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50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Water Madness by Tom McCaffrey

The federal government is draining Folsom Lake, one of California’s larger reservoirs-in the midst of a historic drought. We had a good Sierra snowpack this year, so the lake was almost full at the end of May. In the past when the lake was full, we could leave our boat in its berth at the marina until December, when the Bureau of Reclamation drains the lake to make room for the winter rains. But this year the Bureau is already draining the lake-to benefit the salmon in the Sacramento River, so we must pull our boat out in July.

One good snowpack is not enough to make up for four years of bad ones. Last summer faucets ran dry in some communities in the Central Valley, irrigation water to farmers was cut off, and thousands of farm workers were put out of work. You can see dead or dying orchards up and down Interstate 5. This summer the State-imposed restrictions on water use remain in place. Dead lawns and dying trees abound in our neighborhood. But still the feds are draining the lake. And they expect the rest of us dutifully to abide by the restrictions they have imposed on us.

The standard response to this sort of madness, among those able to recognize it as madness, is to blame it on radical environmentalists. But this is not the work of ideologues operating on the fringes of the environmental movement. This is standard-issue, mainstream environmentalism as practiced by the green establishment in Washington and Sacramento. This is not to deny that draining a major reservoir in the midst of a drought is a radical act. The point, rather, is that mainstream environmentalism is itself a radical ideology, and the current water shortage in California is Exhibit A.

From its beginnings in the 1960s, as I argue in my book Radical by Nature, environmentalism has been about preserving natural landscape where it exists, and restoring it where it does not. In California, this has meant, among other things, halting economic growth and development as much as possible. And what better way to halt growth than to restrict the supply of new water?

Former Boston Red Sox Star Kevin Youkilis Tweets Dismay Over ‘Jew Hatred,’ Burning of Israeli Flag Outside Democratic Convention by Shiryn Ghermezian

A former star player for the Boston Red Sox expressed dismay on Wednesday over the burning of Israeli flags outside the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Philadelphia.

“Sad to see the hatred that still exists for Israel and Jews across the world,” Kevin Youkilis tweeted, along with the hashtags “StopTheHate” and “NeverAgain.”

Youkilis’ Twitter followers responded in kind, with comments such as, “so true and so sad,” “Amen” and “That is absolutely nauseating to see, especially in my hometown!” One social media user even thanked the former professional baseball player for “speaking up.”

As The Algemeiner reported, eyewitnesses at the Wells Fargo Center, where the DNC is being held, said protesters were burning Israeli and American flags on Tuesday night, while chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “Long Live Palestine.” Activists also waved signs that read, “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free,” a slogan calling for the elimination of the state of Israel.

The National Jewish Democratic Council condemned the flag-burning on Twitter, calling it “Disgusting and totally reprehensible. These protesters aren’t only wrong, but are fundamentally anti-progressive.”

Meanwhile, inside the convention center, Palestinian flags were prominently displayed and attendees were seen holding up signs that read, “I support Palestinian human rights.”

The DNC started on Monday and continues until Thursday.

NFL’s Richard Sherman Stands by ‘All Lives Matter’ Comment “I find it difficult to fully support [the Black Lives Matter] movement.” Trey Sanchez

Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman is standing behind comments he made last year in which he stated, “If black lives matter, then they should matter all the time,” including deaths due to black-on-black crime.

In an interview with The Undefeated, Sherman was asked to reflect on his previous comments and provide any additional thoughts:

“I stand by what I said that all lives matter and that we are human beings. And speaking to police, I want African-Americans and everybody else treated decently. I want them treated like human beings. And I also want the police treated like human beings. I don’t want police officers just getting knocked off in the street who haven’t done anything wrong.

“Those are innocent lives.”

He was asked to give his opinion of the Black Lives Matter movement:

“It’s hard to formulate an opinion and generalize because they have several different messages. Some of them are peaceful and understandable and some of them are very radical and hard to support. Any time you see people who are saying, ‘Black Lives Matter,’ and then saying it’s time to kill police, then it is difficult to stand behind that logic. They are generalizing police just like they are asking police not to generalize us. It is very hypocritical. So, in that respect, I find it difficult to fully support that movement.”

Sherman, a Stanford graduate, doubled down on what he’s said before, stating that at some point, black-on-black crime and the problems in the inner city have got to be addressed by the BLM movement:

“There is low funding for education and very few jobs to go around. But there are also people who work hard to take care of their families. My parents did a great job, same inner city, Watts, South Central. They worked hard, didn’t make the most money, but took care of the kids in the neighborhood, took care of us, made ends meet, kept us out of gangs and all the nonsense. But I think there is also a mentality that we want to blame someone else for black fathers not being there for all these people having all these kids and nobody raising them. We want to say that’s systematic, but when do we stop saying it’s systematic and move forward and make a difference?”

