Category: random

A CNN poll issued in August 2014 showed an all-time high of 87-percent of Americans don’t not believe the government or the mainstream media are truthful or credible. And given the fact that U.S. law enforcement’s armed with the same heavy weapons, looking identical to U.S. combat troops, why shouldn’t we worry?

Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered Texas State Guard forces to keep an eye on the U.S. military during a large upcoming training exercise called Jade Helm 15. The exercise has been the focus of several Internet sites claiming tis some sort of nefarious operation.

Abbott ordered the guard to “monitor” the eight week-long exercise which begins in July and ends in September, across seven states. In Texas, Utah and New Mexico most of the training will take place on private land, while in Arizona, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, much of it will take place on military installations.

The scenario for the exercise is that U.S. special operations forces travel to another continent which includes hostile nations and work with rebel underground freedom fighters there. During the exercise some of the troops will be in civilian clothes, move in civilians vehicles and carry weapons with blank ammunition.

There will be about 1,200 troops in Jade Helm, mainly Army Green Berets, but also a small group of Navy SEALS and Air Force special operations troops as well as conventional Army infantry. The Pentagon said there will be exercise monitors.

Abbott’s order angered former state Congressman Todd Smith, who served in the Texas legislature for 16 years, who wrote an op-ed attacking Abbott’s decision.

“As one of the remaining Republicans who actually believes in making decisions based on facts and evidence – you used to be a judge? – I am appalled that you would give credence to the nonsense mouthed by those who instead make decisions based on Internet or radio-or shock-jock-driven hysteria,” Smith wrote. “Is there ANYBODY who is going to stand up to this radical nonsense that is a cancer on our State and Party?”

Democrats aren’t happy either.

“The first thing the governor should have done when he heard about concerns with U.S. military training is to support our troops and reassure the public that our U.S. military poses absolutely no threat to Texans,” said Manny Garcia, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party. “Instead, he gave credence to conspiracy theorists by ordering the Texas State Guard to monitor U.S. military operations.”

Abbott defended his decision, saying his office is simply looking to serve as a “communication facilitator” between the military and concerned citizens. Abbott sent a letter to the State Guard asking it to keep an eye on the operation so that “Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed.”

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said he’s been hearing concerns about Jade Helm 15 he wanted questions about it to be answered.

“My office has reached out to the Pentagon to inquire about this exercise,” Cruz said. “We are assured it is a military training exercise. I have no reason to doubt those assurances, but I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty, because when the federal government has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy in this administration, the natural consequence is that many citizens don’t trust what it is saying.”

Conspiracy theory or not, the outrage and conflicting information raise questions about the safety of U.S. troops involved in the exercise. Some have drawn parallels to a 2002 incident in which a sheriff’s deputy in North Carolina shot two U.S. Special Forces soldiers in civilian clothing after they tried to disarm him.

One of the soldiers died. They thought the deputy was part of a role-playing exercise known as Robin Sage, which is a major training event for Green Beret soldiers, officials said at the time.

This is right out of the Progressive playbook by Saul Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals,” and rule number five: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

President Obama complained last week that the GOP-controlled Congress will likely impede investments in blighted urban areas such as Baltimore. There’s just one problem – Baltimore received a $1.8 billion grant from the stimulus package passed early in Obama’s first term in office.

The president addressed the rioting by calling for increased funding for education, criminal justice reform and job training, but blaming the GOP for failing to act.

“I’m under no illusion that out of this Congress we’re going to get massive investments in urban communities,” he stated.

One problem — Baltimore received $1,831,768,487 through the Stimulus Act in 2009.

In fact, Baltimore’s central ZIP code, 21201, received a total of $837,955,866, including funding for 276 awards that created 290 jobs in the fourth quarter of 2013. Of $8 million-plus, $467.1 million went to education; $206.1 million to the environment; $24 million to “family”; $16.1 million to infrastructure; $15.2 million to transportation; $11.9 million to housing; and only $3.1 million to job training.

Baltimore’s unemployment rate continues to hover around 8.4 percent.

Meanwhile, ZIP code 21202 received $425,170,937, including a $136 million grant to “improve teaching and learning for students most at risk of failing to meet State academic achievement standards, ” while another 29 other ZIP codes listed in Baltimore city received a total of $568,641,684.

But in a city where Democrats have reined supreme for over half-a-century, the money-train needs to keep spending. Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked Democratic Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards about the possible failure of Baltimore’s civil leaders.

“A lot of people, frankly Conservatives, have pointed out that Baltimore has not had a Republican mayor in 50 years,” Wallace said. “Is it unfair to say that liberal policies have failed Baltimore?”

