RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/09/bill-clinton-warns-current-trend-could-take-us-to-the-edge-of-o/21878907/

Want to hear a joke? Here is the punchline: Bill Clinton gave a talk at the Brookings Institute ….
He went on to say, “…we have to find a way to bring simple, personal decency and trust back to our politics.”

The month ended with President Trump addressing a joint session of Congress. Eloquence may not be not his forte, but last night he was. He spoke for just over an hour and was interrupted with applause 96 times. It was, in my opinion, a home run of a speech. He was conciliatory toward Democrats, uplifted the American people and evoked empathy with guests he had brought, especially toward the widow of Ryan Owens, a U.S. Navy Seal killed last month in Yemen.

While global stock markets moved higher – the DJIA were up 4.7% for the month – clouds gathered on the horizon. This is a weather pattern we have seen before; however, man-made efforts caused them to temporarily dissipate, but not disappear. I write, of course, of the surge in government debt and obligations, which are growing faster than underlying economies – a situation that must, at some point, end. Adding to (and prolonging) the problem has been the effective socialization of debt, as central banks transferred private obligations to their public balance sheets. The Fed has stopped its QE programs, but the ECB continues. In 2008, such tactics were justified; but, to the extent they are used now to maintain social welfare benefits that would otherwise be unaffordable, they may delay, but will not prevent, future storms.

The problem is particularly acute in the EU, especially in those nations unflatteringly referred to as PIGS – Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. While Spain’s prospects appear better than the others, all are experiencing financial hardship and all are facing the demographic challenge of fertility rates far below replacement rates. Declining birthrates is one reason why Europe has been open to Muslim immigration. Somebody has to produce babies and if the native population won’t they must be imported; for economic growth is difficult when populations shrink and productivity is absent.

These trends, which have produced substandard economic growth, were instinctively understood by those in the UK who voted for Brexit and Trump voters in the U.S. They have been misread by elites throughout the West who seem as removed from reality as were those Russian aristocrats who sipped lemonade, as the guns of 2017 harkened the coming Revolution. Keep in mind, Brexit and Trump are symptoms, not causes. The causes were a consequence of hearts bigger than heads, of sensibilities that exorcised sense.

Insane,” “Incompetent,” “Liar,” “Unfocused,” “Unhinged,” “Petulant,” “Disgraceful,” “Sexist,” “Misogynist,” “Xenophobic,” even “Hitlerian” according to one CNN reporter. The names Mr. Trump has been called and the charges against him are as relentless as they are incoherent. They culminate in the claim he is impeachable, according to Representative Keith Ellison. The New Republic suggested he is suffering from neurosyphilis, thus mentally unqualified for the office. Some, like the intellect-challenged Sally Kohn, a lawyer and community organizer, have called for a special election following the impeachments of both Trump and Pence. These are not protests. These are attempts to sabotage a duly elected President.

It is fine to disagree with Mr. Trump and the policies he was elected to pursue. It is okay to demonstrate and to protest. Civil disobedience is part of our history and culture. But to claim that the man who wants to shrink the federal government, who wants to emasculate the power of unaccountable federal agencies, who wants to ensure that Congress enacts laws, the Executive executes them and that the judiciary upholds them is somehow putting the nation on the path to authoritarianism is laughable. Over the past several decades, our federal government has become the Sheriff of Nottingham. Trump was seen by the millions who voted for him as Robin Hood, a man who would return power to the people. This is not to dismiss or minimize risks to democracies. They exist. But Mr. Trump wants to make government smaller and more accountable and the people more responsible – the opposite of authoritarian rule.

Nevertheless, we shouldn’t be surprised by the reaction to the President. Over the past two years, Mr. Trump alienated the establishment: Republicans in the primaries, Democrats during the general election, and throughout – the media, academia, public sector union heads, big banks and big business CEOs, federal bureaucrats, the intelligence community and supranational organizations. He upset illegal Mexican immigrants. He angered Muslims who refuse to admit the presence of Islamic extremists in their midst. He is enemy to elitists and to all who prefer the comfort of political correctness to the reality of truth.

