Alinsky's view of the government's war on poverty

I am doing something tonight that is most likely unique among my fellow Republicans. I am reading Hillary Clinton's 94 page college thesis on Saul Alinsky. Do you know how Alinsky viewed the federal government's War on Poverty? He called it a

"prize piece of political pornography...a huge political pork barrel, and a feeding trough for the welfare industry, surrounded by sanctimonious, hypocritical, phony, moralistic------."

...Alinsky observed that most city halls, acting through committees composed of the party faithful, controlled the local antipoverty funds.18 Poverty funds were frequently used to stifle independent action in the name of "community consensus" or if programs did bypass city hall the officials would disown them in order to take themselves "off the hook."19 Another aspect of the poverty war which Alinsky criticized was its "vast network of sergeants drawing general's pay."20 He illustrated the "startling contrast" between many salaries before and after assuming positions with OEO.

It seems as though "nowhere in this great land of ours is the opportunity
more promising than in the Office of Economic Opportunity."

..."The anti-poverty program may well be regarded as history's greatest relief
program for the benefit of the welfare industry."

Fields of yellow, then a rainbow

Do you know the name of these bright yellow flowers?

They go on for miles in the mountains above Santa Fe.

Oh, remember that blue sky this morning? It is raining now at five p.m., but a rainbow appears. I didn't get the whole rainbow, because I was trying to stay focused on my steering on the very muddy road.

Saul’s daughter has it all figured out.

I was delighted to find an article by Jen Kuznicki in Conservative Review. As you may know, Hillary Clinton wrote her college thesis about Saul Alinsky, a man I met in the late 1960s. The thesis has long been off limits, but now is available here. I plan to read it.

Kuznicki writes,

Hillary noted that, “Alinsky's lessons in organizing and mobilizing community action independent of extra-community strings appear to have been lost in the face of the lure of OEO money.” Pointing out that the power of the government took away the work of the “local organizer.” It is here that we see her light bulb illuminate. With this reasoning, the better approach would be to be the government who had the power to force social change. - See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/08/alinskys-daughter-here-is-the-truth-about-hillary-the-media-will-not-tell-you#sthash.Snyam4I5.dpuf

At the time I met Alinsky, I was working as Director of the Northeast Neighborhood Counseling Center in Kansas City, Kansas. The funding came from OEO, Lyndon Johnson's Office of economic Opportunity!

Kuznicki concludes,

For 75 years, inner city blacks have been poor, labor unions have worked to put their members out of a job, and everyday there is some new group claiming it doesn’t have equality. All of these groups have been targeted by these so-called organizational geniuses. No matter what happens, either by the power/conflict ideals of Alinsky and Obama or by power grabs/money laundering of the Clintons, the lives of the people get worse. It is not whether Saul or Hillary are right about how to “achieve democratic equality,” or whose tactics are more effective, but of the failure of the philosophy behind it.

David Brock, in his 1996 biography, "The Seduction of Hillary Rodham," called Hillary "Alinsky's daughter." That is an apt label. Where Alinsky tactics are used now on both sides to confuse and agitate, Hillary is poised to become the supreme leader with all the power and tools of our monstrous government at her fingertips.

Saul’s daughter has it all figured out.

Read more here.

Trump in Mexico today

Donald Trump flies to Mexico today for a quick meeting with the Mexican president, then goes to Phoenix for a big speech on immigration later today. Ann Althouse, as usual, does relevant research on the key issues here.

Blue sky

This is more like the Colorado mornings I enjoyed for over 40 years. Blue sky, with just a hint that white clouds might be coming later in the day.


In New Mexico if you are not careful, the clouds will come right down to grab you, even at a football game.

Obama plans to let the UN have the internet

Claudia Rosett writes at PJ Media,

In Monday’s Wall Street Journal, columnist Gordon Crovitz sounds an urgent warning about President Obama’s plans, during his final months in office, to fundamentally transform the internet. It’s an intricate tale, but the bottom line is that unless Congress acts fast, the World Wide Web looks likely to end up under control of the UN.

That would be the same UN that serves as a global clubhouse for despotic regimes that like to wield censorship as a basic tool of power. Russia and China occupy two of the five veto-wielding permanent seats on the UN Security Council. Iran since 2012 has presided over one of the largest voting blocs in the 193-member General Assembly, the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement. Among the current members of the Human Rights Council are Venezuela, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia — where blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced in 2014 to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes, for blog posts the Saudi government considered insulting to Islam.

We’re talking here about the same UN which for generations has proven incorrigibly corrupt, opaque and inept at managing almost anything except its own apparently endless expansion and self-serving overreach. This is the UN of the Oil-for-Food worldwide web of kickbacks; the UN of the evidently chronic problem of peacekeepers raping minors they are sent to protect; the UN that can’t manage to adequately audit its own books, and offers its top officials an “ethics” program of financial disclosure under which they are entitled to opt out of disclosing anything whatsoever to the public.

...Crovitz adds: “Congress still has time to extend its ban on the Obama administration giving up protection of the internet.” But not a lot of time. The deadline is Sept. 30th.

Read more here.

Killing ourselves, killing each other

David French writes at The Corner,

When the history of our times is written, I suspect that our unusual presidential race could end up little more than a footnote. The main story is our cultural and spiritual unraveling. In some communities Americans are killing themselves. In others, they’re killing each other:

He goes on to mention 78 homicides in Chicago this month, and 174 heroin overdoses in Cincinnati in one 6 day period this month. Read more here.

Breathtaking misconduct

Andrew McCarthy reports at The Corner,

it has now come to light that Hillary Clinton attempted to destroy about 30 emails related to the 2012 Benghazi massacre. They were recovered by the FBI, notwithstanding the use by Mrs. “Like With a Cloth or Something” of an advanced software program – “BleachBit” – in a willful effort to erase the contents of her servers so thoroughly that no one would be able to recover her emails (many of which were government records, which it is a felony to horde and destroy).

Obviously, these emails were kept from the congressional committees that investigated the Benghazi massacre. Mrs. Clinton was also clearly trying to shield them from discovery by defense lawyers in the prosecution of the lone terrorist the Obama administration has thus far charged (in connection with an attack that involved scores of jihadists whom Obama promised to “bring to justice”).

The depth of Mrs. Clinton’s misconduct regarding the unlawful email system and the obstruction of investigations into a terrorist attack in which four Americans were killed is breathtaking – as is the media’s indifference to it. As I’ve repeatedly argued, Clinton ought to be impeached. How much more contempt for Congress does she need to exhibit before some dim memory of self-respect moves lawmakers to take some action?

Nearly as reprehensible, however, is the Obama administration at large. Evidently, it has just today gotten around to telling a United States court that these 30 emails have never been disclosed, even though they have been sought for years, the Justice Department has known the FBI had them for months, and the State Department, too, has to have known they were in the possession of the administration as it litigated Freedom of Information Act claims yet said nothing.

Mind you: Mrs. Clinton told us there were no government-business related emails on her servers and certainly no classified information. It turned out there were tens of thousands of government-related emails, with thousands containing classified information. Clinton lawlessly withheld these emails for years, and the executive branch has known about them for months. Indeed, the FBI director told Congress and the public that the FBI went through a painstaking process with intelligence agencies to determine which of the recovered emails had classified information in them. And yet, despite all that, the State Department has the audacity to tell a federal judge that it needs another 30 days to review less than three dozen emails? Seriously?

Does anybody care how outrageous this is?

Read more here.

A must read

Here is a website which details the Clinton Crime Family's long history of nefarious dealings.

Trump not doing well in Colorado

Floyd Ciruli is Colorado's most respected pollster. Here is his latest report on the election.

