Opuscula Obama to trample Governors', citizens' Rights to security?

 

VIOLATING STATES RIGHTS has long been a favorite pastime of the Federal government.

A war that claimed approximately 620,000 soldiers lives in America's most costly war.

Since Mr. Lincoln's war the individual states - all states, not just those in the Confederacy, have kowtowed to the Federal government in fear of invasion by Federal troops. Some battles - such as the 55 mph national speed law - simply were not worth fighting; some were state-specific and no state could defend against the Federal's overwhelming power.

Perhaps for the first time since 1865, the states may once again consider standing up to Federal fiat.

THE ISSUE MORE THAN HALF of the states are having now with the Executive Branch is admission of Syrian "refugees" into the U.S.

Do the governors have the right to tell the Executive that they won't accept Syrian 'refugees" within their state's borders.

The Executive claims that only "women and children" will be allowed in and that all those applying for refugee status will be vigorously vetted to assure all are really "refugees" and not terrorists.

The governors reply that one of the Muslim terrorists who murders more than 100 French citizens and a few non-French as well, was allowed into France as a refugee. Are the French more open than the U.S.?

There IS a precedent for rejecting refugees.

The St. Louis, a German ship with more than 900 Jewish refugees from Hitler, was prevented from off-loading its passengers at any U.S. port.

Apologists for the Roosevelt administration contend that claims that FDR cared nothing for the Jews or their plight argue that FDR made arrangements with Latin American countries to accept the passengers FDR apparently thought unworthy to step on American shores.


Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, FDR’s man in the State Department, asked all U.S. ambassadors in Latin America to communicate the administration’s interest in providing places of refuge for persecuted Jews. Perhaps as a quid pro quo, Batista won the administration’s agreement to reduce the tariff on Cuban sugar and to back economic, technical, and military assistance to his government. When the Jews arrived in Cuba, Batista rejected the Jews visas and prevented their residence on the island.

Meanwhile, in the U.S.' western states, first and second generation Japanese-Americans were herded into concentration camps as potential enemy agents, even when some of the internees' kin were fighting for America. Not so German-Americans, even members of the Nazi Bund in the U.S. (The Japanese looked different, ergo their "relocation" to camps.)

It's possible that there would be LESS resistance if the Executive agreed to house the Syrian "refugees" in camps similar to the ones in which it forced America's own citizens to endure for the duration of WW2, camps surrounded by fences and barbed wire and patrolled by armed soldiers.

Americans are doubly concerned.

First the Executive has shown a marked inability to recognize Muslim terrorism. Second, it has failed to show any leadership in dealing with national security. Now it basically is asking Americans to "trust" it as it on one hand promotes acceptance of 10,000 Syrian "refugees" and on the other besmirches those who express reservations.

"Apparently they (Republicans) are scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America," he said later. "At first, they were too scared of the press being too tough on them in the debates. Now they are scared of 3-year-old orphans. That doesn't seem so tough to me." CNN

According to a CBS report, Obama said it takes 18 to 24 months to clear a refugee for entry, following vetting by the U.S. intelligence community and other agencies as well as biometrics.

This begs the question: Are these "refugees" already vetted and Obama was hoping to make their admission into the U.S. a fait accompli, or are the 10,000 waiting to start the vetting process, and it so, - given all the armies marshaled against Daesh (ISIL/ISIS) does he think it will take that long to drive Daesh out of Syria and reinstall a government, one he helped to bring down with his "Arab Spring"?

Opuscula Careless editors

 

ONE OF MY FAVORITE PLACES is the local lending library.

I've been a library fan since first grade at Benjamin Harrison PS #2 in Indianapolis IN. The main library still is where is was back in 1949, but PS #2 has been torn down and replaced with a smaller school - or perhaps the size difference is just the different perspectives - a first grader vs. a not-getting-any-younger adult.

Anyway, being retired I read a lot of books, typically 5 or 6 a week.

More and more I encounter sloppy editing and, in at least one author's case, an "I don't care if it's wrong" attitude.

I just finished a good yarn; not great since I could, and did, put it down from time to time to do other retiree things. The action took place from World War 2 and continued for perhaps 20 years.

After setting the stage, there were no other identifiable dates in the novel.

Toward the end of the story there are several occasions when Our Hero encounters cops with flashing red and blue lights on their vehicles.

