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This, I did not know (all I knew was that Trump had travelled from Saudi Arabia to Israel but not the route, emphasis mine).  The Blogline of the Day is at the end:

Nobody Flies From Saudi Arabia to Israel. Nobody. Trump Just Did.

The two nations have no diplomatic relations. Travelers can’t fly from one country to the other. Planes can’t even fly through the other’s airspace.

In order to travel from one nation to the other requires travelers to take what many call a “cleansing stop.” Often, flyers go to Amman, Jordan, or Cairo, Egypt, before heading on. And travelers who stop in Israel before heading to Saudi Arabia often ask Israeli officials not to stamp their passports (Saudis authorities get visibly unhappy when they see the stamp). Some frequent fliers even have an extra passport so they can keep one clear of the Israeli stamp.

That’s what makes President Trump’s itinerary so interesting. He made Saudi Arabia his first stop, which no doubt greatly pleased the Saudi royal family. Then he flew from Riyadh directly to Tel Aviv, which no doubt made them furious.

In fact, the flight may well have been the first in history from Saudi Arabia to Israel, the Associated Press reported.

And the kicker?

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Ah yes – a false “right” for all to demand that others pay for their “faux” healthcare right.  Sorry, this isn’t a “right” – it is an ideological milestone for Socialists / Big Government / Collectivists.  You know – Democrats.  Turns out, however, that this “right” that the Dems, who have  super-majorities in California will have a price in trying to cover everyone INCLUDING illegal aliens.  Like Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii tried before them (and we blogged about those efforts years ago) and Vermont and Colorado just rejected because of cost; it will be a STAGGERING COST:

SHOT:  Current California budget: $180 Billion

CHASER: CaliforniaCare budget: $400 Billion

And they can’t even fund their high speed choo-choo train at $40 Billion and want the Feds to pay for it? And that was at its inception; current pricing is now 50% higher just a few years down the line.

No, that’s not just raising another $200B from taxpayers that are already the most fleeced in the nation – that’s just for the single payer healthcare system.  All other State activities and services extra. Colorado

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“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.” -President Gerald Ford.

Sorry, I have little sympathy for these folks that actually bought in the Obama Administration idea that IF you work for government after graduation or for a non-profit, your school debt would be “forgiven” after 10 years of working in one of those two capacities.  We’ve seen that govt jobs, at least at the Fed level, have compensation levels well above the private sector when everything is all in.  Also, don’t let anyone kid you but national level non-profits may not make profits but that doesn’t mean that compensation levels are “low”.  So who will be catching this remaining debt in the shorts when those first 10 years finally accrue?  Yeah, us private sector taxpayers as SOMEBODY has to pay for that now over $1 Trillion of student debt….OH WAIT! (reformatted, emphasis mine):

400,000 were promised student loan forgiveness. Now they are panicking

More than 400,000 student loan borrowers may have placed their faith in a government program with an uncertain future.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program promises to cancel any remaining student debt for those who work for the government or nonprofits if they have been making on-time payments for 10 years. Many teachers, public defenders, Peace Corps workers, and law enforcement officers fit the qualifications. This October marks the 10th year of the program and the first time anyone will have made enough payments to get their debt wiped away. It’s unclear how much the program will cost the government when its starts to forgive those debts.

They never learned the lesson that what a law gives under one Administration can be yanked by another one. But then again, most people working in government or non-profits are of the Leftward persuasion – of COURSE they trust Govt implicitly.  Even when they can’t believe what they see.  Heh!  You know what you call a liberal that’s been mugged, right?

Frankly, I’ve always been incensed with this program –

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Came across this post at CNN (yeah, I know….) that has a title of:

STDs are at an all-time high: Can at-home tests help?

No, testing after the fact is only cleaning up the mess.  The problem is upstream from an “at-home test” – having sex with multiple partners is.  Saying yes is.  Not waiting until marriage is.  Yes, I am adamant about that last part because whether you hate my totally unProgressive attitude and old school morality or not, if it is followed faithfully, you won’t get an STD.  And if you want to call me an evangelical “Christianist” or worse, go ahead, pick my assertion apart.  I’ll warn you – you can’t. If you and your spouse wait until marriage, you won’t get a sexually transmitted disease.  But I digress.  I also totally disagree with this next line that has the correct question:

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Miss USA spoke for many Americans when she said healthcare isn’t a right. Nothing that requires other people’s enforced sacrifice for your benefit is a right.

