July 21-23, 2018
Jul 21 05:44 The NFL vs. the NFLPA Jul 21 16:05 John Brennan's motives Jul 22 02:47 Rep. Keith Ellison subjected to excruciating scrutiny by SCTimes Jul 22 04:30 Robbyn Wacker's op-ed Jul 22 21:44 Immigration enforcement alert Jul 23 04:09 Tina Smith & Bernie Sanders Jul 23 11:54 The Democrats' wicked ways
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
The NFL vs. the NFLPA
Between Stephen Ross and Roger Goodell, the NFL have candidates to play idiots covered. First, Stephen Ross was stupid enough to tell the world that he'd suspend any player for 4 games if they didn't stand for the National Anthem. By doing that, he made the matter a collective bargaining situation. That's per the NFLPA-NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Next, Roger Goodell, the NFL's spineless commissioner, decided that he'd make a difficult situation worse. He started by being spineless. Colin Kaepernick decided he wouldn't stand during the National Anthem because he disagreed with this nation's racial policies. Had Commissioner Goodell done the right thing right then, he would've implemented a new rule saying that all players would stand ruing the National Anthem. That would've ended things right there.
Instead, he let the problem fester, which led to the NFL's TV ratings cratering and increased numbers of empty seats in stadiums. Commissioner Goodell should've sent the message that what players do away from the stadium is their business but what they do prior to the game is the NFL's business. Commissioner Goodell gets paid almost $50,000,000 a year. The owners have a right to expect him to make intelligent business decisions. He hasn't. He's a disaster. He's the most overpaid disaster in NFL history.
By now, NFL fans know that the Commissioner caved to the NFLPA, aka the NFL players' union, over the issue of standing/kneeling for the National Anthem right before the start of each game. This joint statement summarizes things quite nicely:
- NFLPA (@NFLPA) July 20, 2018
It opens by saying "The NFL and the NFLPA, through recent discussions, have been working on a resolution to the anthem issue. In order to allow this constructive dialogue to continue, we have come to a standstill agreement on the NFLPA's grievance and the NFL's anthem policy. No new rules will be issued or enforced for the next several weeks while these confidential discussions are ongoing."
This wouldn't have gotten to this point if Spineless Roger had laid down the law with the owners, then the players. First, he should've told Ross that there wouldn't be suspensions of players if they didn't stand. Then he could've said that deactivating players for games was acceptable. Next, with that situation fixed, Goodell could've told the NFLPA to pound sand because there weren't any CBA issues to discuss.
Instead, Commissioner Goodell caved because he doesn't understand what's bothering the fans. This isn't about disrespecting the military. This isn't about the flag or the Anthem. It's the American people collectively saying that they just want to watch a football game. They're saying that they'd tune in FNC, CNN or MSNBC if they wanted the latest in political activism.
Just once, wouldn't it be nice if the NFL got a simple PR matter right?
Posted Saturday, July 21, 2018 5:44 AM
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John Brennan's motives
Kim Strassel's column this week take a bright sharpie and highlight John Brennan's ulterior motives in spreading the Trump-Russia collusion storyline. Before getting into that, it's important to highlight the fact that the FBI was politicized. Strassel did that early in her article.
That's where she wrote "The Trump-Russia sleuthers have been back in the news, again giving Americans cause to doubt their claims of nonpartisanship. Last week, it was Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Peter Strzok testifying to Congress that he harbored no bias against a president he still describes as 'horrible' and 'disgusting.' This week, it was former FBI Director Jim Comey tweet-lecturing Americans on their duty to vote Democratic in November."
John Solomon's article casts serious doubt on Strzok's credibility. That's because he wrote "For any American who wants an answer sooner, there are just five words, among the thousands of suggestive texts Page and Strzok exchanged, that you should read. That passage was transmitted on May 19, 2017. 'There's no big there there,' Strzok texted." Considering the fact that Agent Strzok hates President Trump, it's safe to say that there really isn't much to the Mueller 'investigation'.
I wrote here that calling Mueller's endeavor an investigation is a stretch because it's glaringly apparent that he hasn't found anything against President Trump. If he had, he would've written the report and handed it to Congress so they could start pushing impeachment without hesitation.