Examining the latest Colorado poll’s internal data highlights four trends:

Colorado Youth Vote Looks for Alternatives. Millennial voters in general are more likely than any other age group to be considering Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, the two independent candidates on the ballot. Johnson beats Trump in the latest Colorado Quinnipiac poll 29 percent to 18 percent among Millennials. Together, Stein and Johnson receive 46 percent of the Millennial vote. Clinton only gets 34 percent. This is more than national polls, which show them together receiving 28 percent of the Millennial vote. Johnson and Stein are still mostly spoilers and not contenders. Even when Ross Perot received 19 percent of the national vote and 23 percent in Colorado, he failed to carry a single electoral vote.

Educated Voters Go Democratic. No Democratic nominee has carried educated White voters (four-year degrees) in the modern history of polling (since 1952). Clinton leads Trump by 7 points among them nationally. In Colorado, she is leading Trump by 29 points among educated White voters in the Quinnipiac survey and 32 percent in the earlier NBC/WSJ/Marist survey. Colorado is the second most educated state in the country after Massachusetts. Compounding Trump’s problem is that educated White voters are more likely to turn out. Usually that means the Republican candidates can expect a little bump in late polls and on Election Day. But, if these numbers don’t shift, Clinton will get the final push from the most dependable voters.

Republicans are Resisting Trump. For all of Clinton’s problems with the youth vote, she has consolidated the Democratic vote, getting 93 percent of it. Trump continues to lag with only 86 percent of his vote. In Colorado, about a quarter of the vote is unaffiliated. Given both parties are closely divided, winning the unaffiliated vote becomes extra important. The latest Quinnipiac survey shows Trump losing the self-described independent voters by 13 points (46% Clinton vs. 33% Trump).

The Gender Gap is Net Clinton Win. In 2014, Republican Cory Gardner won the gender gap by 4 points. He lost women to Mark Udall, but won men by more. Trump is losing the gender gap in Colorado by 21 points. He’s even losing the White gender gap (by 2 points), which is doom in races where more than a quarter of the electorate is non-White, and Clinton has more than 30 points of advantage.

ISIS mass graves

AP reports,

Surrounded by smoke and flames, the sound of gunshots echoing around him, the young man crouched in the creek for hours, listening to the men in his family die.

On the other side of the mountain, another survivor peered through binoculars as the handcuffed men of neighboring villages were shot and then buried by a waiting bulldozer. For six days he watched as the extremists filled one grave after another with his friends and relatives.

Between them, the two scenes of horror on Sinjar mountain contain six burial sites and the bodies of more than 100 people, just a small fraction of the mass graves Islamic State extremists have scattered across Iraq and Syria.

...even the known numbers of victims buried are staggering — from 5,200 to more than 15,000.

...Satellites offer the clearest look at massacres such as the one at Badoush Prison in June 2014 that left 600 male inmates dead. A patch of scraped earth and tire tracks show the likely killing site, according to exclusive photos obtained by the imagery intelligence firm AllSource Analysis.

Of the 72 mass graves documented by AP, the smallest contains three bodies; the largest is believed to hold thousands, but no one knows for sure.

Read more here.

How can I help?

Joe is ready, willing, and able.

Stuttering attack

Listen to this Nebraska Congressman stutter when asked if he plans to campaign with Hillary Clinton.

Sunni and Shiite Islamists battling each other for dominance

Daniel Greenfield writes at Sultan Knish,

...Today Sunnis and Shiites are still killing each other in Iraq much as they had for a long time. We have boiled this war down to ISIS, but ISIS, like Saddam is just another symptom of the political violence and divisiveness inherent in Islam.

Instead of secularizing Iraq, our efforts at democracy only heightened divisions along religious lines. The “Lebanon” model for Iraq with power sharing arrangements between Sunnis and Shiites was doomed.

...Instead of nation-building in Iraq, we practiced Islam-building. Iraq’s constitution made Islam the official religion and the fundamental source of legislation. Its first real law was that, “No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.” The new Iraq we had built was an Islamic State.

We did no better in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan whose constitution declared much the same thing. Its first parliamentary elections saw victories for the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan and the Islamic Society. As in Iraq and Syria, the distinctions between the bad Islamists and the good Islamists were often fuzzy at best. We had replaced the bad Islamist warlords who raped and murdered their enemies with the good Islamist warlords who raped and murdered their enemies.

Matters grew much worse with the Arab Spring when Obama and Hillary’s Islam-building project flipped countries that had been democratic and secular in the loosest sense into the tar pit of political Islam.

Coptic Christians were massacred and churches were burned in Egypt. The Christian communities in Iraq and Syria were threatened with annihilation. The Jewish community in Yemen may be close to disappearing entirely. The Yazidis were raped and murdered on a genocidal scale by the Islamic State.

But in many cases they were just collateral damage from fighting between Sunni and Shiite Islamists, and among Sunni Islamists battling each other for dominance.

The ugliest part of Islam-building was that the resulting conflicts between Islamists and secularists in Egypt and Tunisia highlighted starkly just how wrong our policy was. Instead of backing secular and democratic forces, Obama had thrown in with Islamists. And even after the Muslim Brotherhood was overthrown in Egypt, his administration continued advocating on behalf of its Islamic reign of terror.


Islam takes local conflicts and makes them global. That’s why disputes over the authority of the House of Saud led to the mass murder of thousands of people in New York or why Arab attacks on Israel became a burning international issue. Or why Sunni and Shiite feuds in Iraq and Syria led to a massacre of attendees at a rock concert in Paris.

That is also why the combination of Islam and politics in any form is an existential threat to us.

...The more we build up Islam, the more we destroy ourselves.

Read more here.

Vetting

Doug Powers observes,

The same Obama administration that said it would take decades to fulfill FOIA requests for emails from Hillary’s aides can somehow vet 10,000 people lightning fast:

Doug links to this CBS News story:

The White House will reach its goal, articulated a year ago, of taking in 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S. on Monday afternoon.

A plane carrying the refugees has departed Jordan and will soon land in the U.S., CBS News’ Margaret Brennan reports.

“Today, I am pleased to announce that we will meet this goal more than a month ahead of schedule. Our 10,000th Syrian refugee will arrive this afternoon,” National Security Adviser Susan Rice said in a statement.

Between last October and the end of this September, the U.S. is expected to admit a total of at least 85,000 refugees, Rice said, including from countries like Burma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Iraq, Somalia, Ukraine, among many others.

Powers adds,

Team Obama assured the American public that there’s no threat to the public because each refugee has been carefully vetted. Then again, these are the same people who said “if you like your plan you can keep it” and blamed Benghazi on a YouTube video.

Here’s a live look-in at the Obama administration’s fast-but-strict screening of refugees entering the country:

Read more here.

The "Shut Up" argument

How many ways does the Left have of telling us to shut up?

Bond

Roger L. Simon writes at PJ Media, The Huma Abedin/Hillary Clinton relationship had its beginnings

when young Huma came to work at the White House in 1996, not inconsequentially not long after Monica Lewinsky arrived. This was obviously a time of great vulnerability for Hillary. No wonder she and Huma developed a bond.

But who was Huma? In a recent article, Paul Sperry—who has become something of an Abedinologist—describes the maternal background of the young woman who was born in the USA but spent most of her childhood in Saudi Arabia:

As The Post first reported, Huma’s mom edits the Journal of Muslim Minority ­Affairs, which has suggested that America had 9/11 coming to it, because of “sanctions” and “injustices” the US allegedly imposed on the Muslim world.
The journal also opposed women’s rights as un-Islamic, arguing that “ ‘empowerment’ of women does more harm than benefit.

But that’s not all.

In 1999, Saleha translated and edited a book titled “Women in Islam: A Discourse in Rights and Obligations,” published by the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs. Written by her Saudi colleague Fatima Naseef, the book explains that the stoning and lashing of adulterers, the killing of apostates, sexual submissiveness and even female genital mutilation are all permissible practices ­under Sharia law.