Once again, a Right is something that is innate simply because you are a human; you already posses it.  It costs nothing to exercise it as in the example of you standing on the corner to tell people what you think – the Right to Free Speech. It also costs others nothing in you doing that speechifying. However, I do not have to contribute anything to allow you exercise that Right.  In fact, I don’t HAVE to listen to you at all.

Healthcare is not a Right – they who proclaim that it is will not talk about the flip side – what does it take to have a healthcare right?  For you to exercise the faux “right” to healthcare, you exercise nothing.  However, you ARE claiming something tangible from others in order to have even others service your “right” to healthcare by either demanding that others have their money taken from them to pay your bills. And using government force to obtain it.  Or worse…

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This piece from Pravda on the Merrimack is about SB8 – the “Croydon” bill has a very pointed example of what I have been saying for years and years about Democrats.  I am still amazed that the PotM editor actually let it stay in place especially since all the Democrats save two, brought it up as a HUGE reason why NOT to allow local School Boards to actually control how education is handled in their towns / districts.

Progressives / [il]Liberals / Progressives / Socialists ALWAYS are working to transfer political Power to the next higher level of government and delight in removing that Power from accountability at the closest level where policies, laws, and regulations are applied.  I lauded former Speaker of the NH House Bill O’Brian when he agreed that part of his process was to devolve power from Concord back to the local towns and to the people.  MUCH of the anger and ire of the DC based Political Class (Dems and Republicans alike in that turd UniParty) towards Trump as he said as much the same thing during his Inauguration Address.

So on NH SB8, we see the Dems (emphasis mine, reformatted):

Still, a majority of Democrats on the committee objected to the amended bill, saying it ceded responsibilities previously held by state officials to local boards and didn’t do anything to protect against private schools’ discriminating against children with disabilities while receiving public money.

Yep – they publicly let the cat outta the bag. They 

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Yeah, Concord Monitor again, this time on SB3 that proposes to tighten up NH’s election law on the word “domicile” and cut out the nonsense that has basically allowed drive-by-voting for decades (and yes, we’ve been writing about this for years here at the ‘Grok).  I applaud the Rs for trying to do something about this.  BUT this shouldn’t happen:

…But they have to sign a form pledging to come back later with a required form of proof. Should a voter not return within 30 days, the bill gives local election officials authority to investigate suspected fraud.

…The House version of the bill lets town election officials refer any suspicious voter activity to the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office for further investigation if supervisors of the checklist did not want to go to people’s houses and verify it themselves. The bill does not give the office, or town election officials, any money to carry out the checks. Currently, the state attorney general’s office oversees such investigations.

Bad form, bad form, guys. As a former AND newly re-elected BudComm member in my hamlet, I really wouldn’t want our local SotC folks going out doing that kind of investigative work – they are NOT set up in case they were to knock on said doors and things went South in a hurry (without demeaning them, ours are literally little old ladies).  Maintaining the list is their job – police should do that work.

And they are on the clock which means they get paid. I have a problem with that.

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Hahahahaha!  Karma for replacing your IT staff with H1-B visa folks from India at lower costs?  The only thing that would make this better is if the WannaCry hackers say that they will give some of this ransom money to those who Bob Igor laid off workers to save money:

Send Bitcoin Or The Mouse Gets It: Disney Is Latest Victim Of Ransomware Attack

Great line, by the way.  Rest of it?  Emphasis mine:

Disney is apparently the victim of the latest round of ransomware attacks that have affected hospitals and businesses worldwide. CEO Bob Iger told a company town hall today that hackers have taken possession of a new Disney movie and are threatening to release it in pieces if their ransom demand isn’t met. Axios is reporting that the hacked movie is “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” which is slated to be released this Friday.

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