COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Trump Destroys Cruz

Donald Trump’s back – and there's nothing the Republican party can do | Christopher Barron


Donald Trump speaks at his New York presidential primary night rally
Two weeks is an eternity in politics. On April 5, Senator Ted Cruz won a decisive victory over GOP frontrunner Donald Trump in Wisconsin. Cruz’s victory was supposed to mark the beginning of the end for Trump. The pundits and the anti-Trump crowd in the Republican party crowed about how his campaign was finally on the verge of the meltdown they always insisted would transpire.

Back then, Cruz declared: “Tonight is a turning point. It is a rallying cry.”
Well, on a spring night in New York, that turning point became a U-turn.
Trump’s victory cuts across every demographic. He won right across the state. With young and old. And despite all the talk about his problems with female voters, he won decisively with both men and women.

All of the work Cruz had done to narrow the delegate gap over the last two weeks, picking them off one at a time, is likely to be completely undone by tonight’s victory. Worse for him and his supporters, the calendar is about to get even more daunting. Next week, voters will go to the polls in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. All states where Donald Trump leads in the polls.
The trajectory of this race is now back to where it was before Wisconsin. Donald Trump is in the driver’s seat. He is the only candidate capable of securing the 1,237 delegates needed before the Republican national convention in Cleveland and he is the clear favorite to win the nomination.

This does not mean that Trump is unstoppable. It’s still possible that the formidable anti-Trump forces within the party might succeed – but it won’t be at the ballot box.

Because what tonight’s results make clear is that when Republican voters are asked to go to the polls to select the party’s nominee, Trump usually wins. The Cruz campaign has banked on low-turnout caucuses and winning delegates in states that didn’t bother to have a presidential preference vote at all.

This presents a stark contrast in how the two men are perceived as we head towards the finish line. Donald Trump is the candidate of Republican primary voters, while Ted Cruz – incredibly, given his past – is the candidate of party insiders.

If Donald Trump fails to secure the nomination in Cleveland, it will not be because it was “stolen” from him as Trump supporters are already claiming. If Cruz – or some other candidate – succeeds on a second, third or fourth ballot, that will be completely with the rules. It won’t be cheating, but it also won’t be consistent, even in the vaguest sense, with what Republican primary voters actually want.

I am not a Trump supporter. I didn’t vote for him when my state (Virginia) voted, and I am not sure that I can vote for him in November if he is the nominee. I do, however, believe strongly that political parties are made up of people, and at the end of the day the Republican party should be a reflection of what those people actually want. 

Donald Trump will go to Cleveland having won – by far – the most votes, the most primaries, and the most delegates. What would it say about the Republican party if at that point, at the end of an almost year-and-a-half-long process, it simply said “thanks, but no thanks” to the will of its own voters?

New York, like so many of the nominating contests in this cycle, might not be want party insiders want, but it does express the desires of grassroots Republicans. 

Right now all roads lead to a Trump nomination. The only question is whether the establishment can find a last minute detour.

208 comments:

  1. No problem with access. Back Thursday night.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Computer was screwed up. Where are you going?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Make a great deal. Get richer. Don't drink the poisonous vodka. Have fun.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "I am not sure that I can vote for him in November if he is the nominee."
    ===
    Gee that inspires a lot of confidence, respect, and insight into your vapid soul.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What if he's not the nominee ?

      Could he vote for him then ?

      Delete
    2. Russia.

      I gave him a list of do's and don'ts, which basically came down to leave as soon as possible.

      Delete
    3. :)

      What Sam said...

      Delete
  5. Ed Cox, the New York state GOP chairman, predicted a fierce battle there.

    'We've seen no negative advertising here in New York. You will see huge negative advertising in Indiana,' Cox told DailyMail.com.
    'If [Trump] wins that, then I think he's got it. If he doesn’t win it, then California becomes key.'

    ReplyDelete
  6. Fidel Announces He'll Die 'Soon'....Drudge

    The sooner the better.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I am in Moscow today. The laser technology I saw yesterday was jaw dropping.

    Russia is far more pleasant than the last time I was here.

    The women, just as beautiful.

    Flying back Friday.

    ReplyDelete
  8. COULD THIS BE THE END OF MANNED FIGHTER AIRCRAFT?

    MOSCOW, April 15. /TASS/. The Russian Aerospace Force expects that the first S-500 antiaircraft missile system prototypes will be developed soon, Aerospace Force Air Defense Chief Viktor Gumyonny said on Friday.
    "We expect the first prototypes of the S-500 antiaircraft missile system soon," he said in an interview with TV Channel Rossiya-24.
    The R&D work on the S-500 air defense system is nearing completion while the tests of the S-350 complex are currently underway, he said.
    READ ALSO
    Russia's S-400 air defense systems
    Three layers of Russian air defense at Hmeimim air base in Syria
    "The prototype tests of the antiaircraft missile system S-350 Vityaz of the air defense forces are currently going on. The first launches have been successful and the system has proved its characteristics and will be used on a large scale for the replacement of the antiaircraft missile system S-300PS," Gumyonny said.
    Aerospace Force Commander-in-Chief Viktor Bondarev earlier said the S-500 system might start arriving for the Russian Armed Forces already in 2016.
    According to the commander, the advanced S-500 system will be capable of intercepting targets at an altitude of up to 200 km. The first regiment of S-500 antiaircraft missile systems is expected to provide cover for Moscow and central Russia.



    More:
    http://tass.ru/en/defense/869956


    I would say yes.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Russia, like New York State and Pennsylvania, needs more infrastructure than another defense system.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Russia is currently developing the S-500 mobile surface-to-air missile system, which was originally announced to be deployed in 2013. The S-500 will be an upgraded version of the S-400. It will fulfill air defense and ballistic missile defense missions.

    It is currently being developed to have the capability of destroying supersonic aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. While the S-400 is designed to defend against short and medium range missiles, the S-500 will be designed to combat intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). What remains a source of conjecture, however, is the kind of interception the S-500 missiles will use. In 2011, General Director of the Almaz-Antey corporation Igor Ashurbeili said that for the interception of ballistic missiles, the S-500 will “mostly” use nuclear warheads because these can destroy “the entire cloud of incoming warheads with no need to determine true threats from dummies.” 1 At the same time, reports about the new interceptors, the 77N6-N and 77N6-N1, suggest that system will employ hit-to-kill.

    . The system is expected to be capable of simultaneous engagement with up to 10 targets at a maximum range of 600 km. The S-400 can only handle a maximum of six targets up to a range of 400 km.2 The S-500’s interceptors will operate at an altitude higher than 185km. The system will have a response time of about three to four seconds, which is considerably shorter than the S-400 which is rated at nine to ten seconds. 3

    Two new missiles have been designed for the S-500 (and the S-400): the 77N6-N and the 77N6-N1. They were reported to be capable of direct engagement with targets flying at hypersonic speeds (seven kilometers per second).

    ReplyDelete
  11. Yes, Trump destroyed Cruz. And the Mother of Web Hubbell's daughter destroyed Sanders!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. :):):)

      Now that's one I really was not aware of......

      All Presidents and Presidential candidates and all their 'offspring' should undergo, for transparency's sake, DNA testing.....

      Doing a quick search of this new to me subject I see BillyGoat is said to have said to Juanita Broaddrick that she needn't worry about preggers cause he'd had measles as a kid and was sterile.....

      :)

      Now every time I look at Chelsea in the future I'll think of this.....

      The name of the Foundation must be amended to read 'The Bill, Webb, Hillary and Chelsea Foundation'......

      Bwahahahaha

      Delete
    2. 'The Bill, Webb, Hillary and Chelsea Foundation of Corruption & Hanky Panky'

      What a web they weave when they strive to deceive....

      Delete
  12. Iraqi joint forces begin liberation operation of Karma District

    (IraqiNews.com) Anbar – The leadership of al-Hashed al-Shaabi in Anbar Province announced on Wednesday, that the Iraqi joint forces have started the liberation operation of al-Karma District east of Fallujah from the ISIS control.

    The commander of Karmat Fallujah brigade, Colonel Khamis Bahr Halbusi, said in a press statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “Today the security forces from the army, police and tribal fighters began a military operation to liberate the areas of al-Karma District,” pointing out that, “22 ISIS fighters were killed during the operation.”

    Halbusi added, “The joint forces are advancing in the areas of Karma Fallujah,” indicating that, “ISIS militants retreated due to the violent confrontations and battles.”

    Iraqinews

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What's your take on the Webb, Hillary and Chelsea connection, galonpin2 ?

      Being a Hillary fan you must be up to date on this subject.

      Care to comment ?

      Delete
  13. Email

    April 20, 2016

    When an ankle bracelet goes off at the White House

    By Henry Percy


    Last weekend, Barack was holding a "Brother's Keeper youth initiative ... to keep men of color out of trouble" at the White House when the ankle bracelet of one of the rappers in attendance went off.

    Rick Ross, the "artist" in question, was recently arrested for the second time in a month, this time for kidnapping, aggravated assault, and aggravated battery after pistol-whipping a man working at one of his houses and refusing to let him leave the house.

    How does a thug like Ross get invited to the White House? Could there be danger in letting a felon close to the president?

    When I took one of the public tours, nowhere near the president, I had to present government-issued photo ID – but don't make that a requirement to vote in this country. I'm just guessing here, but getting into the White House as a guest of the president surely requires a bit more stringent background check than touring the public spaces, right? Maybe not – if you're the right color, if you're from one of the caring public-service callings like rapping.

    The White House website lists prohibited items, but apparently ankle bracelets are fine. It's all good. Hey, maybe Ross can use the incident for one of his hits.

    Henry Percy is the nom de guerre of a writer in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d[at]gmail.com.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/04/when_an_ankle_bracelet_goes_off_at_the_white_house.html#ixzz46Nqfg8pu

    "Ankle Bracelet" would make a good name for a rap band.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Since I'm in a hearty good mood, and willing to risk the wrath of one of the minor gods:

    Ankle Bracelet might make a good 'nom de guerre' for our Quirk....

    ReplyDelete
  15. My, this was fast -

    Ted Cruz is reduced to begging from an old retired farmer, who has already donated all he's going to donate to Ben Carson....


    Fellow Conservative,

    Please read this!

    This could be the most important email I have ever written. I hope you will stop now
    and take a moment to read it.

    Here's the situation: I'm making my best case to prove to you and the American
    people that I am best prepared to lead America for the next four years.

