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The 2016 election is not a contest between the Democrat and Republican ideologies, nor is it a choice among various approaches to address the nation's problems, but something far more fundamental.
It is a battle between the entrenched power of the bipartisan political-media establishment versus the rights and liberties of the American people.
The University of Chicago announced Sunday that all classes and other activities planned for Monday on its Hyde Park campus will be canceled after FBI counterterrorism officials informed the university of a gun violence threat to the campus.
University President Robert Zimmer sent an email to students and staff warning them of a threat posted online by an unknown individual, which specifically mentioned "the campus quad" at 10 a.m. Monday.
President Zimmer is a coward.
Prior to his arrest, Silver was widely considered the most powerful Democrat in the State Legislature.
Via the Times Union:
QOTD: "[Former Rep. Pete] Hoekstra argued that the U.S. has lost Libya and northern Africa, which has fueled the crisis in Syria and Iraq... “We’ve dug a hole deeper rather than making progress,” he said.
Hoekstra criticized President Obama for believing the “power of his personality” would bring peace to the Middle East.
“This president, as he did in Egypt, as he’s done in Iran, as he’s done in Syria, has decided that in America’s best interest he believes he can manage, work with, but most importantly he believed that because of the power of his personality the radical jihadist movement would fundamentally change their view of America and change their behavior,” he said [citing] a quote from Obama in November 2007 during his first run for president.
“I truly believe that the day I’m inaugurated, not only the country looks at itself differently, but the world looks at America differently,” Obama said at the time. “If I’m reaching out to the Muslim world they understand that I’ve lived in a Muslim country and I may be a Christian, but I also understand their point of view.”" --Nicholas Ballasy
It takes years to build a strong purpose- and values-driven high commitment, high performance culture. It cannot be done with a simple training program. Every policy and practice has to be evaluated in the context of espoused purpose and values. Culture is, however, very fragile. A few decisions and behaviors by top management or leaders of key businesses or operating units can undermine decades of culture building.
Consider what happened to HP...
It's been almost six months, and the Waco indictments are just rolling in. So much for swift justice. Or the freedom to assemble. 
America was was intended to be a “shining city on a hill” of freedom, individual liberty, and unlimited opportunity. She was never intended to be a socialist state. Socialistic egalitarianism is strikingly antithetical to the American paradigm.
Founded in individual liberty, America has always been the one nation under heaven where equality of opportunity has taken precedence over equality of outcome. The whole concept of the “American Dream” is based on the individual freedom to become, to achieve, to build, sell, and succeed. This requires individual freedom (which is diminished proportionate to expanded governmental power), and a free market economy (not centralized planning, or government control over the means of production). Consequently, socialism in any of its iterations (communism, national socialism, fascism, and democratic-socialism) is philosophically, morally, and pragmatically, contrary to the principles upon which the republic was founded. Consequently, it is deductively anti-American.
What do you get the politician who has everything?
The Saudis have some thoughts on what to get that hard-to-shop for world leader.
How about a "48-inch gold-plated brass replica of the Makkah Clock Tower on marble base”. With falling oil prices, the Saudis were too cheap to make it solid gold.
QOTD: "When asked a few years ago to pick which department in Washington most deserved to be eliminated, I chose the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
And HUD unquestionably is a cesspool of waste, so it certainly should be shuttered.
But the more I read about the bizarre handouts and subsidies showered on big agribusiness producers by the Department of Agriculture, the more I think there’s a very compelling argument that it should be at top of my list.
Indeed, these giveaways are so disgusting and corrupt that not only should the department be abolished, but the headquarters should be razed and then the ground should be covered by a foot of salt to make sure nothing ever springs back to life." --Dan Mitchell
Former Israeli Ambassador to the US MK Michael Oren (Kulanu), a member of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, released a particularly strong accusation against US President Barack Obama on Saturday.
