Michael Flynn may be the luckiest sonofabitch in the world.

Even if he goes to jail, at least he's not part of the Messiahdent's dumpster fire of an administration.

Michael Flynn in 2016: Immunity 'means you probably committed a crime ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../michael-flynn-in-2016-immunity-means-you-proba...

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn is offering to cooperate with congressional investigators in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

Trump Is Right: Give Michael Flynn Immunity - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/.../trump-is-right-give-michael-flynn-immunity.ht...

Michael Flynn's Immunity Request Rejected By Senate ... - NBC News

www.nbcnews.com/.../senate-intelligence-committee-rejects-immunity-michael-flynn-...

The Senate Intelligence Committee turned down the request by former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's lawyer for a grant of immunity in exchange for ...

Michael Flynn and immunity: What is it and why does he want it?

www.usatoday.com/story/news/.../03/...immunity...michael-flynn.../99864920/

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn won't submit to questioning about the ongoing Russia investigation unless he's given immunity, according to his ...

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Some may think Ground Chuck is forgetful or delusional. I know he's a fascist.

The sixty vote "threshold" is merely a Senate rule and the senior fascist from New York knows it. He has "violated" it himself in the past. [Selective memory loss is also fascistic.] Meanwhile, he does everything inhumanly possible to subvert THE law of our land, the U.S. Constitution.

Please pay no attention to this tiny man who dreams of total power.


Schumer: 'Virtually impossible' to reach deal on Gorsuch | TheHill



As Schumer urges 'no' to Gorsuch, two Democrats says they'll vote for Trump's nominee ...
www.pbs.org/.../schumer-urges-no-gorsuch-two-democrats-says-theyll-vote-trumps-c...

Schumer's filibuster of Neil Gorsuch is ill-advised for the Democratic ...

www.washingtonexaminer.com/schumers-filibuster-of-neil-gorsuch.../2618936

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Savannah Walker, Requiescat in pace.

I don't know if a twenty year old girl can be a real mensch, but Miss Walker is ok in my book.

From the newspaper without a name:

Amid senseless violence, we asked for heroes, and we found 2 ...

Sometimes you don’t recognize a hero right away.

The first time I met Dean Walker, he was unpacking lacrosse equipment from the trunk of his car. I noticed his broad smile, his silver hair and beard. I felt his firm handshake.

Dean is a high school girls lacrosse coach. When I saw him that Sunday afternoon three years ago in Louisville, Kentucky, he was organizing a scrimmage for some local girls. One of them was his daughter, Savannah.

Other than that she was Dean’s daughter and a good lacrosse player, I didn’t know much about Savannah. I met her briefly that day. She was pretty, dark-haired and so very polite.

I was coaching a women’s college lacrosse team at the time and recruiting Savannah and a couple of other girls from the area. Dean told me Savannah had her heart set on the University of Louisville.
I had no idea then who Savannah would become or how she would be remembered. But I thought quite a bit about Dean and Savannah this week. A Facebook post by one of my former players, who knew Savannah from high school, led me to their story.

At the same time, I couldn’t help but think about something that seemed, at least on the surface, completely unrelated — a fight at Park City Diner.

In an editorial last week, we lamented the absence of a peacemaker to restore order in the diner after a fight broke out at 2:30 a.m. March 18. In a one-minute video, which has been viewed more than 1 million times online, you see violence and mayhem. You see bystanders laughing and cheering. You see no heroes.

About 24 hours after that brawl, we saw a real hero in Louisville — Savannah Walker.
Savannah was at a rap concert with three friends. At 1:20 a.m., someone started shooting. Spectators ran for the exits. Savannah didn’t run. According to eyewitnesses, she began pushing people out of harm’s way. Then she took a single bullet to the chest and fell to the ground.

According to Louisville Courier-Journal, a man stopped to help, ripping off his shirt and using it to stop the bleeding. Savannah took three deep breaths and died. She was 20.

Dean heard about the shooting and rushed to the scene, not knowing Savannah’s condition. He spent the next 3 1/2 hours standing behind yellow police tape, waiting. “The longer you stand, the more you know,” he said.

Dean learned, officially, that his daughter was gone. But as police began searching for the shooter and a motive (they believe it might have been gang related), Dean Walker did something extraordinary, especially in the view of of us who have children.

He didn’t retreat.

