“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” Einstein.
Those of us who actually pay attention know that Obama’s commitment to the truth is weak indeed. But, this post is dedicated to some commentary on a number of items in the news recently. I can get in to his lack of honesty later. Here are a few things that have dominated the headlines of late:
1). Cecil the lion. The killing of Cecil aroused world-wide condemnation of the US dentist who offed this apex predator and it really went over the top. The lion was routinely called “beloved” by the press. Really? I doubt few ever heard of the beast. Nonetheless, the method used to lure him out of the protected National Park and take him was a bit sketchy on the “fair chase” hunting ethics scale and certainly the responsibility of the guide who organized the hunt. Part of the horror at poor Cecil’s “murder” stems from most people’s belief that Cec is like the lion in the Lion King and The Wizard of Oz, gentile beasts just trying to get along. He was a subject of research and not a pet. I am a hunter but I do not understand the desire to shoot a lion. Notwithstanding, it is legal and he paid a big sum to do it. I think death threats on the dentist from all over the world is craziness.
2). Greed. The Seattle Teachers Association decided to go on strike last week, the day classes were supposed to start. This is typical union behavior, designed to put the maximum pain on parents who have to scramble to find day care for the kids. Let’s also remember that it is ILLEGAL FOR TEACHERS TO STRIKE in the first place. The union is supposed to fined $100,000 per day but what usually happens in these deals is that the fines are forgiven in the settlements and the teachers receive their pay for not teaching during the strike. The teachers were already scheduled to receive a 3% raise from the additional funding granted to education but the teachers are demanding an additional 18%. They also want less evaluations of teachers and less testing of students. They don’t want their failure to be exposed and they don’t want their monopoly challenged. For example, the legislature authorized charter schools in the state. The local and national teachers union sued and the Supreme Court declared charter schools unconstitutional. Turns out that the 9 justices had all received the maximum contributions from the teachers unions for their election campaigns. Coincidence? I think the governor and the superintendent should open the schools with volunteers and non-union teachers and jail the top officials in the teachers union until they accept the generous offer they already have on the table. Starting pay for teachers in Seattle is $50,000 and the average salary is $67,124. The median salary for Seattle residents is $40,000.
3). Black Lives Matter. This outfit that is promoting violence against the police is an offshoot of the Hands Up, Don’t Shoot movement which stemmed from the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. The rumor that Brown had his hands up and was in the process of surrendering when officer Wilson shot him is a lie. The Justice Department’s investigation certified that fact. As that realization took the steam out of the HUDS movement the more radical of the group morphed into the Black Lives Matter group. The number of police officers killed in the line of duty jumped 89% from 2013 to 2014. This war on the police promoted by the BLM movement has resulted in the police withdrawing from active policing in the high crime ghetto areas of major US cities. The tragic outcome of that is the murder rate in 35 cities has skyrocketed with Milwaukee leading the way with a 76% increase. ( St. Louis 60% and Baltimore 50% all according to the NY Times.) Of course, these are mostly blacks shooting other blacks. If black lives really matter why does this group promote the killing of police officers and not the epidemic of blacks shooting each other?
4). Hillary’s Email Scandal. Why did the supposedly “smartest woman in America” think she could get away with conducting State Department business on her personal email system? Answer: Because she’s been getting away with this shit for decades. It’s not clear if she can bob and weave enough to survive and become the Democrat nominee for President. It was once considered inevitable but now the power brokers may decide she’s too damaged and opt for Biden instead. I doubt that they will permit Sanders to get it. He seems like a wild haired, spittle flinging lunatic grandfather that somehow escaped from the attic.
5). Obama’s Trip to Alaska. This photo op visit was to sell the global warming myth via the press in advance of the Pope’s visit and to drum up support for the World Climate Summit to be held in Paris in late November and early December. Exhibit A on this litany of impending doom was a visit to the Exit Glacier and how it has been receding. True enough. Missing from the discussion, however, is the fact that it has been doing so since 1815. Obama and the press did not visit the Hubbard Glacier that has been growing and increasing in mass for decades or any of the other eight Alaskan glaciers that are doing the same. Nor was there talk about the Mendenhall Glacier and the U. of Alaska’s finding perfectly preserved massive trees that have been exposed as that glacier recedes. Similar evidence of a much warmer period are found in the retreating Tschierva Glacier in Switzerland’s Alps where evidence of huge trees has been found. Evidence reported in Spiegal Online suggests that 7,000 years ago the Alps were entirely glacier free and it’s likely that when Hannibal crossed the Alps in 218 BC he never saw one. Many true believers in global warming will say, “See, it’s getting warmer. This proves it.” No, what it proves is that over time it gets warmer and colder with no help from man and will do it no matter what we do. It’s plain stupid to destroy the economy to try to prevent it. Besides, many scientists point out that the sun has gone into a very inactive phase and that means we are entering into what may be a long term cooling phase.
6). The Iran Deal. The question that comes to my mind is “Why is he doing this?” Despite the BS coming out of the White House, this deal makes absolutely no sense. How can you trust the ayatollahs that run the Iran dictatorship? Even as Obama was out selling the deal to the public, they Iranians were in the streets chanting “Death to America!” The terms of the deal are absurd. The sanctions will be lifted upon its signing, not on verification that they are actually abiding by the terms. They will receive $100 billion dollars immediately so they can buy conventional weapons from Russia and continue to fund world-wide terrorism. It guarantees they will have a nuclear weapon within 10 years or sooner and will likely rule the middle east in the near future. Quite a large number of people believe that the reason Obama did this deal and much of his other behavior comes from his Muslim beliefs. What is really baffling is why the Democrat senators are backing the deal. Chuck Schumer gets no credit for voting against it because the partisan Democrats knew they had the votes to pass it without him. History will judge them harshly when the Iranians start brandishing their missiles. No, Mr. President, climate change is not the greatest threat to humanity; it’s rogue nations armed with nuclear weapons and ruled by crazy dictators. Example one is North Korea soon to be joined by Iran.
7). The Syrian refuge crisis. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are invading Europe. Yes, invading. And the Muslim invasion is going to hasten the demographic collapse of European societies. The cause of this mass migration is the civil war in Syria and the rise of the barbarian ISIS war in Iraq and Syria. The root cause of this is the failure of Obama and the Europeans to band together and stamp out the dictator Assad for his mass killing of those who opposed his regime and the half-hearted war on ISIS. Obama drew a red line on Assad …. he warned if he used chemical weapons on his own people that the US would act. Nope. Obama did nothing. The massively destructive war against the Syria people continued and they started to flee. In addition to the monumental task of absorbing all these destitute people and the consequences of a huge Muslim influx changing the demographic character of their society, a vast number of these refugees are young Muslim men who may be sent by the terrorists. It’s a huge risk and I applaud PM Harper for resisting those who call for allowing massive numbers of these migrants into Canada without knowing who these folks really are.