Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Some frightening prospects to consider on Halloween

In PJ Media, Roger Kimball writes,
As I write, the 2018 midterm elections are just a week away. What is at stake? There have been lakes of ink, and whatever the digital equivalent of ink is, spilt pondering that question.

Since I write on Halloween, let me confess that I find the prospect of Speaker Nancy Pelosi pretty frightening, ditto the prospect of replacing Devin Nunes as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee with Adam Schiff, or the elevation of Rep. Elijah Cummings to the chairmanship of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. I am told that Maxine Waters would be in line to become chair of the House Financial Services Committee, which is not so much scary as surreal. And there are a number of other changes that would be made that would put the trick in trick-or-treat.
Read more here.

Don't worry, he will redistribute it for you!

How is your Halloween going? The Babylon Bee reports on one house in Vermont that kids are avoiding.


Bernie Sanders Cheerily Greets Trick-Or-Treaters Before Stealing Their Candy For Redistribution
NORTH HERO, VT—It's Halloween, which means trick-or-treaters are beginning to flood the streets of cities and towns all across the country in a beloved tradition. Children joyously knock on doors and receive candy at most of the houses in their neighborhood—most of the houses, that is, except for that of Bernie Sanders.

Sanders cheerily opens the door each time children knock and cry out "Trick or treat!" and greets them, commenting on their costumes and wishing them a happy Halloween. Then, he pulls out his large bowl of candy, reaches his hand out, and takes from the children who have a lot of candy, placing their "donations" into his bowl for later redistribution to the less fortunate.

"What a nice Captain America costume you have!" Sanders said to one boy. "Although I'm always a little disturbed by the large selection of costumes made possible by corporate greed and the evils of capitalism, I still appreciate your spirit. Now hand over the Milky Ways, bub." Sanders then dug into the kid's bag and pulled out over 40% of his haul, lecturing the boy on the need to be generous.

Of course, the senator doesn't provide his redistribution services for free: he takes a "small tax" out of his collection before carefully redistributing the candy based on his fair and equitable Candy Plan, which he draws up every year.

At publishing time, Sanders still couldn't figure out why kids kept avoiding his front door altogether.

Another Obama anti-American action comes back on us

Judicial Watch reports,
The Guantanamo terrorists released by Barack Obama in exchange for a U.S. Army deserter have joined the Taliban’s “political” office in Qatar. The move reinforces the terrorist group’s operations, according to the Spanish international news agency that broke the story this week. The five men were incarcerated at the U.S. military prison in southeast Cuba because they held positions of great importance with the terrorist group, including Chief of Staff of the Taliban Army and the Taliban Deputy Minister of Intelligence. One U.S. Senator referred to the freed jihadists as the “Taliban Dream Team.”

That did not stop Obama from swapping them for a disgraced Army soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban after deserting his post in Afghanistan. The secret exchange violated the law and written White House rules. The nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), determined that the president broke a “clear and unambiguous” law when he traded the high-level terrorists for Bergdahl, who went AWOL in Afghanistan in 2009. According to rules issued by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) the violation is serious and can carry severe consequences. They include fines, imprisonment, administrative discipline, suspension from duty without pay or removal from office, the rules specifically state.
Read more here.

Who decides what is hate speech?

Culture is the way we behave. If we want to rebuild the culture, we've got to start with ourselves! The Left has for a long time been putting on a morality scam. As the midterm elections come closer, the Left wants to spread an atmosphere of crisis and they want you to think that moral questions are on the line that you will violate by voting Republican. The Left's moral superiority is an illusion.

Jenna Ellis, Director of the Dobson Policy Center, was Andrew's guest to talk about birthright citizenship, and misconstruing the language of the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court has not ever addressed the question of citizenship for the child of illegal aliens.

The Leftese Dictionary: K is for Ku Klux Klan! The KKK is an organization founded by Democrats after the Civil War in an attempt to overthrow Republican state governments in the South in order to re-establish the Democrat policy of white supremacy. ...Modern Democrat policies such as welfare, sexual liberation, and anti-police activism have rendered impoverished African Americans dependent on government largess, socially hobbled by a plague of illegitimate births and chained to the murderous violence that is the norm in many Democrat-run cities. Thus, the Democrats have finally accomplished the goals of the Ku Klux Klan by other means. Leftese describes a world that is exactly the opposite of reality!

Andrew opens the mailbag. "Live out the meaning of your creed," was his advice to the first mailbag letter (as opposed to just sitting on your couch and saying that you have faith but not living your faith).

The second letter-writer is depressed and scared to make friends. Andrew says to him, "You have to act, even though you're scared." Andrew went though depression at about the same age as the letter-writer in his twenties and he remembers how painful it was. He recommends the writer purposely put himself in situations where he will be with people. The man is now in his fourth year of college. His depression began during his senior year in high school. Andrew recommends he deal with the family issues he referred to at the beginning of his letter.

The third letter was from a black conservative who wanted to wear his MAGA hat when he votes next week but is afraid of reactions and their effect on his family and himself. Andrew asks him to ask himself if he is willing to pay the price.

The fourth asked some questions about writing. Andrew says he is a big re-writer.

The next letter was a religious one. God almost always takes us by surprise!

Andrew ends with two stories that explain why he is opposed to hate speech. A Pakistani court made the right decision to free a Christian woman who had been in jail since 2009 on blasphemy charges. The court now faces violent threats from Muslims. In Europe a woman said the Prophet Muhammed was a pedophile because he married a six-year-old girl. The European Court of Human Rights said someone had a right to have their religious feelings protected. Prohibit hate speech? Who decides? We conservatives condemn hatred but we don't ban hate speech!






"Citizen"

Ann Coulter writes in Breitbart,
...President Trump, unlike his critics, honors black history by recognizing that the whole purpose of the Civil War amendments was to guarantee the rights of freed slaves.

But the left has always been bored with black people. If they start gassing on about “civil rights,” you can be sure it will be about transgenders, the abortion ladies or illegal aliens. Liberals can never seem to remember the people whose ancestors were brought here as slaves, i.e., the only reason we even have civil rights laws.

Still, it requires breathtaking audacity to use the Civil War amendments to bring in cheap foreign labor, which drives down the wages of African-Americans — the very people the amendments were written to protect!

Whether the children born to legal immigrants are citizens is controversial enough. But at least there’s a Supreme Court decision claiming that they are — U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. That’s “birthright citizenship.”

It’s something else entirely to claim that an illegal alien, subject to deportation, can drop a baby and suddenly claim to be the parent of a “citizen.”
Read more here.

Red, Right, Republican!

Guest post by
Suzann Darnall

I am amazed at the attacks I have been receiving from so-called Conservatives for voting a straight Republican ticket! Even on websites which go under titles which include the word Republican. Some even go under the dual Republican and Conservative identifications.

I have been accused of being prejudiced for pre-judging candidates who identity as Democrats or with other non-Republican parties. I have been lectured about how I need to study the candidates and the issues individually. I have just flat been called names and accused of stupidity. In short, I have felt more like I was dealing with people from the Left than people who are supposedly on my side.

Well, to all y’all who are picking and choosing amidst the candidates and voting for a few Ds, a few Rs, and possibly an I or some other party, let me just say, “NO”!!! Some are voting outside the Rs ‘cause they know the other candidate. Some are choosing a D or an L ‘cause they wanna save the Alamo or Cenotaph. Others have their own varied reasons for voting across party lines. I just wanna tell them that they are missing the big picture while they are focusing on the minute details.

Trump, America, and Conservatism are in the fight for freedom. Any vote for anyone that is not an R is giving support to those who would do us harm. Yes, yes, yes! I know not all Rs are perfect. But, at least every R gives us a greater chance to deny majorities to the Ds. Plus, denying the Ds support from the bottom up gives us a greater chance to topple their towers of power all the way from local to Washington, DC.