Sherman was asked about the NFL’s role in offering support to the black community. The interviewer wondered if the white players on his team “should feel the same obligation as the black players.”

The PCE, Pt. 25: In the (Russian) Tank for Hillary : Diana West

Think the Soviets were the only ones to invert reality?

—“The Post-Constitutional Election, Part 24,” is here.

The world has left merely-bonkers behind when Clinton, Inc., the most corrupt, corruptible and corrupted political duo in modern history, is held up as the nation’s bulwark against the Russian Bear; when Donald Trump, the man who seeks to save US sovereignty, the military, the 2nd Amendment and to stop Muslim immigration is smeared as “a Russian stooge.”

Welcome to the Democrats’ last stand.

It really is desperation-time for the Left (which includes much of the Right) when the only way to spin the most recent Wikileaks’ email dump showing unabashed MSM-DNC collusion to rig the presidential nomination for Hillary Clinton is to try to ignore the systemic corruption the leak reveals, and instead blast the leak itself as a Russian hack that is evidence that Donald Trump is “Putin’s candidate.”

But let’s imagine that this Wikileak gusher is proven to be a Russian hack. How can any self-respecting intelligence student not at least consider whether Putin is in fact throwing a lifeline of an issue — Trump as “Russian stooge” — to his own ever-pliable but catastrophically damaged candidate, Crooked Hillary?

All leaks aside, however, it is a fact that it was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who gave her required approval to the sale of a Canadian company holding 20 percent of U.S. uranium stocks to Putin’s Russia — after nine members of the company’s board kicked $145 million into the Clinton Foundation. (Thank you, Peter Schweitzer.) That’s not “promoting Putin’s polices,” as the rap on Trump goes; that’s executing them.

What Russian strongman could possibly want a President of the United States more pliable, or, as Barack Obama, mentored and advised by a troika of Communist progeny himself, might say, more “flexible” than that?

Only by omitting such a “link” between Clinton and Putin’s Russia (and $145 million for the Clinton Foundation) can the media-political complex possibly paint Hillary as some kind of latter-day J. Edgar Hoover, anti-Communist firebrand — and never, ever the Alinskyite candidate. So omit it they do.

Here’s their storyline:

Supposedly, because of Trump’s (failed) attempts to do business in Russia; supposedly, because, as described, for example, by Anne Applebaum, among Trump’s advisers are 1) Carter Page, who, she writes, has “long-standing connections to Russian companies, including Gazprom, and has supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine”; and 2) campaign manager Paul Manafort, who “worked for many years in Ukraine on behalf of Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president ousted in 2014,” Donald Trump is “finally” America’s honest-to-goodness “Manchurian candidate.”

Applebaum writes: “But now it is 2016, truth is stranger than fiction, and we finally have a presidential candidate, Donald Trump, with direct and indirect links to a foreign dictator, Vladimir Putin, whose policies he promotes.”

“Finally”? This presumes US presidential candidates and, by extenstion, their administrations, have had no such “links” before. This is like saying FDR didn’t have Harry Hopkins et al (to the max); as if FDR’s Veep and 1948 presidential candidate Henry Wallace didn’t have at least two top Soviet spies in waiting to fill top cabinet posts (FDR alumni Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White); as if Harry Truman, with full knowledge from the FBI, didn’t appoint Soviet agent White to head the IMF; as if Robert Kennedy didn’t have an ongoing “back-channel” relationship with Soviet agent Georgi Bolshakov; as if Bill Clinton didn’t mysteriously vacation in Brezhnev’s Moscow in December 1969 and Prague less than a year after Soviet tanks crushed Prague Spring; as if Obama wasn’t mentored and guided by a troika of Soviet-linked Communist progeny, and more.

Trump Dominates the DNC The GOP candidate clearly frightens the Democrats to death. Matthew Vadum

PHILADELPHIA — Democrats put in plenty of good words for Hillary Clinton during their convention yesterday but they focused most of their energy on trying to assassinate the character of Donald Trump.

The Left is now going after the Republican nominee with brass knuckles. The latest Democrat attack line accuses Trump of committing treason for asking Russia or any other governments that may have Clinton’s mountain of missing emails in their possession to return them to the United States.

Meanwhile, the prospect of Democrat unity going into the November election fades with every passing hour. Hatred, discord, and disgust are everywhere. The Bernie Sanders people don’t trust the Hillary Clinton people. The Hillary Clinton people are growing increasingly angry at a good chunk of the Bernie Sanders people for not falling in line and backing the nominee. Just as internal dissent is roiling the Republican Party, a civil war is brewing among Democrats. In the end most Democrats will probably support their nominee. The question is what fraction of the party will sit the election out, defect to Trump, or embrace the Green or Libertarian parties. The burning hatred of Hillary is still palpable in many state delegations.

