The Water Diviners

The Daily Times doubles down on its lavish praise of the do-gooderism of the Chester Girls and Boys Club for collecting 170 cases of bottled water and chauffeuring them out to Flint, Mich, a 1,300-mile, 19-hour drive, back and forth.

Are the Daily Times and the Chester GBC under the impression that there is no-bottled water available in Flint, or that it is being sold at predatory prices? Because if they are, they're quite wrong.

For instance, the Sam's Club in Flint has lots of water and at very reasonable prices. A 32-pack of Dasanti 16-ounce bottles is currently selling for $4.98. Hardly price gouging.

To the extent that fine the folks of Chester want to help the less fortunate of Flint get free bottled water, sending a check - not driving it there - would have been much more efficient.

But when it comes to some people and charity, it's the show that seems to impress more than the need or the effectiveness of the donation.

Again, this isn't to take anything away from the father-son team who took the time and made the effort to go on this water-run. Too bad they were so misinformed about the need for it.

 

To Chester, With Love: Get a Grip!

What a heart-warming story.  (Until you think for a minute.)

At 3:30 last Sunday morning, while most of the city slept, Brian Warren and his father, James, boarded a van supplied by the Boys and Girls Club of Chester and drove more than 640 miles to Flint, Mich., with a precious cargo.

They delivered 170 cases of bottled water that had been collected from the residents of Chester to the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Flint, Mich. — and then turned around and were back home by 11:30 Sunday night.

As far as the people of Flint were concerned, the 1,300-mile mission of mercy was accomplished just in the nick of time.

This is, of course, ridiculous. The residents of Flint no more need 170 cases of bottled water from Chester, Pa. than they need more Democratic politicians to misgovern their city.

The water crisis, such as it was, is over. And it was much overblown by the media. Kevin Drum at the ultra liberal Mother Jones admits as much.

There is no bottled-water shortage in Flint. City residents there can get - and are getting - all the bottled-water they want from much closer by than Chester, Pa.

And here is the ultimate - and sad - irony. When it comes to lead exposure - which is what everyone was so concerned about in Flint - Chester's children are at much greater risk.

Wrote Vox's Sarah Frostenson on Feb 3:

I spent the past week looking at these cities, and came away with three main findings. The first is that the rate of lead exposure in Pennsylvania is incredibly alarming. Nearly 10 percent of the more than 140,000 kids tested had levels of 5 or more micrograms per deciliter of lead in the blood (5 µg/dL) — this is the threshold the government uses to identify children with dangerously elevated blood lead levels. One percent tested positive for blood lead levels greater than 10 µg/dL.

Compare that to Flint, where state data shows the rate of lead exposure for 5 µg/dL from 2014 to 2015 as 3.21 percent. Other researchers have found that specific areas of the city have exposure rates as high as 6.3 percent. That's alarming, but still a lower rate than 18 of the 20 cities in Pennsylvania.

Here's the chart:

This group of 20 cities in Pennsylvania had an elevated blood lead level rate 22 percent higher than the state

Compare Flint's 6.3 exposure rate at the height of the crisis to Chester's 13.73. Granted, it isn't contaminated water but lead-paint dust that explains the difference but still. Maybe the kids of Flint should be sending surgical masks to the children of Chester. 

No doubt Brian Warren and his father are good, well-meaning people. But Chester has enough of its own problems. Its citizens don't need to go looking for non-problems to solve elsewhere.

This strike us as one of those stories published by the Daily Times to wade off the old criticism "You never print any positive stories about Chester."





The good news is that Chester, one of the poorest cities in the state, didn't make the list of having a higher percentage of kids with unacceptable lead levels in their bodies. The bad news is that nearby Philadelphia did. Flint, Schmint.

This is what happens when you don't dig a little deeper into the facts behind the news.

Oscar's Victims and Villains

Top ranked victims celebrated at the Academy Awards...

1. Millionaire Black Actors
2. Rape Accusers
3. Planet Earth

Top ranked villains…

1. "Weirdo Billionaires" (defined as any billionaire who doesn't support every liberal cause under the sun.)
2. Culture of Rape… on college campuses. Not so much at Roman Polanski's house (or the White House for that matter.)
3. Anyone who uses the term "Gender Reassignment Surgery," instead of the much more correct "Gender Confirmation Surgery."  
4. The Culture of Greed. Especially in contrast to Hollywood's Culture of Not Caring How Much a Film Costs As Long As It's a Quality, High-Minded Work of Art. (Like Deadpool!)
5. Pope Francis

Biden's Apology Tour

Joe Biden apologizes to Mexico for comments made by GOP presidential candidates about building a wall and, I guess, that Mexican immigrants are "rapists."

