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And they are voting on this Obama-lite tomorrow?  This is amending around the edges; there is little “repeal” other than what I’ve written about earlier.  While killing taxes is always good, they haven’t touched the stuff (regs and mandates) that have made Obamacare so toxic politically and financially.  So how is this “better”?  This isn’t “Republicans Are Doing a Terrible Job Arguing for Their Health-Care Plan“, this is a “Failure to Plan Right” – and expecting us to accept it.  And no,  I disagree with this “Republicans Are Messing Up On Healthcare Even More Than You Thought” – they are proceeding EXACTLY as I thought: the dogs that caught the bumper.  Politically, they knew when they won the election, they lost it from the get go.

I just shake my head at these Bozos in Congress.  All we heard for the last seven years is “VOTE FOR US – we’ll get rid of Obamacare!!!”.  So after giving them the House, then the Senate, we put the Oval Office in their hands.  We shoulda known better because at every step, they said “well, thank you, but NOW we need” that next step.  Each and every time, all we got was excuses instead of promises. I DO wonder if they really meant what they campaigned on because I’m not buying what is being sold.  We didn’t put them in to nibble around the edges – it was supposed to be a clean sweep.  Instead of that clean sweep, all we’re getting is that broom putting up a huge dust cloud. And yet, the boom is being lowered as in “White House warns conservatives ‘no Plan B’ to nix Obamacare: ‘This is it“. It’s almost like “…Republicans never intended to repeal Obamacare“.

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British Lawmaker: London Terrorist’s Religion is ‘Utterly and Completely Irrelevant”

And when Khalid Masood, the Muslim that plowed into people on a London bridge and killed a policeman outside of Parliament,  says that he is a soldier of the Islamic State, I’d believe that Islam, a political system wrapped in religion, is completely relevant (reformatted, emphasis mine).

British Lawmaker Lord Digby Jones does not believe the religion of the London attacker is pertinent, The Washington Post reports. Jones comments come in the wake of a tweet by Donald Trump Jr. criticizing London Mayor Sadiq Khan for once telling citizens that terrorist attacks are “part and parcel” part of living in a big city. Some British lawmakers drew offense from the tweet, saying Trump was attacking the mayor in the midst of a terrorist situation.

“You’re safer in London than you’ve ever been,” Jones declared. He continued, “If this turns out to be an act of Islamic terrorism, I think the fact that the man is a Muslim is utterly and completely irrelevant.”

Umm, wanna run that past me again, for what Jones

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The Christian, conservative case for foreign aid

This piece in the Washington Post keeps on confirming my belief that The Church is continuing its march in becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of The State.  Once again, there is no charity in Government – the government money that is used for relief is not given voluntarily – it is taken by force (go ahead, try not paying your taxes and tell me I’m wrong) but Progressives DO conflate the two  and then use that to virtue-signal to the rest of us their moral superiority.  Like these two authors – I’ve taken a few snippets out for commenting.  First, they lead off with a sentence that is absolutely true – but it is setting a false stage for something that ISN’T tru:

The Bible is replete with references to caring for the poor in obedience to God. Jesus declares that loving our neighbor — wherever they live — is one of the greatest commandments, a corollary to loving God.

Yes, we are called to do this.  All one has to do is to read Jesus’s Sermon On The Mount – or the Good Samaritan to know of the values that He preached.  But note – he NEVER preached that message to a group of politicians or to the Roman government officials, but to individuals. He came to change a person’s heart, mind, and convictions – one by one by one.  An individual ministry and not a collective one – for only one person can pray for forgiveness of their personal sin and to accept His message of redemption and salvation.    But not here:

While the U.S. government doesn’t directly share this mandate, it plays a critical role in fulfilling the moral responsibility of all Americans to help those less fortunate. In fact, the U.S. government has always been a strong partner with American citizens in helping those in extreme poverty and crisis. Yet now, President Trump’s proposed budget threatens to severely cut that foreign aid.

