Fractured Definition

Emissions — when Mormons proselytize over the Internet ... instead of door-to-door.

Headlines

How Trump conspired with the Freedom Caucus to shut down the government

‘New consensus’ reached on US-China trade, says Chinese Vice Premier, Liu He

Dems seeking Trump’s financial documents from his bank

Mormons ease opposition to same-sex couples and their kids

Trumps’s right. Border arrests are surging. Here’s why

American’s don’t support Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s plan to break up big tech: Poll

Jobless claims fall to 49-year low

Trump’s DHS releases more than 17K illegal aliens into U.S. in 2 days

Cohen offers Democrats more help, in bid to stay out of prison

Jamie Dimon: US ‘absolutely’ right to enter trade war, despite short-term economic impact

Smollett refuses to pay Chicago

Update: Google disbands artificial intelligence ethics board

Bleeding Hearts

The term "bleeding-heart liberal" must exist because of hard evidence. For some reason, perhaps guilt by association, lefties often want the world to be as they wish it ... not as it is. So, President Barack Obummer and Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown, Governor of California, are both in a pardoning and sentence commutation frenzy ... particularly insofar as drug dealers are concerned (many also with gun violations). Over his eight years in office, Obama has pardoned or commuted the sentence of 1324 felons ... see: NY Times Article ... with some more Bill-Clinton-like bomb shells likely to occur before January 20th. And Brown has had equivalent but likely misguided compassion ... forgiving the sins of 856 mostly drug felons ... see: LA Times Article.

Yes, the federal and often state Constitutions grant these government executives these powers ... but I don't believe that the framers believed that they would be granted in such a blanket fashion. Yes, in the past, there have been overall pardons granted to soldiers after the Civil War, for polygamist Mormons and for  the draft evaders in the Vietnam War ... but these were special cases. It would appear to this observer that Obama and Brown's mass forgiveness comes out of a sense of empathy with these criminals ... both executives having been heavy drug users in their pasts.

It is almost a certainty that some of these released felons will display recidivism and return to their criminal ways ... at which time bleeding hearts will most certainly result in more bleeding bodies.

Afterward: Over the past year both presidential candidates and the media have focused on the epidemic of drug use and abuse that is sweeping our nation. Somehow, releasing thousands of drug dealers back onto our streets likely won't help this problem ... and actually may be part of the reason it exists in the first place.

Unspecified Religion

Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, a Kuwaiti-born radical gunman of some unspecified religion, shot and killed four Marines and wounded another Marine, a police officer and a Navy sailor in Chattanooga, Tennessee yesterday ... see: CBS News Story. The shooter of some unspecified religion was also killed. The shooting first started at a recruiting center on Old [redacted] Highway in Chattanooga and culminated at a Navy and Marine Support Center about seven miles away where this shooter of some unspecified religion also died. It is suspected that Muhammad was a "lone wolf" who had be radicalized by some unspecified religion, possibly the Mormons or Seventh Day Adventists.

In a statement President Obama decried this terrible loss of life by this gunman of some unspecified religion, After this short announcement, an unnamed reporter purportedly heard Obama lament to himself, "He could have been my son."

The New Pariahs

The American liberal elites have become very inclusive … illegal immigrants, street protesters, metro-sexuals, rappers, Jews (in America), gay marriages, Muslims, Cubans (in Cuba), Socialists, the Shake Shack, Native Americans, gender benders … are now quite acceptable, even celebrated. However, with this redefining of the circle of inclusion, there seems no longer room for other population categories. It’s as though for every new group invited in, another group must be exiled. May I offer a few examples of these new pariahs?

- Mormons

- Southerners (particularly Texans)

- Polish -Americans

- Gun owners
- McDonalds

- Wall Street bankers

- Cubans (in America)

- Jews (in Israel)

- Football jocks

- The police

- Fundamentalist Christians

- Entrepreneurs (except in Silicon Valley)

It’s very much as though “diversity” is a zero-sum game …

The Upcoming Debates -- Romney

In the upcoming debates, there are ten questions I would like to be asked of Mitt Romney:

1) You took no salary when you ran the 2002 Winter Olympics, nor when you were the governor of Massachusetts. If elected, would you take your $400,000 Presidential salary?

2) Do you believe that private-equity and hedge fund managers should continue to pay income taxes at the 15% “carried interest” rate?

3) Why do Mormons not permit non-Mormons to enter their temples? Do you agree with this restriction?

4) You have been castigated for not releasing 10 years of your tax returns instead of just the 2 years you have disclosed. Have you, in fact, paid considerable federal taxes during each of those missing 8 years?

5) It has been reported that you have off-shore bank accounts in the Bahamas, or Switzerland, or other locales. If this is or was the case, what was their purpose … and have you disclosed these accounts to the IRS?

6) What specific proposals do you have for reforming the U.S .income tax system?

7) What specific proposals do you have for reforming the U.S. federal entitlement programs?

8) Where would you pare back spending in the discretionary portion of the federal budget … and is the Defense Department one of them?

9) What specific regulatory burdens would you focus on removing in order to get Americans back to work?

10) What would your top foreign policy objectives be in the early years of your administration?

The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints

Howard Hughes liked and trusted LDS (Latter Day Saints) believers.  In his dotage, when he was shuffling around with Kleenex boxes on his feet and with long, uncut fingernails, a phalanx of Los Vegas Mormons ran his finances and businesses with utmost honesty and honor.  I, myself, have known over the years a number of Mormons and have admired and respected them all.  I have found them all to be straightforward, trustworthy, and very capable.

Unfortunately there is one glaring exception to this generalization ... Harry Reid, the senior Senator from Nevada, the Democrat Majority Leader, and a Mormon.  Harry Reid is a sneaky scoundrel; a pious poltroon; a piece of pond scum; a doddering doo-doo-head; a rascally rogue; a slimy snake-in-the-grass, a black-hearted blaggard; a noxious nincompoop; a callow, craven, capricious cockroach; a mendacious magpie; and a jerky jackanape.

Two recent Harry Reid shenanigans point out how low this man can stoop (both literally and figuratively):

1) He went on the floor of the Senate and repeated, without any attribution, what is basically a libelous rumor -- that Mitt Romney had not paid any taxes for ten years.  Romney responded with "put up, or shut up."  See: Fox News Story

2) He recently cursed-out an (African-American) member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who dared to seem to support the storing of nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain (Nevada).  His language was inflammatory and supportive of the above pejoratives I have applied to Reid.  See: Powerline Story and note Reid's base language.

Add to this that, in my and many others' opinion, Harry Reid is a primary reason that our Congress has been in grid-lock for the last three years.  Reid controls the Senate like a maniacal martinet and will not allow any debate on the numerous House bills that have been forwarded to help get this nation back to work.  And he has also not, for this same period allowed the Senate to pass a federal budget ... one of his primary Constitutional duties.

Do I make my point?