Headlines

Trump befuddles his allies with ambitious legislative agenda

China makes unprecedented proposals on tech transfers as trade talks progress, US officials

Wild [Trump] rally set for Michigan ... MSNBC ratings slump ...

Jussie Smollett’s ‘community service’: 18 hours with Jesse Jackson

Mueller swiftly closes up shop

Attention Wall Street: Democrats are seeking higher taxes on capital gains

Pelosi: Won’t accept Attorney General’s ‘interpretation’ ...

Orange County ends jail contract with ICE

Trump’s Fed pick owes more than $75,000 in taxes, IRS says

Trump met with Google CEO Sundar Pichai to discuss ‘political fairness’ and China

Trump confirms FBI, DOJ will probe [Smollett] case ...

Poll: Americans evenly split on nuclear power, despite safety record

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from Drudge?

Aides give up on trying to control Trump's tweets

Doctors are turning to marijuana to treat opioid addiction

Argentine sub missing with 44 sailors ...

Mika latest Clinton ally to suggest Bill should have resigned

Trump reverses hunting trophy decision, says he will review

Tesla is 'going out of business' says former GM exec Bob Lutz

I trump to pay staff legal bills ...

Hungary PM: 'Silent majority' will prevail over 'Soros empire' ...

Jesse Jackson diagnosed with Parkinson's

WalMart says it has pre-ordered 16 of Tesla's new tractor-trailers

10,744 more JFK records released ...

LOL: After covering for Weinstein, Clinton, NYTimes says Franken should go

Pilgrim's Progress

Progressivism has been a proud, aggressive and often successful political movement since the time of President Teddy Roosevelt and Wisconsin's Senator Bob LaFollett. However, one of the flaws of progressivism is, at least in the arena of social justice, eventually the progress being made gets more and more rarefied. Yes, progressives have swept away many of the discriminatory laws and mores in the United States, but their follow-on targets represent smaller and smaller slices of our population (e.g., gender fluid rights) and, thus, the political payoffs get more problematic.

After all how many voters want to marry animals? But, this doesn't seem to slow progressives down. Soon it will be more bizarre rights being advocated ... man-boy love, human rights for simians and group marriages. Don't doubt me. To progressives, the social equality agenda seems never to run out.

Yet Progressives often keep their prejudices quite private while championing exactly the opposite in public. The Kennedys, the Clintons and many in the black movements (Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton) come immediately to mind. Somehow, the general public chooses to ignore these inconsistencies.

Progressives are also often drawn into conundrums ... like embracing people who often violently oppose many of their other basic public tenets. For instance, many fundamental Muslims lethally oppose free love, homosexuality and religious tolerance ... yet are supported by progressives in a stunning display of hypocrisy. Even worse, progressives will not tolerate fundamental Christians with far less onerous strictures. I scratch my head over these inconsistent progressive notions.

Will progressives run out of paved road? Will they have fewer social equity causes to champion in the future? Or will the notion of more social justice ... or injustice ... as utilized by progressives begin to peter out? I hope so ... but I don't expect so.

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

Twitter purges 'alt-right' accounts ...

Republicans now control record number of state chambers ...

Elon Musk in crosshairs over billions in government subsidies ...

TX oil discovery BIGGEST EVER: $900 billion

CITI to stop accepting cash in branches ...

Team Trump announces five year lobbying ban for administration officials

Hezbollah parade features U.S. armored vehicles ...

Springsteen, De Niro to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom ...

HAWKING: Mankind will be extinct in 1,000 years ...

Three NBA teams boycott Trump hotels

Study: People crave Wi-Fi more than chocolate, sex, alcohol

Jesse Jackson: Obama should pardon Hillary ...

Tribute

“Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute” -- Thomas Jefferson (his response to the Barbary pirates demand for money to keep them from attacking U.S. shipping.)

Tribute is nothing more than ransom paid to keep some entity from harming you. There are many instances of this practice … from the Mafia demanding a percentage of the profits of businesses as “protection money” to Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and other race baiters shaking down American businesses so that they are not accused of “racism” … see: ABC News Story.