In the same spirit maybe it would be nice of Joe to apologize to the German people for his own insulting comments about their alleged xenophobia.

And maybe Mitt Romney for claiming during the 2012 campaign that he wanted to put black people "back in chains."

And finally, to all those rape victims at the Oscars for the behavior of Bill Clinton before and during his presidency.

An apology and the recommendation to "better get some ice on that," would definitely be appreciated feminists everywhere.

Melissa Harris Whiney

You gotta love this…

“I will not be used as a tool for their purposes,” she wrote. “I am not a token, mammy, or little brown bobble head. I am not owned by Lack, Griffin or MSNBC. I love our show. I want it back.”

Bye Felicia!

The Dean of Tasteful Gun Laws

Hey, get this. The dean of the University of Texas architecture program is leaving Austin because of a new law that allows students to carry concealed weapons to class. And where's he going? Penn.

"I knew I would have to enforce the law even if I didn't believe in it," Steiner explained in an interview. "If a faculty member put a sign on the door saying, 'No guns,' it would be my responsibility to say, 'You can't do that.' " The prospect was distasteful, he said.

At least he'll be safer in Philadelphia… not!

The violent crime rate in Austin: 396 per 100,000

The violent crime rate in Philly: 1021 per.

It's a free county. People can move any place they want. But some places are safer than others.

Antonin Scalia R.I.P.

A great man and jurist is dead.

Thank God (and our over-reaching president) that the U.S. Senate is in Republican hands.

Spencerblog Bailed Out!

Please excuse the hiatus. 

We were incarcerated the last three weeks on trumped up charges of resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer and indecent exposure. We will be fighting these vigorously in the coming months.*

Which is the perfect lead in to what Kevin Williamson has to say about the corruptibility and incompetence of big city police forces. 

In Fairview, Tenn., a new police detective was just fired after responding to a prostitution ad. An NYPD officer was awarded $15 million in damages for being kidnapped and beaten inside his own home by other NYPD officers with a score to settle. Honolulu announced that in 2015 it fired a record number of officers for misconduct. A cop in Memphis is being charged with “official oppression” — though not rape — for using his position to pressure a woman into performing a sex act on him while he was on duty. Pittsburgh’s DA is refiling criminal charges against a police officer for assaulting a man while moonlighting as a security officer. A New Orleans police officer saw his 17-year sentence reduced for his conviction in burning the body of a man improperly shot by another New Orleans police officer. Elsewhere in Louisiana, authorities have settled upon “suicide” as the explanation for the death of a man in police custody who somehow managed to shoot himself in the chest while his hands were handcuffed behind his back in the back of a police cruiser. These things will happen, you say.

And that’s true: But all these things happened last Friday.

Read it all.

* We were just kidding about our getting arrested and incarcerated. We were just goofing off. 

 

Fake Hate Crime Goes Unreported

We're a little confused. Our old newspaper is reporting on what it is calling "another ugly racial threat" at a local high school.

The recent threat was posted on Instagram and it said, among other things, "All blacks must die."

The alleged fact that the message was posted by a 17-year-old black girl, however, didn't change the narrative. This was an "ugly racial threat." That's their story and they are sticking to it.

Certainly, it could be construed that way. But not by any reasonable person. Any reasonable person with the now known facts would realize this was not a racial threat but a racial threat hoax.

Such hoaxes are becoming more and more commonplace. They are being perpetrated often by members of identity groups who want to see themselves as victims of an oppressive white, heteronormative and sexist culture.

For instance here's just one such hoax reported last year.

Elizabeth, N.J. - A recent Kean graduate has been charged with being responsible for a series of tweets threatening black students at the school two weeks ago, acting Union County Prosecutor Grace H. Park announced Tuesday.

Kayla-Simone McKelvey, 24, of Union – a black alum who graduated in May – was charged by summons with third-degree creating a false public alarm. 

Park said an investigation by the Union County Prosecutor's Office's Special Prosecutions Unit and Kean University police found that McKelvey, a self-proclaimed activist, participated in a student rally to raise awareness of racism on college campuses on Nov. 17, but left midway through and walked to a computer station in a university library.

People fall for these hoaxes all the time, especially on college campuses. But when they are revealed to be what they are - ugly pranks or fake hate crimes - they should called as such. Why the hesitation here is beyond us.

Bernie Sez...

Lines, Lines, Everywhere There's Lines...

Donald Trump packs 'em in…

No, wait! That's a line to get into hear a speech by Joe Biden at the National Education Association in 2011. Must've been a beauty.

Pot On Kettle

President Obama doesn't "recognize" today's GOP presidential candidates.