What he attracted were the millions of Americans who believe in the dignity of work, but find opportunities limited. He appealed to those who see government as master and themselves as servant. He drew in those who believe in a Christian-Judeo culture, but whose moral sense has been belittled by condescending hypocrites of relativism. He bonded with the 63 million voters who felt left behind by a government focused on self-perpetuation, a government that had lost its sense of service.

The Left, looking to subvert Mr. Trump’s Presidency, may consider themselves followers of Nelson Mandela, who famously said about sabotage: “I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had risen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.”

But that does not describe the United States and it is not what the Left is doing. We are not an oppressive nation. We are a nation that has combined free-market fundamentals with democratic principles. We honor freedom, property rights and the rule of law. Despite deeply-held differences, we all know that the United States stands for those values and lauds that success. It is not the ends that separate us; it is the means to achieve those ends. Many of us disagreed with Mr. Obama from the start, but none of us tried to vitiate his administration. We didn’t write or speak of assassination, military coups or forced resignation. No members of the intelligence community withheld intelligence because they deemed him unfit. No federal employees, in agencies like the EPA, resisted his administration because they didn’t approve his policies.

Many years ago, when I graduated from college, a friend and classmate got her first job in the visitor’s service of the United Nations. There were two perks. One was a free parking space and the other privileges to the debates in the General Assembly. Thanks to this I attended many sessions in the gallery as her guest. The “distinguished” members most often started their disquisitions by telling a humorous anecdote from their respective nations. They suffered greatly in translation but I can offer the punch line to a real UN joke–namely The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, UNRWA was established by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949 to carry out relief and works programs for Palestine refugees. The Agency began operations on 1 May 1950. In June 2017, its mandate and funding come up for review. It deserves to be shut down.

First of all, it is a numbers racket. According to its own statement: “When the Agency began operations in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, some 5 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services.”

Even if we accept the questionable number of 750,000 Arabs who left Israel, how is it that sixty-seven years later–again from the home page, we read: “UNRWA is unique in terms of its long-standing commitment to one group of refugees. It has contributed to the welfare and human development of four generations of Palestine refugees, defined as ‘persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.’ The descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children, are also eligible for registration.“

Again, in its words: “UNRWA is confronted with an increased demand for services resulting from a growth in the number of registered Palestine refugees, the extent of their vulnerability and their deepening poverty.”

Since World War Two, hundreds of millions of displaced persons from every continent have been relocated. They have had to learn new languages, new alphabets and adapt to new cultural mores. They have become participants in the politics of their adopted countries. How is it then that only Palestinian Arabs merit assistance? Furthermore, why has the status of “refugee” become a heritable entitlement, bequeathed from generation to generation?

When members of the media traipse through the camps, they are seldom shown nearby housing with facilities and running water. Instead local Arabs stage themselves near running sewers, cynically using children as props. As soon as the journalists move on to the next stop in their bash-Israel “fact finding” tour, the cast moves back to their updated lodgings.

Today the world is confronted and affronted by a tsunami of refugees from the Middle East. They flee jihad and tribal and civil warfare. The demand for haven and social services is enormous and yet UNRWA services only Palestinian Arabs in camps in Gaza (why Gaza, which is now ruled by Arabs?), Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

In the midst of the mayhem in Syria, on Feb. 1, 2017 Mohammed Abdi Adar, a Somali national, assumed his duties as Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the Syrian Arab Republic. He describes his mandate thus: “It is an important opportunity to serve Palestine refugees in Syria,” said Mr. Abdi Adar. “I look forward to working with the Syrian Government and other partners to help alleviate the suffering of Palestine refugees, who like the Syrians have experienced the dire consequences of the crisis over the last six years.” Why only the “Palestinians?” This is a form of “profiling” that raises no hackles among Western hypocrites.

