Boehner Runs First TV Ad In Four Years

by JASmius

Hmmm; that's an odd move for the Speaker to make.  Is he concerned about his own re-election this fall - especially given the persistent rumors that he's going to retire after his current term?  Personally I'd buy his leaving before I would his seat being in any electoral jeopardy.  Only one sitting House Speaker (Tom Foley, D-WA5, in 1994) has been defeated for re-election since before the Civil War.  But The Man From O.R.A.N.G.E. insists he isn't going anywhere, from which I can only conclude, what with hordes of Democrats in front of him and vengeful Tea Partiers behind him, that he's an even bigger glutton for punishment than I thought he was.

So....why is he running TV adds?  The answer is kind of....anti-climatic:

House Speaker John Boehner is running his first television ad in four years to rally support for other Republicans in Ohio, Politico reported.

"Republicans have a big opportunity in 2014, and the speaker wants to make the most of it," Cory Fritz, a spokesman for Boehner’s political operation, told Politico. "With no significant statewide primary to mobilize and engage voters in Ohio, we’re stepping up and doing our part to build a strong foundation for victory up and down the ticket in November."

"No significant statewide primary"?  I'm taking from that that there's no Tea Party challenge to Ohio Governor John Kasich (and that he's seeking a second term).  Does this mean that Kasich will be running in November unopposed as well?  How is "no significant statewide primary" an explanation for Boehner running general election ads for other Republicans in March?  Is this a "Let's not take any chances/Let's leave it all out on the field" prudence mindset - which I can certainly respect - or has he seen internal polls that indicate that Ohio 'Pubbies are in trouble, and that that might be a bellweather harbinger of a massive GOP disappointment on November 4th?

Or might it just be an anti-climax after all?

Well, the last time the Speaker ran any TV ads was preparatory to the last GOP midterm tsunami. Why mess with something that you know works?

Secret Amnesty Ploy

By Douglas V. Gibbs

A nation without borders ceases to be a nation.  As European nations realize the dangers of their relaxed border policies, and are tightening border security as a response, the United States is in the process of attempting suicide.  Allowing bad behavior to go without consequences, and actually rewarding border-jumpers with amnesty, will not solve the problem, but will make the flow of illegal immigration into the U.S. worse.  Legalizing tens of millions of people that have no allegiance to the United States, and in fact are anti-American, is absolutely moronic.  The laws have been in place for a reason, and Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 gave the Congress the allowance to put prohibitions on immigration, for a reason.

The Founding Fathers were concerned about divided loyalties, and required people to have full allegiance to the United States before being allowed to assimilate into American Society.  The authors of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment recognized this original intent of the framers of the United States Constitution, and indicate in that clause that being born on American Soil is not enough to be a citizen.  According to the first part of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment in the U.S. Constitution, persons must also be "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."  Close examination of that language, based on the debates over the 14th Amendment in Congress, and the testimony of the drafters of that clause, reveals that "jurisdiction" means "full allegiance."  Therefore, because the parents of the child has an allegiance somewhere other than the United States, anchor babies are not automatically citizens as we have been led to believe. (Myth #13 in 25 Myths of the United States Constitution by Douglas V. Gibbs)

Politicians lie, and they have purely political reasons for moving towards allowing amnesty to sneak in the back door.  The welfare of the United States is not their priority.  Votes, and maintaining their own power, be it for themselves, or the big government ideology that has destroyed the Democrat Party, and is a festering poison growing in the Republican Party, is their main concern.

The Obama administration has been telling us that we have to be caring and compassionate, but don't worry, if an illegal alien has a criminal record, or commits a serious crime in the United States, they will have no chance for amnesty.  Yet, according to a report reviewing internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Obama administration released 35 percent—or 68,000—convicted criminal aliens back into the U.S. general population when they could have been deported.

The documents also show ICE only deported a small fraction of the aliens they encountered overall.

This report comes out on the heels of a report from the office of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) which found that only .08 percent of the aliens deported in 2013 were not serial immigration law violators or convicted of serious crimes.

In response to these findings, Sessions said immigration law in America has essentially ceased to exist.

“The preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that immigration enforcement in America has collapsed,” Sessions said. “Even those with criminal convictions are being released. DHS is a department in crisis. Secretary [Jeh] Johnson must reject the President’s demands to weaken enforcement further and tell him that his duty, and his officers’ duty, is to enforce the law – not break it. As Homeland Secretary, Mr. Johnson is tasked with ensuring the public safety and the rule of law. But Secretary Johnson is not meeting these duties.”

“American citizens have a legal and moral right to the protections our immigration laws afford – at the border, the interior and the workplace,” Sessions said. “The administration has stripped these protections and adopted a government policy that encourages new arrivals to enter illegally or overstay visas by advertising immunity from future enforcement. Comments from top Administration officials, such as Attorney General Holder’s claim that amnesty is a civil right, or Vice President Biden’s claim that those here illegally are all US citizens (apparently including someone whose visa expired yesterday), demonstrate the administration’s increasing belief in an open borders policy the American public has always rejected."

The Obama administration, and the Democrat Party, aren't the only ones playing this bizarre game with immigration policies, or are trying to sneak amnesty in under the rug.  The Republican Establishment is also working to squeeze into place amnesty, even if it means doing it by sneaking it in as a part of a piece of legislation designed for National Defense, and deemed "popular" among the knuckleheads in Congress.

That is how politicians get unpopular legislation into place.  They piggy-back the language of the unpopular bill into something that is destined to pass, and then threaten those that would vote against it as being against the popular portion of the bill that has nothing to do with the stow-away language in the first place, rather than recognize the vote of dissent was against the unpopular language they snuck in.

It's a deceptive game, and it plays out daily in the Halls of Congress.

The Republicans that have fallen for the argument that without amnesty they never have a chance to gain the vote of Hispanics is working to kill the GOP.  Amnesty would be a death nail to the party, a move that the conservative base of the Republican Party would never forgive the party for, and a move that would legalize over 40 million voters that would overwhelming cast their votes for the Democrats.  However, despite the reality that amnesty is destructive, amnesty language that would enable the Republicans to commit suicide for themselves, and the nation, is in the language of a bill being proposed by House Republicans.

Sophomore Republican Rep. Jeff Denham of California, a close ally of GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy, is leading the push to add the text of his “ENLIST Act” into the National Defense Authorization Act, which could come to the House floor as early as next month.  The NDAA is already a deadly bill, which would add to the already dangerous NDAA legislation in place, making it even easier for the Obama administration to detain Americans that dare to oppose him, and to do so without due process.  But by adding amnesty, the Republicans are making a deceptive bill worse, and both parties are supporting the monstrosity.

And on top of all that, the media is ignoring this.  Nobody is reporting it.  And, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte – who killed the proposal as an amendment to last year's NDAA in a dramatic floor struggle – is weighing whether to approve the maneuver, which would circumvent his committee on one of its key matters of jurisdiction.

Top opposition to immigration laws that build momentum for a comprehensive immigration bill calls the secret insertion ill-conceived.

“If we're going to put out the bait, which is: come into the U.S., break in, so to speak, smuggle yourself into the military, put on the uniform of the United States, take an oath to uphold our Constitution, which may or may not mean anything to them, and now we're going to reward you with citizenship -- I think it's just a bizarre thing to do, to reward people for breaking our laws. That's what amnesty is,” said Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King.

“As soon as they raise their hand and say 'I'm unlawfully present in the United States,' we're not going take your oath into the military, but we're going to take your deposition and we have a bus for you to Tijuana. That's the law. Are they going to then suspend the law that requires ICE to place people into removal proceedings that are unlawfully present?” he added.

Key proponents of a comprehensive immigration bill said they support Denham's effort but claim it's not part of a broader push for amnesty.

The Republicans that support amnesty see this as a race.  They want credit for amnesty because they somehow think it will mean the new voters will suddenly like Republicans. . . because their opposition in the Democrat Party said so.  But President Obama has been planning to enact full-throttle amnesty through unconstitutional executive orders, and if he does that, the democrats, and Mr. Obama, will get credit for amnesty.  Therefore, the members of the GOP that foolishly believe the party needs to support amnesty is ramping up their behind-the-scenes efforts in order to head Obama off at the pass, and claim the prize for themselves.

It is a sick game they are playing in regards to the security of our nation.  While a large segment of illegal entrants into the United States are of Middle Eastern descent, when it comes to the Hispanic vote, the Republican Establishment believes the liberal left talking points, and are being enticed by leftist claims that in order to win elections the Republicans have to do this.