    I need to ask you an important question: Will you make a key sacrifice in the next
    24 hours?
    http://if.inboxfirst.com/ga/click/2-250905683-2268-163761-347016-2598284-b46fc51b16-b546b01388

    I wouldn't ask you this if I hadn't already done it myself.

    Please let me explain...

    You see, running for President of the United States is a significant sacrifice. Only
    by the grace of God -- and with unwavering help from my wonderful supporters like
    you -- have we reached this point -- on the verge of capturing the Republican
    nomination.

    And while I'm on the verge of victory, I need to share something with you.

    The sacrifices for our campaign are steep, but I'm proud to be making them on your
    behalf........

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. (Ted's on the ropes if he's reduced to begging from me, I'll tell you that)

      Delete
  16. Strikes in Syria

    Attack and remotely piloted aircraft conducted three strikes in Syria:

    -- Near Manbij, a strike destroyed an ISIL artillery piece.

    -- Near Mara, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units, destroying two ISIL fighting positions and damaging a third ISIL fighting position.

    Strikes in Iraq

    Bomber, ground-attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 21 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:

    -- Near Fallujah, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL cache and denied ISIL access to terrain.

    -- Near Habbaniyah, a strike produced inconclusive results.

    -- Near Hit, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun.

    -- Near Kirkuk, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL bulldozer and an ISIL assembly area.

    -- Near Kisik, three strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units, destroying an ISIL vehicle, an ISIL assembly area, 24 ISIL rocket rails and an ISIL fighting position and denying ISIL access to terrain.

    -- Near Mosul, nine strikes struck an ISIL staging area, an ISIL-used power plant and four separate ISIL tactical units, destroying two ISIL assembly areas, three ISIL supply caches, an ISIL mortar system and two ISIL vehicles and denying ISIL access to terrain.

    -- Near Sinjar, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL supply cache and five ISIL asphalt steamrollers.

    -- Near Tal Afar, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

    ReplyDelete
  17. "five ISIL asphalt steamrollers"






    bam!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. :)

      That doesn't even seem 'fair'.

      What's the military value of a street paving machine ?

      All ISIS is trying to do is improve the 'hood.

      Jeez...

      Delete
    2. .

      They are being used to replace beheadings.

      .

      Delete
    3. Jeez, galopin2, can't you even put in the time to 'edit' those daily reports a little ?

      Delete
    4. Replace beheadings ?


      Well, it does sound more gruesome, in a way....a real deterrent to anti-ISIS behavior.

      Who wants their brains squished out by an asphalt paver ?

      Delete
    5. .

      Well, the standard process calls for starting from the feet so probably by the time it got to your head you wouldn't notice.

      Just saying.

      .

      Delete
  18. If the enemy is trying to build a road in order to outflank your troops, then destroying his road-building equipment only makes sense, doesn't it?

    No, I don't "edit" the DOD Reports. I paste what they report.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      :o)

      That's got to represent the slowest flanking movement in military history.

      .

      Delete
    2. Why does one need a paved asphalt road out in the desert to 'outflank' the enemy ?

      That's what I want to know.

      *********


      :o)

      That's got to represent the slowest flanking movement in military history.


      It just seems so impractical to me.

      I'd get a dozer - if actually needed, which it probably isn't, out in a flat desert (after all, look at all the 4x4 pickups they got) - a dozer with a blade and have at it right out in front of the 'flanking troops', black flag aflying.

      Well, I'm no General and haven't made any predictions about when Iraq will be ISIS-Free, but I will say I don't think this campaign on our part is 'the best run military campaign of my lifetime'.

      Delete
    3. .

      It just seems so impractical to me.

      :o)

      Just an observation.

      Given some of the positions you take, it just seems so impractical for you to be throwing around words like impractical.

      :o)

      .

      Delete
    4. Just keep it up and I shall retaliate by dubbing you 'Ankle Bracelet'.

      Delete
  19. .

    Interesting dynamic going on right now on reparations.

    Obama has threatened to veto any legislation that is passed that would allow people to sue Saudi Arabia for supporting the 9/11 terrorists. The idea being that if it is allowed to go forward it would create a precedent that would allow other countries to sue the US.

    Previously, a federal judge approved a $10.5 billion settlement against Iran in a default settlement (Iran refused to even recognize the case) for support of terrorist activities associated with 9/11. Recently, the court ordered $2 million of the settlement to be released.

    It will be interesting to see what the administration does. Will they be consistent?

    .

    ReplyDelete
  20. Remember, the Strategic value of Sinjar is that it lies astride the Raqqa to Mosul Highway.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross; c. 1822[1] – March 10, 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and, during the American Civil War, a Union spy. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved families and friends,[2] using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped abolitionist John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era was an active participant in the struggle for women's suffrage.

    Harriet's likeness will be on the 20 dollar bill. Good move. Jackson has been on the 20 since 1928. Time for a change.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I disagree.

      It's not that I have a special place for Jackson in my heart, or that I dislike Harriet Tubman, whom I had never heard of before.

      It's that I don't like the idea of rearranging our currency in this way.

      I propose creating a new denomination instead, perhaps a two hundred dollar bill (a hundred doesn't go so far these days) and putting Harriet Tubman on that.

      I would fully support such a move.

      She sounds like a wonderfully deserving woman to me.

      Delete
    2. The most famous 'Underground Railroad' station of them all is not so many miles downriver from my wife's place on the Ohio River.

      Harriet Tubman may well have been there on occasion.

      Delete
    3. Just heard on Fox that Martha Washington was on a paper currency bill back in the day.

      This is a LINK -

      https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A86.JyCv2hdXFWkAB4IPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTByZDNzZTI1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMyBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=Martha+Washington+Bill&fr=yhs-itm-001&hspart=itm&hsimp=yhs-001

      -to pictures of the Martha Washington bill.

      Delete
    4. What Bill is the Queen On?

      Those Krauts are tough!

      LONDON — She has been served by 12 prime ministers, starting with Churchill; navigated the decline of the British Empire; braved the tragedies of her family and the nation; and, on Sept. 9, edged out Queen Victoria as the longest-reigning monarch in British history: 64 years now. And she is lauded for having the stiffest upper lip in the realm.

      On Thursday, Queen Elizabeth II will celebrate her 90th birthday, and a grateful Britain will honor a woman her biographer Douglas Hurd, a former foreign minister, has called “The Steadfast.”

      Through seven decades, she has remained gloriously and relentlessly enigmatic in one of her signature pastel outfits and colorful hats, chosen, royal experts say, so onlookers can spot her in a crowd.

      Warm Beer!
      This being Britain, the occasion will be celebrated with pageantry; warm beer; longer pub hours; equestrian displays; and an appearance by the actress Helen Mirren, who won an Oscar for portraying the queen.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/world/europe/queen-elizabeth-90-birth.html?_r=0

      Delete
  22. A Lake Elsinore man could lose his hand after trying to take a selfie photo with a rattlesnake that ended up biting him, the man’s mother told CBS2.

    The man told paramedics that he was bitten while working, but 36-year-old Alex Gomez’s mother told reporters a different tale. And she had the pictures to back it up.

    When Gomez heard his mother was granting interviews to local media, he pleaded with her to not talk.

    “I said ‘I’m going to,’” Deborah Gomez said. “Yeah, I’m going to teach him a real good lesson when he gets home. No mercy for him.”

    Deborah Gomez said her son’s skin was “rotting away” near the wound.

    “I’m shocked he would have that thing around his neck,” Deborah Gomez told CBS2. “It could’ve bit his neck and that would’ve been it. That’s just being a fool.”

    Photos broadcast by the station showed Alex Gomez wearing sunglasses and stretching out a snake near his face. Sometime after that photo was taken, the rattlesnake sunk its fangs into his hand.

    “It was really thick…


    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lake-elsinore-snake-bite-20150826-story.html

    3-year-old girl bitten by rattlesnake remains in critical condition

    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-3-year-old-girl-snakebite-20160419-story.html

    ReplyDelete
  23. As Iran Uses Our Money to Fund Terror, Obama Bows to Another Saudi King

    http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/04/20/as_iran_uses_our_money_to_fund_terror_obama_bows_to_another_saudi_king

    Rufus will explain how it's all good.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Lyin Ted will win on looks alone:

    http://www.rushimg.com/cimages//media/images/hannity-w_-cruz-c/1492161-1-eng-GB/Hannity-w_-Cruz-C.jpg

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cough, cough

      Guy's got a nose like an elephant.

      Delete
  25. How is Iran using "our" money?

    ReplyDelete
  26. Ernest Hemingway - Dispatches From The Spanish Civil War


    April 10, 1937

    Heavy Shell-Fire In Madrid Advance
    By ERNEST HEMINGWAY

    Madrid, April 9.--Since 6 o'clock this morning I have been watching the government attack on a large scale that is designed eventually to link up the forces on the heights of the Coruna road with others advancing from Carabanchel and Casa de Campo, cutting the neck of the salient that Rebel forces have thrust toward University City and thus lifting the Rebel pressure from Madrid.

    It was the second attack we had seen at the closest range in the last four days. The first was in the gray, olive-studded, broken hills of the Morata de Tajuna sector, where I had gone with Joris Ivens to film infantry and tanks in action, operating behind infantry and filming the tanks as they ground like ships up the steep hills and deployed into action.

    A high, cold wind blew the dust raised by the shells into your eyes and caked your nose and mouth, and, as you flopped at a close one and heard the fragments sing to you on the rocky, dusty hillside, your mouth was full of dust. Your correspondent is always thirsty, but that attack was the thirstiest I had ever been in. But the thirst was for water.

    Insurgent Fire Heavy All Night

    Today was different. All night the heaviest Insurgent artillery, mortar and machine-gun fire seemed close enough to be outside the window. At 5:40 A. M. the machine guns were hammering so that sleep was impossible. Ivens came into the rooms and we decided to wake up the sound-sleeping John Ferno, film operator, and Henry Gorrell, United Press correspondent, and start out on foot.

    As we left the hotel the door porter showed us where a spent machine-gun bullet had come in the door, breaking the glass. Eight minutes of unbreakfasted, downhill walking, loaded with cameras and gastric remorse from an excellent pre-battle celebration, brought us to brigade headquarters in Casa de Campo.

    Loyalist shells were going overhead, sounding like down-curving serial subway trains with a boom at the end, but there was no Insurgent artillery fire. This filled your correspondent with inquietude. I remarked, "Let's get out of this joint before they open up on it," which remark coincided with the whishing, rush arrival of the first of six three- inch shells, which burst behind us, ahead and in the trees.

