For my only day off this past week, my friend Tony and I stood atop Piegan Mountain, which, at 9,220 feet, presents an array of the park's salient elements, including the Going to the Sun Road; Mt. Siyeh; Glaciers Jackson, Harrison, and Sperry; Logan Pass; and the start of the Garden Wall. Dozens of peaks, along with their glacier-carved valleys falling between, string the rest of the horizon.
Tony and I talked about music and our plans come Fall. He's very keen on backpacking somewhere overseas during the spring, and he enjoys asking me pertinent questions or recommendations. He wants to go alone, and I told him that there are ups and downs with doing so. You get to pursue whatever sights and cities you prefer; party and sleep-in whenever you want; and you're forced to meet people and will make many friends. But you must be able to handle being alone, sometimes very alone. This part actually seems to enthuse Tony, who hardly expresses himself to another soul as it is. His aversion to interaction is evident while he serves us our meals in the employee-dining hall. Even while complimenting him over a savory prime rib and potato dish, you'll be lucky to receive more than a nod in return, one that acknowledges your existence and implies you can move along now. I've come to know Tony pretty well over the course of this summer, though, as we both enjoy hiking and jabbering over some beers. Alcohol doesn't bring out more speech, for he's just as quiet a dozen beers in, but it can bring about more authoritative stares implying that you could move along now, which you'll likely do upon looking into his high-browed gaze at the top of a six-foot-four frame, along with heavy hands that look like they could carry out his wish just fine if need be. He's not confrontational; he can just hold his own, and makes a damn good companion in the local dives along the road to Colombia Falls.
We started hiking at 11:30. From the left, Piegan Mountain casted its shadow over the trail until the pass was reached. What remains of Piegan Glacier was easily seen, sitting within its hanging valley, which has been sculpted over the course of millennia . A tall waterfall trickles away from the bowl's lip, along the sheer, steep slope falling to the more prominent valley's floor.
Our way back down went smoothly. Scaling a mountain heartens you with feelings of accomplishment, and we were looking forward to getting back to lodge and enjoying some burgers and beers at the pizza parlor. We'd been on the trail for more than seven hours and didn't get back to the lodge until 9:00.


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Trump to Sign Immigration Directive Revamping Asylum System
President will order asylum seekers to go to port of entry to make a claim
A migrant family waits to be taken into custody by U.S. Border Patrol agents after entering the United States from Mexico on Tuesday in Mission, Texas.
Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
Vivian Salama
@vmsalama
vivian.salama@wsj.com
WASHINGTON—President Trump is expected to sign a directive this week that will make official his plans to revamp the U.S. asylum system, part of his broader push to crack down on undocumented migrants entering the U.S. illegally.
Mr. Trump is expected to sign the directive as early as Friday morning, before leaving on a trip to Paris, administration officials said. Last week, Mr. Trump said he intends to sign a "comprehensive" executive order on the detention of apprehended migrants, including those seeking asylum status.
According to the directive, U.S. officials will require asylum seekers to go to a point of entry along the border and make a claim for asylum, which would bar those who cross illegally. Currently, migrants who cross the border into the U.S. have up to a year to request asylum, regardless of how they got here.
The argument being made by the administration is that this change will enable safer, more orderly processing and better resource planning, an official said.
The officials, who have seen a draft of the directive, said the intention is to implement the directive temporarily, although a time period wasn't specified.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Home Travel
8 Incredible Hotel Bars From Around The World
Elyse Romano
We enjoy drinking in most settings, but there's something singular about a hotel bar. It feels exclusive and special – two things you'll never get from your local dive no matter how much you love it. Make it an international hotel bar, and the feeling is tripled. James Bond status: achieved. Cross these eight incredible hotel bars from around the world off your list, and you'll be well on your way to becoming an international man of mystery.
Rock Bar @ Ayana Resort, Bali
Step one: find yourself a date. Step two: bring her to Rock Bar at the Ayana Resort in Bali. Step three: watch the sunset. Step four: score. Perched atop a unique rock formation at the base of a secluded limestone cliff, Rock Bar offers unparalleled views of the horizon, exceptional signature cocktails and a regular line-up of top DJs. It's a killer combination that has earned Bali's premier sunset destination countless international accolades.
Skybar @ Mondrian, Los Angeles
The Skybar at the Mondrian in Los Angeles has been one of the city's hottest nightspots since it opened. It's even been called "the rooftop bar that started it all." Although the in-crowd has moved on to newer, hipper pastures, Skybar is still a sexy playground for attractive and affluent patrons who want to enjoy one of the finest views in all of LA. Yes, this really is a poolside bar where people might jump in after a night of exhilarating excess.
Falk's Bar @ Hotel Bayerischer Hof, Munich
Few bars can say they were legends before they opened, but Falk's Bar in Munich can. The bar is located in the opulent Bayerischer Hof Hotel, some of the most decadent digs in the city, inside the famed Spiegelsaal (Mirror Hall) dating from 1939. It's the only room in the Bayerischer Hof to have survived the Second World War unscathed. Today Falk's Bar is an inviting blend of traditional design with modern music, lighting and libations.
The Ozone Bar @ The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong
The Ozone Bar in Hong Kong earned its name by being the highest bar in the world. Situated on the 118th floor of the Ritz-Carlton in the International Commerce Center, the Ozone Bar's ear-popping experience includes a wide range of signature cocktails, a small sushi bar and an exotic selection of Asian tapas. Be sure to step out onto the terrace to enjoy the view – the wind-chill factor can be a little much, but the bar is equipped with blankets if you need them.
The Top Of The Standard @ The Standard, New York
The Standard is one of NYC's swankiest hotels, so it's only fitting that it have one of the city's poshest bars. Enter the glittering room and you'll be treated to dramatic 360° Manhattan views and retro gold decor. The biggest names in the Big Apple come here for cocktails, so the door policy and the dress code are strict. Don't miss out on a trip to the toilets – although it may not sound particularly glamorous, trust us that it's one of the most memorable parts of the experience.
The Library @ The Leela Palace, New Delhi
In the middle of your Eat, Pray, Love journey, don't forget to take time out to drink. We recommend The Library at The Leela Palace in New Delhi, a refined spot designed to recapture the glory of a bygone era. Indulge in first edition books, Chesterfield chairs, cigars, sophisticated food offerings and a whiskey collection that will please any connoisseur. Because nothing washes down prayers like whiskey.
Long Bar @ The PuLi Hotel, Shanghai
The PuLi Hotel's Long Bar lives up to its name. Clocking in at 32 metres, Long Bar's long bar is the longest in Shanghai. The bar also boasts one of the city's longest wine and champagne selections by the glass, plus a sophisticated pre- and post-dinner cocktail list. Try the signature Sichuan Spice cocktail (it's got a real kick) while taking in the view of the beautiful Jing'An Park and the hustle and bustle of the hotel's lobby.
Wet Bar @ W Hotel, Barcelona
Day or night, the Wet Bar at Barcelona's W Hotel is the place to be. It's a little bit of Ibiza, without the insane crowds and outrageously high prices. During the day, take a dip in the pool, have bake on the sun beds, or down a drink in a cabana. In the evenings, Wet Bar transforms into the ultimate insider destination with tropical cocktails and bold beats from a DJ. Spectacular Mediterranean views are available 24/7.
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The Top Of The Standard


A fatwā is not binding as noted by the great sharia scholar al-Qarāfi who wrote, غير يلزم "Not binding"
People tend to think that because heretics presented fatwā as a binding decree, as do pseudo intellectuals, Islamophobes. Ironically, they both tend to see Islam in the same way. The word for fatwa, comes from a word that means to clarify or resolve. That is why a pubescent is called fitya (from the same word as fatwā) because at the onset of adulthood a person's appearance, attitudes and other things, a mystery during childhood become clear.
Such is a fatwā. It clarifies perplexing issues for a questioner regarding understanding a text related to an action or belief; as well as issues for which there is no text, like organ donation or plastics surgery. There are a number of factors that influence a fatwā, science for example. Just look at the change in fatwās on abortion, adoption, and currency. They all changed over time because new information and circumstances compelled scholars to review previous opinions. That is proof enough to show fatwā is not binding, not anti-intellect.
1) It is used by scholars to understand texts or actions where no text exists. The text = the sacred, the scholar = the human.
2) The faithful are encouraged to see fatwā, but they are not bound by an answer, but encouraged to seek the best answer for their situation.
It is not some sloppy science, open to anyone, instead a fatwa is a non binding religious opinion. Many don't know that hence the misgivings.
A person who gives a fatwā would need to master eleven subject matters, memorize the Quran, study its legal verses and the same with Hadith.


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"Jesus and Jones" is a song recorded by American country music artist Trace Adkins. It was released to radio on January 19, 2016, as the lead single to his debut album for Wheelhouse Records, and his fifteenth overall, Something's Going On. The song was written by Tyler Farr, Jim McCormick, and Casey Beathard.

Content
The song discusses Trace being "In a War" since he was a kid trying to be like Jesus and Country Music icon George Jones.

Music video
The music video was directed by Peter Zavadil and premiered on CMT, GAC & VEVO in 2016.

Critical reception
The website "For The Country Record" gave the song a negative review, saying "Now, please Trace fans, put down the pitch forks and torches, because, believe me, I'm actually on your side. I love Trace, always have. I love his deep, rich baritone, his confident personality, and his music, but let's face facts; this song just isn't up to par with his earlier music. This song is really just a result of lazy songwriting and bad production. You can't blame it on the theme, because when done well, the theme is a great and relatable one. Plenty of artists have pulled it off beautifully; Big and Rich's "Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace", Brian Randle's "Heaven and Hank", Eric Church's "Like Jesus Does", and Eric Lee Beddingfield's "The Gospel According to Jones", all come to mind."

