Paul Driessen

This week’s delves into Israel-Palestinian relations and is based largely on my recent ten-day trip to Israel with coauthor Glenn Taubman and our fellow Northern Virginians, as we traveled around the country, saw the sights and met with people from diverse ethnic and religious communities. It was a fascinating, eye-opening experience – especially on the need to confront terrorism.


Terrorism in Israel – and America

The Beltway sniper offers lessons on Israel’s continuing struggles with Palestinians

Paul Driessen and Glenn Taubman

When we planned our recent trip to Israel with 50 other Northern Virginians, we didn’t expect that it would coincide with the latest spasm of Palestinian violence against Israelis. We didn’t anticipate that this new war would be more insidious than past "intifadas,” with almost daily violence coming out of nowhere, with no warning, rhyme or reason.

No one is exempt. Old people have been stabbed and brutalized on city streets; so have young mothers with toddlers, rabbis in study halls, students in cars, people praying. Soldiers have been attacked at checkpoints. Children have been forced to watch their parents murdered in front of them. People waiting for buses have been rammed by cars and split open by meat cleavers.

A rocket hit Sderot, where a menorah atop a yeshivah was crafted from rockets that had previously rained down on this beautiful city, and where a colorful playground caterpillar doubles as a bomb shelter during frequent attacks. The Iron Dome defense system took out another flying bomb over Ashkelon.

Our group never wavered in its countrywide visit, but we were always looking around warily for signs of trouble. In some places an armed security guard accompanied us.

A suburban Jerusalem shopkeeper told us he and his six-year-old twins experience constant rocks and Molotov cocktails thrown at their house. He asked plaintively, "How do I explain that to my children?” Many nearby neighborhoods endure similar threats.

We thought back to October 2002, when the Beltway sniper and his young accomplice paralyzed the DC region for weeks, sowing fear and keeping people from pumping gas, buying groceries, holding soccer practices, or venturing from their homes. We ponder what happened in Paris and Mali, Chattanooga and San Bernardino, Boston and Fort Hood, Belgium and other countries.

Americans might try to imagine 50 or 100 copycats doing the same thing for weeks, months or years on end, and exhorting others to join them. Would they send their kids to school or engage in normal activities under such terrorism? Might they want the National Guard deployed? How would they respond if snipers return, or Paris and San Bernardino become more commonplace?

While many of these attacks occur in what the news media likes to call "Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory,” many have actually occurred in pre-1967 Israel, including downtown Jerusalem and Tel Aviv suburbs like Netanya and Ra’anana. As tourists, we saw firsthand how such random attacks sow fear, changes in daily life and calls for retaliation.

Markets had fewer people, restaurants were less crowded, businesses suffered. Mothers refused to send their children to school for almost a week, until more troops patrolled the streets. Life in cities gradually began returning to "normal” as our trip ended, but the stabbings and shootings continue.

News stories and anti-Israel activists often say more Palestinians than Israelis have died in these attacks – and repeat the vicious canard that "alleged perpetrators” have been "victims” of "extra-judicial summary executions.” In reality, the assailants were shot and killed while attempting to murder as many Israelis as possible; they were killed in the act by Israelis who are increasingly arming themselves for protection.

Israelis recognize that police and soldiers cannot be everywhere, and too often arrive only in time to count bodies and prevent additional murders. Self-protection under these circumstances is a citizen’s duty, and those attacking Israelis do so knowing the response is likely to be swift and uncompromising.

In fact, the response by Israelis exactly reflects Washington, DC Chief of Police Cathy Lanier’s recent advice: Citizens should do more than run or hide. They should "take the gunman down, take the gunman out. It’s the best option for saving lives before the police can get there.”

What do the Palestinian Arabs gain from their murderous mayhem, inspired by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, the Arab media and many imams? Absolutely nothing, because the vicious attacks destroy any notion within Israel that it has a true partner for peace.

They destroy any hope or belief that West Bank and Gaza Strip Arabs will ever govern themselves peaceably, in close proximity to Israel’s major cities, sole international airport and neighborhoods teeming with children – even if their "two-state solution,” settlement removal and other demands are met.

The media, United Nations, State Department and boycott-divestment groups frequently claim the Palestinian side merely wants a state of its own next to Israel. However, the blatant refusal of attackers and their supporters to accept even pre-1967 Israel – or even depict Israel on maps – shows they are intent on keeping this 90-year war boiling for their own nationalistic or religious supremacy purposes.

Abba Eban famously said "the Arabs never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity” for peace. They seem determined to continue that dismal record, and many want Israel obliterated.

With our own eyes, we saw that Israel is a place of marvelous vitality, creativity and diversity: amazing food, archaeology, culture, science (cell phone apps, desalination plants, miracle cancer treatments and much more), agriculture, beaches, secularism and profound spirituality. Its racial and ethnic tolerance, its human rights record – while not perfect – are worlds better than anything found in its neighboring countries, where ethnic and religious minorities are routinely repressed, tortured and massacred.

Under horribly adverse conditions, dating back decades before its founding almost 68 years ago, Israelis have built a thriving and energetic society, a marvel on the ruins of their ancient past and recent Jewish history. They are not going anywhere, nor should they be expected to – anymore than the English should leave England or Americans the United States.

Indeed, Israel has integrated some 600,000 Jews who were driven penniless from Arab lands after its 1948 independence, plus millions of other Jews and non-Jews from around the world over later decades. Its Christian population has risen from 34,000 in 1949 to 170,000 today. As they built new lives in their adopted land, Israel prospered with them.

By contrast, virtually no Arab countries have accepted or integrated any Palestinian Arabs, many of whom still claim "refugee” status generations after this long war began. They treat refugees from the current Iraq-Syria conflagration the same way, while driving out or murdering non-Muslims. How many Syrians are in Saudi Arabia or Qatar today, instead of Germany or France?

Israel’s Jews live the Jewish people’s dream of a sovereign state reborn in its ancient homeland, and they are there to stay, along with Circassian, Christian, Druze, B’hai, Arab and other Israelis we met. In sad parallel, the Palestinian Arabs have built a society based on death, perpetual grievance, medieval attitudes and beliefs, and murder-suicides they mistakenly call martyrdom.

The sooner they sheath their knives, step out of the Middle Ages, and accept the fact that their Jewish neighbors will be in Israel for another 3,000 years, the sooner they too will have a chance to thrive in a country of their own. The first genuine steps would be a wonderful way to begin 2016.

_________________

Paul Driessen is a policy analyst and Glenn Taubman is an attorney in Northern Virginia. They have made many trips to Israel and studied Jewish, Israeli and Holocaust history for years.

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Timothy Birdnow

Here is a fascinating article from our friends in Europe about suicide and transgenderism. From the article:

"Born a girl named Nancy, his transformation into a man began with hormone therapy in 2009, followed by a mastectomy and finally an operation to construct a penis last year.

But the procedures did not go according to plan.

In the hours before his death he told Belgium's Het Laatse Nieuws: 'I was ready to celebrate my new birth. But when I looked in the mirror, I was disgusted with myself. "

[...]

'My new breasts did not match my expectations and my new penis had symptoms of rejection. I do not want to be... a monster.'

His family learned of his decision this morning via a farewell letter.

Mr Verhelst's decision comes amid a fierce debate over euthanasia in Belgium, where the number of deaths due to the controversial practice soared by 25 per cent last year.'

End excerpt.

Here is the fellow in question:

I find this interesting on a number of levels. For starters, the "man" in question was quite disturbed about scars on "his" (we've got to come up with a different pronoun for a trans person; a trans man is not really a man but no longer a woman either) chest and arm from the surgery. This is evidence that Verhelst never fully developed a male perspective. Men generally don't stress about scars overmuch - especially ones on the chest or arms. In point of fact, I first thought they were tattoos and not scars. A person who thinks like a man would generally be at least a bit proud of the scars; he would have something to brag about, even if the story he came up with wasn't true. To a man scars aren't that big a deal.

But they are to women. Verhelst is evincing a very female worldview here, becoming depressed because of a couple of scars. Scarring is a big deal to women and not men. Sadly, "Mr." Verhelst still saw herself in that light, using the feminine prism for her appearance.

Also, a man doesn't call it his "breasts" but rather chest - although that could be a failure of the translation.

Granted, concern for one's penis is a very male attribute, so he was halfway to being a dude. But as the thing probably didn't work anyway (at least not in the male fashion) one wonders just how much cause for concern there really was.

