Month: December 2019

Impeachment Backfiring: SECOND Democrat Leaves The Party In 24 Hours

State Senator John Yudichak of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania said that he will be switching his registration to become an Independent. He will caucus with the Republican majority.

Yudichak has criticized an increasingly liberal Democratic caucus that has led to this decision.

Due to issues that he finds important, Yudichak believes there is a better home in the Republican caucus.

Yudichak’s announcement comes less than 24 hours since we learned that New Jersey Democratic Congressman Jeff Van Drew has also made a decision that speaks volumes……..

 

It’s Not a Coup. It’s a Civil War.

Lately, it’s been convenient — and self-serving to some — to call what is going on with the Trump administration a coup. It’s a “soft coup” or a “silent coup” or a wish-it-were-a-coup.

Let’s take a look at what that means. According to all definitions I can find, a coup is a sudden, often violent overthrow of a government. Every time I look up the definition of a coup, I get something like this from Merriam-Webster: “a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics.” But there is nothing sudden about this.

Have you ever thought, “What would a modern civil war look like?” Tanks rolling down the streets of Washington, D.C.? Missiles targeting the Congress? Armed forces storming the White House or Capitol Building? None of these would accomplish anything. So what would a modern-day civil war look like?

At least since the 1960s, a faction of people have been looking for a chance to make our government conform to what they think it should be. This faction has identified itself in many ways, and its members always embrace Marxist ideals with a top-down government run by a few. A “law-based” government, on the other hand, would have a constitution to protect the rights of the minority from the “tyranny” of the majority. That is what the United States of America is: a law-based government founded on the belief that those working in government are employees of the people, and not that the people are subservient to them. And all decisions are to be based on our agreement to form such a government — that is, as spelled out in our Constitution.

When a group, no matter how large or small, decides it wants to step beyond the constitutional means for changing the government and change it to fit their own ideals of government, and superimpose those ideals on everybody else, we have a true conflict. If that conflict cannot be resolved to their satisfaction through the instrumentalities of the provisions to do so, and so they decide to overthrow it and replace it with their own views or ideas, we have a war. We have those circumstances playing out before our eyes (and ears)………….

THE ARDENNES:
BATTLE OF THE BULGE

The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Counteroffensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II, and took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945.

During most of the eleven months between D-day and V-E day in Europe, the U S Army was carrying on highly successful offensive operations As a consequence, the American soldier was buoyed with success, imbued with the idea that his enemy could not strike him a really heavy counterblow, and sustained by the conviction that the war was nearly won. Then, unbelievably, and under the goad of Hitler’s fanaticism, the German Army launched its powerful counteroffensive in the Ardennes in December 1944 with the design of knifing through the Allied armies and forcing a negotiated peace.

The mettle of the American soldier was tested in the fires of adversity and the quality of his response earned for him the right to stand shoulder to shoulder with his forebears of Valley Forge, Fredericksburg, and the Marne.

This is the story of how the Germans planned and executed their offensive.
It is the story of how the high command, American and British, reacted to defeat the German plan once the reality of a German offensive was accepted.
But most of all it is the story of the American fighting man and the manner in which he fought a myriad of small defensive battles until the torrent of the German attack was slowed and diverted, its force dissipated and finally spent.
It is the story of squads, platoons, companies, and even conglomerate scratch groups that fought with courage, with fortitude, with sheer obstinacy, often without information or communications or the knowledge of the whereabouts of friends. In less than a fortnight the enemy was stopped and the Americans were preparing to resume the offensive.
While Bastogne has become the symbol of this obstinate, gallant, and successful defense, this work appropriately emphasizes the crucial significance of early American success in containing the attack by holding firmly on its northern and southern shoulders and by upsetting the enemy timetable at St. Vith and a dozen lesser known but important and decisive battlefields

Today is Bill of Rights Day when the Virginia legislature’s vote in 1791 surpassed the number of state’s needed to ratify the amendments.

Now, they’ve got some of the modern day Virginia legislators threatening to use the Virginia National Guard to confiscate arms if the local LE agencies won’t execute proposed laws to ban & confiscate arms in the hands of the citizenry.

If I recall history, almost the same thing happened in Massachusetts back in 1775 and we all know how that ended up.