I will not ever vote for a Democrat again. I have been lied to for far too many times about some D candidate being pro-life, pro-gun, pro-military, smaller government, or lower taxes. And, it always seems that local Ds who espouse Conservatism start moving further and further Left as they move up the ladder to higher offices. Consequently, I will not support anyone for any position who is not registered as an R.

Bashful

On the left at the bottom of the trees lurks a bashful doe who refused to pose for a photo today.

Elevating the tone

Ace of Spades brings us today's update on Democrat violence. A Democrat state senator in Missouri named Maria Chappelle-Nadal said on her Facebook page, "I hope Trump is assassinated!"

Republican headquarters in South Daytona, Florida was shot up. Chuck Campbell reports in the Knoxville News Sentinal,
Police in South Daytona, Florida, are investigating after gunfire left the Volusia County Republican Party headquarters damaged.

According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, at least four bullets were fired into the windows of the headquarters when the office was unoccupied some time between Sunday night and early Monday morning.

The headquarters is in a strip mall on South Nova Road, and none of the other businesses in the center were vandalized. Police say the shots appear to have been fired from a vehicle.
Read more here.

"That's when my character was made!"

In this YouTube video of a 60 Minutes interview with George Soros, he was interviewed by Steve Kroft.

Kroft: "You're a Hungarian Jew who escaped the Holocaust by posing as a Christian."
Soros: "Right."

Kroft: "And you watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps."
Soros: "Right. I was fourteen years old and I would say that that's when my character was made."

Kroft: "In what way?"
Soros: "That one should think ahead, that one should understand and anticipate events."

Kroft: "You went out and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews."
Soros: "That's right."

Kroft: "Was it difficult?"
Soros: "Not at all, not at all."

Kroft: "No feeling of guilt?"
Soros: "No. If I weren't there, somebody else would be taking it away anyhow."

More here:

Can you believe this?

Don Lemon says, "We have to stop demonizing people." Then, in his very next sentence he says, "The biggest terror threat in this country is white men!" ..."We have to start doing something about them. There is no travel ban on them."



The human body has more than 60,000 miles of blood vessels!

That's more than two times the circumference of Earth! Published in Oct. 2018 Readers Digest. Sources: National Institutes of Health and NASA.

Let's take care of what God has created!

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

"America is a sovereign nation, not an international charity."

Michael Wash writes in PJ Media,
In today's installment of exploding heads, President Trump has proposed to overturn, via executive order, the constitutionally dubious "birthright citizenship" interpretation of the 14th Amendment. There's no question he has the authority to issue such an order in his capacity as president and commander-in-chief -- each of the three branches is equally responsible for fidelity to the Constitution, and each is free to interpret it as it sees fit.

...our immigration laws were designed for lawful immigration, with some carve-outs for genuine refugees and asylum-seekers. What they were not designed to do is absorb a calculated onslaught of lawbreakers with no beneficent intent; instead, these people are very clear about their purpose: to manipulate the loopholes of the laws, force entry, earn money, and send it back home to their "countries" of origin -- three of which (Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador) are among the most savage and violent places on earth. America has no domestic need for these people, and no moral obligation to admit them, especially under these circumstances. There is no war ongoing in their homelands (the violence is entirely of their own making, and cultural history) and economic "refugees" can apply through proper channels like everybody else. America is a sovereign nation, not an international charity.

...contrary to the popular understanding of Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court is not the sole arbiter of what is constitutional. Each member of the three branches swears an oath to uphold the constitution, and none of the three is superior to the others in its understanding of what is or is not constitutional. The president has a strong argument to make that, with an invading army of cultural hostiles heading our way, his responsibility for American national security trumps whatever claim foreign nationals have on our goodwill, hospitality -- or citizenship.

Given the burgeoning ranks of the illegals, their citizen anchor babies, their family chain-reunifications, all of which are visibly changing the character of the American nation without anyone having voted to do so, this is an argument that's long overdue. Let's have it, and let's have it now.
Read more here.

We have a problem dealing with mental illness, our culture is heavily influenced by less than 10% of us; meanwhile, America is the best country on the face of the earth!

In Andrew's opening monolog: "The Washington Post, where democracy dies in sanctimonious virtue-posturing, is the go-to source for uninformed Leftists with underlying mental health issues"

Why are villains more interesting to people than heroes? Andrew thinks it is because we lie about heroes, but we tell the truth about villains. We recognize ourselves in the villain. Andrew believes in telling all the flaws that the hero has, making the hero more interesting. Each of us has a path to decency that is different from others.

25% of Americans are conservative. 8% are progressives: 8% of the people dominate the narrative and are creating this division between us. It doesn't have to be there!. Andrew estimates that 85% of the media are in the progressive group. Everyone else are in the "exhausted majority." Andrew believes that 70% of us could come to terms on 70% of the issues.

We have a problem dealing with mental illness in this country. No one in the media wants to talk about it because it doesn't fuel the outrage machine. Almost all of the people who have committed heinous acts in recent years are mentally ill. They end up in prison where they may not get the treatment they need. We need asylums where violence-prone mentally ill people can be forced into treatment.

Anti-semitism exists because people hate God. Christianity blossoms out of the soul of Judaism.

David Limbaugh is Andrew's guest. He has written a new book entitled Jesus is Risen. The resurrection happened over a period of forty days. God made us in His image. He didn't make us to evolve into His image.

Trump has given us a template on how to fight, which is why we have Trump! The Left wants to destroy the fundamental principles on which this country was founded. We do not have to fight as dirty as the Left does but we do have to fight as intensely! Somebody has got to get Trump's ear on entitlements. Those are some of the thoughts David shared with Andrew. David is clearly related to Rush!

The WalkAway march happened this weekend. Candace Owens is calling for Blexit, the Black exit from the Democratic Party. Thousands of people showed up for the march. Young black leaders met personally with President Trump. The melting pot was the right idea! All of us can walk away from the aura of crisis, hatred, and anger being created by the 8%!



Caravans pushing northward

5,200 US troops are headed to the border with Mexico, according to Fox Business Prime Time host Trish Regan. The "caravans" now total 14,000. Some violent, armed criminals are in their midst. Retired General Keane believes they will make it to the border. But will they make it over the border?

Does the devil live in our phones?

Nellie Bowles reports in the New York Times,
SAN FRANCISCO — The people who are closest to a thing are often the most wary of it. Technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them.

...Athena Chavarria, who worked as an executive assistant at Facebook and is now at Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic arm, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, said: “I am convinced the devil lives in our phones and is wreaking havoc on our children.”

...For longtime tech leaders, watching how the tools they built affect their children has felt like a reckoning on their life and work.
Among those is Chris Anderson, the former editor of Wired and now the chief executive of a robotics and drone company. He is also the founder of GeekDad.com.
“On the scale between candy and crack cocaine, it’s closer to crack cocaine,” Mr. Anderson said of screens.

“I didn’t know what we were doing to their brains until I started to observe the symptoms and the consequences,” Mr. Anderson said.

...But in the last year, a fleet of high-profile Silicon Valley defectors have been sounding alarms in increasingly dire terms about what these gadgets do to the human brain. Suddenly rank-and-file Silicon Valley workers are obsessed. No-tech homes are cropping up across the region. Nannies are being asked to sign no-phone contracts.
Read more here.

Bottled Air





Zachary Crockett reports in the Hustle,
On a hazy morning in mid-October, Xiu Wang walks briskly through the streets of Beijing’s Dongcheng District. She carries the requisite luggage of her daily commute: A small backpack, headphones, and a can of fresh Canadian air.

Every 10 to 15 minutes she pauses, pulls her face mask to the side, and inhales a short burst from the can — enough to offer temporary respite from the city’s smog.

On certain days in northern China, the air is so thick with pollutants that Xiu can’t see her own hand in front of her face. Skyscrapers are obscured and flights are cancelled. Environmentalists have dubbed it the “airpocalypse.”

