The Bible: And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch

And then a former US president said let us call them something else...

I literally never heard the phrase “Easter worshippers” before today. We’re called Christians. pic.twitter.com/AMx5qwqXDU

— Jeremy McLellan (@JeremyMcLellan) April 22, 2019

What in the Sam hell is an Easter worshipper?

— Dicey Riley (@GingyNorth) April 22, 2019

Hope we have a post on Pissy's conduct at the memorial for the Dallas cops.

educator said 5:01

Okay, Buddy, you asked for it.

Barack Obama's Twitter account, SOTU

A conundrum

pic.twitter.com/eqDkhpbGtF

— MARYANN (@downbyseashore) December 16, 2015

Our Superstitious President, Victor Hanson

The essay is a good and interesting read and recommended. But what can Hanson possibly cite to support a claim of Obama being superstitious? My idea of superstition is all the little things one does and thinks throughout the day that clutter one's doing and thinking.

Hanson strikes some excellent professorial blows of the sort that can be adopted for disruption by going through examples of Obama putting ideology ahead of available facts. Hanson baits us with superstition then supplies examples of Obama ignoring statistics in favor of progressive policy. Rather quickly the charges against Obama shift from superstitious in the title, to unscientific in the next few paragraphs, to ignores available data thereafter.

Obama's idea of science is reductionists, it relies on consensus of professors, not a particularly courageous bunch, and if their agreement advances progressive agenda then it becomes fact. And from this view of how Obama embraces science we can imagine that Newton, Galileo and Darwin as exemplars of groupthink having worked through consensus with support of status-quo institutions and universities advancing majority-held theories.

Brilliant. That takes two paragraphs, and I think that might be the best bit.

Hanson uses stem cell research for example. This is a particular point of nettlesome annoyance because there is nothing at all scientific in this stance. I've heard more people chime in on this vociferously without knowing what they are talking about save for what they drew from Moveon.org so they all say the same thing about Republicans being unscientific when it is actually they, and now the president is crowing about victory on this matter from the same place of pure ideologic ignorance. Straight up.

This is where Hanson uses "anti-science" and "anti-factual" in place of superstition.

Obama warns about backlash against Muslims following Islamic terror attacks while statistic show clearly and repeatedly and variously that Jews need protection. Hanson fleshes out his description of this with examples through three paragraphs.

Obama associates San Bernardino with no fly list either ignoring or conflating the terror watch list while no connection between these things is shown to exist.

Obama rejects Keystone pipeline on ideologic grounds ignoring all arguments contrary.

Hanson devotes a devastating paragraph to changing NASA's foremost mission to outreach to Muslim groups to make them feel better about their contribution to science, math and engineering. Hanson asks readers to imagine a future Republican president converting federal department to outreach to Christian populations to make them feel better about their contributions to science, math and engineering.

Obama blithely connects California drought to climate change, flies out there to do it,  while ignoring all other factors. Three long paragraphs discussing the fish, progressive policy, El Nino, and actual science indicating that extra coolness is chief among the problem and not extra heat, that is, El Nino not as strong as usual among many other factors.

Hanson now describes Obama's approach to the natural world as "privileging ideology over facts." This is the description he settles with. Superstitious, to unscientific, to unreceptive to available data , to privileging ideology over facts.

Is that so bad?  Privileging ideology over facts.

Hanson discusses Benghazi killings without lingering, moving directly to Michael Brown's death in Ferguson in the same paragraph finishing with flawed 1 in 5 females raped on campus studies debunked by facts and still "resurrected for its electoral utility."

Hanson concludes Obama does not believe in science because science is blind. Our age requires social justice be affected by any means necessary even when that means denying scientific method and facts themselves.

Nice. I was really hoping this article would be about bizarre rituals and possibly goats, and chickens, and candles. The superstition part is not developed. I was hoping for more. Hanson switches superstition for ideology without exploring the magical thinking. There is a lot of potential for discussing how superstition pervades the ideology but Hanson does not do that. Hanson shows that Obama accepts different facts. Say, for Keystone, Obama is looking past fossil fuels, it's a thing with him and with them, dirty fuel, they hate that. We can sympathize with that. Obama cannot have a pipeline mar the map of his administration. That would be Obama advancing something that Obama and many others want desperately to move away from. They're fine with all the anti-science, anti-logic, anti-economics, anti-energy self sufficiency of the present. None of that matters. The truth of the future they envision is not powered by coal and oil. So whatever it takes to get there. Obama's superstition, his secular-religion that is irrational and unscientific, can be described sympathetically.