Chart performance

References

Songs about Jesus
Songs about musicians
Cultural depictions of country musicians
2016 songs
2016 singles
Trace Adkins songs
BBR Music Group singles
Songs written by Casey Beathard
Songs written by Tyler Farr
Songs written by Jim McCormick (songwriter)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Willie J Healey has announced a fresh set of UK tour dates for 2019.
The Oxfordshire musician is currently on the road with Slaves, and will support the Kent duo for the remainder of their scheduled gigs this month – concluding with a huge London show at Alexandra Palace on November 24. He also recently toured with Gaz Coombes.
Healey will continue the momentum by embarking on his own headline UK tour next year. Playing in support of his September EP '666 Kill', the tour will include a headline slot at the first-ever YALA! club night at Manchester venue YES on February 20. Another YALA! night will take place in Glasgow two nights later, with Healey set to perform there as well.
Healey will be joined on the tour by Jelly Boy, the new project from Happyness' Benji Compston. Find Healey's tour dates below, and tickets are on sale now here.
23 – Newcastle, Think Thank?
Last month, Slaves revealed that they had been politely asked to leave Phil Collins alone following their attempts to get him to star in one of their music videos.


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From 1960 to 1969, the United Press International (UPI) gave the annual AFL Player of the Year award in the American Football League, whose teams in 1970 became the American Football Conference (AFC) of the new National Football League (NFL).

From 1970 — following the AFL-NFL merger — until 1996, UPI then gave two annual player of the year awards. One was given in the National Football Conference (NFC) of the new NFL. The other award was given in the American Football Conference (AFC) of the new NFL. An AFC Player of the Year was named from 1970 through 1984, won each year be an offensive player. An AFC Defensive Player of the Year was named from 1975 to 1996, and an AFC Offensive Player of the Year, which replaced the overall player of the year award in 1985, was issued until 1996.

Winners

Multiple-time winners

See also
UPI NFC Player of the Year
United Press International NFL Most Valuable Player Award
American Football League Most Valuable Player Award
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award
NFL Offensive Player of the Year Award
NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award

References

National Football League trophies and awards


Illustrated map of Siena Medici.
Cover from The Illustrated Library Shakspeare, published 1890.
Homer - illustrated portrait. Scene Odysseus and the sirens. Greek writer. Palmin collection card.
Unknown Artist, The 'Kroningprocessionen' from Illustrated Memorial Magazines from the Crowning Anniversaries in 1860, Available in the Livrust Chamber archive, entitled 'Ceremony. Kroning 1800-1850' in cupboard section 17.
Sir William James Ingram, 1st Baronet, 1847 – 1924. Managing Director of The Illustrated London News and a Liberal politician. From The Business Encyclopedia and Legal Adviser, published 1920.
Front cover of The Illustrated London News for 15th May 1937, celebrating the coronation of King George VI.
Illustrated Bible. New Testament. Tempest. Drawing by Gustave Dore.
Black and white engraving of the architect Inigo Jones, after the painting by Anthony Van Dyck, from the November 1883 issue of The English Illustrated Magazine.
Illustrated Bible. New Testament.The Transfiguration. Mat 17:2. By Gustave Dore (1832-1883).19th century.
Black and white engraving of a statue of King James II, from the studio of Grinling Gibbons, from the November 1883 issue of The English Illustrated Magazine.
Illustrated southern galaxy. Date c1847 Nov. 30.
Lithograph print from a rare work by G.H. Schubert entitled, Illustrated Geology and Paleontology, 1886. This series was published from 1896 and is a great work on dinosaur fossils.


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Posted on March 7, 2016 by eliefares Tagged ArabsBullyingMiddle EastThe VoiceThe Voice KidsZein Obeid	Comments4 Comments on Bullying The Voice Kids Finalist Zein Obeid For Being Overweight Is The Most Despicable Of Acts
Bullying The Voice Kids Finalist Zein Obeid For Being Overweight Is The Most Despicable Of Acts
There are many things taking place in the Middle East today that classify as nauseating and despicable. We live in wars and occupation. We fight extremism, or succumb to it sometimes. We try and manage around squashed liberties and an international community that doesn't care about our well-being outside of its relation to the oil barrel.
But few things are more despicable and disgusting than bullying a kid online, publicly and en masse.
Zein Obeid is an eleven year old boy from Syria who participated on the first season of The Voice Kids, reaching the finals before losing to Lebanese Lynn Hayek. He was one of the participants to get people talking the most, with one viral performance after the next. His stage persona was that of a total sweetheart, but that did not deter some mindless folk from bringing him down because he was overweight.
Leading up the show's finale, the following picture circulated on social media to mock Zein:
Tfeh.
I didn't want to share the above picture here, but it's so wide-spread that I figured having it accompanying a piece where those who came up with it and are sharing it get trashed is not a bad way to do things. It was shared above and beyond by people who figured this was proper joke material. We're all laughing. Ha ha.
Yes, I am laughing. I'm laughing at the utter and sheer mindlessness of everyone who figured this was a good joke, who decided that publicly making fun of a ten year old in such a way actually constitutes a joke to begin with. I'm laughing at the people who are so insecure and cowardly behind their keyboard-clicking fingers, making fun of someone for being who he is.
Yes, I'm laughing at you for being such disgusting people.
In order to get to The Voice Kids, Zein Obeid had to leave his home in Syria behind and come to Lebanon, a country that has made it near impossible for Syrians to be granted entry. He had to audition in front of a separate jury before being let in front of the coaches where he had to sing for them to be convinced enough to turn their chairs. He then had to go through an elimination process to get to the finals where he was at the mercy of Arab audiences voting. He didn't end up winning. Imagine how devastating that must feel for an eleven year old, and yet here you are making fun of him just because you're such a strong warrior behind your computer screen.
In doing what he did on The Voice, Zein entertained nations across the Middle East with his voice and stage presence. That takes an insurmountable amount of courage and pride.
Body shaming people is never okay, let alone when you're doing it to someone who is only a little boy and whose entire perception of his experience in that talent show is of him doing something worthwhile that he will grow up one day to tell stories about. Why don't you stand in a mirror, and take a deep long look at yourself before making fun of someone for being whoever they are in their own skin?
You may be making fun of Zein, but he's the one who's going to have the last laugh. Zein, if you end up reading this, know this: you are kind, you are so talented, and you are beautiful.
Posted on March 6, 2016 by eliefares Tagged Marc HatemTake Me To CHurchThe VoiceThe Voice France	Comments2 Comments on When Marc Hatem Took France To Church On The Voice
When Marc Hatem Took France To Church On The Voice
As I told you more than a month ago, Lebanon would be represented this year – and hopefully represented well – by Marc Hatem on France's The Voice. Leading up to Mark's episode, another Lebanese called Kassem, but whose stage name is Lukas, appeared on The Voice and managed to make it through to the next round as part of Zazie's team.
A short while ago, Marc Hatem took France to Church – almost literally – with a glorious rendition of Hozier's awesome "Take Me To Church."
Boasting bombastic vocals which he makes look utterly effortless, Marc blazed through his audition, getting all 4 coaches to turn. His voice was compared to "caviar" by Florent Pagny, whatever that means.
Check out his performance here:
Marc ended up choosing Garou as his coach, which sounds like a good fit given the two have similar vocal tendencies.
Of course, Marc was also well received by French and Lebanese audiences alike with his Facebook page amassing thousands of likes over a few hours following his performance.
It's sad to see such talents needing to leave the country to make a name for themselves, but this is how things are unfortunately. I wish Marc the best of luck on The Voice's future episodes.
Posted on April 19, 2015 by eliefares Tagged FranceHiba TawajiLebanonThe Voice	Comments3 Comments on Hiba Tawaji Didn't Lose; The Voice Lost Hiba Tawaji
Hiba Tawaji Didn't Lose; The Voice Lost Hiba Tawaji
I was walking around New York City yesterday, totally trying to mind my own business by checking Facebook and trying not to feel dwarfed by the high rises around me when my Lebanese friends broke some terribly heartbreaking news to me, as I stood there in Times Square.
It was one of those Facebook moments where you get bad news you're supposed to get over a phone call via a status instead, sort of like when I learned that a relative died because someone decided to post a picture of her with a RIP caption before they had told everyone else. But this, this was worse.
For lack of better analogy, the news I received on Facebook yesterday was devastating, gut-wrenching and so haunting it might as well be my own version of 9/11. How could it be? It can't be.
Hiba Tawaji, the Lebanese that showed France how it is to actually sing in French, was no more on the amateur talent show The Voice. But that didn't make sense? How could Hiba Tawaji lose? How could the person that is now teaching the entire world what singing actually consists of end up with such a heinous outcome? How could the country that gave the world music, art and the alphabet be so terribly offended?
It must have been a conspiracy. Those French people are clearly obviously out there to get us, poor gullible Lebanese whose only fault in this world was being born in the most wonderful, most loved and most vied for country in the world. Clearly, those French were jealous. Clearly, they had a thing against us. 4 Lebanese candidates on 4 seasons of France's The Voice are now all martyrs to the Lebanese artistic cause of becoming nobodies in Western Europe. Clearly I wasn't gonna sit down and be quiet about this.
There are two things that make me proud of Lebanon today: hummus and Hiba Tawaji. The latter losing was a stab in the heart of my nationalistic pride. How are we not protesting this serious violation of our basic and most fundamental right as Lebanese people to be the shit of the shit at every single location where a shit can be shat? This is unacceptable. No, scratch that. This is not only unacceptable, this is worthy of a UN tribunal, more pressing than the STL, to investigate the serious backwater works that are going into this serious breach of Lebanese sovereignty taking place inside the studios of TF1.
So because I'm a masochist, I decided to watch the video of Hiba losing. I swear, that was a worse experience to my mental health than seeing all the mutilated bodies of Syrian children. I am scarred for life. I wept for Hiba. I cut for Hiba. I hung a Lebanese flag around my neck and walked around Brooklyn for Hiba. There's nothing I wouldn't do to bring back the pride I lost with Hiba being so wrongly targeted… #JeSuisIba.
TL;DR? Hiba Tawaji lost. The country is mourning. And this is all too heartbreaking and tough to process. Or maybe not. Shit happens in talent shows. It was fun while it lasted, now let's look at more serious things, like being interested in drunk driving and Haifa Wehbe's English career.
Posted on March 28, 2015 by eliefares Tagged Christina AguileraFighterFranceHiba TawajiMikamusicPoprockSongThe Voice	Comments4 Comments on Hiba Tawaji Wins & Advances To The Final Stages Of France's The Voice
Hiba Tawaji Wins & Advances To The Final Stages Of France's The Voice
Hiba Tawaji has won her part of the knockout stages (epreuve ultime) in France's The Voice – the last of the previously taped segments of the show – and has advanced to the finals of the show, the live shows.
Starting next week, Hiba along with 3 other candidates in her team, will perform a song of their choice to the public live after which audiences will get a chance to vote for all candidates, making sure one of them proceeds to the following week in the progress while the coach chooses who of the other candidates remains and one is eliminated.
If the hype is to be believed, Tawaji has a good chance at advancing in the live shows. Her performances are reportedly among the most watched of the show (her audition has over 1 million hits on YouTube and over 600,000 on TF1's website, well ahead of all auditions of the show).
In the knockout stage, Tawaji performed Christina Aguilera's signature song "Fighter." She did well, but was criticized for her song choice as the coaches felt it didn't suit her quite well. It's telling, in my opinion, when an artist as good as Hiba Tawaji has trouble with song selection. It goes to show how far our artists are sheltered, maybe even left without artistic freedom, in their careers.
Either way, French audiences were very receptive of the song.
He is a lead journalist in France.
This is a video of the performance courtesy of my blog's Facebook page (click).
It is worth noting that part of Mika's team for the live shows includes an Israeli, named Sharon Lalom. For the upcoming live shows, Hiba Tawaji will be battling it out with Sharon for people's votes and Mika's favor. She may end up finding herself in a picture with her, in the same television frame as her or whatnot. Let us do our best as Lebanese not to fall into the traps of accusing her of treason for participating.
This is our chance to show that, at a simple ultimately useless talent show, we can take the higher road and "resist" by actually winning, showing that the talents of our country are great enough on their own merit and can kick anyone's ass, Israeli or not.
Good luck to her!
Posted on March 8, 2015 by eliefares Tagged FranceHiba TawajiLa Plus Belle VoixMikamusicThe Voice	Comments2 Comments on Hiba Tawaji Wins Her Battle on France's The Voice
Hiba Tawaji Wins Her Battle on France's The Voice
Is it me or are Lebanese women on a roll these couple of days? Rima Karaki is now making headlines around the world for shutting up an Islamist (link), and Hiba Tawaji just presented another side of Lebanese women and artists during her battle on France's The Voice.
On Françoise Hardy's classic "Mon Ami La Rose" (YouTube link), Hiba battled 41 year old year Nög in an oriental remix of the very-subdued song, allowing her to show a different side of her voice. Nög, Hiba's challenger, gave her a run for her money. He was absolutely excellent. The level of competition between him and Hiba has showed that there's no such thing as someone "professional" competing against "amateurs." They are all professionals who know what they're doing, and at 41 Nög probably has a lot of experience under his belt that helped him almost beat the Lebanese contestant.
Ultimately, Mika chose Hiba and Nög was taken by Zazie, another coach.
French audiences were also quite receptive to Hiba's performance:
This is a video of the performance:
Let me know if the video is removed and I'll find another version. You can also check the video on LBC's news page (link).
The Point Behind Following Hiba On France's The Voice:
I saw a lot of people wonder what's the point behind the interest in Hiba's path on France's The Voice and how it reflects on Lebanon or us as people. It's a certain thing that Tawaji on The Voice ultimately boosts her career as a priority and reflects little on us. But there's more to it than that, even if it's a little gullible to think so.
By being "la Libanaise," she is giving the French a face of the country that they don't usually see. It's not much for sure, and it may be part of our collective hopeless thinking of improving our reputation bit by bit at all means possible. Either way, as a country we've gotten interested in so many useless things that I honestly don't get the point in going up in a fit about this just because people are getting excited about a Lebanese being on it.
Good luck to Hiba on the rest of the show. She's not in the finals just yet, but next time she's live she will be up for people voting.


