EBOLA ROUND-UP 10/3/14

Listening to events over the past week, especially with regard to the incident in Dallas leaves one wondering.  The news keeps changing regarding the potential threat.

President Obama said not to worry. . .it wouldn't happen here, but it has happened.  And the CDC was saying how difficult it was to spread and even Chris Matthews the liberal talk host at MSNBC went after his inconsistencies.  So where are we?

"Obama Nixed Bush-Era Quarantine Proposal":  In 2010, the Obama administration withdrew updated quarantine regulations drafted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and proposed by the Bush administration. The new rules would have required air passengers to submit more information to airlines and strengthened the government’s authority to detain travelers suspected of carrying disease.

Liberals like to say that President Bush and Republicans generally are “science deniers.” But in this instance, Bush followed the path recommended by the Centers for Disease Control — no science deniers, they. It was Obama who elevated ideology over science thereby (to borrow the CDC’s words) denying Americans “critical” protection against “dangerous diseases spread by travelers.

"Obama Rips Bush for Being Unprepared for Avian Flu Outbreak":  But something must have been done right, according to the article. . .you don't hear about the Avian flu anymore.

Investors.com.  "Obama's Pathetic Response to Ebola Isn't Reassuring."  "The chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low," President Obama said recently. But he was wrong. We wonder: Was he repeating a considered medical opinion, or just offering his own?

The Hill.  "Health Officials Clam Up about the Effort to Contain Ebola in Texas."  It sounds like the CDC and others don't know what they are doing.

George Will:  "Americans Want to Trust Government But Can't."

Vice President Joe Biden:  "The disease spreads with blinding speed"--but there are no travel restrictions.  The Veep should maybe read the Daily Mail.  With open borders and travel who knows who or what is coming in.

Cleaning up Dallas apartments without proper suits!  Government gone brain-dead.

Chris Matthews goes after Obama ("it isn't likely") and Ezekiel Emmanuel.

NBC News:  "Ibuprofen Is All It Takes to Pass Airport Screening."

US HEADED FOR DEMOGRAPHIC DISASTER

Reacttons to Harry S, Dent Jr.'s book, The Democratic Cliff.  The US is facing the same destiny Japan began in the 1980s.

From the New York Post:  Implicitly, Dent is saying: Don’t blame politicians, the decline of manufacturing, education or cheap foreign imports for the economic stagnation that has already begun and will continue for many years. Blame your parents and grandparents for losing interest in having children back in the Sixties.

The Amazon reviews.

NBC COVERAGE OF THE OLYMPICS

The Soviet period of Russian history is referred to "as one of history's pivotal statements."


George Orwell, call your office. As he wrote in “Politics and the English Language,” in 1946, such euphemisms are “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,” and certainly describing Communism as “one of modern history’s pivotal experiments” fits the bill in spades

UTAH JUDGE'S POLYGAMY DECISION

A Utah judge has ruled that certain laws against polygamy or unconstitutional.

This is an interesting decision, especially in light of how polygamy affects the status of women both inside and outside of Utah—in, say, Saudi Arabia or Yemen. Or Canada. Or anywhere. It’s as though Judge Clark Waddoups, who in his Utah decision claimed there was no “rational basis” under law for distinguishing between a man shacking up with a few women and informal but established polygamy, had ruled in a total vacuum.

But worse than a single US judge’s decision has been the reaction from so-called respectable media outlets who believe, despite all worldwide evidence to the contrary, that the ruling struck a blow for unvarnished personal freedom.

HISTORICAL SUPPORT FOR HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN BUDGET BATTLE

This is the word from James Madison in Federalist Papers No. 58.  The House of Representatives is to protect the people from the Senate and presidency.

BECOMING A GENTLEMAN

Is the word "gentleman" an oxymoron in today's culture? 

A gentlemen is, first of all, a cultural achievement. No boy is born opening doors or laying his jacket across puddles for his sisters and girlfriends. A boy doesn’t naturally keep his word or forbear a slight when an excuse or a score settled is within easy reach. All those things we might call virtues, and good manners must be learned. But to be learned they must be taught, and that requires first of all that they are esteemed. So you’ll immediately see our predicament: Mr. Darcy is not born, ladies, he is made.

 A plea for women not to lower the bar in relationships with men.  These reflections come out just as we are ready about Miley Cyrus' recent performance.

NSA & PRESIDENT OBAMA

This is pretty strong language coming from a liberal publication like Slate. 

With the latest major revelation about National Security Agency surveillance, there’s a huge taboo question that needs to be put out on the table: Has President Obama been deliberately lying about the NSA, or have his statements just been repeatedly “wrong”?

BEATING A POLYGRAPH TEST

Lessons from an NSA whistleblower!  Trick the tester on test questions to evaluate whether a person is lying by biting your tongue and then daydream when later asked a question about which you have to lie.

THE OLD TESTAMENT AND US MILITIA LAW

A blog post on how America's founding fathers incorporated Old Testament laws into how militia were to organize.

The American Founders were assiduous students of history. While the well-educated among them read Roman and Greek history in the original languages, some history was well-known by almost everyone, namely the Bible. New Englanders intensely self-identified with ancient Israel—from the first days of settlement in early 17th century (Israel in the wilderness) to the days of the American Revolution, when New England’s “black regiment” of clergymen incited the Revolution as a religious duty, and described the thirteen American colonies as the modern version of the twelve confederate tribes of Israel.[1] Thus, ancient Hebrew militia law is part of the intellectual background of the American militia system, and of the Second Amendment.

ASSESSING THE ZIMMERMAN TRIAL 7/20/2013

From Walter Olson at CNN:

People upset at George Zimmerman's acquittal are calling for awarding various new powers to prosecutors at the expense of protections for criminal defendants.