And in the midst of this crisis, a dystopian industry has emerged: Entrepreneurs from less-polluted countries are turning clean air into a commodity.

In 2014, Moses Lam and Troy Paquette — both Canadian mortgage specialists in their late 20s — were looking for a career change.

“We were kind of just sitting around thinking about things, and saw a bottle of water,” Lam recalls. “I thought, ‘What if we do the same thing, except with air?’”
Read more here.

"Nothing to gain?"

Cillian Zeal writes at The Conservative Tribune,
We were told over and over again that Christine Blasey Ford had “nothing to gain” by her testimony, which is why we should believe her.

Take these quotes from late September during Ford’s testimony accusing then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her more than three decades ago:

Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois: “You had absolutely nothing to gain by bringing these facts to the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Sen. Kamala Harris, Democrat of California: “I want to thank you, because you clearly have nothing to gain for what you have done.”

It turns out that if you still think she has nothing to gain, your definition of “nothing” may be a lot different than ours.

That’s at least the takeaway from a piece by journalist Paul Sperry and published on Monday by RealClearInvestigations. Perry found that the aftermath of the Kavanaugh hearings could be awfully profitable for Ford.

“In fact, Ford stands to gain some $1 million and counting from national crowdfunding campaigns launched by friends and other supporters, while she is said to be fielding book offers,” Sperry wrote.

“The potential seven-figure windfall, which she says she intends to cash in on – while still asking donors for more money – has some questioning her motivation for accusing the conservative judge after 35 years of silence, and whether it goes beyond personal or even political justice. Others worry the largesse sets a dangerous precedent: Crowdfunding, which unlike political donations is unregulated, could be routinely used in the future as a bounty for providing political dirt on opponents.”
Read more here.

It is all about electoral power

Tucker Carlson says Cesar Chavez's life is a reminder of how much the Left has changed...and how quickly. In this highly informative video we learn a lot about our country's history of illegal immigration and how the Democratic Party stopped caring about the effects on the American middle class.

There are at least 22 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, according to a recent study by Yale University. Democrats plan to give all of them the right to vote. Studies show the overwhelming majority of first-time immigrant voters vote Democratic.

Donald Trump is the man the American people sent to answer the Leftists

The self-righteous emotionalism of our opponents is one of Andrew's points of emphasis in his opening monolog. Then, this zinger: "When someone tries to hijack our national political conversation with violence, all people of good will come together to blame the other side!"

Do you like the Left declaring what we can and cannot say? Megyn Kelly was canned by NBC and walked away with millions so Andrew is not grieving for her. But he is sick of the Left's opposition to free speech.

Who is responsible for the discourse in the U.S.? The media blames Donald Trump, but Andrew blames the media. Unity? We only have to have unity on one thing: that we are allowed to disagree! That we agree not to be rude and uncivil. Andrew plays a clip of Trump urging Americans to settle their differences peacefully at the ballot box.

Andrew noted that nothing sets off the Left like the truth. It is like watching bugs run around in a box; they do not know where to go next when they are exposed by someone telling the truth. Apparently, the media reacted negatively to Trump's recommendation that they take a look at themselves. They are surrounded by themselves; people who think and believe just like they do! Donald Trump is the man the American people sent to answer them.

The despicable New York Times featured a book about assassinating President Trump yesterday in the Book Review section. Andrew reminds us that many on the Left also fantasized about assassinating George W. Bush.

The NYTimes also featured in their Philosophy section a guy from Emory University ginning up hatred, apologizing for being male.

Andrew plays a clip from the Babylon Bee about who Democrats are.

Andrew's guest is "Roaming Millennial," Lauren Chen, who has a popular YouTube channel. She is a Canadian. She grew up in Hong Kong. Andrew has noticed that Canadians are clueless. Her channel is about the intersection of culture and politics. Progressive Leftism is permeating the culture here as well as in Canada. She is now on CRTV. She is a Christian.

Monday, October 29, 2018

"Don’t you dare insult me as a rabbi by blaming your perceived political enemies for some dirtbag Jew-hater."

In The Spectator, Dov Fischer asks,
...Do you remember the Democrats and the Seedier Media blaming Castro and Communism for Lee Harvey Oswald when he murdered President John Kennedy? I don’t. I remember the flag-draped coffin, the memorial procession in Washington, Jackie draped in black, John-John saluting, the eternal flame at Arlington. But I don’t remember anyone blaming Communism for the assassination of JFK.

...So I respond: Don’t you dare insult me as a rabbi by blaming your perceived political enemies for some dirtbag Jew-hater. This President could not be a better friend of Jewish concerns and causes. He supports Israel and moved America’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem. His daughter and son-in-law are Orthodox Jews, and he treats them lovingly and respectfully, as he does their Orthodox Jewish children, his grandchildren. He ended Obama’s vicious anti-Israel animus, and he has supported Israel strongly in the United Nations. No wonder that Jews throughout the world love him, support him. In Israel, among Israeli Jews, he is wildly popular with a 67% approval rating. They hated Obama — and for great reason. In England, the Jews have gone conservative, while the British Labour Party has chosen an outright anti-Semite, Jeremy Corbyn, as their leader. Jews from the former Soviet Union are the most conservative of people. As are Orthodox Jews in America. Jews throughout the world — except for those in America influenced by Hollywood and the Left Media — have become increasingly and intensively conservative. And we enthusiastically support President Trump. President Trump has condemned anti-Semitism as forthrightly as has any President in American history. When the people were murdered at the Pittsburgh temple, he ordered all American flags to be flown at half-staff for three days. Compare that to Obama who responded to Arab terrorists murdering Jews in a kosher-food store in France by saying blithely that they randomly had been killed at some random delicatessen.

...So is there anyone to blame for the Pittsburgh shootings?

Well, for starters, howzabout we blame the mental-case dirtbag who did it? Did anyone ever consider that?

And we can blame the ACLU and the other social-justice warriors who changed American laws to prevent government from institutionalizing mentally ill and deranged crazies. Virtually every time we read about a shooting, whether at a church or a synagogue or a school or a movie, it invariably turns out that the shooter was a crazy mental case who should have been locked up years earlier — and whom lots of people knew needed to be locked up.

Now for the more important part: The day that Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family were hounded out of that Virginia restaurant was the day that the seeds were planted for a new era of violence in American politics. Sanders was physically hounded, and the restaurateur endorsed the despicable act. In subsequent weeks, Ted Cruz’s party was physically confronted at a restaurant. So were Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao. Pam Bondi, Florida’s Attorney-General, was hounded at a movie. Republican United States Senators have been confronted physically in the halls of Congress, to the degree that they have needed armed security escorts. These despicable acts have been the fruits of Maxine Waters publicly urging her followers to harass Trump supporters at restaurants, gas stations, and other public venues. Similarly, Cory Booker has urged his backers to get into opponents’ faces. Hillary Clinton, without blinking, urged incivility until her side wins election. Eric Holder egged on his crowd to kick Trump backers.

The thing is, in a country of 300 million people, there are lots and lots of people who are not normal. There are truly demented people. Just walk the streets of any large city. Look at the crime statistics in Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Memphis, and in other cities that have enjoyed decades of uninterrupted Democrat rule. Here in Los Angeles, homeless encampments see people urinate and defecate on the sidewalk; amazingly, there have been typhus outbreaks. San Francisco is even worse. Likewise, outside this strange region, everyone who works at a place with lots of employees has met some real nuts. We all have met crazy people. And when crazy people are presented — daily — with prominently disseminated calls for kicking opponents, getting into opponents’ faces, harassing and stalking opponents at gas stations, restaurants, and movie theaters — well, a few crazies load up their guns.

...From the day that we elected President Trump to lead our country forward and to reverse the eight-year Obama blip and erase that blight from history, the Democrats and the Left have been in rabid “Resistance.” Never before in American history have so many celebrities spoken so blithely and publicly about blowing up the White House, kicking opponents, symbolically cutting off a President’s head, symbolically stabbing him to death, urging incivility, and in fact driving people out of restaurants and movie theaters.
Read more here.

