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Author: Fuzzy Slippers

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Fuzzy Slippers

I am a constitutional conservative, a writer, and an editor.

Follow me on Twitter @fuzislippers

Apparently, some distant relative of Obama was among the scientists who discovered a new flatworm and decided to name it Baracktrema obamai. Popular Science reports: A new species of blood fluke was found infecting the lungs of turtles in Malaysia. This parasitic flatworm has been dubbed Baracktrema...

So far, we've had numerous terrorist attacks on our soil since 9/11, and several stand out as particularly horrific:  the Fort Hood terror attack, the Boston bombing, San Bernardino, and Orlando.  As a result of the felt increase in terror attacks on our own soil, Americans feel less safe from terrorism. According to Pew Research, a full 40% of the American public now feel that the ability of terrorists to launch a major attack is greater than it was on 9/11.  This is the highest this number has been in 14 years.
Currently, 40% of the public says that the ability of terrorists to launch another major attack on the United States is greater than it was at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which is the highest share expressing this view over the past 14 years. About a third (31%) say terrorists’ abilities to attack are the same as at the time of 9/11, while just 25% say their ability to initiate a major attack is less than at that time.
Pew attributes this growth to . . . Republicans.
The latest national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted Aug. 23-Sept. 2 among 1,201 adults, finds that the growth in the belief that terrorists are now better able to launch a major strike on the U.S. has come almost entirely among Republicans. Today, 58% of Republicans view the ability of terrorists to attack as greater than at the time of 9/11, up 18 percentage points since November 2013.

As Hillary's numbers drop and Democrats scratch their heads as they try to figure out why she's not miles ahead of Trump, Hillary demonstrates one of the many qualities that make her unpalatable to American voters:  her contempt for them. Like Kerry and Obama before her, Hillary just cannot contain her distaste for a large number of Americans.  At a fundraiser, she declared that half of Trump's supporters belong in a "basket of deplorables." NBC News reports:
Hillary Clinton urged supporters late Friday not to be complacent about Donald Trump's chances of winning the election, saying half of his backers were "desperate for change" but the other half belonged in a "basket of deplorables." Appearing at an LGBT gala fundraiser where Barbra Streisand performed, she said many of the GOP candidate's voters were "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it."
Watch:

According to a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of local, state, and federal government workers in the U. S. exceeds the number of those working in the manufacturing sector by almost 10 million. CNS reports:
Government employees in the United States outnumber manufacturing employees by 9,932,000, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Federal, state and local government employed 22,213,000 people in August, while the manufacturing sector employed 12,281,000.

Brexit has caused quite the kerfuffle among the countries of the European Union (EU), and amid the dire warnings of lasting DOOOM!, the Polish Finance Minister notes that Brexit shows that the EU is not the only option for the nations of Europe. CNBC reports:
The U.K.'s Brexit vote may have changed attitudes to the European Union across the continent, Polish Finance Minister Pawel Szalamacha told CNBC Friday, adding that the decision showed that the EU is "no longer the only choice for the nations of Europe." Szalamacha suggested that more countries could be prompted to leave the 28-nation bloc, such as those "with a strong sense of identity, some of the Nordic countries," or even some countries who may "feel that their destiny … is no longer within their hands." He added, "I don't think it's a sensible policy just to rely on the decisions of the major international players," not least because "some policy mistakes were committed."
Szalamacha goes on to say he supports decentralizing the EU's power base in Brussels so that countries can have more control over their own economies and markets.

In July, Germany passed a new law that "requires" the integration of the over one million refugees who've flooded into Germany in recent years.  The plan includes subsidized classes in how to act like a civilized human being, a requirement to learn German, and temporary lifting of the requirement that immigrants can only be offered jobs if there is no German or EU worker for the position. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Angela Merkel is still clinging to her integration pipe dream.  In an interview with Germany's BILD newspaper, Merkel explains that integration can include things like providing a simple explanation of how things are done in Germany. Business Insider reports:
BILD: What we did indeed manage is primary help for over one million people. The bigger challenge is yet to come: how do we integrate that many people from an entirely different culture, after having failed, to a large degree, in many aspects of this task over the past decades? Merkel: Fortunately, we have learned a lot from the past, primarily that language is the key to successful integration. The younger people are, the easier it is for integration to succeed. It is worth facing this effort. I would like to use the opportunity to thank everybody who is working towards the success of this integration. This is not only the state authorities, but primarily the countless associations, initiatives, and voluntary helpers.