And UNWRA’s so called relief is a canard since in its own words, conditions have worsened: “Over the years, these camps have transformed from temporary ‘tent cities’ into hyper-congested masses of multi-story buildings with narrow alleys, characterized by high concentrations of poverty and extreme overcrowding. The camps are considered to be among the densest urban environments in the world, but because camp structures were built for temporary use, over the decades the buildings have become overcrowded, critically substandard and in many cases life-threatening.”

Why after 67 years are Palestinian Arabs a priority when hundreds of thousands are facing death and violence perpetrated by Arabs on other Arabs?

Deuteronomy, if taken literally, would seem to prescribe execution as the solution to delinquent children. Ah, but then there are those informed commentaries and qualifications, which say the opposite. The problem with Islam is that none can nor dare filter Koranic literalism.
I switch on TV. Experienced interviewer Andrew Knut is posing this loaded question to a representative of a rabbinic council. Should you have your rebellious son stoned to death, he asks?

As you can imagine, this startles the rabbi. What the heck do you mean?

Well here it is, says Knut. I am reading from a Jewish Bible; in particular from Deuteronomy chapter 21 verses 18 to 21. He duly reads the passage.

“If a man will have a wayward and rebellious son, who does not hearken to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother, and they discipline him, but he does not hearken to them; then his father and his mother shall grasp him and take him out to the elders of the city, ‘This son of ours is wayward and rebellious; he does not hearken to our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard’. All the men of his city shall pelt him with stones and he shall die…”

Ah, now, yes, you have to understand the whole process, the rabbi protests. Stoning is very much a last resort. A last resort indeed, he emphasises. First, you must as parents hug you son and buy him presents to convince him to give up his rebellious ways. If this fails then you must give him a good talking to and warn him of the consequences of his bad behaviour. Make him sleep in the shed. Only when all of this fails do you hand him over to be stoned to death. So you see there is nothing at all to see here.

Knut is not mollified. Well, it still seems a tad extreme to me, he says. Surely you must disavow this passage in your Bible? It is the only civilised thing to do. Don’t you think?

OK, you got me! None of the above actually happened. But I guess you guessed that. What is true, however, is my citation of the passage in Deuteronomy. In my Jewish Bible there is an accompanying annotation. It explains that the Sages (great Jewish scholars of old) constrain the applicability of the passage to someone who will “degenerate into a monstrous human being” and moreover “state that there never was and never will be a capital case involving such a son.”

Here is my non-scholarly take. The Jewish religion and, by extension, the Christian religion (as it, too, encompasses the Old Testament) are willing to deviate from taking God at His literal Word, as it is recorded in the Bible. Literalists, they are not. As a Christian, I am personally happy with this. There is a fair amount in the Bible that it’s best not to take too literally. Inspired and guided by God though it is; we should be cognisant that flawed men of their time wrote it; and others, also flawed, selected, translated and compiled its various parts.

Therefore, for example, I remain open to the possibility that a man lying with a man might not be regarded by God as an abomination (Leviticus, 18:22). And, to move to the New Testament and St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (5:22), I seriously doubt that wives “should submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” According to David Horrell (An Introduction to the Study of Paul), this letter might not have been written by Paul at all but by a later disciple of his, concerned about the prominence of women in the early Christian church. Who knows? In any event, in all things, we should not forsake our wits. God gave them to us.

And now to something completely different; to something that actually happened. The path-breaking Andrew Bolt asked Keysar Trad, representing the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, what he thought of Koranic verse IV: 34. Why do I say ‘path-breaking’? Because this is only the second time I have witnessed a commentator quote the Koran to an Islamic representative as a way to put him or her on the spot and forestall the usual distractive spin — that ‘religion of peace’ sophistry. And the first time? That was Bolt too.

