August 31, 2017

What's in a Name?

Timothy Birdnow

In college I was trained in linguistics. Not that I was very good at it, mind you, but I definitely received the training; my hope was to become a national security analyst and sit around in Washington with my feet up on a desk. I studied history with an emphasis on Russia. I studied linguistics. I learned a thing or two although I never became truly proficient at Russian; my Russian teacher told me I had way too much imagination and overthought it all the time. At any rate, I was never that good, but I did learn a thing or two.

Maybe I do have too much imagination, but I noticed a similarity between the names Antifa and Intifada almost immediately.

Antifa is supposedly a contraction of anti-fascist but notice how similar it is to Intifada, which is the name given to the uprising by masked Palestinian thugs in the West Bank and Gaza strip.

Merriam Webster gives the etymology of Entifada as:

"Arabic intifāḍa, literally, the act of shaking off"

So why choose I or A for the starting letter? After all, it is pronounce "entifada" by the news media (hardly a credible source for pronunciation or language in general; take their pronunciation of Mikhail as "Mic Hail rather than the Russian Mee-ki-eel.) I don't think the A or I differentiates it all that much. I believe the whole point of the choice of Antifa is to mimic the word Intifada. And, members of Antifa often show up wearing black with black masks in the Islamo-terrorist fashion.
So
I think their choice of names is consc oious and very telling. So many of these violent extremists find common cause with Islamic terrorists.

Now most people are calling them An tee fuh, but I prefer Anti-fah. I think we need to identify who they admire.

By the way, I never did make it to Langley after college; I graduated right around the time the ing Soviet Union fell. Boy did my timing stink! After 70 years of Marxism/Leninism I wound up being unemployable. It is an unfair world - a point people like the antifa crowd refuse to accept.

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Pets rescued from Hurricane Harvey

Jack Kemp

bunch of stories here, including one dog on a roof who directed rescuers to his owners inside a garage.

My dentist told me he saw a story on tv about a group of Texas dogs flown to New York City.

http://fortune.com/2017/08/29/pictures-pets-hurricane-harvey/

This Texas scene needs some music - by a singer from the Bronx.

Here's Frankie Lane singing from the recording of the original theme song from the Rawhide tv show from the late 1950s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KPplYp7K7M

FAY VOSHELL SENDS US THIS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxEtsLFrnUg

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Bless The Beast and the Children

Jack Kemp

They have come for your children - again.

https://townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2017/08/30/teacher-dear-parents-tell-your-kids-to-stop-taking-about-god-n2375103?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
Teacher: Dear Parents, Tell Your Kids to Stop Taking About God

Todd Starnes
|
Posted: Aug 30, 2017 10:01 AM


School is back in session across the fruited plain and students are getting settled in their new classes – adjusting to new teachers.
So it's not all that unusual for moms and dads to receive letters from their child's teacher - especially regarding inappropriate classroom behavior. But a letter written by a first grade teacher and sent to parents in McCordsville, Indiana is causing quite a stir.

The teacher urged parents to encourage their children to stop using religious words in the classroom.
"I have had a group of about five students using the words God, Jesus and Devil in conversation,” the teacher wrote.
Back when I was in grade school my classmates would typically invoke the Good Lord's name -- usually just before an exam.
She explained that she had "a talk” with the children regarding inappropriate classroom language – but the lesson did not seem to work.

"With McCordsville Elementary being a public school, we have many different religions and beliefs, and I do not want to upset a child/parent because of these words being used,” she wrote to parents.

In other words – Jesus is not welcome in McCordsville Elementary School.

"If you go to church or discuss these things at home, please have a talk with your child about there being an appropriate time and place of talking about it,” the teacher wrote.

In my new book, "The Deplorables’ Guide to Making America Great Again,” I delivered a call to arms. I urged you to take a stand for your Constitutional rights – to take a stand in your neighborhoods.

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Politico Mocks Texas’ Suffering

Jack Kemp

http://theresurgent.com/politico-mocks-texas-suffering/

In the midst of the tragedy of Hurricane Harvey, Politico decided to let their true feelings about Houston be known… by expressing how much they hate Texas with the following cartoon:

This isn’t at all surprising, since the liberals on the coasts refer to places like Texas as "Flyover Country” and "Jesus Land”. This is just that sentiment in cartoon form.

Politico clearly has the idea that only government saves. It comes through loud and clear here. How dare those redneck "hillbillies” praying for deliverance from the rising flood waters be grateful to God and not almighty Washington D.C.!

Read the rest.

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Media can't get no Satisfaction

Dana Mathewson

Neat Sarah Hoyt article from PJMedia.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/08/27/media-cant-get-wants/

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Mean it for Good

Dana Mathewson

Yes. Instead of a political club to hit Mr. Trump with. Roger L. Simon outdoes himself here, with a splendid article (and shows his Biblical scholarship at the same time).

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2017/08/28/make-harvey-a-catalyst-for-something-good/

Every time I see people trying to put the blame for a catastrophic natural event on a public official -- such as George W. Bush with Katrina or Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner with Harvey -- I suspect the persons casting those aspersio Fns have problems of their own. They are projecting.
If you want to blame someone for Harvey, blame God. But just be grateful it wasn't worse, as in: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time."

