’t have an answer to that.” If there was any doubt that the GOP
leadership was winging it, that settled it for me.
The GOP cannot thrive without its base of “hard-core” social
and fiscal conservatives, “extreme” tea party activists, and pesky grassroots
conservatives who, in the words of Rep. Peter King, are making Republicans look
crazy. If not for the votes of the
tea-sipping, gun-toting, bible slappers in the base, Republicans like John
Boehner, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan, Julie Ellmers, Martha McSally…and Peter
King, would not have been elected. To dismiss the 40 in the Freedom
Caucus and the millions of conservatives they represent, is to dismiss the 62%
of Republicans who feel betrayed by their own party.
In the past, conservative voters held their collective noses
and voted for candidates who were conservative-lite. As devotees of William F. Buckley they “voted
for the most conservative candidate who could win.” But the yields from
that strategy have proven fruitless and downright deleterious. It’s unlikely that voters will maintain that
kind of party devotion with regard to suspect GOP candidates in future
contests.
Do not attempt to justify this neglect by claiming
Republicans only had one-half of one-third of the power in Washington, or don’t
have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate or enough votes to override a
presidential veto, or, because Obama is in the White House. We know all that and we elected you anyway,
on the promise that you’d stand on principle -- not play the game, or suck up
to leadership to capture the best chairmanship, or seek common ground -- even
when none exists -- or compromise when it would endanger the very security,
liberty, and prosperity of the people who voted for you.
I personally worked hard to create alliances among
conservative groups and Republican organizations and spent a great deal of
energy discouraging naysayers from forming a third party -- which I still do
not support. But I cannot promise that the 62% of Republicans who feel betrayed
will not throw up their hands in disgust and declare, “The GOP is no longer to
be trusted…or entrusted with our votes. We are going elsewhere.”
_________________________________________________________________
IN OTHER
COLUMNS
“If you watched that debate last night it looked like
something from the early ‘80s. It was basically a liberal vs. liberal debate
about who was going to give away the most free stuff.”
-Marco
Rubio
“[W]hat really stands
out about the Democratic debate is how there was no diversity of idea or
diversity of ethnicity. It was a bunch of old white people on stage who all
largely agreed on government policies, government spending, taking people’s
guns away, and killing children. Contrast these Democrats with the Republicans
running. The Republicans disagree on immigration, they disagree on taxes, they
disagree on college funding, they are white, Hispanic, Indian, male, and
female. Where there is diversity of skin and thought on the right, there is
none on the left.”
-Erick
Erickson
____________________________________________________________
PRESIDENTIAL
CAMPAIGN
“It’s Hillary
or nothing”….The Democratic National Committee is 'clearing a path' for Hillary
Clinton to be its presidential nominee because its upper power echelons are
populated with women
The
Republican Party is "cooked" if it fails to take back the White House
in 2016, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus says. In an
interview with the Washington Examiner, Priebus said a Republican president is
essential following two terms of a Democrat in control. "We're cooked as a
party for quite a while if we don't win in 2016," he told the Examiner.
Reports say
that the influential Teamsters union may snub Hillary Clinton in favor of
endorsing a Republican candidate such as Donald Trump for the White House in
2016.
_______________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
Climate
experts warn a rare pattern of water cooling in the north Atlantic will trigger
a chain reaction of events leading to a “fully-blown ice age” in the UK.
_______________________________________________________________
ISLAM
“This blog is
designed to show you the dark side of Islam that the West does not want you to
see. The Islam that Western media refuse to show you. The Islam that is slowly
but surely changing the West. You
may feel uncomfortable looking at this blog. You should. You
will feel anger and disgust that our leaders do not understand Islam when it
comes to the motives that drive our enemies to commit suicide for their
ideology. Look at the photos, watch the videos, most of which come right out of
the Muslim world. Understand that elements of Sharia law are creeping into our
daily lives under shelter of religious freedom. Listen and learn about the real
Islam, then tell your family and friends.”
An ISIS logo was daubed on the wall of a restaurant in
Gothenburg, Sweden. Chilling messages such as "convert or die" and
"the caliphate is here" were also found covering the outside of a bakery.
_________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
The American Principles Project’s action statement is a
lucid and necessary response to the thieves in our midst: “Like Lincoln, we
will not accept judicial edicts that undermine the sovereignty of the people,
the Rule of Law, and the supremacy of the Constitution. We will resist them by
every peaceful and honorable means. We will not be bullied into acquiescence or
silence.”
Any time you
get a bunch of Democrats together in the same room, it is recommended that you
grab hold of your wallet tightly and lock up the family silver. You also
might want to hide your wife and daughters – just to be safe. The Democratic
presidential candidates who took the stage for their debate on Tuesday night
tried to outdo one another in rushing to give away tax dollars on wild spending
schemes. How much are we talking about? The Washington Times has
some thoughts: The five Democratic presidential candidates pushed proposals in
their first debate that would cost trillions in new spending, from free college
tuition to single-payer health care. Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont is
the biggest spender of the group, championing universal government-run health
care, expanded Social Security and free tuition at public colleges in a
platform that The Wall Street Journal estimated last month would cost
$18 trillion over 10 years.
An
anti-Hillary Clinton group ran a television ad during Tuesday night´s
Democratic debate showing the gravestone of Libyan Ambassador J. Christopher
Stevens, who died in the 2012 attack on the American embassy in Benghazi.
__________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY
WEBSITES
21 most
consequential Clinton scandals, ranked from most important
___________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
“The American
Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with
their own money.”
-Alexis de Tocqueville
posted by gary at
2:40 PM
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