Maybe this would make it easier to hang a rap on some future Zimmerman. But it also would have an effect that its backers probably don't intend: increasing the number of persons convicted and sent to prison. As part of that effect, more young black men -- as well as more members of other groups -- will end up behind bars

 

From TalkLeft:  Criticism of Obama's reaction.

 

From National Review: 

 

Honesty about disproportionate rates of black crime requires acknowledging another truth as well: Trayvon Martin’s race could well have been a factor in Zimmerman’s initial suspicion of him. But that is because the known suspects in the recent pattern of burglaries in his neighborhood were black. Had Asians been breaking into homes, consistently with an elevated rate of Asian crime, an unknown Asian teen wandering the neighborhood could also have drawn the attention of a neighborhood-watch volunteer

 

The Hill on Florida:  Florida voted for Obama in 2012 but now it is "cesspool" of racism.

 

Reason on Florida's "stand your ground" law:  It seems to help both blacks and whites equally.

From the Faculty Lounge blog.

I have been struck by the frequency with which many commenting on this case, including the public on social media — but also journalists, scholars, and lawyers, all of whom should prize fidelity to facts — have made bald, confident assertions, often without citing any evidence, and sometimes in direct contradiction to the available evidence. This is all the more startling in light of the egregious editing of Zimmerman’s call to police the night of the shooting made early on in the reporting of the case by NBC, which is the subject of a defamation lawsuit by Zimmerman.

 

 

 

 

IRS LEAKED TEA PARTY CANDIDATE'S TAX RETURN

I always wondered what happened in this Delaware race in 2010.  Christine O'Donnell was doing very well against her Democrat opponent when suddenly an issue of a tax lien arose and she was forced to drop out.  Democrats win another one. . .interesting.

“Ms. O'Donnell, this is Dennis Martel, special agent with the U.S. Department of Treasury in Baltimore, Md. … We received information that your personal federal tax info may have been compromised and may have been misused by an individual,” he said in the January message left on her cellphone.

For Ms. O'Donnell, the message immediately raised red flags.

On March 9, 2010, the day she revealed her plan to run for the Senate in a press release, a tax lien was placed on a house purported to be hers and publicized. The problem was she no longer owned the house. The IRS eventually blamed the lien on a computer glitch and withdrew it.

DEMOCRACY DEAD IN AMERICA?

Different individuals have raised the issue of whether democracy is dead in America.  This is a quite serious charge especially coming from such respected persons.

Justices Souter and O'Connor.

President Jimmy Carter in Der Spiegel.  America has no functioning democracy.

ZIMMERMAN TRIAL IN REVERSE

A black man with a pistol permit in Rochester, New York shoots and kills a white teenager who threatened him when he caught them stealing from neighbors' cars. . .the jury finds that he shot the white youth in self-defense.  I don't think I will see this on the evening news.

ZIMMERMAN JURY

This trial is getting stranger and stranger.  A black male juror was evidently eliminated from the jury pool because he watched FOX news!

ZIMMERMAN'S RACE

An interesting picture allegedly showing Zimmerman's great-grandfather--he was black-skinned.

More on race at Gateway Pundit.

William Saletan:  Trayon Martin--His death wasn’t about race, guns, or your pet issue. It was about misjudgment and overreaction—exactly what we’re doing now to the verdict.

TRAYON MARTIN PROSECUTOR

Alan Dershowitz, liberal Harvard law professor, criticizes the prosecutor in the case in very strong language.

She submitted an affidavit that was, if not perjurious, completely misleading. She violated all kinds of rules of the profession, and her conduct bordered on criminal conduct. She, by the way, has a horrible reputation in Florida. She's known for overcharging, she's known for being highly political. And in this case, of course she overcharged. Halfway through the trial she realized she wasn't going to get a second degree murder verdict, so she asked for a compromised verdict, for manslaughter. And then, she went even further and said that she was going to charge him with child abuse and felony murder. That was such a stretch that it goes beyond anything professionally responsible. She was among the most irresponsible prosecutors I've seen in 50 years of litigating cases, and believe me, I've seen good prosecutors, bad prosecutors, but rarely have I seen one as bad as this prosecutor, [Angela] Cory.

FEMALE INMATES STERILIZED WITHOUT APPROVAL

From the Sacramento Bee:

Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews.

This happened in "liberal" California which supposedly stands for all things progressive. The South had a history of this in the last 100 years and was heavily criticized (and rightly so).  I wonder if California will be held up to the same criticism as southern states were?

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/07/5549696/female-inmates-sterilized-in-california.html#storylink=cpy

ABORTION LAWS

A chart from the BBC detailing European abortion laws.  Many of them look stricter than those in  the United States.  The Texas legislature is currently battling over an abortion bill, but the law supported by pro-life activists in Texas does not seem any more restrictive than those in Europe.

Here is a clip of pro-abortion activists chanting "Hail Satan" as they try to drown out "Amazing Grace" being sung by pro-life activists in Texas.

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN LEARN FROM PHONE CALLS

This is an interesting study of a German politician who sued T-Mobile for 6 months of the metadata that was stored on his phone.  You can follow the politician's movements around the country.  It raises a lot of issues of what the NSA is able to find from all of the phone data that it has collected on people and politicians.  And as the article points out it doesn't include the internet data which the NSA was also collecting.

PRITZKER: NEW COMMERCE SECRETARY

From TaxProf blog. Commerce Nominee Sails Through Confirmation Hearing Despite Not Reporting $80 Million Income, Offshore Tax Shelters.  I thought Romney was criticized for tax shelters and possible off-shore investments?  Oh well, Pritzker is a Democrat.