If Romney had won over 70% of the Hispanic vote in the last presidential election, he would have still lost.  And reports have shown that immigration is a minor issue for most current Hispanic voters.  They put other issues ahead of immigration, in most cases. Besides, Hispanics don't vote democrat because the republicans have failed to find a way to get them to love them.  Hispanics vote democrat because the liberals of the party of the jackass have convinced them the GOP is filled with old white guys that are racist, hate the poor, and just want to be mean to everyone in order to protect their power as plutocrats - all of which is ridiculous propaganda.

Congressman Denham, who was the first Republican to co-sponsor a Democratic immigration bill modeled after the Senate Gang-of-Eight legislation that passed last year, is pushing to add the language to the “base” NDAA bill – meaning it would not get its own vote.

Denham also believes he is protected from conservative backlash because a trio of South Carolina Congressmen known for being champions of conservatism are allegedly crossing the battle lines to cosponsor the bill.  They are Representatives Jeff Duncan, Mick Mulvaney, and Trey Gowdy – the latter of whom is the chairman of the immigration subcommittee in Goodlatte's Judiciary panel.

Overall, the stand-alone bill has 42 cosponsors, including 24 Republicans. Also on the list: key chairmen like Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of House Veterans Affairs Committee and Darrell Issa, chairman of the oversight panel. Two close allies of Speaker John Boehner, Reps. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Steve Stivers (R-OH) are cosponsors, as is McCarthy.

The bill says illegal immigrants who have been in the U.S. since 2011 and came to the U.S. before they were 15 years old could enlist in the military, upon which he would receive permanent legal status.

The alien's status would be revoked if he was discharged from the military on anything but “honorable” terms.

Legal permanent residents can apply for citizenship after residing in the U.S. for five years, or three if they are married to a U.S. Citizen.

“I support allowing children who were brought to this country through no fault of their own to put their lives on the line to serve our nation,” Denham said in an emailed statement to Breitbart News. “As a veteran, I served with immigrants and there is no better way to show your dedication to the United States and earn legal status than through the ultimate act of patriotism and commitment to our great country.”

This is not the first time Denham has tried to sneak this amnesty language into law.  During the 2013 House floor battle of the NDAA, Denham, with the backing of Majority Leader Eric Cantor, nearly succeeded in bringing the proposal to a vote as an amendment, which had cleared the House Rules Committee.

But at the last minute on the House floor, Goodlatte asserted his jurisdictional prerogative, killing the amendment, after an uproar by voters flooded Washington with angry emails, phone calls, and letters.

“Amnesty for those illegally here should not be tucked away and hidden within the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA),” Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) said in an emailed statement. “When someone goes into the military they take an oath to protect and defend the United States of America. How can you raise your right hand and promise to defend the U.S. Constitution, while you are breaking the very laws you are sworn to defend?”

Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said the provision would jeopardize his support of the overall bill, which is one of the last “consensus” bills that typically garners a large bipartisan majority of support every year.

“How do you ensure that illegal aliens are loyal to America and not another country? Is it wise to entrust illegal aliens with questionable loyalties with America’s military secrets and weapons, including weapons of mass destruction? Is it enough that illegal aliens join America’s military, or should they be required to be honorably discharged or serve in combat before receiving amnesty for past illegal conduct? If I don’t have satisfactory answers to these and other questions, I will not support the National Defense Authorization Act that provides amnesty for illegal aliens,” Brooks said in a phone interview.

Brooks added that this could be a part of a bigger play by the amnesty activist community to either revive the Senate-passed “Gang of Eight” immigration bill, the similar “principles” from Speaker John Boehner, or something else like either of those.

“Everything by the illegal alien allies is part of a bigger play,” Brooks said, adding “There is always the risk that those in Washington that wish to betray the American people on behalf of illegal aliens will slip some language into some place that opens the floodgates to the detriment of American workers.”

Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, added in an email to Breitbart News that this could be a “Trojan Horse” for a larger amnesty.

“Harry Reid hasn’t even sent the Gang of Eight bill to the House, because he knows it would be struck down on procedural grounds alone – it raises revenue and only bills that start in the House can do that,” Krikorian said in an email. “By including an amnesty provision – however small – in the defense bill, the House leadership would create the opportunity for Reid to insert the Senate bill and send it to the House. It would become a Trojan Horse for amnesty.”

King, who came to learn of the secretive effort in an interview, said he will offer an amendment to the NDAA bill to strip it of the immigration provisions and work diligently to kill the proposal.

“I can't let something like this happen. I can't let it happen,” King said.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Report: Obama Admin Released Tens of Thousands of Illegal Immigrant Criminals - Breitbart: Big Government

Exclusive: House Republicans Secret Immigration Ploy - Breitbart: Big Government

Immigrants from the Middle East - Center for Immigration Studies

Hispanic Voters Put Other Issues Before Immigration - Gallup

Tom DeLay: Obama Faces Armageddon

by JASmius

Funny, I thought the Hammer was talking about O's Russia policy floundering:

President Barack Obama has lost all credibility with his disastrous Affordable Care Act and bungled foreign policy — and Americans will punish him at the polls this fall, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay says.

Delay was reacting to Obama's claim that the ACA had reached its April 1st goal of seven million signups, proving his healthcare law's opponents were wrong, Obama said, because "Armageddon has not arrived."

"His Armageddon is coming in November [with] these midterm elections and then again in 2016," DeLay told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"The American people have lost all confidence in this president, they've lost trust in him. He has no credibility.

"The reason people are against ObamaCare is they don't want the federal government to be involved in their healthcare, or in their lives. He just doesn't get it," DeLay said Wednesday.

Sorry, Tom, but it's you who doesn't "get it," and Barack Obama that does.  He's not blind; he can read polls just like the rest of us.  He knows that ObamaCare has never been popular and has become lethally toxic since it was implemented six months ago.  He simply does not care.  He's an orthodox Marxist-Alinskyist, he believes he is a god, his party is his apostles, the State is his church, and ObamaCare is his Great Commission - "Go out into the country and make patients of all Americans, enslaving them in the name of Godbama, The One, and the Holy Prompter.  Amen."

Think about it.  Fallen human nature resists the Gospel; most Americans resist the idea of the federal government dictating their health care.  So they must be forcibly "evangelized" until they are "converted".  Again, it isn't O that doesn't "get it"; in his mind it's all of us who are clueless, lost, and....rebellious.  His will is to crush that rebelliousness and drag us into line.  And ObamaCare is his "paddle".

But that will come later, after the 2014 midterms, one way or the other.  Right now he wants to avert that electoral "Armageddon," and that was the purpose of his "7.1 million enrollments" April Fool's joke.  He needed something to turn the page from the ObamaCare disaster narrative of the past half year.  Colossally striding into the Rose Garden and proclaiming that their enrollment goal had been met, on time, turns that corner towards success, no matter how bogus, dishonest, and fraudulent it is.  Why?  Because he knows that LIVs and NIVs - the numbnuts who fell for his bovine scatology not once, but twice, meaning they're insatiably "skinnable" - will hear his words, read the headlines, and never probe any deeper than that.  They lost their jobs?  He'll give 'em welfare.  They lost the health insurance plans they liked?  He'll give 'em Medicaid.  And they'll believe him and his media propagandists and not us.  Mission accomplished.

Sound too pessimistic?  Consider this: What does the boast of meeting ObamaCare's first-year enrollment objective seek to convey?  (1) That the program is popular after all, since Americans are signing up for it in droves (never mind that most are doing so because the program took away the old plans that they had and liked), and (2) that the program is entrenched, just like its older siblings Social Security and Medicare, beyond any realistic possibility of repeal.  Which is to say, if Democrat electoral "Armageddon" cannot be averted this November, Barack Obama is laying the groundwork for deterring a unified Republican Congress from even considering ObamaCare repeal a year from now, thus killing it for good as an issue in 2016.

Assuming that O has any plans on leaving, of course.

So you see, Hammer, The One "gets it," alright.  It's long past time for us to start giving him that credit, instead of self-defeatingly underestimating him as an enemy at every turn.

This is why I thought the "Armageddon" reference was to O's Russia policy.  Here, the ex-House Majority Leader posits a saliently plaintive lament:

DeLay also expressed dismay at what he says is Obama's passive approach to dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggressive push into Ukraine.

"I don't know what we’re going to do for the next two-and-a-half years of this president being president. Foreign policy is in the toilet, Russia is running wild," he said.

"Who knows what North Korea is going to do now with South Korea. It's starting to break open, and this president's still president and will be for another two-and-a-half years. It's scary."