“No, I think it’s been unfairly spread,” Edwards responded. “Just prior to the Freddie Gray incident, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was actually prevailing upon our Republican governor to release money for school funding.”

“Baltimore was already spending plenty for public schools and the schools were still lousy,” Wallace responded, noting the city ranked among the highest in the nation on per-capita school spending.

No wonder few people think things will get better.

A whopping 96-percent expect more “racial disturbances” this summer, according to a WSJ/NBC poll conducted April 26-30. Sixty-percent of Blacks said clashes between police and communities are the result of “long-standing frustrations about police mistreatment of African-Americans.”

Only 32 percent of Whites agreed with that statement, while 58 percent said they were caused by people seeking an excuse to loot. Some 27-percent of Blacks said the protests were used “as an excused to engage in looting and violence.”

Democratic leadership has failed Baltimore – but Progressives won’t admit it.

Here’s jus’ a sampling (with sourcing) of GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s Progressive activities and stances:

• signed a sales tax hike in 1996 to fund the Games and Fishing Commission and the Department of Parks and Tourism (Cato Policy Analysis No. 315, 09/03/98)
• supported an internet sales tax in 2001 (Americans for Tax Reform 01/07/07)
• publicly opposed the repeal of a sales tax on groceries and medicine in 2002 (Arkansas News Bureau 08/30/02)
• signed bills raising taxes on gasoline (1999), cigarettes (2003) (Americans for Tax Reform 01/07/07), and a $5.25 per day bed-tax on private nursing home patients in 2001 (Arkansas New Bureau 03/01/01)
• proposed another sales take hike in 2002 to fund education improvements (Arkansas News Bureau 12/05/02)
• opposed a congressional measure to ban internet taxes in 2003 (Arkansas News Bureau 11/21/03)
• allowed a 17% sales tax increase to become law (The Gurdon Times 03/02/04)
• opposed a congressional measure to ban internet taxes in 2003 (Source: Arkansas News Bureau, 11/21/03)
• supported an internet sales tax in 2001 (Americans for Tax Reform 01/07/07).
• raised at least nine (9) different taxes: A 47-percent increase in taxes totaling $505 million on middle-and-lower income Arkansas citizens (Source: The Leader, 08/30/2006).
• raised the minimum wage in 2006 from $5.15 to $6.25 an hour and encouraged Congress to take the same initiative on a national level (US Newswire 08/03/06)
• opposed a bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote in his own state (Source CNS NEWS, Some GOP Concerned about Huckabee’s Immigration Views, Fred Lucas, 12/04/2007)
• received 14 ethical violations and five (5) resulted in findings that he violated ethics guidelines (Associated Press, 11/23/06)
• criticized opponents of Common Core, saying “parents and people involved in their local schools should let it be known that core standards are valuable, and they’re not something to be afraid of — they are something to embrace.” (The Mike Huckabee Radio Show May 6, 2013)

A Progressive will always be a Progressive first.

“Two gunmen were killed Sunday after opening fire on a security officer outside a provocative contest for cartoon depictions of Prophet Muhammad in Texas and a bomb squad was called in to search their vehicle as a precaution, authorities said, “ reported the Associated Press.

Provocative is ISIL executing 21 Coptic Christians – especially to the majority of Christ-followers around the world.

The gunfight took place outside the Mohammed Art Exhibit event at the Curtis Culwell Center in suburban Garland, Texas. Police said the suspects began shooting wounding a security guard, and along with traffic officer, killed both suspects.

In January, gunmen attacked the offices of Charlie Hebdo,the French satirical magazine that has a history of depicting Mohammed, and killed 12 people. The following month a gunman attacked a free speech forum in Copenhagen, Denmark, who was angry over depictions of Mohammed.

Federal authorities identified the suspects as Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi.

Indicted in January 2010 after lying to the FBI after telling investigators he hadn’t discussed traveling to Somalia to engage in “violent jihad.” A year later Simpson received three years probation, once convicted.

Oh, and the FBI had Simpson on their watch-list for the last 10 years.

And true to their nature, Progressives with the aid of the media, have been quick to point out that the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI,)which organized the event, is an ‘anti-Muslim hate group’ as claimed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC.)  However, the same Progressives and their media mouth-pieces failed to point out that in 2014 the FBI severed its relationship with the SPLC, after being exposed for it’s “anti-Christian hatred.”

And does anyone in the media recall Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” — a crucifix in a jar of urine that won a competition sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts? Those who denounce AFDI for sponsoring the contest should consider Serrano’s detractors, none of whom were violent.

As Rush Limbaugh asked: “If Americans are to respect and obey the laws of Islam that say drawing pictures of Mohammed is not permitted…why don’t we respect Islam’s punishment for gays and women, hmm?”