The verse is clear enough, though it varies in detail depending on the version of the Koran. Mine is the Pickthall version. “Men are in charge of women,” it says. There is nothing much different here from the passage in Ephesians that I referred to above. However, the Koranic passage goes on to say, “As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them, and banish them to beds apart and scourge them.” Often scourge is written as “beat”, which sounds a bit less barbarous. But, whichever word is used, this is not a good look.

First, let’s clarify the meaning of fascism, as it has become a word that’s tossed reflexively like a grenade at Donald Trump or at anyone who supports him or who challenges, Progressivism, or the morality of the welfare state. It sounds scary and package-deals so many political and social realms that have little or nothing to do with fascism. Brendan O’Neill of Spiked wrote in a much needed analysis “What Fascism Is, and What It Isn’t”:

The f-word has been destroyed through overuse, its original sense and power diluted by a million op-eds branding unpleasant politicians ‘fascists’ and by radical marchers hollering ‘fascist scum’ at anyone who irritates them: President Donald Trump, UKIP leader Nigel Farage, the cops. On the right, too, the accusation of fascism has become a Tourette’s-style cry. It’s the left who are the real fascists, they say. Ugly alt-right barbs like ‘feminazi’ and ‘eco-fascist’ confirm that right-wingers are now as likely to scream ‘fascist’ as they are to have it screamed at them.

O’Neill is a tad off-track concerning how and why “right-wingers” use the term fascism. They are a bit more perceptive of the Left’s assertions, ends, and methods (whereas leftists are blind to the consequences of their beliefs), and there’s no reason why they should refrain from calling face-masked goons fascists. Rampaging leftists walk like ducks, and so are ducks. They’re just as not nattily garbed as Nazi Brown Shirts or Fascist Black Shirts.

However, I left this comment on O’Neill’s column:

Ask a true contemporary “fascist” – i.e., one of the Berkeley rioters and window smashers, or one of the Women’s March pussy hat wearers – what fascism is, and all you’ll get for an answer is a rapid blinking of the eyes, a careening, stuttering search for words, or some hackneyed warbling about Hitler; it would do you no good to remind the person that “Fascism” was not the same as Hitler’s Nazism, and that the only true or original Fascist was Benito Mussolini, and that the term is derived from the Roman fasces, a bundle of elm or birch rods with an ax head protruding from them, carried by servants of the Roman Senate. Today’s “activists” – violent or otherwise – are woefully ignorant of the meaning of the words they use or throw at their enemies, and don’t care.

Let’s look at some definitions of fascism.

The Merriam-Webster definition:

….a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition [e.g., censorship or punishment; my addition]

The Business Dictionary definition:

Political ideology that imposes strict social and economical measures as a method of empowering the government and stripping citizens of rights. This authoritative system of government is usually headed by an absolute dictator who keeps citizens suppressed via acts of violence and strict laws that govern the people. The most noted form of Fascism was implemented under Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, who both stripped citizens of their rights and maintained strict regimes that resulted in the deaths of thousands of humans. Some of the defining characteristics of fascism are: (1) racism, (2) militarism, (3) dictatorship, and (4) destructive nationalistic policies.

Auburn University definition:

A class of political ideologies (and historical political regimes) that takes its name from the movement led by Benito Mussolini that took power in Italy in 1922. Mussolini’s ideas and practices directly and indirectly influenced political movements in Germany (especially the Nazi Party), Spain (Franco’s Falange Party), France, Argentina, and many other European and non-European countries right up to the present day.