Having made a complete laughingstock of herself with her demands for "muscle" to help her remove student journalists filming her on campus, open air BLM protest rally, the world's most famous red-headed professor, Melissa Click, has landed a job at Gonzaga University. KREM2 reports:
A former University of Missouri professor who was fired after video surfaced of her yelling at a student during a protest has a new job at Gonzaga University. Gonzaga hired former MU professor Melissa Click for a one-year, non-tenure track position as a lecturer in Gonzaga's undergraduate Communication Studies Department.
The Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Gonzaga University explained the decision to hire Click.

One of my favorite articles not published at LI this year is the New York Times piece flummoxed by and bemoaning the fact that Obama's calls for gun control go nowhere and serve only to increase gun sales. Here's an excerpt:
More guns were sold in December [2015] than almost any other month in nearly two decades, continuing a pattern of spikes in sales after terrorist attacks and calls for stricter gun-buying laws, according to federal data released in January. The heaviest sales last month, driven primarily by handgun sales, followed a call from President Obama to make it harder to buy assault weapons after the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif.

Back in May, I wrote about Harry Reid being "fairly certain" that Democrats can retake the Senate this year.  He has reason to be fairly certain in part because Republicans are defending far more Senate seats than Democrats: "Democrats need five Senate seats to retake the Senate, and while it’s not a lock, things don’t look good for Republicans who are defending 24 seats to the Democrats’ 10." Watch Bret Baier's overview: With the Senate hanging by a thread this November and the high stakes involved in losing it to the Democrats, we've been paying close attention to the Senate races across the country. The Florida primaries are on Tuesday, and judging by the way Marco Rubio (R) and Patrick Murphy (D) are running their campaigns, they are each confident they will win their respective races.

When Obama took office, our national debt was $10.6 trillion; as of today, it stands at over $19 trillion.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has issued a report that states our national debt will reach $28.2 trillion over the next ten years. The Washington Free Beacon reports:
Outstanding federal debt is projected to hit $28.2 trillion over the next decade, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office. At the end of this year, outstanding federal debt is expected to climb to $19.4 trillion and to rise by $8.8 trillion in the next ten years. The federal government’s budget deficit, which is the difference between how much money the government spends and how much money it takes in through tax collection, will be $590 billion by the end of 2016, $152 billion more than the previous year. Government spending is projected to increase by 5 percent, or $178 billion, while government revenue is projected to increase by less than 1 percent, or $26 billion.

Despite concerns that Prime Minister Theresa May will not uphold the June 23rd Brexit vote, it doesn't look like she is willing to let a three-ring circus develop in which protesters tout bogus climate change links to Brexit or equally bogus claims of economic doom. The Telegraph is reporting that she will invoke Article 50—the mechanism outlined in the Lisbon Treaty for leaving the European Union—without a vote in the Commons, thus denying the "Remain" supporters the opportunity to block or delay Brexit. The Telegraph reports:
Theresa May will not hold a parliamentary vote on Brexit before opening negotiations to formally trigger Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, The Telegraph has learned. Opponents of Brexit claim that because the EU referendum result is advisory it must be approved by a vote in the Commons before Article 50 - the formal mechanism to leave the EU - is triggered. However, in a move which will cheer Eurosceptics, The Telegraph has learned that Mrs May will invoke Article 50 without a vote in Parliament

In a move that is being hailed as cementing his conservation legacy, Obama has, with the stroke of his pen, expanded a national marine monument off the coast of Hawaii to over 582,578 square miles.  This move will, however, destroy commercial fishing and potential drilling and mineral collection in a vast expanse of our waters. The Hill reports:
President Obama on Friday morning created a massive national monument off the coast of his native Hawaii, the world’s largest protected area. The declaration expands more than threefold the size of the Papahānaumokuāke Marine National Monument, surrounding the outlying northwestern Hawaiian islands. The move in Obama’s final months further cements his legacy of using unilateral executive authority to protect far more land and water as national monuments than any other president.