Obama expands propaganda machine

Obama launches Facebook page. https://t.co/UhoDTqm1C5 Here's @juliehdavis story on 20 aides who will really write it https://t.co/7wbITk8AkC

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) November 9, 2015

Eric Fanning, to be nominated first openly gay U.S. Secretary of Army

Fanning, 47, has been a specialist on national security issues for more than two decades and has played a key role overseeing some of the Pentagon’s biggest shipbuilding and fighter jet programs. Now he will oversee an Army that has been battered by the longest stretch of continuous combat in U.S. history and is facing potentially severe budget cuts.

Washington Post 

Wikipedia has Eric Fanning's impressive bio.

WSJ commenters don't like it one single bit.

They're not particularly clever, the unhappy commenters. Nobody said anything about not ever wearing but still liking very much a man in uniform. 

There must be a ton of qualified people to choose from when you think about it, a bewilderingly large choice of good people available, who then is groomed for higher positions and who selected for them becomes a matter of selecting along lines that do not bear on job effectiveness, they're all similar for the most part with the very rare genius, rather, other values are indulged that do not bear on performance and this template or pattern of choosing statistical outliers followed consistently for political reasoning so that over time public servants in no wise resemble the actual public. 

On the other hand, he really could be the standout best. I don't know.

Good luck. His career arc is surprisingly rapid. He was made undersecretary of the Army only a few months ago. Undersecretary of Army to Secretary of Army in three and half months. Schwing. Like a piece on a game board moved by a hand from above. 

Going with the flow

"Obama administration renames Mount McKinley to Denali"

The order was signed Friday, but the White House asked that it be announced Monday as part of Obama's trip to Alaska to highlight the effects of climate change in the Arctic. The White House said the name change "recognizes the sacred status of Denali to generations of Alaska Natives."

1. Out: Mount McKinley; in: Mount Denali 2. Out: Animas River; in: Obama River pic.twitter.com/BxWZHSke92

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 31, 2015

Federal Judge issues temporary injunction halting EPA move on water.

Characterized as Obama Administration water rule, the new regulations reinterprets Clean Water Act giving more regulatory power to EPA and to Army Corps of Engineers. The rule was scheduled to take effect Friday.

They're going after every little stream that could be a tributary, every temporary runoff stream, every temporary mostly dry arroyo, every tiny pond, anything having to do with water that could possibly affect any other water, namely all water, every pond a farmer might dig, every pool, every koi pond, mountains of new paperwork left for states to complete.

North Dakota filed the injunction in the name of thirteen states on behalf of all fifty states, so says N.D. Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem who filed the injunction. But EPA is not having that generous a reading, they demand another smackdown directly preventing action in any state not mentioned otherwise it's business as usual and they plan to enforce the new rules in the remaining thirty-seven states.

It's like training a dog. Poop here, not here. Then, you didn't say don't poop here, you didn't say don't poop here, you didn't say don't poop here, you didn't say don't poop here. Eh, bad example. Dogs are a lot easier. Most times they cooperate and its not always such a power trip.

More at WAFF

[federal judge blocks obama water rule]

"Issa: IRS Targeting 'Still Happening'"

"Congressman alleges conservative groups still under scrutiny"

Link to video

 

Link to video

 

Here is Obama saying the IRS targeting was his measure, but it was done "poorly and stupidly".

"President Obama to veto any attempt to block Gitmo closure"

"White House spokesman says the president is in the final stages of a plan to shut the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay."

The White House is “in the final stages of drafting a plan to safely and responsibly close the prison at Guantanamo Bay,” spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters during a Wednesday briefing.

The closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has been a goal of President Barack Obama since his first days in office. In January 2009, Obama signed a directive ordering the detention facility closed within a year, but opposition rose over the ensuing months and eventually scuttled his plans. Earlier this year, Obama expressed regret over not simply closing the facility at once.

Apparently we are going back to pre-9/11 ante, of trying terrorists in American courts. Presumably affording them all the rights and privileges of American citizens.

"Trust me."

That is impossible. Iran leadership is equally untrustworthy. There is nothing to trust in both parties save for untrustworthy characteristics. So, no. We do not trust you. We trust grownups to repair the damage you insist upon. 

I heard his challenge by accident while deep cleaning that had me so cross so immediately my impulse is punch the guy for the haughty arrogant delivery. What little I saw of it.  I do not like listening to this man one single bit. I've never in my life had a president demand so much attention, insist on being heard so much as this man, Honest to God, listening back for the challenge the hissing extended sibilants with emphasis jabbed my eardrums and rattled the little bones in there. It is actual torture.