Now the Muslims are getting into the payoff racket with demands for “Halal certification” which is a statement that a food purveyor has met the standards of the Islam faith. In exchange for paying a fee schedule, these purveyors are “allowed” to sell their products or services to the Muslim community … see the Australian schedule of demands: Q Society Story and in Malaysia: Malaysian Halal Rate Schedule. Unfortunately, many suspect that this certification money finds its way into funding much Muslim terrorism around the world.

In fact the recent jihad attack by a Muslim radical from Iran on a Sydney, Australia coffee shop seems somehow connected with this shop’s refusal to pay Halal tribute … see: Atlas Shrugged Story. Unfortunately, the number of businesses who do pay this Halal bribe seems to be large and growing.

What did Lenin say, “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them?” But, in this case, we seem to be giving them the rope.

Afterward: For validation of Sharpton's sleezeball style see: NY Post Story. Also my wife had an interesting comment, "Aren't taxes a form of protection money?"

He Could've Been ...

my son (quote from Barack Obama) ...  I can't find the words to describe how outrageous it is for the President of the United States to intervene in any criminal prosecution.  It was, at the very least, prejudicial (if you will excuse the term).  But as most awake people know, that is exactly what happened in the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin shooting case now wrapping up in Florida.  And this wasn't the first time.  Lapsed lawyer Barack Obama has meddled in other legal matters from which he should have distanced himself.  In the case of the Cambridge (Massachusetts) police acting "stupidly," it cost him a six-pack of beer to smooth things over.  But here, things are a lot more serious.  Not only did our President, but also the race-baiters, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, have stuck their greased fingers into this matter.  Even our Attorney General, Eric Holder, has traveled to Florida improperly to insinuate himself into this case.

Shame on all of them.  I have little doubt that, if on the odd chance that George Zimmerman is convicted of anything (which I doubt), that his defense attorneys have oodles of reason to appeal his conviction ... based on nothing more than that former attorney, the surrogate father to Trayvon Martin, and the chief law-enforcement officer of the United States, Barack Obama's mischievous meddling.

The Template

How much longer is the knee-jerk, irresponsible, race-baiting template of the left going to endure?  The Trayvon Martin tragedy has brought out the usual manic actors ... Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Geraldo Rivera, the New Black Panther Party (see: Dead or Alive Poster), Al Sharpton, and even (you'd think he would have learned his lesson from his Cambridge-police faux pas) President Obama.  I'm not sure what all the facts are in this sorrowful shooting incident, but I'm reasonably certain that none of these aforementioned rabble rousers do either.  As Bill Clinton's posse was wont to say when he was (repeatedly) in hot water ... "Let's all take a deep breath and wait for the facts" (or, in his case, "spin.")

Even Conservative legal pundits seem willing to charge George Zimmerman with at least manslaughter (see: Powerline Comments ... and read the Responses too) before a grand jury has sifted through all the evidence.  I, for one ... possibly the only one ... am willing to wait until this highly-charged emotional fog lifts and the facts are verifed by responsible parties before I deem anyone guilty or innocent.

Red Roof Inn

In the nine months since Barack Obama has been our President there have obviously been quite a number of visitors to the White House. Recently, the list of said guests has been released and it contains some interesting tidbits. The Drudge Report mentioned George Clooney, George Soros and Oprah. See: Visitor Records.

I however found a few even more interesting names (number of visits is in parens after the name.) They are Angela Davis (2), Bill Ayers (2), Jesse Jackson (6), Michael Moore (8), Al Sharpton (2), George Soros (4), and Jeremiah Wright (1). (The actor, Will Smith, was there an astounding 33 times. Is there a movie in the offing?) Nor does this list contain many other names ... excluded because of security or first-family privacy purposes. And it is not clear (perhaps purposely so) what all these visits involved or whom was met. However, in every case the leaving time was 11:59 PM which suggests to me that these were overnight stays. I'm sure more on this will come out over the ensuing days in the NY Times and Boston Globe.

Perhaps we should change the name of the White House to the Red Roof Inn?