(He) said in an interview released Monday that politics in America had become “meaner” than when he took office, but expressed hope that Republicans would eventually turn away from the “expression of frustration” and anger than Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz were offering to voters.

And what has he offered voters? Unconstitutional presidential orders, a sputtering economy, a failed foreign policy, and about 200,000 straw men that he has knocked down to impress his less intelligent supporters.

Meanwhile, Republicans are hoping that the president will eventually turn away from his "expressions of frustrations" of having to actually go through Congress to pass legislation and govern within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution. (And btw, publicly weeping over your failed gun control attempts is no substitute for discussion and argument on such issues.)

It seems to us, and many other political observers, that this President is as responsible as anyone in Washington for the polarization and meanness found in our politics today. He's insulted his political opponents on numerous occasions, going so far as to declare them unpatriotic and cowardly.

Certainly, many of today's Democratic voters are signaling their own frustration with the President's tenure in office based on their growing support for avowed socialist Bernie Sanders over his own Secretary of State.

Having mistaken power for persuasion, this president helped the GOP win historic majorities in both the House and Senate with the help of disgusted voters nationwide.

He own policies and arrogance has helped create creatures like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. If he is truly hoping for Republicans to turn their backs on them, their doing so will lead to a greater likelihood of a Democratic presidential defeat in November.

Yes, here's hoping.

Oh yeah and how obnoxious was this talking about Hillary Clinton during the 2008 campaign…

“We had as competitive and lengthy and expensive and tough a primary fight as there has been in modern American politics, and she had to do everything that I had to do, except, like Ginger Rogers, backwards in heels,” Mr. Obama said. “She had to wake up earlier than I did because she had to get her hair done. She had to, you know, handle all the expectations that were placed on her. She had a tougher job throughout that primary than I did.” 

Oh, Hillary Clinton is Ginger Rogers. And he's Fred Astaire!



I don't think so.

Paddle Whacked!

We've just taken up this crazy game. We stink. But these guys are gooooood!

Look At Me, I'm Shonda Dee...

The Supreme Court turns away a death row inmates request to declare the death penalty unconstitutional.

The AP story in the Delcotimes doesn't provide much info about the petitioner.

Meet Shonda Dee Walter…

On March 25, 2003, Walter killed her neighbor, James Sementelli, 83, as part of a gang initiation and robbery. Walter slashed Sementelli 66 times with a 10-inch hatchet as he begged for his life. Witnesses also said that during killing, she stopped to say the Lord’s Prayer, carved a cross in the victim’s stomach as he was dying, watched television, and ate ice cream. She then took $510 and Sementelli’s car.

We're not big fans of the death penalty because it is so costly and time-consuming to implement thanks to lawyers, judges and anti-death penalty activists. Still, we don't lose any sleep when killers like Shonda get what they definitely deserve.

Cat walk

The Tordella-Kane Kats near Malvern, Pa.

"Outrageous, Ignorant, Offensive"

Chelsea Clinton doesn't seem to be doing herself or her mother's campaign any favors by popping off on twitter on matters of international celebrity concern. No doubt, she thinks she is.

Just a week or so ago her attack on Bernie Sanders for supposedly wanting to destroy Medicare was seen as unhelpful to her mother's campaign by Democrat insiders. Her claim was even trashed by the liberal Politifact as "mostly false."

On the matter of whether Academy Awards voters were being racist toward black actors and "black" films because none were nominated this years, well, Ms. Rampling was insufficiently sympathetic to the argument that Hollywood has gone all white supremacy-y.

Look at it this way, to win the Democratic Presidential Nomination and then the presidency, Chelsea's mother needs blacks to turn out for her in a big way. Anything the Clintons can do to shore up their bonafides with black voters, no matter how silly and cynical, they'll try it. And if that means accusing an some white old lady actress of being racist, they're happy to do it.

Meet Donald Trump: Democrat...

Hillary and Bill Clinton lover, pro-choice, pro-partial-birth abortion, single-payer healthcare, anti-gun, pro government taking home from old ladies to give to him so he can have a waiting stand for his casino limousines… etc.

Plus a funny and revealing piece from Matt Labash.

For someone who constantly toots his own success horn ("I'm the most successful person to ever run for the presidency, by far"), Donald Trump sure does fail a lot. Never mind his two failed marriages, the four corporate bankruptcies, and his failure to find a suitable hairstyle over the course of his adult life. Time magazine and others have run entire lists of his failures.