...Coincidentally or not (you decide), this is the same group—the Muslim Brotherhood—whose control of Egypt, under Morsi, was backed by the Obama/Clinton administration under the grounds the MB was ultimately reformist. That turned out be as untrue as it gets. Morsi was plotting for total control in a manner yet more fascist than his Islamist cohort Erdogan, if such a thing were possible. The Obama/Clinton administration, as we know, had already abjured the old secular U.S. ally Mubarak as it would, later, Morsi's also-secular successor al-Sisi.

Is it an accident that the despot that Hillary chose to attack and ultimately urge Obama to destroy was the furthest thing from an Islamist—Muammar Gaddafi? That cleared the way for the Islamists (ISIS, etc.) to move in on Libya. To Obama and Clinton, only Islamist dictators are permissible.

...I'm not suggesting some covert Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy is behind all this, although the MB has profited. I'm suggesting something stranger—a bizarre cocktail of greed and ambition justified by the most tired of leftwing ideology with the decline of the West as the result, the sort of unintended consequence.

Against this background, we watch the dissolution of the pathetic Weiner-Abedin marriage. Where is Tolstoy when we need him?

Read more here.

It would be better if people didn't know what is going on

John Kerry in Bangladesh:

“Remember this: No country is immune from terrorism,” he said. “It’s easy to terrorize. Government and law enforcement have to be correct 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. But if you decide one day you’re going to be a terrorist and you’re willing to kill yourself, you can go out and kill some people. You can make some noise. Perhaps the media would do us all a service if they didn’t cover it quite as much. People wouldn’t know what’s going on. The fact is we have to stand together, and the United States is standing with Bangladesh in this fight.”

Read more here.

This one goes right to the top of the list of stupid things people have said in 2016.

"A will to risk and make things better"

That's what Jesse Jackson had to say about Donald Trump. "Reaching out and being inclusive? He's done that, too!"

Huddle together during a thunderstorm? Maybe not.

Huddle together during a thunderstorm? Maybe not.

Read more here.

h/t Ann Althouse

How the UN helps keep Assad in power

UN money is effectively helping to prop up a regime responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. Nick Hopkins and Emma Beals report for The Guardian,

The UN has awarded contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to people closely associated with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, as part of an aid programme that critics fear is increasingly at the whim of the government in Damascus, a Guardian investigation has found.

The UN has paid more than $13m to the Syrian government to boost farming and agriculture, yet the EU has banned trade with the departments in question for fear of how the money will be used.

The UN has paid at least $4m to the state-owned fuel supplier, which is also on the EU sanctions list.

The World Health Organisation has spent more than $5m to support Syria’s national blood bank – but this is being controlled by Assad’s defence department.

Two UN agencies have partnered with the Syria Trust charity, an organisation started and chaired by President Assad’s wife, Asma, spending a total of $8.5m. The first lady is under both US and EU sanctions.

Read much more here.

A paraphrased transcript

The blogger at a blog named Stupid is a Five Letter Word writes

...you've already heard this exchange between the lovely Hillary and the equally lovely Terry Gross of NPR. If you can't bear to listen to it again, I completely understand. If you haven't heard it, but still aren't keen on listening to Hillary get her bitch on when asked a direct question, then let me offer you a paraphrased transcript.

Ms. Gross was asking Hillary about her stance on gay marriage, noting that Hillary at one time, was against it; even her husband, Bill Clinton, signed into law the DOMA. So what gives? Were you for it then, but given the political climate, couldn't SAY that? Or are you still against it, but given the political climate, can't say that now?

Which is it, Hill, old girl?

I have graciously paraphrased her response:

"I was against gay marriage without ever being against it because if I was against it in the past, then my new support for it would be seen as politically motivated and my high-minded expansive view of human rights is never politically motivated, but always a reflection of the purest of motives, so when I was against it, I was never really against it even though I didn't change my mind because the political winds changed...I was never against it when I was, but I wasn't lying then either."

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

You're welcome.

Evening falls

After an afternoon rainstorm Jon picks up the basketball and is ready for some shots, as the sun begins to set.


A rainbow appears in the opposite direction from the setting sun. The crops in the picture are zuchinni.



Speaking of zuchinni, here is one of the two wheelbarrow hauls Colleen's daughter Kim got today.

Ripping off Trump

Politico has a story about a guy who has been offering "Dinner with Trump" ads on Facebook. He has no connection whatsoever to Trump. He also has a "Crooked Hillary" ad that is reaping big bucks for him, and nothing for Trump. Read about it here.

The alcohol industry makes a play for cannabis in California.

Sara Solovitch writes about it at Politico.

If God doesn't exist, only He knows it.

At One Cosmos Bob notices,

The atheist devotes himself less to proving that God does not exist than to forbidding Him to exist. For one thing, it is strictly impossible to disprove the existence of God, so why waste time trying? This is why atheists construct their false gods which they then go about disproving. But in reality, if God doesn't exist, only He knows it.

To deny God is to divinize man, because again, only a being with divine capacities can know that God doesn't exist. But man without God is no longer man, rather, just a randomly evolved primate. Man "takes place" in the space between biology and O. Which is why anti-religion leads to a toxic and destructive religiosity, every time. It brings about another kind of dystopian imaginal space we call Hell.

Read more here.

All lives matter

“This is a really exciting time for the Trump campaign,” Pastor Mark Burns told Breitbart’s Washington Political Editor Matthew Boyle on Monday’s Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM. “So many doors within the African-American community in this country have opened up for Mr. Trump.”
Burns said the campaign was being “strategic” in choosing the right times and places to interface with that community.

“People are saying Mr. Trump is not going to the black communities, he’s not going to the areas that are impacted in urban centers in our country,” he said. “It wasn’t that he wasn’t going, and it wasn’t that people wouldn’t invite him, either. It was just choosing the right place, that we thought would have the greatest impact within the African-American community in this country, and the heart of Detroit is just that.”

“Mr. Trump will be speaking, and answering questions on the only African-American owned and operated national Christian TV network, which is the Impact network. And he’s going to be interviewed by the CEO and president of the network, Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, in the heart of Detroit, at the Great Faith Church in Detroit,” Burns announced.

Burns said Trump would have a sizable all-black audience at the church, providing him with an “opportunity to just pour his heart out, and the same person that I’ve grown to love, and to know his compassion for all Americans, the whole world’s going to be able to see come this Saturday, September 3rd, at 11:00 A.M. from Detroit.”

He said he knows, “without a shadow of a doubt,” that Trump’s outreach to African-Americans “is going to be successful,” adding that he’s never brought an African-American to a personal meeting with Trump and had them “come out of his presence not liking him, and not wanting to vote for him.”

...“It’s about problem-solving. It’s not about pandering after a race, just for your vote,” Burns said. “It’s about identifying a problem, creating a solution, and then going straight to the problem, instead of all the theatrics that many politicians do – the photo ops, and just to say ‘hey, I care,’ when they really don’t care. You know, give a heartwarming speech, and then get your vote, then leave you, like the Clintons and the Democrat Party have done. Sing ‘Kumbaya,’ sing ‘Amazing Grace’ in our churches, and then leave us for four years, and say ‘hey, I care about you, I’ll see you in the next four years.’ That’s what they do.”

“Donald Trump is not going to pander after a race,” he said. “Donald Trump is going to identify a problem, and he’s going to tackle it, as he’s done every one of his projects – which is why he is so successful as a businessman, and he’s going to be a successful President.”

We can’t declare ‘black lives matter’ when black baby lives don’t matter,” Burns continued. “African-Americans make up 13, 14 percent of America’s population, but yet we make up over 40 percent of abortions in America right now. That’s a lot of dead, murdered black babies.”

Read more here.

