Headlines

51 attorneys general urge DeVos: Erase disabled veterans’ student debt

North Korea missile tests violated UN resolutions, Bolton says

Nadler health scare ... Rushed to hospital ...

Farmers granted $16B countering China unjustified retaliatory tariffs

Intel chief warns Barr could imperil national security by declassifying national security

Iranian general: We Believe the US will rein in ‘radicals’ to prevent war

China unveils 372 MPH train ...

Judge blocks Mississippi “heartbeat” abortion law

Weapons worth over $8B headed to Middle East over Congress’ objection

Progress reported in race to find vaccine for deadly hog disease spreading across China

JP Morgan cuts GDP forecast to just 1%  ...

Boko Haram killed 2,295 teachers, destroyed 1,500 schools in Nigeria

Headlines

Senate Intel backs assessment of Russian election meddling

Trump's take on  trade - Europe has been 'free-riding far too long,' says fund manager

World Cup ratings down 42% without American team ...

Reuters poll: Young white men fled Democrat party

Judge tosses suit alleging Trump campaign conspired with Russia in DNC hack

The EU is reportedly considering international talks to cut car tariffs

Meekel warns against trade war ...

Madeline Albright: U.S. needs open borders so it can demand same from Europe

Feds target Avenatti over old firms unpaid taxes

Germany's massive trade surplus 'is becoming toxic,' economist says

14,000 immigrants become new citizens ...

Boko Hiram, Fulani terrorists kill 2,000 in Nigeria in six months

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites. Guess which ones came from Politico?

Macron landslide, Youngest President ever

[Kentucky Derby] Roses for Always Dreaming

Kasich to House GOP: Replacement plan is 'inadiquate'

As oil slides, one technician has shocking prediction: Expect crude to hit $90

NYT columnist warns of intellectual hubris among climate scientists

Trumpcare blame: GOP to answer for problems with healthcare law

Activists urging Obamacare supporters to mail ashes of dead people to Congress

Bernie to California Dems: Please pass single-payer healthcare

85 year-old dies on Evetest in world record bid ...

Georgia special election smashes all-time spending record

Jonathan Gruber blames Obamacare failures on Donald Trump

Boko Haram terrorists release 82 Chibok girls

Distractions

- The United States stock market is now in correction territory having fallen more than ten percent with the 500+ point plunge on Friday and a much bigger drop on Monday. A drop of 20+% in the coming days or weeks is not beyond reason and would presage a bear market equivalent to 2008.
- Economies around the world seem to be in trouble ... Russia, Brazil, Venezuela, China, Greece, Canada, and many others are all teetering on panic's edge due to the recent precipitous drop in oil prices ... now hovering just below $40 per barrel. Even Saudi Arabia is rapidly running out of sovereign funds and needs to tap into the world debt markets.
- ISIS, Boko Haram and other radical "religion of peace" groups are raping, enslaving and beheading thousands of Christians throughout the Mideast with almost no response from the Free World.
- Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are escalating to a very dangerous degree with exchanges of artillery fire and propaganda-laden saber-rattling.
- Illegal immigration is surging from third countries into Europe and the United States in unprecedented numbers with very little real resistance from the authorities and few solutions proffered ... other than from Donald Trump.
- Iran is being given the gift of $150 billion dollars to spend on terrorism and a clear path to an atomic weapon by the U.S. Secretary of State, John "Christmas in Cambodia" Kerry and our Imperial President.
- Islamic radical terrorist attacks on civilian and military innocents are almost a daily occurrence throughout the free world.
- The oceans may still be rising and the climate may still be changing despite China's pledge to start reducing its horrendous air pollution by 2030.
- The United States Federal Reserve Bank is on the horns of a dilemma. Either it raises interest rate sometime this Fall or it has almost no tools to deal with a possible new recession.

All these serious problems are but distractions to the leader of the free world whose primary focus is on his golf handicap ... which he is assiduously working on while he vacations unconcerned on Martha's Vineyard. Perhaps this singular focus is a form of denial ... to keep him from fretting about these other distraction.

Topsy-Turvy

I am once again befuddled by our topsy-turvy popular culture. Jimmy Kimmel sheds an on-air tear because a lion I never heard of was shot and killed by a bow and arrow and the nimrod who took this hunting trophy is now receiving death threats ... see: Hollywood Reporter Story. Yet ISIS, Boko Haram and other radicalized Muslim organizations are enslaving and brutally murdering thousands of innocent humans each week and the national media (including Jimmy Kimmel) has devolved into a ho-hum mindset ... see: Question.