The different “fascist” movements and regimes have varied considerably in their specific goals and practices, but they are usually said to be characterized by several common features:

Militant nationalism, proclaiming the racial and cultural superiority of the dominant ethnic group and asserting that group’s inherent right to a special dominant position over other peoples in both the domestic and the international order
The adulation of a single charismatic national leader said to possess near superhuman abilities and to be the truest representation of the ideals of the national culture, whose will should therefore literally be law
Emphasis on the absolute necessity of complete national unity, which is said to require a very powerful and disciplined state organization (especially an extensive secret police and censorship apparatus), unlimited by constitutional restrictions or legal requirements and under the absolute domination of the leader and his political movement or party
Militant anti-Communism coupled with the belief in an extreme and imminent threat to national security from powerful and determined Communist forces both inside and outside the country
Contempt for democratic socialism, democratic capitalism, liberalism, and all forms of individualism as weak, degenerate, divisive and ineffective ideologies leading only to mediocrity or national suicide
Glorification of physical strength, fanatical personal loyalty to the leader, and general combat-readiness as the ultimate personal virtues
A sophisticated apparatus for systematically propagandizing the population into accepting these values and ideas through skilled manipulation of the mass media, which are totally monopolized by the regime once the movement comes to power
A propensity toward pursuing a militaristic and aggressive foreign policy
Strict regulation and control of the economy by the regime through some form of corporatist economic planning in which the legal forms of private ownership of industry are nominally preserved but in which both workers and capitalists are obliged to submit their plans and objectives to the most detailed state regulation and extensive wage and price controls, which are designed to insure the priority of the political leadership’s objectives over the private economic interests of the citizenry. Therefore under fascism most of the more important markets are allowed to operate only in a non-competitive, cartelized, and governmentally “rigged” fashion.

The Encyclopedia Britannica begins its definition with:

There has been considerable disagreement among historians and political scientists about the nature of fascism. Some scholars, for example, regard it as a socially radical movement with ideological ties to the Jacobins of the French Revolution, whereas others see it as an extreme form of conservatism inspired by a 19th-century backlash against the ideals of the Enlightenment. Some find fascism deeply irrational, whereas others are impressed with the rationality with which it served the material interests of its supporters. Similarly, some attempt to explain fascist demonologies as the expression of irrationally misdirected anger and frustration, whereas others emphasize the rational ways in which these demonologies were used to perpetuate professional or class advantages. Finally, whereas some consider fascism to be motivated primarily by its aspirations—by a desire for cultural “regeneration” and the creation of a “new man”—others place greater weight on fascism’s “anxieties”—on its fear of communist revolution and even of left-centrist electoral victories.

One reason for these disagreements is that the two historical regimes that are today regarded as paradigmatically fascist—Mussolini’s Italy and Nazi Germany—were different in important respects. In Italy, for example, anti-Semitism was officially rejected before 1934, and it was not until 1938 that Mussolini enacted a series of anti-Semitic measures in order to solidify his new military alliance with Hitler. Another reason is the fascists’ well-known opportunism—i.e., their willingness to make changes in official party positions in order to win elections or consolidate power. Finally, scholars of fascism themselves bring to their studies different political and cultural attitudes, which often have a bearing on the importance they assign to one or another aspect of fascist ideology or practice. Secular liberals, for example, have stressed fascism’s religious roots; Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars have emphasized its secular origins; social conservatives have pointed to its “socialist” and “populist” aspects; and social radicals have noted its defense of “capitalism” and “elitism.”

For these and other reasons, there is no universally accepted definition of fascism. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify a number of general characteristics that fascist movements between 1922 and 1945 tended to have in common.

Herbert London is President of the London Center for Policy Research}

Published in: https://spectator.org/democracy-v-republic/

Plato argued that democracy by its very nature cannot work. The direct involvement of the people in the affairs of state will lead to a situation where takers outnumber givers thereby rendering the economy precarious. But that isn’t the only issue the demos introduces. Direct participation can lead to the belief a majority rules denying the rights of minorities or there is justification for “the people” to take matters into their own hands.

Since the beginning of democracy in Athens, the greatest danger to democratic institutions has been the demos, the people themselves. Each person in a democracy is an individual. But when individuals become “the people,” trouble may be on the horizon.