What's wrong with that?

Until recently, the only "blue light special" was at Kmart; emergency vehicles used red lights only; "gum ball machines" mounted on the vehicle roof or, in the case of California cops - and perhaps others - a red lens over the car's spotlight.

I've lived all over the U.S. and until about 1970 or 1980, all emergency lights were red.

But this author/editor combo had red-and-blue flashing lights on emergency vehicles well before then. (The scenes were in rural Texas and the cops were the county variety.)

The author of the "I don't care" book wrote that the university from which my #1 son graduated was situated, by the author, roughly 300 miles from its actual location. I once lived near the school and I now live where the author incorrectly placed the school. (She got suckered by the school's name, a true misnomer. Still, if the author failed to know where the school is located, the editor should have done some basic fact checking.)

I'm not writing that over my years as a reporter I never made a mistake, but I was blessed with editors who caught most of the errors and "encouraged" me to go back and check what I thought were facts.

On the bright side, not only do I read the books for pleasure, I get double the fun finding obvious errors.

I truly love the my local lending library.

Opuscula Only Muslims Can end Muslim terrorism

 

ALTHOUGH THE FOOL IN THE WHITE HOUSE declared Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) "contained," someone forgot to tell the Muslim terrorists who populate Daesh - and similar organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, and 40-plus other Islamic groups that continue to attack anyone not with them (and sometimes, as in the case of Daesh and Hezbollah, even one another).

The ONLY people who can defeat Daesh et al are Muslims themselves. The question is: Are there enough Muslims brave enough to stand against Daesh and its ilk? So far, the answer seems to be a resounding "NO!"

WHY BECOME A TERRORIST?

Does anyone remember any of the following home grown terrorists groups?

Army of God
Aryan Nations
Black Liberation Army
Black Panther Party
Creativity Movement nee' World Church of the Creator (WCOTC)
Crips & Bloods
Earth Liberation Front (ELF)
Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
National Alliance
Phineas Priesthood
Symbionese Liberation Army
Weathermen

Note: Where possible, I provided links to the groups' home pages so readers can see the groups' "philosophies" for themselves.

Most of the groups above were populated by young people who wanted to "make a change"; they wanted to "be involved" with improving - they thought - the world, or at least their local environment. They wanted, and in the groups they found, "a cause." They also found a society of like-minded people. Their leaders usually are charismatic; the followers like the children in the Piped Piper of Hamlin found something agreeable - in the terrorists' case, an opportunity to "change things" - and took up the cause.

Throughout history, the "cause" for many was ill-gotten gain, e.g., many of the Crusaders who pillaged and murdered innocents on their way to the Holy Land..

Many of the foregoing groups either are passé or a laughing stock simply because Americans loudly rejected their hateful beliefs. Some had, or at least claimed to initially have, a reason to exist, but the reason was soon forgotten as the targets of their obsessions changed.

The point is that the ONLY people who can being change to the Muslim terrorists are Muslims themselves. They must want Islam to be the "peaceful religion" many claim it to be and they must be prepared to counter the extremists among them.

Until that happens, whenever someone sees an "obvious" Muslim - obvious by their apparel or presence at a Muslim site - the Muslim will be looked upon with suspicion and, possibly, hatred justified by the Muslim's silence in face of the terrorists in their midst.

If "moderate" Muslims in the U.S. want to avoid the "Muslim stigma," they must be both vocal and visible in protesting Muslim terrorists' activities around the world, be they against non-Muslims or other Muslims.

Until that happens in America, non-Muslim Americans will look on all Muslims as if they are terrorists ready to strike.

That is the logic generated by Muslim terrorists.

 

Other articles on terrorist groups, domestic and foreign

10 Terrorist Organizations Operating In The US
6 modern-day Christian terrorist groups our media conveniently ignores
DHS intelligence report warns of domestic right-wing terror threat
Militant Extremists in the United States
FBI testimony on terrorism
Today's most-wanted domestic terrorists

Opuscula Obama won't say "Muslim terrorists"

Wonder why?

 

WITH FRANCE STILL BURYING its dead after the second Muslim terrorist attack (the first coming in January 2015 when Muslim terrorists attacked the Charlie Hebdo satire magazine and a kosher market, killing 17 and wounding 22), the president of the United States denounced the shooting and bombing assaults in Paris on Friday that killed 129 people and a double suicide bombing in Ankara on October 10 that claimed 102 lives

The president noted that “The killing of innocent people based on a twisted ideology is an attack not just on France, not just on Turkey but it is an attack on the civilized world,” according to a Times of Israel wrap up of several wire reports.