He chided a one-time Fox reporter for his use of the word "content" as in contentment, the same way George Takei latched onto the word dignity and ran with it inappropriately so that the issue at hand is deflected to his Highness taking umbrage. "You should know better." 

Just answer the question and spare us what better things we should know. Magisterial deflection rejected. It was a bad deal and from a position of dire immediate need and of weakness and not of the actual strength of our position, if deal you must and for reasons unexplained. He traded off the country's efforts. He is a bad deal maker. So no, he is not trusted. 

The bit that I am looking for sounded fairly good at first blush, argumentatively, if you hadn't bothered with his dissimilation before and if the chief interest is scoring polemical points and not in developing understanding and agreement with his royal subjects. He is not interested in that. So no, he is not trusted.

The exchange is right before he departed abruptly not taking anymore questions this morning. 

I challenge those who are objecting to this agreement, number one to read the agreement before they comment on it, number two to explain specifically where it is that they think this agreement does not prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and why they're right and people like Ernie Moniz, who is an MIT nuclear physicist and an expert in these issues is wrong, why the rest of the world is wrong, and then present an alternative. 

And if the alternative is that we should bring Iran to heel through military force, then those critics should say so. And that will be an honest debate.

All right.

Very well, we will read the agreement. And we will explain specifically where it fails to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and much worse than that as you know, and your appeal to authority is rejected when common sense supervenes whoever the authority or from wherever they hail. And when the rest of the world tells you their shit sandwich is delicious we'll  still question their judgement and "this notion" that a new treaty is necessary is entirely your own, for reasons your own, so no, we do not need to offer you an alternative. You can leave it alone or turn up the heat. And lastly the choice you present between this treaty and opponents suggesting war is discarded to the heap of previous Obama tagged sophomoric false dilemma sophistry.

That is allowing only a few seconds.

Text of speech Washing Post.

Fox Guest: Obama's Use Of N-Word Makes Him 'The Rapper-In-Chief'

 

Link to video

Obama G-7 Germany

"States should never have taken up healthcare law" appears to be the big takeaway from the speech delivered in Germany.

I heard portions of this speech. It ran on several channels at once, an important speech too covering several important issues and delivered without teleprompter. Perhaps you should watch it in full listen carefully and be fully informed then come back and tell me your opinions of what he said and in that manner I can become informed too without listening.

That bit up there came at the end during q&a. In my opinion that was not the most significant part of his answer to that question, even though his answer came to me in pieces. Struggling with my own resistance to imperious stretched/clipped speech pattern I clicked off at "the proof that Obamacare is working is the absence of all those terrible catastrophes that were supposed to happen." While all I've read about is insurance companies projecting significant and stultifying rate increases discouraging healthy signups further. Young healthy people uninvolved in politics would rather pay penalty. (But then I only bother with conservative political sites, the others are insane) And who will healthy people blame for being made to pay penalty for not buying insurance that Obama and party required? I'm only guessing, and my guess is based on knowing they're not as stupid as commonly described. Not recognizing that his home state Hawaii cannot afford its own service and wasted half a billion in federal taxpayer's money trying seemed to me more significant than him saying perhaps the Supreme Court should reject the challenge to his healthcare law, and the japes on Twitter that follow in torrent.

More significant than him stating flatly that he does not have a plan for defeating ISIS. The body language speaks to me louder and much more clearly than his singsong stretched/clipped pattern. That awkward moment of Obama stuck sitting on a bench next to Iraqi Prime Minister says everything. He couldn't boyishly twist his entire body toward and around the female Europeron and away from the Prime Minister who came up to sit right there next to him any more than he does. Then standing up makes sure to complete a closed circle turning from and shutting out the little person dressed in brown. Imagine yourself doing that. And why.

The quarter-turn. It is a technique that was actually taught to me and with derisive mocking laughter and a bit high on cocktails about how to cut off conversation in a crowd by simply turning away from it distracted by more interesting conversation and smiling while you do it. And the guy's left, "I think I'll just get another drink" But he can't because he's Muslim.

Obama Court Should Not Have Accepted the Obamacare Challenge Huffington Post.
Europe Will Continue Sanctions Against Russia CNN.
Obama, Reviewing Strategies for Training Iraqi Troops WSJ.
Obama, No Complete Strategy yet on Training Iraqi Troops, CNN

"U.S. Appeals Court Rules Against Obama on Immigration Plan"

NY Times breaking news email...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday denied the Obama administration’s request to lift a hold on the president’s executive actions on immigration, which would have granted protection from deportation as well as work permits to millions of immigrants in the country illegally.