A life spent in an American education

Bookworm and her daughter recently visited several liberal arts colleges, and Bookworm has been writing about her observations. For example, here is what the last college had to say about sexual assault:

CONSENT WHILE INTOXICATED. The blame of the assault is always on the assailant. It does not matter how intoxicated either parties were [sic]. If someone never consented, if someone decided to revoke consent, if someone feels afterwards that they did not consent, if someone was too intoxicated to consent, or too intoxicated to be responsive, in any situation, the assailant assaulted. The truth is, if you or your partner(s) are intoxicated, you cannot give or receive full consent. Drugs and alcohol directly affect your decision making for the time you are under the influence. Just as someone could decide to drive drunk or text drunk, they could decide to participate in sex drunk. And just as someone might say, “He’d never do that normally. He was drunk” about an accident, they [sic] may use the same speech to talk about a sexual assault involving alcohol or drugs. This, however, does not excuse anyone’s actions. Just as a drunk driver should getr a DUI, a sexual assailant should receive consequences as well. As a car accident is an assault on the machinery of a fancy Prius, rape is an assault on the mind, body, and soul.

Bookworm summarizes,

Only a life spent in American education result in a paragraph that says, when two people both intentionally got drunk and, while drunk, engaged in damaging behavior, only the man can be found guilty. Sexism is alive and well in Progressive circles. These Progs are telling your daughters that, no matter how badly and stupidly and dangerously they behave, the young man who behaves exactly the same way is the only guilty party.

Read much more here.

Thinking beyond yourself

h/t Bookworm Room

"This is not unbiased coverage of this election."

David Seaman writes a story about Hillary's health, and gets fired by the Huffington Post. His article disappears from the internet. He is scared. This has never happened to him; he has posted "hundreds of successful articles under the Huffington Post banner." He calls the Huffington Post's action "Orwellian." He finishes, "This is not unbiased coverage of this election."




Read and see more here.

"This is not unbiased coverage of this election."

David Seaman writes a story about Hillary's health, and gets fired by the Huffington Post. His article disappears from the internet. He is scared. This has never happened to him; he has posted "hundreds of successful articles under the Huffington Post banner." He calls the Huffington Post's action "Orwellian." He finishes, "This is not unbiased coverage of this election."


Read and see more here.

Contrasting Americas

In Donald Trump's America, working families get tax relief, millions of new jobs created, wages go up, small businesses thrive, the American dream achievable, change that makes America great again. This ad is going to run in all the swing states. Notice what happens right at the end.


h/t Ann Althouse

Another way to spend your tax money

Elizabeth Harrington reports at the Washington Free Beacon,

The National Institutes of Health is spending nearly $1 million on a study of lesbian couples to see if stress makes them drink too much.

The grant awarded to Old Dominion University will involve lesbians filling out daily diaries about their romantic relationships to determine what causes them to drink.

“Sexual minority women (i.e., women who self-identify as lesbian and bisexual) report more heavy drinking, more alcohol-related problems, and higher rates of alcohol use disorders as compared to heterosexual women,” according to the grant for the study. “Young sexual minority women are particularly vulnerable.”

...The study has cost taxpayers $911,056 so far and will continue through July 2019.

Read more here.

Big Clinton donor denied entry to America, because of his terrorist connections

Michael Dorstewitz reports at BizPacReview,

How bad are some of the foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation?

A person who donated millions to the family nonprofits was denied entry to the United States last year — on terrorism-related charges.

In 2009, Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire Gilbert Chagoury pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative and has donated $1 million to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation was denied entry because of his ties to the terrorist organization Hezbollah.

...Despite Chagoury’s terrorist ties, doors to the State Department were opened for him. Douglas Band, a Bill Clinton aide, pushed for special access after Hillary Clinton became secretary of state.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

By the time Hillary Clinton became secretary of State, the relationship was strong enough for Bill Clinton’s closest aide to push for Chagoury to get access to top diplomats, and the agency began exploring a deal, still under consideration, to build a consulate on Chagoury family land in Lagos, Nigeria.

But even as those talks were underway, bureaucrats in other arms of the State Department were examining accusations that Chagoury had unsavory affiliations, stemming from his activities and friendships in Lebanon. After a review, Chagoury was refused a visa to enter the U.S. last year.

Read more here.

A purple state

Robert Knight writes in the Washington Times about a purple state.

Colorado’s pot o’ pot money is growing. In July, it netted nearly $17 million in combined marijuana taxes, up from nearly $11 million in July 2015 — a 55 percent increase. It’s almost enough to make you forget the impact on impressionable youth.

According to the 2009 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, one in 10 “A” students had smoked pot in the past month, versus 19 percent of “B”s, 30 percent of “C”s, and 48 percent of “D”s. That was before Colorado joined Alaska, Oregon and Washington State, plus the District of Columbia, in legalizing it.

Not to worry. In a November 2015 referendum, Coloradans voted to use $40 million of the pot for school construction, with $2.5 million more for drug education, which is supposed to undo some of the damage to the kids.

Driving around north-central Colorado, we saw no political bumper stickers, but a few Gadsden flags prominently displayed. The local paper in Steamboat Springs runs columns by liberals and conservatives. We got the feeling that outside the Denver area, the state was mostly conservative, and in some cases, aggressively so.

Read more here.

“Lets get together. I’m a big wheel in this town.”

Huma Abedin's husband Anthony Weiner is at it again. The New York Post breaks the story here. Huma says she is separating from him. Huma is the closest person in the world to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

David Burge writes, I hope this doesn't end up embarrassing Hillary and her husband the serial rapisthttps://twitter.com/thehill/status/770255706318573568 …

Are we prone to miss the cadence of eternity?

Michelle Van Loon guestposts at A Holy Experience:

In our plugged-in, 24/7/365 world drumming to an insistent, unvarying beat every single day, we are prone to miss the cadence of eternity.

God has built his own rhythms of restoration and celebration into our days and years. Let us have ears to hear them.

In our always-connected digital world, many of us have become accustomed to the idea that we are the architects of our days. We make our appointments and set our schedules, all the while kvetching that we’re just too busy. Our overscheduled lives proclaim to the world and ourselves that, really, we’re super-indispensable people.

We allow a subtle pride to warp our understanding of our role in God’s story: “Look at my crammed datebook! If others need or want me this much, I must be pretty important.” And if they don’t, then it’s not a far leap for some of us to believe that maybe our lives don’t matter much.

Rabbi Sidney Greenberg offers a wonderful explanation about the difference between the kind of holidays that populate our own calendars, and the everyday eternity of a holy day:

“On holidays we run away from duties. On holy days we face up to them.

On holidays we let ourselves go. On holy days we try to bring ourselves under control.

On holidays we try to empty our minds. On holy days we attempt to replenish our spirits.

On holidays we reach out for the things we want. On holy days we reach up for the things we need.

Holidays bring a change of scene. Holy days bring a change of heart.”

They are instead a way for you to create intentionality in the way you live the gift of eternal life God has given you through His Son.

Have ears to hear the rhythm of eternity in each moment and sacred day of our lives.

Read more here.

Laura Ingraham, Roger Ailes, and Rudy Giuliani to help Trump prepare for debates

Katie McHugh reports at Breitbart,

Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham is now part of Donald Trump’s debate prep team, joining Roger Ailes and Rudy Giuliani.

The Washington Post reported Saturday:

Donald Trump is taking a different approach. He summons his informal band of counselors — including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, talk-radio host Laura Ingraham and ousted Fox News Channel chairman Roger Ailes — to his New Jersey golf course for Sunday chats. Over bacon cheeseburgers, hot dogs and glasses of Coca-Cola, they test out zingers and chew over ways to refine the Republican nominee’s pitch.

Ingraham may play Hillary Clinton in a mock debate if Trump chooses to hold debate rehearsals, the report added.

Trump and Clinton will face off in three scheduled presidential debates: September 26, October 9, and October 19.