But the president, with a fundamental Muslim grounding as a child, cannot bring himself to call the attackers what they are: Muslim terrorists.

The U.S. president also cannot bring himself to admit that the daily acts of terror on Israeli citizens of all ages also is perpetrated by Muslim terrorists.

But given his upbringing, it is not surprising that the continuing murder of a few Jews fails to generate any condemnation of the Muslim terrorists.

I will be the first to admit that not all Muslims are terrorists and while the media rarely notes when a "moderate Muslim is embarrassed by the acts of Muslim terrorists, it seems most Muslims either are ambivalent or silently support their murdering fellow Muslims.

Now the U.S. president is proposing to import refugees from Syria for humanitarian reasons.

Surely no one can fault him for that.

The problem is: Who can vet each immigrant during a mass immigration?

Will the refugees be delayed entry visas into the U.S. as are Israeli citizens? Will they be allowed free run of the country as the thousands of illegal aliens - sorry, undocumented immigrants enjoy? The U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can't keep track of the intruders - invaders - we have now; how does the president expect ICE to monitor hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Syrians, some of whom will be Muslim terrorists, entering the country in the guise of refugees? Or did he even consider this?

Let the predominately Muslim countries absorb the refugees. According to Wikipedia, there are 43 countries with Muslim populations of 75% or greater, with another eight (8) with Muslim populations of 50% or greater. (Only Vatican City has 0% Muslim population.) The U.S. has approximately 2.6 million Muslims making up more than 0.8% of the population.

As an aside, when Jews were trying to escape certain death in Europe, the United States refused entry to hundreds, sending them to their deaths at the hands of the Germans and their allies.

Even discussing Daesh, a/k/a ISIL/ISIS, the president cannot call a terrorist a terrorist if the terrorist is a Muslim.

We will redouble our efforts working with other members of the coalition to bring about a peaceful transition in Syria and to eliminate Daesh as a force that can create so much pain and suffering for people in Paris and Ankara and other parts of the globe,” Obama said.

If Daesh is not a Muslim terrorist organization then neither are Hezbollah, Hamas, Boko Haram, or any of the other 50-plus organizations - primarily Muslim - on the U.S. State Department's Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

But the president can't bring himself to say the words: Muslim terrorists.

Opuscula Political Correctness Run Amok

 

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS in the U.S. has hit a new high in lows.

The "it's not yet Thanksgiving" holiday madness has begun and with it the "I'll take offense to anything" folks have found at least two items to rail against; one offensive to some Jews and "protectors of Jews" and the other offensive to those who celebrate Christmas - and those others, mostly Jews, who rush to sympathize (not empathize.)

A TALE OF TWO STORES

Two stores react differently to the PC Police.

Nordstrom caves.

Target stands firm.

Nordstrom apparently decided some comments on its Facebook page were sufficient to label the sweater "not PC" and to pull it from both stores and Web.

Sweater pulled by Nordstrom

According to Joanna Vealenta writing for Kveller.com, Nordstrom made a big faux-pas recently–actually, a pretty anti-Semitic one at that. Until yesterday, they were selling a Hanukkah sweater for women in their novelty items section. Which, on its own, sounds like a kitschy thing to do, except it used hurtful stereotypes in the process.

We’re all about making fun of ourselves and wearing bad holiday sweaters at parties, but this went too far, with the front of the sweater saying “Chai Maintenance” and “Hanukkah J.A.P.” To drive it home, they featured a model posing as though she’s taking a selfie (with a tiara on nonetheless), because all Jewish women are high maintenance and self-obsessed, right?

I'm pretty sensitive to anti-Semitic remarks, but referring to a Jewish woman as "chai maintenance" or a "Jewish-American Princess" is not something that, in my opinion, falls into the realm of anti-Semitism. Calling a Jewish woman who is your wife "chai maintenance" or a "JAP" could disrupt "shalom biet" - peace and tranquility in the home - but it hardly is anti-anything.

Trust me, while my Spouse is neither chai or high maintenance or a JAP, we are parents of a daughter who can be both. If the shoe fits . . .

