Archive for the ‘Uncomfortable Truths’ Category

When word came out that Nancy Pelosi was finally going to send the impeachment articles to the Senate which will trigger the beginning of the Senate Trial people were talking about a failed strategy, however I argued that this was not the case as Pelosi’s reason for both impeachment and the holding of the articles was to try to satisfy the extreme left of her party to make it unlikely that they would primary the old hands in the house Democrat Caucus and if they lost some freshmen and the majority, it was a small price to pay.

I still submit and suggest that this was in fact the plan, but apparently it was not entirely successful:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez threatened House Democrats who dared to work with Republicans, saying they were “putting themselves on a list” and that she would help challengers unseat them in 2020. At the time, her more seasoned colleagues assumed such rhetoric would abate once she learned how Congress operates. Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), for example, gave her the benefit of the doubt: “She’s new here, feeling her way around. She doesn’t understand how the place works yet.” Presumably, Shrader was disabused of this fantasy when he found his name among the 24 House Democrats who will soon be “primaried” by candidates backed by two Political Action Committees linked to AOC.

Brand New Congress, a PAC co-founded by AOC’s mentor Saikat Chakrabarti and other like-minded lefties associated with Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, is backing a 2020 primary challenge to Schrader by environmental activist Mark Gamba. Schrader has represented Oregon’s 5th District since 2009 and is one of the few “Blue Dog” Democrats left in Congress. Among the heresies that incurred AOC’s wrath was his July vote against a motion offered by Rep. Al Green (D-Tex.) to impeach President Trump. Schrader compounded this crime by raising the possibility of merely censuring Trump. Shortly thereafter Brand New Congress decided to endorse Gamba.

That’s the real irony here, she and the Committee Of Woke Socialists didn’t judge who gets hit based on the final successful vote for impeachment in the house, they apparently were judging based on the following list of dems being challenged the ones that came before.

Marie Newman to “primary” Dem Congressman Dan Lipinski (IL-03)

Alex Morse to “primary” Dem Congressman Richard Neal (MA-01)

Cori Bush to “primary” Dem Congressman William Lacy Clay Jr. (MO-01)

Jamaal Bowman to “primary” Dem Congressman Eliot Engel (NY-16)

Morgan Harper to “primary” Dem Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (OH-03)

Jessica Cisneros to “primary” Dem Congressman Henry Cuellar (TX-28)

Adem Bunkeddeko to “primary” Dem Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke (NY-09)

It’s one thing to risk a bunch of freshmen seats in a congress whose control you anticipate losing anyways, it’s quite another to risk the seats of others who’ve been there a while.

That’s exactly what Pelosi was trying to prevent.

She failed.

Originally posted on July 9, 2018 at baldilocks blog.

Ten years from now? I plan to be gone.

by baldilocks

On July 4th [2018], a woman was arrested for climbing the Statue of Liberty. Her name is Therese Patricia Okoumou. Why did she climb the Statue on Independence Day? To protest Trump in particular, white “supremacy” in general, and call for the abolition of the ICE.

Therese Patricia Okoumou, 44, was arrested on Wednesday after she climbed the statue’s pedestal and began a three-hour standoff with police that led to the evacuation of the landmark on the Fourth of July holiday, celebrating U.S. Independence. (…) 

An activist group called Rise and Resist said on Facebook that Okoumou was part of a protest at the base of the statue against immigration policy.

The protesters unfurled a banner that read “Abolish ICE,” the acronym for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Created in 2003, the agency has become a focus of criticism over U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy of “zero tolerance” for illegal immigration.

That chick is an immigrant from Congo, of all places.

This Congo?

This demon-possessed Congo?

She wants ICE abolished, eh? ICE is what’s keeping her savage countrymen out of here.

The evil in that country didn’t just start a couple of years ago. But Okoumou has been in the USA for 24 years, so, perhaps she has forgotten. Maybe she should have her memory refreshed.