There was Trump Airlines, Trump Mortgage ("Who knows more about financing than me?"), Trump the board game, Trump casinos, and three stabs at Trump magazines (may they all rest in peace). Though The Donald doesn't drink, there was also Trump Vodka ("success distilled"), with Trump once predicting the "T&T" (a Trump and Tonic) would become the most "called-for cocktail in America," before the company ceased production due to lack of interest. There was also Trump Steaks (the "world's greatest"), which used to be featured in the Sharper Image catalogue, where most people go for their meat-buying needs. As Time suggests: "The company has since been discontinued— maybe it had something to do with the Trump Steakhouse in Las Vegas being closed down in 2012 for 51 health code violations, including serving five-month old duck."

But most egregious was Trump University, a purported real estate school that attracted the attention of New York's attorney general, who brought a $40 million suit on behalf of 5,000 people. The New York Times described Trump U as "a bait-and-switch scheme," with students lured "by free sessions, then offered packages ranging from $10,000 to $35,000 for sham courses that were supposed to teach them how to become successful real estate investors." Though Trump himself was largely absentee, one advertisement featured him proclaiming, "Just copy exactly what I've done and get rich." 

While some students were hoping to glean wisdom directly from the success oracle, there was no such luck. At one seminar, attendees were told they'd get to have their picture taken with Trump. Instead, they ended up getting snapped with his cardboard cutout.

Read it all.

Who's To Blame?

TNR's Rebecca Leber sez the EPA is partly to blame for the Flint, Mich. water crisis. But her lede is awfully misleading.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in recent weeks has come under intense pressure over the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, which was precipitated two years ago when his administration, in an effort to cut costs, changed the city’s water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. 

No doubt, state environmental officials fell down on the job of testing Flint's water after complaints were raised by residents. But it wasn't the Snyder administration that made the decision to go with Flint River water over Lake Huron. It was the city's elected officials who voted to do that. All were Democrats. And so was the man appointed by Snyder to oversee that bankrupt city who went along with them.

Here they are at the Flint Water Treatment Plant celebrating their brilliant move to save money and cut ties with the water authority in Detroit.

Here's the best account we've read about the matter.

Yes, there is plenty of blame to go around. But most of it rests with locally elected officials (overwhelmingly Democrats) who have, over the years, run Flint into the ground through mismanagement and corruption.

And somehow this is the Republican governor's fault? Well, he's taking responsibility for this fiasco. But probably more blame than he should. The fingers being pointed at him belong to mostly to Democrats and liberals who refuse to take blame for any of the plethora of problems their  cockamamie schemes have wrought.

Trying to Stay Relevant

Failed Texas Governor Candidate Wendy Davis wants everyone to know…

Why I'm Talking About My Abortions!

Answer: What else do I have to say of interest to anyone?

As opposed to: Bill Clinton on…

Why I'm Not Talking About My Sexual Misconduct Toward Women!

Some things are better to just keep to oneself.

In His Awesome Opinion

Frank J. and a couple of his random thoughts…

I understand if you think Hillary is strategically good choice, but stop pretending to be excited about her. It’s embarrassing for everyone. 

“We’re super duper excited for this candidate we tossed away as old news back in 2008!”

Heh!

Black Lives Lies Matter

Hillary Clinton embraces the lies of the Black Lives Matter movement. Heather MacDonald provides some inconvenient numbers…

The number of blacks killed by other blacks is so massive that it overshadows all other homicides. In 2014, 6,095 blacks were killed nationwide, according to the FBI, 93 percent of them by other blacks. That is a sum greater than the number of white and Hispanic homicide victims combined (5,397 in 2014, according to the FBI), even though blacks are only 13 percent of the nation’s population. In 2015, 258 blacks were killed by the police, according to the Washington Post’s open-source database of police killings — representing 4 percent of all black homicide deaths. Officers killed 493 whites and 169 Hispanics — representing 12 percent of all white and Hispanic homicide deaths in 2014. The vast majority of all victims of fatal police shootings — white, black, and Hispanic — were armed or threatening the officer with other forms of potentially lethal force. But the black dominance in violence shows up in cop-killings as well: Forty percent of all police officers murdered from 2005 to 2014 were killed by blacks.

Read it all

How Can He Lose?

Bernie For Glorious Leader from Aleister on Vimeo.

Go Bernie!

13 Hours, Many Lies

Happy MLK Day

Why Martin Luther King Jr. disavowed Marxist communism.

This deprecation of individual freedom was objectionable to me. I am convinced now, as I was then, that man is an end because he is a child of God. Man is not made for the state; the state is made for man. To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as means to the end of the state; but always as an end within himself."

He had a "dream." It wasn't Marxism.

Portlandia Community College

April will be Whiteness History Month at Portland Community College, during which time white students will learn all the things they have to be ashamed of as a race.