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Peter Julian Curtin (31 January 1944 – 18 May 2014) was an Australian television and stage actor, whose career began when he joined the Melbourne Theatre Company, appearing in The Plough and the Stars with Wendy Hughes.

Personal life

Curtin married actress Ailsa Piper in 1987. Curtin died, aged 70, on 18 May 2014.

Filmography
Homicide as Henry Cooper/Ray Gardiner (1965)
Winner Take All (1975)
Bluey as Blair Thompson /Dave Brown (1976–1977)
Cop Shop (1978)
Skyways as David Kerridge
Blood Money (1980) as Dan
The Last Outlaw (1980)  as Const. Richards
Prisoner as Solicitor /Ian Mahoney / Det. Thorn (1980-1986)
I Can Jump Puddles (1981) as Flagger
And Here Comes Bucknuckle (1981)  as Achilles Jones
Carson's Law as Det. Sgt. Clem Harvey
The Zoo Family (1985) as David Mitchell
Handle with Care (1986) as Paul
The Flying Doctors as Clive Hayes (1986)
Whose Baby (1986) as Noel Jenkins
Mission: Impossible as Colonel Joseph Batz / Dr. Philip Westerly (1988–1990)
Inside Running (1989)
Embassy as Green (1990)
Time Trax as Sheriff Dobbs (1993)
A Country Practice as Sandy Davis (1993)
Official Denial (1994) as Jonathon Applegate
Blue Heelers as Commander Reg Jones  (1994–2004)
In Pursuit of Honor (1995) as Sgt. Ernest Gruber
English: Have a Go (1996)
Stingers as Doug Piper/Judge Frost (1999–2003)
The Games as Mr. Cabsav  (2000)
SeaChange as Port Deakin Mayor (2000)
Satisfaction as Dr. De Courcy (2009-2010)
City Homicide as Leigh Carrington (2008)
House Husbands as John (2013)
Party Tricks as the Opposition leader (2014)

References

External links

1944 births
2014 deaths
Australian male television actors
Australian male stage actors
Australian people of Irish descent
20th-century Australian male actors
21st-century Australian male actors


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The Samsung ML-4550 is a monochrome laser printer with incredibly fast print speed. It delivers good output quality and has a monthly duty cycle of 150,000 pages. This unit is easy to install and operate, and it works on most Windows, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems. The Samsung ML-4550 laser printer has 128 MB memory storage (which you can increase to 512 MB). This unit does not have networking options or a duplexer.
The box-like Samsung ML-4550 printer features a control panel that is easy to use. Its centrepiece is the monochrome LCD display. For connectivity, there are USB and parallel ports on the back. The Samsung ML-4550 fast mono laser printer has a print speed of 43 ppm with the first page coming out in 8.5 seconds or less.
Users can get their solid texts and images quickly from the Samsung ML-4550 black and white printer. The ML-4550 office printer is highly reliable and it is user-friendly. It has expandable memory and offers high-yield consumables which include a high capacity Samsung ML-4550 black toner capable of printing an estimated 20,000 pages. The ML4550 mono printer is ideal for offices with limited space as it has a small footprint.
The Samsung ML 4550 could be more efficient if it had a standard duplexer for double-sided printing and if it had higher paper handling capacity. More users would be able to access the Samsung ML4550 printer if it was installed with standard networking options such as Wi-Fi or Ethernet.


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Program Note: Liveness, Language and the Moment
A Note on Forced Entertainment's And On the Thousandth Night…
Each of the long pieces Forced Entertainment have made exists, in the first place, as a simple set rules that at the same time limit, define and generate possibilities. From such a starting point and within such a frame the performers are improvising – working and playing together to create something – pushing at the edges of what's possible inside the restrictions to hand. You hear and see the content of the work, but you also see the labour, the inventiveness and the struggle with the rules.
In And on the Thousandth Night… the rules in question are focused on stories and the piece functions as a kind of generative engine, a human story-telling machine, designed to make, break and re-make stories of all kinds.
On the stage eight performers dressed in the make-shift red cloaks and cardboard crowns of some childhood performance, improvise stories that range from fairy tales, to recycled movie plots, absurd thrillers and horror stories, to coming-of-age tales, mysteries, hard-luck stories and office romances. The main rule (and arguably the only important one) is that no story told as part of the performance is ever allowed to finish, a logic of fragmentation that quickly enshrines what you might call a kind of cut-throat playfulness at the heart of the proceedings.
It's the playfulness that defines And on the Thousandth Night.., especially when combined with the edge that improvising has for both spectators and performers alike – the knowledge that this could all come crashing down at any moment. In fact a good deal of the fun in this work, as in other long improvised pieces that the company have done, is in seeing the performers make less-than-perfect decisions and then have to deal with the consequences. Since the stories can only stopped by another player's interjection it's more than possible to find oneself obliged to keep on telling a story that is already stretched thin, running out of steam. Players often start stories on a whim – a story about a robotic poet that works in a dry cleaners, why not? a story about an elephant that wants to learn to sing, sure – but what seems like a workable premise at the moment of starting can easily get sticky if you're forced to continue too long.
The piece teeters between its evident absurdity and it's generative energy whilst the tiredness of the players over its marathon duration contributes both to the difficulty of the struggle and the inventiveness of the solutions they find. At four and five in the morning the brain clutches at strange straws, and the logic of the narratives in the pieces bends, decays, transforms. As it unfolds And on the Thousandth Night… throws up stories about kings and queens, talking mice, nightclub singers, heavy metal roadies, murderers, sex maniacs, politicians, carpet sellers and business people at sales conferences. In fact a jumbled horde of from the whole of human life is there in some form or another, out of place and in no particular order. Watching and listening you encounter world made of stories, and a human race, defined amongst other things as a kind a story machine. There's a great pleasure in watching the failures as well as in the successes – and that's the secret really, to see people working, thinking, playing. No script, no safety net. Just a handful of rules, liveness, language and the moment.
Tim Etchells, 2018