    We went forward on a path through trees covered with heavy green moss that surrounded the old royal hunting lodge, with shells bursting around us in the heavy woods. The only one that came with that authentic, personal, final rush of splitting air that you flatten to without choice or pride hit a big linden tree twenty yards away, and the splintered, new Spring sapped wood and steel fragments ripped out together.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Government Planes in Action

      We were stopped within 300 yards of the front line in the deepest woods, but, in that hollow in the woods, we could see nothing of general fighting except the sudden appearance of government bombing planes that came over and dropped clutches of eggs-- boom, boom, boom, boom, then boom, boom, boom, boom--just beyond us. The rapidity and irregularity of sudden falling bombs is completely unlike artillery fire. Black clouds of smoke shot up over the newly green tree-tops.

      There was absolutely no Insurgent aircraft in sight. As we watched, a black government ground-strafer came low over the trees, and, in a whirling turn, swooped lower, its four guns spitting. A government battery was firing just over us, the shells tearing the air with a sound like that of a giant band-saw, the bursts coming so soon the fuses seemed set at zero. Just then a motorcycle opened up behind Gorrell, who once was captured by an Italian tank on the Toledo road, and, in a spirit of reminiscence, he tried for the standing sideways broad-jump record.

      "Let's get up where we can see something--out of this hollow," some one said. "There's gotta be a height somewhere where we can see the battle."

      Government Artillery Accurate

      I had one figured out from studying the terrain, with this probability in mind, some days before. When we reached it, sweating heavily and beginning to be most thirsty again, the view was marvelous. The battle was spread out before us. The government artillery, with the noise now of flying freight trains, was registering direct hits with shell after shell on the Insurgent stronghold, the castle-towered Church of Vellou, with the stone-dust roaring up in steadily jumping clouds.

      I could see government infantry advancing on a brown trench out in a hillside. As I watched, I heard the drone of planes coming over, and, looking up, I saw three government bombers shining in the sun. As they unloaded on Insurgent positions sections of the clearly seen mud trench line disappeared in great towering black flowerings of death. The complete lack of any Insurgent air power seemed unbelievable.

      Just as we were congratulating ourselves on having such a splendid observation post out of the reach of danger a bullet smacked against a corner of brick wall beside Ivens's head. Thinking it was a stray, we moved over a little, and, as I watched the action with glasses shading them carefully, another came by my head. We changed our position to a spot where the observing was not so good and were shot at twice more.

      Joris thought Ferno had left his camera at our first post, and, as I went back for it a bullet whacked into the wall above. I crawled back on my hands and knees, and another bullet came by as I crossed the exposed corner.

      Delete
    2. Film Battle From Ruined House

      We decided to set up the big telephoto camera. Ferno had gone back to find a healthier position, and he chose the third floor of a ruined house. There, in the shade of a balcony, with the camera camouflaged with old clothes found in the house, we worked all afternoon and watched the battle.

      When the light failed, we returned to the hotel on foot, just in time to see a big trimotor Junkers, the first seen over Madrid in two weeks and the only enemy aircraft seen in the day's battle, drop bombs on the government position and sweep on toward us. We all hunted some shelter in that bare, stone-paved square, and it was a great feeling when the huge, sinister-shaped, low-flying metal monoplane swerved off and passed on over the city.

      A minute later, a snub-nosed government biplane was wheeling low over the center of the city and the Junkers was seen no more. Junkers have guns in their wings. They cannot fire through their propellers, and the fast government pursuit ships attack these flying fortresses, manned by crews of six, nose to nose, on their one blind spot.

      The crowd was looking at this little wheeling biplane that had come to protect them with the admiration and affection of people who have seen the command of the air pass their way through the superiority of these same snub-nosed little fighters, and the correspondents elbowed their way into the hotel to write the day's story and wonder what tomorrow would bring in this, perhaps the most important battle to relieve the Insurgent pressure on Madrid and launch the long-awaited government offensive.

      Return to the Books Home Page

      http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/07/04/specials/hemingway-advance.html

      Delete
    3. The 'government' was flying French planes, I think, the rebels - Franco's folks - were flying German planes.

      Everyone was trying out new war machinery, the Russians, Germans, French....only the Spanish were dying from it.

      Delete
  27. Saudi Arabia snubs President Obama at the airport


    posted at 5:01 pm on April 20, 2016 by John Sexton

    CNN is reporting that Saudi Arabia appears to have snubbed President Obama when he arrived in Riyadh for his farewell tour. It is customary for a U.S. president to be greeted by a high-ranking government official. In Saudi Arabia that would be a high-ranking member of the royal family, perhaps the king himself or the crown prince. Today, Obama was greeted by the governor of Riyadh. CNN reports:


    When Obama touched down in Riyadh shortly after 1 p.m. local time, there were no kisses with the kingdom’s ruler as President George W. Bush once exchanged. The Saudi government dispatched the governor of Riyadh rather than a senior-level royal to shake Obama’s hand, a departure from the scene at the airport earlier in the day when King Salman was shown on state television greeting the leaders of other Gulf nations on the tarmac.

    Social media users quickly termed the reception, which was not carried live on state TV, a snub and a sign that a relationship long lubricated by barrels of oil is now facing deep questions on both sides.

    Reporter Nic Robertson says the greeting was very different from the one President George W. Bush received when he made a similar farewell tour at the end of his presidency:

    The Washington Post reports Obama’s fourth trip to Saudi Arabia is shadowed by plenty of current disagreement as well as revived controversy over the country’s role in the 9/11 terror attacks:


    Obama and the Saudi leaders have diverged sharply at times over how to calm the sectarian tensions roiling the region, how to resolve civil wars in Yemen and Syria, and how to deal with Iran’s influence.

    Adding to those tensions is the recently resurrected specter of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and long-classified documents from a congressional report suggesting that the Saudis may have played a role in the attacks.

    A bill that could make Saudi Arabia liable for any role in the terrorist attacks is drawing support from both Republicans and Democrats, even as the Obama administration has lobbied against it. In Saudi Arabia, senior officials are furious about the possible revival of a matter they thought had been settled long ago.

    Without being specific about what is in the classified portion of the 9/11 report, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes tells the Post it involved, “A lot of the money — the seed money — for what became al-Qaeda came out of Saudi Arabia.”

    http://hotair.com/archives/2016/04/20/saudi-arabia-snubs-president-obama-at-the-airport/

    ReplyDelete
  28. Aha !

    Greta van Sustern agrees with me about bumping Jackson from the $20 dollar bill.

    Give Harriet Tubman her own bill, she says. Great suggests creating a $25 dollar bill.

    We can do better than that - create the Tubman $200.

    Greta says it's stupid to divide the country between those who like Jackson, and those who don't, by stirring up this trouble, which makes some sense.

    She blames it all on Treasury Secretary Lew.

    Why don't we put writers and poets on our currency ?

    After all, the word poet means 'maker'.

    And in the end, they are the ones that truly count.

    A Whitman $500, for instance....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Greta suggests...

      Delete
    2. Dr. Ben Carson has joined the 'Save The Jackson Twenty Movement', and is also recommending a brand new bill with Harriet Tubman on it.

      Now I know I'm right.

      Delete
  29. Brawl Breaks Out Over Gender Neutral Bathroom Opening In LA

    VIDEO OF BRAWL OVER BATHROOM


    http://www.realradio.fm/onair/the-news-junkie-50156/fight-breaks-out-at-genderneutral-bathroom-14626913/

    Good Lord.

    What an idiot country we've become.

    I'd MUCH rather pee in a forest than in a gender inclusive bathroom.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      One more step in the long march of the liberal pricks.

      .

      Delete
    2. I had a long march across a footbridge to a shitter I dug in the woods.
      Had this cool fuzzy sage growing along the path, which I renamed "Toilet Paper Sage"

      Soft, fuzzy, and scented.
      Those were the days.
      (I'm working up to my mountain lion story if Bob lives long enough.)

      Delete
    3. I'll make it a pledge to live till you tell it, then die happy.

      (Please put off the telling for awhile)

      Delete
    4. I was on one hole of my two holer at the farm one time, and a bear came in and sat right down beside me !

      Delete
    5. In the fall of that year we lived in a cabin by the village and the rains came early that year and beat the dead autumn leaves from the trees and across the valley beyond the river were the mountains, misted with light snow on the crestsm and often we marched long across a footbridge to a shitter we had dug in the woods.

      Delete
    6. Damn, drop the 'm' on crests....and I had worked so hard on that too

      Delete
    7. On the far side of the foot bridge grew a cool fuzzy sage along the path in the chestnut forest, which we renamed "Toilet Paper Sage" because it was soft, fuzzy and scented when we cleansed ourselves.

      Delete
    8. There was a Sergeant in the Army in that war who was called 'Ankle Bracelet' because he was arrested for desertion, who, after the war, tried to market the sage in Rome as 'Toilet Paper Sage' but it failed and the last we knew he was hiding out from the Guardia di Finanza, the Arma dei Carabinieri and the Polizia Penitenziaria high in the mountains of the Abruzzi.

      Delete
  30. A TEENAGER who livestreamed the rape of her 17-year-old friend has had her defence of broadcasting the assault online shut down by a prosecutor.

    ...

    In its community guidelines, Periscope encourages users to “be decent to one another”.
    In order to “keep Periscope open and safe”, it advises users: “Do not publish explicitly graphic content or media that is intended to incite violent, illegal or dangerous activities.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The teenager should be charged with aiding and abetting rape.

      Why didn't she run and call the police ?

      Some 'friend'.

      Delete
  31. April 21, 2016

    Call it Fascism

    By Mike Konrad


    The difference between "leftist" and "rightist" tyranny is that the tyrants on the "right" have enough sense not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. They understand that pure socialism does not work; and so they erect a corporatist-aligned government, where private industry is encouraged to become an arm of government policy, while being allowed to keep some of the profits.

    The term "corporatism" is proper. It was used by Mussolini and Franco, who both produced reasonably stable fascist states. This is what we are facing on the horizon.

    To the untutored, the term "fascism" conjures up Hitler, whose Nazi Germany is held up as the prime example of fascism: Der ÜberStaat. In reality, Hitler's Germany was a thuggish state, based on neo-pagan mythologies and pseudo-scientific mystic racism with rather bizarre economic strategies. It was not a good example of fascism.

    It was Mussolini who perfected the model, which was later exported to Spain and Latin America. Had Mussolini stayed out of World War II, the model might have taken a more solid root and become more publicly respectable. After WW II, Franco softened the model to appease the Western democracies, and it was used to grow the Spanish economy. Under Perón, Argentina tried the model, but Argentine corruption was so enormous that it collapsed. To be fair, this may be as much the fault of Argentina's national character as a fault with fascism.