I know lots of Jewish females of all ages, and none would take umbrage at a suggestion that they are "chai maintenance" or a "JAP" . . . at least those who are NEITHER high maintenance or a Jewish princess - American or otherwise. Besides, a Jewish female is told from birth that she's a princess . . . just ask my grand-daughter.

TARGET, according to one report Some customers said that it pokes fun at obsessive compulsive disorder, which is insensitive to people with mental illness.

But Target said it will not pull the sweater from shelves or from its online store, although the company apologized for causing any customers discomfort.

Of it's not Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - the "real" OCD - how can Black Friday be explained? How can fights over the last unit of a particular toy occur? Neither are, to this scrivener's mind, "normal" behavior.

OCD can be many things to many different people - washing hands, constantly cleaning the house, always putting on one shoe before the other … anything that someone simply "has" to do sans logical reason can be defined by someone - qualified or not - as OCD.

Personally, I'm glad that Target stood its ground ; I may even spend a few bucks there to show my support.

As far as Nordstrom is concerned, it will have to do without my custom, but then it was not a store on the top of my shopping list anyway.

ERM-BC-COOP: Unvetted ground crews Threaten air passengers

 

AT THE RISK OF REPEATING MYSELF . . . AGAIN, getting an explosive device on board an airplane is easily accomplished.

All it takes is a disgruntled employee and some impetus - such as money - or an employee with an agenda - such as a Daesh (a/k/a ISIL/ISIS) - to kill people for pleasure and political gain.

There are a number of likely candidates that have unfettered access to commercial passenger and cargo planes. Alphabetically:

Catering crews Cleaning crews
Luggage handlers
Refueling crews

In fact, anyone who can approach an aircraft and look like they have reason to be where they are.

In some airports, soldiers and police guarding the plane might be suspect.

All it takes is one person to slaughter 224 people on Oct. 31, 2015; 224 people returning home on an 18-year-old Airbus A321-231 after a visit to Sharm el Sheikh in the Egyptian Sinai.

No need for on-board highjackers a la the four aircraft on 9-11-2001, no need to rig a bomb in an innocent looking device such as the radio a terrorist's throw-away girlfriend carried aboard Pan Am flight 103 that crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland on 21 December 1988.

No need, even, for a fuel "mishap" such as the one that resulted in a fire on the Caracas-bound Dynamic International Airways' Flight 405 a Boeing 767-269ER on a taxiway at Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport (in Dania Beach FL) on October 30, 2015.

The NTSB found that the main fuel supply line coupling assembly had disconnected in the wing-to-engine strut above and behind the left engine. The NTSB did not suspect terrorism.

THERE ARE WAYS TO PROTECT aircraft from terrorists, and there is one - just one - airline that has proven its ability to protect ifs fleet and the people - passengers and crews - that fly those plane.

When the planes are being prepared for flights, airline security personnel are present around the aircraft and inside the aircraft.

Ground personnel and vendor personnel on vetted by the airline's security personnel before they can approach the plane - and still these "vetted" vendors' personnel are watched. It's not impossible to get an explosive on board, but it would be exceedingly difficult to do so.

There remains the possibility that terrorists armed with easily purchased missiles from any number of sources, could be fired at the plane while it is on the ground or during take-off or landing. The planes of this one company have on-board systems to detect incoming missiles and to prevent the missile from hitting the aircraft. So far the system has proven successful.

Bringing down a commercial aircraft is not impossible, but with a little risk management thinking, the threat can be mitigated almost out of existence.

But the airlines don't want to hear it. In the U.S., proving Homeland Security's shortcomings gets people arrested - while nothing is done to close the gap in security procedures.

Until airlines DO "get serious" about security, more disasters such as Metrojet 9268 will continue and people will continue to die.

Getting it wrong - again Presidential Comedian

 

THE INCUMBENT AT 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue either is a failed comedian or a total fool.

According to the president of the U.S., once a highly respected office, the current title holder told the world that the Republican candidates for president are not qualified to debate other nations' leaders since they couldn't handle CNBC moderators.

His audience of camp followers and sycophants laughed on cue, failing to realize that

• The Republican candidates DID put the "moderators" in their place and
• The "moderators," liberals out to make fools of the GOP candidates, were instead proven to be fools BY the candidates.