Red rocks and red dirt make a red mountain!

West of Vail there are some red mountains that rise above I-70. It is impossible not to stop your car and take some pictures.



Are you ready for the ski season?

There is snow on the high ski slopes above Vail even though it was 68 degrees in Vail when I drove by today. Snow is in the forecast for tomorrow.

The Rockies

Got some extra rocks laying around on your property? This is what you can do with them! Photo taken at a gym where I got some good exercise today playing basketball and lifting weights.

"Why would a Central American leave Central America to recreate it in America?"

Victor Davis Hanson writes at American Greatness,
A“caravan”—the euphemism for a current foot-army of more than 10,000 Central Americans—of would-be border crossers has now passed into Mexico. The marchers promise they will continue 1,000 miles and more northward to the U.S. border, despite warnings from President Trump that as unauthorized immigrants they will be turned away. No one has yet explained how, or by whom or what, such a mass of humanity has been supplied, cared for, and organized.

Once at the border, the immigrants further predict that they will successfully, but illegally, enter the United States, then claim refugee status, and finally rely on sympathetic public opinion—and progressive political activism—to avoid deportation.



Refugees, True and False
Central Americans claim they are “refugees,” forced out of their homes by violence and endemic lawlessness to save their very lives by migrating to the United States. They insist on that rationale because of quirks in American law that make it more difficult to deport resident “refugees” (especially those with small children) than ordinary illegal aliens seeking improved economic conditions inside the United States.

Yet the migrants are now for the most part well inside Mexico. The Mexican government has generously offered succor. No one is threatening their lives. Mexico has even offered temporary residence for those who seem to have good grounds to be admitted as true political refugees.

In response, the caravan migrants have ignored those offers, because the vast majority are not true refugees. They are mostly no different from the millions of illegal aliens who have entered the United States for higher wages, for the chance to send remittances to their families back home, and for the generous entitlements of American social services that supplement entry-level wages and subsidize remittances. (We keep ignoring that a 15 to 20 percent federal tax on all remittances sent from the U.S. to Central America and Mexico—around $60 billion a year—would, along with a wall, provide a deterrent to caravan immigration.)

...Would not Mexico be a much better place of refuge for the caravan people, given multiple affinities of ethnicity, language, history, and culture?

...It is not infrequent to hear from American ethnic activists that the current Spanish-speaking migrants are only “reclaiming” their ancestral frontiers in North America (as in American settlers took it from Mexican nationals who took it from the Spanish who took it from indigenous peoples who took it from other indigenous peoples).

Apparently, it is not the fear of Honduras that drives the caravans, but instead the desire to be among foreign Americans—more specifically, to live in a society blessed with constitutional law, protections of private property, free-market capitalism, open inquiry, individual rights, religious tolerance, gender and racial equity, due process, and an independent judiciary? And where exactly did that tradition arise that now oddly seems to work like a magnet for Latin Americans? If the United States is deemed so desirable, why could not the American paradigm be xeroxed in naturally rich, fertile, and inherently wealthy Central America and Mexico?

Immigrants, the ancestors of most of us, enriched our food, music, fashion, art, and literature by importing ideas, customs and practices from their mother countries, but they do not tamper with our core that has guaranteed our success: religious and political tolerance, adherence to the U.S. Constitution, English as the official language, free-market capitalism, and individual liberty.

No doubt some in the caravan are genuine political refugees seeking their salvation in America. A few already may have applied in their home consulates for legal residence and may already be learning English and the peculiarities of the U.S. Constitution.

But that is not the image the caravan conveys. For some reason, the caravan is a paradox, a contradiction and an irony of many thousands who are quite eager to violate U.S. law, to make claims upon their would-be host without serious reflection about why they are leaving one nation and demanding entrance into another—with the full expectation that their new home has no right to demand that all would-be guests fleeing lawlessness should first abide by laws.
Read more here.

Hillary says, "They all look alike!"

When you are Hillary Clinton, you do not believe you will ever be held accountable.

Is the tech industry in the business of addiction?

Glenn Reynolds asked that question in USA Today last April. There is also a video at the link showing how Cambridge Analytica used Facebook users' data to help Trump win the 2016 election.

"But the world is not a John Lennon song. Pittsburgh showed us that yet again. It's time to grow up."

The New Neo writes about the murders at the Pittsburg synagogue,
...Those who blame this on Trump are reprehensible, but their tactics were inevitable, too. To them Trump, who has been a great friend of Israel and the Jews, is the source of all evil. The fact that the shooter was a Trump-hater just means that Trump somehow triggered him (quite literally). The Resistance and NeverTrumpers can be quite creative in finding reasons to blame him for every awful thing that happens, and lack of logic is no obstacle.

In PJ Media, Roger L. Simon writes,
This Jewish boy is going to buy a gun.

The local and global situation with anti-Semitism has reached such a level I'd be a fool not to. Between the rising anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred on our campuses and in the Democratic Party (what were Barack Obama and Bill Clinton doing being photographed with Louis Farrakhan?), the bloodthirsty jihadists, and the neo-Nazi monsters like this Bower character, we are at a point I never thought we'd reach in my lifetime. And as the co-screenwriter of two feature films about the Holocaust, I have a pretty good idea where it can lead.

So I will buy a gun. It's not about fear. It's just history and logic -- the canary in the coal mine thing. I want my family and me to be ready if catastrophe strikes, although I sincerely hope it never will. Oh, how I hope that. But I still have to be prepared.

When I heard Donald Trump recommend to the congregation of the Tree of Life synagogue that they have armed guards, I could but nod. Actually, I was surprised they didn't already. Many, if not most, temples and other Jewish institutions I know in New York and Los Angeles are at high levels of readiness, often with police and/or security personnel standing by. In France, all Jewish organizations, synagogues, schools, etc. are constantly guarded by gendarmes with highly visible automatic weapons. It's an accepted part of the landscape Given what has occurred there, they have no choice. Israel's security measures are legendary.

I am not angry at the people -- some are friends of mine -- who are adamant about gun control, just frustrated with them. I understand the idealistic impulse. I had it myself for many years. But the world is not a John Lennon song. Pittsburgh showed us that yet again. It's time to grow up.
Read more here.

Do you really value diversity or are you just virtue signalling?

In Maggie's Farm, Bulldog writes,
...What's really at stake when corporations invoke 'diversity' isn't anything truly tangible. I know there are almost no firms that value older employees. They are expensive and their experience is no longer valued the way it once was, so the 'diversity' they offer isn't a valued diversity. Older employees are often viewed to be technologically impaired, owning mindsets which are not as 'out of the box' or forward-thinking (I take issue with both these points). Diversity for most firms isn't really diversity at all. It's just virtue signaling to the public. True diversity is recognizing that different personalities and viewpoints have value and welcoming them as part of the mix so the overall organization benefits. It's not a goal, just something which should be done naturally. Do you need an officer to tell you how that's done?
Read more here.

Sunday, October 28, 2018

Pre-Halloween joke

Are you ready for a pre-Halloween joke from Misanthropic Humanitarian? Here it is.
A man was walking home alone late one foggy night, when behind him he hears:

BUMP!…

BUMP…

BUMP…healking faster, he looks back and through the fog he makes out the image of an upright casket banging its way down the middle of the street toward him.

BUMP…

BUMP…

BUMP…

Terrified, the man begins to run toward his home, the casket bouncing quickly behind him

FASTER…

FASTER…

BUMP…

BUMP…

BUMP…

He runs up to his door, fumbles with his keys, opens the door, rushes in, slams and locks the door behind him. However, the casket crashes through his door, with the lid of the casket clapping...

clappity-BUMP…

clappity-BUMP…

clappity-BUMP…

…on his heels, the terrified man runs.