As Germany's Angela Merkel faces increasing pressure regarding her nation's security, the German government has issued a civil defense report addressing the role the German people are to play. Reuters reports:
For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the German government plans to tell citizens to stockpile food and water in case of an attack or catastrophe, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper reported on Sunday. Germany is currently on high alert after two Islamist attacks and a shooting rampage by a mentally unstable teenager last month. Berlin announced measures earlier this month to spend considerably more on its police and security forces and to create a special unit to counter cyber crime and terrorism.

Here at LI, we've been covering the various attempts by the left to use global warming climate change as an excuse for everything from a falsely predicted "bee-pocalypse" to #Brexit to the rise of ISIS (or is that vice versa?). Bored with pointing out how climate change is responsible for everything bad in the world, some progressives have switched over to urging population control in the name of their "settled" science.  This time it's not an intellectual exercise, it's being "taught" by Johns Hopkins' Travis Rieder. NPR reports:
Standing before several dozen students in a college classroom, Travis Rieder tries to convince them not to have children. Or at least not too many. He's at James Madison University in southwest Virginia to talk about a "small-family ethic" — to question the assumptions of a society that sees having children as good, throws parties for expecting parents, and in which parents then pressure their kids to "give them grandchildren." Why question such assumptions? The prospect of climate catastrophe.

An advertisement on Facebook for a roommate has sparked a debate about race at a California college that has, in turn, become a national dialogue about race. The Washington Post reports:
In most respects, the roommate-wanted notice seemed routine. Three students at the Claremont colleges in Southern California were looking for a fourth this summer to join them in an off-campus house. They added a caveat in parentheses: “POC only,” they said, using a common abbreviation for people of color. When a classmate challenged that condition, the Pitzer College student who posted the notice on Facebook pushed back. “It’s exclusive [because] I don’t want to live with any white folks,” wrote Karé Ureña, who is black. To some, Ureña’s request was completely understandable following a racially charged year when many students of color had demanded more support from the administration. To others, it was simple racism to exclude potential roommates based on skin color. The thread fit into the heated discussions about race, identity, culture, freedom of speech and campus “safe spaces” that have played out at colleges across the country, from Yale to Missouri and beyond.

The progressive left is apparently intent on confusing and traumatizing children when it comes to "gender identity."  The latest example of this mission is a unicorn coloring exercise in which children are asked to color their unicorn to match the gender they "feel" is their own. The Washington Free Beacon reports:
“Gender Unicorns” that kids can color in to express their “gender identity” are now being distributed in schools across the country. A transgender advocacy group is providing schools with the cartoon of a purple unicorn who appears to be thinking about the LGBT rainbow, causing outrage from parents. . . . The group, Trans Student Educational Resources, says the Gender Unicorn is an upgrade from the “Genderbread Person,” another cartoon graphic about gender identity targeting children.
The gender unicorn coloring page:

Chaos, violence, and looting erupted in Milwaukee late Saturday night following the shooting of an armed suspect by police. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:
A standoff between police and an angry crowd turned violent Saturday night in the hours after a Milwaukee police officer shot and killed an armed suspect during a foot chase on the city's north side. After an hours-long confrontation with officers, police reported at 10:15 p.m. that a gas station at N. Sherman Blvd. and W. Burleigh St. was set on fire. Police said firefighters could not for a time get close to the blaze because of gunshots. Later, fires were started at businesses — including a BMO Harris Bank branch, a beauty supply company and O'Reilly Auto Parts stores — near N. 35th and W. Burleigh streets.
Watch as the violence unfolds:

Here at LI, we've been covering the various progressive attempts to pass anti-Second Amendment legislation at the state and federal levels. While gun "control" advocates from the White House down are "disappointed" that there hasn't been more progress in this area, they are signalling a change in tactics.  The representatives of the people in Washington won't move on guns, so they are taking the case to the American people via the ballot box. The Hill reports:
Stymied on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures, supporters of stricter gun control measures are taking their cause to the ballot box. Voters in four states will decide ballot measures relating to gun control this November. In Maine and Nevada, voters will decide whether to expand background check requirements to include private gun sales. In Washington, voters will decide whether to take guns out of the hands of people who are subject to extreme risk protection orders, which include restraining orders and people at risk of suicide. And in California, voters will decide whether to ban the possession of large-capacity magazines. The California measure, Proposition 63, would also require individuals to pass a background check before purchasing ammunition.