Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

August 2016

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 18, 2016 17 Comments
While Louisiana is drying out from its epic flooding, California firefighters are valiantly battling massive wildfires that have erupted throughout the state over the past week.
Here are some of the fires now raging in California:
  • Blue Cut fire: 30,000 acres near the 15 Freeway in Cajon Pass; began Tuesday. 0% contained.
  • Clayton fire: 4,000 acres and 175 structures burned near Clear Lake; 40% contained (as of Wednesday morning); began Saturday.
  • Chimney fire: 7,300 acres and 40 structures destroyed in San Luis Obispo County; 25% contained (as of Wednesday morning); began Saturday.
This is in addition to Soberanes Fire near Big Sur that has closed lanes on a portion of state Highway 1 in Monterey County, blackened over 76,000 acres, damaged or destroyed over 30 homes, and is weeks from full containment. Now, reports are just coming in about another blaze that has forced evacuations about 20 minutes from where I live in San Diego.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 18, 2016 68 Comments
Hillary Clinton claims she has no intention of repealing the Second Amendment and her allies in media regularly dispel such notions as the stuff of conspiracy theories. If you ask her young supporters however, you hear a very different story. Campus Reform reports:
VIDEO: Hillary supporters want to repeal the 2nd Amendment Throughout the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton has been adamant in her support of gun control—an issue that has dominated the national conversation in the wake of terrorist attacks in Orlando, Paris, Nice, and San Bernardino.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 17, 2016 17 Comments
One of the mysteries of the anti-Israel "non-governmental organization" (NGO) movement is the sources of funding. NGO Monitor has done a great job tracking some of the funding particularly for Israeli NGOs, and groups involved in the BDS movement, such as Jewish Voice for Peace. In 2013, NGO Monitor also explored (pdf.) the role of George Soros' foundations, including the Open Society Foundations, in funding a wide range of anti-Israel NGOs. A recent hack of the Open Society Foundations, sheds even more light with documentary evidence of a Soros-funded anti-Israel ecosystem feeding off each other to delegitimize Israel. The Jewish Press reported on the circular nature of the funding. Soros funds groups directly, and other groups that fund other groups. He created an anti-Israel ecosystem:
Jewish Hungarian-American business magnate George Soros, whose company files were hacked by the same outfit that in June hacked the DNC computers, was a major contributor to anti-Israel and anti-Zionist causes, as appears from an archive of leaked documents of the DC Leaks website... The list of groups hostile to Zionism and to the Jewish State that received funds from Soros is very long:

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 17, 2016 5 Comments
Not only has Venezuelan President Nicolas Madura's socialist policies starved people to death, but he has also brought back malaria. The New York Times has reported that desperate times have forced people to seek out gold in watery mines infested with mosquitos, which has led to the malaria resurgence because socialism ruined the economy and the country lacks medicine.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 17, 2016 11 Comments
Since the revelation that the Obama Administration forked over $400 million to Iran in exchange for right around the time American hostages were released, speculation that the cash was a ransom payment has dogged the administration and the Justice Department. Timing is everything, especially in determining what really went down. New reports suggest the $400 million was held until after the Americans were released from Iranian custody, making the whole ordeal look an awful lot like a ransom payment and subsequent prisoner release. The Obama Administration denied the payment was ransom, but said it was part of $1.7 billion settlement from 1979.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 17, 2016 20 Comments
Every now and then, I like to check on the state of reporting as it relates to the Tea Party...for entertainment purposes. I have decided that if any actual fact is offered in the elite media stories, it is purely coincidental. Today's review shows that after over 7 years of independent conservative activism, our elite media is still making rather ludicrous claims. For example, this chestnut from Bloomberg:
The Tea Party was always tragically miscast. The angry oldsters who formed its white-hot core fancied themselves tax protesters. Their self-image was informed, inflamed and more than occasionally exploited by conservative operations ranging from Fox News to FreedomWorks and a phalanx of right-wing grifters who dealt themselves into the action.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 17, 2016 9 Comments
Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson and running mate William Weld has pulled in more than $2.9 million since the beginning of August. From The Wall Street Journal:
The campaign ran an online “money bomb” asking supporters to donate $15 by Aug. 15 with a goal of raising $1.5 million. It reported that more than 90,000 people contributed an average of $32 in support of the Libertarian candidate—nearly double its goal.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 17, 2016 26 Comments
Tell us what you really think, Bill . . . Weekly Standard editor William Kristol has been one of Donald Trump's harshest conservative critics. He really let it hang out on today's Morning Joe, calling Trumpism "a new low" consisting of "Third-World, authoritarian, populist, demagogic politics." Earlier, Kristol sniffed off the significance of the major shake-up in the Trump campaign, in which Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon and consultant Kellyanne Conway have assumed leading roles: "I don't think it matters, because the problem is Donald Trump."

