GULF OF THAILAND (Feb. 16, 2019) An assault amphibious vehicle (AAV) assigned to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) departs the well deck of the amphibious transport dock ship USS Green Bay (LPD 20) en route to the Royal Thai Navy landing platform dock ship HTMS Angthong (LPD 791) in preparation for an amphibious exercise.

Paul Bedard:

“…If you like to eat, then you should be cheering global warming.

That’s the claim in a new scientific report that counters global warming fanatics like former Vice President Al Gore and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and offers proof that CO2 added to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels is nature’s Miracle-Gro.

In what some are calling the counter to the liberals’ “Green New Deal,” the new report provided to Secrets said that instead of fighting over the stalemated global warming debate, the world should take advantage of increased CO2 levels by growing plants and food that thrive on it.

“Fortunately, carbon dioxide, a non-polluting gas that is created when fossil fuels are converted into energy, has proved to be a powerful plant food,” said the report from the CO2 Coalition of scientists who reject claims it will end the world in 12 years…”

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Nation Breathes Sigh Of Relief As Ocasio-Cortez Comes Out Against Having Children

Babylon Bee is satire

The Occasional Cortex video is not. The video has to be seen to be believed. I thought California voters were dumb. New York voters say “dumb, hold my beer” as they vote for this nitwit.

“…In 1941, Lois Gunden was 26 years old and had a job as French instructor in Indiana. But when the Mennonite Central Committee needed a French speaker to go to Vichy France to help Spanish and Jewish child refugees, she went. In France, it was Lois versus the Nazis. And at least sometimes the indefatigable Lois won, thus saving the lives of children for whom deportation would have meant death.

After the United States entered the war, Lois was interned and eventually repatriated to the United States, where she spoke little of her experiences. But Lois’s courage and resolve were not forgotten by at least one of those whose life she saved. In 2013—eight years after her death—Lois was recognized as “Righteous among the Nations.” Today would have been her birthday…”

From Gail Heriot

Victor Davis Hanson:

“…Yet the third, most important, and most ignored reaction was that in some sense Smollett himself was a racist and had committed a hate crime.

His farce is yet another example that it is now largely permissible to slur and smear millions of purported Trump supporters, as either defined by their stereotyped race and gender or their red hats (with or without a logo). As pundits and talking heads nearly wept on screen in their worries about future potential hate crimes that might now not be taken seriously, they abjectly ignored the real hate crime that had just occurred. In truth, Smollett had done his best to ignite some sort of popular racially driven vendetta against conservative white male voters, previously known as “clingers,” “crazies,” “deplorables,” and “irredeemables” who, our elites warn, smell up Walmart, gross America out with toothless smiles, and should be swapped out for new immigrants…”

Original

Transgender sprinters finish 1st, 2nd at Connecticut girls indoor track championships.

Ocasio-Cortez: People Maybe Shouldn’t Reproduce Due To Climate Change

Great piece by Clarice Feldman. Worth clicking over for the whole thing. Here’s a snippet:

“…Nothing offends people more than unequal justice — disparate treatment of protected persons and classes. This week, the FBI and Department of Justice’s hash of equal justice became even clearer and the media’s fat thumb on the scales as well.

If you read nothing else this week, read this essay by Lord Conrad Black in the New York Sun, who links the Special Counsel fiasco and the Jussie Smollett hoax and concludes that we just avoided the “biggest constitutional crisis since the Civil War”:

The authors, accomplices, and dupes of this attempted overthrow of constitutional government are now well along in reciting their misconduct without embarrassment or remorse because — in fired FBI Director James Comey’s formulation — a “higher duty” than the oath they swore to uphold the Constitution compelled them. Or — in fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s words — “the threat” was too great. Never mind that the nature of “the threat” was that the people might elect someone he and Mr. Comey disapproved of as president, and that that person might actually serve his term, as elected.

The extent of the criminal misconduct of the former law enforcement and intelligence chiefs is now notorious, but to make the right point here, it has to be summarized. The fact that the officially preferred candidate lied to federal officials about her emails and acted in outright contempt of Congress and the legal process in the destruction of evidence, was simply ignored by the FBI director, who announced that she would not be prosecuted, though he had no authority to make that determination.

The dossier of salacious gossip and defamatory falsehoods amassed by a retired British spy from the lowest grade of intelligence sources in Russia, commissioned and paid for by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, was circulated to the media by high public officials and cited in illegal and dishonest applications to authorize surveillance of the campaign of the other presidential candidate. A special counsel was empowered on the false pretext of the necessity to get to the bottom of Trump-Russian collusion in the election…

The special counsel then packed his staff with militant Clinton partisans, and acted very late and only when his hand was forced by the press to remove two officials who referred in texts to each other to the Bureau’s ability to smear and provoke the impeachment of the winning candidate as “an insurance policy” against his filling the office to which he was elected.

He asserts, and I agree, that the defamation campaign against the president continues with the now-debunked tale of racism by the Covington students and the thoroughly debunked tale of assault on Jussie Smollett.