That points us back to Mr. Brennan:
Mr. Brennan has taken credit for launching the Trump investigation. At a House Intelligence Committee hearing in May 2017, he explained that he became 'aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons.' The CIA can't investigate U.S. citizens, but he made sure that 'every information and bit of intelligence' was 'shared with the bureau,' meaning the FBI. This information, he said, 'served as the basis for the FBI investigation.' My sources suggest Mr. Brennan was overstating his initial role, but either way, by his own testimony, he as an Obama-Clinton partisan was pushing information to the FBI and pressuring it to act.
More notable, Mr. Brennan then took the lead on shaping the narrative that Russia was interfering in the election specifically to help Mr. Trump - which quickly evolved into the Trump-collusion narrative. Team Clinton was eager to make the claim, especially in light of the Democratic National Committee server hack. Numerous reports show Mr. Brennan aggressively pushing the same line internally. Their problem was that as of July 2016 even then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't buy it. He publicly refused to say who was responsible for the hack, or ascribe motivation. Mr. Brennan also couldn't get the FBI to sign on to the view; the bureau continued to believe Russian cyberattacks were aimed at disrupting the U.S. political system generally, not aiding Mr. Trump.
Earlier this week, Mr. Brennan emphatically said that President Trump's statements at the Helsinki Summit rose to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors" before saying that he considered President Trump's words treasonous.
In this video, Alan Dershowitz emphatically stated that "You can't just throw the term treason around":
[Video no longer available]
Apparently, Mr. Brennan hasn't learned that lesson yet.
Posted Saturday, July 21, 2018 4:05 PM
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Rep. Keith Ellison subjected to excruciating scrutiny by SCTimes
The St. Cloud Times' Nora Hertel should be applauded for applying an excruciating amount of scrutiny during Keith Ellison's visit to St. Cloud this week. It's a safe bet he won't grant her an exclusive interview after she put the screws to Mr. Ellison. Check this out.
For instance, we found out that "Ellison told a friendly audience in St. Cloud [aka CAIR-MN] that it's difficult to get legislation passed in Washington D.C. now, while state attorneys general are on the front lines of protecting people's rights."
Later, we found out that Ellison "shared his platform and took questions from the small group Friday at New York Gyro on Third Street North. Ellison has served in Congress for 12 years and practiced law long before that." Still later, when asked about his views on law enforcement, Ellison replied that "Like fire service and public utilities, public safety services should be delivered fairly, Ellison said. He supports a number of reforms including: allowing felons to vote, decriminalizing marijuana, training police on de-escalation and implicit bias . He supports drug courts and wants to treat addiction as a medical, rather than a law enforcement, problem."
In other words, Ellison's priority would be to teach the police to stop being racists and to stop shooting innocent minorities when these minorities are given fair, specific instructions by law enforcement officers.
According to the Kirwan Institute , the definition of implicit bias "refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. These biases, which encompass both favorable and unfavorable assessments, are activated involuntarily and without an individual's awareness or intentional control. Residing deep in the subconscious, these biases are different from known biases that individuals may choose to conceal for the purposes of social and/or political correctness. Rather, implicit biases are not accessible through introspection."
Let's understand this. Implicit bias resides "deep in the subconscious", meaning that they "aren't accessible through introspection." Further, these biases "are activated involuntarily and without an individual's awareness or intentional control."
If we don't know that these traits exist and they're "activated involuntarily", how are we supposed to prevent them? That's assuming that they actually exist, which I'm skeptical of, at least to the extent that Mr. Ellison says they exist.
Left out of Ms. Hertel's article is Mr. Ellison's extensive (and disturbing) interview with radical Rabbi Michael Lerner:
[Video no longer available]
Treating Ellison like he's just another political candidate ignores Mr. Ellison's support of cop killers . In his past, Ellison has questioned detectives investigating cop killers like Kathleen Soliah:
At the event, Ellison told the Pioneer Press he believed the prosecution of Olson was political. In his speech, Ellison noted he didn't know much about the SLA and he thought Olson was being prosecuted in the court of public opinion because of some of her political beliefs.
"I'm a supporter of anybody who's subject to political prosecution based on their being in a vilified group," he told the Pioneer Press. "Your chances of getting a fair trial are low. I've been waiting for the evidence against her. I don't think they would not cheat to prosecute this woman."