The WHM site makes clear that the project is not a "celebratory endeavor" like heritage months, but is rather "an effort to change our campus climate" by "[challenging] the master narrative of race and racism through an exploration of the social construction of whiteness." ("Challenging the master narrative," PCC explains, "is a strategy within higher education that promotes multicultural education and equity.")

Sounds more like a skit on Portlandia. But as we all know many ideas oozing out of "higher education" these days are beyond satire.

But not quite: Whiteness? We can pickle that!

Getting Stoned

Transgender women stoned in Germany.

From the story…

Lethal homophobia is widespread in the Arab world and Iran. A 2008 British Wikileaks dispatch noted that the Islamic Republic of Iran has executed “between 4,000 and 6,000 gays and lesbians” since the Islamic revolution in 1979. 

Islamic State has murdered dozens of gays by tossing the men off buildings. Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and Qatar, to name just some of the most anti-gay countries, persecute LGBTs with the death penalty and imprisonment.

But be advised this has nothing to do with Islam. Just ask Jim Kenney.

Murder For Hire

Does this surprise you?

One in 10 Americans would do porn for $1 million — and 6% would murder for $1 billion

Only 10 percent would do porn. Only 6 percent would do murder? We thought the numbers would be higher. But then we live in a pretty affluent country and we're pretty cynical.

The good news? Very few people are offering that kind of dough for porn or murder. The average murder for hire is about $25,000. But many people will take less. A few will take bitcoins or video games.

As for porn, the pay is a paltry $1,000 a day.

Would Spencerblog do porn for $1 million. Maybe. But believe us, no one would pay to see it.
Would Spencerblog commit murder for $1 billion. Depends on who you wanted us to murder.

This guy maybe.

We bet many others would do it for less. A lot less. That's why he needs so many guards. High praise if you can figure out who it is.

No Fist Bump From This Guy

h/t I Can Has a Cheeseburger?

David Bowie, RIP

We didn't listen to Bowie's music much because we're a square. But how can you not like a guy who writes something like this.

Republicans Go To Iowa

Or what we can expect in tonight's GOP debate.

Scared Stupid

h/t IMAO

13 Hours

Wanna feel proud and humbled at the same time? Listen to these guys.

On Their Knees

Iran's taking of 10 U.S. Navy personnel into custody for allegedly violating Iranian waters was a nice touch on the day of the president's state of the union address.

Of course, he didn't mention it in the SOTU. No big deal.

Sean Davis disagrees.

Our military personnel were captured, forced to surrender on their knees, and photographed. Their images were then broadcast to the world on Wednesday morning by the Iranian regime, a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. The American woman who was captured was forced to submit to Islamic law and don a hijab. State-run Iranian media announced that the whole affair was meant to be a “lesson” to “troublemakers” in the U.S. Congress. 

And the presidential administration of Barack Obama went right along with the whole charade.

Yay! Women in Combat

Wait a second…

As cable news chewed over Iran’s capture of ten American sailors in the Persian Gulf just hours before President Obama’s final State of the Union address on Tuesday night, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews pointedly observed that one of the captured Americans was female. 

Now, perhaps Matthews was just being comprehensive in his reporting. But the all but unmistakable implication of this detail was: The situation was all the more urgent. Now why should that be so? Feminists declare that men and women are equal in all respects. They petulantly decry any atavistic male courtesy towards females as a relic of a still oppressive patriarchal culture. According to that absolutist equality principle, it should be of no greater concern if a female soldier falls into enemy hands, including those of Islamic terrorists, than if a male does.

Better to stamp out all male concern and courtesy to the fairer sex than to deny women the right to fight for their country. Right?

The "Talented" Mrs. Mezvinsky

Chelsea Clinton is under attack by Democrats for "attacking" Bernie Sanders as wanting to "destroy" Obamacare and Medicare.

Democrats have almost universally panned the attack, believing it to be ineffective and a misuse of her talents.

Her talents? And they would be…?

Meanwhile, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a talented woman of real accomplishment is under attack from nitwit conservatives for not wanting to deport her parents back to India.

Happy @#$%! New Year!

Dave Burge twitters his disappointment in the new year…

	David Burge @iowahawkblog	3h
	I don't care if 2016 is still a baby, I'd like to punch it in the face.
	View details ·

Heh!
We, however, are reasonably optimistic that 2016 might grow up to be a fine, uh, 12-month span. After all, we get to vote for a new and improved president. The Sixers could get the Number 1 pick in the NBA draft and there will be a new powerball drawing soon.

What's not to like. Besides ISIS.

Hey Dave,

Wait, you're not wearing a hat! Never mind.

SOTU

Not pictured; Alaska. It's "Really Pissed!" Hawaii: "What Union?"

Our "Audacious" President

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough promises that the president will be taking "audacious executive action" in his final year in office.