No, no, no, NO!  People have a sense of morality (putting aside the phrase “the public morality” for the moment), individuals have an innate sense of right and wrong as well as kindness and empathy.  A GOVERNMENT cannot

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How did America become so naïve?

Considering America’s 240-year history, 16 years is not a long time.  But for some, it’s long enough to forget the outrage and fear all Americans felt after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Nineteen hate-filled Muslim extremists exploited our flawed immigration controls and came to our country for the sole purpose of slaughtering innocent men, women, and children.  In the aftermath of those attacks, there were no outcries for open borders or for sanctuary cities.  For that brief moment, everyone understood the need to secure our borders from ruthless enemies abroad.

The hatred that drove those terrorists hasn’t diminished.  There have been too many painful reminders of that throughout the world.  Here at home, the attacks in San Bernardino and in Boston involved radicalized Muslim immigrants, harboring that same hatred for America.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently revealed that there are currently “more than 300 people who came here as refugees and are under FBI investigation for potential terrorist activities.”  We don’t have to assume they are Muslim extremists to know we need tighter immigration controls.

Yet there’s a move in America today to

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That’s the title over at The Federalist where “Anonymous” posted up what he/she saw at a conference.  Heck, I’d be doing the same thing if I had gone for it proves ONE thing – The Left hates EVERYONE that do not ascribe to their outlook and would love to have another Brendan Eich type scalp – agree with us OR WE WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE.  From that part of the story (emphasis mine):

I learned it’s illegal in my state to refuse to use someone’s preferred pronoun. Almost every presenter had a story of a time they got a coworker, employee, or boss fired. A speaker (pronouns xe, xyr, xemself) passionately told us of a time when xe had an older coworker who referred to xem as “ma’am.” When xe repeatedly told him xe preferred to be referred to as xem, he responded that he couldn’t, because he had been brought up to be polite and use sir and ma’am.

I do that a lot – use sir and ma’am as a sign of respect.  It is politeness and manners.  Or, well, it used to be that.

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I’m not sure if this is outright brazenness or sheer stupidity from Hillary:

On St. Patrick’s Day, she made an appearance in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where she gave a speech to the Society of Irish Women. “I’m like a lot of my friends right now, I have a hard time watching the news,” she said, stressing that people needed to work together now more than ever. “I do not believe that we can let political divides harden into personal divides. And we can’t just ignore, or turn a cold shoulder to someone because they disagree with us politically.”

“I am ready to come out of the woods and to help shine a light on what is already happening around kitchen tables, at dinners like this, to help draw strength that will enable everybody to keep going,” she added.

Can we trust ANYTHING that a Clinton says? She has shown that she’s willing to throw almost anyone under the bus and say anything to advance herself politically. But this may make at least ONE person happy:

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…and not for the candidates that Al Letizio Jr. and Dennis Senibaldi want on as part of the “Good Ole’ Boys” clique.  One of the things that became obvious was the lack of financial controls in the Windham School Board system.  Imagine that – $43M budget and a whoop-de-do-anything-goes with transfers and, I guess, writing checks (hmmm, isn’t that a “deal”?).  Hey, with no one peering over the shoulders, “just trust us” seemed to be the watchwords of Al Letizio Jr and Dennis Senibaldi’s (and crew) School Board histories.

So, Ken, seeing the problem with an engineer and entrepreneur’s eye for detail,  had an Internal Controls audit done.  Well, 130 problems, later here was the result (reformatted to make it a bit more “bloggish”).  So, don’t you want someone that fixed a major problem?

Windham School District
Internal Control Review
December 20, 2016

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“The leaner, meaner and more resilient U.S. shale is basically wiping out OPEC’s efforts to achieve higher oil prices with the output deal.“

“wellhead breakeven prices in the Permian Midland have dropped from $71/barrel in 2014 to $36/barrel in 2016–a 49-percent decrease“

OK, I kid about the second group (“leave it in the ground enviro-weenies”) – they brook no dissent; it is either THEIR favorite form of energy to be used or nothing.  Coal, gas, oil – well, if forcing the rest of us to live as if we were back in the 1700 is “collateral damage” in saving GAIA, well, so be it.  Just remember that just like the EPA not letting Alaskans use wood for heat during deep money, you won’t be allowed a wood fire with which to cook.