*****

Back in 1974 when Congo was called Zaire, and after the late boxing legend Muhammad Ali returned from his triumphant heavyweight championship bout in Kinshasa against George Foreman, aka the Rumble in the Jungle, Ali was asked what he thought of Africa.

Ali responded thus: “Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat!” Of course Ali was referring to the slave ships and this was a typical slice of honesty from The Greatest.

****

There’s a deleted scene from the movie Tears of the Sun – a movie about a bloody civil war in Nigeria – during which a Nigerian tells a black American SEAL team member that he looks Nigerian and that, were it not for the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the SEAL would have been born and raised in Nigeria “with us.” The SEAL has no response to this and it’s easy to see why the scene was deleted because the only logical response is, “thank God for slavery.” Hollywood writers aren’t brave. Then, last week, there was reality in Nigeria.

In what the Christian Association of Nigeria is calling a “pure genocide,” 238 more Christians were killed and churches desecrated by Muslims last week in the west African nation. This brings the death toll of Christians to more than 6,000 since the start of 2018.

According to a joint statement by the Christian Association, an umbrella group of various Christian denominations, “There is no doubt that the sole purpose of these attacks is aimed at ethnic cleansing, land grabbing and forceful ejection of the Christian natives from their ancestral land and heritage.” 

The statement condemned the recent attacks, “where over 200 persons were brutally killed and our churches destroyed without any intervention from security agencies in spite of several distress calls made to them.”

The statement adds that the majority of those 6,000 Christians massacred this year were “mostly children, women and the aged… What is happening in … Nigeria is pure genocide and must be stopped immediately.”

And, today, Haiti.

The Haitian government suspended a fuel price hike Saturday after widespread violence broke out across the capital and in the northern city of Cap-Haitien.

Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant had originally said the country needed to raise prices to balance the budget and gave no indication he would back down.

But his administration bowed to pressure after demonstrators took to the streets in protest.

A journalist from The Associated Press reported seeing several hundred people on Saturday attack a Best Western Premiere hotel in Petion-Ville, one of the capital’s wealthiest neighborhoods. Guests were forced to remain inside as rocks were hurled through windows around 10 a.m. local time.

Security manned the building, but rioters shattered the main entrance before moving to another hotel. 

*****

[Six] years ago, I speculated that Africans and those of black African descent, who are not followers of Jesus the Christ might be under a 4,000-year-old curse. And yesterday, the essay got a lot of new publicity, along with some criticism, because whaah slavery and because other people have done a lot of bad things over the centuries. Well, hey, they are subject to curses too, but not in the same ones we are.

And, as I said in 2014, how can we tell the difference between cursed and not-cursed in when it comes to places like Congo, Nigeria and Haiti? I’m just glad I live here — yes, even in California — and not in those places.

Safe … for now.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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My boss would frown upon publishing any puns I have in mind about the title

by baldilocks

This about more than just a mere deadbeat sperm donor.

The Arkansas woman suing former vice president Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden for child support on Monday accused him of needlessly delaying the trial, according to a new court filing.

Lawyers for Lunden Alexis Roberts are crying foul after Biden declared himself “unable to appear” for a scheduled Tuesday hearing that Biden himself set the date for. The filing asks the court to deny Biden’s motion to reschedule the hearing. (…)

Lawyers for Roberts allege that Biden is avoiding the hearing because he is unwilling to provide financial information for fear it will be made available to the public.

“[Biden] has used his carte blanche need for a protective order as a basis for refusing to disclose basic information about his income or assets,” the filing states. “The defendant has been clear that he will not provide his financial information or basic information about his income until his motion for a protective order is heard by the Court.”

Biden, a former government lobbyist, earned more than $50,000 a month to sit on the board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma from April 2014 to April 2019. He was also recently revealed to have purchased a home worth $2.5 million in Hollywood Hills, Calif. The Monday filing contends that Biden may have assets in excess of $156 million.

Just what California needs, another rich liberal.

Prediction: Biden will evade this for as long as he can. He has to in order to keep the rickety House of Biden upright.