I don't know the details on penile construction, having never had to have any dealings with a lost or absent Johnson. I do know it would be a horrible thing to lose. In point of fact, I watched a dvde of The Sopranos" yesterday in which the very topic came up (or, well, failed to); Tony Soprano was going to perform a botched circumcision on an Hasidic Jew to make him sign away claims on his father-in-law's business. Where all else failed the moyle act succeeded! No man wants to go through life sans his guy club membership badge.

In the end she looked at herself and saw a monster. Why? Because ultimately, in her heart of hearts she knew she was not a man but a woman mutilated. Sex (not gender, which is primarily a linguistic term that has been malappropriated) is a fundamental defining characteristic. It is not merely a human cultural artifact as the liberals claim. It is not even just a harmonal medical condition that can be altered, as if you were getting a nose job. It is rooted in our brain chemistry, in our neurology, in our chromosomes. In the end, she knew at the most fundamental level that she was not a man. You are not something because you imagine yourself to be that thing. Walter Mitty remained a mousy nobody despite his big dreams.

The article makes this observation:

"Suicide rates among transsexuals and those who have undergone gender reassignment surgery are high with some suggesting the rate may be as high as 31 per cent.

Chris Hyde, professor at the University of Exeter, who has studied the issues surrounding sex change operations, told MailOnline: ‘Research we conducted a decade ago found there is huge uncertainty over whether changing someone's sex is a good or a bad thing.

‘While no doubt great care is taken to ensure that appropriate patients undergo gender reassignment, there's still a large number of people who have the surgery but remain traumatised - often to the point of committing suicide."

End excerpt.

Interesting, no? Since this requires surgery, we have to know who is actually transsexual (as opposed to those who see themselves as the opposite sex) and so the data should be very good. Why aren't there better stats on this? It's almost as if someone doesn't WANT to know the suicide rates for transsexuals.

I believe that is the case. The Left has been swallowed up by the Luciferian vision of Man as a god unto himself, and the Nietzchean vision of the Superman, the self-willed creator, has long dominated liberal thinking. Don't like your sex? Just change it through an act of will. Want to be a different race? Make yourself a black person and even become head of the local NAACP. Are you too weak to be in the Marines? Change the rules and allow you to skip the harder training. The Left is always about empowering the individual where Nature and Nature's God did not intend. It is ultimately a rejection of the natural order of things. So it should come as no surprise that a woman who decides to will herself to become a man eventually sees what it is she has done and is horrified.

Mary Shelly - young wife of the famous poet - came up with a scary story at a get togetehr at Lake Geneva about a man who defied Nature and Nature's God, seeking to usurp the power of the Divine. The main character was Dr. Frankenstein and the creature he created horrified him once the deed was done. The real monster was Viktor Frankenstein himself, not the pathetic creation that so terrified him (and eventually cost him everything). When this poor Verhelst person looked in the mirror he/she was horrified at the monster in the reflection, but that monster wasn't the physicality of her body transmogrified but rather the monster who rebelled against reality, the arrogant poseur who flipped the bird to the Most High and stole the fire from Heaven (Frankenstein is also called "the new Prometheans".)

In short, this was a person who was sick. Sick in the mind, sick in the spirit. Belgium failed her. Belgium gave her the physical tools to destroy her body, then the tools to take her own life when she despaired. Nobody ever thought to stop her at any stage. She was in need of psychological and spiritual help.

I wonder what she BELIEVED? Did she have any religious faith? I suspect not.

And that explains liberalism in a nutshell. It is a rebellion against God which means it is also a rebellion against reality. Remember Lucifer? What did he do? He rebelled against God, but why? Because he wanted to BE God. He dreamed of creating himself as he pleased, and being answerable only to himself. As a result he deformed himself into a horrible, ugly thing, throwing away the glory God had given him. He sold this same vision to Mankind in Eden, promising Adam and Eve the godhead if they too rebelled. Being your own god is fun for a day or two, but the long-term prognosis is grim.

And that is precisely the problem with Leftism; it's fun, exciting, but ultimately one has to look in the mirror and eventually see a monster. The desperate efforts to change society, the attacks on conservatives and Christians and Jews and others who oppose their revolution of spirit and body are symptoms of a guilty conscience. They see the monster in the mirror and desperately try to divert themselves by turming everyone into monsters as well. It is a doctrine that ultimately brings utter destruction.

Sadly, it is seductive and the young - who are easily swayed by promises of power and a breaking of the restrictions that go with childhood - are swallowed up by this culture of death.

This poor woman was just one more casualty in the ancient war between God and the Serpent. Had she realized it in time she could perhaps have been saved. Now, being a suicide, all is lost.

All Hail the New Prometheans!

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Timothy Birdnow

Thomas Lifson discusses the tiny apartment craze at American Thinker.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/12/welcome_to_the_era_of_micro_apartments.html

At the end of the piece he makes the following statement:

"I am of two minds on this. Unquestionably, it is a lowering of living standards to provide less space per person than in the past. And in fact, until very recently, America has seen a tremendous increase in the amount of living space per person that we provide. The standard suburban house of the 1950s postwar building boom was roughly 1,600 square feet, whereas these days in most suburbs, the average is more like 2,500. And mega-houses are not uncommon.

But that phenomenon is largely in the lower-cost cities of the interior. The micro-apartment phenomenon is limited to very rich coastal cities, mostly with land development constrained by geography and regulation. The San Francisco Bay Area, probably the most expensive in the nation these days, has huge tracts of land off limits to development, resulting in sky-high prices for the remaining land.

But my other mind on the subject tells me that if people really want to live in Manhattan or San Francisco or Boston and are willing to put up with small living spaces, why not? That is how people in Paris, Tokyo, and London live, for instance. In my years in ultra-expensive Tokyo, I had several apartments even smaller than 360 square feet. A relative who lived in Paris similarly had a tiny apartment. People in those cities spend a lot of time outside the home, at restaurants, cafés, and other public gathering spots. The streets are lively and full of people. It is a fun lifestyle for the young and single crowd. Families, not so much.

The local IKEA store here in Emeryville, at the foot of the Bay Bridge and serving SF, features a number of model rooms for a tiny apartment, with everything built in and totally efficient. They are cute.

As a lifestyle choice, this is fine. As a lowering of living standards, take it a sign of what liberalism brings to blue cities – even the prosperous ones. The other kind – places like Detroit – have vacant houses so plentiful they are a health hazard."

End excerpt.

I was quite disappointed with this article; Lifson failed to mention U.N. Agend 21, which is spearheading this whole tiny housing movement. Accoridng to this American Thinker article from 2009;

"Undoubtedly, residents of any town, county, or city in the United States that treasure their freedom, liberty, and property rights couldn't care less whether it's called Agenda 21 or smart growth. A recent example of this can be found in Carroll County, Maryland, where a smart growth plan called Pathways was drafted by the County Planning Department. The plan, if enacted, proposed a breathtaking reshuffling of land rights:

* Rezoning of thousands of acres of beautiful, low-density agricultural farmland and protected residential conservation land into office parks
* Down-zoning of agriculture land to prevent future subdivision by farmers
* Up-zoning of low-density residential land around small towns into higher density zoning to permit construction of hundreds or possibly thousands of inclusive housing units, including apartments and condominiums
* Inclusive housing with placement of multi-family construction on in-fill lots within existing residential single family communities
* Endorsement of government-sponsored housing initiatives (subsidies) to ensure healthier, balanced neighborhoods


Carroll County, Maryland is one of 1,168 cities, towns, and counties worldwide that are members of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) - Local Governments for Sustainability, which is an international association of local governments as well as national and regional local government organizations that have made a commitment to sustainable development. The ICLEI mission statement closely resembles that of Agenda 21. In fact, the ICLEI has Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council and coordinates local government representation in the UN processes related to Agenda 21.

Community leaders working together in Carroll County recently defended their county against overreaching smart growth initiatives. Richard Rothschild, a candidate for Commissioner, emphatically remarks, "Smart growth is not science; it is political dogma combined with an insidious dose of social engineering. Smart growth is a wedding wherein zoning code is married with government-sponsored housing initiatives to accomplish government's goal of social re-engineering. It urbanizes rural towns with high-density development, and gerrymanders population centers through the use of housing initiatives that enable people with weak patterns of personal financial responsibility to acquire homes in higher-income areas. This has the effect of shifting the voting patterns of rural municipalities from Right to Left."

Smart growth plans usurp property rights and constitutional rights. Local officials, at the behest of State Government, revise zoning laws to fit into a "smart code" zoning template. A massive reshuffling of property rights ensues. Farmers may lose subdivision rights; conservation land adjacent to population centers may be rezoned into commercial employment centers; and low-density land in small towns is re-designated as growth area and rezoned to accommodate diverse housing including high-density apartments and condominiums.