Rushing upstairs to the bathroom, the man locks himself in. His heart is pounding; his head is reeling; his breath is coming in sobbing gasps.

With a loud CRASH the casket breaks down the door.

Bumping and clapping toward him.

The man screams and reaches for something, anything, but all he can find is a bottle of cough syrup!

Desperate, he throws the cough syrup at the casket…

and,

[Wait for it...]

The coffin stops.

Priests sexually abusing children, Americans and Kurds defeating ISIS, new Conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

My Colorado hosts are watching 60 Minutes, which I had not seen in many years. I took out my earplugs and kind of watched it with my hosts. The first segment was about priests who sexually abuse children in Buffalo. The bishop allegedly covered it up. My hosts were infuriated.

The next segment was about America's war against ISIS. A Kurdish general sat for an interview and said his troops and the Americans had killed about 20,000 ISIS members, while the Kurds lost about 12,000 of their people. Turkey does not like the Kurds. So now there is a state of uncertainty. No mention of Donald Trump, of course, in the victory over ISIS, since this is mainstream media.

The third segment was about Jaap, the new Conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

The eugenics debate and the climate change debate.

Bookworm observes that
The eugenics debate from a century ago bears striking similarities to the climate change debate today.

...over the past couple of nights I watched a fairly good PBS documentary about eugenics. While it didn’t mention Margaret Sanger’s racism, it did touch upon a lot of other interesting points about the eugenic craze in America:

The way in which someone took a scientific theory (evolution) and ran with it;

“Scientific” research that started with conclusions and forced the data;

Big money;

The buy-in of the American elite in the name of expertise, science, and self-improvement;

The panic about a nation that could be destroyed by “defective” human beings, whether because of birth defects, substance abuse, or inferior race;

The doubling down as doubt crept in amongst serious researchers; and

The movement’s eventual failure when it reached its inevitable and extreme conclusion with the Nazis.

If those factors remind you of something, then I’ve successfully made my point, which is that the whole eugenics foofaraw is like a template for climate change hysteria. Just think about the fact that the climate change craze:

Took a scientific theory and ran with it;

Larded the theory with dubious “science” towards a predetermined conclusion;

Got big money;

Got the buy-in of a hysterical elite in thrall to expertise, science, and self-improvement;

Turned into an eschatalogical, Manichean panic to prevent the end of the world;

Saw its true believers double down in the face of opposing evidence;

and
(Finally) seems to be falling under its own weight as it becomes clear to ordinary people that it has no substance and is being used for bad ends (in the case of climate change, to enrich hucksters and impoverish ordinary people around the globe).
Go here to read some additional observations from Bookworm about art restoration and racism.

Are you willing to follow a path that has not been previously defined?

Seth Godin writes,
"Anthropologists have found that we’re very motivated to divide into teams, and once on a team, we’ll work hard to degrade the other team. Over the smallest differences. For the smallest possible stakes. Even when we get no other benefit than thinking that we won something.

We spend a lot of time sorting people into buckets. We label them in order to treat them differently and establish expectations for how they’ll respond. Mostly to figure out which team they’re on. An email from a stranger causes us to spend some time guessing their status, gender and connection to us.

Which team?

Strangely, we don’t care so much about whether someone is right handed or left handed. We don’t waste cycles on dividing people by whether they can curl their tongue or even if they can play the piano.

I totally understand our caring about Yankees vs. Red Sox. About seeking out team affiliation when team affiliation is a choice, when it’s intentionally competitive, when it tells us something about what’s going to happen next.

But if we’re not sure of someone’s gender, religion, citizenry, sexual preference or race, we can get very uptight. Ambidextrous (unsorted) in these areas is a problem, apparently, even though there’s no relationship (zero) between the things that matter (attitude, skills, talents) and the easily measured team affiliation that we all seem so concerned about.

And that leads to a great opportunity. If you can be the person who coordinates the work of people regardless of their designated unasked-for affiliation, you’ll be able to find brilliant contributors that others foolishly overlook.

The room has more room than ever for those willing to be ambidextrous, to follow a path that’s not previously defined. Work with them or get out of their way."

Saturday, October 27, 2018

One reason to vote Republicans into House seats


Sessions and Rosenstein

Will the Congressional investigations go away if the Democrats win the majority of the House in the midterm elections? Lee Smith, writing in Real Clear Investigations, takes a look at that issue here.

It's Trump's fault


The wonderfully satirical Babylon Bee reports,
In a special report Thursday, CNN's Jim Acosta took President Trump to task for failing to take any responsibility for causing World War II.

The president was criticized for not acknowledging that his rhetoric may have contributed to the conflict that spilled out across the globe in the late 1930s. While some historians acknowledge that there may have been other factors—like the Treaty of Versailles, the expansionist Japanese Empire, and a certain German fascist—a large swathe of liberal scholarship has now pinned the war squarely on Donald Trump.

"The president is quick to talk about the Germans' part in instigating the war, yet he still refuses to take any responsibility for inciting the violence that led to World War II," said Acosta. "It is obvious to everyone who watches our channel 24/7 that President Trump is the cause of every woe mankind has ever suffered, from famine and disease to war and death. And yet he stubbornly refuses to acknowledge this."

Acosta then excused himself for his customary afternoon practice of speaking encouraging words to himself in the mirror.

At publishing time, both Snopes and Politifact had rated CNN's claim that President Trump was the main cause behind the conflict that killed tens of millions 100% true.

Shep Smith and Chris Wallace get into a heated debate

Shep Smith and Chris Wallace get into a heated debate about whether or not President Trump deserves some blame for the mail bomb suspect. Shep wants to hold Trump responsible and Chris does not. Shep does the usual thing pundits do when losing an argument; talk over your opponent so no one can hear what your opponent is saying. That's a Juan Williams tactic on The Five.

The ultimate "Florida man?"


Cesar Sayoc as a North Miami High School senior, 1980.
Robert Stacy McCain is doing some research on the "Florida Man" arrested as a suspect in the mail bomb cases. Male stripper, multiple criminal cases over the years, felony possession of testosterone-based steroids,
The ultimate “Florida Man” — a Filipino-American who pretended to be a Seminole, worked as a male stripper for a fake Chippendales company, used steroids, suffered from mental illness, hated his mother and terrorized the country by sending fake bombs through the mail.
Read more here.

"The only racial minority suffering from “racial inequities in educational opportunities” is the one suing Harvard over it."

Daniel Greenfield writes at FrontPage Magazine,
Racial quotas help you when you fail. They punish you when you succeed.



You may have heard about the lawsuit in which 20,000 Asian American students, parents, and others allege that Harvard discriminates against them in its admission policies.

Why is racial diversity at the “heart” of Harvard’s mission, but not socioeconomic diversity?

The lawsuit against Harvard by Students for Fair Admissions has successfully raised that question.

Black and Hispanic students get recruitment letters if they score only 1100 on their SATs. For Asian students, it’s 1350. According to the Princeton Review, the current average SAT score is 1060.

The only racial minority suffering from “racial inequities in educational opportunities” is the one suing Harvard over it. If there were racial inequities at Harvard toward black students, the NAACP lawyers would be suing Harvard, instead of filing briefs in defense of the racial inequities that benefit them.

The success of Asian students exposes the racist lie on which all the claims of white privilege are built. If America is a racist society that excludes non-whites, why do Asians succeed and thrive in it?

America is not a white supremacist society. It’s a fair and just society whose meritocracy has only been compromised by affirmative action. The lawsuit by Students for Fair Admissions reveals what racism in America really looks like. If you want to see institutional racism, skip the trailer parks where the last of the KKK wizards collect their food stamps and look at Harvard’s affirmative action quotas.

The Harvard lawsuit asks Asians and every other identity group in America whether, as individuals and a community, they benefit or lose from opting out of meritocracy in exchange for group privileges.

That’s the essential question of the old debate between capitalism and socialism through the lens of identity politics. Some groups are willing to suppress individual merit for collective privileges even though accepting them sharply caps their individual ability to succeed. Others want off the plantation.