Coming out party

Sure enough, by the end of the day, the chickens decided to check out the sunshine, water, grass, and weeds.

Pictures from the farm

These chickens have been living in an area that had a roof. Now they have been moved to this tent-like structure. Soon they will realize how yummy the grass and weeds are. About 200 of them are being fattened up to be eaten. Most are still inside, because they aren't used to roaming around in sunshine.


There are about one thousand egg-laying chickens here. These are the eggs I have cleaned today.


These are patty pan squash. Have you ever eaten them?


Like me, the three horses are new here. Aren't they pretty?

American to the core

At Politico George J. Borjas writes,

...regardless of what you think about the Trump candidacy, the next time you hear that Trump’s proposal for immigrant vetting is un-American, the correct response is that it is American to its core. And the next time you hear that Trump’s proposal is crazier than crazy, the correct response is that—given the mess the world is in—it is the notion that we should not vet immigrants more carefully that is certifiably insane.

Read more here.

13 identical money transfers of $99,999,999.99 each

Andrew McCarthy asks at National Review why is Obama stonewalling

the American people regarding the president’s illegal and increasingly suspicious Iransom payoff. The administration refuses to divulge any further information about the $1.7 billion the president acknowledges paying the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner decreed that the administration would continue “withholding this information” in order “to protect confidentiality.” Whose confidentiality? The mullahs’? That of the intermediaries the president used? Whose privacy takes precedence over our right to know how Obama funneled our money to our enemies?

Recall that we have been asking about the $1.3 billion payment since the first revelations about this sordid affair. After all, if, as Obama and his toadies maintain, the payment is totally on the up and up — just a routine legal settlement involving Iran’s own money — then why won’t they answer basic questions about it?

...The closest thing to an answer we have to the latest round of questions comes courtesy of the perseverance of the investigative journalist Claudia Rosett. ...With the administration taking the Fifth, it was left to Claudia to crawl through Leviathan’s catacombs. In her New York Sun report on Monday, we learned that she hit pay dirt: stumbling upon a bizarre string of 13 identical money transfers of $99,999,999.99 each — yes, all of them one cent less than $100 million — paid out of an obscure Treasury Department stash known as the “Judgment Fund.” The transfers were made — to whom, it is not said — on January 19, just two days after the administration announced it had reached the $1.7 billion settlement with Iran.

...Obama has not just orchestrated a king’s ransom — better, an ayatollah’s ransom — for the benefit of the Death to America regime in the absence of congressional authorization. He refuses to tell us how he transferred it to them.

...Why not a single transfer? Why structure it with 13 payments just under $100 million? And what is the other $10 million about? Is that related to this deal? Did the administration have to pay people off, in addition to keeping their identities “confidential” in order to get this done? Were they worried that the next administration might prosecute them for providing material support to terrorists, as Obama is doing? What is going on here? Where is the supporting documentation on this tribunal judgment, legal settlement, and money transfer?
Read more here.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439433/iran-ransom-payment-obama-administration-transfer-funds-unconstitutional

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439433/iran-ransom-payment-obama-administration-transfer-funds-unconstitutional

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439433/iran-ransom-payment-obama-administration-transfer-funds-unconstitutional

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439433/iran-ransom-payment-obama-administration-transfer-funds-unconstitutional

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439433/iran-ransom-payment-obama-administration-transfer-funds-unconstitutional



Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439433/iran-ransom-payment-obama-administration-transfer-funds-unconstitutional

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439433/iran-ransom-payment-obama-administration-transfer-funds-unconstitutional

Do you support giving up control of the internet?

Most believe it's likely that China, Russia, and Iran will seek to bring global Internet policy more in line with the sort of restrictive speech regimes that exist in their countries. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Rudy Takala reports in the Washington Examiner,

A Rasmussen survey released on Monday found that most people oppose a move by the United States to globalize control over core functions of the Internet, and expect a handful of governments will try to impose restrictions on speech on the Internet to bring it more in line with censorship policies in their own countries.

Only 17 percent of likely voters support giving up control of the Internet, according to the survey, compared to 66 percent who stood in opposition. That opposition stretched across partisan lines, as 77 percent of Republicans, 63 percent of independents, and 59 percent of Democrats rejected the idea.

Nonetheless, the Obama administration has announced plans to transfer ownership of the Internet Assigned Number Authority, the organization responsible for ensuring people are able to connect to websites and other users on the Internet, to an international agency effective Oct. 1.

The move has sparked fear from congressional critics who point out that the prospective governing board includes more than 100 countries, including Iran, China and Russia. Asked if they believe it's likely those governments will seek to bring global Internet policy more in line with the sort of restrictive speech regimes that exist in their countries, 69 percent of respondents said they view it as "likely" or "very likely," more than double 33 percent who said the same in 2014.

Read more here.

Giuliani is a man with a good record. We should listen to him.

Terrorists cutting deals with Mexican drug cartels

Breitbart reports,

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), tells Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM that countries that are known to support radical Islamic terrorism are “cutting deals” with Mexican cartels for access to human smuggling routes into the United States.
Citing photos from the U.S. Border Patrol component of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency on Friday, Gen. Flynn also told Washington Political Editor Matthew Boyle, host of Breitbart News Daily, that there are signs in Arabic posted along human smuggling routes at the section of the border that lies in Texas providing directions for how to sneak into the United States.

Moreover, the former DIA chief said that the Shiite Lebanese narco-terrorist group Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, is illegally trafficking humans, drugs, and other contraband into the United States.

His comments echo recent warnings from the U.S. military, suggesting that criminal groups in Latin America may be collaborating with Islamic extremist organizations.

Read more here.

h/t David Adams

"Not even God could read them!"

The makers of the app responsible for clearing Hillary Clinton’s private server of potentially damaging emails has bragged that it managed to stop the FBI from accessing them.
BleachBit, a publicly available application designed to “free disk space and tirelessly guard your privacy,” boasted on its website that it had stifled the investigation with the headline: “BleachBit Stifles Investigation of Hillary Clinton.”

The company published the headline after a Fox News interview with Rep. Trey Gowdy who said that the email wipe had been so effective that “not even God could read them.”

h/t David Adams

Running out the clock?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seven months after a federal judge ordered the State Department to begin releasing monthly batches of the detailed daily schedules showing meetings by Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state, the government told The Associated Press it won’t finish the job before Election Day.

The AP’s lawyers late Friday formally asked the State Department to hasten that effort so that the department could provide all Clinton’s minute-by-minute schedules by Oct. 15. The agency did not immediately respond.

The schedules drew new attention this week after the AP analyzed the ones released so far. The news agency found that more than half the people outside the government who met or spoke by telephone with Clinton while she was secretary of state had given money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. The AP’s analysis focused on people with private interests and excluded her meetings or calls with U.S. federal employees or foreign government representatives.

The AP’s reporting was based on official calendars covering Clinton’s entire term plus the more-detailed daily schedules covering roughly half her time as secretary of state. The AP first asked for Clinton’s calendars in 2010 and again in 2013. It then sued the State Department in federal court to obtain the detailed schedules, and the department so far has provided about half of them under court order.

...It was unclear whether the judge will reconsider his earlier decision and order faster results. In the AP’s lawsuit over other Clinton-related files, Leon has said it would be “ridiculous” to allow the State Department to delay until even weeks before the election. He also cited “mounting frustration that this is a project where the State Department may be running out the clock.”

Read more here.

h/t David Adams

Unctuous ignorance

Ed Driscoll said it best:

I really miss the days when football served as an escape from politics instead of just another front line for the reactionary left.

Of course, he is referring to Colin Kaepernick's refusal to stand during the national anthem.

