Month: March 2015

I had actually forgotten that Newsmax has a television network. And it’s just as big of a scam as their website. Tonight and tomorrow morning, they are running a documentary “based on veteran political analyst Dick Morris’ #1 best-selling expose, “Power Grab: Obama’s Dangerous Plan for a One Party Nation,” which they claim will air in “more than 41 million cable and satellite homes.”

If you tune in, you will be astounded and amazed:

In “Power Grab,” Morris and co-author Eileen McGann make a strong case that Obama has an underlying plan to grab power and appropriate it for Democrats and their liberal agenda.

His goal over the next two years: Destroy the Republican Party and make the United States a de-facto one-party state controlled by the Democrats.

This strategy would give Democratic voters a decisive edge in all future national elections and in states around the nation that decide the makeup of Congress.

Can you imagine? Not only will destroying the Republican Party give the Democrats a decisive edge in national elections but also in states that have federal elections, like all of them!

The article also has other helpful information like the following Editor’s Note:

You see, we are supposed to believe simultaneously that President Obama is going to destroy America and that the Dow Jones Index will soon hit 60,000.

But WAIT!!

There’s more…

What are Americans to do to restore constitutional government in the country, and how can they keep the delicate system of checks and balances from being gamed by a president bent on its destruction? Morris has a plan.

That’s right!

Dick Morris has a plan.

Folks, Newsmax is a criminal organization and yet some of my friends in the blogosphere are actually taking money from them to stream the Newsmax feed on their front pages. Newsmax pitched this deal to me a year or so ago and I just laughed in their faces.

We all need money. I know that.

We don’t need it so badly that we can in good conscience aid and abet a wholly fraudulent organization in its efforts to steal people’s money. I’m not talking about fake news, which is bad enough. I’m not talking about Dick Morris and his “opinion.”

These folks are crooks. They belong in jail. This isn’t debatable.

Progressives should not be partnering with them in any way, shape, or form. If you don’t believe me, remember what Rick Perlstein said.

Rand couldn’t make it because he was busy with his personal Kentucky Derby.  Overturning that law that he can’t appear on the ballot for both the Senate and POTUS.

A couple of others were also no shows.  With only three weeks advance notice, Dr. Ben and Ms. Fiorina couldn’t fit an agriculture briefing session into their schedules before the event.  Rubio opted to attend a wedding.

Otherwise it was a full house with notable ag specialists Governors Chris Chris and Jeb Bush and George Pataki and Senators Cruz, Graham and Santorum, the farm boys Governors Perry and Pataki, Governor Walker who grew up near farms (and his daddy was a preacher), and Governor Huckabee who may or may not have preached that pray is the best answer for good crops.

Pigs are an Iowa crowd pleaser as the new pig castrator Senator demonstrated.  So, JEB! went with it:

Calling the Environmental Protection Agency “a pig in slop,” Jeb Bush said, “We have to begin to rein in this top-down driven regulatory system.” Asked how to achieve that, the former Florida governor said, “The first thing you do is you change presidents.”

That’s called throwing down a gauntlet.  And hoping it goes unnoticed that in a combined twelve years his daddy and bro didn’t fix the “pig slob.”  

Graham was apparently humorous.  (No, not about his “why not run for President?” campaign that some of us thought was a joke.)  He and JEB! stood out by supporting some way for undocumented workers in the US to become documented.  The “Christian” preacher asked,“What do we do to stem the tide of people who are rushing over because they’ve heard that there’s a bowl of food just across the border?”  (Huck and Christie then rushed out because they heard the free donuts and corndogs tent was open.)

On corn ethanol, Cruz (who also has a daddy preacher) was edgy:

“The answer you’d like me to give is, `I’m for the RFS, darnit,’ ” Cruz said. “But I’ll tell you, people are pretty fed up, I think, with politicians who run around telling one group one thing, another group another thing, and then go to Washington and they don’t do anything they said they’d do.”

Papa Cruz might have to do a bit more preaching to those Iowa corn farmers after that his son’s moment of honesty.

Christie is down with ethanol.  Christie will verbally kiss any butt (including Sheldon Adelson’s) if that’s what it takes.  Santorum moaned about the loss of US manufacturing jobs that may or may not have been in response to the ethanol question, but doesn’t matter because he already answered that one four years ago.  The current Iowa front runner, Walker said,

he would continue the subsidies for now but phase them out once ethanol producers are assured access to markets. “I think eventually you can get to that,” he said. “But you can’t get to that unless you deal with market access.”

He either screwed up his talking point or it was code only ethanol producers understand.

It’s going to be a long ten months.