As the data out of Harvard shows, racial quotas work both ways. They reward a minority group as long as it performs poorly. But once it succeeds, they start punishing it for its success.

... No white supremacist plot could have done more damage to the minority communities that foolishly accepted the poisoned gift of affirmative action.

The Harvard lawsuit is waking up Asian-Americans to the real cost of affirmative action. That’s the true lesson being taught at Harvard and at countless educational institutions across the country.

Racial quotas help you when you fail. They punish you when you succeed.
Read more here.

Back in Colorado!

Hi everybody!

No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth, but I did get on some pretty rugged cliffs. I am back in Colorado visiting my sister and her husband. I will post some photos of the journey.

New Mexico was beautiful. I decided not to use the interstate and I am glad. Going straight north from Santa Fe was absolutely beautiful as the trees were all yellow or orange and the mesas surrounded the trees growing in the valleys.

Colorado was a stark change. The trees had already lost their fall colors, but the majestic mountains were covered with fresh snow.

I need to get a small digital camera I can keep in my pocket to take better photos.



Wednesday, October 24, 2018

What does it mean to have a right to life?

Andrew's opening monolog pokes fun at Leftists' efforts to destroy holidays. For example, they want to dictate what costumes we and our children can or cannot wear.

An evil lunatic is sending bombs to prominent Democrats just in time for the midterm election. Who will solve this case, the police, or some guy on Twitter? Let's try letting the police to solve it! The return address on each package was that of Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Megyn Kelly got slammed by the Stalinists on Twitter for saying she had no problem with a woman dressing up as Diana Ross and putting some skin darkening creme on her face for the Halloween effort. She apologized but no apology is ever enough. Andrew speaks with great passion about the subject.

Andrew believes it is possible that Republicans will hold both houses of Congress in the midterm elections.

On immigration, Andrew plays a clip of Bill Clinton who in a State of the Union address sounded way more right-of-center on immigration than even Donald Trump.

What does it mean to have a right to life? It means no one can take your life without due process. Almost every right you have involves being left alone. You do not have the right to my time, my money, my property. Worldwide there are between 40 to 60 million abortions a year! That we can live with that is an indication of how sick this world is. Prior to ultrasounds we didn't have pictures of babies in the womb. Now we do. Now we know. Andrew wants to debate, change minds through persuasive arguments and civil discourse. We are looking to free people who are infected with that cultural illness and cure them.

Andrew answers people's questions in the mailbag section of the program Here is one: A lot of us are busy telling God who we are. If you have been trying something for a couple years and it isn't working out, try something different. Let Him tell you who you are. Let go of the thing that isn't working out for you. Find out what you are meant to do. Give yourself a deadline and if it still isn't working out, walk away.

Lastly, Andrew talks about regulations and how they impinge upon our freedom. Written by people sitting in their offices pushing papers around, these unelected, unaccountable people want to control Americans. Trump has done a good job dialing regulations down. It is one of the best things he has done.

NObamacare

Guest post
by Suzann Darnall

I am tired of hearing people talking about how we need to have “free health services”, “socialized medicine”, or “national health care”. No! No, we don’t! To do so is to open the door just that little bit wider for government to steal more of our personal freedom and ultimately impact our personal well-being.

Do those asking for the government takeover of healthcare not realize that Hitler and the Nazis nationalized everything and Soviet Russia’s Communists socialized everything? Do they not understand history? Do they not even understand the words and phrases they are using?

Like the word “free”. When used in conjunction with the government providing something for “free”, we must always remember that nothing is free! Someone bears the cost of everything that the government gives away. Oh, yeah, that would be the taxpayers. We, the American citizens, will pay for everything free from the government. Whether the tab is due in raised taxes or more debt to the Chinese “loan sharks”. The bill will come due and I am not sure we can pay the toll on all these government freebies.

Medicine is not a place where the government needs to be intruding. Government involvement has led to rocketing costs in all aspects of healthcare. Drugs, hospitalization, insurance, doctors, to name just a few. Healthcare should have never been anything but between doctor and patient. The ever-encroaching intrusion of government and bureaucrats into patient care is literally killing people. Life and death decisions are being made by paper-pushers and bookkeepers instead of doctors and patients. That is just wrong.

We have got to stand strong and push our government to start repealing the disaster that is the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare. The ACA is not AFFORDABLE, no one in charge of the plans seems to CARE about the patients, and if we do not ACT soon it will be too late!!!

China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are preparing nuclear electronic pulse attacks from space!

At the Washington Free Beacon, Bill Gertz doesn't have good news for us. Gertz is certainly a go-to guy regarding military issues.
China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are preparing nuclear electronic pulse attacks from space in a future conflict to cripple the U.S. military and plunge the United States into darkness, according to a declassified study.

"The United States critical national infrastructure faces a present and continuing existential threat from combined-arms warfare, including cyber and man-made electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, and natural EMP from a solar superstorm," says a recently published report from the congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack."
Read more here about what each of these four countries are doing.

Would you want the "original Titanic experience?"


Adam Frisk reports at Global News,
A replica of the ill-fated ship Titanic is set to sail in 2022, following the same route as the original ship, while boasting of an “authentic Titanic experience.”
Read more here.

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

A helpful guide to Nazis and modern-day Antifa members

The satirical Babylon Bee explains how to tell the difference between a Nazi and a modern-day Antifa member.

How do people form their moral opinions?

Did you know that PETA stands for
People who are absolutely out of their
Ever-loving minds and really need to get some form of
Therapy and then a useful job
All right?

Should we be looking at each other through the color of our skins? No!

Andrew reminds us of the history involving the Honduras strong man and his support from Barack Obama. Who is funding this caravan coming to America? The narrative being developed at the Leftist media is that the reason Trump is taking a strong stand against the invasion is that he is racist. Leftist fearmongering!

Jenna Ellis is Andrew's guest to talk about Trump proposing legislation defining gender as biological and an immutable condition.

The next guest is Kurt Schlichter! His book, Militant Normals, is now out. As a Colonel in the army Kurt led 5000 normals in his brigade.

How do people form their moral opinions? If you were celibate until your marriage are you likely to have a a happier marriage than if you had hooked up say 6 to 10 times while unmarried?

Do we still have a country?

Michael Walsh writes in PJ Media,
Three years ago, a horde of "migrants" from the Islamic ummah arrived suddenly in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, marching right through a sovereign nation without a care in the world. They were on their way to the promised lands of old Christendom, and the glittering, helpless welfare societies that tried to offer cradle-to-grave security but too late realized that it forgot the cradle part, and only had the grave to look forward to. Shortly thereafter, the Hungarians sealed their borders, built a fence, and enlisted other similarly minded countries in central Europe to join them in an adamant refusal to admit "migrants" masquerading as "refugees."

The Muslim army was raised and funded by unknown players, but it was welcomed by Angela Merkel, the worst German chancellor since you-know-who. With no personal stake in the future of her country, the childless Merkel was suddenly hailed as Mutti Merkel by her new charges, who then promptly went on an orgy of cultural enrichment that will end with the total collapse of Merkel's government and, hopefully, Merkelism itself. In retrospect, it's clear that the "migrant" horde should have been stopped at the Serbian or Hungarian borders and turned back by any means necessary; Europe is still facing the enormous consequences of Merkel's hideous error.

Luckily, President Trump is made of sterner stuff than either Merkel or the media. He's announced he's cutting back on aid to the three worst, most dysfunctional and violent countries in Central America (Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador), has demanded that our friends the Mexicans stop them before they reach Texas and Arizona, and has even threatened to use the U.S. military to prevent the migrants from crossing into American territory.

But fear of your own befouled nest is no excuse to invade another country. Once, "refugee" meant people fleeing active war zones, who would be temporarily displaced in other countries until the war ended and they could either return to their homes or wait in DP camps until their applications for admission were decided. Today, a "refugee" is anyone who desires to live in the United States, and who should therefore be allowed entry with no questions asked.