It's kind of like having front row seats at a disaster movie epic, except that it's in 4D (i.e. it's real), the promos are an endless series of Obama speeches and pressers, you have no idea when the "movie" will start, but when it does, everybody in the theater is going to perish.  Oh, yes, and all the exit doors are welded shut.

Pity the Avengers were only in 3-D.  All they had to fight off were Loki and the Chitauri.

Another Shooting Spree @ Fort Hood (Video Followup)

by JASmius

Death toll now up to four.  Base is on lockdown.

From Fox News:

Active Shooter at Fort Hood: 1 Dead, 14 Injured

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Fort Hood is once again the scene of a shooting, but this time it is a soldier on soldier episode.

Details are unclear, but it is being emphasized there is no terrorism connection to this event.

More news on this shooting as it becomes available.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Ft. Hood Shooting was reportedly soldier on soldier incident - Fox News

Hard Starboard Radio: The Triumph Of ObamaCare?

....aka "The ultimate April Fool's joke"; Season of the ObamaCare witch; A realistic assessment of ObamaCare shows it is not delivering what was promised - a pity realism is now outlawed; If ObamaCare is now such a success, why are Senate Democrats still fleeing?  And will they now continue to do so?; Seven pieces of anti-ObamaCare contraband to risk your lives remembering after Black Tuesday; And guess who doesn't have to play by the rules?

Prepare to be "Clintonized" at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific.

Dick Morris: House GOP Should Reject Ryan Budget

by JASmius

Remember yesterday when I wrote this?:

I put it to you in the most sardonic, rhetorical tone imaginable: How many Tea Party congresscritters do you think will embrace Ryan's budget blueprint with the Sequester-busting Murray-Ryan provisions attached?  Yeah, I'd say that's about right.

Of course, it doesn't matter all that much, any more than the Obama budget does (other than the fact that he has the power - not the legal authority, but the amputated, untrammeled power - to just impose it by Executive decree).  These budget resolutions are majority-party mission statements, not actual binding legislation.  And as far apart as the Ryan and Obama budgets are, you can see where this is headed - yet another last-minute continuing resolution six months from now, which will lean heavily towards the Democrats' budget priorities because the GOP will be absolutely loathe to force another government shutdown showdown barely a month away from what's shaping up to be another blowout midterm election romp.  Which will undoubtedly stir up the ire of the Ted Cruz-led "suicide caucus," spitefully depress center-right turnout, and perhaps save the Senate for the Dems.

Well, the Toe-Sucker agrees - but not from quite the same direction.  Or, put another way, he wants House Republicans to stir up the ire of the Ted Cruz-led "suicide caucus" about six months early:

House Republicans "would do well" to reject the budget plan unveiled Tuesday by Budget Chairman Paul Ryan because of its proposed cuts to Medicare over the next decade, political analyst Dick Morris says.

"Why should the Republican Party give the Democrats ammunition for the next five elections?" Morris, who served in the Clinton administration, asks in an op-ed piece to be published Wednesday in The Hill. "Why should House Republicans put their necks on the line every two years for changes that are proposed to take effect a decade hence?....

Ryan's plan, he says, gives Democrats immediate ammunition: "Republicans propose medicare cuts."

Also, as the president's $500 billion in Medicare benefit cuts to finance Obamacare have driven more seniors to the Republican Party in recent years, "Ryan’s prescription for long-term cuts a decade away will give them pause in switching their votes," he says.

"Democrats can easily counter the Medicare Advantage cut, which hurts one-third of all seniors, by saying that the GOP wants to cut Medicare, too."

In a phrase, "Don't muddy the clarity of the anti-ObamaCare message".  Or, to expand upon that phrase, "Don't do anything conservative or constitutionalist or even fiscally responsible to alienate the geezer vote back into the Democrats' arms, even though that will alienate the GOP base back to staying home in fratricidal protest yet again."

Eh.  I said yesterday, and reiterate today, that congressional budget resolutions are ephemeral vision statements, not concrete plans.  Every Ryan budget has had Medicare and Medicaid reform in it; contra Morris, it didn't cost Mitt Romney the 2012 election ("SuperStorm" Sandy and voter fraud did that), and is inevitable if any hope is to be mustered of staving off the Final Collapse.  The GOP can't just sit on its hands for some unknown point in the indefinite future when the coast might kinda-sorta be clear for floating a fleeting trial balloon, maybe, on a Tuesday evening when the moon hangs low in the sky and the wheat is eaten.  It must identify the problem honestly and propose honest solutions that will solve it, assuming it still can be.  That's what Paul Ryan has been doing for four budgets now as Chairman of the House Budget Committee.

His thanks for his efforts?  Donk depictions of him pushing a wheelchair-bound grandma off a cliff to smash on the rocks below, and Tea Party depictions of him as a timid "establishmentarian" nibbling around the edges of the federal brontosaurus at best, an Obama lapdog at worst.  You think he wouldn't want the Walker OMB job?

Caught between Morrisian/"establishment" timidity and stubborn Tea Party stridency, Ryan's budget may very well go down in a fusillade of friendly and unfriendly fire.  And that'll make the House majority look like it can run a lemonade stand, now won't it?

Ex Navy SEAL Christopher Mark Heben: Power Grid "Amazingly Easy To Dismantle"

by JASmius

Who needs an Iranian nuke detonating over Kansas?  We can be back in the stone age with a few well-placed homemade ERP devices and a cell phone.  After all, why should al Qaeda miss out on murdering three hundred million Americans via starvation, exposure, and societal breakdown and civil unrest over the ensuing year?  It's only fair.



Ah, those porous borders.  Never think the "enemy within" in the White House isn't doing his part to bring about America's destruction.  It's the one thing at which he really does genuinely work "tirelessly".

Exit question: Does Heben know Cade Courtley?  And does his part of this come after the disaster?

NSA Confirms Warrantless Searches

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution specifically states that "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

During the George W. Bush presidency, the Patriot Act was condemned by democrats, and President Bush was constantly accused of being a fascist for doing things that were never proven he was doing that are exactly what the Obama administration are doing now.

Arguments along the lines of "The Founding Fathers did not foresee terrorism, telephones or the Internet" is a dead end argument.  The answer is, "wrong, and not quite."

The language is clear, and the attempt to split hairs by those that support the Obama administration's unconstitutional spying into our effects is unacceptable.  The founders understood that there are enemies out there that our government would need to take actions to protect us against.  America's first two international wars were the Barbary Wars.  They were undeclared wars against the Islamic states along the Barbary Coast waged by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, to protect our trade routes, and our seagoing vessels and men.  Those presidents were very aware of the depths the Islamic jihad would be willing to go to force their political ideology masked as a religion on America.  Jefferson went so far as to take into his possession of a Koran, for the purpose of learning about his enemy.

In the 4th Amendment, the list of things people have a right to be secure in is "persons, houses, papers, and effects."  It could very well have read, "persons, houses, papers, and all other things."  The founders may not have seen phones, or the Internet coming, but they wrote the amendment in such a way that phone calls, the Internet, email, and so forth would be included in the things the federal government has no business tapping into.

The NSA has been accused of looking into the communications of Americans, in addition to spying on enemies, and the emails of allies.  Now, U.S. intelligence chiefs have confirmed that the suspicions are correct.  The National Security Agency claims it has used a "back door" in surveillance law to perform warrantless searches on Americans’ communications.

The back door in surveillance law, however, is not constitutional.  The law does not give them authority, for the law cannot supersede the Constitution, and the 4th Amendment does not allow them to use warrantless spying techniques.

The NSA's collection programs are ostensibly targeted at foreigners, but in August they made a secret rule change, granting themselves authority without the benefit of the Constitution (or Congress, for that matter), allowing NSA analysts to search for Americans' details within the databases.

With the surfacing of confirmation that the NSA has searched through individual Americans’ communications, it flies in the face of President Barack Obama’s claims that the NSA only uses broad surveillance tactics.

“When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That’s not what this program’s about,” Obama said. “As was indicated, what the intelligence community is doing is looking at phone numbers and durations of calls. They are not looking at people’s names, and they’re not looking at content.”

As usual, Obama lied.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

NSA performed warrantless searches on American's calls and emails - U.K. Guardian

Awaiting House Fast & Furious Hearing With ATF Chief B. Todd Jones

by JASmius

William La Jeunesse sums up Fast & Furious in four seconds: "No one [at ATF] lost their jobs, and after nineteen months, it is likely no one ever will."



My only edit would be, "and from the beginning, it was certain that no one ever would."

At least until the unlikely event that a Republican is ever in the White House again.  Then it'll all be dumped on him.