 

United Nations climate talks collapse after Trump shuns Paris pact

MADRID — U.N. climate negotiations ended in disarray on Sunday, amid worries that President Donald Trump will win reelection next year and follow through on his promises to withdraw the U.S. from the international effort to head off catastrophic changes across the planet.

The talks exposed deep rifts among industrialized nations, fast-growing economies like China and India and the poorest countries – divides that the U.S. had helped bridge under former President Barack Obama in the run-up to the 2015 Paris climate accord. With Trump moving to pull out of the pact, delegates from many countries retreated behind their long-held grievances over how to bear the burdens of reducing greenhouse gases and preparing for the worsening effects of a changing climate.

UNM student from Saudi Arabia charged with illegally possessing handgun

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Hassan Alqahtani had plans to walk across the stage and collect his diploma from the University of New Mexico on Saturday, and then he and his parents were going to Disneyland to celebrate the accomplishment.

Instead, the 27-year-old Saudi Arabian mechanical engineering student will be spending the weekend behind bars, charged in federal court with being a non-immigrant student visa holder in possession of a firearm. The criminal complaint also says Alqahtani had a list of people he planned to kill, which included UNM professors.

Alqahtani, who recently earned his bachelor’s degree from UNM, turned himself in to authorities on Friday afternoon. During his first appearance later that evening in federal court, Magistrate Judge Karen Molzen ordered that he be held through the weekend. He will have preliminary and detention hearings Monday morning in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.

Referring back to:

New Inspector General Report Reveals Scandalous Lying by Obama Administration About Afghanistan War

Greta Thunberg tells cheering crowd ‘we will make sure we put world leaders against the wall’ if they do not tackle global warming as she attends climate protest in Turin.

#1 – Who is “We?”
#2 –

Greta Thunberg told cheering protesters today ‘we will make sure we put world leaders against the wall’ if they fail to take urgent action on climate change.

The Swedish teen activist was addressing the crowd at a Fridays for Future protest in Turin, Italy.

She arrived there from Madrid where she had been attending the UN climate summit but said she feared the event would not lead to change.

LATEST UN CLIMATE TALKS COLLAPSING

The headline of this AFP “news” story certainly shows no bias at all, nosiree, but you can file it under “Feel Good Story of the Day” anyway:

UN Deadlocked, Detached from Climate Emergency

Madrid (AFP) – A UN climate summit in Madrid risked collapsing Saturday after marathon negotiations between countries left them more divided than ever over on how to fight global warming and pay for its ravages.

Diplomats from rich nations, emerging giants and the world’s poorest countries — each for their own reasons — found fault in a draft agreement put forward by host Chile in a botched attempt to strike common ground.

Faced with five-alarm warnings from science, deadly extreme weather made worse by climate change, and weekly strikes by millions of young people, negotiations in Madrid were under pressure to send a clear signal that governments were willing to double down in tackling the crisis.

But the 12-day talks, now deep into overtime, had retreated even further from this goal on Saturday. “It appears that we are going backwards on the issue of ambition when we should be calling for a quantum leap in the other direction,” Marshall Islands climate envoy Tina Stege said. . .

Veteran observers of UN climate talks were stunned by the state of play nearly 24 hours after the negotiations had been set to close.

“I have never seen such a disconnect between what the science requires and the people of the world demand, versus what the climate negotiations are delivering,” Alden Meyer, strategy and policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told AFP. Alexandria Villasenor, a 14-year-old climate activist, said she had been “disappointed” in the lack of action at COP 25.

How is this failure possible? St. Greta of Thunberg—Time‘s Person of the Year!— was there, telling the adults in the room to get busy. Why don’t they listen to her!? Why? Why?

TEN YEARS AGO TODAY AL GORE PREDICTED THE NORTH POLE WOULD BE COMPLETELY ICE FREE IN FIVE YEARS

On December 13 & 14, 2009, professor, prophet, and soothsayer Al Gore predicted the North Polar Ice Cap could be completely ice free within the next five to seven years.

Gore made his prediction at COP15 Copenhagen which ran from Dec 7 – Dec 18, 2009, where he repeatedly referenced “state-of-the-art” computer modeling to suggest that the north polar ice cap may lose all of its ice by 2014.