Also, unless you're so desperate and rigid in your thinking that your ideology has given you a self-induced lobotomy, forget about global warming or climate change or whatever the euphemism of the day might be. These events have been occurring since long before recorded time. The mountains and the oceans came from somewhere.

These are humbling experiences, even to those of us far away, watching on television. They should bring us together, not tear us apart or be used to score cheap political points.

I agree. The media could help here, rather than carp about the First Lady's shoes.

JONATHAN DICKINSON ADDS:

Also on PJ Media was an article about a media outlet that not only bashed Melania Trump's shoes, but also President Trump's khaki pants, of all things. The funny thing is, Barack Obama wore the same khaki pants and the same peapicking jacket as Trump back when he visited New Jersey during Hurricane Sandy. And no, strangely enough, no one in the far left media seemed to be concerned with that particular pair of beige pants.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/08/30/now-donald-gets-bashed-hurricane-attire-hes-wearing-exactly-obama-wore/

A NOTE FROM JACK KEMP:

In the original "Legally Blonde" movie, Reese Witherspoon, portraying a wealthy and fashionable but inexperienced young lawyer, was in court arguing a case. An opposition witness, a young man, made some remark about her shoes being last year's style and named the designer either just before or while he was n the witness stand. She turned to her muscular hetero co-attorney and asked him what kind of shoes she had. He said, "They're shoes, What?" At that point Reese knew that the witness was a screaming gay and used that info - which was very pertinent to the facts fo the case - to destroy the witness's credibility in court.

In real life, I was riding the subway one day when an old man was playing the accordion for tips. Suddenly, he told a young woman rider that her handbag was a knockoff and she countered by saying it was the real thing. A "successful" old man who had to play the accordion on the subway to make ends meet.

Also, in real life, a woman came into my parents' store when I was working there before getting into computer programming. She had some minor complaint and one of the salesladies pointed out to everyone behind the counter that this woman had some expensive hairstyle that the saleslady obviously wished she could afford to get, some detail that I would never pick out.

Who but a jealous or envious woman or a screaming gay or a bitter, crazy old man would give a damn about the fine details of what shoes or other fashion item some woman wore?

A few writers on the interent also said Melania Trump changed shoes later. When I worked at the midtown offices together with Dana, the women would come to work in sneakers and change into high heels once in the office, keeping a few pair of heels in the pull out file cabinet drawer of their desk, something I saw when making conversation just before 5 p.m. quitting time. Melania did the reverse process, changing into some practical shoes or boots when she was approached the messy ground in Texas

DANA REPLIES:

Good points, Jack. "Things" matter more, or less, to some people than they do to others. I think what's involved here is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, envy. I try to keep it far away from me. As a guy, I pay more attention to cars than to shoes, but I'd pay attention to, say, work boots or hiking boots if I were in the right situation, as having the right footgear for working, hiking or hunting is important.

Speaking of cars, I remember the 1960's black comic Dick Gregory talking about "controlled emotion" in the case of a white insurance adjuster showing up in his Volkswagen to settle a claim on a black person's Cadillac. "That car could be hundreds of skipped lunches sitting there at the curb, but you could hear the teeth grinding a block away."

If Melania had shown up for that flight wearing the sneakers, the MSM would have complained that she was wearing [Brank X] rather than [Brand Y]. Right?

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Hurricane Harvey - Never Let a Good crisis go to Waste

The from ALG

By Printus LeBlanc

President Obama’s first Chief of Staff in the White House, now Mayor of thewar zone Chicago, famously said, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” People are still being rescued from homes in Houston, and the storm is continuing to do damage to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle, but the mainstream media and the Church of Manmade Climate Change cannot help themselves.

When climate events likemajor snow storms that cancel climate change meetings or ice flows stall climate change research ships, they call it weather. When a hurricane hits Houston, they want to call it man-made climate change. You cannot have it both ways.

For anyone that has ever lived within 100 miles of a coast, they know hurricanes are a normal occurrence in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico. The "experts” might not know this, but there is actually a season for hurricanes that runs between June and late November, with the most intense storms happening in August and September.

The notion that Harvey was caused by man-made climate change is laughable at best, and fraudulent science at worst. What evidence is there to prove what the networks are reporting? Keep in mind, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) only has measurable data for hurricanes beginning in 1851. The amount of data needed to claim hurricanes are getting stronger is immense and the amount of data scientists have is infinitesimally small.

However, there is data on the strength of hurricanes for the last 170 years. There is a direct correlation between the barometric pressure in the eye of a storm and the wind speed. The lower the pressure, the tighter the eye, and the higher the wind speeds.

The lowest pressure on record for an Atlantic hurricane belonged to Wilma, a storm in 2005 with abarometric pressure of 882 millibars. The tenth storm on the list had a pressure of 910 millibars. Hurricane Harvey doesn’t even come close, with abarometric pressure of 938 millibars.