He stood up and spoke for his daughter and for the other children in his community. He made the rounds on the local TV news, urging parents to hug their kids. He told people about Savannah, how much she loved the University of Louisville debate team, how she organized the first lacrosse team at her middle school. How “she always put everybody else first.”

Dean told the Courier-Journal that he decided to speak about his daughter’s death to urge other residents to unite to fight the city’s pervasive violence.

“We as a community need to stop this,” he said. “We’re burying our kids. It’s insanity.”

Dean didn’t make any political statements. He never blamed anyone. He simply spoke softly about his daughter, and about other people’s sons and daughters, in the hope of sparing other parents the loss that he must now endure. It was easy to see why Savannah put everybody else first.

There’s something you don’t know about Dean. His wife died of pancreatic cancer a month ago.
And again, as I’m watching this, I thought of the diner fight. Why? Perhaps because of the jarring contrast, the juxtaposition of selfish, reckless, attention-seeking behavior against the quiet courage of Savannah and Dean Walker.

Then I thought of a couple of other fights, also caught on video, that we mentioned in the editorial — a group of teenagers fighting among themselves in the middle of the afternoon in a subway station in Philadelphia. The same day, an ugly fight among multiple players on the ice at a high school hockey game, where parents also got involved.

Last week, we asked for heroes and peacemakers. We found two. They just happened to live in Louisville.

I don’t know Dean Walker well. Nor did I know Savannah very well. I know them better now, and I’m thankful for that. They’ve taught me quite a bit.

There are indeed heroes among us. Sometimes, you don’t recognize them right away. Sometimes, they leave us too soon.

Father of Savannah Walker: She always put everybody else first

www.tcpalm.com/videos/news/local/2017/03/21/...savannah-walker.../99441076/

Savannah Walker mourned at candlelight vigil - Courier-Journal

www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2017/03/22/u...savannah-walker.../99463408/

Community gathers to remember Savannah Walker • The Louisville ...

www.louisvillecardinal.com › News

Father of shooting victim: 'Hug your kids tonight' - wave3.com ...

Friends, Family Remember Savannah Walker As 'Ray Of Light' - Wfpl

https://wfpl.org/savannah-walker-vigil/

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Mix sycophantic Repansycans, a disloyal opposition, a "free" press enslaved by alien ideologies, power-madness, a blind, deaf and enraged Clumpentariat, and a self-absorbed chronic masturbator who picks his teeth with the bones of the children he eats and what do you get?

Another day closer to the destruction of the greatest country ever known.

SUCKERS.




From Talking Points Memo:

OGW: 2 WH Officials Helped Provide Nunes With Reports On Trump Team Intercepts...


Two White House officials helped provide House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) with intelligence reports that purportedly showed President Donald Trump and his transition officials were incidentally caught up in surveillance of foreign nationals, the New York Times reported Thursday.

Nunes has stridently denied receiving any information from the White House. On Monday, he insisted that his source, who he met on the grounds of the White House one day before going public with these reports, was an intelligence official.

Multiple anonymous officials told the Times that Ezra Cohen-Watnick, senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer in the White House Counsel’s office who formerly worked for the House Intelligence Committee, helped provide Nunes with this information.

The California Republican has sworn to “never” reveal his sources, even when asked directly by CNN’s Manu Raju if Ellis was one of them.

The intelligence reports Nunes viewed primarily involved “ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about how they were trying to develop contacts within Mr. Trump’s family and inner circle in advance of his inauguration,” according to the officials who spoke with the Times.

Nunes has previously said he was “alarmed” by the reports he viewed, though he conceded they all appeared to be legally collected through routine foreign surveillance.

The House’s investigation ground to a halt this week after the details surfaced of Nunes’ covert meeting with his source. All of the committee’s Democrats, including ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), have called for his recusal.

Nunes and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), the only person who could force Nunes to recuse himself, have both rejected charges that the chairman is too close to the White House to conduct a credible investigation into Russia’s interference in the U.S. election.


TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Fly spit or blood splatter, that is the question.

Even gross science is cool, kiddies.


Loyola professor developing spray to identify fly spit at crime scenes - Baltimore Sun

The victim lay across the doorway of a filthy Mount Airy home, a 12-gauge shotgun blast through his chest. The suspect had called in a confession, and the evidence was clear. But that day in April 1999, police puzzled over dark stains on a wall far from the man's body.