Naturally, these blunt sentiments horrify the American Left, which views everything as either America's fault or America's responsibility, and is determined to join forces with its counterparts in Europe in its project of population replacement. Using declining birthrates in First World countries as its wedge, in part by enthusiastically demanding the untrammeled "right" of women to murder their babies in the womb, they now insist that the solution to low population growth is to import foreigners en masse, on the egalitarian theory that a Guatemalan peasant and a Connecticut Yankee are interchangeable in their abilities, work ethic, and cultural patrimony.

This is manifestly untrue (history, in fact, proves it conclusively), but no matter. Such quaint notions as national sovereignty are as outdated as the American Constitution itself -- the Left has finally emerged from its pseudo-patriotic closet to call for the destruction of the United States of America. For what is the difference whether the country is invaded by the military units of a foreign power (which hasn't happened in the U.S. since the War of 1812) or an unarmed "caravan" that overwhelmingly consists of military age men and is intent upon violating American law? What do we do with such people?

We stop them. Yes, this is a deliberate provocation -- the Left is betting that America won't dare use force to protect itself, wouldn't want to take the public-relations hit that would come with images of American Border Patrol, National Guard or even regular Army soldiers preventing the horde from entering the country. But, as Trump has often observed, either we have borders or we don't, and if we don't we no longer have a country, but simply an economic system that works better than anything in the Arab world or the Latin American countries.
Read more here.

He understood



hat tip Gwynnie

He did not turn them away



Chiune Sugihara is aomeone we should all learn about. David Wolpe writes in the New York Times,
NAGOYA, Japan — “Even a hunter cannot kill a bird that flies to him for refuge.” This Samurai maxim inspired one gifted and courageous man to save thousands of people in defiance of his government and at the cost of his career.

...The astonishing Chiune Sugihara raises again the questions: What shapes a moral hero? And how does someone choose to save people that others turn away?

Research on those who rescued Jews during the Holocaust shows that many exhibited a streak of independence from an early age. Sugihara was unconventional in a society known for prizing conformity. His father insisted that his son, a top student, become a doctor. But Sugihara wanted to study languages and travel and immerse himself in literature. Forced to sit for the medical exam, he left the entire answer sheet blank. The same willfulness was on display when he entered the diplomatic corps and, as vice minister of the Foreign Affairs Department for Japan in Manchuria in 1934, resigned in protest of the Japanese treatment of the Chinese.

A second characteristic of such heroes and heroines, as the psychologist Philip Zimbardo writes, is “that the very same situations that inflame the hostile imagination in some people, making them villains, can also instill the heroic imagination in other people, prompting them to perform heroic deeds.” While the world around him disregarded the plight of the Jews, Sugihara was unable to ignore their desperation.

In 1939 Sugihara was sent to Lithuania, where he ran the consulate. There he was soon confronted with Jews fleeing from German-occupied Poland.

Three times Sugihara cabled his embassy asking for permission to issue visas to the refugees. The cable from K. Tanaka at the foreign ministry read: “Concerning transit visas requested previously stop advise absolutely not to be issued any traveler not holding firm end visa with guaranteed departure ex japan stop no exceptions stop no further inquires expected stop.”

Sugihara talked about the refusal with his wife, Yukiko, and his children and decided that despite the inevitable damage to his career, he would defy his government.

Mr. Zimbardo calls the capacity to act differently the “heroic imagination,” a focus on one’s duty to help and protect others. This ability is exceptional, but the people who have it are often understated. Years after the war, Sugihara spoke about his actions as natural: “We had thousands of people hanging around the windows of our residence,” he said in a 1977 interview. “There was no other way.”

Day and night he wrote visas. He issued as many visas in a day as would normally be issued in a month. His wife, Yukiko, massaged his hands at night, aching from the constant effort. When Japan finally closed down the embassy in September 1940, he took the stationery with him and continued to write visas that had no legal standing but worked because of the seal of the government and his name. At least 6,000 visas were issued for people to travel through Japan to other destinations, and in many cases entire families traveled on a single visa. It has been estimated that over 40,000 people are alive today because of this one man.

With the consulate closed, Sugihara had to leave. He gave the consulate stamp to a refugee to forge more visas, and he literally threw visas out of the train window to refugees on the platform.
Read more here.

Monday, October 22, 2018

"Why would you vote for someone who hates you?"

Will the arrival of the Central Americans and Mexicans help Republicans or Democrats as the timing of their arrival at our border coincides with the elections? This is not just illegal immigration. This is an illegal invasion.

Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute was Andrew's guest talking about the Khashoggi murder. Crown Prince MBS moved against political Islam, while Khashoggi was for political Islam. We got a lot from MBS: women driving, reaching out to Israel, his outreach to the Iraqi government, shifting Saudi policy in Syria to get it 100% behind Trump's policy in Syria, which led to conflict with Turkey. Khashoggi was undermining MBS in Washington, where it matters most. Now we are seeing an effort to justify and rehabilitate the Obama foreign policy. America spent trillions of dollars in Iraq but Iraq belongs now as much to Iran as it does to the United States. We have no proxy in Iraq. We should deal with the Saudis behind closed doors. If we treat our friends worse than we treat our enemies, our influence is going to dissipate. Putin spent a fraction of what we spent in the Middle East and he has a proxy in Syria.

Question to ponder on November 6: why would you vote for someone who hates you?



One million Uyghurs are in concentration camps in China and our media is silent on the subject.

The forecast is for two days of rain, and the clouds are forming tonight at sunset!

Chinese government funds attacks on conservative free speech

Warner Todd Huston reports at The Lid,
One of the most prominent “research” groups behind the attacks on conservative free speech on the Internet this year is a company called “New Knowledge.” But now a new review of the company shows that one of its biggest backers is one of our biggest international opponents, the Chinese Government.

New Knowledge co-founder Jonathon Morgan describes his company as a “cybersecurity company specializing in disinformation defense for highly visible brands under attack by coordinated disinformation campaigns. Through machine learning and Ai, we detect threats and provide brand manipulation protection before damage is done.”

It is this “disinformation” that New Knowledge has been hired to root out and it is their work that has served as a basis for attacks on conservatives by The Washington Post and The Atlantic, not to mention the efforts by Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others to eliminate conservatives from the Internet.

Does President Trump deserve our respect?

David Gelernter writes in the Wall Street Journal,
...what I see on the left is often plain, unconditional hatred of which the hater—God forgive him—is proud. It’s discouraging, even disgusting. And it does mean, I believe, that the Trump-hater truly does hate the average American—male or female, black or white. Often he hates America, too.

...Granted, Mr. Trump is a parody of the average American, not the thing itself. To turn away is fair. But to hate him from your heart is revealing. Many Americas were ashamed when Ronald Reagan was elected. A movie actor? But the new direction he chose for America was a big success on balance, and Reagan turned into a great president. Evidently, this country was intended to be run by amateurs after all—by plain citizens, not only lawyers and bureaucrats.

Those who voted for Mr. Trump, and will vote for his candidates this November, worry about the nation, not its image. The president deserves our respect because Americans deserve it—not such fancy-pants extras as network commentators, socialist high-school teachers, and eminent professors, but the basic human stuff that has made America great, and is making us greater all the time.
Read more here.

Then, why come here?

The blog Ninety Miles from Tyranny reports,
HONDURANS PAINT SWASTIKA ON AMERICAN FLAG, SET IT ON FIRE; WAVE HONDURAN FLAGS, GIVE US THE FINGER

Two people burn a United States flag during a protest in favor of the caravan of migrants that is currently stuck on the Guatemala-Mexico border, in front of the American embassy, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Friday, Oct. 19, 2018.
Read more here.