Two of three judges on a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, left in place an injunction by a federal district judge in Brownsville, Tex. The ruling comes in a lawsuit by 26 states against actions President Obama took in November. Many of the initiatives were scheduled to take effect this month.

The appeals court found that Texas and the other states did have sufficient legal grounds to bring the lawsuit and that the administration had not shown it would be harmed if the injunction remained in the place and the programs were further delayed.

Bush: Barack Obama is being naïve about Iran and the pending nuclear deal

Does Obama govern like the mayor of Baltimore?

The former president, who rarely ever criticizes Obama in public, at first remarked that the idea of re-entering the political arena was something he didn’t want to do. He then proceeded to explain why Obama, in his view, was placing the U.S. in "retreat" around the world. He also said Obama was misreading Iran’s intentions while relaxing sanctions on Tehran too easily.

According to the attendee's transcription, Bush noted that Iran has a new president, Hassan Rouhani. “He's smooth," Bush said. "And you’ve got to ask yourself, is there a new policy or did they just change the spokesman?”

Bush said that Obama’s plan to lift sanctions on Iran with a promise that they could snap back in place at any time was not plausible. He also said the deal would be bad for American national security in the long term: “You think the Middle East is chaotic now? Imagine what it looks like for our grandchildren. That’s how Americans should view the deal.”

"Obama: Maybe it's time for mandatory voting"

"The president whose major policy achievement is mandatory health insurance thinks maybe voting should be mandatory, too."

Asked how to offset the influence of big money in politics, President Barack Obama suggested it's time to make voting a requirement.

"Other countries have mandatory voting," Obama said Wednesday in Cleveland, where he spoke about the importance of middle class economics, and was asked about the issue during a town hall.

The idea conjures up a few questions. Like, what would be the penalty for not voting? and can Obama declare mandatory voting via his executive power?

Obama: 'Consequences' for ICE Officials Who Don't Follow Executive Amnesty

"President Obama warned workers at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: implement executive amnesty, or else. He made the comments in a town hall event on immigration on MSNBC."

“Until we pass a law through Congress, the executive actions we’ve taken are not going to be permanent; they are temporary. There are going to be some jurisdictions and there may be individual ICE official or Border Control agent not paying attention to our new directives. But they’re going to be answerable to the head of Homeland Security because he’s been very clear about what our priorities will be,” Obama said, according to a partial transcript provided by the pool reporter.

“Not only are we going to have to win this legal fight.. but ultimately we’re still going to pass a law through Congress. The bottom line is I’m using all the legal power invested in me in order to solve this problem.”

“If somebody’s working for ICE … and they don’t follow the policy, there’s going to be consequences to it.”

Obama's word is now law. Some Law professors agree and some disagree.

I wanted to cut a pertinent juicy clip of the c-span video, but, as Chip mentioned last night, I'm on limited internet capabilities. Video eats up too much bandwidth.

"From Internet to Obamanet"

"Critics of President Obama’s “net neutrality” plan call it ObamaCare for the Internet."

That’s unfair to ObamaCare.

Both ObamaCare and “Obamanet” submit huge industries to complex regulations. Their supporters say the new rules had to be passed before anyone could read them. But at least ObamaCare claimed it would solve long-standing problems. Obamanet promises to fix an Internet that isn’t broken.

The permissionless Internet, which allows anyone to introduce a website, app or device without government review, ends this week. On Thursday the three Democrats among the five commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission will vote to regulate the Internet under rules written for monopoly utilities.

GOP control of both the house and the Senate has not amounted to a hill of beans when it comes to slowing down Obama's aggressive power grab.

The Bergdahl deal was worst than previously thought

"Carl Mueller told NBC in an interview that aired Monday that he and his wife thought they could win his daughter’s freedom with a $6.2 million ransom payment, although he acknowledged the Arizona family faced a daunting task in raising that much money. But when the White House agreed last year to trade Bergdahl, who had been held for five years by the Taliban and Haqqani network, the family believes the price for their daughter went up."

“That made the whole situation worse,” Kayla Mueller’s brother, Eric, told the network. “Because that's when the demands got greater. They got larger. They realized that they had something. They realized that, ‘Well, if they're gonna let five people go for one person, why won't they do this? Or why won't they do that?’” 

Kayla Mueller

Islamic State announced earlier this month that Mueller, who was taken hostage Aug. 4, 2013, had been killed by a Jordanian airstrike that was conducted as retaliation for the terror group’s savage murder of a Jordanian air force pilot. The Islamist group later provided the Muellers with undisclosed evidence that she was indeed dead.