"It didn't make sense," said forensic investigator Mitchell Dinterman. "These were all the way across the room.

He noticed an open window. The stains, he realized, came from flies.

Crime scene investigators have long relied on their own judgment to distinguish blood spatter from the look-alike stains left by flies that land on the body and then on a spot nearby. Now a biology professor at Loyola University Maryland is developing a spray that removes the guesswork.

David Rivers has worked on and off for five years to isolate an enzyme distinctive to the fly gut. He won a $154,521 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice in December to complete development of his spray over the next two years.

His research stretches the limits of traditional forensic science — "Even the crime shows don't talk about it," he said — and it's a field best avoided by the squeamish: forensic entomology, the study of bugs in deaths.

"It's unsettling to think flies are getting to a body," he said. "When we're thinking about someone's loved one, we don't want to think about that."

Rivers teaches the only college course on forensic entomology in Maryland, he said. At his research lab, flesh flies and hide beetles dine on cow livers in screened cages. A cow skull and rat skeleton are picked clean. He urges visitors to remove their sweaters or wool coats.

"Certain fabrics retain the smell of death," Rivers explained.

As a boy, Rivers kept fireflies in a mayonnaise jar in his mother's refrigerator. He wanted to be a scientist when he grew up, and planned to study genetics. But he found himself instead as a research biologist, milking venom from tarantulas.

Today he studies the flies that feed on corpses.

Blowflies are common in Maryland, identifiable by their metallic green or blue bellies, and able to sniff out death from a mile away. A corpse dumped in summer attracts the flies within five minutes, Rivers said. He sets up mock crime scenes around campus with caged animal remains. And the flies start buzzing around him when he's 10 feet out the door with the cages.

These flies grow two and three times bigger than house flies but can crawl inside a car with its doors and windows closed.

Rivers encountered the flies in the early 1990s while consulting on a case as a graduate student at Ohio State University. An elderly woman had died alone in her old Victorian home and the flies got in. The house was cleaned and sold to a young couple who discovered thousands of flies hidden in the air ducts. The sale was rescinded under Ohio's lemon laws, Rivers said.

"They're very aggressive," he said. "You tend to forget they're everywhere."

Also, they're slobs. Flies slurp and dribble and wear their food. They spit up after eating or before they begin. Their digestion can occur outside the body.

This makes for a gruesome mess, considering blowflies' taste for bodily fluids. Mealtime may proceed like this: Flies lap up blood, mix it with digestive juices and spit it out. They wander off to wait out the digestion and return to sponge up their meal — bon appetit.

Swarms can really muck up a crime scene.

"They leave these little marks and it resembles a lot — quite a lot — like impact spatter," said Chief Steven O'Dell, director of the Baltimore City police crime lab. "It could lead you to a wrong conclusion, to decide a witness statement is incorrect, or maybe an impact happened over here, or maybe there's some other body that's missing …

"It confuses you," he said. "It can slow the investigation down."

Investigators routinely measure the tiny tails of blood spatter to calculate the angle and location of a violent blow. This is called "directionality."

Flies leave nearly identical tails when buzzing around and spitting up, which can further confound investigators.

"It creates these little streaks that look like bloodstains that hit an object with some directionality," O'Dell said.

Still, scenes disturbed by flies remain an uncommon occurrence, mostly found in suburban and rural communities where bodies may linger undiscovered. In Baltimore, shootings typically happen on streets, and such evidence rarely factors into investigations.

"We actually see it quite a bit down here," said Holly Latham, a forensic scientist with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, who has presented case studies on blood spatter during annual meetings of forensic investigators with the International Association for Identification.

Latham was unaware of Rivers' project.

"It does sound intriguing," she said.

A study published in November 2003 in the journal Forensic Science International offered investigators tips for distinguishing fly spots from blood spatter.

Tails of fly spots will point in random directions, the study advised. Another clue: spots found in rooms without a body. And flies will concentrate on lights, mirrors and windows.

The study presented a case from June 1997, in which two men were found shot dead in a Nebraska apartment. Spray around the apartment suggested a struggle, perhaps a robbery. But investigators ruled out the stains as fly spots, changing their theory to an execution.

"If you can develop something that's more reliable, well, you don't make these kinds of mistakes," said the study's co-author, Larry Barksdale, a former police officer and forensic science professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The first known case decided by forensic entomology happened centuries ago in ancient China, according to Neal Haskell, a prominent forensic entomologist. After a Chinese peasant was murdered by someone wielding a hand sickle, the wise local magistrate ordered villagers to lay down their sickles.