Finally, a healthy dose of federal- or state-sponsored housing initiatives is embraced to ensure communities are properly balanced. The net effect of these plans is to create highly urbanized population centers throughout otherwise-rural counties, while simultaneously limiting the availability of land for suburban and estate subdivisions, as these are considered an unsustainable waste of land by Agenda 21 disciples."

End excerpt.

To quote the RIO Conference in 1992 (which created the Agenda 21 plan):

http://www.crossroad.to/text/articles/la21_198.html

"...current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable. A shift is necessary. which will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations..." [1] Maurice Strong , opening speech at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development

And what could be more "unsustainable" than a lot of people living in large domiciles? Forcing people to accept small residents, to live with less and less, is the basic goal of Agenda 21, and tiny houses and apartments are a key compoent of this internationalist power grab.

End excerpt.

If this were a real market-driven thing I wouldn't care, but it is entirely arficial, being driven by our tax dollars and central-planning elites. We should despise any efforts to restrict our lifestyles by bureacratic fiat.

We are moving to what the Progressives have always sought; a world where people are not individuals but are cogs in a machine, tools to be warehoused. Since the Industrial Revolution the Left has sought to turn Men into simple commodities. That is what this micro-apartment move is all about. WE are little more than cattle to our betters.

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Timothy Birdnow

Jack Cashill turns to the Dark Side.http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/time_for_us_pharisees_to_sober_up.html

Here is the offensive quote:

"we cut little slack even to the embattled. People I genuinely admire -- Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Franklin Graham -- have yielded to this pharisaical urge. People I usually respect -- George Will, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer -- pride themselves on their yielding.

It is time to sober up. Barring the unforeseen, America will have survived, just barely, the presidency of Barack Obama. Barring the unforeseen -- mirabile dictu -- the Supreme Court will be in no worse shape in 2017 than it was in 2009. And regardless of what Obama does, the U.S. military will withstand the social tinkering and remain strong for at least another year.

Does anyone believe that America can endure eight more years of Democratic misrule, especially with a gangster as the head of the state? If my choice of terms for Hillary seems harsh, I would ask you to read my book Ron Brown’s Body, whose facts and thesis no one has challenged."

end excerpt.

No, I do not believe we can survive eight more years of Democratic misrule, but I also do not believe we can survive more Republican misrule either. What does Cashill think will happen if we get a pro-amnesty Republican in the White House? What will President Rubio do to America, especially if he retains both houses of Congress under the current leadership? People who could and would oppose President Hillary will be forced to go along with the GOP Establishment dreams of banana Republicanism, and all will be lost in the end as America's electorate becomes Hispanicised. An Establishment President will NOT get rid of Obamacare, will NOT rein in high spending (as George W. Bush failed to do), will NOT encourage low energy costs (as Mr. Bush failed to do), will promote "green" tech, will NOT take women out of combat or oopenly transgendered out of the front lines. And what will we get on SCOTUS? History suggests we'll get another turncoat - like Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Sandra Day O'Connor, or John "how can I save Obamacare" Roberts. Republican Establishment types have not been our friends where the courts are concerned, so to use that as our critical baseline is foolish.

The reality is, a spy is considered more dangerous than an enemy soldier because he can do more damage by betraying trust. Spied and terrorists are subject to execution precisely because of the dangers of their duplicity, and yet we are supposed to support somebody who will damage our country irrevocably because they can "win" according to the media and the insiders who have a vested interest in maintaining their power.

There is nothing pharisitical (which means hypocritical) about asking for an honest man. Cashill is himself being dishonest calling Limbaugh, for instance, a pharisee; Limbaugh has not condemned Donald Trump, a clearly non "pure" candidate. If it were purity we were seeking Trump would not have the backing of so many conservatives.

No, the issue is sanity. Albert Einstein pointed out that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and that is precisely what the GOP has done, running the same types of candidates election after election. Bush Sr., Bob Dole, Bush Jr. John McCain, Mitt Romney, all cut from the identical cloth, the people who can "reach across the aisle", the fellows who will "appeal to the moderates" to gain the trust of the "great middle". It never works, except with George W. Bush, who actually lost his first election then squeeked by as a wartime President. And all the while we have been losing ground both in terms of culture and legal matters. Bill Clinton's policy of "don't ask, don't tell" caused a firestorm during his tenure, yet we have now moved to openly gay soldiers and women in combat in just twenty years. The GOP could have and should have repealed DADT as soon as they had the power, but they didn't; they never roll anything back. They couldn't even stop the Democrats from looting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They are a huge part of the problem.

It's either death by a thousand papercuts or one quick execution at the hands of the Democrats. In the end it doesn't matter how you die if you are dead.

We no longer have the luxury of incrementalism. America is in a state of emergency and we simply cannot afford a fifty year effort to restore the country. We are hopelessly broke, and the GOPe has just added TWO TRILLION dollars to that bankruptcy. How can you possibly talk about rolling back Obama's excesses when the GOP goes over and above him?

The GOP has refused to roll anything the left has done back. Why does Mr. Cashill think they'll start now?

And the GOP has declared open war on the base, taking steps to win WITHOUT conservative support. The crisis that has been looming for over fifty years in the GOP is now at hand, and until we get our own house in order we cannot expect to to clean up the nation's political mess. IF we hold our noses yet one more time the Establishment will succeed in purging conservatives from any real influence over the direction the GOP takes, and the time has come for us to rein them in. We cannot expect to succeed with Benedict Arnolds handing over our political West Point to the Democrats.

How Cashill cannot see this is beyond me. This is not the hypocrisy of the Pharisee but the desperation of one whose cause is almost lost; we can no longer afford the luxury of a leader who will compromise the country.

George Washington, on hearing that Benedict Arnold had betrayed him, picked out a tree to hang the traitor if and when he was caught. Arnold escaped, but he never was trusted by the British and he died in England in obscurity. And obscruity it was, too; Washington saw to it that it was illegal to write the name Benedict Arnold, going so far as to deny Arnold's ancestors a proper monument on their graves. If Washington took the advice of a Cashill, he would have cut a deal with Arnold, giving the traitor a lesser post because "we needed him".

The GOP is going to have to split; the marriage of big money interests and conservatives has about run it's course. The divorce is caused not by our side, but by the unfaithfulness of the establishment, who prefer to take the Democrats as their lover than their spouse.

Sometimes a bad marriage is worse than no marriage at all.

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Diana Mathewson

Just one more reason to impeach?

https://apple.news/Ax4EARvL9NtiAzsdA8LBbAg

Why Are Many Diseases Back, Decades After Being Wiped Out in the U.S.?
Breitbart News

If you think data about illegal alien crime is hidden from public, just try to find information on the contagious diseases brought across our borders by illegal aliens from nearly 100 countries. If we survey the anecdotal and sporadic official data of the past fifteen years, there is no doubt we are being invaded daily by dangerous diseases

This from Jack Kemp

Remember when "Professor" Ward Churchill was saying that Americans from European origin were giving Native Americans blankets with small pox? How could soldiers load wagons with hand out small pox infected blankets without getting the disease themselves?

As is, the left also mentioned that when Columbus and other explorers came from Spain (and the first whites to come to Hawaii) they brought with them diseases which unintentionally wiped out many of the natives - and that is something white people should feel ashamed of. Well, then are the Central Americans and Syrians coming here supposed to feel ashamed of the diseases they bring here now? Or are only white people supposed to be ashamed of anything that isn't perfect in their environment?

A NOTE FROM TIM:

That is a great point Jack, and it makes the old "two wrongs don't make a right" all the more pertinent. Sadly, few think about such things these days.


Speaking of Old World diseases wiping out Native Americans, Europe is often blamed for syphillis, but it is actually a mutation of a disease endemic to America, so it was the Native Americans who gifted the white man with this particular little present

From Archaeology Magazine :

"Ancient and medieval sources have long been cited as evidence for syphilis in Europe before Columbus, but none of the descriptions by Greek and Roman authors are specific enough to be certain. Returning crusaders brought "Saracen ointment" containing mercury for treating "lepers," an appropriate medication for syphilis but not for leprosy. Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century A.D. references to "venereal leprosy" may also indicate syphilis because leprosy is not sexually transmitted. But the first unambiguous descriptions of syphilis begin around 1500. These may either reflect growing medical knowledge and ability to differentiate syphilis from other diseases or signal its arrival from the New World.