Hmmm… does he mean...

1. showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks.
    "a series of audacious takeovers"
    synonyms: bold, daring fearless, intrepid, brave, courageous, valiant, heroic, plucky

or  

2. showing an impudent lack of respect
    "an audicous remark"
    synonyms: impudent, impertinent, insolent, presumptuous, cheeky, irreverent,
                      discourteous, disrespectful, insubordinate, ill-mannered, unmannerly,
                      rude, brazen, shameless, pert, defiant, cocky

We're going to go with number 1, as far as what McDonough means. But we're more likely to get number 2. After all, we've been getting it for seven years.

No Crying Over Spilt Milk

Headline of the Day:

Cops: Florida man used wife’s head to mop up spilled milk after no-jelly rage.

(No link to story. The headline sez it all.

Update: Oh hell, here's the link.

Somebody Hasn't Read Their Quran Very Well

From a recent story in the Delcotimes:

New Philadelphia Mayor James Kenney has cautioned the public against associating the police officer’s shooting with any teachings of Islam. Members of the Upper Darby Islamic Center that is 1.1 miles from the shooting scene said last week that they are not familiar with the suspect and noted that the Quran, the central text of Islam, does not justify shooting or killing.

From the ReligionofPeace.com:

Question:Does the Quran really contain dozens of verses promoting violence?

Summary Answer:The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule.  Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding.  Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter. Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, the verses of violence in the Quran are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not restrained by the historical context of the surrounding text (although many Muslims choose to think of them that way).  They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subject to interpretation as anything else in the Quran. The context of violent passages is more ambiguous than might be expected of a perfect book from a loving God.  Most contemporary Muslims exercise a personal choice to interpret their holy book's call to arms according to their own moral preconceptions about justifiable violence.  Their apologists cater to these preferences with tenuous arguments that gloss over historical fact and generally do not stand up to scrutiny.  Still, it is important to note that the problem is not bad people, but bad ideology. Unfortunately, there are very few verses of tolerance and peace to abrogate or even balance out the many that call for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed.  Muhammad's own martial legacy, along with the remarkable stress on violence found in the Quran, have produced a trail of blood and tears across world history.

Even the Bible justifies killing, if not shooting. (They didn't have guns back when it was written.) If tens of thousands of Muslims weren't practicing this sort of violence against fellow Muslims and Westerners it wouldn't be a big issue. But...

Suburban Cowboy

My son ran away from home and apparently has joined a rodeo. All indications are he's doing well.

  

Mayor Moron III

Dorothy Rabinowitz is as disgusted as we are with the mayor of Philadelphia. Jim Kenney was shockingly quick to deny the shooting of a Philadelphia officer was in any way related to Islamic jihadism despite such an admission from the shooter himself.

The mayor’s comments, so bizarre in their determined denial of the deluge of facts delivered by top police officials standing next to him, were, nonetheless, familiar enough. Americans have learned to expect, after every Islamist terror attack, lectures instructing them that such assaults should in no way be connected to Islamic faith of any kind. 

To hear the mayor of Philadelphia was to grasp, more clearly than ever, the fury that has led to Donald Trump’s success in attracting voters—the fury of citizens who know official lies when they hear them, whether about border security, immigration, or the ever-expanding requirements of multiculturalist dogma.

Read it all.

UPDATE: A friend of ours says that Kenney was trying to make a "nuanced" point about the teachings of Islam. Kenney's point was anything but nuanced. In our opinion it was the opposite of nuanced. It was a clumsy, ham-fisted, arrogant and ignorant all at the same time.

Rolling Stoned

Rolling Stone sent noted journalist Jeff Spicoli to interview fugitive Mexican drug lord El Chapo to find out, among other things, "what his dreams are." What could go wrong?

Mayor Moron II

Philly police get a tip.

Philadelphia police are investigating a tip that the man who confessed to ambushing Officer Jesse Hartnett on Thursday night is associated with a small group of "radical" men and that "the threat to police is not over," according to law enforcement sources. 

The department said in a statement Sunday that it is "actively investigating" the tip to verify its credibility. The Philadelphia Police Counterterrorism Unit is investigating and the FBI is also involved, sources said.

But remember, this has "nothing to do with" Islam. Could be a group connected to those crazy ranchers who took over that federal wildlife refuge shack in Oregon. Or anti-abortion activists. Or anti-gay marriage zealots. Or, God forbid, Black Lives Matter.

But it certainly has "nothing to do" with Islam. Because Philly's brand new mayor sez so.