Blowflies alighted on the murderer's blade.

Haskell has testified in 32 states and recalls cases where a victim's battered hands came from cockroaches feeding on dead skin; in another, matted grass didn't signal a dragged body, but maggots crawling off en masse.

He also has challenged evidence in court, testifying that blood spatter was actually fly spots. A reliable spray would prove invaluable to investigators, Haskell said.

"If this technique works," he said, "that will help immensely."

Sometimes technicians can detect fly spots by shining blue or purple light on stains and observing the specks through an orange filter. It's an inexact method, but fly spots often glow. At Loyola, Rivers has tested this method in his lab, finding true blood stains also glow. Routine field tests for human blood fail to distinguish fly spots as well.

"Every test that law enforcement has available should test positive for human blood," Rivers said, "but the reality is it winds up being derived from flies."

A student's casual question years ago — shouldn't there be some way to tell? — launched his research to invent the spray. He has isolated the flies' digestive enzyme and developed a binding antibody. Tests of 10 common fly species revealed the enzyme, but there remain dozens more to test over the next two years in his lab. And that's just fine with the professor.

"The odor," he said, "doesn't bother me anymore."

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

But what bathroom does he choose?

It amazes me how the media always fails to ask the questions America needs answered.


Texas Man Arrested for Having Sex With a Chain-Link Fence | ConradSeitz.com ...


A thirty-two year old Texas man was witnessed on March 1 by his neighbor having sexual intercourse with the chain-link fence between their lawns.  Apparently, the man was intoxicated; when he saw that his neighbor noticed him urinating on the fence, he disrobed and used his erect penis to violate an aperture in the fence.  She called the police, who arrested him for indecent exposure (a misdemeanor, for which he was released on his own recognizance.)  The woman who witnessed this act of love (bestiality?) is said to have requested that her eyes be washed out with soap (just kidding).  See the arrest document at “The Smoking Gun” here; they called it “an illicit tryst” with a fence.

If this guy isn't careful, he's going to get his own reality show...or elected to public office.

One more: Anthony Weiner wishes he had thought of that. Of course, he would have used an underage fence.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

BRING IT ON, YOU ORANGE SODOMITE!

The Messiahdent thinks everybody has a price and can therefore be bought. He might be right about that when it comes to the thieves and perverts with whom he has surrounded himself since his daddy died. The true remnant of what was best about America will not be bought and it will fight to the death before it accepts slavery at the hands of any fascist, no matter what IT pretends to be!

I'm willing to bet that lying orange poofter and his minions who fancy themselves our moral and intellectual superiors don't have the balls for a real fight against real men.



From The Hill @thehill:

Trump and Freedom Caucus turn on each other https://t.co/Esjbi57thy

                         

President Trump on Thursday used Twitter to rip into the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which quickly returned fire as Republicans turned on one another a week after the collapse of their ObamaCare repeal plan.

Trump threatened to back primary election challengers to the Freedom Caucus members who torpedoed the American Health Care Act, handing Trump a stinging legislative loss in his administration’s first 100 days.

Trump said the conservatives had “hurt the entire Republican agenda,” lumping them in with Democrats he pledged to “fight” in the 2018 midterms.

The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017

It’s not the first time Trump has criticized the caucus, which doesn’t publicly reveal its membership. But it was his most direct attack on the group yet, and the first time he’d pledged to go after them at the ballot box since the collapse of the repeal effort.

Conservatives opposed to the ObamaCare repeal bill quickly fired back, criticizing Trump for becoming a victim of Washington’s “swamp” and reminding the White House that the healthcare plan it backed polled a dismal 17 percent.

“It didn’t take long for the swamp to drain President Trump,” tweeted Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a Freedom Caucus member.

It didn't take long for the swamp to drain @realDonaldTrump. No shame, Mr. President. Almost everyone succumbs to the D.C. Establishment. https://t.co/9bDo8yzH7I

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) March 30, 2017

“Most people don’t take well to being bullied,” he told reporters. “It’s constructive in fifth grade. It may allow a child to get his way, but that’s not how our government works.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), another conservative who opposed the House GOP’s ObamaCare repeal bill, used a mocking tone to hit back at the president over Twitter.