    In Argentina... payoffs, kickbacks and government corruption are considered part of everyday life... -- NY Times

    In a few words, fascism is crony capitalism with a suppression of civil liberties. Labor and proletarian elements are suppressed, but a sop of social legislation is enacted to keep the lower classes from outright revolt. The degree to which social concessions are made determines whether the fascism is leftist or rightist. Mussolini was more to the right. The Peróns ended up being leftist. In all cases, the philosophy is statist.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Facism is not the free market capitalism of Adam Smith by any means. Smith opposed government interference. Fascism can be viewed as much a form of leftism as rightism -- depending on one's point of view. This is a statist envelope where all groups: rich, poor, unions, capitalists are brought under state control.

      Fascism, unlike leftist totalitarians, embraces its own corruption. One does not see the massive purges of party membership dispatched over minor doctrinal differences in political theory. The troublemakers get fired from their jobs first. Buying people off is considered a respectable policy, unlike the left totalitarians which considered suspected dissents too dangerous to live. Only the truly defiant are shot. Fascism often allowed enough managed dissent for people to blow off steam, as long as that dissent was kept feckless. Franco embraced Carlists, monarchists, Phalangists, fascists, right wingers, etc. Fascism worked because, unlike the left, Fascism acknowledges the intrinsic corruption of men. It does not seek to make a "new man," but rather merely seeks to control the old one.

      What we have emerging around the world are various flavors of fascism. And dare we say it: This is especially true of the West.

      It would be wrong to say that transnational corporations now tell governments what to do. Rather what is emerging is a corporation-government alliance, the very essence of fascism. High-tech companies now provide governments with the technologies to enforce totalitarian control over our lives. Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay now track all your purchases. If you do not think the government does not have access to this information, then you are not paying attention. Corporations provide governments with the means of control that formerly would have been unacceptable for any government to request.

      The recent spat over unlocking an iPhone was all for show. Apple just wanted a clear definition of terms. This is not a bunch of civil libertarians versus Big Brother. Apple is rather notorious for tracking its customers.


      Apple is Tracking iPhone, iPad Users' Location; Easily Mapped With OS X App -- Daily Tech

      Think of it as turf wars between competing mafia families. Both sides are corrupt, and neither side has moral compunctions about the corruption. They just want the border neighborhoods clearly defined. Does the Lucchese crime family control the numbers racket in Bensonhurst, or the Gambino family? Does Apple control encryption protocols, or the NSA?


      Apple... received over 30k law enforcement requests, complied with up to 82% -- 9to5 Mac

      In reality, Apple is rather compliant with the government. Microsoft's Bill Gates was more nuanced:


      "All Apple's doing is delaying the decision," Gates told Zakaria. "So I don't think it's a big deal whether they gave in or didn't give in." -- Money CNN

      Delete
    2. Privacy is dead.

      What distinguishes the fascist state is that the government finally figured out that it does not need to control everything as long as it gets it vig (taxes); and as long as it can set the general direction. Corporations can control the population far more effectively and cheaply. The leftist totalitarian may want purity of concept and party doctrine; but the fascist cares only about results, and embraces the corruption needed to achieve it.

      There are quasi-leftist forms of fascism. Hitler's rival, Ernst Röhm, had a leftist view of Nazism. He was also quite homosexual -- take that any way you want. The Peróns of Argentina had some leftist aspects. Perón was a minister of labor. Fascism is corruption that works. Obama spreads a classic leftist variety of fascism.

      Fascism tracks back to the deteriorating days of the Roman Republic. Indeed, the the fasces was a symbol of Roman power. Landed families had taken over and corrupted the political system to the point where an effective monarchy prevailed. Sure, it kept up the appearances of a republic; but in reality ruling families ran the show. Subsidized food and entertainments (bread and circuses) kept the people quiet. People's allegiances split along family lines rather than political concepts much the same as we have it today. The party of Bush vs the party of Clinton. Let us not forget that the party of Kennedy still has some clout.

      All these are competing mafias, a crime organization that took its inspiration from the Roman Republic.

      This corrupt system is what is taking over the world. China is no longer communist, but corporatist. Putin is a right-wing strongman: a Caesar; but runs a brutal oil company: Gazprom. The European parliament regularly ignores the wishes of its constituency, and imposes corporate requirements. All of this was perfected two thousand years ago in Rome, when the Republic fell to the corruption of monied plutocrats. The forms of a Republic were preserved while the tyranny worsened.



      Delete
    3. Pretenses were kept up, though. Slaves were freed eventually, but all freeman were enslaved practically. Eventually, everyone but the super rich became a serf. All the while, the pretense of liberty was maintained.

      Right now, we see Trump winning Colorado votes, while the Republican party apparatchiks maneuver to give the delegates to Cruz. Bernie won Wyoming. Hilary got the delegates. The corruption is blatant, in your face now. No one pretends any more.

      The parties (or should we say party) will decide what choices you have. If you think the rest of the world does not notice this, you are not paying attention. American democracy is being shown to be a facade. The insiders rule and pick the candidates, and the public be damned.

      The various flavors do not matter. It can be a corporatist China pretending to be communist. It can be a corporatist Europe pretending to be democratic. It can be a corporatist America pretending to respect civil liberties. It the end, it is all money and state power. There are degrees of tyranny, but all have some tyranny.


      Google bows to China's censorship demands -- Sydney Morning Herald

      The corporations become agencies of the government, and in return get protected status. A system of monied corruption perfected by the Romans two thousand years ago is taking over the planet. It has the modern appearance of a democracy, but it is an increasing despotism.

      Call it what it is: Fascism. Call all these wars what they are: local mafias defining boundaries.

      There is only one remedy for fascism: national virtue. But that will never happen while people are instructed by the media. America had national virtue at one time. No longer.

      The book of Revelation hinted at a revived Roman Empire as the final world tyranny. Whether that refers to a literal European Imperial State or is a metaphor for another federal empire is up for debate. What is striking is that the form of that tyranny has been recapitulated almost perfectly.

      Call it fascism. We all live under it.

      Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who is neither Latin, nor Arab. He runs a website, http://latinarabia.com, where he discusses the subculture of Arabs in Latin America. He wishes his Spanish were better.



      http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/call_it_fascism.html#ixzz46THCISBK

      Delete
    4. Solutions:

      1) A small remote farm of one's own
      2) A lava tube in Hawaii
      3) A walled compound and Limo
      4) Australia
      5) Disguising one's identity - ala Quirk aka 'Ankle Bracelet'
      6) .....?

      Delete
    5. .

      Finally, an article in the American Thinker that makes sense. Of course, others including another guy named Michael Conrad who rights for Salon, have said the same thing; although his solutions tend towards the progressive such as electing Michael Bloomberg president by affirmation rather than going through a messy primary process.

      And naturally, lest we forget this is a writer for American Thinker he gives us this...

      There are quasi-leftist forms of fascism. Hitler's rival, Ernst Röhm, had a leftist view of Nazism. He was also quite homosexual -- take that any way you want.

      Nuff said.

      However, while Konrad does describe the economic situation, his article ignores or to be less argumentative doesn't discuss the declining cultural mores that have gotten up to the point we are.

      .

      Delete
  32. Highlights

    The labor market once again, against a background of soft data, shows itself as the economy's leading positive. Initial claims fell 6,000 in the April 16 week to a much lower-than-expected 247,000. This is the lowest level since 1973 when, of course, the size of the labor market was much smaller. The 4-week average is down 4,500 to 260,500.

    The April 16 week is important as it is the sample week for the April employment report and a comparison with the sample week of the March employment is positive to mixed. The weekly level is down 12,000 but the 4-week average is up fractionally. Continuing claims, in lagging data for the April 9 week, fell 39,000 to 2.127 million which is the lowest for this series since 2000.

    Employers are holding onto their employees in convincing confirmation of the strength of the nation's labor market. This report points to another solid reading for the monthly employment report.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Join The Fight To Liberate Gender Neutral Rest Rooms Now !

    ReplyDelete
  34. You know, right now, I'm using public bathrooms with guys that want to be girls, and soon I'll be going with girls that want to be guys.

    Honestly, I don't care;

    I really just want to take a leak.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Gender neutral bathrooms are merely a symptom of the tyranny of the left, one more step in the long-war.

      Gender neutral bathrooms would be fine is designed properly but that would defeat the ultimate goal of the left. You could design a multiple stall bathroom with each stall designed for privacy, designed so that voyeurs and perverts can't see see over or under the walls or through the cracks between the door and the wall. Each of the stalls could then open onto the commons area with sinks and mirrors. Don't look for it any time soon.

      But the real question is that if the idea is to make a small percentage of the population comfortable what is the justification for making an even larger percentage of the population uncomfortable? Why are all of these college campuses moving to gender neutral restrooms across the board? Why don't they offer gender neutral restrooms for those who want them and traditional restrooms for those who don't feel comfortable? The answer is simple, of course, they want to force these changes down our throats in order to make non-traditional lifestyles or circumstances appear mainstream and traditional. And they demand acceptance whether we like it or not.

      The pattern and the path is clear. We have seen it before. It is why what used to be gay has now grown to LGB in the '80s to LGBTIQSMU... (I forget the rest of them) today.
      Or rather yesterday. I suspect it will continue until we can simple recite the alphabet song to describe the group(s) as progressives continue with their selective victimization designations.

      This highlights the pattern of the left. First, create and adopt censorious neologisms like 'homophobia'. Second, highlight abuses against gays. Third, bring lawsuits to highlight gay rights. Fourth, demand that gays et al have the same legal rights as any other citizen. Fifth, insist that gay partners have rights similar to married couples (i.e. civil union). Up to this point, no problem. Then, they demanded gay-marriage, IMO an oxymoron. Then the growth from gay rights to LGBTIQSMU... Now, sex-neutral bathrooms. College classes promoting the idea that you can pick whatever sex you want to be or none at all. Sweden declaring that sexual designations are passe and now everyone is simply HEN.

      The idea, of course, is that by eliminating all of these differences with the stroke of a pen you can make what amount to non-traditional lifestyles appear to be traditional and mainstream.

      It's just another example of the tyranny of progressive thought.

      .

      Delete
  35. Strikes in Syria

    Attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted three strikes in Syria:

    -- Near Abu Kamal, a strike struck an ISIL oil wellhead.

    -- Near Dayr Az Zawr, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL vehicle and an ISIL rocket system.

