BLUF: [American Thinker] It is highly questionable whether federal district courts can issue nationwide injunctions. It is called a federal district court because the court's authority is limited to a district. If it weren't, there would be no need for circuit courts, and we would never see different federal circuits having slightly different laws. One district court could simply impose whatever it likes on the nation. It doesn't work that way.
Judge Robart, who was appointed by George W. Bush (should we be surprised or not?), has clearly usurped his authority. The case clearly has no plaintiffs with standing or any kind of validity. At most, Judge Robart should have stayed his decision pending appeal to circuit courts. His radical injunction smacks of a judicial coup, of a single federal district judge asserting his authority over the entire executive branch. His arguments for doing so are unconstitutional, as is his manner of issuing the order. We are living in a time when judicial ayatollahs are usurping the power of our elected officials, and it is very much like a judicial coup. Emphasis added.
#1
They should impeach the judge and then try and convict him of treason. His prompt legal execution will give Judges some much perspective in the fact THEY need to read and uphold the law, not act as mini-tyrants.
#2
Judge Robart, who was appointed by George W. Bush
Only because Sen. Patty Murray (D-"Dipshit in tennis shoes") blue-slipped all others and W, as a courtesy, appointed her pick. Something Trump should stop first time there's a Judge spot available in blue country
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/05/2017 11:21 Comments ||
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#3
Maybe your Jeff Sessions should talk to our Ayelet Shaked
Responding to that silly neo-Hegelian "end of history" meme at the end of the Cold War, Allan Bloom warned that fascism might be the future; and John Gray telegraphed the return of "primordial forces, nationalist and religious, fundamentalist and soon, perhaps, Malthusian."
And that leads us to why the exceptional bearers of Enlightenment humanism and rationalism cannot explain the current geopolitical turmoil ‐ from ISIS to Brexit to Trump. They could never come up with anything more sophisticated than binary opposition of "free" and "unfree"; the same 19th century Western clichés about the non-West; and the relentless demonization of that perennially backward Other: Islam. Hence the new "long war" (Pentagon terminology) against "Islamofascism."
They could never understand, as Mishra stresses, the implications of that meeting of minds in a Supermax prison in Colorado between Oklahoma City bomber, all-American Timothy McVeigh, and the mastermind of the first attack on the World Trade Center, Ramzi Yousef (non-devout Muslim, Pakistani father, Palestinian mother).
And they cannot understand how ISIS conceptualizers can regiment, online, an insulted, injured teenager from a Parisian suburb or an African shantytown and convert him into a narcissist ‐ Baudelairean? ‐ dandy loyal to a rousing cause worth fighting for. The parallel between the DIY jihadi and the 19th century Russian terrorist ‐ incarnating the "syphilis of the revolutionary passions," as Alexander Herzen described it ‐ is uncanny.
And the DIY jihadi’s top enemy is not even Christian; it’s the "apostate" Shi’ite. Mass rapes, choreographed murders, the destruction of Palmyra, Dostoyevsky had already identified it all; as Mishra puts it, "it’s impossible for modern-day Raskolnikovs to deny themselves anything, and possible to justify anything."
It’s impossible to summarize all the rhizomatic (hat tip to Deleuze-Guattari) intellectual crossfire deployed by Age of Anger. What’s clear is that to understand the current global civil war, archeological reinterpretation of the West’s hegemonic narrative of the past 250 years is essential. Otherwise we will be condemned, like puny Sisyphean specks, to endure not only the recurrent nightmare of history but also its recurrent blowback.
#1
This little essay attempts to find something new in an old and dirty pile of poop.
The West colonized much of the world because much of the world was much as it is now, only without the modern weaponry. Islam has been at war with the West since its invention. North Africa was infested by pirates, most of it ruled by mostly autonomous Ottoman beys. The Ottoman rule of much of the Middle East was in its last stages of corruption and decadence. Subsaharan Africa was inhabited by primitives; they still occasionally eat a few pygmies, and much of the continent is still ruled by kleptomaniac dictators, not much of an improvement over tribal chieftains. India was split among Moslem and Hindu princelings who spent a good deal of their time plotting, planning, and oppressing each other -- notice that Pakistain grew out of it, and still maintains much the same relationship with India. China's Ching dynasty was in the final stages of decadent collapse and large area were ruled by warlords. That's not to say the West was blameless; recall the Belgian Congo, German Namibia, and Italian rule in the Horn of Africa. Recall Spanish rule most places. But it's to say that the natives weren't blameless. Those who were savages weren't in the least noble.