Syphilis is caused by the bacterium Treponema palladium; other bacteria in the same genus cause yaws and bejel, which are transmitted through direct skin-to-skin contact or sharing of drinking vessels. Like syphilis, bejel and yaws cause inflammation of tissue surrounding bone and modify the bones. To establish criteria for distinguishing among the three diseases based on skeletal changes the Rothschilds analyzed a North American collection of skeletons for syphilis cases (diagnosed at autopsy), a collection from Guam predating 1668 for yaws (the only treponemal disease on the island before then), and early historic Near Eastern Bedouin for bejel (bejel is endemic to the region). They were able to identify characteristic bone changes for each disease, for example, modifications to the shin and tibia particular to syphilis, or routine involvement of hand or foot in yaws but not syphilis or bejel.

Using these criteria, they examined 687 skeletons from archaeological sites in the United States and Ecuador ranging in age from 400 to 6,000 years. Populations to the south (New Mexico, Florida, and Ecuador) proved to have syphilis, while those to the north (Ohio, Illinois, and Virginia) had yaws. By contrast, examination of 1,000 Old World skeletons dated to before contact with the New World revealed no cases of syphilis. This suggests that syphilis was first present in the New World and was later brought to the Old World. Furthermore, the Rothschilds found that the earliest yaws cases in the New World collections were at least 6,000 years old, while the first syphilis cases were at least 800 years old and perhaps more than 1,600 years old. This suggests that syphilis may be a New World mutation of yaws, which has a worldwide distribution. The occurrence of the same mutation giving rise to syphilis independently in the New and Old worlds seems unlikely."

End excerpt.

Here is the paper by Rothschild. He states:

" Proof of European origins of syphilis would first require proof that any treponemal disease existed in pre-Columbian Europe. Actually, there is little evidence even of periosteal reaction, let alone of its existence as a population phenomenon in pre-twelfth century a.d. Europe [34, 35]. All evidence represents isolated cases for which alternative diagnoses are more likely"

[...]

"Somewhere between 2000 and 1800 years ago, the first identified osseotype of syphilis occurred [49]. The Mogollan Ridge proved to be the dividing line with respect to both the first appearance of syphilis and the climatic change that may have been responsible for the event [93, 94]. Its osseous signature is recognized to have occurred 1500 years ago in New Mexico, 1000 years ago in Wisconsin, 800 years ago in Ecuador, 700 years ago in Florida, and 600 years ago in Michigan and West Virginia [49].

It is clear that syphilis was present in the New World at the time of Columbus' arrival [19, 49]. Especially pertinent is documentation of syphilis in the area where he actually landed, the Dominican Republic [95]. The periosteal reaction characteristic of syphilis has been recognized in 6%–14% of skeletons from the El Soco (800 a.d.), Juan Dolio (1400 a.d.), La Caleta (1200–1300 a.d.), Atajadizo (1200–1300 a.d.), and Cueva Cabrera (1200–1300 a.d.) sites. The average number of bone groups affected ranged from 1.7 to 2.6. Sabre shin remodeling was often so marked as to erase all surface indications of periosteal reaction. The osseous evidence documents the presence of syphilis in the Dominican Republic where Columbus landed. Columbus' crew clearly had the opportunity and means to contract and spread the venereal disease we now call syphilis. "

End excerpts.
.

Also, it should be pointed out that the Administration and their media allies are trying to blame the anti-vaccination movement for these outbreaks. Typical; they have to fault others for the problems they tehmselves have caused and in the process perhaps expand government power over individuals and families.

Sadly, everything, including the lives of our children, are to be burnt offerings on the altar of political correctness these days.

One must ask why, if guns are the source of the problem of violent deaths in America as opposed to the people who use them, then why aren't illegal immigrants (and many legal) looked at in a similar way? These are the source of the diseases, after all, and we should seek people control to stop infectious Third World diseases as surely as liberals seek to restrict guns to stop criminality. Why the differing solutions?

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Jack Kemp

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/44-democrats-support-accepting-refugees-fake-city-aladdin-movie
44% of Democrats Support Accepting Refugees from Fake City in 'Aladdin' Movie
Refugees will arrive in the U.S. via magic carpet.

WPA Research released polling data showing that 44% of Democrats support accepting refugees from fictional Disney city Agrabah named in the movie Aladdin.

The poll was conducted in response to the left-wing pollsters Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey that showed 30% of Republicans would support bombing Agrabah.

WPA said that Democrats "will allow refugees from anywhere into the country, whether they are potential ISIS supporters from Syria or potential cartoon characters on a magic carpet ride.”

Notably, the number was even higher among the younger cohort, ages 18 to 24. Sixty-six percent (two-thirds!) of these folks said they would support accepting refugees from Disney's fictional city.
The survey was conducting among 1,132 voters with a margin of error of 2.9%,

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Paul Driessen

Most Americans are aware that a private contractor, under the supervision of EPA and the Colorado mine safety agency, unleashed a 3,000,000-gallon flash flood that contaminated rivers in several western states this past August. My own analyses of that spill have been published widely.

But people are less familiar with the ongoing cover-up of that spill and the incompetence that caused it. Less than three weeks after the toxic plume reached Lake Powell, EPA issued a whitewash report that would have made Tom Sawyer proud. Just two weeks ago, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told Congress she was unaware of anyone being fired, fined, demoted or in any way held responsible for the disaster.

It’s one more example of government bureaucrats demanding more control over every aspect of our lives, livelihoods, economy and living standards – while also demanding that they never be held accountable for their screw-ups or even their deliberately destructive actions.

Thank you for posting my article, quoting from it, and forwarding it to your friends and colleagues.

Government’s Gold King whitewash

Double standards and pollution continue, while the feds exonerate themselves from blame

Paul Driessen

When a private citizen or company violates rules, misrepresents facts or pollutes a river, government penalties are swift and severe. It’s different when the government lies or screws up.

Two weeks ago, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell testified before Congress on a toxic spill that federal and state agencies unleashed into western state rivers last August. Supervised by officials from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety (DRMS), an Environmental Restoration (ER) company crew excavated tons of rock and debris that had blocked the portal (entrance or adit) to the Gold King Mine above Silverton, Colorado.

The crew kept digging until the remaining blockage burst open, spilling 3,000,000 gallons of acidic water laden with iron, lead, cadmium, mercury and other heavy metals. The toxic flood contaminated the Animas and San Juan Rivers, all the way to Lake Powell in Utah. EPA then waited an entire day before notifying downstream mayors, health officials, families, kayakers, fishermen, farmers and ranchers that the water they were drinking, paddling in, or using for crops and livestock was contaminated.

Ms. Jewell told Congress she was unaware of anyone being fired, fined or even demoted. In fact, federal investigations and reports didn’t hold anyone responsible for the disaster. (Maybe they even got bonuses.) Considering the spill’s severity, the gross incompetence of government officials, their advance knowledge of the dangers, and the way they downplayed and whitewashed their actions, this is intolerable.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy did say she was "absolutely, deeply sorry.” But then FEMA denied disaster relief to the Navajos, and EPA sent them emergency water tanks contaminated with oil!

As I explained in a detailed analysis, experts had warned that contaminated water had probably backed up hundreds of feet upward into the mine, creating the risk of a sudden, powerful toxic flashflood. EPA, DRMS and ER’s prior experience with nearby mines meant they personally knew the high risks in advance. In a June 2014 work plan for the planned cleanup, ER itself had warned: "Conditions may exist that could result in a blowout of the blockages and cause a release of large volumes of contaminated mine waters and sediment from inside the mine, which contain concentrated heavy metals.”

Yet they went ahead, with no emergency plans for dealing with a toxic spill. They didn’t even follow their own ill-conceived plan. As the contamination moved downstream, they claimed they had simply "miscalculated” how much water had backed up and insisted they had been "very careful.” Barely a week after the spill, Ms. McCarthy said the river is "restoring itself” to "pre-spill conditions” – something she would never say if a privately owned company had caused similar contamination.

On August 24, EPA issued a preliminary report that can only be called a Tom Sawyer whitewash, designed to absolve the perpetrators of any blame, liability, civil penalty or criminal prosecution.

It says the state and federal personnel at Gold King were "senior mining experts” and "experienced professionals” who have "extensive experience with the investigation and closure of mines.” But their names were all redacted from the summary, and their actions strongly suggest that they had little training or experience in reopening mines or dealing with possible water impoundments and toxic spills.