    -- Near Mara, a strike struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL vehicle and two ISIL main battle tanks.

    Strikes in Iraq

    Attack, bomber, fighter, ground attack and remotely piloted aircraft and rocket artillery and conducted 21 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:

    -- Near Baghdadi, five strikes struck three separate ISIL staging facilities and destroyed an ISIL vehicle-borne bomb and damaged an ISIL vehicle.

    -- Near Rutbah, a strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle bomb.

    -- Near Fallujah, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL bed-down location.

    -- Near Haditha, a strike destroyed an ISIL tunnel system.

    -- Near Hit, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed 27 ISIL boats and three ISIL fighting positions.

    -- Near Mosul, six strikes struck five separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed seven ISIL assembly areas, three ISIL vehicles, an ISIL supply cache and an ISIL command-and-control node.

    -- Near Qayyarah, a strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle bomb.

    -- Near Sinjar, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL machine gun, an ISIL fighting position and an ISIL assembly area.

    -- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL vehicle, an ISIL supply cache, an ISIL assembly area and an ISIL rocket rail.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nailed another bed down location.

      Delete
  36. HEN ?

    Hmm...

    (scratches head)

    Was following right along till that...

    Churchill said the HUN was either at your throat or at your feet.

    Where does HEN hang out ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      The answer is in the same sentence.

      And I gave you the appropriate number the other day.

      Call Sweden

      .

      Delete
    2. "Sweden declaring that sexual designations are passe and now everyone is simply HEN."

      O well that clarifies it.

      Delete
    3. We all lay eggs, like Quirk.

      Delete
  37. It's Come To This

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/04/21/video-bystanders-ignore-assault-victim-before-he-was-run-over.html


    'Community'

    ReplyDelete
  38. Trump on transgender bathroom debate: 'Leave it the way it is'

    By Jesse Byrnes

    GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump

    on Thursday said North Carolina is "paying a big price" for a controversial bathroom law that has been blasted by LGBT advocates, adding that officials should just "leave it the way it is."

    Trump said the state unnecessarily mandated that transgender people use public restrooms that correspond with their biological gender, adding that transgender people should use whatever bathroom they want.

    Trump was asked during a town hall interview on NBC's "Today" show whether he would let Caitlyn Jenner, a transgender woman, walk into Trump Tower and use any bathroom that she wanted.

    "That is correct," Trump responded.

    "North Carolina did something. It was very strong. And they're paying a big price. And there's a lot of problems," Trump said.

    "North Carolina, what they're going through with all the business that is leaving and strife — and it's on both sides — you leave it the way it is."

    "There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate, there has been so little trouble," Trump said.

    North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) earlier this month signed an executive order partially amending the measure blocking protections for LGBT people after backlash from businesses.

    The order expanded state employment policy to include sexual orientation and gender identify, affirming the ability of local government and businesses to implement their own nondiscrimination policies, but it left the new mandate intact for transgender people using public restrooms.

    The legislation was passed in an effort to prevent cities and counties from passing their own nondiscrimination ordinances after Charlotte approved an ordinance allowing transgender people to use bathrooms that corresponded with their sexual identity.

    "The problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife and the economic punishment they're taking," Trump said Thursday.

    Trump also noted that "there is a big move to create new bathrooms" for transgender people.

    "I think that would be discriminatory in a certain way. It would be unbelievably expensive for businesses and the country. Leave it the way it is."

    A McCrory aide later fired back at Trump while defending the governor’s support of the law.

    "Governor McCrory has always said that North Carolina was getting along fine before the Charlotte city council passed its unneeded and overreaching ordinance," McCrory campaign spokesman Ricky Diaz said in a statement.

    "Now that it has been overturned, businesses can adopt their own policies - like Target has - instead of being mandated to allow men into women's restrooms by government," the spokesman said.

    "Where the governor disagrees with Mr. Trump is that bathroom and shower facilities in our schools should be kept separate and special accommodations made when needed. It's just common sense."

    http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/277103-trump-on-transgender-bathroom-debate-leave-it-the-way-it

    All this stuff is crazy as hell. And if Trump is buying into it he's crazy as hell too.

    Men can go in and shower where women and girls are showering ?

    WTF ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Private bathrooms for all.
      No more multiple toilet bathrooms.

      Delete
    2. ...and a hole in the floor for mine so I can imagine I'm back doing the Kim chi Squat on the farm.

      Delete
    3. Manufacturing all those toilets will have Rufus singing the praises of the Obama economy nonstop.

      Delete
    4. Obama Economy in the Toilet.

      Delete
    5. I'm for a toilet in every pot.

      And pot in every toilet.

      Note* - The Venezuelans no long have toilet paper. They have turned to soft, fuzzy, scented sage instead.

      Delete
  39. ASH, what do you, as our ultra liberal savior/guru, have to say about all of this ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I believe it is just another example of the batshit crazy politics that is America - State legislatures expending all this time and energy trying to pass laws on bathroom use - fucking ridiculous.

      Delete
    2. Can you translate that ?

      Are you pro, or con, men sharing showers with women and young girls ?

      Would you consent to shower with Caitlin Jenner, for instance ?

      Clarification requested.

      Delete
    3. Seems surprisingly clear to me.

      Delete
    4. O for a video of Ash showering with Caitlin....

      Delete










    5. Charlie Walter Johnson · Works at Retired

      I read all these comments in amazement. It's hard to believe how far we have devolved during my 71 years on this earth. We are actually having discussions over who should use the men's room and who should use the women's room. What in hell is wrong with us? If anyone can't tell the difference between men and women there are books on anatomy. It's like the house is burning down and we want to water the plants.

      http://hotair.com/archives/2016/04/21/leave-it-the-way-it-is-trump-opposes-north-carolinas-bathroom-law-for-transgenders/

      Delete
    6. I'm for a toilet in every pot.

      Delete
  40. Islamism Is The World’s War On Women

    American women are living in the lap of luxury and whining about their ‘rights’ while their sisters in Muslim countries live in fear of oppression, violence, and death.

    D.C. McAllister
    By D.C. McAllister
    April 21, 2016

    A prominent conservative leader in Afghanistan’s government threatened a female journalist when she questioned him about opposition to legislation that will protect Afghan women from violence. His reaction shows what a real “war on women” looks like.

    Nazir Ahmad Hanafi, a member of parliament who is committed to a strict interpretation of the Quran, has opposed the Elimination of Violence Against Women Act, which would protect Afghan women against rape, not only from strangers but also from their husbands—something Islam allows, according to fundamental interpretations.


    VICE correspondent Isobel Yeung interviewed Hanafi as part of an HBO documentary investigating the rights of women in Afghanistan and the increasing threats they face.


    “What if a husband rapes his wife, is that domestic abuse?” Yeung asks Hanafi. “Should the man be punished or should the woman be punished for that, in your opinion?”


    Speaking through an interpreter, Hanafi replied, “There is a kind of rape you have and another we have in Islam.” When Yeung begins to ask a follow-up question, she’s cut off by Hanafi, who tells someone off-camera they should stop the interview. Hanafi then says, “Maybe I should give you to an Afghan man to take your nose off.” Others who have heard the clip say the actual translation is “Hand her over to an Afghan man so he can give it to so hard it’ll come out her nose.”


    Others who have heard the clip say the actual translation is ‘Hand her over to an Afghan man so he can give it to so hard it’ll come out her nose.’

    Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty later confronted Hanafi about the comments, asking whether he was going to apologize to the journalist. Hanafi at first denied even talking to Yeung: “I haven’t met such a person, I have no idea about this, and have not said anything,” he said. “No one has spoken with me.”


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When pressed, he continued to deny having done the interview and accused the filmmakers of creating a fake video. “It’s very simple to make a video,” he said. “There are people who put together a head, a beard, and a body in a video that would look more authentic than the real person.”


      After further questioning, Hanafi finally admitted to doing the interview but said he never threatened her. “When we were talking about marriage issues, I told her, ‘If you want to know about it, you can marry an Afghan man.’” When asked if he would apologize, Hanafi became defiant and demanded an apology from the filmmakers. “Who should apologize? Me or those who distributed [videos] against me? They are plotting against a person who is minding his own business.”


      ‘Things Are Very Gloomy for Women’

      The producers of the HBO documentary set out to show how women are still denied basic rights in Afghanistan, despite hopeful signs that things had been changing for the better. In 2001, first lady Laura Bush highlighted the struggle for women’s rights when she said in a national radio address, “Muslims around the world have condemned the brutal degradation of women and children by the Taliban regime. The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.”


      ‘Women are being killed, raped and harassed on a daily basis much more than before — and overtly.’

      Since that time, there have been improvements, as millions of Afghan girls are now attending school. Women have served in government, business, and even the military. But despite these advances, Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for women.


      “Things are very gloomy for women, and it’s getting worse,” Wazhma Frogh, the head of Afghanistan’s Women Peace and Security Research Institute, told NBC News. “There is much less space for women [in public life].”


      “Women are being killed, raped and harassed on a daily basis much more than before — and overtly,” she said. She blamed much of this on generalized lawlessness exacerbated by the dramatic drawdown in foreign troops, which leaves women and girls vulnerable to attack and abuse.....

      http://thefederalist.com/2016/04/21/islamism-is-the-worlds-war-on-women/

      Misogynists here want to leave the women of even Kabul to the wolves again, and desire to create the same kind of 'state' in the 'West Bank'.

      Delete
    2. When the death grip of Islam on women is broken, Islam will be broken.

      Delete
  41. Drudge Report has gone all purple for Prince.

    Which is not a criticism.

    He seemed a decent sort, very against drugs, quite generous, etc....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I plan on hearing a song or two of his.
      Up til now I haven't.
      Doug's self-imposed cloister.

      Delete
  42. Leibovitz shoots the Queen.

    http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Leibovitz-images-mark-Queen-Elizabeth-II-s-90th-7287131.php

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She certainly seems to love her dogs, as all good people do, and some bad ones as well.

      She's of the good sort.

      Delete
  43. Absurdity reigns in campus sexual assault trials

    http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0421-dillon-kaiser-campus-sex-assault-20160421-story.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The letter directed university administrators to judge allegations according to the lowest burden of proof available: the preponderance of the evidence, a mere 50.01% certainty that whatever the accuser claimed actually happened. It also highly discouraged cross-examinations, suggesting they might violate federal anti-discrimination law.

      Applying civil law standards to criminal complaints...

      Good article.