Mayor Moron

"Name of Islam?" Hasn't Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney decreed that this crime has "nothing to do" with Islam?  What sort of newspaper would repeat such an Islamophobic calumny? Even if it did come straight out of the mouth of the suspect himself. The shooter is mad, I tell you, MAD!

Or is it Kenney who is mad? So caught up in denying the reality of radical Islamic jihadism, Kenney and his friends in the Democratic party look to absolve violent Muslims of any religious motive.

Kenney's tolerance toward Christians devoted to their religion is less generous. When the owners of Chick-Fil-A publicly asserted their belief in traditional marriage only, Kenney wanted them run out of his town on a rail.

From 2012:

The Philadelphia City Council will consider a resolution condemning Chick-fil-A for what one city leader called “anti-American” attitudes that promote “hatred, bigotry and discrimination.” 

City Councilman Jim Kenney sent a letter to Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy telling him to “take a hike and take your intolerance with you.”

Just how tolerant does Kenney think devoted Muslims are when it comes to gay marriage? The owners of Chick-Fil-A, (the Cathy family) donated money to defeating gay marriage initiatives. Muslims throughout the world, following their religion, actually kill homosexuals.

Of course, there are a cherished few in the Muslim faith who would like to argue that the Koran doesn't demand punishment for homosexuality. Good for them. But that argument has fallen on deaf ears throughout the Muslim world.

Check this out from just one Islamic website:

What is the punishment for homosexuality?

“Whoever you find doing the action of the people of Loot, execute the one who does it and the one to whom it is done.” And Abu Dawood narrated from Ibn ‘Abbaas concerning the unmarried person who commits a homosexual act that he said: He is to be stoned. And something similar was narrated from ‘Ali ibn Abi Taalib (may Allaah be pleased with him). The Sahaabah did not differ concerning the ruling that the homosexual is to be executed, but they differed concerning the methods. It was narrated from Abu Bakr al-Siddeeq (may Allaah be pleased with him) that he is to be burned, and from others that he is to be executed."

Stoned. Burned. Whatever. You get the point.

Which raises this question: Has Kenney written to any local Imams who preach that homosexuality is not just a sin but a crime punishable by death, to demand they leave the City of Brotherly Love and take their intolerance with them?

But then, maybe he values his head more than his principles. Or maybe he's just unbelievably ignorant when it comes to what Islamists believe and what its most serious adherents practice. Whether it's executing homosexuals, cops, adulterous wives, or girls who have been raped, Islam often does have "something to do with it."

Kenney's politically correct and hypocritical stupidity doesn't flatter the city that he was elected to serve.

Our Backasswards Culture

Iowahawk quote of the day:

We have a culture that treats 8 year olds like they are 21, and 21 year olds like they are 8.

We think he is referring to grade-school trannies and crybaby leftists on campus.

Friday Funny

Horowitz History Lesson

Our old friend David Horowitz explains the anti-Americanism of today's progressives with the help of Leon Trotsky.

The Left is blind to the responsibility of inner-city populations for their off-the-charts violent-crime rates. The failure to embrace the responsibilities of parenthood is as characteristic of the progressive attitude as is its blindness to the betrayal of inner-city communities by Democrats, responsible almost entirely for the disgraceful condition of America’s cities. Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis, and numerous other centers of out-of-control black poverty, failed public-school systems, and black-on-black violence are 100 percent controlled by the Democratic party and have been so for 50 to 100 years. Yet 95 percent of the black vote and 100 percent of the progressive vote continues to go to Democrats who oppress African Americans.

Read it all.

Gorillas Talk, Cows Get Guns

Koko whines about global warming. Cows, on the other hand

Bay Beats Political Spin and Media Incompetence

Steve Hayes reports that 13 Hours gets Benghazi right.

Whatever its impact (on the presidential election), 13 Hours is a powerful film that is well worth seeing. From beginning to end, it forcefully rejects the sanitized, no-fault version of Benghazi. In scene after powerful scene, it assigns blame: to policymakers in Washington who naïvely overestimated our ability to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys in post-Qaddafi Libya; to Washington bureaucrats who paid little attention to repeated warnings about the security of U.S. facilities in Benghazi; to CIA officials more concerned with career advancement and positive performance reviews than saving lives. 

But perhaps the strongest indictment made by 13 Hours is an unspoken one. The film itself is an implicit but devastating critique of the American media that refused to report this story in this way, an establishment media that left to Hollywood the responsibility of telling these important truths.

Too Cute!

We don't buy it.

First the Towne House, Now This!

Before

                                                                           After

Historic Cobbs Creek Golf Course clubhouse in Philadelphia First goes up in flames. It would be fun to blame this on links-hating feminazis or an anti-golf ISIS terrorist cell... but it was probably just electrical.

Still, a shame.