I believe the concept of “hate crimes” is an oxymoron. If you assault or murder someone it’s fair to assume it was out of improper animus. Adding a kicker for “hate” in which attacks on certain classes of people result in enhanced sentences strikes me as an improper “thought crime” punishment, inconsistent with constitutional law.

In any event, the laws on hate crimes seem to be as selectively enforced as the crimes of mishandling and leaking classified material and attempting to overthrow the president. Here too the press plays an important part, demonizing the President’s supporters, and downplaying or not reporting hate crimes against them while regularly magnifying defamatory and false accusations against them…”

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Thaddeus G. McCotter:

“…And where is the hot zone where this imbecilic chicken first came home to roost and now appears ready to cook our goose? An educated guess is that it’s wherever educators first devolved into indoctrinators, turning young people’s brains into carriers of leftist bumper sticker tropes. (Perhaps some of the $3 billion sitting in New York City’s coffers that the Amazonian plutocrat Jeff Bezos didn’t steal from hard working folks can now be invested in remedial courses in economics for elected officials? But I digress.)

Regardless of the exact location for the ground zero of this toxic imbecility (which ultimately renders its victims’ IQs), the scourge’s spread is bipartisan. On the Left, collusion conspiracy theorists, Democratic Socialists (redundant), celebrities, pundits, and the elitist cable media prove toxic imbecility can be an airborne pathogen, as well as spread by human contact with the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other vestiges of so-called “respectable journalism.” The scourge then manifests itself in the afflicted as an obstinate, irrational belief in injurious idiocies, such as the weaponized lie of the Russian collusion delusion, the defamation of the Covington Catholic high schoolers and so many others instances of toxic imbecility…”

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Good article. Worth clicking over for the whole thing.

Rabbi Dov Fischer:

“…Among conservatives, there certainly are some obsessed with self-pity, too, but many more conservatives ultimately are motivated at their philosophical core by the ethic of positivism and hard work and responsibility to others. When most conservatives face severe difficulties, they may grumble and grouse, but they rapidly respond by understanding that they have to figure it out on their own or with their close family and friends. They may have to work longer hours or take on a second job. They may have to downsize and skimp. They know the concept of delayed gratification. Certainly, not all conservatives are this way, but this is the dominant philosophy and practice among conservatives. And many conservatives place great trust in G-d. “G-d helps those who help themselves.” By believing deeply in a loving G-d who assists the self-helper, a person often is strengthened to know that there is a greater “end game” in some setbacks and suffering, and G-d’s greater purpose will become evident in time.

By contrast, the contemporary Left Weltanschauung is rooted much more in self-pity and in the expectation that “Others” — usually, the Government (i.e., the taxpayers) — have a duty to step in and make it all better. “Others have a duty to provide a ‘Trigger Warning’ before subjecting me to something discomforting. Others have a duty to provide my medical care and to pay for it, to provide my housing, to guarantee me a good bank balance.” In that environment, when one applies for Government assistance — welfare, food stamps, free this, free that — one learns that the only way to get it is by complaining, crying, and telling a tale of woe. If you apply for it and then tell the interviewer that you are richer than Bezos, healthier than Mr. Universe, smarter than Einstein, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive — you won’t get it. You have to complain. When you face a tough final exam in college, with fear that you will not do well — or, worse, when you get back a disastrously low grade — you have to start crying. It is the only chance to change the grade. And with enough liberal college professors responding to the crying and the disadvantage, it sometimes works.

This is what we are beholding in certain pockets of today’s American society: the synergy of wallowing in self-pity with the need to document evidence of conservative hate that does not exist…”

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https://youtu.be/MVRIelIAJn0

Alfred Giraud was an Owens Valley Sheepherder and rancher. He immigrated to the United States in the early 1900’s and took up residence in the southern Owens Valley working as a sheepherder.

I first traveled through this area in my late teens and early twenties while in college and fell in love with the area. I have been interested in the pioneers and early residents ever since. I stumbled upon a book by the late Mr. Giraud titled “My first winter in California.” The book was written in 1966. The simplicity and wisdom of this strong man captured my attention. Here are a couple of short versus from his book.

“…We were out under the stars and in the open all the time. We had all the meat we needed, by butchering our own sheep. We were working for wages then, getting $30 a month and board. We had hobnailed, square-toed boots with wide flat heels, no underwear, a pair of 75¢ Levi’s, a 50¢ light shirt, a 75¢ denim jacket, and a slicker in case it rained hard. We were hardy, healthy and tough. We could take almost anything in the line of work day or night…”

and

“…In the mornings, we made and drank a big dish full  of coffee and ate bread, sugar and cheese. Our only other drink was water, which at times was hard to find and very precious. This life agreed with us. We were in the best of health, tough and rugged, never an ache or pain. Sure it was sometimes lonely. But where else can one find peace of mind, learn much of the secrets of nature, and realize that a human being is a very small and insignificant speck on this earth and that by living with faith and humility, the good lord will reward us…”

Alfred R. Giraud