Guido Scarabottolo was born in Sesto San Giovanni in 1947. in addition to being an architect, he is active as an illustrator and graphic designer. Above all, Guido Scarabottolo is an extraordinary designer who has been illustrating book covers for years, as well as being an art director. His contributions range from the book covers of the publishing company Guanda to the Sunday cultural supplements of Sole24Ore, The New Yorker, and the New York Times, as well as the visual contributions to the social communication of projects for humanitarian organizations.
His world view and his ability to put reality and imagination on paper in such a cultured, refined, and minimalist way have made him an illustrator recognized around the world. Guido Scarabottolo flows from the universe of adult readers to the one of children and young readers with the same seriousness, with the same commitment, and with an apparent lightness that brings us delicate but profound illustrations. With a recognizable style of one who has been professionally trained, Guido Scarabattolo (named Bau) takes us to fantastic worlds where animals that come from different geographical places live with an extraordinary serenity.
For children, through the publishing house Vanvere, which produces only illustrated children's books, Scarabottolo has invented characters and scenarios that emphasize subtle irony and gentle humor. His illustrations speak directly to his readers, capture their attention, and direct them to each distinctive feature of the illustrations.
For the Milan-based publishing company Topipittori, which he has contributed to since its creation, Scarabottolo has created books which address the relationships between siblings and the relationships between children and adults through the interlacing of reality and fantasy. One in particular is the encounter between his illustrations and the words by Giovanna Zoboli. Combining both, he created the beautiful project called PIPPO, "PIccola Pinacoteca POrtatile" (The Small Portable Picture Gallery). It is a project for children and teens which aims to familiarize them with the world of art. It is an opportunity to address beauty as a necessary part of the life of a child, both ethically and aesthetically.


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While our mothers would never likely confuse us as being 'geniuses,' we may very well be witnessing a genius cluster at work dedicated to serving veterans and their families in select communities across America today. Fifteen years into a long war, the all-volunteer force is stretched at a time when budgets to arm, much less care for, our troops are contracting. Bold, creative leadership is busy upending the status quo, for today, smart folks are starting to emerge, to coalesce if you will, from within a select cadre of progressively minded communities, around the identity and future state of how we care for America's veterans, transitioning service members, and their families.
Ms. Noonan writes that it was a genius cluster, after all "that invented America." She goes further to suggest such a clustering—FDR, Churchill, and deGaulle –also saved it. For the genius clusters to emerge they require deep crises – "Historic figures need historic circumstances," writes Noonan.
While complex undertakings such as building a democracy, winning wars, and keeping the peace have all involved historic, in fact, genius personas, before they were the figures global history now recognizes, it was a set of complex, historic circumstances that drew them each to act, to serve.
To a lesser, but no less important extent, we must change the way we address the complex and multifaceted needs of our nation's service members, veterans, and their families. If we are to remain a nation that retains its all-volunteer armed forces, our approach for welcoming these assets back into our communities requires immediate and collective action.
As the preferred approach for solving complex social problems, Collective Impact initiatives are starting to address issues such as simplifying human services delivery systems, educating America's youth, reducing recidivism, and transforming health care. Its basic tenets involve creating a common agenda, shared measurement amongst the collective, mutually beneficial and reinforcing activities, continuous communication between its members of the collective and importantly, establishing a backbone organization to champion the initiative. Collective Impact has even made its way to the veterans' health and human services sector in a growing number of partner communities.
One such community is Charlotte, North Carolina, where we find a renaissance of sorts underway within the veterans' health and human services sector that has at its very beginning, something of a genius cluster at work addressing "…bigness, with steady hands and steady eyes…." the needs of the community's military-connected members and their families. "All genius, like all politics, is local," writes Eric Weiner in his new book, the Geography of Genius. In Charlotte, locally, their efforts have grown into a coordinated effort called NCServes, and similar efforts are taking hold in other cities across the country within the AmericaServes portfolio. Smart leaders from Pittsburgh to Raleigh, New York City to Charleston, and Seattle are collectively being recognized for introducing disruptive innovation within the veteran services sector and proving once again, the impact that genius clusters can have on the trajectory of human history. NYServes, PAServes, SCServes, and WAServes all stand as testament that it takes more than a village. It takes genius. It takes a community. It also takes a catalyst.
Recognizing "bigness," as the opportunity within "Driving Community Impact," IVMF began cultivating select communities – not just every community – but only those where the conditions for pursuing meaningful collective impact initiatives themselves would be welcome. In Charlotte, NC, we found the required leadership, supportive philanthropic partners, and health and human services providers willing to innovate beyond themselves, to generate collective impact and best serve its military connected members and their families. This point is key. For collective impact to take root, the community must gain and maintain the trust and confidence across the community itself, something often overlooked by many.
By introducing evidence-based approaches found within public health research, AmericaServes is designed to accelerate the actual transformation of service delivery in the veterans' services sector – and eventually, across all human services. But as good as the best collective impact models might be, without a shared technology solution to actually connect all the community partners and track outcomes for the veterans, they are control towers, with neither radar screens nor radios.
Appropriate then that the connective technology solution would come from a pilot. When Unite Us founder and CEO, Dan Brillman, wasn't flying weekend missions with the 514th Air Mobility Wing in the Reserves, he struggled to help his fellow airmen navigate the transition to the civilian sector. Unite US, and its suite of care coordination software tools, data analytics and dashboards was born of the need to fill in gaps by bridging communities, many of which have been in search of such technology in the first place. The final component required to achieve the mass critical to smartly deliver a solution to multiple communities throughout the United States was generously provided by leaders in the philanthropic space, including the Walmart and Schultz Family Foundations.
In 2014, IVMF with its AmericaServes partners, approached North Carolina and a local, respected veteran-centric nonprofit, Charlotte Bridge Home (CBH). Over the next 12 months, IVMF, CBH, and a group of dedicated health and human service providers such as Mecklenburg County Veterans Services, Johnson C. Smith University, and Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont explored how to work together, beyond collaboration, to introduce scalable change to the veterans' services sector within the Charlotte community. The idea, the genius, if you will, was to work on the Charlotte community's terms and leverage its resources to drive the systemic change sought.
In 2015, the combined efforts began driving a stake in the status quo of service delivery approaches that have miserably, and for years, failed to meet the needs of our returning veterans and their families. The collective now formed represented a new force, a combination of local understanding paired with tools and models of service delivery that promised to change the trajectory of service delivery in their community, but which could be applied to other communities simultaneously in a scalable national framework.
To visualize the mechanics of the system past and present, consider an aviation analogy where service providers, from the Urban Ministry Center, to Cardinal Innovations Healthcare, the USO of North Carolina, and even the state and federal VA in many ways, are like old fashioned regional airports with binoculars and chalk boards, all isolated to some degree, all doing their best to take care of passengers (veterans) as they arrive, but with little visibility of the plane (groups of veterans) until the moment it arrives. Visibility is even poorer when it departs. A 'quarterback,' or Coordination Center, like the Charlotte Bridge Home, takes the roll of air traffic controller, on a regional scale, tying together all the feeder systems. Visibility is greater than just the aircraft. With the right technology solution, a network can track the actual passengers and ensure that everyone is getting on and off where and when they need to in accordance with peaking needs.
This is not a new concept, but it is new in its application to veterans. Collaborative interplays of systems and technology have provided unprecedented levels of accountability and transparency (think mobile device check-ins enabled by GPS). Genius clusters have revolutionized the aviation industry, mass transit system and private healthcare, but maybe the most famous exemplar of disruptive collaboration is Federal Express. The idea that you could give your precious package to a stranger, and yet have complete trust and confidence that you could find it at any time AND that it would make it to the place that it needed to be. Such a genius clustering of technology and management need not be the last time that a massive federal bureaucracy was disrupted.
One year in, North Carolina's supporting market-based approach, NCServes, has helped transform the means by which this community now serves its transitioning service members, veterans and their families. Owning a simple allegiance to 'meeting veterans and their families where they are,' NCServes' coordinated network of services, resources, and care has reached 300 percent more veterans, service members, and their families in its first year than Charlotte Bridge Home has reached at any other point in its service delivery history. Recognizing as well that each individual reached through NCServes' efforts is actually presenting with more than one need, the network has delivered a 500 percent increase in closed casework across the assembled provider base working within the NCServes coordinated network, a tremendous testament to primarily the community's hard-working providers, but also to the great work being done by Charlotte Bridge Home's NCServes Coordination Center staff as well.
Numbers will never adequately tell the whole story here; there's much more going on behind the scenes than anyone realizes. The true value of the work involved with coordinating access to the community's array of services lies within the new-found value proposition: by working together across a common technology platform, providers now know not only what their work 'looks like' (workflow spread across 52 interconnected providers), they also now know definitively what the impact of that collective activity and effort is achieving (outcomes). An informed community is now a community that understands supply – full-spectrum service delivery – and demand – the needs of its military-connected members and their families – in real-time and uses that information to improve upon service delivery methods and techniques equally in real-time. Welcome to the future, it's here.
So where do we go next? What lies ahead for this community of smart folks pushing so hard to infuse performance-oriented effort on behalf of those who served and their families?
We teach and train others how to do the same. As a community committed to serving the needs of the nation's transitioning service members, veterans and their families at the highest levels, Charlotte, North Carolina, now recognizes it bears a responsibility to teach and train other communities across the country to elevate their efforts. In old-school, train-the-trainer fashion, this particular community has shifted its focus a bit to be more than just one community doing things well; it now has set its sights on ensuring other progressively minded communities are interacting not only on service provision, but on interconnected learning – and there are other like-minded communities as well. This approach – this Community of Practice – will evolve organically under the leadership of these innovative communities and work to build-out not only the actual innovation occurring, but the learnings that come with; to reduce mistakes, ramp-up time, increase provider adoption, and influence policy across communities.
Teaching and training others always involves a sophistication and selfless, servant leadership model that is oriented on "doing good" for our communities. Importantly, communities themselves – like Charlotte – are now demonstrating that "doing good" means working smart collectively.
Always good to work with smart folks; who knows, maybe even our mothers would be happy.
Jim McDonough and Ilario Pantano lead IVMF's AmericaServes initiatives and can be reached by email at jdmcdono@syr.edu and igpantan@syr.edu.