What about wind strength? Hurricane strength is also measured by wind strength. Surely man-made climate change causedHurricane Harvey to have the strongest wind speed on record. Once again, the church of man-made climate change would be wrong.

In 1980, Hurricane Allen recorded the highest sustained wind speed ever in the Atlantic Ocean at 190 mph. The second highest wind speed ever recorded was the 1935 "Labor Day” hurricane at 185 mph. Once again, as strong and intense asHurricane Harvey was, it had a maximum sustained wind speed of 130 mph, nowhere near the top 50.

Let’s try another method. How about inches of rain per hour? If man-made climate change caused Hurricane Harvey to be stronger than normal, then the rainfall per hour would be astronomical.

Harvey had around3.5 inches of rain per hourat its maximum. Do not disregard the number, that is a tremendous amount of rainfall, but it is nowhere near the upper echelon of inches of rain per hour. An unnamed Floridahurricane dropped 6 inches per hour in 1947, while Tropical Storm Rosa was at 5 inches per hour in 1994. Once again, Hurricane Harvey is not abnormal for the data that is available.

Hurricane Harvey was not the result of man-made climate change. Ahigh-pressure systemover the southwestern U.S. prevented the storm from doing what hurricanes do, move and drop rain. The high-pressure system stalled the "dirty” side of the storm over Houston. So, as Houston is getting hit by the dirty side of the storm, the "clean” side is recharging over the Gulf of Mexico while the high-pressure system is stopping the storm from moving, keeping Houston on the "dirty” side of the storm for days. By the way, high-pressure systems in the desert southwest of the U.S. is kind of normal during the summer.

Because the storm was partially situated over the Gulf of Mexico while it was stalled, it createdan extended tidal surge. Tidal surges are another normal byproduct of hurricanes. However, the tidal surge did not allow the Houston rainwater drainage system to properly work, because the rain water was draining into the space the tidal surge was occupying. It is kind of hard for Houston rain water to drain into the Gulf of Mexico, while Harvey is trying to push the Gulf of Mexico into Houston.

People are still in danger and the mainstream media believes it is its duty to push a narrative given to them by their progressive masters. If the mainstream media can see clear to stop pushing the Church of Manmade Climate Change and learn how to use google, they would see the truth, and perhaps gain a small amount of respect back from the citizens that distrust them so much.

Printus LeBlanc is a contributing reporter for Americans for Limited Government

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August 30, 2017

Let's hear it for the "Cajun Navy!"

Dana Mathewson

Almost reminiscent of the movie "Dunkirk," eh?

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/08/cajun-navy-to-the-rescue.php

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Harvey; Women, Minorities Hardest Hit

Dana Mathewson

An old Reagan-era joke that can be endlessly updated goes as follows: Scientists announce that the world is going to end tomorrow. How will the news media cover it:

Wall Street Journal: World to End Tomorrow: Markets to Close Early. (See page A8 for details.)

USA Today: World to End Tomorrow—But We’re Grinning and Bearing It

New York Times: World to End Tomorrow: Women and Minorities Hardest Hit

Washington Post: World to End Tomorrow: Reagan Policies Blamed.

Well, in another case of life imitating art, here’s the Washington Post today:
Why this brilliant insight qualifies as news is something only an elite media denizen can explain.


Read the rest here: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/08/the-media-never-disappoints.php

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Norks Antique Plane Could be their Ultimate Weapon

Dana Mathewson

Here's one to think about. Get a look at the photo!

North Korea's antique airplane could be its most dangerous weapon yet.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/08/29/north-koreas-antique-airplane-could-be-its-most-dangerous-weapon-yet.html

North Korea's antique airplane could be its most dangerous weapon yet
www.foxnews.com

Amid escalating tensions with the United States, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un tested out a seemingly laughable, but key part of his arsenal.

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Is the Head Dead Yet?

Dana Mathewson

Must be the severe Botox poisoning.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/28/nancy-pelosi-quote-reel-gaffe-prone-dem-leader-new-joe-biden.html

Nancy Pelosi quote reel: Gaffe-prone Dem leader the new Joe Biden?
www.foxnews.com

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi boasted earlier this year she's a master legislator. Perhaps – but her record of gaffes as an orator is starting to rival former Vice President Joe Biden's.

End excerpt.

Dana Mathewson

Here's one to think about. Get a look at the photo!

North Korea's antique airplane could be its most dangerous weapon yet.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/08/29/north-koreas-antique-airplane-could-be-its-most-dangerous-weapon-yet.html

North Korea's antique airplane could be its most dangerous weapon yet
www.foxnews.com

Amid escalating tensions with the United States, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un tested out a seemingly laughable, but key part of his arsenal.

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Evil Leftist Tricks

Dana Mathewson

Did you see this one? Sickening, but predictable. http://www.dcstatesman.com/left-wing-nonprofit-organization-fire-sickening-attack-hurricane-harvey-victims/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=llc

&utm_campaign=n82917

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Media Disconnect from Texas Reality

Jack Kemp

http://nypost.com/2017/08/29/harvey-victim-with-freezing-kid-curses-out-cnn-reporter/

A distraught Houston mother tore into a CNN reporter during a live interview — blasting the woman for putting a microphone in her face just moments after she arrived at a shelter with her two young children.
"Y’all trying to interview people during their worst times. Like, that’s not the smartest thing to do,” the shaken up parent, identified only as Danielle, told reporter Rosa Flores.