Here's what he said about Assata Shakur and Bernadine Dohrn:
Ellison also spoke favorably of convicted cop killer Assata Shakur and expressed his opposition to any attempt to extradite her to the United States from Cuba, where she had fled after escaping prison.
"I am praying that Castro does not get to the point where he has to really barter with these guys over here because they're going to get Assata Shakur, they're going to get a whole lot of other people," Ellison said at the event, which also included a silent auction and speech by former Weather Underground leader Bernardine Dohrn. "I hope the Cuban people can stick to it, because the freedom of some good decent people depends on it."
Summarizing, Ellison thinks that cop killers are misunderstood civil rights heroes and that police officers are racists. Is that the type of man we want leading law enforcement? Is that the type of man we want harassing law enforcement? I don't think so.
Posted Sunday, July 22, 2018 2:47 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 22-Jul-18 09:25 AM
And don't forget he thinks immigration law should be ignored. "top law enforcement official"??? It would be funny if not so serious.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 22-Jul-18 10:18 AM
My point precisely.
Comment 2 by Liz at 23-Jul-18 11:15 AM
If you are going to run for the office of Attorney General you should have an active Law License. We should not elect a person as our top law enforcer who does not follow our laws. His meetings with CAIR, a division of the Muslim Brotherhood and their seditious plans for the United States, see the Explanatory Memorandum https://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/20.pdf should have disqualified him to run for any office, ever.
Robbyn Wacker's op-ed
Robbyn Wacker is the new president at St. Cloud State. Unfortunately, she inherited a disaster. Unfortunately, turning St. Cloud State around keeps getting more difficult each month. What's most unfortunate is that SCSU is laying off faculty each year. They've avoided calling it retrenchment, which requires certain protocols to be followed. Still, it's getting to the point where the layoffs at the University have gotten to a point where SCSU doesn't have many open programs left thanks to the growing list of annual budget cuts.
President Wacker's monthly editorial follows in the tradition of past presidents. In other words, it's more happy talk that reinforces the notion that 'higher education is a good thing' that's getting more difficult each year because of changing demographics, which produces more competition between universities for students.
Competition isn't the culprit for why SCSU is having difficulty filling its programs. Based on informal interviews with current faculty, the biggest problems facing the University are incompetence and the lack of an appealing plan. Throughout the years, SCSU has too often tried engaging in rebranding rather than rebuilding. Too often under President Potter, the University spent money stupidly. Longtime readers of LFR are probably tired of hearing me talk about the various foolish spending decisions. I don't blame them.
This paragraph totally bothers me:
I look forward to continuing to work with the campus, our partners and the community to identify new and creative ways to carry out St. Cloud State's mission and vision to positively transform students and prepare them to be global citizens of the 21st Century.
It's time to get rid of significant parts of the administration. Keep the deans and the people who run the offices. Terminate those that don't fit that description.
Another thing that's important is getting out of the lease with the Wedum Foundation. The University has probably sent checks above the rent revenues to the Wedum Foundation in excess of $10,000,000. The University can't afford to keep spending money foolishly like that.
Most importantly, the University needs to restart the Aviation Program immediately . Last week, Minnesota State-Mankato was chosen to be one of 8 universities picked by Delta to train their future pilots. As more airlines need more pilots, they'll need additional universities to train these future pilots.
Having an aviation program will be an instant student pipeline to those universities. SCSU needs a student magnet right now. An aviation program won't just attract future pilots. It'll attract other students who want to major in drone operations or aerial firefighting, too. These are understaffed careers, too. SCSU didn't just walk away from that program. It ran away from that program. When it was terminated, there were almost 200 students in the Aviation Program.
It's time for the St. Cloud State president to stop writing these happy talk op-eds. It's time for them to start writing things that actually attract students in specific programs. Kids obviously aren't attracted by the happy talk. They get it that there's better careers at less expensive prices waiting for them in technical schools. They don't need to hear milquetoast op-eds like this one. They want to be told about a bold new program that offers them a high-paying job upon graduation that pays off their student debt quickly and that helps them earn a healthy middle class living.
Finally, op-eds like these feed the notion that universities are out of touch with students. That needs to stop immediately.