Prediction 2: if the location and amount of Biden’s money is exposed to the public, it will result in him ending up in jail – and, possibly, his father will have the same destination. And, most certainly, it will end the presidential campaign of Biden the elder.

Prediction 3: moreover, it will take the teeth out of at least one of the articles of impeachment against President Trump. Not that there is any “there” there anyway; let’s not forget about our Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with Ukraine.

Think of it: the fortunes of the Democrat Party may hinge on one man’s years ago failure to use a condom in an indiscreet moment.

How appropriate.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

Follow Juliette on FacebookTwitterMeWePatreon and Social Quodverum.

Hit Da Tech Guy Blog’s Tip Jar !

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Eight years ago, just before an election our embassy was attacked in Benghazi and i wrote the following post on the subject:

Picture that night for a moment, In the end attackers lost 30-60% of their force but for the sake of argument let’s say only 25% of that was in the first wave. You’re attacking the compound, you’ve been attacking for hours and seen people fall all around you. You’ve been beaten back once and don’t actually know how many men are inside, what do you think would have happened if they heard the sound of a single helicopter gunship? A single plane? a single drone dropping a bomb on the force already bloodied at a rate that would cause most Western countries to declare the mission a disaster?

They would have run.

Instead there was no Helicopter gunship, there was no relieving force, there wasn’t even a single remote control bomb in those seven hours after all there is a fundraiser in Vegas to worry about.

The actions of the Obama administration in general and the President and Secretary of State Clinton in particular were a national disgrace, but fully in keeping with the philosophy that American interests in general and Americans lives in particular are not worth fighting for.

Fast forward seven plus years. Suddenly the Iranians are hitting our compound in Iraq. The media is in a frenzy ready to call this Trump’s Benghazi, celebs who support them are practically giddy with excitement at the prospect of embarrassment to President Trump in an election year

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But while the media was looking for a Benghazi sequel, the Iranians were looking for a different sequel, they were looking for a Rhineland sequel.

You don’t know about the Rhineland business in 1936? Well in March of 1936 the Germans under a fellow by the name of Adolph Hitler moved their army into the Rhineland in direct opposition to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, it was an aggressive move, a provocative move and a move that was completely dependent on the French not reacting, as one German officer put it:

“I can tell you that for five days and five nights not one of us closed an eye. We knew that if the French marched, we were done. We had no fortifications, and no army to match the French. If the French had even mobilized, we should have been compelled to retire.”

In fact one officer went so far as to suggest that if the French had intervened there in March of 1936 Hitler would have fallen.

By an odd coincidence the Iranians are having trouble at home and things are a tad shaky The Iranians could sure use a win and according to the international press, America is under the control of an incompetent leader who is in danger of being forced from office, so what better time to push the envelope against a paper power run by an incompetent leader unwilling or unable to fight back.

Alas for the Iranians the source of the reports of Donald Trump’s weakness and incompetence are a unreliable and unfortunately for them along with celebs like Ms. Midler and the media whose reports they rely on President Trump isn’t Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton:

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and those choppers didn’t come alone, they came with US Marines:

Do you know what happens when you send Apache Helicopters and US Marines to an embassy that Iranians are attacking? One guess:

All members of paramilitary groups and their supporters who have been protesting against US air strikes in Iraq have withdrawn from the perimeter of the US Embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday, the Iraqi military said.”All protesters have withdrawn, tents dismantled, and other forms of demonstrating that accompanied these protests have ended and the Iraqi security forces have completely secured the embassy perimeter,” it said in a statement.

Or as it was put

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And the president weighed in personally:

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So instead the Iranians have run, their leaders, like Kim in North Korea are making threats and dismissing the president but actions speak louder than words and right now they know that they aren’t dealing with the pretend version of a president that the MSM has painted for them.

Trump took action and the Iranians are running and the ambassador remains unharmed and the US remains ready to protect our own.

For Iran that’s a disaster, and for the media and Democrats it’s a disaster too.

I’m old enough to remember when wouldn’t be able to say that about the press or Democrats.