"People are really breaking down and y’all sitting here with cameras and microphones trying to ask us what the f–k is wrong with us,” she seethed. "And you really trying to understand with the microphone still in my face! With me shivering cold, with my kids wet! And you’re still putting a microphone in my face!”

The interview happened a little before 1 p.m. central time at a shelter in Houston. Flores appeared to approach the woman at random just after she arrived there with her kids.
"We was waiting for the police for like 36 hours and they never came,” the mother said. "We did the white flags and everything — and nobody came.”

END OF QUOTE

This line of questioning isn't that far removed from the sick joke - but one tempered by over one hundred years of time to heal - that I heard as a child. "Besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play (at Ford's Theater)?"

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Hillary Goes for More Laughs

Dana Mathewson

From the Daily Mail:

I JUST CAN'T WAIT – FROM DAILY MAIL: Hillary Clinton will be back in the spotlight this fall for an unprecedented, big-ticket book tour for her new tome What Happened, with tickets priced as high as $1,200. On Monday, the ex-Democratic nominee announced 'Hillary Clinton Live,' a 15-city tour, which includes stops in a handful of states she lost in the election last year. Promotional materials for her first stop, at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., promise Clinton plans to 'let loose' and tell her audience a 'personal, raw, detailed and surprisingly funny story' of her election loss and recovery. The website promoting the tour, HillaryClintonBookTour.com, features a quote from Clinton too. 'In the past, for reasons I try to explain, I've often felt I had to be careful in public, like I was up on a wire without a net,' she said. 'Now I'm letting my guard down,' she pledged. I want to buy tickets for every stop because I'm sure the story will change regularly. Maybe we can get a bulk discount.


A NOTE FROM JACK KEMP

Hillary's propaganda tour. The female Don Rickles, only not as funny.

dana replies:

Maybe she can get Kathy Griffin to join her (and Huma, of course).

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August 29, 2017

This water's for you, Texas

Jack Kemp

http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/08/28/major-beer-brewery-halts-production-to-help-hurricane-harvey-victims/

Not only has Hurricane Harvey been disastrous for hundreds of thousands of the regions’ residents, but it’s disrupting beer production too. That’s because an Anheuser-Busch brewery is suspending beer production in order to can water to help the victims of the storm.
Anheuser-Busch produces Budweiser, Michelob, Beck’s, and Rolling Rock.

Vice president for community affairs for the Georgia Anheuser-Busch brewery, Bill Bradley, told NBC that this was not an unusual move on their part.

"Since 1988 we have donated an excess of 76 million cans of clean drinking water,” he said. "The Cartersville location is our designated brewery for the emergency water program — it’s something we’re very proud of.”

END OF QUOTE

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Today's absurdity

Dana Mathewson

Should probably have said "today's first absurdity," but I haven't been looking that hard. Captain America wants... Don Lemon to run for President. Yep, that's what he says.

Right here on our show. . . http://www.dailywire.com/news/20165/captain-america-wants-don-lemon-run-president-john-nolte?utm_source=dwemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=082817news&utm_campaign=position1

Man, that makes me want to reach for the bourbon bottle, but it won't be Happy Hour here for another 40 minutes yet. . .

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Seizing that which we Hold Dear

Timothy Birdnow

The recent spate of iconoclasm against Confederate monuments is being heartily justified by both Democratic politicians and the news media, yet these same voices were singing a different tune just a short while ago. Anyone remember the flap over the artwork that Congressman Lacy Clay hung in the Capitol? http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/congressman-removes-painting-approved-by-rep-clay-that-depicts-police/article_12cca453-a3b5-56bd-b6ea-907827c03da4.html

Back in January California Rep. Duncan Hunter drew cheers from conservatives when he took down a piece of, uh, artwork that was hung by Congressman Clay after the Ferguson riots. The student artwork depicted police as pigs in what was clearly an attempt to offend, yet Clay thought it worth desecrating the Capitol hallway with this. Hunter, disgusted by this brazen display of disrespect for authority, simply removed the offending piece.

Please note - Hunter did not destroy the painting or vandalize it; he simply returned it to Clay, who put it up on the wall in his office.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

"Clay told the Post-Dispatch this week that he would not take the painting down because it depicted the artist’s reality of his life, and because the First Amendment protects provocative art."

And in fact the good Congressman from St. Louis took it much further:
https://lacyclay.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/clay-says-architect-capitol-s-removal-student-s-award-winning-painting

""By his unprecedented and unconstitutional action, following criticism of the artwork by Speaker Ryan and several GOP Members, the Architect of the Capitol acted to suppress the free speech rights of my constituent, and they have also sent a chilling message to young Americans that their voices are not respected, their views are not valued, and their freedom of expression is no longer protected in the U.S. Capitol."

