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May 2016

Posted by New Neo on May 02, 2016 11 Comments
Allan Bloom's book The Closing of the American Mind was published in 1987, which is now very close to 30 years ago. And yet its relevance has only grown in the intervening years. It describes the influence of the left on the university and what it teaches, and how it has affected subsequent generations of students and how they think about a host of things, including America itself. Here's an excerpt from the book that very much resonates today:
Contrary to much contemporary wisdom, the United States has one of the longest uninterrupted political traditions of any nation in the world. What is more, that tradition is unambiguous; its meaning is articulated in simple, rational speech that is immediately comprehensible and powerfully persuasive to all normal human beings. America tells one story: the unbroken, ineluctable progress of freedom and equality. From its first settlers and its political foundings on, there has been no dispute that freedom and equality are the essence of justice for us. No one serious or notable has stood outside this consensus...All significant political disputes have been about the meaning of freedom and equality, not about their rightness...

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 02, 2016 25 Comments
This awkward little gem from Ted Cruz's Vice Presidential announcement is bouncing its merry way around the internet. It's like a train wreck -- you want to look away, but you can't:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 02, 2016 16 Comments
Americans and their coffee law suits... Chicago resident, Stacy Pincus, filed suit against coffee giant Starbucks. Her beef? She claims Starbucks, "has engaged in the practice of misrepresenting the amount of Cold Drink a customer will receive," by adding too much ice to their iced beverages. Pincus and counsel are requesting class-action status. Pincus says she would not have purchased Starbucks iced-drinks had she known she was getting less than the entire cup's worth of coffee or tea beverage. The complaint claims, "in purchasing Cold Drinks from Starbucks retail stores, Plaintiff relied on Starbucks’ misrepresentations of material fact regarding the true amount of fluid ounces contained in the Cold Drinks. Plaintiff would not have paid as much, if anything for the Cold Drinks had she known that it contained less, and in many cases, nearly half as many, fluid ounces than claimed by Starbucks. As a result, Plaintiff suffered injury in fact and lost money or property."

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 02, 2016 11 Comments
Cuba has received their first U.S. cruise ship in the last 38 years as the two countries relax their tense relationship. Carnival's Adonia landed at Havana Bay with 700 passengers at 9:30AM Eastern time. It will also make stops at Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba. The ship included Cuban passengers who escaped the Communist regime under Fidel Castro. "I'm just thinking of that day when we left (Cuba) and shaking like a leaf," said passenger Ana Garcia. She left the island 48 years ago. "I'm blessed to be here today and hoping for a better tomorrow for Cuba and my Cuban brothers and sisters," she continued.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 02, 2016 21 Comments
The latest Obamacare gift to consumers? MORE RATE HIKES! images Unfortunately (or fortunately -- depending on where you stand) for Democrats, pending rate increase announcements could not come at a worse time. Open enrollment begins the first week of November, just in time for Obamacare and independent health insurance consumers to take their sticker shock to the ballot box.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 02, 2016 5 Comments
Gen. Philip Breedlove, the top military commander of NATO, has warned the organization they need to focus on Russia before he leaves his position at the end of May. “We see that Russia has not accepted the hand of partnership but has chosen a path of belligerence,” he stated. “We need to readdress where we’re heading.” Breedlove leaves his position "this month after three years in the top military job at NATO." His statements come after NATO announced they will send 4,000 troops to the Baltic States - Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia - and Poland. “The Russians have been doing a lot of snap exercises right up against the borders, with a lot of troops,” Robert Work, the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, told The Wall Street Journal. “From our perspective, we could argue this is extraordinarily provocative behavior.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 02, 2016 14 Comments
Bill Clinton was campaigning for his wife in West Virginia on Sunday when he was confronted by members of the audience who were clearly angry about Hillary's promise to put coal miners out of business. Coal is pretty important in West Virginia. The Washington Free Beacon reported:
Hostile Protesters Confront Bill Clinton in West Virginia Bill Clinton was repeatedly interrupted by protesters during a rally for Hillary Clinton in Logan, West Virginia Sunday before the state’s primary on May 10. The group booed the former president and confronted him about Hillary Clinton’s promise to destroy coal jobs, a long-standing staple of West Virginia’s economy.