Never entered my mind

The man operating this boat is Ben Husser. On Facebook he posted a letter to President Obama: Ben Husser
August 21 ·

Dear Mr President,
I want to thank you for reminding us in South Louisiana not to discriminate against anyone based on race or religion. Had you not reminded us of this I don't know what we would have done. See we rode around in a boat saving people and well race or religion never entered my mind. Not once. It didn't enter my buddies mind or my wife's. Just saving people.

I understand you may be miss informed because of all the race baiting that the media did a couple months ago here is South Louisiana. But I assure you that's not what we stand for in South Louisiana. We love each other when the times get hard. We look out for our own. Now I know this doesn't fit your agenda. But facts are facts.

O and by the way stay up in DC play a little golf and enjoy your last couple months in office. Make sure you clean out your desk. Clean out the house you've occupied for 8 years cause your time is up. Let ya buddy Ms Clinton know we don't need her either. She needs her rest. Lord knows she needs rest more then the residents of South Louisiana do. She may could put some of that Clinton foundation blood money to good use down here helping others. But why would she do that. She already knows Louisiana doesn't belong to her come November. If this was a state she needed she would have been on the boat with me. But that's OK we got this we are strong here in Louisiana. Something you will never understand.

Thanks
The true citizens of Louisiana

Pathetic

Chris Perez and Joe Tacopino report in the New York Post,

The woman who caused a massive panic on a crowded subway train by releasing a swarm of crickets admitted to The Post on Friday that she orchestrated the disgusting stunt in an attempt to go viral on social media.

“I have been doing these pranks for four years now,” self-promoting actress Zaida Pugh said.

... But things got even worse when an innocent passenger pulled the emergency brake as the D train was crossing the Manhattan Bridge. Riders were stuck in the cricket-filled car — with no air conditioning — for 30 minutes.

“The emergency brake was pulled,” Pugh said. “We were not expecting that to happen at all.”

Another unplanned aspect was Pugh urinating on the floor of the subway car.

“I did [urinate] but didn’t purposely mean to,” Pugh said. “It was very hot and I was holding my bladder. When I realized we weren’t going anywhere, I said, ‘I’m gonna just let it out.’ ”

She stayed in character as a homeless person trying to sell crickets, thinking that would help her avoid arrest.

But a police source told The Post that Pugh could be charged in connection with the chaos.

She stayed in character as a homeless person trying to sell crickets, thinking that would help her avoid arrest.

But a police source told The Post that Pugh could be charged in connection with the chaos.


Zaida PughPhoto: Facebook
Straphangers were appalled to learn it was the work of a publicity hound.

“My father works for transit and he’s gonna have to be the person who cleans that car covered in urine and crickets and worms,” said Brooklyn resident Eddie ­Going.

“And you know what’s worse, the emergency brake was pulled. So essentially, one little gag caused thousands upon thousands of people their time, when they were trying to get home.”

Pugh defended the videos as way to draw attention to the plight of the homeless.

“Not everybody is gonna like my pranks,” she said. “This was to show what homeless people go through and how people treat them. People get mad, of course, but I will continue to do it until they wake up.”

She has posted several ­attention-grabbing online videos in the past — some more disturbing than others.

In 2015, she posted a bloody video that purported to show a woman stabbing her baby to death in an insane revenge plot on her boyfriend.

Pugh defended the videos as way to draw attention to the plight of the homeless.

“Not everybody is gonna like my pranks,” she said. “This was to show what homeless people go through and how people treat them. People get mad, of course, but I will continue to do it until they wake up.”

Read more here.

Tired

The foreign staff of The Telegraph report that a man in Indonesia may be the oldest living human.

Mbah Gotho, from Sragen in central Java, was born on December 31, 1870, according to the date of birth on his identity card.

Now officials at the local record office say they have finally been able to confirm that remarkable date as genuine.

...Members of the family said Mr Gotho now spends most of his time sitting and listening to the radio because his eyesight is too poor to watch television.

He has had to be spoon-fed and bathed for the past three months as he has become increasingly frail.

When asked what his secret to longevity is, Mr Gotho replied: “The recipe is just patience.”

While record office staff say they have confirmed the birth date on his identity card, he will not make it into the record books until the findings are independently verified.

The current record holder, French woman Jeanne Calment, died in 1997 at the age of 122.

What now?

Fred Reed writes,

Continuity is comforting. The sun rises, the value of pi remains unchanged, businesses burn, cars are smashed, and rioters with the minds of children and the hormones of adults throw bricks at the police. All in good fun.

These incidents seem to come at shorter intervals. In characteristic confusion, in Milwaukee the mob believed that the dead man was shot in the back when the body-cam video show that he was raising a pistol toward the policeman (Milwaukee, Wisconsin ). Either they can’t read, don’t read, don’t have access to the internet, or don’t care. As usual, sixty years after Brown vs. the School Board they shout in illiterate semi-English.

It isn’t working. The racial thing, I mean. The hunting of whites, beatings of whites, calls for attacks on whites. In the age of cell phones, the media can hide only so much.

To avoid admitting that we are seeing a racial insurgency, the media insist that the police are the problem. They are not. Blacks are unmistakably gripped by a powerful racial hatred of white people. If the police were perfect, nothing would change.

...Further, those in the ghettos show little disposition either to study or to work. This also is an obvious truth that one must not utter. A Mexican woman will work as a maid until she figures out something better; a black woman will not. A young Salvadoran man will make his way up Central America, through Mexican police likely to beat him, ride the Train of Death to the US border, and sneak into a country whose language he does not understand to work construction and send money back to his family. A black in Chicago won’t buy a Greyhound ticket to the same job. Yes, there are reasons. A condition does not go way merely because there is a reason for it.

...The cultural divide appears unbridgeable. Blacks are a self-aware, aggrieved, and angry people widely apart from the civilization of whites. They have little desire for assimilation and indeed actively reject it. In Mexico, blacks speak normal Spanish and, in France, normal French. In America, Dat be actin’ white. They give their children strange names, Latoyota and Keeshawn, to maintain distance from whites. Their music is both frequently obscene and frequently hostile to whites. “Acting white,” as for example by studying, is punitively disdained. This is not headed for comfortable multicultural commensalism.

The core of blackness seems to consist of, first, a belief that all of their travails spring from the malignity of whites and, second, that whites owe it to them to solve their problems.

The core of blackness seems to consist of, first, a belief that all of their travails spring from the malignity of whites and, second, that whites owe it to them to solve their problems.

In politics, the focus is entirely on cosmetics. For example, Obama has ordered the Justice Department to use “justice-involved youth” instead of “juvenile delinquent,” and to cease using the word “Negro.” How this will improve literacy in the ghetto is not clear. He wants schools to suspend black and white students proportionately, being unhappy that blacks are suspended at higher rates. His is the quintessential black point of view: Everything springs from racism, of which blacks don’t have any, and the solution is a federal regulation.

Obama never says that black kids ought to study more or that black women ought to behave responsibly in childbearing. He clearly believes them incapable of it, a position is indistinguishable from that of the KKK.

The racial experiment has failed. We must not say so, but I suspect that most of us know it. To admit it would be to concede the unspeakable. The horrible question arises again: What now?

It is apparent that nothing of any use in going to be done and probably that nothing can be done. The police? Pulling all police out of black neighborhoods would end complaints of racism by cops. It would also leave the ghettos utterly controlled by criminals. Take your choice.

The calls for the burning of white neighborhoods do not bode well. Whites often are well armed. Gun sales are way up. Men I know have no desire to shoot anyone but will do so if their homes are threatened.

What now? The Fergusons, Baltimores, and Milwaukees may calm down, but if they do, the underlying situation will not change. Nobody seems to have any more idea than I do what to do about it, which is no idea at all.

Read more here.