The Founders of this new nation, having immersed themselves in the classics, created a system that is a republic, with the will of the people manifest through the election of representatives and in which taking matters into constituent hands is both unnecessary and counterproductive. The problem facing the United States is that the Trump presidency has resulted in the belief on the part of many that this is a democracy demanding direct public intervention in the affairs of the nation. Hence, students justify violence at the University of California as a form of democratic action. Street demonstrations calling for overturning the president’s limited ban on immigration are rationalized as democracy at work. Alas, it is democracy at work, but Americans live in a republic.

That distinction is lost on a public uneducated in the difference. Rabble rousers discuss the right to assemble, but assembly doesn’t infer violence. Freedom of expression is a First Amendment right, but even that right is limited by “clear and present danger.” A republic recognizes constraints overlooked by the flock of direct involvement.

Having stretched the idea of democracy into new and unexplored avenues of public participation, the republic itself is imperiled. The Ferguson effect, in which people believe they were wrongfully treated by the police, justifies taking to the streets. The republic, that relied on the seamless transition from one government to the next, is facing a new and relentless challenge that is based on a misconception.

Join me here as I argue that people in the west are in revolt against the dictatorship of virtue that has sought for decades to enslave them. The transcript of my remarks follows beneath the video.http://melaniephillips.com/uprising-moral-extortion/

As we never stop being told by furious commentators, Britain and America are descending into a neo-Nazi, xenophobic, fascist hell on earth. Britain’s Brexit vote was anti-immigrant. President Trump is a fascist. Steve Bannon, his senior adviser and formerly of Breitbart news site, is a white supremacist.

None of these claims is true. Britain is not anti-immigrant but against uncontrolled mass immigration. President Trump is not a fascist but wants in fact to restore the rule of law and respect for the US constitution. Steve Bannon is not a white supremacist but someone who believes in western national identity based on Judeo-Christian values.

In other words, the opposite of fascism. But those making this charge aren’t just diminishing and trivialising the horrors of true fascism or bigotry. They are also demonising all those who voted for Brexit or Trump. Millions of people. One British columnist wrote:

“Compulsive liars shouldn’t frighten you. They can harm no one, if no one listens to them. Compulsive believers, on the other hand: they should terrify you. Believers are the liars’ enablers. Their votes give the demagogue his power. Their trust turns the charlatan into the president. Their credulity ensures that the propaganda of half-calculating and half-mad fanatics has the power to change the world.”

Listen up, folks: if you voted for either Brexit or Trump, he means you and me. We are the compulsive believers, apparently, enabling liars and charlatans and half-mad fanatics. Such as you-know-who. This writer went on: “We are now at the beginnings of a new opposition movement, a liberal version of backlash politics, which feels the urgent need to drive the right from power”.

In similar vein, the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has urged Britain to rise up against Brexit on the basis that the people didn’t understand what they were voting for. Please bear in mind that not only did the British people vote for Brexit but the House of Commons has overwhelmingly voted to trigger Britain’s exit from the EU. All that apparently counts for nothing. The public’s democratic choice must not be allowed to stand.

Now this isn’t just monumental arrogance and hubris. These anti-democrats are the real compulsive believers, the real demagogues. Everyone who opposes them is a fascist, it seems, and so they feel not just entitled but morally obliged to impose their own vision over the will of the people – who are of course all fascists too. How can this be?

This week, Britain’s Channel Four TV is to screen a documentary presented by Trevor Phillips, the former head of Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission. Once upon a time, Mr Phillips was a fully paid-up member of the metropolitan liberal set. Now, if I might use the well-known phrase, he appears to have become yet another liberal who has been mugged by reality.

https://edwardcline.blogspot.com/2017/02/muslim-mania-and-other-insanities.html

The world is having a conniption fit seizure, “triggered” by Donald Trump. The main victim of this ongoing seizure is the MSM. Call it cultural and political epilepsy, it’s not pretty to look at. I am reminded of a childhood experience with witnessing these seizures.