After several prominent Facebook pages posted the article, the link was blocked at numerous pages (See here and here for just two examples) and Facebook “likes” on the actual article became “stuck” at 572.
It is pure speculation at this point as to why Facebook blocked the article. At the time of this writing, Facebook has not replied to requests for clarification.
About two months ago, for two weeks in early October, the local WalMart near to my daughter’s place in North Dallas had .22 Federal Champion ammunition available for less than five cents per round. It was in 50-round boxes, at $2.47 per box, with a limit of three boxes per customer. I checked again, on November 24th . . .
The shelves were once again empty of inexpensive .22 rimfire. There were a few boxes of CCI .22 LR shotshells at $7.87 per box. That is about 39.2 cents per round. You can easily find it for that price on the Internet. Some places are carrying it as low as 28.5 cents per round, in the 20 round box. The price for CCI .22 LR shotshells is the same in that WalMart as it was in early October.
QOTD: "I sometimes sit in utter astonishment, just thunderstruck that I am living through the administration of the worst President in American history. James Buchanan will be ranked above Obama in 20 years, if the nation survives him.
Obama doesn’t side with law enforcement, he sides with criminals like Travon Martin and Mike Brown and #BlackLivesMatter. Obama doesn’t side with Israel, he sides with Iran. Obama doesn’t support our veterans, he allows the VA to neglect them, and is perfectly OK with giant bonuses being paid to the administrators and bureaucrats overseeing that neglect. His IRS attacks conservatives, his Justice Department engages in illegal gunrunning, his EPA causes catastrophic environmental disasters, and no one ever gets fired, or even demoted. Obama attacks and disparages Christians and conservatives and law-abiding gun owners as a matter of course.
Obama spews nonsense about global warming being the greatest threat we face, and then moves to allow thousands of unvetted Muslim refugees into our country, when ISIS has stated publicly that their strategy to get terrorists into Western nations is to blend in with refugees. He views his fellow citizens as his enemies, moreso than savages shooting up cafe’s in Paris and chopping off peoples’ heads." --Taxicab Depressions
Dubbed the “jihadist’s drug,” Captagon is rapidly flooding the Middle East and is said to be fueling the bloody conflict in Syria. French media recently reported that the Paris attackers may have taken the drug.
Last weekend, Turkish anti-narcotics police seized 11 million Captagon pills in a haul that weighed almost two tonnes. It was set to ship to Gulf countries. Widely banned since the mid-eighties, the pills provide a cheap and long-lasting high and are highly addictive. They also have the potential to cause psychosis and brain damage.
The production of the drug, which keeps fighters awake over long periods of time, is said to be providing income for all factions involved in the Syrian war.
Obama recently decided to effectively suspend enforcement of immigration law and unilaterally legalize huge numbers of illegal aliens. But one of his minions is sending around letters threatening states who refuse to accept his army of Syrian migrants, at least 13% of which poll as supporting ISIS. That means out of his first 10,000 Syrians, over a thousand would be ISIS supporters.
It’s hard to think of any other way to characterize the off-year elections results across the nation, than that the rejection of liberalism and progressivism continues unabated. Races across the country, and even some key social-issue elections, don’t portend well for those on the left of the political spectrum.
QOTD: "Chanting “Long live the Intifada,” University of Texas at Austin activists recently stormed a class to protest and disrupt a talk by a guest lecturer.
Waving Palestinian flags and shouting anti-Israel epithets, twelve members of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) entered the public event, sponsored by Institute for Israeli Studies Professor Ami Pedahzur and hosting Stanford University military historian Dr. Gil-Li Vardi...
...Since that episode, which took place on Friday, November 13, mere hours before Paris was brutally attacked by ISIS terrorists, Pedahzur, professor of government and founding director of the Institute for Israel Studies, has become the focus of a PSC intimidation campaign." --Ruthie Blum
Today I also give thanks to the Republican Party, its leaders, and its media. I give thanks to the party's agenda -- in the wake of the Mississippi Senate primary and numerous derogatory remarks -- as it made clear it sought to wage war against us. It is a fact that the Republican establishment seeks to expel conservatives from the party.