After the shooting, authorities escorted attendees to another room in the conference center. Once there, a woman held up an American flag, and the crowd sang “God Bless America,” followed by the National Anthem.

Chants of “USA, USA, USA” could be heard throughout the arena after the songs concluded. Also, two members of the group led prayers for the wounded security officer and for the officers protecting the group against further attacks.

It appears there are U.S. citizen’s who will not back down from terror or any threat that tries to stop” the right of the people peaceably to assemble,” and “abridging the freedom of speech…” as stated in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The day that no American stands up for the constitution is the day radical Islam and Sharia Law win.

A new Associated Press poll shows that 56-percent of Americans say religious liberties are more important to protect than homosexual rights when the two come into conflict. But don’t tell the Obama Administration or Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“Far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health care,” Clinton recently told the Women in the World Summit in New York City. “Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will,” she added. “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”

In other words – if Christians and Jews don’t change their points of view – the state will do it for them.

Prior to that, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito asked this question during arguments about homosexual marriage: “In the Bob Jones case, the Court held that a college was not entitled to tax-exempt status if it opposed interracial marriage or interracial dating. So would the same apply to a university or a college if it opposed same-sex marriage?”

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli answered, “It’s certainly going to be an issue. I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It is — it is going to be an issue.”

Churches and synagogues will lose their tax-exempt status and there’ll be no more “respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion…” as guaranteed in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

And now the only Christian member of a delegation from Iraq isn’t being allowed entry into the U.S. even though scheduled to testify before the Senate and House Foreign Relations Committees. The U.S. consulate in Erbil told Sister Diana Momeka of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena that they rejected her non-immigrant-visa application.

The reason: “You were not able to demonstrate that your intended activities in the United States would be consistent with the classification of the visa.”

The State Department claimed that “every overseas post and domestic bureau will seek opportunities to engage religious leaders” as part of its program for countering “violent extremism.” But the voice of a lone Catholic nun doesn’t count.

ISIL forced Sister Diana, along with 50,000 other Christians to flee for their lives from the Iraqi city of Qaraqosh. The State Department claims that because she’s an ‘Internally Displaced Person,’ she intends to stay, not jus’ visit, and that’s illegal immigration, which is strictly forbidden.

It appears the Obama Administration’s set on denying ISIL’s Christian victims that status.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is coming to Las Vegas on Cinco de Mayo for the first, of what her handlers are calling, “many conversations with Nevadans.” Beginning around 2:45 that afternoon, she’ll join a roundtable of young people at Rancho High School, who claim they’re personally affected by our ‘broken’ immigration system.

Immigration is apparently a ‘divisive issue’ in Nevada, since about 30 percent of the population is Latino. Advocates for immigration reform want legal status given to an estimated 11 million ‘extranjeros ilegales’ living in the U.S.

President Obama has already taken executive action to protect illegal’s from deportation. Initially his action protected only youngsters raised here after their parents or relatives broke the law by illegally entering the U.S., later expanding the protection order to all illegal’s who already have family here.

A judge in Texas has put the order on hold after that state filed a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. Nevada joined a majority of other states in a lawsuit challenging Obama’s unconstitutional actions on immigration, much to the consternation of the state’s first ‘Hispanic governor,’ Brian Sandoval.

And jus’ like her trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, she’ll continue talking about the “four fights” that supposedly define her campaign, with an emphasis this time on the second fight: strengthening families and community.

There is no word yet on a possible trip to northern Nevada – but then many of us don’t care if she ever visits this part of the state.

The Nevada National Guard is cleaning up the area south-east of Reno. Their CH-47’s Chinook helicopters are heard thumping loudly, lift ing the rusting bodies of abandoned automobiles skyward, hauling them away.

Considered blights, most people want them gone, never to return. They are scrap, garbage, waste — man-made and unsightly, a danger to the panoramic beauty of a mornings’ walk or evening hike.

Yet, isn’t it odd that from time-to-time a large, barely sea-worthy hulk of a ship’s dynamited, sunk to create a man made-reef for the aquatic life. The abandon vehicle that dots the desert landscape are the same thing.

They’re home to field mice, snakes, spiders and their cousin the scorpion, among other wildlife. And if you sit patiently, quietly watching — you’ll learn both the hawk and the coyote often find a meal inside the oxidizing metal frames.

Like a man-made reef, abandoned automobiles are never left unoccupied — nature always fills the empty spaces.

It’s what remained of an old water storage tank that sat back in the woods some three to four hundred feet up the hill above Sander’s Court in Klamath. And it was the site of a number of childhood memories, including the time I tried and failed to kiss Goldie Arnold.