In grade school, for a reason never explained to me or to anyone else, my class for years was burdened with a boy (Robert) who was not only mentally ill and deficient in how to perform every day actions (such as reading or tying his shoe laces), but was subject to unarticulated fits in class when he drooled, frothed at the mouth, and became violent, so violent that it would require all the strength of a nun (and the nuns in my school were mostly burly and hefty; one of them, the gargantuan Sister Barbarossa, could beat up a school foot ball player) to subdue him – Robert was as strong as a bull – but also need the help of the bigger boys to literally hold him down in his seat-desk until an ambulance showed up to take him away.

The episode that sticks in my mind now, however, is when he stood at the top of a small cliff that overlooked the neighboring school playground and began to throw rocks at us. Big rocks.

It was never revealed why Robert was even in the school and not in a facility that could treat and handle his condition. It was a Catholic, private school (Nativity Parish School) and cost money to send a child there; so doubtless he was enrolled there by state mandate, or because of some dangerous physician’s recommendation, and so someone else was paying the bill.

The behavior of the MSM towards President Trump and his surprising, “shock –to-the-system” election in November are so similar to Robert’s frequent and frightening outbursts that I couldn’t help but dwell on the parallels. In fact, it has been the MSM’s behavior that caused me to recall Robert.

Wikipedia writes:

Epileptic seizures are the result of excessive and abnormal nerve cell activity in thecortex of the brain…. The word epilepsy is from Ancient Greek: ἐπιλαμβάνειν ” to seize, possess, or afflict.”

Daniel Greenfield’s article “If We Don’t Let In Muslims To America They’ll Kill Us” of February 10th highlights the madness that has gripped the MSM and many politicians. His column title was taken directly from a statement by Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy:

Trump’s executive order is “going to get Americans killed,” Senator Murphy declared.

The Connecticut Democrat was joining a chorus of the clueless warning us that if we don’t let Muslims into America, they’ll join ISIS and kill us.

Singing their brains out in the same stupid chorus were Senator McCain and Senator Graham (“a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism”), Senator Ben Sasse (“the terrorist recruiters win by telling kids that America is banning Muslims”) and Senator Heitkamp (“confirms the lie terrorists tell their recruits: that America iswaging a war on Islam.”)….

Senator Cardin went one better by whining that keeping potential Islamic terrorists out, “promises to make the U.S. less safe and places our courageous servicemen and women in even greater danger as they fight against terrorism.” Just tell it to the Marines shot and killed by a Muslim immigrant at a Chattanooga recruiting station and Naval reserve center.

There’s only one problem with this hostage crisis theory of immigration. It’s insane.

So, it now appears that those who identify as women (please note how politically correct I am genderally speaking) are planning another big demonstration/protest named A Day Without Women.

Anna L. Stark writes about it: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/02/a_day_without_women.html

How dull and how silly and pointless.

In 411 BC the playwright Aristophanes had a far more original and hilarious idea. He wrote “Lysistrate” a comedy about a woman’s mission to end the Peloponnesian War by denying all the men and warriors sex.

Lysistrata plans a tribunal of all the Greek women to discuss her plan. When they assemble she disdains the weakness of women and convinces them to swear an oath that they will withhold sex from their husbands until both sides sign a treaty of peace. The sex drive finally has an effect and Lysistrata frees the women and men to resume doing what comes naturally.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=imgres&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwje9pv9jJfSAhVFTSYKHfelDm8QjRwIBw&url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Brides_for_Seven_Brothers_(musical)&psig=AFQjCNFlejgvPjcZAmCCOPdl9ZsdFiUSsw&ust=1487419878155713

Now there is an idea. By the way the story was adapted into a fabulous musical movie in 1954 with Jane Powell and Howard Keel and sensational choreography by Michael Kidd which includes raising a barn.
Script by Lawrence Kasha and David Landay, music by Gene de Paul, Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn, and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn. There was also a TV series in 1982.