So removing an vile and offensive painting from inside the Capitol is unconstitutional, but tearing down statues of Confederates isn't?

Clay led the charge https://www.stlmag.com/news/lacy-clay-confederate-memorial-forest-park/ to remove a Confederate statue in Forest Park in St. Louis, one that had been in place for decades. It was a part of our history.

Clay told the Post-Dispatch:

"Now is the time to replace the Confederate Memorial, as iconic as it is controversial, from its perch in Forest Park, Divisive, alienating, racially charged symbols do not accurately represent the goodness and fullness of the people of the city of St. Louis.”

And he, along with the rest of the Congressional Black Caucus, don't seem to see the hypocrisy. Like the pigs in George Orwell's Animal Farm, some are more equal than others. One wonders if the pigs in the painting do not really represent the more equal than others mentality of the race hustling industry?

Frankly the African American community should welcome these monuments as a living reminder of their deliverance from bondage. The Confederacy was as much a part of their history as it is of whites. And dishonoring Confederates dishonors those who defended their homes - including the black Confederate soldiers and the Native Americans who allied with the Confederacy.

But this is not about protecting tender sensibilities so much as exorcising the memory of a nation. The Left wants a new America, one that was born just a few short decades ago and is very different from the one we knew.

When the city of Mecca fell to Muhammad's followers (after Muhammad broke the treaty of Hudaybiyyah and seized the city) one of the first things he did was to destroy the statuary to the pagan gods of the Quraish. This extended to the Ka'aba, the holy building itself:

Ishaq:552 "When the populace had settled down, Muhammad went to the Ka'aba and compassed it seven times on his camel, touching the Black Stone with a stick. Then he went inside the Temple. There he found a dove made of wood. He broke it in his hands and threw it away."

Ishaq:552 "The Ka'aba contained 360 idols which Lucifer had strengthened with lead. The Apostle was standing by them with a stick in his hand, saying, 'The truth has come and falsehood has passed away.' Then he pointed at them with his stick and they collapsed on their backs one after the other."

Ishaq:85 "The people were afraid to demolish the temple and withdrew in terror from it. Al-Walid said, 'I will begin the demolition.' He took up his pickaxe and walked up to Allah's House saying, 'O Ka'aba, do not be afraid. O Allah we intend nothing but good.' The he demolished part of it near the two corners."
What precisely was Muhammad doing when he took up his pickax and began doing demolition work? He was destroying the memorials of the pagan peoples to erase their heritage. The Islamic world has been doing this ever since.

See, it wasn't enough to try to persuade people that his was a better way - the people wouldn't listen. So Muhammad and his followers had to destroy all memory of a time before his coming. The destruction of memorials has been an ongoing effort in Islam ever since.

Consider the desecration of Haiga Sophia when the Turks finally took Constantinople; they turned it into a mosque, wrecking statuary and overlaying the ornate paintings and plaster work so as to "disappear" the Christian memory. Consider the Taliban's destruction of statues to The Buddha, priceless artifacts that can never be replaced.

Oh, by the way, CAIR is fully in support of removing the Confederate war statues. https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/08/hamas-linked-cair-calls-for-destruction-of-every-confederate-memorial

Muhammad was hardly the first to discover the utility of erasing a nation's history. The ancient Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu once famously stated:

"Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear"

And if you can destroy that which a People hold dear you can mortally wound them. Statues and monuments are vitally important to the transmission of a culture, because they remind a People of who they are and who they once were. It is not necessarily a celebration of virtue; certainly the Auschwitz concentration camp was not bulldozed because the public loved it. Auschwitz still exists because it serves a very important purpose, a remembrance of those who were murdered and a reminder to the public of what could happen again if they forgot.

And what did America of old hold dear? Well, the Civil War was a seminal moment in our nation's history, and both sides took pride in what they accomplished. Even if one makes the assumption that the South was fighting to protect slavery (a wrong assumption) one must also look to the justifications for secession in the first place. The central government was growing too intrusive and powerful, and the South valiantly tried to restore the principles of limited government and states autonomy. They failed but they made a valiant effort. The Civil War was a disagreement over the role of government in life, and both sides were equally passionate. In many ways it was our finest hour, a time where all Americans had to live up to their values.

That is precisely why the Left is adamant about ridding the nation of the last vestiges of the Civil War. It is a constant reminder that America wasn't always a collectivist entity with an overly intrusive behemoth running our lives. Like the Muslims seeking to make the past disappear, our friends on the Left want the old America to disappear down the rabbit hole.

So we should not be too surprised by liberal hypocrisy in this issue. They want new legends, new heroes, new artwork, and they have never been obsessed with what Emerson called a "foolish consistency". Consistency is for their opponents. They have something better - they have a shiny dream. Dreams often lack consistency.

For this reason alone we should defend these statues and memorials as devoutly as the Left seeks their removal. They are part of who we are, and a People should not forget that. Forgetting makes us a malleable clay to be molded in the hands of tyrants.