Obama to Discontinue Tomahawk and Hellfire Missile Programs

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The Obama administration has told us they plan to reduce the American Military to a level it has not been since before World War II, seeking a drastic reduction in numbers, cost, and apparently capabilities.  On the chopping block, now, are two of the most successful missile programs we have, which have been an integral part of the United States Navy maintaining military superiority for the past several decades.

Among the proposed missile systems to be scrapped is the Tomahawk missile system, touted as the world's most advanced cruise missile.  The program is slated to be cut by $128 million under Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal, and will be completely eliminated from military spending by fiscal year 2016.

The other program facing cancellation is the well-regarded and highly effective Hellfire missiles, which will be eliminated in 2015.

Legislators and military experts have both warned that cutting these missiles would significantly erode America’s ability to deter enemy forces.  How the executive branch plans to do this without the constitutional participation of the House of Representatives is yet to be seen, and will be, in a word, "unconstitutional."

At the current rate of usage, the stock of missiles on hand after the elimination of new missiles being produced will be completely depleted by around 2018. The Pentagon does not have a replacement missile ready to take the Tomahawk’s place.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Seth Cropsey, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower. “This really moves the U.S. away from a position of influence and military dominance.”

Cropsey said that if someone were trying to “reduce the U.S. ability to shape events” in the world, “they couldn’t find a better way than depriving the U.S. fleet of Tomahawks. It’s breathtaking.”

While the military as a whole is seeing its budgets reduced and equipment scaled back, the Tomahawk cuts do not appear to be due to a lack of funds.

Supporters of the cuts indicate the funds that would normally go into the production of Tomahawks and Helfires will go into the development of a replacement missile system. . . but we all know that democrats lie, and that the "development story" is probably not the truth.  This is a purposeful reduction in America's defensive capabilities.

Barack Obama, and the democrats, believe that the United States is the source of evil in the world, and they want to knock us down a few notches.  Besides, in line with the liberal left philosophy of fairness and the redistribution of wealth, they apparently are working towards reducing American superiority so that we are on the same level as our allies. . . weak, defenseless, and vulnerable.

It is also important to note that the democrats claim we cannot reduce spending because it is dangerous to do so. . . until it comes to the defense capabilities of this nation.  Then, they are willing to cut our military spending back to the stone age.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Obama to kill Navy's Tomahawk, Hellfire missile programs in budget decimation - Washington Times

Chuck Hagel to shrink Army to pre-World War II levels, report says - Washington Times

Chuck Hagel: U.S. can afford diminished military -Washington Times

GOP Slams ObamaCare Figures: "Ultimate April Fools' Day Joke"

by JASmius

C'mon, ladies and gentlemen, did any of you not expect Barack Obama to boldly stride into the Rose Garden yesterday like a colossus and proclaim that ObamaCare had met its goal of 7,000,000 enrollments by the "deadline" that expired Monday?  No matter what the true number is, or how loosely and crookedly they pretzelize the definition of "enrolled"?

Apparently there were a few Republican senators taken by surprise:

President Barack Obama exulted in announcing on Tuesday that 7.1 million Americans had enrolled in Obamacare — but Republican Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn slammed the Affordable Care Act as a "botched law that has caused millions of Americans to lose their health insurance.

"It has forced individuals to sign up for more expensive health insurance or face a penalty," Cornyn, the Texas Republican told Newsmax. "It has resulted in cancer patients losing access to their doctors — and it is slashing full-time jobs across the country.

"At 1600 Pennsylvania, that’s cause for a celebration," he added. "On Main Street, it’s a tragedy."

Cornyn joined many Republicans in statements to Newsmax or on social media that blasted the Obama announcement, which came a day after the first open-enrollment period ended. Texas Representative Louie Gohmert trashed it as "the ultimate April Fools' Day joke."

First things first: Have over seven million Americans now signed up for ObamaCare?  Not enrolled, which requires your application to be processed and premium payment, but signed up?  As Patrick Brennan reports, the answer is....possibly:

Leading up to the end of open enrollment at midnight, there certainly was a surge: HealthCare.gov alone (there are 14 other exchanges, including New York’s and California’s) apparently saw 3 million visitors yesterday, and about 1 million sign-ups occurred between last Thursday and midnight tonight. SEIU of the Bay Area made 20,000 robocalls in Vietnamese, for goodness’ sake.

The AP reported this evening that the number of sign-ups was on track to hit 7 million — which Secretary Sebelius had set out as a reasonable goal last fall for the open-enrollment period. This was all despite the fact that the website was down for maintenance at various times, was still spitting out errors, and couldn’t create new accounts at one point on Monday. All of which means that there will be some surely non-negligible number of people who will be completing their enrollments after the fact, as HHS said a while ago they’d allow them to do. By HHS’s definition of enrollments, it should be over 7 million.

This is analogous to hits in baseball.  How many times have you seen your team continually load the bases inning after inning and always leave the base runners stranded?  From thence cometh the statistic known as "batting average with runners in scoring position".  Because you see, it doesn't matter how many hits a team gets, because that doesn't put points on the board; it's how many runs a team scores.  The name of the game is to get on base and come around successfully to home plate.

In the same way, it doesn't matter how many people sign up for ObamaCare; what matters is how many people enroll, and then stay enrolled.

And, whaddaya know....:

This seven million is definitely not the same thing as the seven million insured individuals the CBO had projected the exchanges would cover this year, though it’s a convenient coincidence. Whatever Secretary Sebelius’s exactly meant when she mentioned the same number as a metric for success last fall, the actual plan purchases the CBO was projecting seem likely to short of the seven million number: If 85% of sign-ups pay their premiums, to take one estimate, that’s about six million people who actually get plans.

Moreover, the CBO’s seven million projection was for covered individuals over the course of the year — since it’s a budgetary projection, this is an average over the course of the year, and not a specific number of individuals (e.g., it could be seven million people covered for the whole year, or 6 million covered for the whole year plus seven million for six months each, etc.). Surely as many people will drop off the exchanges as will join them because they lose a job or other insurance later this year, so we shouldn’t expect too many net new signups. Paid enrollment could even shrink noticeably.

You know how this drill works.  Remember how reticent the Regime has been about releasing even sign-up numbers, much less enrollments, for the past six months?  And how they've completely muddied up their terminology so that any number they throw out in public view could mean anything, to where just somebody surfing to healthcare.gov by mistake and creating a "hit" could count as an ObamaCare enrollment?  Well, here you go.

I can just hear O over the past week: "I don't care if we have to count boogers from their nose pickings landing on their mice when they're on a URL that starts with the letter "h," you're gonna get me my goddamn seven million number so I can be mass-worshipped again!  Understand?!?"  And evidently, after a week of furious rino-spelunking ("Hi, I'm Lebron James, and I'm here to urge you to give your magic johnson a rest for a change and pick your nose while you're online instead."), he got the number he wanted.

And Republicans are scared.  Much like a flashback to the Clinton years when the facts would be all on their side but Sick Willie would just stride out into the Rose Garden like a colossus and shovel enough BS to turn the Washington Monument into the world's largest turd and the American people would swallow every last fetid nugget and he and his party would get even more popular, and we would be left spluttering in crazed, helpless, impotent outrage.

Is that burgeoning, tsunami-bye-bye-waving terror justified?  Not necessarily:

Suddenly ObamaCare is a roaring success, happy days are here again and liberals are euphoric, or claim to be. There are more than a few reasons to doubt this new fairy tale, not least the behavior of Senate Democrats running for re-election this year....

Then there are the twelve Democratic Senators up for re-election who each cast the decisive sixtieth vote for ObamaCare. They're acting as if the law is still a political threat, and presumably their polls say as much. The ObamaCare Dozen have tried to create an alibi by saying the plan isn't perfect but mend it don't end it. They've now proposed some concrete fixes, and they must think their constituents aren't paying attention.

Time will tell on that one.  And it should be pointed out that we're only a day removed from Red Barry's Clintonoid boast.  You know the old saying: A lie can be halfway around the world before the truth can even pull on its boots.  LIVs and NIVs are prone to generously give the benefit of the doubt to leaders they haven't been programmed to hate.  If the Regime "floods the zone" as it were with proclamations of ObamaCare's smashing success and keeps it up long enough, enough voters will buy it to keep the Senate in Democrat hands, and maybe even give them back the House.