Posted Sunday, July 22, 2018 4:30 AM
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Immigration enforcement alert
For those that ignorantly think that border/immigration enforcement only happens along the southwest US/Mexico border, it's time to wake up. If you're one of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's supporters who think it's time to abolish ICE, it's time to start thinking. If you're a Democrat senator living in a red state or a Democrat living in a swing district who has opposed building President Trump's wall, it's time for you to start thinking about putting America first instead of putting Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi first.
This article from the Illegal Alien Crime Report website highlights the press release from ICE seeking information about "Ramon Raudel Campos Murillo, a native of Mexico, who sometimes also goes by Raudel or the alias 'Chilango.'" Murillo "is charged with transporting a minor across state lines for prostitution in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia."
Here's what's known about Murillo:
Court documents relevant to the fugitive's known co-conspirators and associates state that for approximately three years between 2009 and 2012, Campos Murillo managed the operation of an interstate prostitution ring that trafficked multiple women and a known minor across state lines to engage in commercial sex acts. Many of these women were foreign nationals, brought in from all along the eastern seaboard from New York to Virginia. Once they had arrived at the Greyhound bus station in Washington, D.C., they were transported to an apartment in Riverdale, Maryland maintained by the enterprise as a brothel. This illicit operation prostituted more than 100 different women, and operated in multiple locations to include Manassas, Woodbridge, Falls Church, Fairfax, Alexandria, Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Newport News, Baltimore and Delaware. Campos Murillo's operation typically charged clients $30.00 for 15 minutes of sexual intercourse with the trafficked women, garnering almost half a million dollars in illicit proceeds.
ICE is built to track these animals down and remove them from the US. Along comes a wet-behind-the-ears 28-year-old socialist know-it-all who hasn't thought things through and she starts yapping about the supposed 'need' for abolishing ICE.
It didn't take long for all of the Democrats' top tier presidential candidates to start repeating her. Last week, Mark Pocan submitted a bill with the intent of abolishing ICE. That led to Martha McSally and others to put a resolution together to support ICE. Here's Harris Faulkner interviewing Rep. McSally:
[Video no longer available]
When the vote was taken, 34 Democrats voted not to support ICE. Another 133 Democrats voted present, which is the same as not supporting ICE. Others, like Rep. Tim Walz and Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, skipped the vote entirely.
The truth is that Democrats have tried thwarting the Republicans' attempts to fix our immigration system. These Democrats have thwarted the Republicans' efforts because they put putting the party back in power ahead of putting America first. Why would a political party want to abolish an agency that arrests sex traffickers like Ramon Raudel Campos Murillo?
This will sound radical but it's actually well thought out. A large percentage of Democrats, specifically the ones that want to thwart enforcing immigration laws, aren't patriots. They're un-American through and through. A vote for Democrats this November is a vote to keep the immigration status quo intact.
Posted Sunday, July 22, 2018 9:44 PM
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Tina Smith & Bernie Sanders
Yesterday morning, Tina Smith was interviewed by KSTP's Tom Hauser. On another network, Bernie Sanders, aka Sen. Smith's mentor, appeared on CBS's Face the Nation with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democrats' latest rising star.
During her interview with Hauser, Smith confirmed that she supported single-payer health care and that she wouldn't vote for any judges on President Trump's list because "far right special interests" compiled the list. (I'm wondering if that means that she wouldn't vote to confirm any judges approved by far left special interest organizations like NARAL Pro-Choice, PFAW, the Center for American Progress, NOW or Planned Parenthood.) These aren't mainstream organizations based on their lobbyists' wish list.
Smith thinks that single payer is the cure for rising health care costs, which were created by the ACA, which was created by Democrats. Now we're supposed to trust Democrats to fix the problem that : Democrats created? When Marty Seifert first ran for governor, one of the punch lines in his stump speech was "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free."
He's right. Costs have skyrocketed since the ACA was passed. In October of 2016, I wrote this post to highlight this information:
Speaker Daudt spoke of a farming family he met during a MNsure listening session in Red Wing, MN, who told Speaker Daudt that their premiums this year were $2,300/mo. Then Speaker Daudt said that this family's deductible for this year was an additional $13,000 this year. This family's out-of-pocket expenses, which they'd pay before the insurance would pay a penny, was over $40,000.
As shocking as that was, the next part was frightening. Speaker Daudt said that that was this family's premiums before this year's open enrollment premium increases of between 50% and 67% .