WOW! I’ve been writing about the NATO propaganda for over a year now, are parts of Europe slowly awakening they have little to say about US military power within the European Community? I always hoped Angela Merkel could withstand meddling by US in the self-interest of the European Union. Hope this is carried forward throughout the western European nations as the new-Europe of the Cold War era want a confrontational stance versus Russia and Putin. Breedlove is VP Biden’s man, just as is Vicky Nuland of State, the neocon representative from the State Department on the Ukraine.

Breedlove’s Bellicosity: Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine | Der Spiegel |

It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm. The battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk cease-fire wasn’t holding perfectly, but it was holding.

On that same day, General Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, stepped before the press in Washington.

Putin, the 59-year-old said, had once again “upped the ante” in eastern Ukraine — with “well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery” having been sent to the Donbass. “What is clear,” Breedlove said, “is that right now, it is not getting better. It is getting worse every day.”

German leaders in Berlin were stunned. They didn’t understand what Breedlove was talking about. And it wasn’t the first time. Once again, the German government, supported by intelligence gathered by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, did not share the view of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).

The pattern has become a familiar one. For months, Breedlove has been commenting on Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, speaking of troop advances on the border, the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks. Over and over again, Breedlove’s numbers have been significantly higher than those in the possession of America’s NATO allies in Europe. As such, he is playing directly into the hands of the hardliners in the US Congress and in NATO.

The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove’s comments as “dangerous propaganda.” Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even found it necessary recently to bring up Breedlove’s comments with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.

The ‘Super Hawk’

But Breedlove hasn’t been the only source of friction. Europeans have also begun to see others as hindrances in their search for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict. First and foremost among them is Victoria Nuland, head of European affairs at the US State Department. She and others would like to see Washington deliver arms to Ukraine and are supported by Congressional Republicans as well as many powerful Democrats.

Indeed, US President Barack Obama seems almost isolated. He has thrown his support behind Merkel’s diplomatic efforts for the time being, but he has also done little to quiet those who would seek to increase tensions with Russia and deliver weapons to Ukraine. Sources in Washington say that Breedlove’s bellicose comments are first cleared with the White House and the Pentagon. The general, they say, has the role of the “super hawk,” whose role is that of increasing the pressure on America’s more reserved trans-Atlantic partners.

Excellent analysis by Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian Studies at New York University and of politics at Princeton University … one year ago about Russia’s position on Ukraine.

 

○ Cold War Against Russia–Without Debate

Gen. Philip Breedlove says training of Ukrainians not ‘on automatic’ | Feb. 25, 2015 |

Following the briefing, The Washington Times asked Gen. Breedlove to clarify whether he intended to cancel or simply delay the training of Ukraine security forces. The general declined to refine his remarks and simply stated: “Nothing we’re doing is on automatic.”

 « click for map eastern Ukraine
Gen. Philip M. Breedlove attends a media conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels last month. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP)

Pentagon officials say that Gen. Breedlove declined to elaborate on his statement because, ultimately, he does not have the authority to waylay the training. That directive will trickle down from White House staff, said Navy Capt. Gregory Hicks, a spokesman for U.S. European Command.

○ Ukraine To Buy ‘Defensive’ Weapons In U.A.E., President Poroshenko Says
○ Russia defends Minsk ceasefire deal while France warns of further sanctions

After being shamed by CNN and others for not sending anyone in their leadership to Selma to observe the fiftieth anniversary of the civil rights march there, Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will relent and make an appearance.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will now go to Selma Saturday to join in the 50th anniversary events.

McCarthy tells CNN he considers John Lewis a close friend, and wants to be there to commemorate the historic anniversary.

McCarthy has been to Selma in the past, and he and Lewis worked together to show the movie Selma to all lawmakers in a Capitol auditorium.

For those of you who don’t know, John Lewis is a Democratic congressman from Georgia. He had his skull fractured by a racist Apartheid Jim Crow cop during the march in Selma.

I have no idea how close McCarthy is with Lewis, but evidently not close enough to have prearranged this appearance before being harangued into it.

The Wall Street Journal reports that it’s Morning in America again:

Unemployment fell in every state and the nation’s capital last year—something that hadn’t happened since 1984.

The broad decline, revealed in a Labor Department report Wednesday, offers the latest sign the labor market recovery kicked into a higher gear in 2014. The declines varied broadly.

Unemployment fell the most in Illinois, where the rate dropped 2 percentage points from the prior year to an average 7.1%. The rate declined by 1.8 points in Colorado, North Carolina and Ohio.

North Dakota, at the center of the nation’s energy boom of the past few years, had the lowest jobless rate of any state at 2.8% last year.