Or maybe not.  Back to Mr. Brennan:

Enrollees from the surge may bring good news and bad news: On the one hand, one assumes that the people signing up for health insurance toward the end of the open-enrollment period — the one million signups over the last week — were more likely to be uninsured before the law, since they almost surely went a few months without insurance at the beginning of this year. That tallies in the law’s favor — as does the fact that marginal and reluctant enrollees are likely to be healthier than the eager enrollees from earlier in the process. But on the other hand, these people, though they’re more likely to qualify for generous subsides, are going to be among the most likely to stop paying their premiums at some point or never pay at all.

To get maximally cynical, many of them may have been pressured into signing up at the last minute along with assurances that their “enrollment” didn’t involve any financial obligation at all — since it didn’t. That could further depress the number of actual enrollments from the seven million headline and make the surge more of a PR stunt than a real accomplishment, though when we’ll get an answer on that is unclear.

Of course this was a public relations stunt.  Don your hazmat suit and put yourself in the White House's position for a moment: ObamaCare was your crown jewel; you're the president that finally accomplished what no other Democrat had ever done - nationalize American health care.  It took you, a god walking amongst men, to make that dream come true.

And ever since it debuted, it's been one disaster, fiasco, and cluster after another.  You were shocked, you were stunned, you were gobsmacked, you were flabbergasted, because you really, truly thought it would work.  Or else you planned this FUBAR but thought you could control it well enough to steer the country towards universal Medicaid/Single-Payer.  Either way, it's been an open, sucking political wound, six months of raw agony at which you and your minions have been chucking every remotely possible dishonest excuse as salve.  It's so bad that even your propagandists were forced to cover it like they were real journalists, forcing you to slap them down with the threat of FCC "oversight" if they didn't get back to toeing the party line.

So you moved heaven and earth, as only a god can, to get your seven million whatever figure to headline your Rose Garden pep rally on, appropriately enough, April Fool's Day.  To what purpose?  A favorable news cycle or two?  C'mon, would a god settle for that little?  No, as far as Barack Obama is concerned, this is the start of The Big Comeback.  Now ObamaCare is "officially" a success, and nobody - not one, single, solitary American, no matter how saturated with TEA - is going to be allowed to believe otherwise.  Heck, a month from now even Mr. Gibbs and myself may be rejoicing on air and in pixilated print about the glorious re-birth of the UCLA, sounding like robots from the Lost In Space TV show.

Well, okay, that may be a bit too ambitious even for a deity.  But all it takes electorally is 50% + 1.  And the "enrollment" trumpeting, combined with the blizzard of unconstitutional White House deferrals and delays of the Individual and Employer Mandates - all the gain now, all the pain later - is designed for one purpose above all: to save the Donk Senate and restore a Donk House.  It has to be, since Barack Obama himself is irremovable from power short of an act of God (with a capital "G").

I've opined from time to time that The One is indifferent to the electoral fate of his party's congressional counterparts because, after all, he's functionally abolished the Constitution and has glommed all power unto himself.  Yesterday's orgy of self-congratulation suggests that he does care about Dems' midterm election fortunes after all.  Which is to say, Barack Obama is so lazy that he can't be bothered to even rule by decree; he wants Crazy Nancy back to join Dirty Harry in doing all that heavy-lifting, rubber-stamp drudgery for him, like the "good ol' days" of 2009-2010.

Will he get what he wants?  With apologies to Mr. Brennan, that's what's unclear.  But there are now "officially" seven million reasons why he will - and 216 days in which we'll deafeningly hear nothing else.


UPDATE: Dr. Krauthammer sums it up, FWIW:

Bulgaria Wary of Russian Expansionism

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Since Russia's annexation of Crimea, the number of Russian military aircraft flying over the Black Sea, fairly near to Bulgaria's aerial borders on the Black Sea, has increased.  Military drills by The West has also increased in the Black Sea.

NATO has been on alert, as has Bulgaria, while the troop number along Russia's Ukrainian border remains ramped up.

Bulgaria, a former member of the Soviet Union's Cold War sphere of influence, and one of the communist nations behind the Iron Curtain, joined NATO 10 years ago.  Though the former Russian ally has maintained good relations with Russia, since the crisis in Ukraine heightened, Bulgaria has twice participated in navy drills with a U.S. warship in the Black Sea.  Bulgaria is also currently hosting a two-week military exercise that includes Ukrainian and U.S. forces.

Meanwhile, the United States is considering moving a warship into the Black Sea, and deploying a small team of soldiers to Europe as part of NATO's effort to bolster allies in Eastern Europe who are worried about Russia's military annexation of Crimea.

While the White House toys with sanctions, and appeasement, military commanders are considering ways to bolster America's military presence in the region.

NATO foreign ministers have ordered an end to civilian and military cooperation with Russia.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Bulgaria wary as Russia steps up its military flights over Black Sea - Yahoo News

US may move warship into Black Sea - Associated Press

Public School to 5 year old: It's Not Good To Pray

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Earlier this year, Brynn Williams in Temecula, California, a 6 year old girl, was told to stop her presentation and sit down when she began to talk about the Bible in her speech in front of class.  Later, the teacher, and the principal, denied it ever happened.

Now, in Florida, a 5 year old girl prayed before her meal in the cafeteria.  The cafeteria monitor told her, "It's not good to pray," and stopped the girl from her prayer during her personal time for lunch.  The school is now denying the event ever happened.

The parents of the child in Florida asked the same question that Brynn Williams' parents did.  "Why would a child lie about something like this?"

Public schools also have a history of targeting Christian children and teachers, especially recently with the politicization of a number of issues of morality.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Fla. 5-year-old told 'it's not good to pray' by school employee - CBS Pittsburgh

Temecula Rally for Brynn, the Elementary School Student Told to Stop Talking About The Bible - Political Pistachio

CIA: No Benghazi Riot, Talking Points Created

By Douglas V. Gibbs

More and more evidence keeps surfacing that proves Benghazi was a fabrication, and the four dead Americans that died defending the American consulate in Libya were killed defending a great deception created for political purposes.

The Obama administration went on national television in September of 2012 to tell the American people that the Benghazi attacks were the result of an anti-American protest, caused by anger generated by an anti-Islam video.  The CIA says differently, and prior to the great lies that emerged from Washington, the CIA’s station chief in Libya pointedly told his superiors in Washington that no such demonstration occurred.  The attack was “not an escalation of protests,” the station chief wrote to then-Deputy CIA Director Michael J. Morell in an email dated Sept. 15, 2012 — a full day before the White House sent Susan E. Rice to several Sunday talk shows to disseminate talking points claiming that the Benghazi attack began as a protest over an anti-Islam video.

The talking points used by the White House, and Susan Rice, who was then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, were written by the CIA, directly ignoring the assessment by its own station chief inside Libya.

This, once again, reminds Americans that the Benghazi episode was a purposeful deception.  The question, then, must be, "Why?"

When government officials hide facts, and lie about an event, it means something is being hidden underneath.  The hidden truth is something that we may have never believed was going on.  We may have never discovered anything was being hidden by the Obama administration in the first place, which is why they fabricated the facts about the Benghazi attack.  They wanted to keep you uninformed.

The immediate thought was that the talking points were merely the White House trying to write a script consistent with the Obama narrative that al-Qaeda had been defeated, and Islam loved us now that we had "The One" on the throne in Washington DC.  However, the truth proves to be more bizarre than just a failure of policy.

The CIA was already on the ground in Benghazi, and the attacks were a cover-up designed to hide the Obama administration’s lawless arming of jihadists in Libya and Syria.

The evidence is piling up that the Obama administration was engaged in not only assisting jihadist leaders by arming them, but having a larger role in the Western-backed “revolutionaries” taking over in Libya and Syria.  In fact, some reports are indicating that the consulate in Libya was not a consulate at all, but a staging location for the CIA gun-running project.  Ambassador Stevens was brought in either to be a decoy, or to recruit and arm jihadists and terrorists to enable them to wage war on the Syrian regime after what Obama called the “success” in Libya.

It has also been suggested that the lack of security at the compound was a political ploy to conceal the extent of the lawlessness and utter chaos left in the wake of Obama’s “regime change” war on Libya.

Whatever the reasons, the most apparent part of all of this is that everything the Obama administration said to the American Public immediately following the Benghazi attack was a purposeful, blatant lie.

President Richard Nixon resigned after a threat of impeachment was on the horizon over him lying to the American People.  President Bill Clinton was impeached for lying to the American People over something as non-political as extra-marital sexual relations.