Following the president's teleprompter thoughts, would people really expect Russia's Putin to ask a U.S. president if he (or she) could do math? Would China's leader, Xi Jinping, President & General Secretary of the Communist Party, ask which comic books the president preferred? Would even Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, crazy as he is, ask a U.S. president an equally ridiculous question?

Only a liberal, in Hilary's pocket, CNBC moderator would ask such idiotic, irrelevant questions of candidates standing for election to the nation's highest office.

Indeed, would anyone at CNBC ask Mrs. Clinton if her husband was still having affairs with young women or smoking pot - but, naturally, not inhaling; would they ask her why she decided to violate both law and policy to set up a private email service and maintain a personal email account for State Department communications, also illegal and against policy?

As a former honest print reporter and editor - the term "journalist" has been disgraced by the current crop of men and women with agendas - I resent the way the media, tv and print, have forgotten how to report, as Jack Webb (tv's Sgt. Joe Friday, LAPD) never intoned, "just the facts" (Even bloggers need to check their "facts"; something today's' "journalists" apparently cannot bother to do.)

FOR ANOTHER take on the CNBC vs. GOP candidates debacle that the president managed to get wrong, see Deadline Hollywood's RNC Rips GOP Debate Moderators: “CNBC Should Be Ashamed”

The president thinks CNBC won the debate, but any one who watched it knows otherwise. Even Putin, Xi, and maybe even Khamenei would realize that any of the GOP debaters could go toe-to-toe with them. Republicans have done that in the past, and have had greater success than their Democratic counter-parts.

Opuscula Time to change Foolish time change

 

WHAT ONCE MAY HAVE HAD a purpose now is just a pain in the posterior.

Twice a year we - most countries I visit - play "Change the clock" from "Summer time" or "Daylight Savings Time" to "Standard" or perhaps "Winter" time.

Spring ahead (lose an hour's sleep) and Fall behind (gain an hour's sleep).

It might have made sense in the 1800s, but I have my doubts.

Nothing new under the sun

According to the History of Daylight Saving Time - DST web site, Although DST has only been used for about 100 years, the idea was conceived many years before. Ancient civilizations are known to have engaged in a practice similar to modern DST where they would adjust their daily schedules to the Sun's schedule. For example, the Roman water clocks used different scales for different months of the year.

It makes sense to adjust…daily schedules to accommodate daylight hours.

Farmers and wives famously work from sun up to sun down; the farmers during planting and harvest seasons, the wives year 'round.

During the war years - which never seem to cease - the excuse was to work during daylight hours to save electricity (or oil before that).

It would seem easier to adjust our schedules - as do farmers and wives - to accommodate the sun than to play silly games adjusting clocks. (Fortunately, most clocks on computers and mobile phones adjust sans our manual intervention.) Analog clocks and watches are relatively simple to adjust; digital time pieces are another matter since most require stepping through 23 hours to shift to "standard" time. One would think that with all the sophistication of digital watches and clocks that users would be able to "go back" one hour in the fall (autumn) as easily as they go forward in the spring. Not so.

The traditional of some religions ignore the clock and adjust their time of prayers according to the number of daylight hours in a day. Both Judaism and its daughter religion Islam - along with some other faiths - set prayer times according to the sun's rising and setting. Both Judaism and Islam divide 12-hour days (hours from sun up to sun down) into hours of 60 minutes "more or less - more during longer days and less during shorter days.

It may be inconvenient to set work hours to coincide with the sun's angle, it seems that a business could easily adjust its hours to accommodate the sun's position if daylight is a requirement of the job.

Instead of sending children to school at, say, 7 a.m. in semi-darkness, send them at 7:30 or 8 a.m., knowing that there is a chance they will return in semi-darkness or even after dark. As the old Fram commercial went: "Pay me now or pay me later."

If countries that insist on playing games with the clock want to save energy, let them implement other forms of energy production - solar, wind, water. That needs to e done in any event as oil and gas are non-renewable resources.

Meanwhile, for those of us who are shackled to the clock, let us adjust our schedules to the sun rather than playing games with the clock.

 

Relevant web sites:

History of Daylight Saving Time - DST

8 Things You May Not Know About Daylight Saving Time

Faith in the Neighborhood - What a difference a "day" makes

Annual Prayer Time Table - Daylight Saving Time Enabled