Read more from Tim and friends at The aviary www.tbirdnow.mee.nu

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Maybe it isn't all "The Swamp's Fault"

Jack Kemp

http://theresurgent.com/get-ready-trump-republicans-preparing-to-fail-at-tax-reform-next/
Get Ready: Trump, Republicans Preparing to Fail at Tax Reform Next
By Peter Heck | August 29, 2017, 12:00am

It’s somewhat amusing and somewhat infuriating to hear Trump apologists on the right complain about the lackluster Republican leadership in Congress as being responsible for the startling lack of any significant legislative accomplishment in the Trump administration to date. Because, if you will recall, the entire reason Republicans needed to support Trump over his more conservative primary rivals, we were told by these same apologists, was Trump’s uncanny ability to "close the deal.”
Whereas Cruz, Rubio, Walker, or even Carson, would "sell out to the swamp,” Trump would get the job done.
Border wall? Not a brick laid.
Obamacare? Still destroying people’s lives and livelihoods.

And next up on the disappointment tour appears to be the promise to simplify the tax code and reform the oppressive tax burden faced by citizens:

President Donald Trump is planning to kick off one of the most important sales pitches of his presidency this week — getting Americans fired up about rewriting the U.S. tax code. But there’s no plan to sell.

Basic questions remain unanswered. Will the changes be permanent or temporary? How will individual tax brackets be set? What rate will corporations and small businesses pay? Instead of providing details that could help build support for a bill, the president will largely rely on the same talking points he and his advisers have highlighted since January.

Funny thing about getting a deal made – you have to propose a plan or there’s nothing to deal with. One of the most revealing exchanges during the whole primary election debate spectacles was when Senator Marco Rubio challenged Trump to expound upon his healthcare plans. He didn’t have any. He just promised that he would – and they would be spectacular.

A NOTE FROM FAY VOSHELL;

Eight years or fifty, the fact is that the philosophical paradigms that animated the Republican and Democrat parties are completely exhausted, both having virtually no bases in reality, and the results have exhibited themselves in two ways: one is capitulation and the other is violence.

The absurdities--insanities, actually--of the Left invite a tyranny the rudderless Republicans have little taste for resisting.

We are in a situation not unlike that of the French Revolution and its progeny of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

I feel an article coming on...




Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:23 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Gorka Speaks Out

Jack Kemp

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/08/gorka_speaks.html

  Peter Barry Chowka

Recently departed Deputy Assistant to President Trump Dr. Sebastian Gorka appeared on Brian Kilmeade’s Fox News Radio program on Monday morning, August 28. Free to speak his mind now, he had a lot to say about his seven-month tenure working on foreign policy at the White House, what’s going on there now, and his plans for the future.
After former White House Chief Strategist Steven K. Bannon left his job on August 18, it was just a matter of time before Gorka. who reported to Bannon, followed suit. As a Trump campaign foreign policy advisor and prominent surrogate during the 2016 race, and during his tenure at the White House, Gorka stood out as a fierce and articulate defender of Donald J. Trump, regularly appearing on TV and challenging hostile hosts at CNN and MSNBC.

Gorka was born in London in 1970 to Hungarian parents and began his career as a foreign policy and anti-terrorism analyst in Hungary from 1992-2008. He has been an advisor on foreign policy, terrorism, and Islam to various U.S. academic and defense institutions and he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2012. He is the author of Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War (2016). His archived website from 2016 is here.
Gorka has been targeted by the Deep State media for his strong views that ran counter to the Obama Administration’s, and he has been labeled as a far-right ideologue and even a Nazi sympathizer. However, as the left’s slings and arrows continued even after he left the White House, a detailed defense of Gorka, "The political lynching of Sebastian Gorka” written by Michael Rubin, a self-admitted "Never Trumper,” was published on August 27 in the Washington Examiner and is recommended reading.
On Monday afternoon (August 28), Fox News emailed a news release with some of Gorka’s quotes from the interview that morning with Kilmeade. Commenting on his resignation (others insist he was fired), Gorka said:

The fact is I knew after the Afghan speech [by President Trump on August 21] that the anti-MAGA (Make America Great Again) forces were in ascendance. Not one mention of radical Islam in that speech that was written from the president. So last week I emailed General Kelly [White House Chief of Staff], I said I wanted to meet with him today on Monday because I will be resigning effective Friday, last Friday. I spoke to him on the telephone on Friday and said that I am resigning today and I reinforced that with an email. That’s how it happened because I realized I work for Steve Bannon, he’s gone and the wrong people are at the helm of policy issues. We will right that ship from the outside but for the time being the best I can do is to be effective as a private citizen.

Kilmeade asked Gorka what he thought of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s comments on Sunday that were interpreted as critical of or distancing himself from President Trump:

I’m a bit puzzled. I don’t expect counter terrorism expertise from a former oil industry mogul, but to say that the President speech on Afghanistan shouldn’t be about radical Islamic terrorism, it should be about all forms of terrorism. Brian, I would like to hear the Secretary tell me about all the animal rights terrorists or the White Supremacists terrorists that are coming out of the Hindu Kush or Tora Bora. I’m a little bit confused by what he said because it doesn’t make any sense.