Posted by Miriam Elman on May 02, 2016 1 Comment
This past week during Passover, Palestinians rioted and assaulted several Jews on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, Judaism’s most sacred site. As we highlighted in an earlier post, the mere sight of Jews at their holiest place was seen by Muslims there as an affront. Two Jewish men who dared to pray were beaten up. Other Jewish visitors were harassed with verbal taunts and Israeli police and border patrol units also came under attack. But the Temple Mount wasn’t the only place where Muslims rioted against Jewish worshippers this Passover. On April 27, Jews making a pilgrimage to Joseph’s Tomb, located near the biblical city of Shechem, were also set upon by Muslim rioters.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 01, 2016 61 Comments
Mike Pence's radio endorsement of Ted Cruz was watered down by praise also for Donald Trump. It was a weird endorsement -- he said all the right things about Cruz, but an endorsement is not the time for balance. Pence has an op-ed in The Indianapolis Star in which he repeats the endorsement, without the watering down:
... While I like and respect each of our candidates, I am voting for Ted Cruz on Tuesday. In making my decision to support Ted, I am guided by the principles best espoused by former President Ronald Reagan. I am a Reagan Republican; drawn to his vision of less taxes, less government, traditional values and a strong military. Ted articulates that same agenda with an unwavering devotion to our Constitution, the sanctity of life, and the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 01, 2016 9 Comments
Apparently, the White House is bowing to pressure from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (yes, such a position actually exists) and is going to look for alternate ways to bring Syrian refugees into the country. Fox News reports:
The Obama administration appears to be bowing to international pressure and pursuing under-the-radar “alternative” ways to bring in more Syrian and other refugees -- as soon as this year. The latest indication that the administration is preparing to take in more than the 10,000 Syrians this year it already has committed to follows a March 30 “high-level meeting” on Syrian refugee admission in Geneva, Switzerland -- convened by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. At the meeting, attended by State Department officials, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi called for countries to pursue “alternative avenues” for refugees – such as student and work visas, and expanded family reunification programs.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 01, 2016 22 Comments
As he has repeatedly stated, Obama is confident that a Democrat will win the White House in November, and now Harry Reid is expressing that he is "fairly certain" that Democrats will take back the Senate this year. The Hill reports:
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Sunday that he thinks his party will win back the majority in the Senate this year. During a radio interview with John Catsimatidis, Reid detailed the Democratic efforts against several vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection this year.
Considering that Democrats need win only five Senate seats (they currently have 46 seats, including the two Independents who caucus with them) to accomplish this goal and given the disarray on the right, Reid's prediction seems far less laughable than it would have only a year ago. The Hill continues:
“We only need four [seats] to take the majority,” he said. “With the numbers I’ve given you, it’s going to be a fairly certain thing that we can do that.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 01, 2016 2 Comments
Bernie Sanders has raised a ton of cash in the 2016 primary season. Progressive grassroots activists making small donations have even put Sanders ahead of Clinton in recent months but the pace is slowing. The New York Times reports:
Bernie Sanders’s Fund-Raising Plunges Amid Campaign Woes Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont raised just $25.8 million for his campaign in April, down by more than 40 percent from the previous month, as he faces an increasingly narrow path in the race for the Democratic nomination for president.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 01, 2016 21 Comments
Last week, I wrote about the emails uncovered by Judicial Watch related to Hillary's clear knowledge, the night of the Benghazi attack, that it was a terror attack unrelated to the video she publicly blamed for starting a protest. Emails involving the false video story lead directly to the White House and were a coordinated attempt to focus blame on the video rather than on Obama's failed policies. Judicial Watch reported in 2014:
Judicial Watch announced today that on April 18, 2014, it obtained 41 new Benghazi-related State Department documents. They include a newly declassified email showing then-White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes and other Obama administration public relations officials attempting to orchestrate a campaign to “reinforce” President Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy.”  Other documents show that State Department officials initially described the incident as an “attack” and a possible kidnap attempt. The documents were released Friday as result of a June 21, 2013, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the Department of State (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-00951)) to gain access to documents about the controversial talking points used by then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice for a series of appearances on television Sunday news programs on September 16, 2012.  Judicial Watch had been seeking these documents since October 18, 2012.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 01, 2016 17 Comments
Like many leftists in America, leftists in Germany want their country to take in more refugees despite the social and economic issues the country has been dealing with for months. A German right wing party, Alternative for Germany ("AfD"), which opposes increased immigration, is holding a conference this weekend and leftists turned out to protest. The Huffington Post reports:
Left-Wing Protesters Disrupt Anti-Immigration Party Conference In Germany STUTTGART, Germany (Reuters) - German left-wing demonstrators burned tires and hurled fireworks and stones on Saturday in clashes with police and AfD supporters as the right-wing party gathered for its congress near the south-western city of Stuttgart, police said. Some 400 protesters were detained, a police spokesman said.

Posted by Miriam Elman on May 01, 2016 6 Comments
This past week, during the intermediate days of Passover (Chol Hamoed), nearly 900 Israeli Jews, roughly 100 to 300 per day, ascended Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Thousands of tourists also visited the sacred place over the course of the week. The site is the place of the two Jewish Temples in antiquity. It’s considered Judaism’s “holiest of holies” and is treasured by Jews across the planet. [caption id="attachment_136001" align="alignnone" width="600"]The Jewish Temple, replica The Jewish Temple, replica[/caption]

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 01, 2016 79 Comments
I love my husband, but he is one of the "doom-and-gloomers" who insists Hillary Clinton will win in November, and in a landslide if the GOP candidate is Donald Trump. This post is my response to him, and all the other naysayers and pessimists out there I see in social media. There are a myriad of reasons any Republican candidate can win in the end. In light of recent developments in California, however, I would like to focus why Donald Trump specifically can achieve a glorious victory over Hillary Clinton this fall. I promise to prepare another, similar post if the summer conventions generate an alternative electoral battle combination. My case will begin with some remarks my hairstylist made this week, during my regular hair-coloring session.
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