The American Trinity

A new video from Prager U. and it is one of the best yet!
Race and ethnicity have defined every nation on earth, except one: the United States of America! It is defined by values! The American values are:
1. E Pluribus Unum
2. Liberty
3. In God We Trust

E Pluribus Unum is Latin, meaning "out of many, one"
The moment an immigrant becomes a citizen of the U.S. he or she is regarded as fully American.
What about equality? In America, all are born equal and are (supposed to be) equal before the law. Some, like Hillary Clinton, are more equal than others!

America gives people the liberty to end up wherever their abilities, work ethic, and luck take them, meaning, unequal!

God is the source of moral values. We do not have a state religion, like so many other countries. We have the God of the Bible. As our Declaration of Independence put it, "All people are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In other words, rights come from God, not from men! If rights are given by men (or women), men (or women) can take them away.

Will Americans continue to revere these values? How long will it be before Google censors this video, as they have so many of the other Prager U. videos?

Sunday, October 21, 2018

Our country's collapsing fertility rates

Ariana Cha reports in the Washington Post,
as new data about the country's collapsing fertility rates has emerged, concern has deepened over what's causing the changes, whether it constitutes a crisis that will fundamentally change the demographic trajectory of the country — and what should be done about it.

Women are now having fewer babies and at older ages than in the past three decades, a change that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported this year, and which was confirmed this week with the release of additional data that shows that the trend holds across races and for urban and rural areas.

The CDC said Wednesday that the total fertility rate — a theoretical figure that estimates the number of births a woman will have in her lifetime — fell by 18 percent from 2007 to 2017 in large metropolitan areas, 16 percent in smaller metro areas and 12 percent in rural areas.

Read more here.

Mica learns facial expressions

Coming to America


Wait a minute: is that the American flag?

Roger L. Simon writes at PJ Media,
Has there been a subject lied about more for a longer time than immigration? Perhaps, but not many.

Republicans lie about it. Democrats lie about it until the proverbial cows come home — and then they lie about it some more.

You can start with the term "undocumented immigrants" — a piece of newspeak that would make Orwell blush. The dishonesty all flows from that, as it usually does when the English language is deliberately turned upside down.

...Meanwhile, if there are children involved, left-wing politicos and their press lackeys are all too eager to sponsor this tawdry enterprise in order, they hope, to embarrass Donald Trump. But the truth is they — the lefties — are themselves the child abusers, exploiting not just the immigrants but their kids for political gains.

You can just see them salivating, hoping against hope some ICE meany will separate a few children from their parents. Then they can pounce. Better would be if they could get a picture of a desperate kid crying for mama, even if it's not really his mother or even anybody he's met. Who knows and who cares?

Beyond this dumb show, and far more important in the long run, allowing the U.S. to be an eternal safety valve for Honduras — and other failed states — is the best way to assure those states remain failed. No one will be left to fix them. (That seems to be happening to Venezuela.)

Rather than providing this safety valve, we have a vested interest in the success of the Hondurases of the world, particularly, for our own good, when they are so close to our Southern border. Otherwise, the process will repeat forever. We'll have caravans into the twenty-fifth century.

Nevertheless we absolutely must start by finally closing the door as thoroughly as humanly possible on illegal immigration. Among other things, it would save an extraordinary amount of money that could be used for other purposes if this map published in December 2017 by the Washington Examiner is even close to accurate. It puts the cost of illegals at $89 billion nationally, $23 billion for California alone.

At the same time, a Yale study released last month revealed the unsurprising news that there were 22 million "undocumented immigrants" (of course that's what they called them — it was Yale, after all) in the USA, rather than the 11 million we have been told ad nauseam for years. Who knows if the larger number — slightly more than the population of Florida — is even accurate?

Maybe, just maybe, if we're extremely lucky, this caravan will backfire sufficiently with the public to be blamed for the Republicans holding the House. In that extraordinarily fortuitous case — it could take divine intervention — Congress should move swiftly on new immigration legislation overdue by decades. Of course, we're a nation of immigrants — legal ones.
Read more here.

"He chose how he felt, he wasn’t going to waste time bemoaning his plight, he refused to allow his circumstances to define his dignity, he wasn’t going to give in to self-pity, and he sure as hell wouldn’t allow me to do that as his proxy."

Tom Koulopoulos writes in Innovation Excellence about his years caring for a person named Ali who was quadriplegic.
...What Ali taught me were invaluable lessons we all need to learn: that life is not supposed to be fair; that complaining about our situation is wasted energy; that we always have a choice about how we play the cards we are dealt; and that our attitude is not determined by anything other than our own thoughts.

...He chose how he felt, he wasn’t going to waste time bemoaning his plight, he refused to allow his circumstances to define his dignity, he wasn’t going to give in to self-pity, and he sure as hell wouldn’t allow me to do that as his proxy.

If I could list all of the lessons those years taught me I’d be writing a book, not an Inc.com post. So here are the seven most important ones. As you read them think of your own life experiences and ask yourself how you measure up.

1. How you think is how you will feel.
When we find ourselves in situations that cause us to feel depressed, anxious, or angry, our first response can be to find someone or something to blame. We look outside for something to change to make us feel different inside.

2. Others ultimately see you as you see yourself.

3. Complaining is like trying to get out of a hole by using a shovel instead of a ladder.

4. Life isn’t fair and it’s not supposed to be.
...Does fairness challenge you to be creative, to evolve and grow, to reinvent yourself?

...Lesson: Instead of labeling events as fair or unfair think of everything that happens in life, no matter how hard, as an opportunity to learn and grow?

5. Giving up is always an option.
...Lesson: Give yourself credit for not giving up because many others already have.

6. Courage is understanding the only thing you control is how you respond.
Lesson: The situation is not always yours to choose, but your response always is.

7. The greater your discomfort the greater your opportunity to grow.
Lesson: We learn best and grow most when we are challenged and uncomfortable.

In what was one of life’s greatest acts of unfairness, Ali came down with an infection and passed away just weeks before my college graduation. In so many ways, some that I’m still just beginning to realize, I learned lessons from him that have endured longer than those learned in the classrooms and hallowed halls of my alma mater.

On my nightstand for the past four decades has stood a tiny plastic statue that Ali gave me. It me reminds me every morning and night that I have no reason to complain, that life’s greatest lessons about courage, strength, and dignity aren’t learned when we are comfortable, but taught in the midst of life’s greatest discomfort and adversities, by circumstances that none of us would call fair, but which, in the end, are the circumstances that shape and define who we are.

You know what? That’s fair enough!
Read more here.

Democratic mob tactics may actually be working!

Joel Pollock reports in Breitbart,
...Trump has warned voters that Democrats are an “angry mob” — and voters seem to agree, pushing up Republicans’ poll numbers. But polls do not vote — and volunteers may be too afraid of the mob to do what is necessary to make sure Republican voters turn out on Election Day.

There is already anecdotal evidence from the field, where Republicans are reluctant to canvass their neighborhoods, or even put up yard signs, lest they face retaliation.

...Trump supporters faced some of the same pressures during the 2016 election — though somewhat less intensely, as Democrats presumed he had no real chance of winning.

He prevailed regardless, because voters still trust the secret ballot. That is why Republicans still have a chance of holding the twenty or so swing districts in November.

But it is easier to turn voters out for a national candidate than for a local one. The political machinery has to be in place.

The midterm election is therefore about much more than which party controls the House. It is about whether the left-wing mob is to be rewarded for its behavior.

If Democrats win, there may be no turning back from the abyss.
Read more here.

Who will be held responsible?

In The Federalist, Margot Cleveland reports,
...the mainstream media took no notice of last week’s federal court filing that exposes an $84 million money-laundering conspiracy the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign executed during the 2016 presidential election in violation of federal campaign-finance law.

That lawsuit, filed last week in a DC district court, summarizes the DNC-Clinton conspiracy and provides detailed evidence from Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings confirming the complaint’s allegations that Democrats undertook an extensive scheme to violate federal campaign limits.
Read more here.