Political Pistachio reported that the Benghazi narrative was a fabrication shortly after it happened.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

CIA ignored station chief in Libya when creating talking points on Benghazi - Washington Times

Benghazi Report Ignores WH Lies, Obama Gunrunning to Jihadists - The New American

Benghazi Cover-Up Goes Deeper Than Originally Realized - Political Pistachio

Massive 8.0 Earthquake Strikes Off Coast of Chile

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Earthquakes seem to be in season.  Tremblers are a constant occurrence around the Pacific Ring of Fire, but every once in a while, a few swarms of quakes arrives.  Los Angeles has been hit a couple times by medium earthquakes with over a hundred aftershocks.  Recently, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of North Korea (some have suggested it may be connected to nuclear weapons testing by Kim Jong-un).  Now, it is Chile's turn.

At 5:00 pm Chile was shaken by a large, 8,0 magnitude earthquake, sparking a tsunami warning for the area.  The earthquake was centered in the Pacific Ocean, 49 miles west-northwest of Iquique, Chile, and was 6.21 miles deep.   Evacuation orders have been issued for all cities along a low coast in the region.

A swarm of quakes have been rattling the area over the past few weeks, with the largest one, prior to today, being a 6.7 magnitude earthquake on March 16 prompting the evacuation of over 100,000 people.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

M8.0, 99 km NW of Iquique, Chile 2014-04-01 - USGS

8.0 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Off Chile, Tsunami Strikes Coast - ABC News

North Korea earthquake prompts fears of new nuclear test by Kim Jong-un - The Independent (U.K.)

Earthquake fears grip Los Angeles - Political Pistachio

Climate Change Doomsdayers Double Down

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The apocalypse is upon us.  The consequences of man's pollution, according to the United Nations, and various international leftists, are making their mark.  The evidence is surrounding us.  It's bad, they tell us.  Really bad.  But, by allowing the centralized control of your energy usage and the other aspects of your lives, plus lots of money, we may be able to stop it from getting worse.  All you have to do is let go of your freedom, and the worldwide statists promise they will only use your contributions to save the planet from you.

The experts are calling the latest string of natural events a direct result of man's environmental carelessness, and are labeling them as "catastrophic," "widespread," and "consequential."

The United Nations has doubled down with a 32-volume, 2,610 page report (wow, it even rivals Obamacare!) that is considered by many to be a "call for action."  Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that issued the report said, "Without reductions in emissions, impacts from warming could get out of control."

Maarten van Aalst, a co-author of the study and a top official at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said, "If we don't reduce greenhouse gases soon, risks will get out of hand. And the risks have already risen."

Recent worldwide disasters of killer heat waves, wildfires, droughts and deadly flooding are being blamed on climate change, and the report's authors claim if we don't let government take away your rights to energy and property, it could get worse.

Our food supply, water supply, and worldwide peace are all at risk because of our SUVs, factory created pollutants, and industrial advancements.  And according to the authors of the report, which has already been accepted by over 100 nations, everything is even worse than they thought it would be.

If only they could shut up those dang man-made global warming deniers that just won't accept being forcibly silenced.

Never mind that the natural events being referred to occur naturally, and have been historically, through cycle after cycle, in line with sunspot activity, and basic natural weather cycles.

Global Warming clowns. . . I mean "scientists," say that the worse affected group are the poor, and call "Climate Change" a fairness issue.

"Rich people benefit from using all these fossil fuels," University of Sussex economist Richard Tol said. "Poorer people lose out."  Tol, however, removed himself from the report, calling it too "alarmist."

Study co-author Patricia Romero-Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, in line with the report, said "We have a closing window of opportunity. We do have choices. We need to act now."

If the environmentalists behind the mythical hysteria over global warming could go back in time, I am sure they would find the caveman that discovered how to create fire, and stop him.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Global Warming Dials Up Our Risks, UN Report says - Association Press

Hard Starboard Radio: On The Road Again

I'm on a runabout ferrying run to Gutbomb Prime today - Intern Missius insisted on getting her "baby" back after the warp plasma injecters were replaced - so we present, for your listening enjoyment, the most downloaded podcast of March.

No foolin'.  Would Ides lie to you at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific?



UPDATE: No, the show not starting until after 4PM PDT was not an April Fool's prank.  Suffice it to say, Intern Alpha-72 has much to learn about running a podcast solo.

But the Admiral will be back in command tomorrow.  And that's no foolin'.

Russia Eyes Finland

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Finland has a history of battling the Russians.  The Scandinavian country closest to Russia knows the history, and knows that Vladimir Putin believes it was a mistake, and even treasonous, for the Bolsheviks and Communists to allow in 1917 for Finland's independence.  According to Andrej Illiaronov, Putin's economic adviser between 2000 and 2005 and now senior member of the Cato Institute think tank, said that "parts of Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States and Finland are states where Putin claims to have ownership."  And as far as Putin is concerned, "he protects what belongs to him and his predecessors."

The Finnish have a history of being pulled back and forth by its neighbors.  Both Sweden and Russia have historically claimed Finland to be their own.

After centuries of a geographical tug of war, a peace treaty in 1323 between Sweden and Novgorod (Russia) assigned only eastern Finland to Novgorod. The western and southern parts of Finland were tied to Sweden and the Western European cultural sphere, while eastern Finland, became part of the Russo-Byzantine world.

Under Swedish domination, the Finnish enjoyed an individual-centric system that promoted freedom, and a free market.  Swedish legal and social systems took root in Finland, which means feudalism never became ingrained in the system.  The people of Finland were never serfs.

The Reformation moved Finland from Catholicism to Protestantism, and with the dominance of the Lutheran faith taking hold in Finland, a rise in the Finnish-language culture took place.  The New Testament was translated into Finnish in 1548 by the Bishop of Turku, Mikael Agricola (1510–1557), who brought the Reformation to Finland and created written Finnish. The entire Bible appeared in Finnish in 1642.

While under the protection of the Swedish government during the height of Sweden as a world power (1617–1721), Sweden extended its realm around the Baltic and managed, due to the weakness of Russia, to push the Finnish border further east. As the statists in Sweden gained more power, their lust to grow governmental control, led to an expansion of uniform Swedish rule into their satellites.  The increase of Swedish control was extended to Finland in the 17th century. Swedes were often appointed to high offices in Finland, which strengthened the position of the Swedish language there.

After the dawn of the 18th century, Sweden began to lose grip as a great power.  The statists lost power because their lust for power encouraged unsustainable policies, and increasing Russian pressure on Finland led to Russia conquering Finland in the 1808–1809 war with Sweden.

Under Swedish rule, Finland had been a group of independent provinces under a loose union.  Under Russian rule, Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy. The Grand Duke was the Russian Emperor, whose representative in Finland was the Governor General.

Finland's legislative branch was called a "Senate," and the members of that governing body were Finns. Matters pertaining to Finland were presented to the Emperor in St. Petersburg by the Finnish Minister Secretary of State. This meant that the administration of Finland was handled directly by the Emperor and the Russian authorities were not allowed to interfere.

Russian Emperor Alexander I, who was Grand Duke of Finland from 1809 to 1825, gave Finland extensive autonomy thereby creating the Finnish state. In 1812, Helsinki was made the capital of Finland, and the university, which had been founded in Turku in 1640, was moved to Helsinki in 1828.  National pride grew under Russian rule, and when the Language Decree was issued in 1863 by Alexander II, it marked the beginning of the process through which Finnish became an official administrative language.

The Finnish Diet (legislature) convened in 1863 after a break of more than half a century.  As the Finnish legislative body regained prominence, it led to active legislative work in Finland, and in 1878 the Conscription Act gave Finland an army of its own.

The Russian Revolution in 1905 offered Finland the opportunity to replace the old legislative bodies with a new one in 1906, moving Finland from a being a country governed by a four estate diet to a unicameral (one house) parliament.

On December 6, 1917, Parliament approved the declaration of independence drawn up by the Senate under the leadership of P.E. Svinhufvud (1861–1944).

At the same time, the breach between the parties of the left and the right had become irreconcilable. At the end of January 1918, the left-wing parties staged a coup, and the government was forced to flee Helsinki. The ensuing Civil War ended in May with victory for the government troops, led by General Gustaf Mannerheim (1867–1951). Finland became a republic in the summer of 1919, and K.J. Ståhlberg (1865–1952) was elected the first president.

The independent republic developed its sovereign identity during the 1920s, pursuing a foreign policy based on cooperation with Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

In August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact, which included a secret protocol relegating Finland to the Soviet sphere of interest. When Finland refused to allow the Soviet Union to build military bases on its territory, the latter revoked the nonaggression pact of 1932 and attacked Finland on November 30, 1939.

Finland fought off Russia's attempt to reclaim Finland in the Winter War.  Other countries offered no help, other than modest assistance. Finnish ski troops inflicted heavy casualties on the Russian army. Finland's survival against overwhelming Russian forces was unexpected.