The EPA/DRMS determination that there was "no or low mine water pressurization” at Gold King was supposedly based on actual observations. However, the EPA review team said it "was not able to identify any calculations made on the possible volume of water that could be held behind the portal plug.”

In fact, the "professionals” simply claimed ongoing mine drainage showed that a pressure buildup was not likely. Wrong. It simply showed that the compacted overburden was able to hold back an enormous volume of water – until they destroyed its structural integrity. They also said a similar excavation at a nearby mine "did not result in a blowout.” But that’s irrelevant. Every mine is unique and must be treated as if a worst-case scenario could unfold. The other mine didn’t have serious water backup; Gold King did.

Perhaps the most blatant example of self-serving excuses is on page 7, which says in relevant part:

"Mine water pressurization data from behind the blockage potentially could have been obtained through a drill hole inserted further back into the [Gold King] Adit from above the mine tunnel. Such a technique was … not used at the [Gold King] Adit [because it] would have been very difficult and expensive … and require much more planning and multiple field seasons to accomplish. Although difficult and therefore expensive and technically challenging, this procedure may have been able to discover the pressurized conditions that turned out to cause the blowout.” [emphasis added]

In truth, the crew could easily have drilled a borehole lined with steel pipe from above the portal into an area behind the blockage, and then used simple instruments to determine the water pressure and extent of water backup, before beginning to dig. They had done this elsewhere and at could have done it at Gold King for less than $75,000, experienced miners told me. It was not "technically challenging.”

These "experienced professionals” guessed but did not test. They simply assumed there was limited water in the mine, and charged blindly ahead. And they did it after bullying their way onto the Gold King premises by threatening its owner with $35,000 per day in fines if he did not allow them on his property.

Their actions were grossly negligent. In fact, they are criminal offenses under the Clean Water Act and other laws that the government routinely uses to fine and jail private citizens and company employees, such as John Pozsgai, Bill Ellen, and employees of Freedom Industries and the Pacific & Arctic Railway. None of these "convicted felons” intended to cause those accidents, and all were "absolutely, deeply sorry” for what happened. Why should the state and federal culprits be treated any differently – get off scot free – after causing far worse environmental damage?

Before the blowout, the Gold King Mine was leaking 206 gallons of acidic, metals-laden but mostly clear water per minute in 2010, 140 gpm in 2011, 13 in August 2014 and 112 in September 2014, just before EPA first began working at the mine portal. On August 5, 2015, it flash-flooded more than 3,000,000 gallons of turmeric-orange, toxic-sludge-laden pollution.

The mine is now leaking 500-900 gallons per minute: 720,000 to 1,300,000 gallons per day – a huge increase in pollution into these important waterways. Until winter set in, most of it was finally being treated before entering Cement Creek, the Animas River and downstream waters.

So we must ask, what was the emergency that "forced” the EPA and DRMS to return to Gold King, demand immediate access to the site – and proceed in such a hasty, negligent manner? Unfortunately, this incident and the whitewashing that followed is too typical of government agencies that have become increasingly dictatorial, unaccountable, and dismissive of other interests, outside expertise, and people’s needs for jobs, minerals, energy and quality living standards.

Today, throughout the Rocky Mountain region, waters are still polluted by metals and minerals that are present in underground mines … along with the gold and silver that have long drawn prospectors, created jobs, and built state and local economies. Hopefully, effluents from all these abandoned mines will soon be minimized via practical, efficient, low-maintenance treatment systems, under legal regimes that do not assign unlimited liability to private sector entities that try to fix these problems.

That will greatly improve water quality in many streams – while suggestions presented in EPA’s otherwise shoddy internal review could do much to prevent a repeat of Gold King, if they are followed.

Meanwhile, Congress and state legislatures should further investigate the Gold King disaster, and compel witnesses to testify under oath. They should also improve relevant laws, ensure that agency personnel are truly qualified to do their tasks, and hold agency incompetents and miscreants accountable.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.



Illustrations that could be used with this article:

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William Been forwards this:

A Christmas story without Jesus? Dear Friend, What will the new year—much less the future—hold for America? It is frightening to think what this nation may look like if God’s people do not take a stand against the moral decay. Every week there are new examples in the news of what we’re facing. Several days ago, a school board in Kentucky ordered local elementary students to cut parts of their performance of "A Charlie Brown Christmas.” You can probably guess which parts they removed! The gag order includes the play’s most important point, as Linus recites Luke 2:8-14 and then says, "That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” Students were ordered to leave out the true meaning of Christmas recorded in Scripture. It’s a shame that many no longer welcome Christ in His own story! In less than two weeks, I will begin the 50-state Decision America Tour to challenge Christians to pray, vote, and engage in their communities with God’s truth. I’m going to every state capital in 2016 to hold these prayer rallies because the future of this nation—for our children and our grandchildren—is at stake. Will you join me at your state capitol? Invite your friends, your family, and your church. Let’s stand together and pray for our nation at this critical time. It's not too late to be a part of your state’s prayer team. Things may seem bleak, but God "is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Ephesians 3:20, NKJV). May God bless you and your family as you celebrate His birth and His provision of salvation this Christmas. Sign the Decision America Tour Pledge Tell a Friend About the Tour Sincerely, Franklin Graham P.S. You can see a listing of tour stops for January through March atDecisionAmericaTour.com—and be sure to check back regularly for announcements about upcoming rallies. "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” —2 Chronicles 7:14, NKJV

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Bill Been

REPUBLICAN PARTY FAILS AMERICA

A conservative article published after the approval of the Omnibus Bill discussed the shame of the GOP seeking Democrat votes to accomplish approval. However, upon inspection of the Roll Call votes, it is apparent that the shame goes even deeper than simply using Democrat support.

Paul Ryan and the Republican House actually prepared, submitted, and approved a Democrat bill while presiding over the process with a huge GOP majority. This bill was not a Republican bill as indicated in the split of votes by political party. The bill was approved by 90% of the Democrat House members and 85% of the Senate Democrats while only 61% of the House GOP and 50% of the Senate GOP voted for what is undoubtably one of the worst monstrosities in USA history. It could have passed with only 52 Republicans in the House and 13 Republicans in the Senate!!!! IT IS A DEMOCRAT BILL!!!!

Please think about what has been done! The minority party and their Progressive allies celebrate approval of a bill that had weak support from the majority party. How sick is that?! Even worse, the majority party is also celebrating their "bipartisan” accomplishment as a demonstration of government working. That is delusional and a direct insult to every rank-and-file Republican who have supported the GOP with time, money, and even prayers.

We have a presidential campaign in progress. The candidates are now in the position of either supporting this atrocity or chastising their own majority congressional delegation. Given the stakes of the 2016 election, this may be the ultimate disaster created by the feckless leadership of the Establishment Republican Party. It appears that saving our country is secondary to the self-serving leadership of the Republican Party.

In conclusion, consider that the future of our country is being jeopardized by this total sellout by the political party that is the only political group that can save America from the completion of the Obama/Socialist transformation. Last, consider whether this is another of the despicable attempts by Establishment Republicans to stop the Trump-Cruz effort to take back and restore America. Not only do I believe it is critical that these two candidates be elected in 2016 but it may be critical to surviving the expected onslaught from the left during 2016. Obama will attempt to finish his transformation while Soros-led groups activate to preserve their long sought-after objective of a permanent leftist government as envisioned by Cloward and Piven many years ago.



William E. Been

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Timothy Birdnow

Twas the week after Paris and all through the E.U.
Third World hands in the piggy bank sticky as glue
the stockings were hung round the smokestacks with pains
in the hopes for some dollars and ill-gotten gains.

The usual suspects, NGO's like Greenpeace
Were happily dreaming of all they could fleece
With Merkel in her kerchief and Obama with his dash
there was much happy passing of taxpayer cas.h

Then from drunken pols there arose a resolution
demanding America pay restitution
Away to the microphones the leaders all flew
to promote the monstrosity all of them drew

Even Clinton showed up, with a naked intern
in the hopes of a quickie and money to earn
When what to our wondering ears should we hear
but prophecies of doom, and destruction and fear

With a little old diplomat whistling a tune
We knew in a moment it must be Ban-ki Moon!
more rapid than eagles his demands did they rocket
and swift as a bird did he pick out our pocket

"Now 'bama and Merkel and Hollande and Howard
Cameron and Putin you'll all be devoured!
You'll pay very dearly for your co2
now pay through the nose till your nations turn blue"

And never was mentioned the role of the Sun
at that covetous conference called COP21
And on Capitol Hill there was little offense
as Paul Ryan sold out GOP constituents

Sporting a beard, like a pirate in wait
Ryan passed an omnibus overflowing the plate
two trillion he gave to Obama to blow
while POTUS won't let the oil from Canada flow

Obama just lauged, his eyes oh, so merry
he was getting the money he pledged through John Kerry
while conservatives wail and their teeth do they gnash
Obama mocks Ted Cruz and does a Trump bash

With a deluge of words he went straight to his work
claimed the climate is changing and old Trump is a jerk
and putting his finger straight up in the air
a government shutdown did Obama dare

In Paris they cheered at America's screwing
while Republicans sat idly by with their mooing
while here and in Europe people pour cross the border
all for the dream of a U.N. World Order

Now a framework exists for the socialist gent
to steal our money and for world government
and Pope Francis complained from his Pope mobile car
"is it really so bad to say Alluha Ahkbar?"