What all those places shared was a misplaced arrogance combined with a healthy dose of dynastic incompetence. (Darkest Africa may have lacked the arrogance; I don't know.) Military interventions in the early stages of the Age of Imperialism were mostly a matter of self defense. Once the precedent was set, of course, conquering the primitives became an end in itself. The aborigines needed the benefits of civilization.
There are post-colonial success stories today, but I can remember being told to think of the starving children in India so I'd eat my supper. That was within living memory since I'm not dead yet. My childhood playmates' fathers had fought the Japanese. I can remember the Great Cultural Revolution in China. That was even more recent.
China, Japan, South Korea, and India -- the success stories of post-colonialism -- today are closer to the West in outlook than are most of the inhabitants of the Moslem world, while still retaining their distinctive national identities. The Moslem world retains its ummah outlook and if it weren't for oil they'd still be either riding camels and waving scimitars or they'd be ruled by Ottomans, with potential rivals to the Sultan getting strangled with a bowstring.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2017 16:29 Comments ||
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Amid the ongoing protests against President Trump, calls for "resistance" among Democratic politicians and activists, and the overheated rhetoric casting Trump and his supporters as fascists and xenophobes, an outsider might be forgiven for thinking that America has been taken over by a small faction of rightwing nationalists.
America is deeply divided, but it’s not divided between fascists and Democrats. It’s more accurate to say that America is divided between the elites and everybody else, and Trump’s election was a rejection of the elites.
William Ryan Owens, the Navy Seal who was killed in a raid in Yemen, was from Peoria, Ill. Defense Secretary James Mattis said, "He gave his full measure for our nation."
And the Caterpillar company announced that after more than 90 years, it is moving its world headquarters from Peoria to Chicago. It is hard to overestimate the blow this is to Peoria.
"A kick in the gut," is how Mayor Jim Ardis described it. He told Tanya Koonce, news director at member station WCBU, that Caterpillar's departure is "very sobering and very shocking."
Caterpillar is 59th on the Fortune 500 list of American companies. It makes much of the construction, mining and farming equipment that digs earth all over the world. Caterpillar is why you could walk down Main, Adams or Monroe streets in Peoria and meet people from China, Germany and Nigeria. Peoria has been proud to be the town that sends strong machines to farm and mine the world.
I believe the corporate HQ is moving to Chicago and the manufacturing segment will remain in place. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
#1
They've also announced that they're moving about 800 production jobs to Arkansas from their Aurora, Ill. location.
They've already scaled back their Peoria production workforce and moved various production components to RTW states.
Only the white collar folks are moving within Illinois.
Wonder why /sarc
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/05/2017 12:37 Comments ||
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#2
"Chicago area" not Chicago. State Farm is quietly leaving Bloomington, IL, Allstate is looking, Sears about to go under. Within 10 years Caterpillar will build as many earth movers in Illinois as Boeing builds jets.
#4
William Ryan Owens, the Navy Seal who was killed in a raid in Yemen, was from Peoria, Ill. Defense Secretary James Mattis said, "He gave his full measure for our nation."
Funny how the left is taking a renewed interest in military deaths (along with the national debt, homelessness, executive orders, separation of powers) in the past few weeks, isn't it?
[Myrtle Beach Online] I didn’t vote for President Obama, but I recognized him as the lawfully-elected president of our great nation and dutifully served in our military under his command. During that time, I also served my community as a police officer and again was subject to the leadership of Obama’s administration.
Soldiers and police officers know full well the occupations we enter are fraught with mortal danger from enemies foreign and domestic, but we don’t expect that danger to come from our elected leaders. On both accounts, my life and the lives of my fellow soldiers and officers, were endangered because of the policies of Barack Obama and his social activist underlings.