“Some of the models suggest that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years,” Gore claimed.

“Join me in asking president Obama and the US Senate to set a deadline of 22 April for final action in the US Senate,” he said. “I do not believe we can wait till next November or December.”

The Guardian wrote on Dec 16, 2009 in an article entitled “Al Gore rallies the troops in Copenhagen“:

[Gore] kept up the pace by calling for the international community to sign up to a fully fledged climate change treaty by July 2010 – and then announcing that Mexico was prepared to host a deal-making summit.

He scolded rich countries for demanding the developing world offer evidence of emissions cuts while at the same time trying to inflate the funds they were prepared to offer poor countries to deal with climate change. And he was just as tough on activists who have embraced him as a hero, demanding they set aside their pride and their principles and embrace a deal – no matter how imperfect. He said he recognized their frustration with the glacial pace of negotiations. He agreed that cap-and-trade schemes to cut carbon emissions were an imperfect solution – Gore confessed to favoring a carbon tax – but the current efforts for a deal were the best prospect of avoiding catastrophic climate change.

And there was no trace of sympathy for opponents of action on climate change. Gore began with a brief run-through of the latest science on melting of the Arctic ice cap, evidence he said “only reckless fools would ignore.”

Well who’s the fool now:

COP25 Attendees Grab Grub at Burger King Despite UN’s Anti-Meat Alarmism

When all these econuts act like their prophesies of climate doom are real and actually begin behaving like there is a crisis, I might begin to believe them.

The anti-meat messaging at the U.N. Climate Change Conference apparently hasn’t deterred attendees from grabbing a bite at one of the world’s most popular burger joints.

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano caught on video long lines at the Madrid climate confab onsite Burger King, even though the outlet wasn’t serving the Impossible Burger, the chain’s recently unveiled vegan offering.

“Burger King only offered real cow meat at the summit location,” Mr. Morano said in his Thursday report. “No fake meat burger available is even more ironic, given that the U.N. just gave its ‘Planetary Health’ award to the company responsible for Burger King’s fake meat ‘Impossible Meat’ burgers on December 10.”

Victims of home invasion killed intruder

BATON ROUGE – Officials have confirmed the death of one man following a Thursday night shooting in the unincorporated community of Alsen, in the northern area of East Baton Rouge Parish.

Deputies with the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office were summoned to the scene around 10 p.m., shortly after shots were fired at a home in the 200 block of Rafe Mayer Road.

Authorities say Herman Hills was killed in the shooting.

According to deputies, Hills was armed with a gun as he forced his way into the family’s home and demanded money. The family fought back, wrestling with Hills to get a hold of his gun. During the altercation, one of the family members shot Hills, killing him.

Hills had a lengthy criminal history, his most recent run-in with police was only days ago, on Dec. 9, when he was arrested for theft.

Suspect fatally shot during robbery attempt at apartment on eastside

HOUSTON — Houston Police homicide detectives are investigating a shooting on the eastside that has left at least one person dead overnight.

The shooting happened around 3:30 a.m. Friday at the Timber Ridge Apartments near the East Freeway and Federal Road.

Details are limited at this time.

HPD was called out because of the shooting when officers learned that two possible young suspects may have tried to rob someone at the complex.

Police say the victim was armed and opened fire on the suspects, fatally wounding one of them.

Myth busted: Campus carry never caused that increase in violence liberals predicted

Nothing unusual in busting proggie mythology.

The argument in favor of arbitrarily revoking the Second Amendment rights of college students, as is done in dozens of states, has ostensibly been rooted in safety concerns.

And it just got a lot weaker.

Two anti-gun professors wrote in the Washington Post that “campus-carry laws will invite tragedies on college campuses, not end them.” Another liberal professor, writing for the New York Times, warned that “when there are more guns around, there is more risk – it’s as simple as that.”

The trouble with such predictions is that they tend to be tested as time goes by. And as it turns out, they simply weren’t true. Students just aren’t waging the gun battles that anti-gun activists expected. A new report from the College Fix looked into this narrative, and it came up empty.