Obama, on the other hand, saw that his desire for America, to be just “yet another country”; his philosophy of “Leading from behind” shows exactly that.  He KNEW that if American frackers were allowed to succeed, well, the resulting energy from fracking would have world-wide ramifications. He didn’t want that, so he closed down Federal lands and tried, with the enviro-weenies, to kill fracking on private lands.

Hahahahaha – didn’t work! American technology and ‘git’er done”.  Glad to see it (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Has OPEC Underestimated U.S. Shale Once Again?

…With lessons learned from the oil price crash and budgets streamlined and focused on the most prolific shale plays, U.S. drillers are giving OPEC a hard time by raising output and hedging future production. Meanwhile, the cartel members are trying to cut supply and fix the price of oil at such a range that would allow them to reap higher oil revenues, but not allow the shale patch to recover too much too fast.

Two and a half months into the supply-cut deal, it looks like OPEC is losing the campaign to prop up oil prices. The drop in prices that began last week saw them retreating to almost exactly the same level as on November 30 – just below $52/barrel for Brent – when the OPEC deal was announced, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly report on Wednesday.

At the same time, reduced breakeven prices in many shale plays and forward locking-in of production is allowing the companies currently drilling in the U.S. to turn in profits even at a price of oil at $40 a barrel.

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SHOT:

Under a political advocacy campaign launched Wednesday, a coalition of physician groups will tell the public that their health is threatened by catastrophic man-made global warming, also called climate change.

CHASER:

Gaia help any doctor that asks me questions or lectures me, because they will be getting an earful asking them what they’ve done in their own lives, what they drive, what kind of house they have where they go on vacation, if they have a second vacation home, if they use air conditioning, what temp they keep it at, if they have an ice maker, if he/she plays golf, and so forth. Right before walking out and telling him/her to stick their bill in their you know where.

Same deal with the “public health epidemic of guns” – none of your business because most of you, like most

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This will be fun to see her run rate and if it collapses to just a few sources (e.g., the Clinton Initiative buying loads).So, she went from being a failed journalist at $600K/yr (I saw her a couple of times on TV – talk about being stiff and uncharismatic) to now to being an Expedia Board of Directors at $250/year and $250K of stock options?  All on the basis of a childrens’ book where she can already be charged with plagiazing right from the get-go (re: Mitch McConnell on Elizabeth Warren).

BTW, what is Expedia thinking:

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It certainly seems that way – it is clear that Al Letizio Jr. and Dennis Senibaldi don’t want ‘Grok friend Ken Eyring (the current Chair) re-elected to the Windham School Board.  Those two, and their Good Ole’ Boys (regardless of gender) seemed to treat that Board as their own fiefdom.  Once elected to the Board in 2014 because of just bad practices, Ken started to put internal controls onto their processes.  They hate it and now like what we are seeing in DC, the “Deep State” is fighting back by trying to get him thrown off.

I know this situation well – having been on our SB2 Budget Committee in the past, we saw a lot of our hard work just ignored.  In an SB2 budget, we had to review and budget on a line by line basis to finally come up with a bottom line overall number.  However, once that is done, and dutifully voted on by the voters, the School Board could transfer any amount of money from one line to another – and they did so even though they knew that was NOT how the voters told them to spend it and on what.  I call this “the middle finger syndrome” – my School Board transferred over $100K to give raises to employees last year AFTER the BudCom said no and the voters approved seconded that “No”

It seems that the previous Windham School Board was in the same mode: screw you, we’ll spend it the way we want.  Until Ken got on the Board.  For instance, let’s just take

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