That means, at minimum, this family's premiums for 2017 would exceed $41,000. If their premium increased by 67%, this family's premiums for 2017 would jump to $46,000. That's one year's premiums for a family of 3 healthy people. Let's remember that Tina Smith was the Lieutenant Governor at the time. Why should I trust someone who presided over the highest health insurance premium increases in Minnesota history? That's as foolish as trusting an arsonist to put out a building fire.
The more we learn about Tina Smith, the more we learn that she's a radical lefty. Check out what she said on health care :
Tina believes every Minnesota family deserves access to high-quality health care that they can afford.
In other words, Tina Smith knows that she's responsible for failing Minnesotans. She was part of the administration that implemented the plan that caused the 59% to 67% premium increases. Now she wants to return to Washington to screw up the system even further than she's already screwed it up?
I think not. I'm voting for someone who will fix problems, not create them. I won't be voting for Bernie's ally, aka Tina Smith.
[Video no longer available]
I wouldn't characterize Ocasio-Cortez as being too bright after reading this:
"Bold" is a characterization that has been used for Ocasio-Cortez's own campaign. She told Face The Nation host Margaret Brennan that her agenda included policy positions like Medicare for all. "I think that the factors that ultimately created our win was the fact that we had bold commitments and I campaigned on hard commitments of Medicare for all, tuition free public college, ensuring a Green New Deal for our future and championing those issues were the reason that we won," Ocasio-Cortez said.
Mostly, she won because Joe Crowley didn't take her seriously enough. It wasn't because people in that district thought that they were voting for a policy wonk.
Posted Monday, July 23, 2018 4:09 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 23-Jul-18 11:45 AM
Tina Smith and her fellow Trotskyites should just state the obvious, that we can all have fabulous health care if government will simply mandate one thing: that all doctors, hospitals, drug companies, etc. must offer all of their goods and services to anyone needing them at no charge. Simple! Why should we be entertaining half measures like single payer, when we could just go to NO payer?
The Democrats' wicked ways
Yesterday, I wrote this post based on a tweet posted by MaryAnn Mendoza. The tweet was about an ICE statement about a subhuman creature named Ramon Raudel Campos Murillo. Murillo is described as "a native of Mexico, who sometimes also goes by Raudel or the alias 'Chilango.'" Later in the ICE statement, it says "Murillo 'is charged with transporting a minor across state lines for prostitution in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.'"
The disgusting thing about this ICE memo is that it was first published in 2011. The next most disgusting thing is that "Campos Murillo managed the operation of an interstate prostitution ring that trafficked multiple women and a known minor across state lines to engage in commercial sex acts ."
Why didn't the Obama administration put a higher priority on capturing this thug and shutting down this operation? Further, why didn't the Obama administration and Democrats put a higher priority on beefing up ICE? Based on the range of activities that gangs like this and MS-13 were involved in, I can't picture legislation funding this not flying through Congress.
Democrats don't want to admit that there's more to illegal immigration than adding agricultural workers. They don't want to admit that a significant portion of ICE's responsibilities focus on drug interdiction or human and sex trafficking.
After losing her son, Mrs. Mendoza has become a tireless activist:
[Video no longer available]
Why haven't Democrats rallied to her cause? Her son was a police officer who was killed by an illegal alien who was driving drunk. Why haven't Democrats rallied to the sides of Sabine Durden, Agnes Gibboney and other Angel Moms and Angel families?
Here's the dirty little secret: Democrats don't want to talk about these things because that would force them to solve these problems. If America knew about this, they'd pressure Democrats to substantively participate in crafting legislation that'd fix this problem. That would include building Trump's wall. That'd include eliminating foolish talk about abolishing ICE.
The blood of these Angel Moms' kids are on the Democrats' hands. First, the Democrats have steadfastly refused to fund building Trump's wall because they don't want to give him a political victory. Seriously? Whatever happened to doing what's right? Whatever happened to just being an American first, a partisan after that? Next, Democrat activists consistently tell us that we shouldn't disparage illegal aliens. I wholeheartedly disagree. When sex traffickers, drug cartels and human traffickers make hundreds of millions of dollars off their trades, why shouldn't we call it what it is? It's called speaking the truth.
Hooray for resilient people like Angel Moms. If Democrats had a heart, they'd listen to these women and turn from their wicked ways.
Posted Monday, July 23, 2018 11:54 AM
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