.@realDonaldTrump it's a swamp not a hot tub. We both came here to drain it. #SwampCare polls 17%. Sad! https://t.co/4kjygV2tdS

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 30, 2017

“We're on his side,” Massie later told The Hill. “We just feel like he's been misled on SwampCare.”

Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said nothing as he sprinted onto the House floor for the final votes of the week. And Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho), a founding member of the Freedom Caucus and one who is usually unafraid to speak his mind, refused to acknowledge reporters' questions about Trump's tweet.

Labrador later responded to Trump on Twitter.

@realDonaldTrump Freedom Caucus stood with u when others ran. Remember who your real friends are. We're trying to help u succeed.

— Raúl R. Labrador (@Raul_Labrador) March 30, 2017

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who also opposed the GOP bill and is a leading voice among House conservatives, responded to Trump’s tweet by saying the bill backed by the White House wouldn’t lower premiums, wouldn’t fully repeal ObamaCare, and didn’t unite the GOP.

In an interview on Fox News, he said the Freedom Caucus was trying to help Trump, “but the fact is you’ve got to look at the legislation. And it doesn’t do what we told the voters we were going to do, and the American people understand that. That’s why only 17 percent of the population supports this legislation.”

The public infighting is unlikely to help Republicans get back on track with their agenda.

While Ryan said at a news conference that he understood why the president was frustrated, in a separate interview he broke with Trump by stating that he did not want to work with Democrats on healthcare.

Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), a Trump ally and member of the centrist Tuesday Group, affirmed at a meeting Wednesday that it will not meet with the Freedom Caucus to negotiate changes to an ObamaCare replacement bill.

“It was just reiterated that next time one of those calls comes in [from the Freedom Caucus], just hang up,” Collins said.

After the healthcare bill was pulled from consideration on Friday, Ryan and Trump both signaled they were ready to move on to other issues — specifically tax reform.

This week there have been suggestions, particularly from conservative rank-and-file Republicans, that the party should return to healthcare. But there has been no signs of progress in bridging differences between the center and right of the GOP, and Ryan on Thursday said a pause was likely necessary.

Trump’s public slamming of the Freedom Caucus is unlikely to help rally Republicans around a new healthcare push, and the caustic public comments from conservatives will have much of the country waiting for Trump to fire back.

Some conservative media outlets have blamed Ryan and GOP leaders for mishandling the ObamaCare fight.

Several Freedom Caucus members echoed arguments that they were protecting Trump from an unpopular bill.

“The bill's polling at 17 percent," Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) said. “The American people are not in support of this bill. And we represent them, so we can do better.”

Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), another Freedom Caucus member, said he’d rather face a primary challenger than sacrifice his principles.

“If a primary challenger would serve this country better than me I’m certainly willing to entertain that,” he said. “I think we can get along with the president. I think we’re the best friends the president has in this situation.”

Franks refused to criticize Trump for whipping support for the bill or attacking conservatives for its failure.

“I think Congress failed the president rather than the other way around, and I can understand his frustration,” he said.

One conservative interviewed by The Hill, who requested anonymity, said he viewed Trump’s tweet as a negotiating tactic.

“They’re just trying to add a little public pressure,” the source said. “We see that as purely a negotiating tactic. Trump wants a win more than anything else and he saw the healthcare bill as a political and publicity failure, so there’s a double-incentive for him to pin the blame on the Freedom Caucus folks for having obstructed it. I think he’s seeing who will bend.”

In another sign of possible fallout from last week, Ryan on Thursday morning hosted more than a dozen conservative free-market and pro-life leaders in his office, including Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union and Doug Holtz-Eakin of American Action Forum.

Noticeably absent from the meeting were any representatives from three outside conservative groups that opposed the healthcare bill: FreedomWorks, Club for Growth, Heritage Action and Americans for Prosperity.

The Freedom Caucus has frequently irritated its colleagues in the GOP, and Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) quit the group over the healthcare fight. Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) has said publicly he’s considering doing the same.

Democrats, for their part, welcomed the GOP infighting.

“It's just a tweet,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), one of the group’s newest members, told The Hill in an interview outside the Capitol.

At that moment, fellow Arizona Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a centrist Democrat, pulled up in a Subaru, rolled down her window and shouted at her colleague tongue-in-cheek: “Hey Andy, did you see the president's tweet this morning? He's coming after both of us!”