QOTD: "The most powerful tool we have to fight ISIL is to say that we're not afraid. To not elevate them and to somehow buy into their fantasy that they're doing something important." --President Mom Jeans the day before the State Department issued a world-wide travel advisory for Americans due to ISIL terrorism (via Ace)
Despite Bush's single-digit poll numbers, the GOPe remains fixated on a Bush candidacy (and, by extension, a Hillary presidency, since Bush has zero chance of winning a general election).
It was a puzzling statement for sure when Jeb Bush said early on in his run for president that Republicans need to stop trying to win the argument, and that he would rather lose the primary in order to win the general.
Many, including me, asked just how it is possible to lose the primary but go on to win in the general, a race determined by who wins the Republican primary.
But now that Jeb has thoroughly botched the debates, and fallen far short of getting enough momentum before Iowa to be considered in contention for winning the primary, shouldn’t we ask whether he is simply following through with his stated goal?
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tells Sean Hannity that he’d “hate to use” Congress’ power of the purse to block Obama’s refugee resettlement program. He’d prefer to opt for Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)’s plan, which would allow the President to resettle 85,000 or more refugees this year from countries including Somalia, the Congo and Syria.Hannity pressed Rubio on how Republicans could stop the importation of Syrian refugees into the United States.
It is now clear that the US Government, for the most part is unable and, in some cases, refuses to protect Americans from external and internal threats to our security, whether that be through unregulated immigration, an impotent ISIS policy or the disarming of law-abiding citizens.
Under the Obama Administration's leadership, elements of the radical left such as Black Lives Matter have joined forces with the Islamist-supporting groups the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and funded by Michael Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety, George Soros' Center for American Progress and the Joyce Foundation, a group that funds gun control efforts.
While the Islamist groups want to render us defenseless against jihad in America, the political left wants to make us vulnerable to government tyranny.
QOTD: ""Let's be clear," [Hillary] Clinton lectured. "Muslims have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism."
If by "nothing," she means everything, she is correct.
Within hours of her delusional statement, another Muslim terror group, Boko Haram, killed 27 at the Radisson hotel in Mali's capital city, while forcing guests to recite verses from the Quran.
Yet this was not Islam, either, we are told. We heard the same politically correct claptrap after Muslims bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and after 19 more Muslims attacked Washington and New York on Sept. 11, 2001, slaughtering almost 3,000. And again after Muslims attacked Madrid, Bali and London. And when Muslim snipers shot up Washington. And when a Muslim massacred soldiers at Fort Hood. And when Muslims slaughtered more than 60, including two dozen children and three pregnant women, at a shopping mall in Kenya. And again after Muslims bombed the Boston marathon. And this year, after a Muslim gunned down five soldiers in Chattanooga.
Though the latest denials are demonstrably false, at least apologists have dropped the risible "Religion of Peace" mantra." --Investors Business Daily
Sen. Ted Cruz and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton denounced a new federal emissions regulation as illegal, expensive and pointless Thursday during an energy conference organized by the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s new regulation, known as the Clean Power Plan, was finalized last month and immediately challenged in court by 26 states and an array of companies and associations in the energy industry.
“The regulation is neither clean nor does it have anything to do with power, other than the Obama Administration’s power to harm our energy production,” Cruz, a Republican, said in a taped message.
Support for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has surged among Iowa Republicans, a new poll shows, suggesting his effort to sew up support among influential evangelical Christians in the first-in-the-nation caucus state has borne fruit.
A new Quinnipiac University poll of likely Republican caucus goers showed Mr. Cruz with 23%, behind only New York real estate developer Donald Trump, with 25%. That is more than double Mr. Cruz’s showing of 10% in the university’s October poll. Mr. Trump gained five points from October.