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The Justice System- Share Your Story
The Longest War In U.s. History.
By greenbuddha,
June 16, 2011 in The Justice System- Share Your Story
greenbuddha
LocationHimalayan mountains in my spare time.
US: An Exit Strategy From America's Longest War - 40 Years Of
URL: http://www.mapinc.or...1/n393/a08.html
Newshawk: Kirk
Pubdate: Wed, 15 Jun 2011
Source: AlterNet (US Web)
Copyright: 2011 Independent Media Institute
Website: http://www.alternet.org/
Author: Tommy McDonald and Stephen Gutwillig, California Director of
the Drug Policy Alliance
AN EXIT STRATEGY FROM AMERICA'S LONGEST WAR -- 40 YEARS OF DISASTROUS DRUG PROHIBITION
When Will We Abandon What Is Arguably The Most Disastrous Public Policy In American History Since Chattel Slavery And The Jim Crow Legacy?
Forty years ago this week, President Richard Nixon declared illicit drugs "public enemy #1." The ensuing war on drugs has been fought in fits and starts by every ensuing administration and is arguably the most disastrous public policy in American history since chattel slavery and its Jim Crow progeny.
This ignominious anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect, to ask ourselves and our leaders some very hard questions, and to demand a new direction in U.S. drug policy once and for all.
Initiated by President Nixon and escalated under Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, the war on drugs was said to be fought to keep Americans, particularly children, safe from harmful psychoactive substances. After four decades and at least $1 trillion, illicit drugs are actually cheaper, more potent, and widely available to Americans of all ages. Addiction remains persistent among a relatively small percentage of drug users, yet the overwhelming majority of people who want to access drug treatment don't, most often because they simply can't afford it. What's more, overdose deaths as well as HIV and hepatitis C transmissions have all skyrocketed despite recognized, low-cost public health interventions. That's because the drug war focuses on criminal justice -- rather than health-centered -- solutions to problems caused by drugs.
In fact, the acceleration of drug-related prosecutions is the largest contributor to the six-fold ballooning of this country's prison population since 1970. Of the 2.3 million Americans behind bars, half a million are there for drug offenses, the vast majority for possession of small amounts of illicit drugs for personal use. For context, the United States incarcerates more people just for drug crimes than Western Europe -- with 100 million more people -- incarcerates for all crimes combined. Here in California, we imprison 8,500 each year for drug possession, at an annual cost of nearly half a billion dollars.
Our over-reliance on a criminal justice approach to drugs is made even uglier by easily-documented racial disparities that reveal system-wide selective enforcement of our drug laws. Despite what we're used to seeing in the mainstream media, people of all races and ethnicities consume and distribute drugs in roughly equal proportion. That means white Americans take and sell the vast majority of illicit drugs. Yet, African Americans and Latinos represent a startling two thirds of all people arrested for drug crimes. The impact of a permanent drug arrest record, let alone a felony conviction, has well-documented lifelong consequences. The mass criminalization of people of color, particularly young African American men, has become as profound a system of racial control as the Jim Crow laws were in this country until the mid-1960s.
Far from keeping us safer and healthier, the war on drugs has been a war on families, on communities of color, and on American public health. Today a vibrant national movement voices that message as more and more people speak out against this historic policy catastrophe. At least 50 events around the country this weekend, seven of them in California, will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the drug war and advocate alternative approaches, many of which have been in place around the world for decades. And just two weeks ago, the Global Commission on Drug Policy called for a major paradigm shift in how our society deals with drugs, including decriminalization and legal regulation. The high-profile commission is comprised of international dignitaries such as former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, entrepreneur Richard Branson, and the former Presidents of Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Switzerland. Their report understandably sent a jolt around the world, generating thousands of international media stories.
Now the time has now come for all of us to forge an exit strategy from this nation's longest war. It's time to replace our punitive drug laws, and their race-based enforcement, with policies grounded in science, compassion, health, and human rights.
MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.
Edited June 16, 2011 by greenbuddha
jimbojinx
Until we move to decriminalization, preferably legalization, the racial divide will not subside !!!!
dr. Jinx
+wolfgang
+CC-Organizer
LocationSWM
medical.http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/06/failed_war_on_drugs_40th_anniversary_cops_call_out.php
Cops Hand-Deliver Report To Drug Czar's Office While Czar Refuses To Meet
In conjunction with this week's 40th anniversary of President Nixon declaring "War On Drugs," a group of police, judges and jailers who support legalization released a report Tuesday showing how the Obama Administration is ramping up a war it disingenuously claims that it ended two years ago.
Following the report's release at a press conference Tuesday morning, the pro-legalization law enforcement officers attempted to hand-deliver a copy to Obama Administration Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, the former Seattle chief of police who claimed he ended the War On Drugs two years ago.
Instead of making time to listen to the concerns of fellow law enforcers who have dedicated their careers to protecting public safety, the Drug Czar simply sent a staffer to the lobby to receive a copy of the cops' report.
Photo: HungryBeast
Norm Stamper, LEAP: "Although President Obama has talked about respecting states' rights to enact medical marijuana laws, his DEA has raided state-legal medical marijuahttp://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/drugs-extended-interview-norm-stamperna providers at a higher rate than under the Bush administration."
"It wasn't hard to put together a report showing how the Obama administration continues to wage the failed 'war on drugs' even while pretending to end it," said Norm Stamper, also a former chief of police of Seattle and now a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). "Although President Obama has talked about respecting states' rights to enact medical marijuana laws, his DEA has raided state-legal medical marijuana providers at a higher rate than under the Bush administration.
"Similarly, this president has continued a Bush-era budget ratio that heavily favors spending on punishment over providing resources for treatment, even though he has said drug addiction should be handled as a health issue," Stamper said.
The full text of the pro-legalization cops' report is available online by clicking here.
In the past four days alone, 2,500 people have used LEAP's website to send letters to President Obama asking him to transform his administration's good rhetoric on ending the War On Drugs into public policy. That action alert is also available online by clicking here.
"Over the past few weeks, us cops who have been on the front lines of the 'war on drugs' have made numerous attempts to schedule a meeting with the drug czar to share out concerns about the harms these drug laws are causing," said Neill Franklin, a former Baltimore narcotics cop and LEAP's executive director. "The fact that he refused to sit down with us and discuss these issues -- even when we went directly to his doorstep -- speaks volumes about how much the Obama administration would rather ignore the failed 'war on drugs' than do anything to actually address it."
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) represets police, prosecutors, judges, prison wardens, federal agents and others who want to legalize and regulate drugs after fighting on the front lines of the War On Drugs and learning firsthand that prohibition only serves to worsen addiction and violence.
Tags: drug czar, kerlikowske, war on drugs
LocationFascist Republik of Amerika
Legalization implies regulation. Decriminalization means it is no longer a criminal offense. I personally don't want it regulated any more than my rose bushes are.
Croppled1
LocationWashtenaw County
The Devil's always in the details . However we must have legalization of medicinal Cannabis or research and access for patients will never progress to a acceptable level . Without legalization patients will never have the opportunity to the rights and privilege's of all other Citizens they also need and deserve to live as normal and possible .