Maybe, maybe not

Now that Trump has softened his position on immigration, the media is delirious about the timing of Ann Coulter's book. Ann Althouse notes,

But I'm not sure Coulter is a big loser here. Her book is getting a lot of attention because people who love to hate her see a hilariously colossal clash between her book — "In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!" — and Trump's supposed "softening." There's so much more reason now to bring her on the shows — where she can continue to promote herself — than there might have been if this was just another book by Ann Coulter. There are so many! Don't all the liberal (and conservative) show hosts want to needle her about her dramatic experience in publishing timing. And suddenly she's leveraged as the expert on how Trumpsters feel when he flips on their favorite issue.

Read more here.

From the road to the kitchen

Driving back home from Santa Fe, there they were again, those beautiful sunflowers.
Next thing you know, they mysteriously appear in the car in my McDonalds water cup! I swear I don't know how that happened!

Now they are in our kitchen, where they truly belong!

New Mexico's first Republican election judge?

Today my sons and I went grocery shopping. As we walked in the door there was a woman registering voters. She was talking anti-Trump stuff with another woman. I said, "I want to make America great again." She snapped, "Oh, you mean like in the 50s? I said, "Come to think of it, that's a great idea. I liked Ike!"

I filled out the form, and at the end it asked me if I wanted to serve as an election judge. I said I would. She noted, "We don't have any republican election judges." I said, "You do now."

Overly optimistic?

Well here is one guy who remains optimistic about the future. S. Vollie Osborn writes,

...productivity, or output per hour of work, has quadrupled since 1947 in the United States while employment has not risen at nearly the same rate.

What this means is that many companies are producing more goods and services without having to employ more people.

Other research suggests in the next 15 to 20 years, 47 percent of all existing employment is at risk of automation. Even more startling, there’s little to suggest new jobs will be created at the pace necessary to compensate for this loss.

...As technology has replaced jobs requiring repetitive labor, we’ve seen an explosion in the diversity of creative output in the world.

...The developments and innovations produced by passion, and aided by technology, have stretched the imagination. From the realization of many concepts formerly considered science fiction, to the creation of new forms of art, we already stand in awe of what passion and innovation can achieve.

Just imagine a world where that output is expanded exponentially.

Read more here.

Temperament matters

I agree with Seth Godin when he writes,

Temperament is a skill.
Throwing tantrums, calling names, not doing the reading, making things up, demonizing the other, impulsivity, egomaniacal narcissism, breaking big promises...

Waiting your turn, asking hard questions, thinking about others, slowing down in key moments...

Telling the truth, taking responsibility...

Giving others a chance to share their ideas, attracting and trusting talented people, trusting the right things and being skeptical of the others...

These are all skills (or the lack thereof).

Somewhere along the way, we accepted the baked-in, unchanging, what-you-see-is-what-you-get view of the world. It lets us off the hook, of course, because if this is the way we are, it's certainly not our fault.

The bravest and most optimistic thing we can do, though, is see that each of us has the opportunity to do precisely the opposite. We have far more choices, far more control and far more responsibility than we give ourselves (and others) credit for.

Temperament matters. A lot.

Both Trump and Clinton have chosen fear as their persuasion instrument

Although Scott Adams still predicts Trump will win in a landside, he believes that Hillary has had the upper hand on persuasion recently.

As regular readers of this blog know, both Trump and Clinton have chosen fear as their persuasion tool. Trump wants you to fear terrorists and criminals because he thinks he can make a persuasive case that he’s the solution to those fears. Clinton asks us to fear Trump himself, offering herself as the solution to that fear.

Read more here.

How long will the media ignore the Clinton role in allowing Russia to gain control of one-fifth of America's uranium production?

William Jasper wonders if anyone in the media will confront Hillary Clinton about her role in allowing Russians to have one-fifth of America's uranium production. Read more here.

Does reality have a factual basis?

Sara has completed her first week of 7th grade at a Santa Fe middle school. Three of her former friends who were girls are now "guys." All have cut their hair short. One gets mad if anyone refers to her with a female pronoun. Most of the girls and teachers are fine with the gender changes. Sara and most of her guy friends have an "I don't care" attitude, which has earned Sara the "bitch" epithet from some of her female acquaintences who are being supportive of those who have "switched genders." One of her guy friends changed genders, too, but he also changed schools, so there has been no interaction with him.

Does reality have a factual basis?

How to Avoid the Garbage Catastrophe of Aging

P.D. Mangum writes about The Garbage Catastrophe of Aging and How to Avoid It.

The main mechanism for damage repair is autophagy, from the Greek for “self-eating”. Autophagy is the cellular self-cleansing process in which cellular organelles such as mitochondria and proteins within the cell are broken down and their components recycled for making new organelles and proteins.

Autophagy is a daily occurrence — or should be — with peaks and troughs of activity. The absence of food strongly increases the rate of autophagy, so that in young organisms at least, its rate rises dramatically overnight. Fasting even longer than overnight further increases the rate of autophagy.

Other interventions besides fasting also increase autophagy, for instance, exercise and certain drugs and supplements.

But in older organisms, the capacity for increasing autophagy in response to fasting or other stimuli decreases. This leads to a rising level of damage that interferes with cell function and is characteristic of aging.

Autophagy is crucial for the organism. Treatments that prolong lifespan, for example calorie restriction, fasting, or even genetic manipulation of insulin signaling, require the organism to possess an intact autophagy mechanism to work.
No autophagy, no lifespan extension.

How to prevent and/or slow aging
Iron
I’ve argued that iron is the primary driver of aging, and looking at aging from the standpoint of the garbage catastrophe lends new support to this idea. Why?

Because iron is required for the formation of lipofuscin, the cell’s toxic waste.

Therefore, to slow the formation of lipofuscin, keep iron levels in the low normal range. Ferritin is the body’s main iron-storage molecule, and the more you have of it, the more will be turned over on lysosomes and the more iron will be left there, creating lipofuscin and catalyzing chemical reactions that damage cell structures.

Intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting (and calorie restriction, which few people are willing to do over the long term) activates autophagy potently. Therefore fasting increases the clearance of damage. In older people, whose cells are clogged with garbage that inhibits autophagy, fasting may bring the rate of autophagy back to youthful levels.

Autophagy boosters
Certain substances/drugs can boost autophagy. These include resveratrol, hydroxycitrate, curcumin.

Exercise
Exercise increases autophagy and thus the clearance of cellular damage.

Normal blood sugar
Keeping blood sugar in the low normal range will help to prevent the formation of advanced glycation end-products (AGE), one of the constituents of non-degradable cellular garbage.

Experimental treatments
There have been a few reports of substances that can clear lipofuscin from cells. If these were to pan out, they could turn out to be potent anti-aging interventions.

One such substance is a form of cyclodextrin, which is a cheap safe molecule that is already used as an excipient in medicines.10

This form of cyclodextrin upregulates autophagy and clears cellular junk.

Read more here.

What's happening?

Joel D. Hirst writes,

The world has become claustrophobic, stifling; limited by our paranoia and our enemies’ great evil. I travel without a phone, without internet, without whatever the hell ‘Pokemon Go’ is – zombies wandering aimlessly through the dunes, almost stepping on a roadrunner as they look for – well I have no idea really, and I have no energy to try and find out. I drive without that little voice that has replaced our conscience, ‘turn left at the next crossing, continue on interstate eight for one-hundred-miles’. Fear. Fear at being lost, fear at missing something. More probably fear of finding something. Fear of being alone with our thoughts and our families.

Read more here.

They just wanted to see their betters bleed.

Fred Reed writes,

It is easy to underestimate the peasantry, the little people. They appear well under control. All seems calm, unless one looks carefully. The means of control work smoothly: the legions, the church, the media, the secret police, the enforcers of political correctness. The serfs are cowed. Why worry about a distant peonage? Do we not have our castles? Let us dance and drink champagne.

And comes the guillotine.