The "Winter War" ended in a peace treaty drawn up in Moscow on March 13, 1940, giving southeastern Finland to the Soviet Union.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, Finland entered the war as a cobelligerent with Germany. The "Continuation War" ended in armistice in September 1944. In addition to the areas already lost to Russia, Finland also ceded Petsamo on the Arctic Ocean. The terms of the armistice were confirmed in the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947.

The Olympic Games were held in Helsinki in 1952, and in 1955 Finland joined both the United Nations and the Nordic Council. Among the major achievements of Nordic cooperation were the establishment of a joint Nordic labour market in 1954 and a passport union in 1957.

Finland submitted an application to join the European Community in March 1992.  Finland was approved to be admitted to the organization in May of 1994, which was called the European Union at that point.  Final approval by the Finnish Parliament came in November 1994, to be effective at the beginning of 1995.

Finland has taken a leftward lurch since joining the EU, but in 2006, a close presidential election kept leftwing President Tarja Halonen narrowly in office, by less than four percentage points.

In the elections of 2007, the Parliament shifted noticeably to the right when the National Coalition Party scored a big victory and the Social Democratic Party suffered a marked loss.

Now, Putin wants Finland back.  He believes the country to the northwest corner of Russia belongs in his new Soviet Union.  He views Finland not as a sovereign nation, but as a possession that must be brought back into the Russian collective.  Since Finland is not a member of NATO, an invasion of Finland would not require, by treaty, the NATO allies to come to her aid.  However, a number of European Union treaties assures that Finland will get assistance from the West through that channel.

As a massive force of over 100,000 Russian troops deploy along the Ukrainian border, following the recent annexation of Crimea into the new Russian empire, a Russian military air-force drill is occurring just 150 miles off the Finnish border.  Finland is on heightened alert, wondering if they may be the next Crimea.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Vladimir wants to regain Finland says close adviser - International Business Times

Main Outlines of Finnish History - This Is Finland

Finland Unhappy About Russia Conducting Military Drills on Its Border - Mashable

Ryan Budget Cuts Spending By $5 Trillion

by JASmius

Or, rather, it would cut federal spending by $5 trillion over the next ten years, in another, decidedly non-parallel quantum reality:

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan unveiled an updated Republican budget plan Tuesday that would slash $5.1 trillion in federal spending over the coming decade and promises to balance the government's books with wide-ranging cuts in programs like food stamps and government-paid healthcare for the poor and working class. 

Ryan's plan would also cut Pell Grants for low-income students and pensions for federal workers, while steering away from cuts to benefits for senior citizens, at least in the short term. The proposal would reprise a voucher-like Medicare program for future retirees that would be the basis for GOP claims that the measure would drive down government debt over the long term.

And that doesn't, I'm presuming, include the repeal of ObamaCare, which can be assumed as a currently-dormant add-on worth a couple of trillion more.  Put Scott Walker in the White House in 2016, re-Reaganize federal economic policy, and a great deal more federal tax revenue can be thrown in the proverbial pot as well.

But it's all a hypothetical maybe for an unspecifiable somewhen.  In the brutal reality of the Obama here & now, it's as extinct as the dinosaurs.  And probably not just from the Democrat side of the battle lines:

The plan should skate through the House Budget Committee on Wednesday but faces challenges on the floor next week since it endorses a bipartisan pact — negotiated by Ryan and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, in December — to increase agency operating budgets this year and next.

Many conservatives who opposed the pact last year would have to reverse course and embrace them as part of the GOP budget. Democrats who helped pass the Ryan-Murray pact in December will oppose the GOP plan.

I put it to you in the most sardonic, rhetorical tone imaginable: How many Tea Party congresscritters do you think will embrace Ryan's budget blueprint with the Sequester-busting Murray-Ryan provisions attached?  Yeah, I'd say that's about right.

Of course, it doesn't matter all that much, any more than the Obama budget does (other than the fact that he has the power - not the legal authority, but the amputated, untrammeled power - to just impose it by Executive decree).  These budget resolutions are majority-party mission statements, not actual binding legislation.  And as far apart as the Ryan and Obama budgets are, you can see where this is headed - yet another last-minute continuing resolution six months from now, which will lean heavily towards the Democrats' budget priorities because the GOP will be absolutely loathe to force another government shutdown showdown barely a month away from what's shaping up to be another blowout midterm election romp.  Which will undoubtedly stir up the ire of the Ted Cruz-led "suicide caucus," spitefully depress center-right turnout, and perhaps save the Senate for the Dems.

Am I getting ahead of myself?  Very well, so I do.  I am fast, I mentally outrun multitudes.  But all I really have to do is not be the slowest.

Getting back to the big picture, Ryan's Medicare and Medicaid reform - not cuts, but reform - marketizing and decentralizing these entitlement programs respectively, are inevitable if there is any realization on the Dark Side that the alternative is fiscal and economic collapse.  They just are.  We're way, way past the point of being able to ease into them gradually.  Heck, we may already be past the point of no return - or "going over the falls," in Mr. Gibbs' analogy, beyond the power of any outboard motor to overcome.  In my optimistic - which is to say, less lucid - moments, I picture Scott Walker selling the critical necessity of de-entitlementizing the United States sufficiently that enough voters will "get" and accept that this is something that has to be done.  Then my lucidity returns in a nauseating rush, and I remember that Barack Obama is never leaving office.  Man, optimism is the cruelest tease of all.

Although, can't you see Paul Ryan getting snapped up by an incoming Walker Administration for OMB Director?  Maybe that's the future prospect for which Eddie Muster is laying the foundation now, because his budget sure as shinola isn't headed anywhere except for the mass grave where his last three lie, moldering.

O'Reilly On "Noah": People Expect Literalism In Bible Movies

by JASmius

Oh, I don't know that I'd go that far, Bill; but I, for one, would appreciate, you know, God in Bible movies - and I don't mean George Burns:

People expect to see literalism in Bible movies, says Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, so it isn't surprising there has been adverse reaction to Darren Aronofsky's blockbuster "Noah."

On his show Monday, O'Reilly noted that conservative talk show host Glenn Beck had called the movie "dangerous disinformation."

Raymond Arroyo, managing editor of EWTN News, told O'Reilly that he interviewed Aronofsky and the film's stars before the movie came out and nothing he was told prepared his audience for the film that appeared.

"They went to see 'Gladiator' in an ark. What they got was 'Black Swan's daddy in 'Waterworld," Arroyo said. The film is a dark depiction and deviates from the Bible story, or the "popular perception of it," he said. "And I think that's rattled audiences."

Chicago Sun-Times film critic Richard Roeper countered that "Noah" is a big-budget picture that has to have a lot of elements to succeed, including the stone giants who protect Noah and help him build the ark.

"If you're just going to show Noah as this kindly old 550-year-old man who leads all the animals onto the ark and then it rains for 40 days, well that's a 10-minute cartoon, and that's been done before," Roeper said. "Of course it deviates from the text. So does almost every single Hollywood fictional movie ever made that's been based on anything."

Actually, Mr. Arroyo, it depends; if moviegoers were going to see Russell Crowe, then yes, they might have thought they were going to see Gladiator in an ark.  If, however, they were going to see Noah, then what they got instead was 2012 with an ark (Hell, the son of John Kusack's Jackson Curtis character is named Noah, for crying out loud).

As for you, Mr. Roeper, you display your ignorance of the Genesis account if you think that the epic Noahic Deluge event as it actually happened would be a ten-minute cartoon.  In fact, there's all kinds of room for human drama, action, special effects, depraved sex, and high adventure - if the plot had focused more on what happened to Noah and his family after the Flood.  That's something 2012 never did; that was all the buildup to the disaster, following the discovery of the impending cataclysm, watching famous landmarks get destroyed, seeing which characters survived and which perished, and the disaster hits, and that's it.  We never saw what happened to the survivors thereafter.  Here was an opportunity to tell that story based on the actual biblical historical account.

But....no.  Instead we got 2012 with an ark.  Because Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel wanted to twist and distort and frankly rip apart the actual Genesis account.

Now please understand that I have no problem adding interesting things that fill in the gaps, such as the skin of the original serpent from the Garden of Eden being passed down from patriarch to patriarch.  Genesis doesn't mention that, but you could see it happening - who knows, maybe it did.  It's consistent with the story.  And fortunately, they didn't make it into a bigger plot point - Noah holds up the serpent's skin and stops the flood or something similar (besides, that was Moses' gimmick).