ROME — A 2,000-year-old building where Roman gladiators in Pompeii trained for combat has opened to the public eight years after its collapse following rainfall.
The Pompeii archaeological site said the public can tour the Schola Armaturarum on Thursdays. Experts will explain their painstaking restoration of frescoes that decorated the site where gladiators trained before combat in the ancient Roman city.
Its opening was hailed by Italy's culture ministry as the "symbolic place of Pompeii's rebirth," following years of dismaying news that various ruins had crumbled amid modern-day neglect of the sprawling, once-flourishing city that was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.
The building, which has been previously excavated some 100 years ago, had also suffered heavy damage from World War II Allied bombing. A few years later, reinforced concrete was used to build a protective cover.
A park statement said prosecutors investigating the 2010 collapse didn't pinpoint responsibility. But it said there were several "probable" interlaced factors that were aggravated by days of heavy rain. Those factors included probable malfunction of a drainage system, the weight of the postwar addition of cement and iron and "lack of a planned system of monitoring and maintenance."
Restoration work after the collapse did, however, bolster knowledge about the building's use, with archaeologists saying it appears to have served as a home to an ancient military association, which sometimes hosted banquets there.
Excavations carried out in part to shore up the structure revealed areas, apparently used by servants, to prepare for such banquets, as well as amphorae, or storage jugs, containing oil, fine wine and fish sauce imported from Crete, Sicily, Spain and Africa, the archaeological park said.
Several other recent finds point to better days for the popular Pompeii tourist site.
Among the more recent discoveries, the remains of a harnessed horse were found in an excavated stable of what was an ancient villa on Pompeii's outskirts. Other excavations have found well-preserved fresco decorations.
Massimo Osanna, director of the Pompeii archaeological site, said the archaeological park would concentrate on scheduled maintenance in hopes of preventing similar collapses.
"The time for extraordinary maintenance and restoration is over. Now the time for scheduled maintenance begins," Osanna said.
In 2013, Italy's government approved the appointment of a special superintendent to ensure that millions of euros in government and European Union funds for maintenance and restoration of the archaeological marvel and tourist site would be properly spent.
A rash of collapses of structures in ancient Pompeii had sparked concern about Pompeii's future. Days after the gladiators' training facilities crumbled into fragments, a stretch of garden wall ringing the ancient House of the Moralist gave way after days of torrential rain.
Italy's national budget has long skimped on funding for ordinary maintenance and protection of its vast artistic, architectural and archaeological treasures.