...The guillotine was devised as a humanitarian measure to cut off a criminal’s head cleanly, the ax-wielding headsmen of the time being notorious for missed strokes and subsequent horror. When the meek and mild peasantry rose in 1789, proving to be less meek and mild than believed, the humanitarian aspects of the instrument were forgotten. The populace just wanted to see their betters bleed. They saw.

In the United States of today, clouds gather as the royalty toast each other with expensive wines. In numbers that a half century ago would have seemed impossible, the American young live with their parents, being unable to find jobs to support themselves. Waitressing in a good bar pays better in tips than a woman with a college degree can otherwise earn, assuming that she can earn anything at all. Employers having learned to hire them as individual contractors, they move into their thirties with no hope of a pension for their old age.

Unrest breeds surprises. Maybe Louis XVI thought, “It can never happen here.” Today the African population of America is openly insurgent, the middle class sinks, jobs continue leaving under the stewardship of the rich, the government either will not or cannot enforce its laws, the borders are open, half of the country seethes in fury at the other half, and the sale of guns is at record heights.

...Mussolini ended as an ornament in the Italian street, hanging upside down from a meat hook. He should have paid more attention.

A short walk from the Capitol in Washington, whole housing developments lie empty, their windows sometimes bricked up to keep the derelicts out. In abandoned houses turned shooting galleries, of which there are many, empty cans of Vienna sausages and old bottles of fortified wine lie among used needles and rags stained with things better not reflected upon. You can live for a surprising time on Vienna sausages, Night Train, and Ritz crackers. Many do. Their organs eventually fail.

...Fly-over land doesn’t really matter anyway.

Unless of course it does. In which case Uber should stock up on tumbrils.

Read more here.

Drifting toward the falls

Patrick Buchanan writes in Taki Magazine,

On Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2016, the national debt is projected to reach $19.3 trillion.

With spending on the four biggest budget items—Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, defense—rising, and GDP growing at 1 percent, future deficits will exceed this year’s projected $600 billion.

National bankruptcy, then, is among the existential threats to the republic, the prospect that we will find ourselves in the not-too-distant future in the same boat with Greece, Puerto Rico and Illinois.

Yet, we drift toward the falls, with the issue not debated.

...And, in America, is diversity leading to greater unity, or to greater rancor, separatism and disintegration? Did anyone imagine that, 50 years after the civil rights laws, we would still be having long hot summers in Ferguson, Baltimore and Milwaukee?

...In 2013, the top 1 percent of Americans in income paid 38 percent of all income taxes. The bottom 50 percent of income-earners, half the nation, paid only 3 percent of all income taxes.

A question logically follows: If one belongs to that third of the nation that pays no income taxes but receives copious benefits, why would you vote for a party that will cut taxes you don’t pay, but take away benefits you do receive?

Traditional Republican platforms ask half the country to vote against its economic interests. As a long-term political strategy, that is not too promising.

During the New Deal, FDR’s aide Harold Ickes, declared in what became party dogma, “We shall tax and tax, spend and spend, and elect and elect.”

And so they did, and so they do. But this is a game that cannot go on forever.

Read more here.

A multi-frontal assault

One finds oneself asking impossible questions: Why would feminists remain silent while the promotion and importation of anti-feminists known for the most severe forms of oppression goes on at an accelerated pace? Why would homosexuals support the administration's full-throated support of regimes that routinely imprison, burn and toss homosexuals off of buildings? Why would a president encourage the division of the races, inflaming old hatreds and new resentments with the potential to cause massive civil slaughter otherwise only known to places like Rwanda? Why would the media assail and seek the punishment of a lying Olympic swimmer, yet defend with screaming silence the multitude of lies told by a presidential candidate, knowing all the while that her lies are exponentially more dangerous to individuals and society?

Why, why, why?

The only answer possible is that it is a multi-frontal assault on peace. It is an attempt to do exactly what it is doing, keeping the public off balance with daily insults to rational thought. The people start to understand the connection of the president to the jihadists and Black Lives Matter encourages the burning of the suburbs. The people start to understand the Democratic strategy of importing illegal voters and the president demands that transsexuals use any restroom they want.

...Yes, they are evil and devious enough to foment a race war to destabilize American society. Yes, they are evil and devious enough to expose our children to pedophiles lurking in bathrooms, pretending to be sexually indeterminate. Yes, they are evil and devious enough to import terrorists under the guise of humanitarianism to randomly commit acts of terror to frighten and disrupt society. Yes, they are evil and devious enough to encourage racial animosity on the southern border for all of the reasons above.

Read more here.

h/t American Digest

We are with her!

h/t American Digest

Trump listens!

Steve House, Chairman of the Republican party in Colorado, writes,

Spent the evening with friends and Donald Trump. Every interaction I have with Mr Trump i learn more about him. Today there were a couple key things.
The first was that when we were in a one on one conversation he showed me outstanding listening skills. He never interrupts and he is intently listening which makes you feel good and the conversation very valuable. He made it very clear in that one on one and later in the group setting that he is willing to do whatever I need him to to win Colorado. He knows the electoral map very well and this state is as critical as we have been saying.

The second observation was just how deep his business acumen and friendships in the business community are. A typical presidential candidate will surround themselves with experts in foreign policy, fiscal policy, and other cabinet level positions. Mr Trump will too. What is different is that he knows people, and cited great examples tonight, who are very successful in different industries. If he needs to know how to solve a problem in energy, agriculture, real estate, or healthcare he will call friends with expert knowledge in each field to get real inside information. This should allow him to boost our economy and always know what legislation would do to an industry at the point of application. It was very impressive to watch.

Hey, it was populist agitation that went into making this wreckage!

Mark A. Signorelli writes at The Federalist,

As the accumulating crises confronting the Western world stuff our newsfeeds more and more each day, a certain broad narrative about what is happening seems to have gained near-universal acceptance. It says the populations of Western nations are presently ruled by an incompetent and out-of-touch “elite,” who evince no regard for, or even knowledge of, the people’s will on a variety of issues, ranging from immigration to free trade to education.

In response, the citizens of these nations have demonstrated their contempt for these elites in fairly dramatic ways, from the Brexit to the rise of the Front National to the Donald Trump campaign. It is a contest between populism and elitism, we are told, that defines our political moment.

...Populism is a spirit, an attitude, informed by varying degrees of pride, self-sufficiency, frustration, resentment, and wrath.

...This attitude of permanent disaffection has been the primary psychological note of modern progressivism ever since the uprisings of the 1960s. Over the last half-century, even as the Left has conquered one institution after another—the university, the media, the federal bureaucracy—this disposition to revolt has remained the chief feature of the progressive mind.

It is why the people running our civilization have never developed the virtues necessary to carry out their duties adequately. Determined to always think of themselves as persons out of power, they never learned to regard themselves as persons with power, and all the responsibilities power entails. They never learned to imagine the kinds of moral formation that would fit a person for rule, rather than for protest.

This is why we can listen to a close advisor to the president—a woman with access to the most effective levers of power in the world—declare her intention to “speak truth to power.” But as for speaking truth as power, as for directing their policies with the wisdom and prudence requisite to their offices, the populist elite in control of the Western world have never learned how to do this, because their own modes of juvenile self-fashioning have precluded them from ever admitting that they do indeed occupy such offices.

This is the dimension missing from most analyses of our present political circumstances—the historical dimension. We find ourselves saddled with a teetering institutional structure without considering the decades of populist agitation that went into making this wreckage. Coates’ own biography is uncannily symbolic in this regard. The son of a Black Panther, he continues to spout his father’s revolutionary creed, even as his society grants him an unrivaled authority to speak and to write. It is why a man heaped with accolades and honors can still think himself the victim of a “cosmic injustice;” why a writer privileged with a platform in one of his country’s most prominent organs can think of no other use for this platform than to cultivate deeply uncharitable sentiments in his own child. He is incapable of recognizing himself as the establishment figure he has unquestionably become.

Read more here.