Hate Crime Fakes and the Fakes Who Fake Them

Why do Muslims fake hate-crimes?

Well, for instance, if you are going to kill your wife it could help you get away with it if the cops believe she was killed by a Muslim-hating bigot, rather than a wife-hating Muslim.

The reality is that there are so few anti-Muslim hate-crimes committed in this country that such acts have to be manufactured by Muslims themselves to feed into idea that Islamophobia leads to violence.

Oh yeah and the other reason Muslims fake hate crimes is because they have seen so many other minority groups get away with it, suckering a gullible media into believing their apocryphal tales of victimization.

That's why.

Coming Soon

Perhaps too soon for the Clinton campaign

Horn Bet

Hillary For Prison 2016?

Former federal prosecutor Joe DiGenova sez Hillary Clinton is in grave danger of being indicted in the next 60 days.

"I believe that the evidence that the FBI is compiling will be so compelling that, unless [Attorney General Loretta Lynch] agrees to the charges, there will be a massive revolt inside the FBI, which she will not be able to survive as an attorney general. It will be like Watergate. It will be unbelievable," DiGenova said. 

"The evidence against the Clinton staff and the secretary is so overwhelming at this point that if, in fact, she chooses not to charge Hillary, they will never be able to charge another federal employee with the negligent handling of classified information," he added. "The intelligence community will not stand for that. They will fight for indictment and they are already in the process of gearing themselves to basically revolt if she refuses to bring charges."

DiGenova is a conservative Republican so maybe a lot of this is wishful thinking on his part.

Still, an indictment could actually work to the advantage of Democrats. Clinton is a very flawed candidate and could easily lose to any reasonable Republican. The ads against her write themselves.
Imagine a line-up of lied to Benghazi families and the women abused at the hands of her husband. It won't be pretty. But it will be effective when tied to her incompetence as a Secretary of State, her shady (illegal) email operation, and her get-rich-quick speaking fees and foundation.

If she were forced to withdraw from the race, some white knight (Biden, Elizabeth Warren) might be drafted to take her place. (Bernie Sanders would be a disaster candidate for the party)

GOP strategists know exactly how to run against Hillary. Not so much a surprise candidate that liberals and a few Independents could rally behind.

Smart Republican partisans shouldn't be cheering for a Hillary indictment. However, those who would like to see the rule of law upheld without fear or favor should.

Getting Ready for Her Close-up

That one in the left-hand corner: A Yale law coed who made eyes at Bill in contracts class.

Great White North Stupid, Not Crazy!

Weepy President Obama has announced his plan to reduce gun violence in America through executive action.

Dave Burge has a suggestion on how we can reduce deaths by firearm in America by 5 percent.

"Give Chicago to Canada."

One problem, as noticed by Iowahawk readers: Canada would say "No thanks."

Gutless GOP Bows To Feminist Bullying

Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson call out Republicans for supporting a bill that denies due process to college men accused of sexual assault.

And one of them is running for president.

When it comes to due process on campus, Republicans in Congress, who campaigned on vows to rein in the Obama administration’s abuses of executive power, have largely acquiesced in its bureaucratic imposition of quasi-judicial tyranny. For more than four years, the White House and the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) have used an implausible reinterpretation of a 1972 civil-rights law to impose mandates unimagined by the law’s sponsors. It has forced almost all of the nation’s universities and colleges to disregard due process in disciplinary proceedings when they involve allegations of sexual assault. Enforced by officials far outside the mainstream, these mandates are having a devastating impact on the nation’s universities and on the lives of dozens — almost certainly soon to be hundreds or thousands — of falsely accused students.

Read it all.

Obviously Republicans are cowed by feminists accusations of sexism and not caring about victimized females. When Title IX abuse was first investigated by a Republican congress under the GWB administration, the media in herd-like fashion typically painted them as wanting to "roll back the clock" on women's rights. The gutless GOP folded its tent and the feminist-controlled Department of Education became even more aggressive in promoting it's anti-male agenda.

Under rules established by DOE's Division of Civil Rights, non profit-making college male sports teams have been cut dramatically around the country in the name of equal rights. The goal being to have the same number of men and women playing college sports. That women as a group are less enthusiastic about playing sports is of no nevermind to these bureaucrats. Proportionality is their edict. Their will be done.

Not satisfied with this victory - and the high proportion of women vs. men attending college - they have promoted the idea that college woman are at such risk of sexual assault from their male classmates that centuries old due process rules need to be thrown out the window to protect them.

Meanwhile men are being falsely accused of crimes and sexual assault is being defined down absurdly to neck-rubs.

Republicans who don't stand up to this sort of left-wing bullying aren't worth the votes cast by conservatives to put them into office.