“You know what," Biggs replied with a smile. "You guys want to impeach him, and we don't.”

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

24:Legacy - More of the same...AWESOMENESS!

I can't help myself, kiddies. The formula works for me and always has.

'24: Legacy' Review | Hollywood Reporter

24: Legacy marks an on-brand return for a franchise Fox has refused to let lie fallow long enough for any real nostalgic yearning to set in.

24: Legacy: Season 1 - Rotten Tomatoes

Critics Consensus: 24: Legacy offers well-acted escapism, yet this reboot also inherits many of its predecessor's flaws, and an early narrative rut signals a ...

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Dr. Walter Williams is a real mensch...

...and government is legalized theft. You should spend a few days and read all of his columns at the link below. You might just become a real mensch yourself and you will definitely learn how the world really is and your delusions will disappear.



Walter Williams Archives - Jewish World Review

02/22/17: There's Nothing Free

It was Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman who made famous the adage, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." Professor Friedman could have added that there is a difference between something's being free and something's having a zero price. For example, people say that there's free public education and there are free libraries, but public education and libraries cost money. Proof that they have costs is the fact that somebody has to have less of something by giving up tax money so that schools and libraries can be produced and operated. A much more accurate statement is that we have zero-price public education and libraries.

Costs can be concealed but not eliminated. If people ignore costs and look only to benefits, they will do darn near anything, because everything has a benefit. Politicians love the fact that costs can easily be concealed. The call for import restrictions, in the name of saving jobs, is politically popular in some quarters. But few talk about the costs. We know there are costs because nothing is free.

Let's start with a hypothetical example of tariff costs. Suppose a U.S. clothing manufacturer wants to sell a suit for $200. He is prevented from doing so because customers can purchase a nearly identical suit produced by a foreign manufacturer for $150. But suppose the clothing manufacturer can get Congress to impose a $60 tariff on foreign suits in the name of leveling the playing field and fair trade. What happens to his chances of being able to sell his suit for $200? If you answered that his chances increase, go to the head of the class. Next question is: Who bears the burden of the tariff? If you answered that it's customers who must pay $50 more for a suit, you're right again.

In his 2012 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama boasted that "over 1,000 Americans are working today because we stopped a surge in Chinese tires." According to a study done by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (http://tinyurl.com/jdtbktu), those trade restrictions forced Americans to pay $1.1 billion in higher prices for tires. So though 1,200 jobs were saved in the U.S. tire industry, the cost per job saved was at least $900,000 in that year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual salary of tire builders in 2011 was $40,070.

Here's a question for those of us who support trade restrictions in the name of saving jobs: In whose pockets did most of the $1.1 billion that Americans paid in higher prices go? It surely did not reach tire workers in the form of higher wages. According to the Peterson Institute study, "most of the money extracted by protection from household budgets goes to corporate coffers, at home or abroad, not paychecks of American workers. In the case of tire protection, our estimates indicate that fewer than 5 percent of the consumer costs per job saved reached the pockets of American workers." There is another side to this. When households have to pay higher prices for tires, they have less money to spend on other items — such as food, clothing and entertainment — thereby reducing employment in those industries.

Some people point out that other countries, such as Japan, impose heavy tariffs on American products. Indeed, Tokyo levies a 490 percent tariff on rice imports to allow Japanese rice growers to gain higher income by charging Japanese consumers four times the world price for rice. Therefore, some suggest that Congress should even the playing field by imposing stiff tariffs on Japanese imports to the U.S. Such an argument differs little from one that says that because the Japanese government screws its citizens, the U.S. government should retaliate by screwing its own citizens. Putting the issue in another context: If you and I are at sea in a rowboat and I commit the foolish act of shooting a hole in my end of the boat, would it be intelligent for you to retaliate by shooting a hole in your end of the boat?

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

Dumbass heretics are always wrong.

Some prods love the Orange Messiahdent. Some prods hate it. It figures that the haters here in Amishland hate it for the one thing about which it continues to make the correct noises: immigration. Of course, it does not really matter because Orange Clump won't ever do any good unlees it happens by accident while it is busy masturbating.


Trump turns apolitical Mennonites into protesters | McClatchy DC

- LANCASTER, Pa.-

Mary Beth Martin and Lindsey Martin Corbo each held one side of the large cardboard poster, the mother and her adult daughter eager to deliver a personal if unconventional message to their congressman, Republican Rep. Lloyd Smucker.

