Sunday, February 28, 2016

op ed review 2/28



THIS WEEK’S NEWS
Nevada: Trump wins again.
Trump Has Won More Votes Than Romney Had At This Point in 2012
Gov. Chris Christie Endorses Donald Trump, calls Marco Rubio ‘Desperate’
Sen. Jeff Sessions endorses Trump:  our last chance to save U.S. sovereignty and to end the domination of the political establishment over the interests of working Americans. Trump alone has rejected the donor class, defending America’s jobs and wages from open borders, uncontrolled immigration and the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership that will cede U.S. authority to foreign powers. Trump’s trade and immigration plans will revitalize our shrinking middle class, keeping jobs and wealth and income inside the United States of America.”
Sen. Marco Rubio trails Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump by double digits in his home state of Florida, according to a new poll.
Six days before Super Tuesday, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are now tied in Texas.
GOP Insider plan to enlist Mitt Romney if Rubio fails.
Sen. Rubio plans to snub the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this year, and won’t show up at all….. That Rubio is skipping the pre-eminent annual conservative gathering of thousands of activists in a presidential election year is extraordinarily telling about the direction of his campaign as the entire Washington establishment aligns behind him in a last-ditch desperate bid to stop billionaire frontrunner ,
A political science professor who claims his statistical model has correctly predicted the results of every election in the last 104 years has forecast that the odds of Donald Trump becoming America’s next president currently range from 97 percent to 99 percent.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat caused outrage after he joked about how an assassination attempt could end Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Almost 60% of democrats think socialism is great for America

A young woman named Chelsea is burning up the Youtubes with her tearful tale of phone-banking for Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and running into scores of “really sick people” who are voting for Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.

An estimated 45.3 percent of American households — roughly 77.5 million — will pay no federal individual income tax, according to data for the 2015 tax year from the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington-based research group. “Roughly half pay no federal income tax because they have no taxable income, and the other roughly half get enough tax breaks to erase their tax liability.”

Hillary Clinton calls on President Obama to nominate a "true progressive" to the Supreme Court.

Secretary of State John Kerry responded to the news that a former Guantanamo Bay detainee had returned to terrorism Wednesday by saying that “he’s not supposed to be doing that.”
John Kerry is also having an “additional evaluation” done to help him determine whether the systematic murder of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East—at the hands of the Islamic State and others—should be declared “genocide.”

Charges against Perry dismissed.  Same networks that hyped Gov. Perry indictment in 2014; silent on dismissal.

Abortion Clinics Closing at Record Pace...
Clothing retailer Lands´ End has scrubbed a recent interview with feminist author Gloria Steinem from its website following complaints from pro-life customers.
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COLUMN OF THE WEEK
Peggy Noonan  2/27
The Rise of the Unprotected

There are the protected and the unprotected. The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting to push back, powerfully.

The protected are the accomplished, the secure, the successful—those who have power or access to it. They are protected from much of the roughness of the world. More to the point, they are protected from the world they have created. Again, they make public policy and have for some time.

I want to call them the elite to load the rhetorical dice, but let’s stick with the protected.

They are figures in government, politics and media. They live in nice neighborhoods, safe ones. Their families function, their kids go to good schools, they’ve got some money. All of these things tend to isolate them, or provide buffers. Some of them—in Washington it is important officials in the executive branch or on the Hill; in Brussels, significant figures in the European Union—literally have their own security details.

Because they are protected they feel they can do pretty much anything, impose any reality. They’re insulated from many of the effects of their own decisions.

One issue obviously roiling the U.S. and Western Europe is immigration. It is the issue of the moment, a real and concrete one but also a symbolic one: It stands for all the distance between governments and their citizens. It is of course the issue that made Donald Trump.

Britain will probably leave the European Union over it. In truth immigration is one front in that battle, but it is the most salient because of the European refugee crisis and the failure of the protected class to address it realistically and in a way that offers safety to the unprotected.

If you are an unprotected American—one with limited resources and negligible access to power—you have absorbed some lessons from the past 20 years’ experience of illegal immigration. You know the Democrats won’t protect you and the Republicans won’t help you. Both parties refused to control the border. The Republicans were afraid of being called illiberal, racist, of losing a demographic for a generation. The Democrats wanted to keep the issue alive to use it as a wedge against the Republicans and to establish themselves as owners of the Hispanic vote.