When a reporter reached out to numerous universities that permit campus carry, “all of the schools that responded confirmed that they have seen no uptick in violence since their respective policies were put in place.” Responding colleges included Emporia State University, Dixie State University, and Valdosta State University. Separately, the Texas Tribune has reported that after the Lone Star State implemented campus carry at four-year colleges state-wide, it resulted in “no sharp increase in violence or intimidation,” and in fact, the following year was “quiet” and “uneventful.”

These are just a few examples, but even studies cited favorably by gun control advocates admit that “results certainly do not prove that campus carry causes more crime.” Essentially, it’s now clear that conservatives and libertarians had this one right. Allowing American adults aged 18 to 22 to exercise their Second Amendment rights on public college campuses is a no-brainer, as there are few rights more fundamental than the right to self-defense. Plus, the inconsistent nature of current “gun-free campus” rules already makes little sense.

The current system in many states bans college students from carrying guns but would allow adults of the same age who do not attend college to carry firearms. This is an arbitrary inconsistency that makes little sense, as there’s nothing to suggest that college students are more violent or less responsible than their noncollege peers. So, too, guns are often allowed at high-risk off-campus sites such as fraternity houses, yet barred from the actual campus — a glaring inconsistency that makes little sense. And now it’s officially confirmed that arbitrarily revoking college students’ Second Amendment rights doesn’t even make anyone safer.

It’s impossible for blue-state legislators and liberal college administrators to keep justifying their harsh anti-gun policies. That is, unless they’re willing to admit that they just hate the idea of gun rights.

Trump Pushes to Allow Troops to Carry Personal Weapons on Bases

President Donald Trump said Friday that he would review policies that keep troops from carrying personal weapons onto military bases.

“If we can’t have our military holding guns, it’s pretty bad,” Trump said in a wide-ranging speech to the annual Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Maryland, “and I’m going to look at that whole policy on military bases.”

“So we want to protect our military. We want to make our military stronger and better than it’s ever been,” Trump continued in the speech, in which he also renewed his call for allowing trained teachers and military retirees to carry concealed weapons in schools.

Schools and military bases currently are “gun-free zones” that are easy targets for deranged shooters such as the one in Parkland, Florida, who killed 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week, Trump said.Defense Department policy mainly has been that base security is the province of military police. In most cases, troops are required to leave their personal weapons at home or check them at the gate in an effort to prevent accidental shootings and discourage suicides.”We had a number of instances on military bases, you know that,” Trump said in his speech, apparently referring to active shooter episodes.

In making the case for personal weapons on military bases, Trump appeared to be referencing the July 2015 incident in Chattanooga, Tenn., where four Marines and a sailor were killed.

The shootings occurred at a recruiting storefront in a strip shopping mall and at a U.S. Naval Reserve Center some miles away. But Trump said the victims “were on a military base in a gun-free zone.”

The victims were Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan, 40; Staff Sgt. David Wyatt, 35; Sgt. Carson A. Holmquist; Lance Cpl. Squire D. “Skip” Wells, 21; and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith, 26.

The FBI and local police said that Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez carried out a drive-by shooting at the recruiting center and then drove to the U.S. Naval Reserve Center, where he was killed in a shootout with police.

Then-FBI Director James Comey later said that Abdulazeez was “motivated by foreign terrorist organization propaganda.”

“You know the five great soldiers from four years ago, three of them were world-class marksmen,” Trump said in his account of the incident. “They were on a military base in a gun-free zone.”

“They were asked to check their guns quite far away. And a maniac walked in, guns blazing, killed all five of them. He wouldn’t of had a chance if these world-class marksmen had — on a military base — access to their guns,” Trump said.

In his 2015 Senate confirmation hearing to become Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley was asked about the Chattanooga shootings and said that “in some cases I think it’s appropriate” for recruiters to carry weapons for self-defense.

He said that arming recruiters was complicated by a patchwork of state laws but “I think under certain conditions — both on military bases and in outstations, recruiting stations, reserve centers — we should seriously consider it.”

Then-Lt. Gen. Milley was commander at Fort Hood, Texas, in April 2014 when Spec. Ivan Lopez opened fire, killing three soldiers and wounding 12 others before killing himself.

Numerous lawmakers then called for allowing troops to carry weapons on base, but Milley said at a news conference that he didn’t support the idea.

“I don’t think soldiers should have concealed weapons on base,” he said.