As the Fox release put it, Gorka also commented "on reports of insubordination within the White House:”

There is a broader issue here a really serious one. The GOP thinks they won the election on November 8th and they are very, very mistaken in that. Donald Trump may have been the formal Republican candidate but he wasn’t the establishment’s candidate. He wiped the floor with all the establishment candidates who never took him seriously. You know who won the election, a real-estate mogul from New York called Donald J Trump. If the GOP thinks they won the election they will be sorely disappointed and they will pay the price come the next election. So, they need to wake up and smell the coffee grinds. It’s the anti-establishment movement the people in America including the "Blue Collar” Democrats who said enough is enough; left and right have not served us well for at least 16 years. We are going to shake this town up and that is what the President is, he’s a fabulous disruptor and God bless him but the GOP needs to wake up to what happened in America on November 8th because it’s not going to change, it’s going to get stronger

Read the rest.

Here is Gorka's letter of resignation courtesy of Breitbart:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/28/in-full-dr-sebastian-gorkas-explosive-white-house-resignation-letter/

Dear Mr. President,

It has been my high honor to serve in the White House as one of your Deputy Assistants and Strategists.

In the last thirty years our great nation, and especially our political, media, and educational elites, have strayed so far from the principles of our Republic’s Founding that we faced a grim and godless future.

Your victory last November was truly a "Hail Mary pass” on the way to re-stablishing America upon the eternal values enshrined in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

It is, therefore, all the more difficult for me to tender my resignation with this letter.

Your presidency will prove to be one of the most significant events in modern American politics. November the 8th was the result of decades during which the political and media elites felt that they knew better than the people who elect them into office. They do not, and the MAGA platform allowed their voices finally to be heard.

Regrettably, outside of yourself, the individuals who most embodied and represented the policies that will "Make America Great Again,” have been internally countered, systematically removed, or undermined in recent months. This was made patently obvious as I read the text of your speech on Afghanistan this week.

The fact that those who drafted and approved the speech removed any mention of "radical Islam” or "radical Islamic terrorism” proves that a crucial element of your presidential campaign has been lost.

Just as worrying, when discussing our future actions in the region, the speech listed operational objectives without ever defining the strategic victory conditions we are fighting for. This omission should seriously disturb any national security professional, and any American who is unsatisfied with the last 16 years of disastrous policy decisions which have led to thousands of Americans killed and trillions of taxpayer dollars spent in ways that have not brought security or victory.

America is an incredibly resilient nation, the greatest on God’s Earth. If it were not so, we could not have survived through the unbelievably divisive years of the Obama Administration, nor witness your message to roundly defeat a candidate who significantly outspent you and had the Fakenews Industrial Complex 100% on her side.

Nevertheless, given recent events, it is clear to me that forces that do not support the MAGA promise are – for now – ascendant within the White House.

As a result, the best and most effective way I can support you, Mr. President, is from outside the People’s House.

Millions of Americans believe in the vision of Making America Great Again. They will help eventually rebalance this unfortunate temporary reality.

Despite the historically unprecedented and scandalous treatment you have received at the hands of those within the Establishment and mainstream media who perennially see America as the problem and who wish to re-engineer our nation in their own ideological image, I know you will stay the course for the sake of all America’s citizens.

When we first met in your offices in New York, in the Summer of 2015, it was instantly clear that you love the Republic and will never give up once you have committed yourself to victory.

When it comes to our vital National Security interests, your leadership guarantees that radical Islamic terrorism will be obliterated, that the threat of a nuclear Iran will be neutralized, and that the hegemonic ambitions of Communist China will be robustly countered.

I and like-minded compatriots will be working on the outside to support you and your official team as we return America to its rightful and glorious place as the shining "city upon a hill.”

God Bless America.

In Gratitude,

Sebastian Gorka


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August 28, 2017

A Beautiful Day to Help Veterans in Need

Jack Kemp

Sunday was a beautiful day - to visit a self-storage facility in New Jersey. Well, that's true if the self-storage facility is the place where Backpacks for Life founders Sgt. (Ret.) Brett D'Alessandro, an Afghanistan veteran, and his woman friend Alexa Modero - and their parents - were preparing a large number of backpacks to give out to homeless veterans. I also got to meet the Marine's dad, Greg (I hope I spelled that right), his brother - and his mother who I last saw back in 2015 at Fleet Week in New York when we got some simplistic advice from the loudmouth 89 year-old former Dodger manager, Tommy Lasorda, a veteran who never left the States during his post-WWII service. See http://tbirdnow.mee.nu/a_bronx_cheer_for_tommy_lasorda_during_fleet_week_ny

There were also some local families which showed up volunteering to pack socks and toiletries and note pads into various backpacks. Brett and I worked on securing thick string black bracelets, a popular item these days. The deployed Marine came out in Brett when he told me that these (nylon?) bracelets could be quickly unraveled and used to tie down a tent flap in the cold and possibly save a life. Backpacks For Life had previously expanded their operations to include backpacks for homeless women veterans as well and now were changing the contents of those based on both feedback from women vets and cooperation with other charities that supply items to women veterans. The charity has also expanded to help find veterans housing and jobs.