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Posts Tagged → senate
Election Blue Wave? More like a blur wave
Despite an embarrassingly partisan media's best effort to concoct a "Blue Wave" Democrat Party – sweep of the US Election that thankfully, blessedly ended last night, what really resulted is a 'blur wave'.
A wave for sure, as there was a lot of change, but a blur, because a lot of seats in both parties flipped. This change is a blur, neither blue nor red.
True, the Dems take the US House, but not by a whole lot and only by winning a handful of congressional seats, each by the narrowest of margins, like a 1% difference. That is a split and very narrowly divided electorate.
And the Rs gained big in the US Senate, now holding a huge lead there, where they will continue to hold public hearings and confirm administration nominees with alacrity and uninterrupted.
Historically, mid-term elections result in a shellacking for the incumbent president's party. That did not happen yesterday, not by a long shot. A very divided electorate likes President Donald Trump, a lot, and also allowed long-time incumbent politicians in both parties to both stay in hostile territory and get bumped off in friendly territory.
It is truly a mixed message.
No distinct color won. A blur wave resulted. Kind of how America was designed to operate.
Feeling vindicated feels good
Like genuine apologies, vindication for having taken an unpopular but principled stand comes all too infrequently. And boy does it feel good.
Ten years ago, after an adulthood spent in politics of some sort or another, I finally became personally engaged in electoral politics.
In 2009, after the first six months of the disastrous Obama presidency AKA The Eight Years War Against The US Constitution, I decided to run against the local and then-incumbent Blue Dog Democrat congressman, Tim Holden. Holden had become a symbol of Obama and how radicalism was overthrowing the Democrat Party of old.
Just a handful of years before that, I had been the keynote speaker at Holden's first and only debate with then-incumbent George Gekas, a fairly conservative Republican from Harrisburg.
After giving what I heard from many audience members was the best speech they had ever heard (no lie, no brag, and I did it in shorts and sandals), about my experience helping create the Flight 93 memorial, I then sat down next to that conservative Democrat and gave him advice on how to beat Gekas at that debate.
Here I was, an active Republican from a prominent local Republican family, sitting at the dais, next to the Democrat challenger of one of our family's longest political friends, whom I had just publicly called "a formerly close family friend," giving advice to Holden, which he effectively employed that day.
Holden went on to beat Gekas that Fall in a Republican-dominated congressional district, with a balance of pro-Life, pro-gun Democrats. It was Gekas' seat to lose, and he did lose it.
Schuylkill County Sheriff Tim Holden represented the grass roots at that time, and he garnered an overwhelming number of Republican votes. Holden was a staunch pro-business, Second Amendment advocate and he earned his blue collar support in every other way, too. He crushed Gekas.
What had made me turn against a long-time political ally and family friend, Congressman Gekas? Probably the same things that made so many other Republicans vote against him. He had become what today we would identify as an ossified establishment politician, a careerist who would show up to vote and to eat at every free lunch, and who would do very little else.
Gekas and I had met together earlier that year, and I had left his office seething with anger at how selfish and self-serving he had made himself. Where had the patriot gone? Where was the campaigning small-business owner, the Everyman who everyone could identify with, regardless of political party?
In today's parlance, Gekas had gone DC Swamp, and as a result he had lost my support. Back then I would not have said it in those terms, but the bottom line was that he had made the seat all about him, and not his constituents or the principles that made America great, and which I had seen first-hand were under serious assault in Washington.
Fast forward a handful of years later, and I myself was itching to run against the then-incumbent congressman, Tim Holden, Democrat from Schuylkill County.
By then Holden's party had become the majority, and Holden was voting with radical Nancy Pelosi 93% of the time. Not the 55/45% he had done previously.
So much for the independent-minded Blue Dog Democrat! Holden had gone DC Swamp, too, and the region was on fire to get rid of him.
In 2009 I declared myself a candidate for US Congress and ended up running in a four-way primary race. At the end of the race our campaign did not win, but we finished very strongly third (with the two top vote-getters within a few hundred votes of one another). A lot of politicos and lobbyists complimented our grass roots campaign. The highlight of that campaign was getting over 50% of the vote in that four-way race in Perry County, one of five counties in that congressional district. Perry County was then, and is now, symbolic of the American heartland, so getting the majority of their votes made me feel all-American forever.
But along the way in that race I had received some harsh words, too. Some from old friends or erstwhile political allies, admonishing me for running against the GOP-picked favorite (he was an elected official and went on to lose to Holden in what many insiders even today are convinced was a thrown race).
I had written to one of them, working as a high level appointee in DC at the time, that the grass roots was "on fire" and there was a sense of "rebellion in the air." A few more emails exchanged between us, and I don't think he "got it" or frankly even cared that the grass roots voters were rebelling against the ossified, elitist, self-serving political class.
This was right as what was to become the Tea Party was forming, and it all began right here in Central Pennsylvania. Berks County and Lebanon County, to be precise. We did not know what we were doing then, except that we were challenging that entrenched, deaf, self-serving political elite class that depended upon us for votes, but who would then sell us out when it came to giving in on quintessentially American principles to an increasingly radical Democrat Party.
And now here we are, mid-2018, and a huge wave of grass roots, stridently anti-establishment, pro-citizen, pro-taxpayer, pro-America-as-founded candidates are winning primary elections all over America.
And the GOPe is reeling.
Sure, they got Mittens Romney as the next US Senator in Utah, and they got a Democrat elected in Alabama over conservative Roy Moore. The GOPe was bound to win one or two. But they are not winning like they used to win ten years ago. A political revolution is taking place.
Having been at the bleeding edge of that movement\ revolution ten years ago and again and again as a state senate candidate nose-to-nose with the state GOP, and having suffered personally for it, and then partially vindicated by the PA Supreme Court in a landmark case that tossed the GOP gerrymandering plan because of my state senate district and restored me and our campaign to my original state senate district, it now feels good to be vindicated by the recent electoral successes of our ideological successors and soul mates across America.
After the past month, it turns out what at one time seemed like a very few of us are not alone in yearning for a return to the basic American values and principles that allowed for the greatest, broadest diversity of success, freedom, and opportunity the planet has ever seen. The American People are largely behind us, and seemingly increasingly so by the week.
Along with thousands of other risk-takers across America who also made sometimes costly and painful personal sacrifices to run on principle against an unprincipled bi-partisan political establishment early on, I know now that I, we, are now all vindicated. Our fellow Americans are proving this by voting for their own true interests (as opposed to the selfish interests of corporations, The Koch Brothers, unions, political parties, illegal immigrants, economic immigrants, violent jihadist immigrants, socialists, etc), and electing good people who best represent those all-America interests and values.
And that feels good.
Why I am voting for Paul Mango for governor, and not for Scott Wagner
When I stood out for twelve hours in the freezing weather four years ago, handing out Scott Wagner for Senate brochures at a polling place in York County, I was helping Pennsylvania elect someone to state government who promised to remain independent of political party leaders and the insider dealings that are the despicable hallmark of Pennsylvania Republican party politics.
Within a few months of Wagner's historic upset win over a creaky establishment, I began to regret his obvious character flaws. And then six months later I had the unfortunate experience of having Wagner lie through omission to my face.
"Yeah, I know John DiSanto," said Wagner.
What Wagner did not say was that he was aggressively promoting DiSanto as a would-be candidate for state senate. Fast forward another six months, and DiSanto was on track to be the state senator for the 15th district. He has been a huge improvement over the former senator, Rob Teplitz, a political radical out of place here in this region who was also dedicated to his constituents. I have no real hard feelings about DiSanto now bearing the burden of serving in state government, as it comes with big personal costs that I realize I would not want.
But I saw then that Scott Wagner was not the straight-up guy a lot of us believed he was when we worked hard to get him elected.
Wagner has this habit of ascribing to himself full responsibility for his material and political successes. As a capitalist I applaud anyone who can and does leave to their son or nephew a running business and millions of dollars. And I also applaud those people who are strong enough to take those inheritances and build on them, instead of squandering them, as so many Americans do.
But it upsets me to hear Wagner take credit for these things when he was simply the beneficiary of other people's hard work.
No, Mr. Wagner, you did not win that special election in York County all by yourself.
Rather, we, the hard working campaign volunteers won it for you, by getting fired up people out to every polling place in the district and demonstrating to the voters that we, the people, wanted you to be elected. Voters saw our passion and responded by handing the GOPe a tough and well-deserved loss.
No, you did not create that trucking business as you constantly claim, you inherited a good portion of it.
Two days ago at a dog-and-pony show press event, Scott Wagner released a phony "internal" poll result saying that he already leads in this primary race by 50.2% to Paul Mango's 20-something percent.
Flanking Wagner was the chairman and the vice-chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, the same GOPe that Wagner once opposed but which he has now shamelessly joined. Wagner's willingness to trade his political independence for political gain with the same old political insiders is another indication that he is not a straight-up guy. Rather, Wagner is just another aggressive political opportunist willing to sell his grandma and his former supporters to get ahead.
The message of having the two GOP political bosses next to him at the event is simple: "Vote for our insider stooge here."
But if Wagner is already so far ahead in the polls, then why does he need the personal presence of political bosses at his press event? The whole thing is phony – the supposed poll (two other recent polls show a statistical dead heat between Mango and Wagner, with also-ran Laura Ellsworth in the single digits), the fake political endorsement, his supposed political independence. One thing is for sure, Scott Wagner is now yet just another political insider, trying to use every object around him to gain power and prestige. Just like he used and then discarded us campaign volunteers to get into the state senate.
Wagner's political views have spanned the full spectrum, from great to crazy left, like his transvestite bathroom bill sponsorship.
Will the real Scott Wagner please stand up? Without screaming at anyone, please.
Contrast this chaotic mess to his primary opponent Paul Mango.
Paul Mango is about as exciting as watching the grass grow.
He is soft-spoken, measured, very smart and articulate on policy, and to me, mostly boring. Though he has gotten better at public presentations as time has gone on.
Is Mango the fiery revolutionary that Scott Wagner was four years ago? Nope.
Neither is Scott Wagner.
Is Mango the political trench warfare conservative that Wagner used to be, and which many of us wish for more each day? Nope.
Mango is a work horse, not a show horse.
Instead of having all of Wagner's drama and duplicity, Mango is a simple guy with true blue collar working class roots, who put himself through West Point and became a real-deal warrior in the US Army 101st Rangers, and who went on to build a career for himself that put him at the financial top of American society. Not to mention his all-American family. He is a US Army veteran who served our nation, thank you very much.
Mango is the all-American rags-to-riches story every American politician wishes to be, and which Wagner has tried to falsely claim he is.
This is why I am voting for Paul Mango and not for Scott Wagner.
You make up your own mind on this race, and you should also know I made up my mind through direct experience with both candidates. Sometimes it isn't just how great a candidate is, but also how awful the other guy is.
Mango is good enough, Wagner is awful.
Judge Roy Moore is a Victim, and He is Going to Win Alabama
Judge Roy Moore is a candidate for the vacant US Senate seat in Alabama.
Moore had the temerity, or strength of character, to openly criticize a bipartisan political establishment that is destroying America from within.
As a US senator, he would be in a unique position to openly confront those same people who cling to power and lord it over a cowed American public.
For that "crime" Moore has suffered unbelievable attacks on his character from top elected officials in both main parties, as well as endless fake news and tens of millions of Dollars spent to deliver it all to the voters of Alabama.
If you are at all interested in this story, then you can simply start to read about it. Read widely. Look for the facts, as opposed to the common fake news started and spread by the Washington Post.
The Washington Post is not a news organization. Rather, it is an aggressive communication arm of the political party opposing Moore's quest to fill that senate seat.
This is a gentle way of saying the Washington Post is a propaganda machine.
An example of this is how the organization simply repeats lies like Moore has seven, eight or nine "accusers," as if somehow he is awash in sexual harassment claims.
As it turns out, Moore has been accused of sexual anything by two women, not seven or nine, one of whom sounds somewhat credible, and the other is now being shown to be a bold faced liar.
The lady with credibility describes how forty years ago (40!) Moore invited her to his home for sex when she was a teenager (she was then at the age of consent in Alabama, which for a Yankee like me is pretty bizarre), and how she went there, and then declined, he accepted that and then he took her home.
The balance of the women involved simply say that they were young when he asked to date them, and that there was no sex-anything about it.
To call these women "accusers" is a lie. It is not true, it is not truth.
This is simply an effort by the Washington Post and the bipartisan political establishment in Washington to keep Moore away from their taxpayer-funded honey hole.
Moore has done absolutely nothing wrong, though where I am from the age of consent in Alabama is pretty freaky and it makes me uncomfortable.
Nevertheless, the guy has clean hands, and the accusations against him are junk, lies, made up political assassination to try to keep him from getting to Washington and upsetting the apple cart.
Moore is up in the polls, some showing a 5% lead, others a 15% lead.
Either way, it is likely that Moore will win this senate race, and that he will be seated. He has done nothing wrong, and therefore cannot be subjected to further attacks by ethics committees or other organs of the state.
What has bothered me the most about this is how craven the "moderate" Republicans have been. People like pollster Frank Luntz, and local politicos like Charlie Gerow (who I have always liked and admired), have sought to stay on the anti-Moore bandwagon. It just looks like they are trying to curry favor with the liberal media, as if they are afraid of the media, instead of doing the right thing and standing up to it and confronting its open warfare against the American People, against their form of government, and against honesty, truth, and accuracy.