As a soldier, I witnessed President Obama transform the "Don’t ask, don’t tell" policy towards homosexuals in the military to instead become applicable towards our clear enemy ‐ radical Islamic terrorists. Completely disregarding our national security, President Obama broadcast time lines to the enemy, legitimized Iran’s nuclear ambitions and returned billions of dollars to them, declared red lines he didn’t enforce, and continued releasing hardcore terrorists from Guantanamo, knowing at least one third would return to fight us.
Nobody wants to "Declare World War III." But there are extreme options available to the United States to influence events in Iran that fall short of invasion, or of bombing Iranian assets. Am I wrong to think that our military can create deprivation for the Mullahs without touching a single inch of Iranian territory?
Where are the shortfalls in this scenario?
Posted by: OregonGuy ||
02/05/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Sure, encourage EU allies to buy Soviet fuels over Iranian.
#3
Well, sinking the Navy won't interrupt chow time but the end of their comms might bother some Kurds that rely on them.
Just kidding.
The shortfall would be the detraction of the SJW being slaughtered by Americans on twitter memes and jokes - before news hit that Iran lost their obamaphones, Navy, Mullahs, and $150 Billion dollars and a nuke site.
[Breitbart] The executive director of the environmentalist Sierra Club said that abortion is a critical tool for protecting the environment from the threat of overpopulation. On Thursday, the Sierra Club’s Michael Brune appeared on Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tonight to argue for the importance of "reproductive rights" as a means of culling the world’s population and protecting the environment.
Brune said that abortion "helps to address the number of the people that we have on this planet. We feel that one of the ways in which we can get to a sustainable population is to empower women to make choices about their own families."
When abortion is legalized, Brune suggested, it helps keep the population from expanding out of control.
"We believe in empowering women’s rights. We believe that women who have rights and who have the ability to have choice about their reproductive--make their own reproductive choices--will help to produce strong families and will help to protect the environment at the same time."
#5
Only in recent times have cities had positive population growth because of advances in sanitation works, medicine and transportation. Michael Brune should just start a crusade to return to the 7th Century -- problem solved.
#9
Disease, pestilence and dying young contributed along with wars to keep populations down, too.
Of course we keep finding new ways to fight disease, correct birth defects and increase longevity. All good things for sure, but have the expected effect on population size.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/05/2017 13:53 Comments ||
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#10
And the Earth First wing of the Sierra Club says the ideal human population of the planet is ZERO...I wonder how anyone rational or irrational can't understand the significance of that...
My job brings me into contact with lots of young men, ages 18-25. I have been doing this long enough that some of my earliest contacts from that group are entering their mid 30s now. During this timeframe, I have been able to assess their nature and character. Like any generation, there are good ones and bad ones. There are tough ones and weak ones. They come in all shapes and sizes. This is not different than my own generation or the ones before it. However, I have noticed some tendencies that set this younger set of young fellows off from previous generations – there are few manly men.
Now, of course, there are exceptions. There are a few individuals that stand out from the crowd, maintaining traditional manly values and skill sets, but as a whole, most young men are weak. This is the generation that grew up with metrosexuals, hipsters, saggy jeans (and their antithesis, the skinny jeans). They think that growing a carefully trimmed beard (or the other variant – the excessively scraggly bushy beard) exhibits their masculinity.
#1
No man skills and no understanding of the ten rules for manhood:
Defend your family
Change a diaper
Soothe a crying child
Change a flat
Mow a yard
Shoot a firearm effectively
Build a fire
Iron a shirt
Be the spiritual head of the family
Cook a dinner meal
I would add Climb a tree and train a dog but ten is enough.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Breitbart] The executive director of the environmentalist Sierra Club said that abortion is a critical tool for protecting the environment from the threat of overpopulation. On Thursday, the Sierra Club’s Michael Brune appeared on Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tonight to argue for the importance of "reproductive rights" as a means of culling the world’s population and protecting the environment.
My job brings me into contact with lots of young men, ages 18-25. I have been doing this long enough that some of my earliest contacts from that group are entering their mid 30s now. During this timeframe, I have been able to assess their nature and character. Like any generation, there are good ones and bad ones. There are tough ones and weak ones. They come in all shapes and sizes. This is not different than my own generation or the ones before it. However, I have noticed some tendencies that set this younger set of young fellows off from previous generations – there are few manly men.