I guess we're given a glimpse of the utter depravity of antediluvian humanity with the cannibalism scenes and King Tubal-Cain and his hordes trying to slaughter anything that still lives, so that's at least somewhat faithful to the biblical narrative.

Where it goes off the rails....let me count the ways.

1) Tubal-Cain getting onto the ark.  Sorry, but that didn't happen.  How do I know this?  Because God Himself sealed the ark after all the animals and Noah's family had boarded it.  I really don't think He would have allowed a homicidal maniac to get aboard as well when He had specifically promised to preserve Noah and his family.  Moreover, once Tubal-Cain was aboard, why didn't he simply take out Noah and his family?  Isn't that what he was trying to do before they embarked?  Or at least murder all the women so that the extinction of humanity would be guaranteed.  This was a cinematic case of the burro that starved to death between two bales of hay.  The only purpose for Tubal-Cain's trespass is to turn Ham against his father Noah, but that seems to be pretty much already the case.  It's a plot contrivance that Aronofsky and Handel chickened out on taking to its logical conclusion - and since they were already ripping apart the Genesis account, I don't know why they didn't fulfill this thread.

2) The "Watchers".  This was obviously an homage to the Thor movies and Lord of the Rings.  I suppose I wouldn't have minded them quite as much if they were just what they appeared to be - animate creatures made of stone.  It would have been silly, but their purpose in the plot - protecting Noah and his family from Tubal-Cain's berserker hordes - wouldn't have completely crapped on the integrity of the biblical story.

But....no.  They are specifically described as "fallen angels".  Problem is, fallen angels are also known as "demons".  There are two basic categories of demons: those that are free to roam the cosmos (for now), and those that are bound in the "Pit".  The Bible doesn't say just exactly what or where the Pit is, but the demons imprisoned there are so virulently vicious and wicked that the LORD did not allow them run loose.  And, if you go and actually read the Genesis flood account, and note the horrifically evil condition of antediluvian humanity, and then figure in that virulently vicious and wicked "fallen angels" were both encouraging and participating in it, you'd have to conclude that, how shall I say this, the "Watchers" were not Noah's friends.

Wearisomely, Aronofsky and Handel screw it all up - and blasphemously so, I might add.

In their re-telling, the Watchers aren't "fallen angels" at all; they're angels that compassionately came down from heaven to help the "seed of Adam" after God had cruelly and arbitrarily thrown them out of the Garden of Eden.  For their insolence, God turns them into stone creatures and banishes them to Earth.  After Noah's grandpa Methuselah somehow "helps" them one time, they become friends and allies of the human patriarchy.  Except that they were already sympathetic to the human patriarchy, or they would never have defied God to come help it in the first place.  <sigh>

3) By the way, it's hard not to notice that Aronofsky and Handel depict the LORD as a real bastard, isn't it?  In their version He never once speaks to Noah or tells him why He's judging the planet or when the flood is coming or THAT a flood is coming aside from his "having a disturbing dream".  Because naturally, whenever I have a disturbing dream about a global deluge, the first thing I do is make a mad dash for Home Depot.  See the product placement opportunity on which A&H missed out?

Also, in this version the ark is evidently all Noah's idea, even though the Bible clearly states that God told him to build the ark, including the materials and exact specifications.  And isn't it, um, "miraculous" that animals came streaming from around the entire world to get on the ark?  It's like Noah didn't have to bother with that part of the operation because he was too busy with "his" ark.  In reality, of course, Noah would, and did, have to retrieve a mating pair of every representative species - entailing a great deal of taxonomical knowledge that he either "just had," or God gave him.  That would have taken a lot longer than eight years, or so it seems to me.

The worst part, though, is the depravity that Noah feels obligated to commit because he thinks it's "the Creator's" will.  And it stems from yet another licentious departure from the Genesis account.

There we see that Shem, Ham, and Japheth are already married.  In the A&H retelling, none of them are, and Noah decides that his sons need poontang, as though the thought never occurred to them.  Only, astonishly enough, none of Tubal-Cain's women are good enough for his sons, so he gives up.

<facepalm>

Meanwhile, Ham - obviously the horniest of the three brothers - makes a mad dash out of the ark after it would have been sealed to "get hisself a woman".  He doesn't find a woman, but he does find a "frightened young girl," creating pedophilia possibilities that A&H promptly squander by having the "frightened young girl" fall into an animal trap on her and Ham's return to the ark, followed by Noah forcing Ham to leave her behind as Tubal-Caine's hordes come to eat her like The Walking Dead.

What?  Pedophilia isn't biblical?  Do you know what Noah's real-life daughters-in-law did with him while he was in a drunken stupor after the flood?  Oh, but wait, there was Ila, Noah's fictional adopted daughter, wasn't there?  And she did get preggers, which means somebody - okay, Shem - helped themselves to her goodies, didn't they?  So there was incest after all!  Yay!

The plot purpose of this sequence is to turn Ham against Noah and convolutedly extricate that plot thread with Ila's pregnancy, from which Noah somehow draws the conclusion that if she has a boy, yay!  Whereas if she has a girl, he must kill the child - his granddaughter - "because the Creator might want me to".  What today we know as "post-birth abortion".  Don't worry, A&H chickened out on that one, too.

The plot purpose of that, in turn, was to set up a steel cage death match between Noah and Tubal-Cain - which I guess means that there was a little Gladiator in this flick after all - which, of course, Noah wins, with the help of the prodigal son a "repentant Ham".  Which sounds like Easter dinner, come to think of it.

The finger-flicking cherry atop the disinformation sundae was the epilog, where Ila confronts Noah over why he didn't off his granddaughters in light of God giving him the choice of whether or not humanity survived - which He didn't, by the way, and certainly not in this movie, since God never appears so much as once.  Noah's reply?  When he saw his granddaughters, he realized that he loved them (not-so-subtle abortion propaganda) and that they represented the goodness of mankind.  Despite the fact that God explicitly wiped out mankind aside from Noah and his family because there was not a single other human being on the planet who was not irredeemably not good.

Here's a suggestion, folks: for about the same price as a theater ticket, buy yourself a Bible if you don't already have one, and read the true account of the Flood in Genesis.  And then the rest of the Bible as well.  Repeatedly.  And save your movie money for Captain America: The Winter Soldier and X-Men: Days of Future Past.  At least those flicks really are fantasies.

Shots Fired Between Korean Maritime Boundaries

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Over sixty years ago a war began between the two Korea's.  A cease-fire may have been signed in July of 1953, but the tension remains, and occasionally shots are fired.  The possibility of open warfare on the Korean Peninsula always seems to be but a few angry words away from reality.

A torpedo attack by a North Korean vessel, sinking the South Korean ship, Cheonan, in 2010, leaving 40 dead, and six missing, reminded us how real the danger of war escalating out of control between the Koreas could be.  A few days ago, on the fourth anniversary of the sinking of the Cheonan, North Korea marked the day by repeating their claim that they had nothing to do with the sinking of the South Korean vessel, and that Seoul should lift related sanctions. The communist leadership to the north also asserted that South Korea was “beating the worn-out drum of escalating confrontation” with the issue and was hindering the improvement of bilateral ties.

The statement came a couple hours after North Korea launched two mid-range ballistic missiles into the sea east of the Korean peninsula.

The sanctions by the south four years ago included nearly cutting off the entire flow of South Korean money into the North with a ban of all North Korean ships from entering Sough Korean waters.  The ban nearly halted all trade between the two Koreas.  South Korea, at that time, also disallowed new South Korean investments in the North, and barred South Korean citizens’ entry into the North.

The actions taken by South Korea has severely crippled the already cash-strapped communist regime to the north, who has attempted to make up the shortfall by working more with their Chinese ally, but China has no need for the goods from North Korea the nation used to trade to the south.  

Now, North Korea and South Korea have volleyed again, but this time by firing hundreds of artillery shells into each other's waters, forcing an evacuation of residents on five front-line South Korean islands to shelters.

The exchange of fire was at the Yellow Sea, after North Korea's announcement of live-fire drills in seven areas near the maritime boundary.

North Korea fired 500 rounds of artillery shells over more than three hours, with about 100 of them falling south of the sea boundary.  South Korea responded by firing 300 shells into North Korean waters.  All of the shots landed in water.  None of them struck land or military targets.

Though the exchange was mild, it reminds us that the war is still in place, and animosity between the two halves of the Korean peninsula remains.  We must remember that the testing of a new kind of nuclear device has been touted by the north, as well.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

North Korea Displays Defiance on Cheonan Anniversary - Wall Street Journal

Koreas Trade Fire, Island Residents in Shelters - Associated Press