      Delete
  44. Walt Whitman on Donald Trump, How Literature Bolsters Democracy, and Why a Robust Society Is a Feminist Society

    “America, if eligible at all to downfall and ruin, is eligible within herself, not without… Always inform yourself; always do the best you can; always vote.”

    By Maria Popova


    Walt Whitman on Donald Trump, How Literature Bolsters Democracy, and Why a Robust Society Is a Feminist Society

    In 1855, Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819–March 26, 1892) made his debut as a poet and self-published Leaves of Grass. Amid the disheartening initial reception of pervasive indifference pierced by a few shrieks of criticism, the young poet received an extraordinary letter of praise and encouragement from his idol — Ralph Waldo Emerson, the era’s most powerful literary tastemaker. This gesture of tremendous generosity was a creative life-straw for the dispirited artist, who soon became one of the nation’s most celebrated writers and went on to be remembered as America’s greatest poet.

    In the late 1860, working as a federal clerk and approaching his fiftieth birthday, Whitman grew increasingly concerned that America’s then-young democracy had grown in danger of belying the existential essentials of the human spirit. He voiced his preoccupations in a masterful and lengthy essay titled Democratic Vistas, later included in the indispensable Library of America volume Walt Whitman: Poetry and Prose (free ebook | public library).

    Both Whitman’s spirited critique of American democracy and his proposed solution — which calls for an original and ennobling national body of literature as the means to cultivating the people’s mentality, character, and ideals — ring remarkably true today, perhaps even truer amid our modern disenchantment and dearth of idealism, accentuated by the spectacle of an election season.

    walt Whitman picture

    Literature, Whitman argues, constructs the scaffolding of society’s values and “has become the only general means of morally influencing the world” — its archetypal characters shape the moral character and political ideals of a culture. Long after the political structures of the ancient world have crumbled, he reminds us, what remains of Ancient Greece and Rome and the other great civilizations is their literature.....

    https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/02/24/walt-whitman-democratic-vistas/

    ReplyDelete
  45. ESPN Fires Analyst Over Offensive Post on Social Media

    The network dismissed Curt Schilling, the former All-Star pitcher, from his position as a baseball analyst a day after he promoted insensitive comments about transgender people.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/sports/baseball/curt-schilling-is-fired-by-espn.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Here's The Facebook Post That Got Curt Shilling Fired By ESPN

      http://hotair.com/archives/2016/04/21/heres-the-facebook-post-that-got-curt-schilling-fired-by-espn/

      Little gross but well within the First Amendment.

      Delete
    2. Only PC liberals have free speech.

      Delete
    3. The former Red Sox pitcher has been very open about his conservative views in the past. He was previously suspended by ESPN for comparing ISIS to the Nazis.

      ESPN might have no problem getting rid of conservative pundits, but the network has tolerated extreme liberal positions in the past without firing anybody. ESPN employee Tony Kornheiser compared the Tea Party to ISIS and insinuated the Tea Party was attempting to “establish a caliphate.”

      Kornheiser is still cashing pay checks from ESPN.

      Delete
    4. Comparing ISIS to the Nazis.....

      He got that right.

      The Tea Party trying to establish a caliphate ?

      JOIN THE BOYCOTT OF ESPN NOW

      Delete
  46. What's the rest room situation there in Russia, Deuce ?

    ReplyDelete
  47. Quirk -

    Call 1-800-737-0336 and Press 1 Now

    ReplyDelete
  48. Oh, oh -

    PURPLE HAZE: TREATED FOR OVERDOSE DAYS BEFORE DEATH....Drudge

    Sad. And he had a reputation for not doing that. The video of him outside of Wal-Green's showed him all messed up....

    DEATH PENALTY FOR DRUG DEALERS

    ReplyDelete
  49. B-52 Bombers Carry Out First Airstrikes Against ISIS in Iraq

    B-52 Stratofortress

    Military.com Apr 20, 2016 | by Richard Sisk


    The U.S. Air Force's B-52 Stratofortresses on their first combat deployment to the Mideast since the 1991 Gulf war have conducted their initial airstrikes against ISIS, military officials said Wednesday.

    "On Monday, this iconic platform conducted its first mission against an [ISIS] weapons storage facility in Qayyarah" in northwestern Iraq south of Mosul, said Army Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman in Baghdad for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.

    Earlier this month, the B-52s, flying out of the al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, replaced B-1 Lancer bombers in the Air Force inventory for precision-guided bomb attacks against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and for close-air support missions for local forces. The B-1s returned to the U.S. for maintenance and upgrades.

    The Eisenhower-era B-52s last conducted airstrikes in the Mideast from a base in Saudi Arabia against Iraq during Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s. The aircraft also flew operational missions against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

    The airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq continued Tuesday and Wednesday with the main focus on the Mosul area, where Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are in the early stages of attempting to isolate the ISIS stronghold, according to a task force statement.....

    http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/04/20/b52-bombers-carry-out-first-airstrikes-against-isis-in-iraq.html

    ReplyDelete
  50. .

    DougThu Apr 21, 04:54:00 PM EDT

    Seems surprisingly clear to me.



    Can you translate that for me?

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I thought I understood what Ash wrote.

      Delete
    2. Maybe I was overly generous, assuming he meant the whole thing was "batshit crazy."

      Delete
    3. Quirk -

      Try:

      1) Surprisingly, it seems clear to me.

      2) It seems clear to me, surprisingly.

      Does that help ?

      I would be surprised if it did....

      If it did, I would be surprised....

      given your well known verbal difficulties.

      ********

      Fox News reports....

      FBI Director Comey says the FBI investigation will not be halted by any nomination.

      It is possible, the commentators are saying, that O'bozo may be in the cross hairs, in addition to Hillary and all her co-conspirators.

      Delete
    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    5. .

      Well, Doug, Ash was obviously wrong in portraying the toilets issue as being solely a US problem. If that was what he was doing. Bob didn't seem to think he was actually answering the question that was asked.


      Voyeurism in University of Toronto Bathrooms

      However, I may have misunderstood his answer. Bob seems to have which prompted my question to you.

      Of course, now after seeing Bob's answer directly above, I am more confused than ever. However, that is my usual state whenever I read anything from Bob so maybe Ash was right in the first place.

      Whatever he said.

      .

      Delete
    6. Unfortunately I don't have a remove button on my computer so when I make an egregious error I can't take it down.

      Delete
    7. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    8. .

      REMOVE BUTTON BONANZA

      Send $19.95 (+ $19.94 S&H)

      to

      'Remove Buttons R Us'

      P.O. Box 363738
      Sockittome Falls, MI 68888

      Paypal or Money Order only.

      (2-38 week delivery time)

      .

      Delete
  51. No one has answered my question as to what the Congo got in return for paying 650K to the Clinton Foundation for one little speech.

    Just one question of dozens and dozens of questions that can be asked of former Secretary of State Clinton along the same lines.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Trinkets for the natives.


      A Hillary autograph.

      A Bill bobblehead.

      And a piece of dinnerware with the presidential crest on it.

      .

      Delete
    2. .

      Better make that...

      ...with the Presidential Seal on it.

      Don't want to be falsely accused of being a Royalist.


      Again.

      .

      Delete
    3. What's wrong with Kansas City?

      Delete
    4. Ernest Hemingway worked as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star for some months before he took out for Italy, (WopLandWard, as he put it) and became famous.

      Delete
  52. Sales of Prince's music have soared since news broke of the pop star's death.

    Three of his songs - Purple Rain, Little Red Corvette, and When Doves Cry, - surged to seventh, ninth and 10th on iTunes' Top Songs chart.

    Four of his albums - The Very Best of Prince, Purple Rain, The Hits/The B-Sides, and 1999 - jumped to first, second, third and eighth on iTunes' Top Albums chart by Friday afternoon AEST.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Saw a TV interview on CNN today where a girl said she paid $1200 for a vinyl LP of one of his albums.

      .

      Delete
    2. I had the Purple Rain album when it first came out. Not sure where it is now (or any of my other albums). Perhaps I should try and dig that sucker up. Could be stored away somewhere. Mom insisted on me going to the Purple Rain movie with her when it came out back in the day, because, you know, my dad was not a huge fan.

      Delete
    3. I have a 'Pompous Purple Pecker' album from back in the day but I don't recall the artist other than it was q something. Maybe that was it, Q Is Quite Something, out of Detroit, Michigan.

      Never made it into The Top 1,000 though, as far as I recall.

      Delete
  53. .

    JOIN THE BOYCOTT OF ESPN NOW


    I joined it about 20 years ago.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I believe it, unbelievable as that may sound.

      You might have even started it, as ESPN shorts hockey.

      Delete
  54. I'll sell Bob a delete button for Five Bucks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Quirk's offered me five, for free, if I'll endorse his product.

      That's part of Q's SOP gig, to try and sucker the rich and famous to endorse his stupid products.

      Not going to work with this North Idahoovian Royal.

      Delete
    2. .

      You get what you pay for.

      Mine have a lifetime guarantee (guaranteed to remove even Bob's most outrageous and goofy observations and assertions). You can't put a price on that.

      [Although it is still $19.95 (+ $19.94 S&H)]

      .

      Delete
  55. This week Sonnie talks Azealia Banks with Hotep Ali Shakur, Ice Cube says Donald Trump is the American Dream, and Javonni Brustow returns to cover the news of the day.

    http://www.podcastone.com/pg/jsp/program/episode.jsp?programID=864&pid=1644455

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ice Cube leads the way ever upwards and onwards....

      Quirk -

      Call 1-800-737-0336 and Press 1 Now

      Delete
  56. Get politics out of climate debate:

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/04/21/earth-day-paris-united-nations-weather-channel-editorials-debates/83349848/

    91% Agree

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Impossible.

      The politics go beyond the politicians. Every research paper put out on the issue is a political document since it affects the position, reputation, and ultimately the funding of the guy putting it out.

      .

      Delete
  57. Another year, another Earth Day.

    Another year, no Christmas, Easter, etc.

    According to Google.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Another example of the tyranny of the sectarian left.

      .

      Delete
    2. Ash ? Explain ?

      Bwo bwo bwa bwa bwa ha ha ha

      Delete
    3. .

      Isn't this where we left off yesterday?

      .

      Delete
    4. Google does unique pages for Christmas and Easter. Easter eggs was the theme thus year I believe.

      Delete
    5. Google does unique pages for Christmas and Easter. Easter eggs was the theme thus year I believe.