Not that I don't care about this particular lord of the jungle's demise ... but, come on people, there are clearly priorities in how seriously we should lament over world events ... and, as noble Cecil the Lion was, his death is still way down my list of caring priorities.

Afterward: I have also noticed that other bloggers and talk show hosts are contrasting this lion's killing with the main-stream media indifference shown to the numerous murders inside the United States committed by illegal immigrants ... or any of the myriad of innocent lives terminated by Planned Parenthood in the process of harvesting their tiny organs.

A Stretch

I scratch my head about a flap of a butterfly's wings in Japan causing a hurricane in Florida ... but really ... atmospheric CO2 levels in the United States going from 38 parts per million (ppm) to 40 ppm being the cause of the rampaging of the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria? This is the malarkey that our esteemed leader is spoon feeding to the Coast Guard graduates at their recent commencement ceremony ... see: Yahoo News Story. (This bit of warped logic happened to be coincident with ISIS capturing the city of Ramadi in Iraq ... apparently without the benefit of elevated CO2 levels.)

I suppose that next President Obama is going to tell us that some snapped exercise rubber band is what blinded Harry Reid's right eye?

Straw Man

Once again our pusillanimous president has erected a straw man to suit his misguided notion that "radical Islamic terrorists" are not our enemy. He is now saying that it is an "ugly lie" that the West is at war with Islam ... see: Breitbart Article. Duh! Of course the West is not at war with the entire Muslim religion. We are ... or should be at war with the jihadis, those Muslims who want, in the name of Mohammad, to establish a world-wide caliphate ... subjugating all other religions through taxation, conversion or murder.

By saying that we are not at war with Islam, President Obama is suggesting that someone, somewhere, at sometime has asserted this to be true. I haven't seen a scintilla of evidence to back up this silly claim. Does Obama want the over one billion Muslims in the world to believe that this is occurring on a regular basis? Certainly these words would so suggest ... and have sinister implications as to the motivations of the "leader of the free world." To me Obama's refusal to make a clear distinction between all Muslims and those Muslims who are so radicalized as to pose a serious threat to world order ... is, in itself, a swipe at a hornets nest ... an act that may have serious world-wide consequences for many years to come.

This posing of a straw men by Obama ... coupled with his foot dragging in creating a viable strategic push-back to ISIS, Boko Haram, the Taliban, and the various factions of al Qaeda (such as in Yemen) ... has me questioning his true motivations. This is particularly so when I see his continual cozying up to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood ... his refusal to see the benefit that can come from Egypt's stance against radical Islam ... and his blatant animosity toward Israel. Clearly, whatever our president's deep-seated intentions are ... and despite his smooth Teleprompter rhetoric ... the result of his presidency has been to make a dog's breakfast out of the winning track he inherited from his predecessor.

Can this be what he meant by his vow to "change" things? God, I hope not!

What

does this mean? All is forgiven ... by whom ... Muslims ... Mohammad ... rather presumptuous, no? What is the "all" that is forgiven ... the Paris butchery ... the original slight against Islam ... the fact that President Obama stayed home to watch football? The magazine/newspaper Charlie Hebdo is printing three million copies of this assumedly defiant issue when it normally sells 60,000 copies. Suddenly the slaughter of those 12 innocents has increased its circulation 50-fold and it's first run of 500,000 is already sold-out .. see: ABC News Story or Wall Street Journal Story or Fox News Story or CNN Story. (It is interesting to note that in none of these links is the actual full cover shown ... is that what is to be forgiven?)

This kerfuffle reminds me a bit of the "Bring Back Our Girls" Twitter hashtag campaign over those African kidnappings by Boko Haram ... a victory of symbolism over substance.

And the Obama administration can't even bring itself to utter the words "Islamic extremism" ...

Zipped Lips

Christians are being persecuted all over the Middle East and Africa. Coptic Christians in Egypt have been killed and had their churches burned down by the Muslim Brotherhood. In Nigeria, hundreds of Christian girl students have been kidnapped, raped and worse by the Boko Haram, another radical Muslim sect. In Syria and Iraq, Christians have been threatened with death unless they convert to Islam or emigrate … and there ISIS, the most brutal of Muslims, has taken to crucifying Christians to inflict maximum terror.  Lebanon, once a predominately Arab Christian country, is now controlled by the most brutal Muslims who kill Christians for blood sport.

All this specified genocide and much more is happening all around this region (see: Breitbart Listings) whilst the president of the United States plays golf, attends Democrat fund raisers, and can’t seem to undo the zipper on his lips to utter even the merest of condemning remarks. I can't help but ponder why ...