Everyone shoulder to shoulder now with Judge Roy Moore, for America, for truth, for honesty.
Tidal wave vs. The People
When I was a kid at the New Jersey shore, I remember how some of us young boys would bob in the beach zone where the sandy bottom dropped off and the waves hit the hardest. If Jersey waves can hit hard…though they did to us kids.
We would square our shoulders and lean into the hardest waves, barely touching bottom, trying our best to withstand them.
It was a physical test and a test of willpower, kind of a test of our budding manhood. Man vs. Nature. Primal combat.
It was summer vacation, what can I say. We were kids and let our imaginations run. By today's video games standard, it was quite wholesome and innocent.
Today I feel like we are all right back there facing down waves.
This time the waves are assaults on our society, civilization, by a media-political complex bent on crushing everything in its way. Especially the traditional people who represent or hold onto the old ways that built America and which are the foundation of Western Civilization.
A recent example of this was when Bill Clinton was elected president in 1994.
Clinton had a whole host of women accusers surrounding him. Accusations of rape, sexual assault, harassment, etc. And despite that, plus his shady business dealings, the media-political complex circled the wagons around Clinton and did everything possible to get him elected president.
In the course of that process, the media-political complex allowed Clinton to dodge, avoid, and lie about his actions, and get elected as a result. They attacked his accusers and protected him, because they shared his political views.
Another example of this was when Barack Hussein Obama was elected president in 2008. Obama had a whole host of questions surrounding him, including his shady business dealings and his overblown, shallow professional qualifications. As well as his citizenship qualification, which was raised first by his primary opponent Hillary Clinton, and recently resurrected by Obama's own Kenyan brother, who last year was sending out a photo of Barack's original Kenyan birth certificate.
In the course of that election process, the media-political complex allowed Obama to dodge, avoid, and lie about his actions, and to get elected as a result. The media-political complex circled the wagons around Obama and did everything possible to get him elected president, because he represented their values, their desire to "transform America."
Today we are seeing this same old process unfold yet again, in the case of the US Senate election in Alabama.
There, a conservative anti-establishment candidate, judge Roy Moore, is facing an obviously contrived and coordinated attack by the media-political complex bent on crushing him and overturning the will of the people, the voters of Alabama.
That media-political complex is made up of BOTH political parties, as well as political and social elites.
Doubting that assertion? Consider that US Senate leader Mitch McConnell prefers a liberal Democrat over the independent minded Moore in that seat. McConnell can easily work with liberal senators. He knows how to horse trade with them. How to give in, roll over. He knows Moore will not roll over, and is not interested in the careerist perks McConnell can offer.
It may not be politically correct to be this honest, but the truth is, I do not believe the accusations against Moore. They are just way too conveniently timed, and are obviously led by GOP squishes like McConnell.
Where were these accusers decades ago? Suddenly now they're available?!
And where was this same media scrutiny when rapist Bill Clinton was running amok and poised to become president? Where is that scrutiny now? Well, Bill Clinton is a hero to liberals. So he got the pass.
Where is the same media scrutiny for US senator Al Franken, whose damning photo shows him illegally groping a sleeping woman (who also accuses him of attacking her elsewhere)?
Where is the same media scrutiny for the dozens of Hollywood elite also accused of pedophilia, sexual assault, rape, and harassment?
Nearly crickets out there, folks, except in the unbelievable cases where the media-political complex is trying to protect Franken.
But Hell's bells, you get an independent-minded guy like Moore, and the whole world is descending on him and demanding him to bow out of the race, with no proof other than these obviously well-timed political accusations.
So it is the Roy Moores of the world now, squaring their shoulders, standing in the surf where their feet barely touch the sandy bottom, and facing down the big tidal wave of contrived fake news designed to wipe them out of the only political process anywhere on Planet Earth designed to capture the will of The People.
Moore may not be a young kid, but it is the innocence of America that is at stake here.
Win, Moore, win.
Win for The People.
Ooh-ooh, that smell
Dedicated readers of this site might wonder why we are not commenting about the lameness of a political party that filibusters everything in the US Senate, used "the nuclear option" themselves to advance the most radical and extreme federal judges and political appointees from 2010 to 2015, but which now is screaming bloody murder that the other political party followed their lead, did exactly what they did with the Senate rules, and allowed a simple majority vote to confirm the next US Supreme Court justice (Gorsuch) yesterday.
Why would a normal, healthy person spend time on that issue? It is obviously quite insane. One political party is dominated by people with an agenda that does not fit in with America's political model. Would you normal people please stop supporting the Democrat Party, until its leadership is replaced with normal, mainstream Americans?
Instead, this essay here takes a line from a Lynyrd Skynyrd song about drug abuse, "Oooh-ooh that smell."
This is about a daily personal health issue that seems to be unknown and unaddressed, despite having a real effect on Americans across the country. If you care about your health, read on.
We Americans are so addicted to cheap Chinese junk (tools, food, clothing, furniture, shoes, tires) that we shop ever more in big box stores filled to the brim with that cheap Chinese junk. Or buy from Amazon, which imports from China by the shipful.
And when you enter the doorway of these big box stores, you are confronted with an odd, sickly sweet smell associated with the vast majority of Chinese manufacturing: Formaldehyde.
Formaldehyde is used to pickle human remains for wakes and open casket funerals. It is used to stash scientific specimens in glass containers, so they will not rot, so they can be viewed and studied.
Formaldehyde is dangerous, toxic, and both acutely and chronically dangerous. And yet Americans work around hugely elevated amounts of formaldehyde in these ubiquitous big box stores, and Americans shop daily in these same places, all blissfully unaware that they are inhaling a significant amount of nasty chemical.
The formaldehyde you smell in the store is off-gassing from the consumer items sitting in cardboard boxes on the store shelves. This chemical permeates everything made in China, and there is so much of it that for years it keeps leaking out of the plastics, fabrics, and woods sent here, which we then put in our homes and garages as furniture and tools.
You are worried about ambient cigarette smoke? Cut us a break! Exposure to air-borne formaldehyde in these amounts is far worse for the human body, far riskier than the occasional cigarette, as is standing on a street corner in down town Manhattan, waiting for a street light to change, for that matter, because of all the ozone, particulates, and sulfur/ carbon dioxide/monoxide smog.
But nothing is being done about ambient formaldehyde risk, because it is associated with too much money and economic activity. And it is invisible, except to the nose.
There are no sexy prohibitionist crusades about ambient formaldehyde like there is with tobacco use (an upcoming subject here). And yet take a good whiff the next time you go to a big box store. That weird sickly sweet smell is formaldehyde. Your lungs are getting a free embalming when you enter.
Note: If we bought American products, made in USA facilities where formaldehyde is not allowed to be used, then we would not be exposed to it when we went shopping. But we are like drug addicts, addicted to cheap Chinese junk, to our own detriment.
By Josh • Posted in Fruit of Contemplation • No Comment
Dangerous RINOs Ahead
Around the world, both the leading and moderately successful democracies are unsustainably absorbing huge numbers of illegal immigrants who both refuse to integrate and probably could not integrate, even if they wanted.
In most places they show no signs of integrating, and are instead associated with lawlessness and chaos.
Europe, Israel, and America are where this is happening.
The faux "victim" status of the invaders has given them access to publicly funded health and education benefits, against the will of the people paying for them.
This invasion-in-fact puts increasing economic and social pressure on existing populations, the people who built their societies from the ground up. You know, the "natives."
These European natives live in the very places against which the invaders are entitled to "resist occupation." Why and how it is "occupation" when Europeans and Americans move to other countries, but it is a morally required population shift when everyone moves to Europe and America, is one of those mysteries that can probably only be explained by being steeped in the 'deep thinking' of Marxism.
This presently unarmed invasion is made possible by ruling elites who either benefit financially from the cheap labor influx, or who personally enjoy signalling their great virtues and thus willfully ignore the huge problems descending upon the natives.
While you would think leaders from opposite sides of the aisle would collide on this civilization-ending invasion, the truth is that huge collaboration between left and right party establishments is what has enabled this in the first place. Most of the left and the right are run by ruling class elites.
Among the world's ruling class elite, the RINO is the most dangerous animal. This is because the RINO says it is a watch dog, when in fact it is a guide dog for the invaders while the American family lies asleep inside the cozy home.
Living in its own cushy, posh, comfy little corner, insulated from the reality around it, the careerist RINO just has to successfully pretend to be a watch dog and occasionally bark like a watch dog. That keeps most of the rabble away. Never mind that the rabble are the citizens the RINO is supposed to be watching.
Aside from a small group of conservatives in Congress and in state houses, the GOPe is not protecting America. The GOPe is not standing guard. Sure some of the GOPe members make a few noises about standing up for the citizens they represent, but just like with the GOPe recent unwillingness to eliminate ObamaCare, these RINOs cannot bring themselves to make a principled stand when the time has arrived. It might upset someone and threaten their cozy elected job.
Around here in central Pennsylvania, career congressman Charlie Dent is probably the greatest example of the most worthless of RINOs in Congress, and state senator Jake Corman is the best example in the PA legislature. Won't a couple patriots please challenge Dent and Corman in their upcoming primaries?
It is time to make these RINOs an endangered species. Otherwise, America will become an endangered specie itself.
Gov. Wolf must pull Marcus Brown nomination
Governor Tom Wolf nominated Marcus Brown to be Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner.
Brown is a deeply, amazingly flawed candidate whose poor record literally involved recent malicious vandalism and theft. That is, the most basic, lowest form of law breaking. It's behavior far beneath the dignity of any professional, and even farther, unimaginable, really, for someone representing the pinnacle of law enforcement. Brown is under investigation and will probably be charged soon with the crime. It's an awkward scenario.
Brown's many other flaws are notorious and even kind of crazy, like shutting down an entire highway and having Maryland state police go car-to-car with their guns drawn. That's insane. It's patently unconstitutional behavior and obviously tyrannical.
Brown is a man who has gotten away with all kinds infractions and law-breaking his entire career. He's got a huge sense of entitlement. He is not cut out to be any sort of law enforcement officer, need we say the head of the PA State Police.
I know what it's like to be a nominee running into an opposing state senator. I've been there and it can be an unfair fight, especially when the senator will tell no one what his objection is. Nevertheless, that same state senator is now joined by many others in formal opposition to Brown's nomination, for good reasons that are a matter of the public record, not some personal vendetta.
Wolf doesn't need this headache. There are going to be worthy disputes and tests with the legislature aplenty in the next four years. Wolf should choose his fights carefully, and in my experienced opinion, this is a bad one for him to stand on. He's not going to win. And he's promoting someone, Marcus Brown, who is unworthy of any support at all, much less a taxpayer-funded job, based on his historic and recent law breaking.
If you want freedom, you are going to have to fight for it
Nevada senator Harry Reid changed the US Senate rules last year, which may not sound like a big deal. But those rules had been in place for about 215 years, a significant portion of America's existence.
The former senate rules ensured that a slim majority of senators could not win important votes by a slim majority of votes. Important votes like confirming federal judges, whose stamp on the nation's character lasts for decades. Some federal judge nominees are extremists, nakedly partisan political activists who only wear the black robes for effect, not because they are truly dignified and above the political fray. The former rules prevented those extremists from being confirmed to the bench unless a super-majority of US senators agreed.
Harry Reid's rule changes allowed his party to ramrod through a whole freak show of kooks, anti-American anarchists, and other assorted wing nuts. These are not people dedicated to serving American citizens; these people are at war with the America we grew up with. They think that Communism only failed because the Soviets didn't implement it correctly, not that Marxism is a bad idea.
Last week I sat about ten feet away from where US Senator Pat Toomey was speaking at the Perry County Republican Committee Fall Dinner (kudos to county chairman Don McClure for getting Toomey to speak to us). Sure, Toomey said a lot of good stuff. But then he dropped a bombshell, even worse than his ill-fated anti-gun legislation last year: If the Republicans regain the US Senate in two weeks, they will return the Senate rules back to the old set.
Toomey said that this would be done to "prove" that Republicans are "better" than Democrats.
Well, what the hell, Patrick? The liberals are playing to win, to win everything, to win all the power, to take over the entire nation, and the Republican party establishment is engaged in a game of checkers.
In Houston we got to see what Liberals-Gone-Wild really looks like, as the new mayor there served subpoenas on many of the pastors in the city, who had dared to exercise their First Amendment rights and oppose the mayor's policies. In other words, the only free speech under liberals is speech that they approve of, using the full force of government coercion to achieve their goal. In other words, we are in a fight for survival, for the basic core of American democracy. We have to win this fight, because if people like the Houston mayor win, if people like Barack Hussein Obama win, every citizen loses.
Here's the thing that people like US Senator Pat Toomey just do not understand, that they will never understand: A gentlemanly duel with the liberals will not succeed.
Instead, a bar room brawl is what is needed, and frankly, it is what is desired by the disaffected grass roots activists who otherwise fuel the Republican party.
If you want to hold onto your freedoms, you'd better fight like hell to hold onto them, fight at least as hard as your opponent, if not harder. That means letting the people who changed the US Senate rules learn to live with that change under Republican administration. The Republicans should run the US Senate for at least one year, maybe two years, under Harry Reid's new rules.
Any Republican senator who cannot support this stance is not really committed to winning back the America that the liberals have dramatically damaged over the past six years. Republican senators who are only committed to the meaningless game of checkers, to the effete gentlemanly duel, what are they doing there?
Step aside, Patrick. The rest of us are rolling up our sleeves and grabbing something solid and heavy to set this situation right. That's right, that heavy lifting is always left to the grass roots activists, isn't it….