      Delete
    6. Unique, indeed.
      Very clever, Ash!

      https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=does%20google%20home%20page%20recognize%20christmas

      Delete
  58. Black Knight's First Look at March Mortgage Data: Delinquency rate lowest in 9 Years

    by Bill McBride on 4/22/2016 09:10:00 AM


    Read more at http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/#vZzk1k1z10dozH38.99

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Black Knight: Black Knight Financial Services’ First Look at March 2016 Mortgage Data: Delinquencies at Lowest Level in Nine Years; 30-Day Delinquency Rate Lowest Since Pre-2000
      • National delinquency rate fell 8 percent in March; at 4.08 percent, it is at its lowest point since March 2007

      • At just under 2 percent, the rate of 30-day delinquencies is at lowest level in over 15 years

      • Spurred by declining interest rates, prepayment speeds (historically a good indicator of refinance activity) were up 46 percent from one month ago

      • Foreclosure starts were down 14 percent from February; still driven primarily by repeat foreclosure activity
      According to Black Knight's First Look report for March, the percent of loans delinquent decreased 8.4% in March compared to February, and declined 12.4% year-over-year.

      The percent of loans in the foreclosure process declined 3.7% in March and were down 25.6% over the last year.

      Black Knight reported the U.S. mortgage delinquency rate (loans 30 or more days past due, but not in foreclosure) was 4.08% in March, down from 4.48% in February. This is the lowest delinquency rate since March 2007.
      Read more at http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/#vZzk1k1z10dozH38.99

      Calculated Risk

      Delete

    2. The Homeownership Rate Is Near a 30-Year Low. Could It Be Hitting Bottom?

      http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/10/27/the-homeownership-rate-is-near-a-30-year-low-could-it-be-hitting-bottom/

      Delete
  59. .

    March has been declared Prince month at CNN, 24/7 coverage (24-CD box sets and streaming video subscriptions will be made available).

    .

    ReplyDelete
  60. Paul Krugman: In Hamilton’s Debt

    "Alexander Hamilton knew better":

    In Hamilton’s Debt, by Paul Krugman, NY Times: The Treasury Department picked an interesting moment to announce a revision in its plans to change the faces on America’s money. Plans to boot Alexander Hamilton off the $10 bill in favor of a woman have been shelved. Instead, Harriet Tubman ... will move onto the face of the $20 bill. ...

    But let me leave the $20 bill alone and talk about how glad I am to see Hamilton retain his well-deserved honor. ... Hamilton proposed that the federal government assume and honor all of the debts individual states had run up during the Revolutionary War, imposing new tariffs on imported goods to raise the needed revenue. ...

    But why did Hamilton want to take on those state debts?

    Partly to establish a national reputation as a reliable borrower, so that funds could be raised cheaply in the future.

    Partly, also, to give wealthy, influential investors a stake in the new federal government, thereby creating a powerful pro-federal constituency.

    Beyond that, however, Hamilton argued that the existence of a significant, indeed fairly large national debt would be good for business. Why? Because ... bonds issued by the U.S. government would provide a safe, easily traded asset that the private sector could use as a store of value, as collateral for deals, and in general as a lubricant for business activity. As a result, the debt would become a “national blessing,” making the economy more productive.

    This argument anticipates ... one of the hottest ideas in modern macroeconomics: the notion that we are suffering from a global “safe asset shortage.”...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As a result, investors have been bidding up the prices of government debt, leading to incredibly low interest rates. But it would be better for almost everyone, the story goes, if governments were to issue more debt, investing the proceeds in much-needed infrastructure even while providing the private sector with the collateral it needs to function. ...

      Unfortunately, policy makers won’t do the right thing, largely because they keep listening to fiscal scolds — people who insist that public debt is a terrible thing even when borrowing costs almost nothing.

      ... Alexander Hamilton knew better.

      Unfortunately, Hamilton isn’t around to help counter foolish debt phobia. But maybe reminding policy makers of his wisdom is one way to chip away at the wall of folly that still constrains policy. And having his face out there every time someone pulls out a ten can’t hurt, either.

      Economists View

      Delete
    2. Borrowing, of course, will always cost almost nothing.

      MORON

      Delete
    3. YOU can suck Krugman's tiny dick, not me.

      Delete
  61. Inshallah.....heh heh heh

    Afghanistan: 10 Muslims blown up while making a bomb inside a mosque
    By Robert Spencer on Apr 21, 2016 11:18 am

    Afghanistan: 10 Muslims blown up while making a bomb inside a mosque
    In the U.S., if you don’t think a mosque is an exact equivalent to a church or a synagogue, you’re a racist, bigoted “Islamophobe.” Meanwhile, in January in Russia, an imam was arrested as weapons and explosives were found in his mosque. In Philadelphia, the Muslim who shot a cop for the Islamic State was […]
    Read in browser »


    Jihad Watch

    ReplyDelete
  62. .

    Bunyadi Nude Restaurant Opens in London

    16,000 on reservation waiting list.

    Bunyadi: translation - 'Show your buns.'


    https://ca.news.yahoo.com/seat-londons-first-naked-restaurant-130730432.html


    Eating in a nude restaurant? Wouldn't that be equivalent to ordering the daily special in a go-go joint? Wouldn't "Hey waiter, I have a short and curly in my soup" become ubiquitous.

    Just saying.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  63. Strikes in Syria

    Attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted seven strikes in Syria:

    -- Near Abu Kamal, two strikes struck an ISIL bed down location and an ISIL bomb-making facility.

    -- Near Manbij, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units.

    -- Near Mar’a, three strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL mortar system, an ISIL vehicle, and two ISIL fighting positions.

    Strikes in Iraq

    Bomber, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 22 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:

    -- Near Baghdadi, two strikes struck an ISIL bunker complex and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions.

    -- Near Beiji, a strike destroyed three ISIL bunkers.

    -- Near Fallujah, eight strikes struck six separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed three ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL heavy machine gun, three ISIL vehicles, and denied ISIL access to terrain.

    -- Near Kirkuk, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL command and control node, an ISIL vehicle, two ISIL assembly areas, and an ISIL bomb storage facility.

    -- Near Kisik, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL tunnel entrance.

    -- Near Mosul, five strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL weapons cache, an ISIL assembly area, and three ISIL supply caches and suppressed two separate ISIL fighting positions.

    -- Near Qayyarah, a strike produced inconclusive results.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow 22 whole strikes in a day!!!!

      I am so proud of our nation...

      /off sarc.

      At this rate?

      ISIS will be able to conceive and birth, and grow new fighters faster than we can bomb them...

      Delete
    2. Here's the Show and Tell -

      Near Qayyarah, a strike produced inconclusive results.

      Word out of the O'bozo Administration and Defense is that Mosul will be retaken 'eventually'.

      Delete
    3. On the other hand the BUFF's are back in operation around Mosul so that might actually do something....

      Delete

    4. U.S. faces an uphill effort in helping build an Iraqi force that can retake Mosul

      http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-iraq-20160422-story.html

      "The last group of trainees was a complete disaster."

      "Don't show up. Come and go without permission"

      "O'bozo expects Mosul to be retaken eventually"

      yawn

      Delete
  64. Rufuses Hero:

    http://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?&id=OIP.Ma558e4c0e0b7812dc9945e4bd40a9512H0&w=300&h=225&c=0&pid=1.9&rs=0&p=0&r=0

    ReplyDelete
  65. I'm excited about the coming new book out of Q-Publishing - Fine Dining and Erotica Rated in the Nude Restaurants of the World.

    $499.99 with Autographed Collector's Copy for $99.99 extra.

    ReplyDelete
  66. VA Gov Gives 200,000 Felons Voting Rights...

    'Move to boost Clinton'...

    Makes rapists, murderers eligible...

    HILLARY: PROUD....DRUDGE


    This should make Rufus proud....er, rather, ashamed of himself and his damned Clintonphilia...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This too should make Rufus ashamed of himself - (but won't)


      Democrats

      Clinton gave paid speeches to firms that lobbied, contracted with government


      Published April 22, 2016

      It's not just Wall Street banks. Most companies and groups that paid Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to speak between 2013 and 2015 have lobbied federal agencies in recent years, and more than one-third are government contractors, an Associated Press review has found. Their interests are sprawling and would follow Clinton to the White House should she win election this fall.

      The AP's review of federal records, regulatory filings and correspondence showed that almost all the 82 corporations, trade associations and other groups that paid for or sponsored Clinton's speeches have actively sought to sway the government — lobbying, bidding for contracts, commenting on federal policy and in some cases contacting State Department officials or Clinton herself during her tenure as secretary of state.

      Presidents are not generally bound by many of the ethics and conflict-of-interest regulations that apply to non-elected executive branch officials, although they are subject to laws covering related conduct, such as bribery and illegal gratuities. Clinton's 94 paid appearances over two years on the speech circuit leave her open to scrutiny over decisions she would make in the White House or influence that may affect the interests of her speech sponsors.

      Rival presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders and Republican critics have mocked Clinton over her closed-door talks to banks and investment firms, saying she is too closely aligned to Wall Street to curb its abuses. Sanders said in a speech in New York that Clinton earned an average of about $225,000 for each speech and goaded her for declining to release transcripts.

      "If somebody gets paid $225,000 for a speech, it must be an unbelievably extraordinary speech," Sanders said at an outdoor rally at Washington Square Park last week in advance of the New York primary. "I kind of think if that $225,000 speech was so extraordinary, she should release the transcripts and share it with all of us.".....

      http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/22/clinton-gave-paid-speeches-to-firms-who-lobbied-contracted-with-us-government.html?intcmp=hplnws

      Delete
  67. Didn't know anything about here before, but I'm becoming really really fond of this Harriet Tubman lady -

    April 22, 2016

    Harriet Tubman was a gun-toting Republican

    By Daniel John Sobieski


    There are some knee-jerk reactions to the seemingly "political correctness run amok" move to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, replacing President Andrew Jackson. But the replacing of the slave-owning founder of the Democratic Party with a gun-toting black Republican may spark a political debate worth having and unearth historical truths worth learning. As PJ Media described the announcement:


    The first woman on United States bank notes will be the famous abolitionist and Republican Harriet Tubman, Politico reported Wednesday. She will give the boot to the nation's sixth president and a major figure in the Democratic Party, Andrew Jackson, on the $20 bill, and save the founder of the nation's financial system, Alexander Hamilton, from being kicked off the $10 bill.

    Biographer Kate Clifford Larson notes that Harriet Tubman was no stranger to firearms, finding them a way to protect and reassure slaves she shepherded to freedom in the North, perhaps making her a founder of the “black lives matter” movement:


    Harriet Tubman carried a small pistol with her on her rescue missions, mostly for protection from slave catchers, but also to encourage weak-hearted runaways from turning back and risking the safety of the rest of the group. Tubman carried a sharp-shooters rifle during the Civil War.