Many Americans suffered from illegal immigration—its impact on labor markets, financial costs, crime, the sense that the rule of law was collapsing. But the protected did fine—more workers at lower wages. No effect of illegal immigration was likely to hurt them personally.

It was good for the protected. But the unprotected watched and saw. They realized the protected were not looking out for them, and they inferred that they were not looking out for the country, either.

The unprotected came to think they owed the establishment—another word for the protected—nothing, no particular loyalty, no old allegiance.

Mr. Trump came from that. . . . You see the dynamic in many spheres. In Hollywood, as we still call it, where they make our rough culture, they are careful to protect their own children from its ill effects. In places with failing schools, they choose not to help them through the school liberation movement—charter schools, choice, etc.—because they fear to go up against the most reactionary professional group in America, the teachers unions. They let the public schools flounder. But their children go to the best private schools.

This is a terrible feature of our age—that we are governed by protected people who don’t seem to care that much about their unprotected fellow citizens.

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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
Limbaugh:  “And now we've closed the circle.  And now we're back at why Donald Trump is in the race and why Donald Trump is running away with it. You can get as deep or as shallow in the analysis as you want.  But it's about a last chance, a last-gasp effort at preserving the culture that developed after the founding of this country.  It's no more complicated than that, folks.  The country's under siege from all quarters, and recently the Democrat Party has joined those who have put the country under siege.”
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ISLAM
Muslims now outnumber Christians in capital of European Union

John Kevin Wood says his daughter’s school has banned him from campus for more than a year, illegally punishing him for raising objections to classroom lessons about Islam. She had been asked to memorize the Five Pillars of Islam. She had been asked to write and recite the Muslim statement of faith. She was told that most Muslims’ faith is “stronger than the average Christian…….”
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ARTICLES
Why So Many Millennials Are Socialists

The simple trick that can reveal if you´re a conservative or liberal: Study discovers which words give away political beliefs

Patrick Deneen puts his finger on the biggest problem facing the American future: a generation of students who know nothing about anything: My students are know-nothings. They are exceedingly nice, pleasant, trustworthy, mostly honest, well-intentioned, and utterly decent. But their brains are largely empty, devoid of any substantial knowledge that might be the fruits of an education in an inheritance and a gift of a previous generation. They are the culmination of western civilization, a civilization that has forgotten nearly everything about itself, and as a result, has achieved near-perfect indifference to its own culture.

“Why Donald Trump Can’t Win the White House”
“I am going to stick my neck out: Donald Trump will be America’s next President. I believe Donald Trump is now unstoppable. Why? Not only is Trump speaking truth to power on two crucial issues – trade and immigration – but it is now clear he has ignited long smoldering voter anger on both issues.”

Critics of Donald Trump love to state that he is a clown, his campaign speeches are reminiscent of a carnival sideshow, his language is too outrageous, he tends to argue too much, and he fights back when attacked. He does not practice the sort of calm demeanor, tone, and professionalism we are accustomed to seeing in political candidates who run for the White house. But what these critics may not realize is that in the last fifteen years, America´s cultural tone has changed. Donald Trump´s mannerisms and antics simply reflect changes in American culture.

IBD:  Health Care: Bernie Sanders has been winning the hearts and minds of Democrats everywhere with a health care plan that is so reckless, extreme and fanciful that even liberals are appalled.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

op ed review 2/14



THIS WEEK’S NEWS
New Hampshire:  SANDERS 60% CLINTON 38% …….TRUMP 35% KASICH 16% CRUZ 12%
Decisive Trump Victory Sends GOP Establishment Reeling
GOP Establishment In Chaos
Donald Trump’s massive and massively consequential New Hampshire victory cost the billionaire businessman a mere $40 per vote, according to a study done by Morning Consult. To come in a distant fourth place, Jeb Bush spent a mind-boggling $1200 per vote. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97% did the best; he landed in a surprising third place by spending only $18 per vote. No one, though, wasted their money more than Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)79%, who spend $508 per vote to belly-flop into fifth place.
Republicans set a new turnout record Tuesday in New Hampshire’s primary, attracting more than a quarter of a million voters to the polls and offering evidence that most of the energy in the 2016 presidential race continues to be on the GOP side.
“Latinos for Trump? Oh yeah, that’s a thing.”

Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton among nearly every demographic group in the Democratic New Hampshire primary, according to exit polls.
Rumors of  Clinton Campaign Implosion
Clinton allies grapple with crushing loss
Victorious Bernie Sanders woos the black vote as he tells The View he wants cops put on trial and has breakfast in Harlem with Al Sharpton.
Clinton is struggling to connect with young women voters, so she has brought in… Madeleine Albright? Enlisting the 78-year-old to chase millennials may seem far-fetched, but it’s a gift to voters and to the GOP.
Losing New Hampshire by 22 points to an avowed socialist was bad enough for Hillary Clinton. But then came the news that the State Department had opened a inquiry regarding the activities of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation during her time time as secretary of state

Not a good sign:  A new survey from YouGov finds that millennials have more favorable views of socialism than of capitalism. As Santayana said, those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Less than two decades after socialism seemed to have been confined to the dust-heap of history, another generation may have to learn hard lessons.

Government employee union president: “God help us all” if the GOP wins
President Obama on Tuesday proposed the first $4 trillion federal budget in history.

Twitter ‘Embarking on a War Against Conservative Points of View’

Last week it was Aetna, Now Humana Says It Might Bail On ObamaCare

New California Law Forces Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers to Advertise Abortions

Bernie Sanders says he wants a path towards citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants. “If Congress doesn´t do the right thing, we use the executive orders of the president."
Democrat socialist Bernie Sanders’ campaign has evidently roused the satanic electorate. In a highly popular pro-Sanders meme group created on Facebook, a post with an image stating, “Satanists for Bernie 2016,” has received over 1,100 likes and over 200 shares.

In another blow to the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda, the U.S. Supreme Court halted the EPA’s regulations limiting carbon emissions.

City workers in San Diego have been warned not to use the phrase "Founding Fathers." because it’s considered gender biased.

NARAL denounces the Super Bowl Doritos ad for “humanizing fetuses”,   The ad showed an about-to-be-born child reacting, in the womb, to his dad´s bag of Doritos. The ad was cute and funny, and it got the point across that everybody loves Doritos.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has hired a new staffer who has previously written that those accused of sexual assault should automatically be treated as guilty, regardless of the actual evidence brought against them.

California spends $141 million to hire 1,000 new employees to process 1.5 million driver’s license applications for 1.5 million illegal immigrants.
Senate report: Illegal immigrants benefited from up to $750M in ObamaCare

Newly uncovered internal memos reveal the Obama administration knowingly exaggerated charges of racial discrimination in probes of Ally Bank and other defendants in the $900 billion car-lending business as part of a “racial justice” campaign that’s looking more like a massive government extortion and shakedown operation.

Huh?  Secretary John Kerry Says ISIS Members Aren’t Muslims
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COLUMN OF THE WEEK
The most disappointing moment of Saturday night’s debate came when Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio each embraced the idea that women should register with the selective service, making it possible for America to draft women into ground combat. The argument for registration is based on the new Pentagon policy opening up all combat jobs to women. Women have served in non-combat roles for decades without any serious push for selective-service registration ensuing. In fact, the Supreme Court, in Rostker v. Goldberg (1981), has used the fact that men and women have different roles as justification for rejecting constitutional objections to the all-male draft……Ground combat is barbaric……It is not a video game. It is not a movie, where young Hollywood starlets karate-kick their way through masses of inept thugs and goons. When we order women into ground combat, we are ordering them into situations where men larger and stronger than they will show no mercy…….

This is what Ted Cruz was rightly arguing when he called the idea of drafting women into combat “nuts.” The idea that we would force women into combat against “a 220-pound psychopath trying to kill them” — to use Cruz’s memorable phrase — is immoral. Women would die terrible deaths, and when they did, the ripple effects on morale would likely be extreme. Why would Bush, Rubio, and Christie seem to so eagerly surrender to the prevailing winds of political correctness? Part of the problem, no doubt, is that none of them served in the military. They’re simply not familiar with the grueling demands not only of combat but also of training for battle. Part of it may well be pure political fear. After all, the “war on women” narrative harmed Republicans in 2012, so it appears that at least three GOP candidates are willing to court an actual war on women to avoid even the appearance of discrimination.

Military service should not be a prerequisite for understanding morality, common sense, and natural law. Cruz hasn’t served, yet he understood the stakes. He was right, while Bush, Rubio, and Christie were wrong. But the issue’s importance goes beyond who wins the nomination contest. If America chooses not just to permit women to join the infantry but now prepares to force them into ground combat, it will take a step toward barbarism.