One afternoon, Goldie’s older brother,  John Paul, Chucky Yates, my brother Adam and I were playing up there. The game was simple: run up the outside rim of the wall that we called the cliff, and slide down the fallen redwood log on the other side.

Around and around we ran and slid. It was truly a simpler time back then.

During a lull in the game, I asked John Paul the name of the place. He quickly glanced at Chucky, then with a smile declared, “Booger Nose Flat.”

We returned to playing our game.

It would be some years later that I’d learn what the flat was actually used for at one time. I also learned at about the same time that John Paul had made the name up, right off the top of his head.

But by then, it didn’t matter – because it was and will always be ‘Booger Nose Flat’ to me.

It was September 2011, when President Obama ended “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” in the U.S. military, thus allowing homosexuals to serve openly in uniform. Obama claimed the 18-year-old law forced ‘gay and lesbian’ service members to “lie about who they are.”

At the time, there were questions about whether disciplinary rules would be adequate to deal with any future instances of harassment in the ranks. Professor Michael Corgan of Boston University and U.S. Naval Academy graduate, claimed the problem would come down to a matter of leadership.

“Discipline problems that might arise from gays serving with an overwhelmingly straight population in the military should be able to be handled the way any other disciplinary problems are, if commanders are up to their jobs,” Corgan said.

He couldn’t have been more right.

Recently, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a group of ROTC cadets that sexual assault is a “particular challenge and a particular disgrace” to the U.S. military. He noted that last year, far more men than women “experienced unwanted sexual contact.”

“Last year, we estimated that at least 18,900 service members — 10,400 men and 8,500 women — experienced unwanted sexual contact.”

Carter added that “too few” men report the incidents as sexual assault.

They fail to report it as ‘sexual assault’ because not even Secretary of Defense Carter can find the courage to call it what it is – sexual assault. Instead he uses the politically correct term ‘unwanted sexual contact,’ effectively tying commander’s hands when meting out discipline.

Carter also claimed that dirty jokes are among the military behaviors that need to be corrected to stop sexual assault in the ranks.

“Our military is based on an ethos of honor, and this is dishonorable,” Carter said. “And second, we’re based on trust. We have to have trust.”

Dirty jokes are not the problem. The problem comes down to the fact that Department of Defense Directive 1332.14 which deals with homosexual conduct, and Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice which talks about sodomy, aren’t being applied anymore.

As Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, points out: “The increases do seem to coincide with repeal of the law regarding gays in the military in 2010. It went into effect about 18 months after that, and that’s when the numbers started to go up.”

This is what happens when the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military leads from behind.

A Christian printer who was found guilty of discrimination for refusing to print T-shirts for a gay pride parade won big after a court ruled he can decline to print messages that run in opposition to his religious views. The Fayette County Circuit Court’s ruling overturned a decision by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission, finding that Blaine Adamson, owner of ‘Hands on Originals,’ of Lexington, Kentucky, was within his rights when he declined to make shirts for the Lexington Pride Parade.

That’s the good news, but…

On the West Coast, a crowd funding campaign that raised more than $109,000 for the Christian-owned bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Oregon was removed after complaints from gay rights advocates. Lisa Watson of Cupcake Jones, a competitor of ‘Sweet Cakes,’ contacted GoFundMe to alert them that the Kleins’ had violated the terms of service.

She complained:

“This business has been found guilty of discrimination and is being allowed to fundraise to pay their penalty. The GoFundMe terms of service address hate speech, bigotry, criminal activity and sexism among other things in their campaign . The amount of money they have raised in a matter of a few hours by thousands of anonymous cowards is disgusting.”

In a statement, GoFundMe said that the page was yanked because the campaign violated their policy against raising money “in defense of formal charges of heinous crimes, including violent, hateful, or sexual acts.”

“After careful review by our team, we have found the ‘Support Sweet Cakes by Melissa’ campaign to be in violation of our Terms and Conditions. The money raised thus far will still be made available for withdrawal. While a different campaign was recently permitted for a pizzeria in Indiana, no laws were violated and the campaign remained live.”

They added, “However, the subjects of the ‘Support Sweet Cakes by Melissa’ campaign have been formally charged by local authorities and found to be in violation of Oregon state law concerning discriminatory acts. Accordingly, the campaign has been disabled.”

The rules seem to be fluid, depending on what the charges are as Jeremy Meeks, the California criminal whose mug shot went viral last year was able to raise over $6,000 for his defense. Meeks was arrested in June 2014 on felony weapons charges and sentenced to two years in prison in February.

Oh, and incidentally — Watson’s bakery was honored earlier this year by the ‘Basic Rights Education Fund’ for “outstanding leadership to advance equality for all LGBTQ Oregonians.”