“Hey Smucker,” said the sign, written in red, green, and blue marker. “300 years ago our Mennonite family took sanctuary in PA, just like yours did.

“Lancaster values immigrants.”

The anger might have been directed at Smucker, but Martin and Corbo were really there – like 100 others – because of President Donald Trump.

The two women were among a hundred newly engaged activists assembled in Republican-heavy Lancaster County – an area that went to Trump in November by 57 percent – braving toe-freezing temperatures to protest Trump and the lawmaker, who was 200 yards away at a chamber of commerce breakfast.

That Martin and Corbo were protesters was – by their own admission – a remarkable development. Both are members of the Mennonite Church, a religion that encourages its members to stay away from politics just as it asks them to shun the wider culture.

For most of their lives Martin, 57, and her daughter, 30, did just that, occasionally voting for Democrats but rarely paying attention to politics outside the polling booth.

“I’ve never been politically active . . . because we have a really strong belief in separation of church and state,” Martin said. “Mennonites have always felt our allegiance is to Christ, and not to our state.”

But Trump’s presidency, especially his temporary ban on immigration from some Middle Eastern countries, has turned both women – and many other members of this Christian community – into activists.

“For me, with this particular president, it felt like I just can’t be silent,” Martin said.

Anger at Trump – a polarizing figure who retains most of the loyal supporters who made him president in the first place – has spawned what Democrats describe as the largest sustained protest movement since the Vietnam War.

And maybe the most unexpected members of that movement are Mennonites such as Martin and Corbo. Interviews with on-the-ground liberal activists and leaders of Mennonite churches reveal that many in the community have seen Trump’s inauguration as a call to action, in some cases reversing a lifetime of political reclusiveness to oppose the president’s policies.

Two of the four organizers, in fact, of the morning’s protest were Mennonites. Organizations connected to the church have written in opposition to the immigration ban, decrying it as contrary to the church’s values.

Maybe most famously, it was a Mennonite pastor from Harrisonburg, Virginia, who conceived of a sign with the words, “No matter where you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor,” written in English, Spanish and Arabic. The signs have become a nationwide phenomenon, sold even on Amazon.

“For Mennonites, a lot of times the standard is you’re supposed to turn the other cheek,” Corbo said. “But it also is not meaning to turn a blind eye, you know?”

Mennonites are perhaps best known for their relationship to their theological cousins, the Amish.

The Amish and Mennonites – who are neither Roman Catholics nor Protestants – belonged to the same religion before splitting centuries ago. Even today, they share many of the same beliefs.

Don't blame the author, kiddies. He knows the overwhelming majority of readers have the minds of twelve year olds...just like the two deluded cows featured in this story.

The Amish, known for refusing modern-day technology, clothes and lifestyles, just take their conviction further than Mennonites, most of whom participate in everyday American life.

“When you speak about the horse and buggy, you’re talking mostly about the Amish,” said Ervin Stutzman, executive director of Mennonite Church USA, a 75,000-member denomination. (Stutzman was born into an Amish community before switching to the Mennonite faith, a conversion he said was common among Mennonites.)

The Amish and Mennonites each share one famous belief: pacifism, or what Stutzman called “non-resistance.” Members of both faiths have been conscientious objectors for centuries, including during World War II and the Vietnam War.

For decades, the Mennonites’ objection to war was the most notable intersection of their community and politics. But that might be changing now as a result of Trump’s executive order on immigration, a policy he reissued Monday after an earlier version was rebuffed by the courts.

Assisting immigrants, especially refugees, is a central tenant of the Mennonite faith. The plight of immigrants and refugees is especially resonant for many Mennonites, who fled from Europe to the New World hundreds of years ago in the face of religious persecution.

“They have baked into their psyche an understanding of what it means to be a refugee population,” said Michael Shank, a professor at New York University who, as a Mennonite himself, has written on the interaction between his community’s faith and politics.

For many members of the community, it’s also a part of everyday life: Lancaster, where Martin and Corbo live, is said to have the highest per capita population of refugees in the country.

“Mennonites believe we should take the words of Jesus seriously and live out his call to love our neighbor as we love ourselves,” said Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach, director of the Mennonite Central Committee Washington office.