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Timothy Birdnow

El Nino and, wait for it! The Polar Vortex are the causes of the unusual warm spell we have been experiencing here in the United States. According to the U.K. Guardian:

The Guardian, 15 December 2015

Alan Yuhas and Oliver Milman

Meteorologists have blamed El Niño and the polar vortex for record-breaking warm temperatures across the US this week, saying the pair of weather systems will likely keep 2015 warm enough to be the hottest year on record.

Noaa

This year’s El Niño, a recurring weather pattern caused by unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean, is particularly strong and reaching its peak. The high pressure system, now east of Hawaii, sends warm air along the jet stream over the northern Pacific and into the northern and central US.

The system causes storms in the western US, greater precipitation in the south, and warmer air throughout most of the country. The 2015-16 El Niño is expected to rank as one of the three strongest in half a century.

The system has brought desperately needed water to California, delivering three storms in a week to a state that has been parched by a four-year drought. Earlier this year, Mike Halpert, the deputy director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (Noaa), said the state would need twice its normal rainfall to break free from the drought.

But Halpert ascribes the exceptionally warm weather on the east coast – where Sunday temperatures broke records, hitting 70F (21C) in New York and Philadelphia – to the polar vortex, the same system blamed for numbing the region with cold earlier this year.

"I would not associate the lack of snow in Buffalo with El Niño,” Halpert told CNBC last week, referring to the New York city that usually receives snow by early November. "It is much more likely the Arctic oscillation.”

Halpert explained that the polar vortex, a circular swirl of cold air moving around the north pole, varies in pressure throughout the winter season – changes called the Arctic oscillation.

High pressure expands the system until the bands of cold wind break along the southbound jet stream, spewing icy weather southward into the US. Low pressure holds the vortex winds wrapped in a closer ring around the pole, trapping Arctic air in the region…

"When you combine an Arctic oscillation along with a strong El Niño, this is what you end up with,” Halpert told Time magazine.

End excerpt.

This has absolutely nothing to do with global warming. According to a release from UAH:

"The average temperature of Earth’s atmosphere has warmed just over four tenths of a degree Celsius (almost three fourths of a degree Fahrenheit) during the past 37 years, with the greatest warming over the Arctic Ocean and Australia, said Dr. John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Microwave sounding units on board NOAA and NASA satellites completed 37 complete years of collecting temperature data in November, giving us nearly global coverage of climate change during that time.

If that trend was to continue for another 63 years, the composite warming for the globe would be 1.1 C (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit) for the century, Christy said. That would put the average global temperature change over 100 years well under the 2.0 C (3.6 degrees F) goal set recently at the climate change summit in Paris.

Due in part (but not exclusively) to the ongoing El Niño Pacific Ocean warming event, the global temperature trend has been trending slightly warmer over the past several months, Christy said. While the current global trend is just under 0.115 C (rounded down to 0.11), he expects the trend line to cross 0.115 C in the next several months, raising the global trend to 0.12 C per decade."

End excerpt.

So, clearly the warming here in America is not related to greenhouse gas emissions but rather to weather patterns tied to other factors such as milankovich cycles, solar activity, and cosmic-ray driven changes in planetary albedo.

Hat tip; the Global Warming Policy Foundation

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Timothy Birdnow

What is a free society? This is no idle question, because your definition of a free society will determine how society will be structured - and ultimately what life will be like for the citizenry. The old Soviet Union saw freedom as a function of material benefits, meaning freedom meant "freedom from want", "freedom from fear", freedom from poverty" - something that made for an all-encompassing state and a python-esque society that supplied some of your basic needs but did so in the most meager fashion. In the end, the "freedoms" the Soviets offered were in fact handcuffs.

Modern Progressives haven't learned a single thing from the failure of Bolshevism. They still look to the octopodal embrace of society to care for the People as the ultimate expression of freedom.

That was illustrated quite plainly last night in the Democratic debate. All three candidates clearly see freedom not as the right to be left alone and make your own way but as a group effort, something that obligates others. Every discussion of a major issue was predicated on group action - be it how to deal with ISIS (we must BYILD COALITIONS was the universal refrain) or how to deal with economic problems, or how to deal with violence in society. Always it was "we must use the force of law to fix this problem as a group". Their fundamental premise always ignored the basic, fundamental right to be left alone.

Which is fascinating, because leftist have used this concept to restrain society from stopping criminal and destructive behavior. It has been one of their big arguments in favor of abortion, for instance; SCOTUS found an inherent "right to privacy" in the Constitution and utilized that to legalize abortion nationwide. Of course there is a forgotten man here - the unborn child, whose right to privacy is violated in an absolute sense. But the Left never lets an inconsistency stand in their way. We have also seen this in attempts to kill laws against narcotics, against criminal behavior, etc. even while promoting gun control and pushing for prosecution of people who kill or injure a criminal in the act of robbing them.

The purpose of government is, to conservatives, to guarantee that people may pursue their own lives without being bothered.

Which is what makes this essay by George Will interesting; it speaks directly to the Progressive mindset in microcosm. And it is a story about something here in my hometown.

Pagedale Mo. is an inner suburb of the City of St. Louis, and it has managed to claw it's way to bare survival in a sea of blasted, impoverished hellholes. Pagedale is surrounded by numerous ghetto communities, and, undoubtedly at first, the city leaders sought to keep it from turning into just one more boarded up gang land. But there is more; Pagedale has always been a notorious speed trap, a place that steals money from unwary passers-by - the penultimate of the complaints against Ferguson (which is nearby). Pagedale has always stolen money to operate.

According to Will at NRO:

"Pagedale is 1.19 square miles of St. Louis County. Approximately 93 percent of its 3,000 residents are African American and about 25 percent live below the poverty line. There is not much of a tax base for their government. But supposed necessity does not confer constitutionality on Pagedale’s decision to budget on the assumption of a steady blizzard of capricious fines.

Pagedale residents are subject to fines if they walk on the left side of a crosswalk; if they have a hedge more than three feet high, a weed more than seven inches high, or any dead vegetation on their property; or if they park a car at night more than 500 feet from a street lamp or other source of illumination; or if windows facing a street do not have drapes or blinds that are "neatly hung, in a presentable appearance, properly maintained and in a state of good repair”; or if their houses have unpainted foundations or chipped or aging layers of paint (even on gutters); or if there are cracks in their driveways; or if on a national holiday — the only time a barbeque may be conducted in a front yard — more than two people are gathered at the grill or there are alcoholic beverages visible within 150 feet of the grill"

End excerpt.

Indeed it is so.

I worked for a property management company in St. Louis, and we picked up a new client who had a rental house in Pagedale. Her grass service disappeared and she was cited for high grass, so I drew the lucky straw and went to court for her. I thought I had shown up at a black Woodstock; there were people lined up not just out of the door but all the way down the street. I listened to the charges and they were ALL bogus nonsense; taillights out, grass too high, driving 28 in a 25 zone, etc. It was quite clear that none of these people should have ever wound up in court.

In e3ssence, the court was a giant ATM for the city of Pagedale. They were shaking down people who lived there, and people who had the misfortune of crossing into the community. Our client had to pay a large fine - and I saw her grass, it was not all that high. There was no reason for anyone to waste time at that court. I know why the city issued a summons; the property was listed as being owned by someone out-of-state and they figured nobody would show for the court date, thus they could issue a warrant and demand even more money. The code enforcement officer was unhappy to see me; he clearly figured this would bring in lots of new revenue.

Will explains why these draconian regulations are in place:

"All this and much more is because Missouri’s legislature, noting excessive reliance on traffic tickets, put a low cap on the portion a community could raise of its budget from this source. So now 40 percent of Pagedale’s tickets are for non-traffic offenses. Since 2010, such tickets have increased 495 percent. In 2013, the city collected $356,601 in fines and fees. But Pagedale’s misfortune might be America’s good fortune now that the constitutional litigators from the Institute for Justice are representing some Pagedale residents.