I should add here that the term "homeless" is too cut and dried, as there are veterans who are in danger of losing their homes but do not have the $300 or so to file foreclosure papers to officially give up their homes - so many charities cannot or will not help them because their charity's written legal papers state they only help those "officially" homeless. Brett recently changed Backpacks For Life's registration to now include helping those at risk of becoming homeless as well. Backpacks For Life has also helped veterans in other states, such as a vet in North Carolina who needed money to take a required preliminary class before entering a job training program.

I also spoke with Alexa Modero who told me about a cooperative effort where Backpacks for Life www.backpacksforlife.org used some of the monies donated to them to hire adults with from the North Jersey Elks Developmental Disabilities Agency http://njedda.org/ to do some of their work. She told me that Brett first went to visit the organization with his service dog, the mentally challenged workers fell in love with Brett's dog. The visit made their day. Alexa told me that the with all the events they've had in the last few years, they have better learned exactly what homeless (and near homeless) vets need. You can read articles Alexa has written at the Backpacks For Life website here https://www.backpacksforlife.org/backpacks-life-x-state-farm-neighborhoodofgood/   and here  https://www.backpacksforlife.org/backpacks-life-x-aj-perri-new-hvac-system-veteran/  where Alexa explains how the charity was able to supply a veteran with a donated Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning system.

A few days ago, I sent Brett and Alexa a story from the NY Post http://nypost.com/2017/08/24/heartbreaking-truths-emerge-at-beauty-pageant-for-americas-female-vets/  about a documentary film called "Served Like a Girl," about women veterans who have been holding an annual beauty contest in Las Vegas and the challenging issues those women deal with. I would add that I see the beauty contest not as a self-indulgence but rather as a ritual homecoming ceremony reintegrating these veterans into American society after being far removed from it in a war. The article mentions the problems these women have overcome (one contestant had two lower legs blown off with a bomb) and, although the article didn't say this outright, the contest is a major chance for these women veterans to gather, share stories, and tell one another the ways they have discovered to get help unique to their situation as women veterans. I also talked with some of the women volunteers about another documentary, "Lioness," the story of some women Army veterans who went house to house with male soldiers in the Middle East, the women doing body searches on Muslim women, looking for weapons. I think the volunteers learned a little bit about what it is like for a woman to be in a war zone, the ones for whom they were filling up the female specific backpacks.

Brett D'Alessandro told me that Backpacks For Life used to accept general donations of boxes of seperate types of items from one organizaiton. Now the donating charity organizations are asked to prepack an assortment of items (the ones needed are supplied to them in a list from Backpacks for Life), such as toiletries grouped in individual small plastic bags. This saves a lot of time in sorting and cuts down the hours that Brett, Alexa and their parents have to spend doing basic sorting and packing, freeing them up for other tasks - and have some time off. But corporations have donated items that they alone sell. For example, the My Pillow company donated a number of travel size pillows Backpacks For Life.

Last year, I visited one of Backpacks for Life's events called a "Stand Down" in New Jersey. That is the type of event where the backpacks that were being filled up this weekend will be distributed to homeless veterans. Last year homeless vets were bussed in from other locations to each receive a backpack. The next Stand Downs will be held soon in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), Albany (New York) and Camden (New Jersey). Check out www.backpacksforlife.org for updates.

The following story is far removed from U.S. veterans but I believe it represents the spirit of what I saw and experienced this past weekend.

While watching casual but well-dressed people pack things for the veterans, a personal family story of my father's came to me. Forgive me for using this personal story, but I believe it is a fitting comparison.

My late dad was a veteran of the Polish Army in WWII and came to America with virtually nothing. He and my mother opened a small store in the Bronx and prospered. One day, a European immigrant came to my father at his store, claiming to know my dad "from the Old Country" and all but demanded that my father take him downtown to help him fill out some government registration forms as a new resident of the country and state. My father first told him that he honestly did not know this man, but the man retorted, "You came to America and you are now a big shot who is too good to help out someone else?" My father weighed this insult and understood that even though this man was very gruff and probably was unknown to him, this immigrant really needed my dad's assistance and had nowhere else to turn to, as he knew very few people in America. So my mother took over running the store early one day soon after that and my father accompanied this stranger downtown to fill out whatever Federal or local documents in English which the stranger probably didn't understand the words or the concepts required to complete himself.

The people who came to load backpacks last Sunday had a similar attitude to my late father's. They, too, did not think they were too good to help someone who needed a hand to function in a different kind of New World for them, the New World of no longer being a member of an active military service unit where fellow members "had your back." These veterans were now struggling to manage in a very complex, fast paced civilian America with too many rules and not enough cohesion among citizens who may have last seen a veteran when they went to the airport. This desire to help is the same type of response that then Afghan returnee Brett D'Alessandro had when he saw a homeless veteran in Rhode Island, talked to him, and gathered up some supplies in a backpack which he gave to the grateful veteran, leading to the creation of Backpacks for Life This is the spirit that makes America great. 

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