All the convention talking points about how brilliant, kind, compassionate, visionary, selfless, humble, and tough Clinton is are wearing thin as the delegates keep clapping their hands like trained seals in the Wells Fargo Center. Democrats want to take the focus off Hillary, who is both a terrible candidate and a terrible person and throw the spotlight on the sometimes erratic Donald Trump.

That is the current state of the party that invented the politics of personal destruction and that during the Obama years has been laser-focused on fundamentally transforming, that is, destroying, what’s left of America.

Amidst the continuing heatwave, delegates were still deeply divided, caught up in factional fights during Day Three of the Democratic National Convention here. Disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporters were still protesting and booing during speeches Wednesday.

And on the way out the door Sanders stuck it to the party with which he briefly aligned himself. After getting what he wanted from Democrats, the self-described socialist abruptly announced he is leaving the party. Despite his pleas from the convention floor for party unity and an impassioned endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, Sanders said at a Bloomberg News-hosted breakfast that he will return to the U.S. Senate as an Independent.

“I was elected an Independent,” he told reporters.

So that apparently closes the book on Bernie’s adventures in the Democratic Party.

The Trump-bashing fest was long and loud.

EXCLUSIVE: How Hillary Clinton Mainstreamed Al-Qaeda Fundraiser Abdurahman Alamoudi By Patrick Poole

Right now, prisoner #47042-083, Abdurahman Alamoudi, sits in his cell in a federal prison in Ashland, Kentucky.

It’s a long way down from being one of Hillary Clinton’s favorite colleagues. Alamoudi organized White House events during the Bill Clinton administration. Under Hillary’s supervision, he held official positions: Alamoudi was strategically placed at the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department.

That is, until he was arrested and convicted in a bizarre Libyan intelligence/al-Qaeda assassination plot to kill the Saudi crown prince.

Later, he was identified by the Treasury Department as an Al-Qaeda fundraiser who had operated inside the United States.

Hillary Clinton and Abdurahman Alamoudi were no mere acquaintances. According to an affidavit filed in court by Georgetown professor John Esposito, Alamoudi was asked by Hillary Clinton to arrange the first White House Ramadan iftar dinner in 1996:

Hillary – Alamoudi iftar (Esposito)

It appears that no media outlet has ever asked Hillary Clinton about her relationship to Alamoudi.

Under the Clinton administration, Alamoudi was tasked with founding and developing the Defense Department’s first-ever Muslim chaplain program. Alamoudi himself handpicked the Pentagon’s Muslim chaplain corps.

As I reported in 2010, one of those chaplain trainers was al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

The State Department, during the Clinton administration, appointed Alamoudi as a goodwill ambassador and sent him on six official taxpayer-funded trips to the Middle East. Remarkably, after Alamoudi’s 2003 arrest a federal agent testified in an affidavit about a recording of Alamoudi complaining to an audience that the 1998 al-Qaeda bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania did not kill enough Americans.

Years before he was helping Hillary Clinton arrange official dinners at the White House, Alamoudi had already been known to the FBI for al-Qaeda fundraising.

18 Different Ways You Can #FeelTheBern Outside the DNC By Tyler O’Neil

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders may have endorsed Hillary Clinton in the race against Donald Trump, but his supporters are more rabid than ever. On Tuesday, the second day of the Democratic National Convention, after Sanders gave his speech to support Clinton, a group of Sandersnistas made their voices known.

The “Bernie or Bust” crowd actually moved to be more visible to the Democratic delegates as they entered the convention to cast their votes for the nominee.

Here are the 16 photos and videos that best capture the “Bernie or Bust” movement, right as the Democrats were officially nominating Hillary. Enjoy!
18. Hillary is a Mother Fracker!

Who Is Putin’s Real Ally? By Roger L Simon

“Wait a minute. According to the sainted Times, one-fifth of U.S. uranium production now belongs to the Russians thanks to Ma and Pa Clinton?! If you wanted to talk treason, wouldn’t that be the textbook definition? Do the folks at the Democratic National Convention know about this?”

Oh, the vapors, the vapors! Donald Trump has done it again. He has a gone a bridge too far for the 150th time, but on this occasion taken us all the way across the Bering Straits to the very edge of the Gulag Archipelago. He has urged Vladimir Putin to reveal the contents of Hillary Clinton’s gazillion missing emails the FBI somehow couldn’t find.

Traitor! Traitor! yell the well-intentioned, like former SecDef Leon Panetta. This selfish yellow-haired plutocrat must be disqualified from the presidency!

Never mind that Putin would need no encouragement whatsoever from any outsider to hack the wide-open server of the former secretary of state, nor would the intelligence services of at least a dozen other first-world countries (they all do it—we were listening to Merkel’s cell phone ourselves, it will be recalled), not to mention the who-knows-how-many non-state actors and twelve-year-old high-tech whippersnappers with the skill to do this.