The institute argues that the city is subordinating the administration of justice to the goal of generating revenue, even limiting court hours in order to cause people to fail to meet requirements, thereby subjecting them to more fines. But the city’s pecuniary interest in particular judicial outcomes, which creates an appearance of bias, is not the crux of the argument that the city is violating the 14th Amendment guarantee that Americans shall not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without "due process of law.” The entire nation should hope that this small city’s pettiness will be stopped by a court that says this: The Due Process Clause, properly construed, prohibits arbitrary government action, particularly that which unjustifiably restricts individuals’ liberties."

End excerpt.

He's right to a point, but I had to attend that court prior to the change in Missouri law and so many other cases there were for Mickey-Mouse violations.

As for that last, well, it has always been that way, since these municipalities run their own courts and keep the money they make off of unsuspecting individuals. It never made any sense to me; the judge is a city employee, as is the prosecutor, and both are chumming around in the courtroom. You have virtually no chance of winning if you plead not guilty and demand a trial. Your only option is to sue in superior court after you lose. Most people - especially poor people - have neither the time nor resources to fight this, and just pay their fines to put an end to it.

This was one of the major issues that the Ferguson Commission dealt with; many of the locals complained about predatory policing, the use of police and legal power to steal money to fill city coffers. Of course, the Ferguson Commission made it a racial thing, arguing that this was happening because the targets were black. That isn't true, and never has been. Anyone who lived in one of these Podunk municipalities (and indeed I grew up in one) knows the dangers of predatory policing. In fact, when I was a teenager, a police officer in a neighboring community told me and some friends to stay out of my own hometown because the police there were crazy, and they were itching for trouble with teens. This officer actually suggested we take the shortest route out of that town so as to avoid being stopped.

That is tyranny, whether these local governments are voted in our not.

The Founding Fathers hated democracy for this very reason. Democracy invariably ends in tyranny, because some realize they can make money off their fellow citizens, and can otherwise profit (like empowering themselves). A rabble voting based entirely on self-interest leads to a ruling aristocratic class. The Founders wanted to devolve power to the People wherever possible, and to do that they formulated and codified fundamental rights which could not be usurped by a democratic vote. Sadly, we have gone away from this notion, accepting the concept of rights are mere convention, given by the People in their collective will. This was Jean Jacques Rousseau's vision of the Social Contract, as opposed to the John Locke vision of limited government, which itself emanated from rights being granted by God and not Man.

We now think rights are mere privileges granted by the State. As a result, we live in an ever intrusive society, be it at the national level, the state level, or the local level. Nobody questions the right of the collective to harass and demand from the citizen. The right to be left alone has been forgotten.

A city like Pagedale is a model, a microcosm of where Progressive thought will take us. No doubt the original intent of these draconian laws was to preserve the city, to keep it from decaying and to prevent lawless and rowdy behavior, thus to ensure the quiet enjoyment of the property the citizens inhabited. But as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and a society that sees the individual as subordinate to the state will inevitably be subject to human failings and insatiable human appetites. In the end the good intentions are swallowed up, becoming a tool of monstrous repression. Nobody wants to live in Pagedale.

America is becoming a giant version of Pagedale; who is going to want to live here in the future?

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Timothy Birdnow

Over at American Thinker Carol Brown has a great article illustrating the hypocrisy of newly minted House Speaker and Obama backside sniffer Paul Ryan. Ryan is upset with America for having the gall to demand we stop the flood of alines invading our soil. Brown quotes Breitbart:

"On previous occasions, Ryan has repeatedly suggested that the American people are not entitled to discriminate against who enters their country on a visa. When Sean Hannity asked Paul Ryan about whether or not he would support curbs to Muslim immigration, Paul Ryan declared, "That’s not who we are.”

End quote.

And yet the hypocrite lives in a virtual fortress, with high security fencing and armed guards. He seems to miss the irony of all this.

Let me offer a couple of points to ponder for Mr. Pee Wee Ryan.

First, it should be pointed out that America's immigration has changed dramatically in the last hundred years, and this should be something to consider in that European immigrants come from the same cultural, intellectual, and spiritual traditions that allowed America to exist in the first place. Accprdomg to the Pew Research Center , a notably left-leaning outfit:

"Nearly 59 million immigrants have arrived in the United States since 1965, making the nation the top destination in the world for those moving from one country to another. Mexico, which shares a nearly 2,000-mile border with the U.S., is the source of the largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States.

But today’s volume of immigrants is in some ways a return to America’s past. A century ago, the U.S. experienced another large wave of 18.2 million immigrants, hailing largely from Europe. Many Americans can trace their roots to that wave, from 1890 to 1919, when Germany dominated as the country sending the most immigrants to many of the U.S. states, although the United Kingdom, Canada and Italy were also strongly represented.

In 1910, Germany was the top country of birth among U.S. immigrants, accounting for 19% of all immigrants (or 2.5 million) in the United States. Germans made up the biggest immigrant group in 18 states and the District of Columbia, while Mexico accounted for the most immigrants in just three states (Arizona, New Mexico and Texas). After Germany, the largest share of immigrants in the U.S. came from Russia and the countries that would become the USSR (11%, or 1.5 million)."

End excerpt.

Almost sixty million immigrants - about one in six people in the third most populace nation on Earth if they were all counted today as a single entity - are immigrants. Think of that! And most immigrants during the late 19th century wave came from Germany, a very advanced nation in terms of education, scientific achievement, and with a culture related to our own. Now we are importing Mayans and other paleo-pagan peoples who have no cultural links to our country, and we aren't giving it time to assimilate these people.

The Pew report continues:

"Since 1965, when Congress passed legislation to open the nation’s borders, immigrants have largely hailed from Latin America and Asia. In states that have attracted many immigrants, the current share of immigrants is below peaks reached more than a century ago. In 2012, there were four states (California, New York, New Jersey and Florida) in which about one-in-five or more people are foreign born. California peaked in 1860 at 40%, when China was the top country of birth among immigrants there. Meanwhile, New York and New Jersey peaked in 1910 at 30% (Russia and the USSR) and 26% (Italy), respectively.

Among U.S. immigrants as of 2013, five times as many are from Mexico as from China, where the second-highest number of U.S. immigrants were born (6% of all immigrants in the U.S., or 2.4 million). Mexico is the birthplace of 28% (or 11.6 million) of all immigrants in the U.S. Immigrants born in Mexico account for more than half of all of the foreign born in five states: New Mexico (72%), Arizona (58%), Texas (58%), Idaho (53%) and Oklahoma (51%).

Despite Mexico’s large numbers, immigrants come to the U.S. from all over the world. India is the top country of birth among immigrants in New Jersey, even though only about one-in-ten of the state’s immigrants are from India. Canada is the top country of birth for immigrants in Maine (24%), Montana (21%), New Hampshire (15%), Vermont (15%) and North Dakota (13%). Filipinos account for a large share of immigrants in Hawaii (47%) and Alaska (27%)"

End excerpt.

So India is a huge source of immigration here as well, even though India is a non-Western country. And of course don't forget China.

This wouldn't matter if America were still the melting pot, a place where immigrants came on the condition they became Americans. That is no longer the case; now America is overwhelmed with the reverse fascism of multiculturalism, which has describe the type of America the advocates wish as a salad, not a fondue. In other words, if you like your alien culture you can keep it! Too bad Obama and the other multiculturalists mean to keep that particular promise.

A nation with multiple cultures has to be held together by force. There is no good stable free nation that is largely multicultural. Even Canada, one of the most advanced and civil countries on Earth, has trouble holding the French and Anglo portions together. Other places are worse; what happened to Yugoslavia? Not there anymore, is it?

And yet the third most populated country on Earth cannot even secure her borders, and people like Paul Ryan snear at Americans who think we should put in common sense restrictions.

The Center for Immigration Studies has more:

"While they did not receive much attention when they were released last month, new projections from the Census Bureau show the enormous impact of immigration on the U.S. population. For the first time, the Bureau projected the future size of the immigrant (foreign-born) population and found that by 2023 immigrants will account for more than one in seven U.S. residents (51 million) — the largest share ever recorded in American history. Driven largely by legal immigration, not illegal immigration, the immigrant population will grow to nearly one in five U.S. residents (78 million) by 2060, the Bureau projects.1 The total U.S. population will grow to almost 417 million — 108 million more than in 2010.