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 17, 2016 4 Comments
Liz Cheney has emerged victorious in a primary election for Wyoming's only House of Representatives seat. Her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, once held the exact same seat. She said:
“No state has been hurt more by Barack Obama’s agenda over the past seven-and-a-half years than Wyoming,” said Cheney.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 17, 2016 47 Comments
We recently reported that some students at Pitzer College placed an ad for a roommate which specifically requested a person of color. The story set off a firestorm in academia and media as some people wondered if this qualified as racism. Two of the students involved have commented on the story. One claims it's impossible for him to be racist and the other says she just wanted to create a safe space. From AOL News:
Students seeking non-white roommate spark nationwide debate For some college kids, trying to land the perfect roomie can be a complete fail. That's why two students at Pitzer College in California decided to recruit a fourth roommate using Facebook. But, after listing "POC Only" as one of the requirements social media critics gave them a lesson on discrimination.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 17, 2016 7 Comments
Imagine that a Republican state attorney general had been forced to resign after being convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. Now imagine how the story would have been played on MSNBC. Fair to assume that the word "Republican" would have featured in the story's first sentence? But in a stand-alone segment on today's Hardball on the forced resignation of Kathleen Kane, the Pennsylvania AG who was convicted on nine charges, host Chris Matthews failed to ever mention, and the screen graphics never revealed, that Kane is a Democrat. Kane had illegally leaked secret grand jury documents to harm a rival prosecutor, then lied about it under oath.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 17, 2016 74 Comments
Numerous news outlets are reporting that Donald Trump has shifted leadership of his campaign, and named Breitbart News Chairman Steve Bannon and pollster Kellyanne Conway as de facto leaders of his campaign. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news:
Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, an outspoken Trump supporter and a former Goldman Sachs banker, will assume the new position of campaign chief executive. At the same time, Mr. Trump also is promoting Kellyanne Conway, a veteran GOP pollster and strategist, to become campaign manager. Ms. Conway has been a campaign adviser for several weeks. Longtime Republican operative Paul Manafort, who joined the campaign late in the primary season, remains campaign chairman. But the reset is designed to bulk up a structure that many Republicans have complained wasn’t adequate for the rigors of the general-election campaign.... “I want to win,” Mr. Trump said in an interview Tuesday night in which he disclosed his hires. “That’s why I’m bringing on fantastic people who know how to win and love to win.”
WaPo added:

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 17, 2016 9 Comments
The FBI has sent over some of the classified documents and notes from their untaped interview for their Hillary Clinton investigation to the House Oversight Committee in order to understand why Director James Comey did not recommend charges against her. However, Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz said the FBI heavily redacted the majority of the documents:
“As the chairman of the chief investigative body in the House, it is significant I can’t even read these documents in their entirety,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah told Fox News. “This shows how dangerous it was to have this intelligence, highly classified to this day, on the former secretary’s unsecured personal server where it was vulnerable.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 16, 2016 3 Comments
I have been searching for evidence that supporters of the academic boycott of Israel will now launch an academic boycott of Turkey in light of the widespread purge of Turkish academia after the failed coup, destruction of civil society including the judiciary and media, suppression of Kurdish self-determination, and complicity in the Syrian civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands, among other offenses. But so far, no luck in my search, just some hot air by American academics expressing outrage: That purge now has passed 5,300 employees of Turkish higher ed, as reported by Inside Higher Ed:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 16, 2016 78 Comments
Electoral success is looking bleak for Republican nominee Donald Trump and his supporters. Among the conventional poll-reading wisdom is that trends, not individual polls, provide for a more accurate overview. Despite his headline popularity and ability to pull around 30% in primary elections, Trump has never polled consistently well against Democratic contender Hillary Clinton.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 16, 2016 6 Comments
President Barack Obama transferred 15 Guantanamo Bay prisoners to the United Arab Emirates, making it the largest transfer in his time in office. He sent 12 Yemenis and three Afghans to the Middle East country, leaving only 61 prisoners in the Cuba base. Gitmo had 242 prisoners when Obama took office in 2009.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 16, 2016 10 Comments
The more than 800,000 Americans who purchase their insurance from one of Aetna's exchange plans will be out of luck once this year is over. Health insurance giant Aetna announced late Monday evening that they would be scaling back their Obamacare exchange offerings to a paltry four states. The reason? Losses amounting to more than $430 million.
MORE POSTS
Accessibility by WAH