Never mind that Trump was undoubtedly far less interested in making friends with Putin than in calling attention to the obvious relationship between Hillary’s home-brew server and the similarly wide-open server of the DNC that Mrs. Clinton claimed to know nothing about. Her media lackeys on 60 Minutes made sure no one paid attention (hello, Scott Pelley!).

Meanwhile, discussion is curiously mute on a far more substantive alliance with Putin by, yes, the Clintons themselves that could actually change the balance of power in the world in a way far more dangerous than Trump mouthing off about Vladimir. It probably already has.

Michelle Obama and the Content of Her Character By Eileen F. Toplansky

Michelle Obama’s 2016 speech to the DNC stands in sharp contrast to an essay written in the early 1990s by Glenn Loury titled “Free at Last? A Personal Perspective on Race and Identity in America.” Loury recounts how, as a young black man growing up on the South Side of Chicago, he lacked the courage to stand up for a friend named Woody, who had “a Negro grandparent on each side of his family but looked like a typical white boy.” Woody never chose to pass as a white person yet, when both young men attended a political rally and Woody stood to speak “[h]e was cut short before finishing his first sentence by one of the dashiki-clad brothers-in-charge, who demanded to know how a ‘white’ got the authority to have an opinion about what black people should be doing. That was one of [the] problems, the brother said, we were always letting white people ‘peep our hole card,’ while we were never privy to their deliberations in the same way.” Loury explains that a

silence then fell over the room. The indignant brother asked if anyone could ‘vouch for this white boy.’ More excruciating silence ensued. Now was my moment of truth; Woody turned plaintively toward me, but I would not meet his eyes. To my eternal disgrace, I refused to speak up for him. He was asked to leave the meeting, and did so without uttering a word in his own defense.

In recalling this painful memory of “betraying someone he had known for a decade,” Loury describes how “…this desire to be regarded as genuinely black… dramatically altered [his] life. It narrowed the range of [his] earliest intellectual pursuits, distorted [his] relationships with other people, censored [his] political thought and expression, informed the way [he] dressed and spoke, and shaped [his] cultural interests. Some of this was inevitable and not all of it was bad, but in his experience the need to be affirmed by one’s racial peers can take on a pathological dimension.”

So what does this have to do with Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama? She and her husband have never evolved from their strident, all-consuming race-consciousness and “addiction to indignation.” As a student, “Miss Robinson wrote a senior thesis entitled ‘Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community.'” Some excerpts from the thesis include the following:

“Predominantly white universities like Princeton are socially and academically designed to cater to the needs of the white students comprising the bulk of their enrollments.”
“[My Princeton experiences] “will likely lead to my further integration and/or assimilation into a White cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant.”
“I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong. Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second.”
“In defining the concept of identification or the ability to identify with the black community… I based my definition on the premise that there is a distinctive black culture very different from white culture.”

The Other Clinton ‘Change’ No one in Philadelphia wants to talk about the Clinton Foundation.

Bill Clinton on Tuesday portrayed his wife as a “change maker” whose life has overflowed with good intentions and commitment to others. No one can spin a yarn like Bill, and for the believers it was a touching portrait. But if it’s true, why do the polls show that 68% of Americans don’t trust Hillary Clinton? That has to do with the rest of the story, which is how the Clintons have used politics to enrich themselves and retain power.

Nowhere is this clearer than at the words you didn’t hear Mr. Clinton speak: the Clinton Foundation. This supposedly philanthropic operation has become a metaphor for the Clinton business model of crony politics. The foundation is about producing a different kind of “change.”

No doubt the foundation does some charitable good, but this is incidental to its main purpose of promoting the Clinton political brand. Since its creation in 1997, the nominal nonprofit has served as a shadow Super Pac, designed to keep the Clintons in the national headlines, cover their travel expenses, and keep their retinue employed between elections.

The payroll has included Huma Abedin, who drew a State Department salary even as she managed politics at the foundation and is now vice-chairwoman of the Clinton campaign. Dennis Cheng raised money for Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 bid, then became the foundation’s chief development officer and now leads Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 fundraising. Cheryl Mills, Hillary’s chief of staff at State, sat on the foundation board. And don’t forget Sid Blumenthal, the longtime Clinton Svengali who was secretly advising Mrs. Clinton at State while drawing a foundation salary. This may not be illegal but the charity here is for the Clintons’ benefit.
The funding for this political operation has come from nearly every country and major company in the world. These contributors have the cover of giving to charity, when everybody knows the gifts are political tribute to a woman determined to be President. Donations to a charity aren’t governed by the same caps or restrictions as those that go to a traditional Super Pac. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren somehow overlooked this in their Monday night riffs against money in politics. CONTINUE AT SITE