Among the Census Bureau findings:

* Total net immigration (the difference between the number coming and going) will increase steadily over the next 45 years, totaling 64 million.2

* Absent a change in current policy, the Census Bureau projects that in 2023 the nation's immigrant population (legal and illegal) will reach 14.8 percent (51 million) of the total U.S. population — the highest share ever recorded in American history.3

* The bureau also projects that the immigrant population will grow nearly four times faster than the native-born population, reaching 15.8 percent (57 million) of the nation's population in 2030, 17.1 percent (65 million) in 2040, and 18.8 percent (78 million) in 2060.4

* To place these numbers into historical context, as recently as 1990, immigrants were 7.9 percent (20 million) of the total U.S. population.5

* The nation's total population will grow to 417 million by 2060 — 108 million more than in 2010.6 This increase is roughly equivalent to adding the combined populations of California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Massachusetts to the country.7

* The new projections indicate that, absent a change in immigration policy, immigrants who will arrive in the future plus their descendants will account for roughly three-fourths of future U.S. population increase.8

Other interesting findings in the projections show the rapid aging of the immigrant population. In 2015, immigrants accounted for 13 percent of the population 65 and older, roughly equal to their share of the overall population. But by 2060 there will be 25.3 million immigrants in this age group, accounting for 26 percent of all persons over 65"

End excerpt.

How does a nation survive such overwhelming numbers? It doesn't; we can't pay for it all, and those coming in will not be educated into the American culture and worldview.

If some immigration is good, why is more naturally better? Ryan lives in a farm state; surely he understands that some water is good for growing crops but a flood simply kills them.

In Europe we already see terrible devestation caused by unenculturated immigrants, particularly Muhammadans. There are "no go zones" in many cities across Europe where the authorities simply won't enter and enforce their own laws. This is what happens when you allow too many people to enter, or allow people who cannot be assimilated (as the Muslims cannot be). America will die if we allow this to continue.

This is not nativism. This is a common sense approach to a situation spiraling out of control. History is replete with countries that have been immigrated to death. Lebanon, for instance, allowed the Palestinians to seek refuge there, and is now a despotic hell-hole with no more unique Lebanese culture. The Muscovites swallowed up their neighbors, and many old cultures that had once been around are gone. So too, the native Americans on this continent. Ditto the Ainu of Japan. Ditto the Polynesians. Ditto the old Persian culture that the Islamic world swallowed.

Rome is the best example; unwilling to curtail German immigration, the Empire eventually fell.

We're next if we don't close our borders.

Pee Wee Ryan should be ashamed of himself. He is taking political steps to make his paymasters happy and will destroy our country. Why does the third most populace nation on Earth need unrestricted immigration? For cheap labor?

When America falls those inexpensive grass cuttings are going to give cold comfort.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:06 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Brian Birdnow

In an item tucked in the back pages of most of the nation’s major metropolitan daily newspapers this week the media noted that the presidential candidates are making the rounds trying to cash in on the charitable nature of the Christmas season by filling their campaign coffers to overflowing, and not with eggnog, either. Actually, the story was titled to fit all of the candidates, but the meat of the reporting centered on the current Democratic frontrunner, the celebrated and inevitable Hillary Clinton. The story, which seemed mildly disapproving, (surprising in light of Hillary’s usual fawning coverage) mentioned, in a somewhat chiding fashion, that Mrs. Clinton will "…rub some very famous elbows in her cash quest.” The loot will no doubt pay for Hillary and her entourage to fly first-class, stay in five star hotels, enjoys gourmet meals, and make a few more ritual speeches denouncing income inequality. Nice work if you can get it? I’d say so!

According to the news piece, next week Garrison Keillor, noted radio host, author, and conservative hater, will throw a fundraiser in Minneapolis and the next day Warren Buffet will host a bash of his own for Hillary supporters in Omaha. This Omaha affair sounds particularly lucrative, since the donors who pay $ 27,000, or more will be invited to a private reception, where they will kiss the ring of her royal highness. Later in the week the road show travels to the Big Apple where Drew Barrymore will partner with a lesser light, the supremely untalented Chelsea Clinton, for another fundraiser. On the same night the former musical superstar "Sting” will host a Hillary Victory Fund affair wherein the family will be represented by former president, and Hillary’s estranged husband, Bill Clinton. Tickets for this shindig are bargain priced at $33,400. Don’t think for a minute, though, that this type of contribution would buy anyone access to the former president, or his former partner, the soon-to-be new president.

When one totals up the take from these pre-Yuletide parties we can see that the beautiful people will be helping to give the Clintons a very merry Christmas, indeed. It seems that Hillary’s stockings, hose and pantsuit pockets will be well filled on Christmas Eve, and that this will last into the New Year. As noted above this will finance a number of speeches and policy addresses proposing a warmed over type of Bernie Sanders-like Fabian socialism for the working class, those among us who cannot host fundraisers and live off the largesse of strangers.

Campaign fundraising is, of course, the standard requiem for a political candidate and will not change, especially if the Clinton-Sanders-Obama crowd gets their way and pushes incumbent protection through in the future under the guise of campaign finance reform. Still, this latest example of Clinton shamelessness brings up a very salient point. The Hillary Clinton campaign has made no secret of the fact that they will ride the "income inequality” meme as far as they can, hopefully to the White House for eight years. It is, however, a matter of public record that the Clinton family has earned $140 million since Bill Clinton left the Presidency in 2001. Those of us who can remember the close of the Clinton Era no doubt have memories of scandalous criminal pardons, blatant theft of White House properties, and the president moaning and groaning that he would be the poorest ex-president in history, forgetting that Jefferson and Truman, among others, ended their days in poverty. We also remember Hillary Clinton in 2014 stating flatly on national television that she and her husband left Washington dead broke, and wondering how they would make a living. She conveniently forgot to mention that she had a pretty good job lined up as a US Senator from New York, and that her friends had anted up a sum northward of a million dollars to buy her a home in Georgetown, for use when she wasn’t living in NYC. She did back off of the hard luck story a bit when she found herself the butt of many jokes concerning true poverty, but the hypocrisy is stunning, and remains so to this very day.

Does anyone out there believe that Hillary Clinton really knows anything about the struggles of the working class, not to mention those truly impoverished in our midst? A child of the North Chicago area suburbs, Wellesley, Yale Law school, the Watergate Select Committee, First Lady of Arkansas, First Lady of the USA, U.S. Senator from New York, US Secretary of State, and quarter-million dollar per speech professional talker has a long list of positions, mostly because of who she married, but she certainly knows nothing of the struggles of working class people and their anxieties for the present and the future. It is truly remarkable that the Clinton machine has gotten this far with their artificial and transparent candidate and her story at all. In fact, close campaign watchers will note that her consultants have taken Hillary off the campaign trail numerous times when her glow seems to fade, and they had to retool her last summer, trying to upgrade the "likeability factor” following her lackluster campaign kickoff event.

The only ones who seem to be taken in by the never ending Hillary show are the mainstream media. These are the people who have fronted for Mrs. Clinton since the 1990s. They ignored her central position in all of the Clinton scandals. They argued for her plausibility as a presidential candidate before she had run for any position, even dog catcher. They shrugged off the impropriety of Clinton donors buying her a home in a tony neighborhood days before she was sworn in as a US senator. The media also covered up Hillary’s numerous verbal gaffes including the famous one about illegal immigrants as "…the people who mow our lawns, who care for our children and who clean our houses…”, once again illustrating her lack of understanding of life as lived by most normal Americans.

Now, just days before Christmas, the Hillary Clinton money machine cranks up and plunges into overdrive. The Clinton family, immune to embarrassment, and seemingly tone deaf concerning hypocrisy and impropriety rolls on, with another taxpayer-funded eight year lease at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue their chosen destination. America will survive this disgraceful family, but as a nation and as a culture, we will be worse off for the Clintons.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:26 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Dana Mathewson

There's a right way, and a wrong way. Why do today's educators always seem to pick the wrong?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/18/virginia-county-cancels-classes-friday-over-response-to-islam-lesson.html

A Virginia county decided to shut down schools Friday amid security concerns after parental objections to a world geography lesson that including a teaching on Islam.

A WORD FROM JACK KEMP:

It is good there is an uproar over this. The text the woman teacher assigned is the conversion to Islam statement which many in Islam would consider binding. I wonder how great this teacher would consider it if she had to wear a burka to work and only teach girl students - or was not allowed to work at all outside her home. The teacher is both immature and demented.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:35 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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