Monthly Archives: November 2015

Disappointment

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And enthusiasm. Here’s an interesting remark in Colleen McCain Nelson’s and Peter Nicholas’ piece in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal concerning Vice President Joe Biden’s supporters, donors, and then-potential donors and their possible support for the remaining Democratic Party Presidential candidates:

Many of them face a Bidenesque gut check: will they be able to commit heart and soul to their new candidate?

Because their remaining choices are Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, and folding their money and putting it back in their pockets against a future day with better candidates.

The gut check may well be limited to the primary season. Jon Cooper, the Draft Biden Finance Chairman, said:

It would be nice if I felt passionate about a candidate, and right now I’m not feeling the passion. There’s a lot I like about Bernie Sanders, a lot I like about Hillary Clinton. Whether I get excited enough about any of the campaigns to devote time and energy during the primary is the question. And right now it’s not happening.

Still, money not raised during the primaries is money not available at the start of the general campaign.

Iran: Other Countries Mustn’t Dictate Syria’s Political Future

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Iranian officials say it is up to the Syrian people to decide whether he stays in power as part of any peace settlement.

The Syrian people have decided. But here is Iran, with Russian help, dictating at gunpoint that the Syrian people must accept the Iranian/Russian decreed government, the government against which the Syrian people have been rebelling these last several years.

“Other countries mustn’t dictate Syria’s political future.” No, Iran has reserved that task to itself.

What HRC Knew

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…about blaming the murders of our Ambassador in Libya and three of his security team on a video at the time she was busily blaming those murders on that video….

An email was sent from her Libyan Embassy to her State Department shortly after those murders. Of course, the email’s sender and recipient(s) have been carefully redacted by John Kerry’s State Department.

The film’s not as explosive of an issue here as it appears to be in other countries in the region. And it is becoming increasingly clear that the series of events in Benghazi was much more terrorist attack than a protest, which escalated into violence.

It is our opinion that in our messaging, we want to distinguish, not conflate, the events in other countries with this well planned attack by militant extremists.

Two days later, then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice did her trick on five Sunday news/talk shows claiming the video made the “protestors” do it.

Remember this duplicity in a year.

Religious Bigotry in our High Schools

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Bremerton, WA, High School football assistant coach Joe Kennedy has been suspended from coaching his high school football teams because after each game he leads a voluntary prayer session with his players and others wishing to join in at the 50 yard line.

The school district says it’s afraid of being seen as endorsing religion. It prefers, instead, to be seen as banning religion.

While the district appreciates Kennedy’s many positive contributions to the [Bremerton] football program, Kennedy’s conduct poses a genuine risk that the district will be liable for violating the federal and state constitutional rights of students or others[.]

This is plainly bogus. No one is forced to participate in the prayer sessions. They occur after school functions—like the football game—have ended. According to the players themselves, he doesn’t even invite them to participate: he just does his thing, and the players on their own initiative join in. Or don’t.

It gets…better. As part of Kennedy’s suspension, Superintendent Aaron Leavell told him what else he’s not allowed to do.

He was also ordered to avoid kneeling, bowing his head, or doing anything that could remotely be seen as religious.

And

Leavell had offered to let the coach engage in “private prayer” following the football games—provided no child could see the coach petitioning the Almighty[.]

Because Christianity and being Christian are such shameful things, apparently, that they need to be kept hidden away in a back bedroom.

It’s interesting, too, that Kennedy has been doing these private, voluntary prayer sessions since 2008, yet “the school district” says it only just noticed them.

That’s such blatant nonsense that it’s a clear indication of the level of integrity with which the district is approaching this problem which it’s created.