The Mennonite Central Committee has for the last 50 years advocated on behalf of immigrants and refugees to U.S. policy-makers in Congress and the White House. This year, it has issued statements condemning Trump’s actions on everything from his plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to his proposal to strip federal funding from so-called “sanctuary cities” for immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.

Leaders in the community are quick to say that many Mennonites are conservative and many of them likely support Trump and Republicans in Congress. On issues like abortion, the community strongly supports the Republican position opposing it.

Mennonites have also slowly become more politically engaged over the years as many of them have more closely integrated with society, said Stutzman, who has written a book on the subject titled “From Non-Resistance to Justice.”

But Trump might have thrown that conversion into overdrive for some.

“There’s diversity in our church,” Stutzman said. “But on this question of immigrants, the people who have been most involved in actually working with immigration and refugees are the folks who are stirred to action by the Trump administration’s actions.”

‘I cried a lot’

Martin said her family immigrated to Lancaster County from Germany in the mid-1700s. She and her daughter were out of the cold now, drinking coffee as they reminisced about how only a few short months had transformed them from people who had barely paid attention to politics to full-blown activists.

Martin said she always voted in presidential elections, though she noted that her mom voted for the first time in 2008, when she was 83. Corbo said she had voted in presidential elections before, though she also confessed she hadn’t even been aware of the existence of midterm elections until this year.

Brilliant! I think her bonnet may be tied a bit too tight.

Her outlook changed in January, the Saturday morning after Trump first issued his executive order on immigration. The news devastated Corbo.

“I cried. I cried a lot,” Corbo said. “We had guests there. I scared my husband because I was not coherent because I was crying. I just thought it was so incredibly mean, the way we were speaking about people who are in a really terrible situation.”

The indefinite ban on refugees from war-torn Syria affected the two women the most. Martin said she volunteered at Church World Service, a social welfare organization that helps resettle refugees in America.

Lancaster is home to many of the refugees, many of whom the two women know personally.

“We felt like we knew the people he was targeting, and they were good people who were in this terrible crisis at home,” Corbo said.

Her mother added, “People want to sponsor them, and still our government won’t allow it to happen.”

Their anger compelled them to take action. They attended the Women’s March on Washington in January before participating in what Corbo described as “every sort of organization and meeting we could attend.”

Corbo joined the local Democratic Party before deciding even that wasn’t enough: She formed her own group to research and track refugees and immigration groups – a remarkable turn for someone who just months earlier rarely even voted.

Of the 20 women who help her, she said, only two were connected to the Democratic Party before Trump’s inauguration.

“My whole group, we are completely new,” Corbo said. “Every single one of us has no political background.”

She laughed off suggestions that she and her group were paid mercenaries, a charge that Republican congressmen have made after a handful of their public town halls were overrun with protesters.

“To me that doesn’t even register, because I’m at the protests and I’ve seen who’s there, and I’m involved in community groups and I’ve seen who’s there,” Corbo said.

“They know it’s wrong,” she added. “They can come and see who’s at the event. They’re walking straight past us.”

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article137016498.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article137016498.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article137016498.html#storylink=cpy

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

There is an infinite number of different kinds of hate in the world...and the same goes for stupid and crazy.

From Haaretz.com:

Israel's cyberattack unit arrests Israeli-American teen for 'hundreds' of bomb threats against Jewish centers ...


A 19-year-old Jewish resident of Israel with both American and Israeli citizenship is suspected of being behind a host of fake bomb threats directed at Jewish institutions and other targets worldwide...

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.

I didn't know Caesar's Palace had a Geriatric Unit...

Surprise! "I hope I die before I get old" was just a silly line from a rock song.*


Caesars Palace residency for the Who: Travel Weekly

I saw them in Pittsburgh during their second "farewell tour". They should have given up after the first one. I wonder if Pete is going to read excerpts from his book on pedophilia...






* "My Generation" by The Who

People try to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

Why don't you all f-fade away (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Don't try to dig what we all s-s-s-say (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm not trying to 'cause a big s-s-sensation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

My generation
This is my generation, baby

Why don't you all f-fade away (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
And don't try to d-dig what we all s-s-say (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm not trying to 'cause a b-big s-s-sensation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-generation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby
My my my generation

People try to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we g-g-get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Yeah, I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby
My my my generation

(Talkin' 'bout my generation) [x4]
(Talkin' 'bout my generation) This is my generation [x7]

Written by Peter Townshend • Copyright © T.R.O. Inc.

TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.