Unemployment across the entire U.S. fell 1.2 points to 6.2% last year.

The verdict is in on Kenyan Socialism, and it appears to work pretty damn well.

The stock market is so hot that it just corrected a bit on fears that the Fed will ease up on the cheap money.

Or, as the New York Daily News puts it:

You would think a Reagan Republican has occupied the White House for the last four-plus years, considering how fat and happy stock market investors and corporate America have grown.

And, stating the obvious:

Mitt Romney could scarcely have achieved better results had he been President and set out to minister to the needs of CEOs. Hurray — the Dow has doubled since hitting bottom in 2009, a couple of months into Barack Obama’s first term.

Meanwhile, Jared Bernstein explains that while wage growth is still anemic, people’s increased purchasing power is being driven by even weaker inflation and an increase in weekly hours.

As we know, the linchpin of Kenyan Socialism is Obamacare, which was supposed to blow up the deficit leading to Weimar-level inflation and to kill the 40 hour workweek.

We’ve gone a solid year now, adding at least 200,000 jobs a month every month. In February, we added almost 300,000 jobs.

I know you will find things to complain about. Those things will not be what the Republicans predicted you would complain about. Most of the things you will complain about are things that the Republicans prevented the Kenyan Socialist from addressing. The rest are things Republican governors like Scott Walker did that caused their states to dramatically underperform their neighbors.

So, stop grumping and admit it.

Whether you’re a Wall Street executive or an out of work schlub, Kenyan Socialism rocks.

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of the Cape May street scene.  The photo I am using is seen directly below.  I will be using my usual acrylics on an 8 by 8 inch gallery-wrapped canvas.

When last seen, the painting appeared as it does in the photo directly below.

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

I started adding some paint to the grid-assisted pencil sketch.  At this stage I’m just adding basic colors to the various elements.  This will give me an idea how things will eventually look and act as a road map for my progress.  Note that the red is the same for the SUV and house to the rear.  I may change that but maybe not.  It’s a good start.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have more progress to show you next week.  See you then.

Earlier paintings in this series can be seen here.

UPDATE: Unfortunately my wife’s clips were cut from the segment that aired, but it is still worthwhile watching.

Here is their website url: http://abcnews.go.com/WN

The Segment is called: Person of the Week: Celebrating All Music Therapists

*****

ABC World News Tonight every Friday has a segment devoted to people in the news. It’s a feature story – not a hard news segment. Tonight the feature is supposed to air a segment about Gabby Giffords and her treatment with music therapy to aid in helping her recover from the traumatic brain injury she suffered when she was shot by a lone gunman back in January, 2011.

As part of that segment, video clips of my wife’s work with a music therapist in Rochester, NY, will also be shown. My wife has been working with a music therapist to help with her loss of cognitive function that resulted from her chemotherapy treatments for pancreatic cancer in 2006. If you have the time, please watch the show, which airs on the East Coast at 6:30 PM EST.

My wife has made a great deal of improvement since she began her work with a music therapist two years ago. If you know of anyone – family member, friend, loved one – who suffers from a traumatic brain injury, dementia and/or Alzheimer’s disease, autism, mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression, or any of a number of other other brain disorders, I strongly urge you to watch and then do some research on whether music therapy may be right for them.

Sometimes it is almost embarrassing to ask questions:

While 59 percent of white Catholics favored the death penalty, only 37 percent of Hispanic Catholics felt the same. Race appears to be a better predictor of one’s beliefs about capital punishment than religion is. Why?

This one is pretty easy. The more your community has to interact with the legal system in this country, the more your community knows about its shortcomings. And the more flaws you see in the application of justice, the less confident you are about the guilt of those who are convicted of crimes.

In other words, there’s no difference in how white and Latino Catholics are instructed about the morality of the death penalty. Despite that teaching, very significant percentages of each group still support the death penalty. They think the penalty sometimes fits the crime, despite what the Vatican has to say about the matter.

But there are more Latinos than whites who are concerned about innocent people getting put to death, and that pretty much explains the entirety of the difference in opinion between the two groups.

When it comes to the black community, only a tiny percentage of which is Catholic, this disparity in experience in the justice system overcomes the fact that they aren’t being formally indoctrinated by their religious instructors to oppose the death penalty.

It’s not that people don’t care what their priests say. It’s that fewer white people than people of color have the kind of firsthand experience of injustice within the justice system that leads people to doubt the guilt of people on death row.

Ask all these groups about how they feel about executing innocent people and you’ll probably find no difference of opinion at all.

BREAKING: The reformicon movement was a scam.