Ted Cruz: “It’s Nuts, Wrong, Dangerous and Immoral to Draft Women and Put Them In Close Combat”


The push to put women into combat is driven by an extreme, reality-challenged form of feminism. Unfortunately, its influence in the media, the entertainment industry, our universities, and politics has given it a tremendous base of political power that extends into the heart of the military. Jude Eden notes: “In my experience, feminism and political correctness are so prevalent in the military that men trip over themselves trying to ensure they do not offend. Military leaders cannot afford to even think the truth: Women are not as strong and athletic as strong, athletic men are.” Officers in the military understand that speaking honestly about the problems of women in combat can be a career-ender, while putting gender-diversity goals ahead of everything else can be a career-accelerator.

What we have is a modern-day case of the emperor’s new clothes. But over the decades, so many compromises to the truth have been made and careers advanced by hiding or glossing over gender-integration issues in the military that it will take more than one small voice standing athwart the road yelling “stop!” It will take concerted opposition from a range of politicians who have the courage to look beyond the latest headline in the New York Times or on CNN.

“That our Congress is accepting this change without any debate isn’t progress,” Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker has written. “It is a dereliction of duty and, one is tempted to say, suggestive of cowardice.”

The silence on this issue by the Republican-controlled Congress is deafening. Mountains of evidence exists, providing an excellent basis for congressional hearings about this misguided crusade. Undoubtedly, these hearings will inflame the media and academia, but not holding these hearings, not speaking out on this issue, puts politics before the lives of our young women and men.

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ISLAM
Islamic State video shows British boy known as 'Junior Jihadi' blowing up three prisoners

Iraqi militia groups supported by Iran have been seizing Christian property in Baghdad, including homes, businesses, and churches, in a process described as “ethnic cleansing” by Iraqi Christian community leaders.

“Sex: The Only Thing ´Infidel´ Women Are Worth”
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LEFTIST WATCH
Lefties turn on Hillary:  “Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote”

In the United States of 2016 the occupant of the White House is someone steeped in and aggressively implementing statist ideology. And one of the two major political parties has as its only candidates for the presidency a dedicated lifelong socialist in Bernie Sanders and a newly declared socialist in Hillary Clinton. In recent polls nearly 59% of Democrats say they would vote for a socialist candidate as well as nearly 50% of independents and even more frightening nearly 70% of those between the ages of 18 and 29 in the country claim they would vote for a socialist.
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ARTICLES
Hillary and Bill Clinton were prepared to lose, but there’s a loss and then there’s a shellacking. After barely winning Iowa, with its coin tosses and independent calls for a public recount of the secret ballots, getting trounced by Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire by 20 points suggests tissue-rejection of the Clinton candidacy. It’s likely some of those voters weren’t even pro-Sanders, just turned off by Clinton. The Republican race is starting to look tame by comparison. The rejection went to her character. Among Democrats who say they care most about honesty and trustworthiness, she lost by 86 points.

LEWIS:  The left and its media are pathogenic: they try obsessively to crush our self-confidence as a nation.  Compulsive self-hatred is bad for individuals, and it's bad for nations.  But talk to any American liberal about this country, and you'll hear the whine of national self-loathing. Donald Trump would not start his presidency with an apology tour.  He does not apologize for himself or his country.  He is not a policy wonk, but he can probably tell the difference between sense and nonsense.  Trump won't be mentally stuck in some fantasy ideology, like Obama and Hillary. After eight years of Obama, we need a period of healing.  I still like Ted Cruz, but Donald Trump is a lot better than the Other Party.

Rush Limbaugh: Ted Cruz is the closest we’ve gotten to Ronald Reagan in our lifetimes

Here’s What Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Want You To Know About College Costs Combined with state aid, the government is pouring more than $239 billion a year into programs designed to make college less expensive. What the authors found is that all this aid money has simply let college administrators spend more and jack up tuition to pay for it, without hurting enrollment. The result is there to see for anyone who visits a college campus these days — gourmet kitchens, luxurious dorms, shiny new administrative buildings, beautiful landscapes, state of the art workout facilities, etc. The authors call this the “Bennett hypothesis,” after former Education Secretary William Bennett, who wrote in 1987 that “increases in financial aid in recent years have enabled college and universities blithely to raise their tuitions.”
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WISE WORDS
"The people of the U.S. owe their Independence & their liberty, to the wisdom of descrying in the minute tax of 3 pence on tea, the magnitude of the evil comprised in the precedent. Let them exert the same wisdom, in watching against every evil lurking under plausible disguises, and growing up from small beginnings."
          -James Madison