House passes farm bill that critics say grants ‘large-scale amnesty’ to illegal immigrants

The House on Wednesday passed a contentious agricultural bill that would likely put more than a million illegal immigrants on a pathway to legal status as part of what supporters say is a vital modernization of the industry’s workforce — but that immigration hawks blasted as a “large-scale amnesty.”

The Farm Workforce Modernization Act passed 260-165, with support from both Democrats and Republicans. The bill provides a process for undocumented farmworkers to seek a temporary five-and-a-half-year “Certified Agricultural Worker” status if they have worked for approximately six months in the industry in the last two years.

That status can either be renewed indefinitely, or workers (along with their spouses and children) can begin a path to permanent legal status in the form of a green card. That path, according to the legislation, includes background checks and $1,000 fine.

To secure the green card, those who have worked in agriculture for 10 years or more must work for four more years, while those who’ve spent less than a decade in the sector would have to work eight more years. Once workers receive a green card, they are then free to pursue work in fields outside of agriculture.

The bill also streamlines the H-2A agriculture visa program, cutting processing time and costs for visa petitions. And it calls for the Department of Homeland Security to set up a pilot program that would give H-2A workers the ability to change jobs within the sector if they find work within two months…….

The Heritage Foundation described the bill as a “clear cut example of amnesty,” warning that it “threatens the legal immigration system’s legitimacy and incentivizes aliens and farmers to ignore the legal immigration system in the future if it best serves their needs.”

INSLEE, FERGUSON TO LEGISLATURE: IT’S TIME TO LIMIT HIGH CAPACITY MAGAZINES, STOP SELLING ASSAULT WEAPONS IN WASHINGTON

Y’all didn’t really think the gun-grabbers were going to stop after I-1639 did you?

Ferguson also proposes safety measures for ammunition sales

SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced today he will propose a package of legislation to combat mass shootings in Washington state. Gov. Jay Inslee, a longtime supporter of gun safety measures, is joining Ferguson for the first time to propose limits to magazine capacity and a ban on the sale of assault weapons…………..

High-Capacity Magazine Limits……..
Ferguson and Inslee are proposing joint-request legislation to limit the capacity of magazines sold in Washington to 10-rounds……

Assault Weapons Sales
For the fourth consecutive session, Ferguson is proposing legislation to ban the sale of assault weapons. For the first time, Gov. Inslee will jointly request the legislation…………

Ammunition Sales
Ferguson’s ammunition legislation:

Prohibits violent felons and other individuals who cannot lawfully obtain firearms from purchasing or possessing ammunition
Makes it illegal for firearms dealers to knowingly sell ammunition to violent felons and other individuals prohibited from owning firearms
Prohibits dealers from knowingly selling ammunition to violent offenders and other individuals prohibited from owning firearms
Requires ammunition sellers to obtain a state firearms license, which costs $125……..
Requires background checks for all ammunition sales 30 days after the U.S. Department of Justice changes its rules and authorizes dealers to use the national instant criminal background check system, known as NICS, to initiate a check for a transfer of ammunition…….

Revealed: Hunter Biden ‘Possession of Controlled Substance’ Charge Kept Under Wraps While Father Led Drug War From Senate

Joe Biden’s son Hunter was arrested on Jersey Shore drug charges in 1988 and had his record expunged at a time when his father was pushing for the incarceration of drug offenders drawn disproportionately from minority groups.

Congressional records reveal that Hunter Biden, now 49, was arrested in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, where the Biden family has often holidayed over the years, in June 1988. Hunter Biden, then 18, had just graduated from the prestigious Archmere Academy prep school, which his father had also attended. The former vice president and his wife Jill have often been spotted on trips to Stone Harbor.

The arrest has not previously been reported. Republicans have recently highlighted Hunter Biden’s drug abuse, questioning why it was not taken into account when the lobbyist was appointed to a $50,000-a-month post on the board of the Ukraine oil company Burisma in 2014, when his father, as vice president, was the Obama administration’s lead official on Ukraine.

A year after the arrest, Joe Biden gave a speech in which he said the federal government needed to “hold every drug user accountable” because, “If there were no drug users, there would be no appetite for drugs, there would be no market for them.” He neglected to mention the drug use in his own family.