    An image of her carrying her gun is not likely to grace the new $20 bill, nor is any mention of her being a supporter of the anti-slavery Republican Party likely to be a regular part of the mainstream media and liberal Democratic mantra.

    Harriet Tubman’s image should remind Americans that gun control was a historical method to control and subjugate blacks. UCLA constitutional law professor Adam Winkler notes in The Atlantic:


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Indisputably, for much of American history, gun-control measures, like many other laws, were used to oppress African Americans. The South had long prohibited blacks, both slave and free, from owning guns. In the North, however, at the end of the Civil War, the Union army allowed soldiers of any color to take home their rifles. Even blacks who hadn’t served could buy guns in the North, amid the glut of firearms produced for the war. President Lincoln had promised a “new birth of freedom,” but many blacks knew that white Southerners were not going to go along easily with such a vision. As one freedman in Louisiana recalled, “I would say to every colored soldier, ‘Bring your gun home.’”

      Winkler also notes:


      The KKK began as a gun-control organization. Before the Civil War, blacks were never allowed to own guns. During the Civil War, blacks kept guns for the first time – either they served in the Union army and they were allowed to keep their guns, or they buy guns on the open market where for the first time there’s hundreds of thousands of guns flooding the marketplace after the war ends. So they arm up because they know who they’re dealing with in the South. White racists do things like pass laws to disarm them, but that’s not really going to work. So they form these racist posses all over the South to go out at night in large groups to terrorize blacks and take those guns away. If blacks were disarmed, they couldn’t fight back.

      One of the key reasons for the 14th Amendment’s guarantee that blacks are equal human beings with equal rights was to protect the gun rights of freed slaves after the Civil War. This reasoning was cited in the 2010 gun rights victory won by Otis McDonald in McDonald v. Chicago. McDonald, a 76-year-old African-American Army veteran living in a high-crime area of Chicago, felt that the Second Amendment gave him the right to protect himself and is family with a gun just as he once protected his country with a gun.

      The Supreme Court agreed, with Justice Samuel Alito referencing the 14th Amendment:


      Alito wrote: “Evidence from the period immediately following the ratification [in 1868] of the Fourteenth Amendment only confirms that the right to keep and bear arms was considered fundamental. … In sum, it is clear that the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty.”….

      In framing the argument that the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment should incorporate Second Amendment rights, Alito referenced post-Civil War laws that the Fourteenth Amendment intended to eliminate.

      “The laws of some states formally prohibited African Americans from possessing firearms,” Alito said. “For example, a Mississippi law provided that ‘no freedman, free negro or mulatto, not in the military service of the United States government, and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry firearms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk or bowie knife."

      Delete

    2. Harriet Tubman supported the Republican Party because it opposed slavery. She carried a gun because it protected the liberty and freedom of herself and those she delivered to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Just as Democrats sought to enslave and disarm blacks back then, they now seek to entrap them in high-crime urban areas run by liberal Democrats who seek to deny them, and the rest of us, the right to keep and bear arms.

      Go ahead and put Harriet Tubman’s image on the $20 bill – the one showing the Republican leading slaves to freedom with a gun in her hand.

      Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.


      http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/04/harriet_tubman_was_a_guntoting_republican.html#ixzz46aiZiBNV

      Delete
    3. I'm for putting Harriet Tubman on a new $500 dollar bill, pistol in one hand....Republican Party logo in the other...

      Walt Whitman can wait till next time.

      Delete
  68. Oh well, just one more -


    Mens Rea and Hillary Clinton

    The cited statutes from the Espionage Act can, for the most part, be summarized as prohibiting the willful or intentional removal of classified information from its proper place of custody, prohibiting the willful concealment of classified information that has been maintained by the government, and prohibiting intentional destruction of classified materials. In the case of §§ 793 and 2071, the materials need not rise to the level of “classified.” Her private retention of the government records for 22 months and transfer to Platte River evidences intent to conceal the existence of the records. Her destruction of some of the government records certainly appear to fulfill the various mens rea requirements of one or more of these federal statutes. Indeed, her compilation of the records without the participation of the State Department coupled with the deletion of so called “private emails” is among the most damning evidence against Clinton. Completion of the FBI’s investigation and any referral awaits....

    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/emmens_reaem_and_hillary_clinton.html#ixzz46aon1AYB

    ReplyDelete
  69. Here's what I want - this is how Harriet Tubman should appear on a new bill - (though I can understand the writer's apprehension about art and currency) -


    http://hotair.com/archives/2016/04/22/turning-u-s-currency-into-art-was-never-going-to-end-well/

    ReplyDelete
  70. .

    DougFri Apr 22, 02:42:00 PM EDT

    Any box sets autographed by Quirk?



    No, bu there will be sets autographed by the artist formerly known as Quirk.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A mysterious designation, hard to fathom, deep and profound, this 'artist formerly known as Quirk'....

      When I was in a crapper one time, in a nude restaurant, using the anyone welcome room, I looked upon the stall wall, and there it was, scribbled in red ink, and underlined....."the artist formerly known as Quirk once squatted here"...and I immediately took out a dark marker and with a big flourish wrote:

      "Zorro once squatted here, too"

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  71. Fox News California: Trump 49, Cruz 22, Kasich 20

    WOW

    ReplyDelete
  72. Topical reading:

    https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=does%20google%20home%20page%20recognize%20christmas

    ReplyDelete
  73. ABC_News said:
    Google honored the Hindu festival of Holi earlier this year, and the Jewish festival of Tu B'av, as well as dedicating an entire subpage to the Islamic festival of Ramadan but heaven forbid they honor any of the holidays from the largest religion, which are also celebrated by secular people (Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, etc.). Of course they put something up on December 25 but it's invariably referred to as "happy holidays", despite the lack of any Christmas cheer associated with that banal phrase.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pictures of Hindu Holi Festival at the LINK below:

      https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrTcdyZ2BpXQxMA_A0PxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTByZDNzZTI1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMyBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=Hindu+Holi+Festival&fr=yhs-itm-001&hspart=itm&hsimp=yhs-001

      My Niece loves this festival.


      Holi (pronunciation: /ˈhoʊliː/; Sanskrit: होली Holī) is a Hindu spring festival in India[4] and Nepal, also known as the festival of colours or the festival of sharing love.[5][6] Holi is a two-day festival which starts on the Purnima (Full Moon day) falling in the Bikram Sambat Hindu Calendar [7] month of Falgun, which falls somewhere between the end of February and the middle of March in the Gregorian calendar. The first day is known as Holika Dahan or Chhoti Holi and the second as Rangwali Holi, Dhuleti, Dhulandi or Dhulivandan.[8]

      It is an ancient Hindu religious festival which has become popular with non-Hindus in many parts of South Asia, as well as people of other communities outside Asia.[9]

      It is primarily observed in India, Nepal, and other regions of the world with significant populations of Hindus or people of Indian origin and Nepalese diaspora. In recent years the festival has spread to parts of Europe and North America as a spring celebration of love, frolic, and colours.[10][11][12]

      Holi celebrations start on the night before Holi with a Holika bonfire where people gather, do religious rituals in front of the bonfire, and pray that their internal evil should be destroyed as the bonfire starts. The next morning is celebrated as Rangwali Holi - a free-for-all carnival of colours,[9] where participants play, chase and colour each other with dry powder and coloured water, with some carrying water guns and coloured water-filled balloons for their water fight. Anyone and everyone is fair game, friend or stranger, rich or poor, man or woman, children and elders. The frolic and fight with colours occurs in the open streets, open parks, outside temples and buildings. Groups carry drums and other musical instruments, go from place to place, sing and dance. People visit family, friends and foes to throw coloured powders on each other, laugh and gossip, then share Holi delicacies, food and drinks. Some drinks are intoxicating. For example, bhang, an intoxicating ingredient made from cannabis leaves, is mixed into drinks and sweets and consumed by many.[13][14] In the evening, after sobering up, people dress up and visit friends and family.[1][15]

      Holi is celebrated at the approach of the vernal equinox,[9] on the Phalguna Purnima (Full Moon). The festival date, which is determined by the Hindu calendar, varies from year to year on the Gregorian calendar, typically coming in March, sometimes in February. The festival signifies the victory of good over evil, the arrival of spring, end of winter, and for many a festive day to meet others, play and laugh, forget and forgive, and repair broken relationships, and is also celebrated as a thanksgiving for a good harvest.[9][16]


      Wiki

      Delete
  74. Google celebrates leftist leader Cesar Chavez, not Easter, on religious holiday

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2301947/On-Easter-Sunday-Google-honors-leftist-activist-Cesar-Chavez-instead-holy-day-angering-Christians-internet.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. At least Chavez was pro secure borders, and against illegals.

      ...but, he got rid of the Bracero Program, and his buddy Dolores Huerta:

      "Later during the 1980s, while Chávez was still working alongside UFW president, Dolores Huerta, the cofounder of the UFW, was key in getting the amnesty provisions into the 1986 federal immigration act."

      ...the beginning of the end of the late great state of California.

      La Raza, Baby!

      http://www.immigrationnewsandviews.com/Cesar-Chavez.html

      Delete
    2. Rufus was pro illegals for a time, ("I like my Tacos and Burritos.")

      Then, while posing as a conservative, he was against illegals.

      And now, to remain in lockstep with his hero, The Kenyan, he is once again Pro-Illegals.

      Delete
    3. Rufus voted for McCain, now calls McCain 'McCrazy'.

      Said he'd fight for Hamas, if he were born there, and now tracks the dead of ISIS day after day.....

      Would he fight for ISIS if he had been born in ISISLand ?

      The list goes on and on.....he has even changed his name, as if he were once an artist formerly known as Quirk, or some such, as is ashamed of his former identity.....

      Hard to figure is our Rufus/galopin2.....

      He has now pledged himself as serf to:

      H I L L A R Y.....!?!?

      :o)



      Delete
  75. Join Google Boycott Now !!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, right!

      I'd sacrifice my first born for my Gmail.

      Delete
  76. According to some, Christ arose and proceeded to color Easter Eggs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She was SO hot!

      http://padrenuestro.net/blog/misa-del-dia-la-resurreccion-de-jesus-fundamento-de-nuestra-filiacion-divina-la-fe-en-ella-se-convierte-en-fuente-de-esperanza-y-causa-de-la-alegria/

      Delete
    2. ...maybe I was just horny from cave duty.

      Delete