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October 2016

If it's up to the liberal media, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta is just going to have to take a back seat: there's a budding new saint in town, and her name is Michelle Obama. Morning Joe began the canonization process today, beatifying the First Lady for her speech trashing Donald Trump over the stories about his personal behavior that have recently emerged. All the ongoing glorification of Mrs. Obama on the Morning Joe set was leavened with some unintentional humor from Joe Scarborough, who said of the First Lady's speech that "there was nothing calculated about it. This wasn't to help Hillary Clinton." Right. A speech delivered three weeks before the election. At a Hillary Clinton campaign event. At a podium festooned with a 'Clinton-Kaine' banner. But it was strictly "about daughters and mothers and women all across America." Hand another hanky over, will ya?

The United Nation’s cultural body—UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)—passed a resolution in Paris yesterday that challenges both Jewish and Christian ties to Jerusalem’s holy sites. The resolution was passed as Item 25 (titled “Occupied Palestine”) of the provisional agenda for UNESCO Executive Board’s 200th session. The document (full text here) was advanced by the Palestinians along with Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and Sudan. Twenty-four countries voted in favor of the resolution; 26 abstained; and only 6 voted against according to media reports. Those that voted against include: U.S., Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Estonia.

Was it a mistake for Donald Trump's opponents in the Republican primary not to have done oppo research on Trump and uncovered the stories about his personal behavior that have recently emerged? On today's With All Due Respect, Mark Halperin posed the question to GOP consultant Susan Del Percio [who had earlier indicated she wasn't voting for Trump or Hillary]. Del Percio said that, indeed, it was "political malpractice" for Trump's primary opponents not to have done such digging on him. She surmised that the candidates didn't want to spend the money, and were worried that in retaliation Trump would have "chop[ped] them off at the knees." Del Percio suggested that the smarter way to go would have been for an anti-Trump super PAC to have done the research.

While everyone focuses on the presidential election, Judicial Watch reports that the number of "family units' entering the U. S. via Mexico has doubled, and unaccompanied minors entering are up by 52%. Judicial Watch reports:
While the nation is absorbed with presidential election theatrics, the Obama administration continues letting huge amounts of illegal immigrants to pour in through the southern border and the latest figures released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are incredibly chilling. The number of family units apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2016 nearly doubled from the previous year, according to updated information released by the agency. The majority of these illegal border crossers will remain in the country under Obama’s special refugee and family reunification programs.

As LI readers are well-aware, we value and seek to protect the Second Amendment.  A stance, it would seem, Team Hillary rejects.  A Project Veritas release shows Russ Feingold stating that Hillary "might" issue executive orders on guns should she be elected next month. The Washington Free Beacon reports:
Russ Feingold, the former Democratic senator from Wisconsin who is running again in an attempt to win back his old Senate seat, was recorded at a fundraiser saying that Hillary Clinton might issue an executive order on guns. The video was captured by James O’ Keefe’s Project Veritas at an Aug. 17, $2,700 per-head fundraiser held at the Palo-Alto, Calif., home of Democratic donors Amy Rao and Harry Plant. Palo-Alto is located 10 minutes away from Stanford University, where Feingold taught after leaving his position as a special envoy at the U.S. State Department. Feingold can be heard in the video discussing what Hillary Clinton could do in relation to guns if she were to be elected president. “If there’s still Republican control in Congress, and if Hillary is elected, is there anything she can do to uhh…,” a person asks Feingold within the video. “Well, there might be an executive order,” Feingold responds.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) will not prosecute an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employee who had a hand in last year’s massive spill of toxic mine waste that contaminated Colorado's Animas River.
A year-long investigation by the EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the unnamed employee may have broken federal water pollution law and may have made false statements to law enforcement officials regarding the Gold King Mine spill. But after the OIG referred its findings for potential prosecution, the United States Attorney for Colorado, headed by acting U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer, declined last week to pursue the charges, OIG spokesman Jeffrey Lagda said Wednesday. The decision by the Troyer’s office means that no one will be prosecuted as a result of the OIG’s investigation into the incident.

The Wikileaks email dump from campaign chair John Podesta will not help Hillary Clinton put to bed her email scandal. In one chain, campaign members discussed ways to frame her statement about her use of a private email server to evade responsibility and keep the press in the shadows: Hillary Email Statement However, not everyone within the campaign eagerly jumped on the bus to make excuses.

Starting this month, Brown University is hosting a lecture series on the importance of freedom of expression. Anyone who has been following news out of Rhode Island's only Ivy League school for the last few years will appreciate the richness of that. A Brown alum named Rob Montz described the situation in an op-ed at USA Today:
What happened to American universities? On October 11, Brown University is hosting the first in a new series of lectures on the proper balance between “freedom of expression, tolerance, and inclusion” on college campuses.

The decision by the FBI and the Department of Justice not to pursue charges against Hillary Clinton has thrown both federal agencies into a tailspin. James Comey and Loretta Lynch can spin all they want, but average people know they gave Hillary Clinton special treatment, including those average people who work beneath the directors. FOX News reports:
FBI, DOJ roiled by Comey, Lynch decision to let Clinton slide by on emails, says insider The decision to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for mishandling classified information has roiled the FBI and Department of Justice, with one person closely involved in the year-long probe telling FoxNews.com that career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged.

At the presidential debate on Sunday night, Anderson Cooper pressed Donald Trump into committing as to whether Trump had done any of the things (groping, etc.) Trump bragged about on the now infamous Access Hollywood tape. Trump said he never did those things, it was just locker room talk. Ben Shapiro saw what was about to happen -- that the following week Trump's statement would be put to the test: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/785324451592142848 Well, on Wednesday night, within an hour or so of each other, multiple media outlets published separate stories of women accusing Trump of doing the things he bragged about on the tape.

The Obama Administration's foreign policies have lit fires all over the world. Mid-2015, we covered the civil war in Yemen. As a reminder:
The fighting in Yemen pits the Houthis and allied troops loyal to Saleh against southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Sunni Islamic militants and loyalists of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, in September.
Now, one U.S. Navy ship has become the target of a missile attack for the second time in four days.
...The attack was again aimed at the USS Mason, a guided-missile destroyer that also came under fire Sunday night, said Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook. The coastal defense cruise missile was launched at about 6 p.m. from south of the coastal city Al Hudaydah, in an area of western Yemen held by the Houthis. The rebel group pushed the central government out of power in the capital city of Sanaa in 2014, and has resisted U.S.-backed efforts by Saudi Arabia to restore President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power.