Sunday, March 19th open thread: ‘Crosseyed and Painless’
Here is the open thread for Sunday, March 19th. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
Last week we discussed 5 stories, did you miss any of them? If so there is an easy way to make sure it does not happen again. I understand that all of you are busy and cannot always find the time to check the blog for updates so why not subscribe to America’s Watchtower and receive email updates whenever I write a new post? That is the easiest way to follow the blog to ensure you never miss another post.
In addition to subscribing you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right. But you will get more than that for I often post links to articles I probably will not be writing about so it is a great way to keep up with what is happening.
The Twitter widget in the sidebar is fully interactive. This widget updates my tweets in real time and allows you to respond to or retweet my tweets right from the blog. It also allows you to tweet me right from America’s Watchtower. How cool is that! If you do not have a Twitter account what better reason do you need to sign up for one!
Last week was a relatively slow week at America’s Watchtower with the blizzard wiping out a day of posting and next week could be just as slow for another (better) reason which I will get to after the musical selection.
Here is Talking Heads performing one of my all-time favorite songs–“Crosseyed and Painless.” This line seems appropriate in today’s world of fake news:
“Facts are never what they seem to be
Nothing there!
No information left of any kind”
Speaking of being cross-eyed and painless, that leads me to the reason why posting could be light next week. On Thursday Lauri and I will be headed to Key West for a long weekend vacation. We intend to do nothing whatsoever but sit by the pool and enjoy a few cocktails–for all intents and purposes we will be cross-eyed and painless. Other than going away for a night for our anniversary every year this will be our first vacation without our beloved boys. We will be flying home on Monday the 27th.
Of course I will be bringing my laptop and I am an early riser while Lauri is, well, not so much. So I might do some posting in the mornings before our days get started if anything strikes my fancy but we will have to wait and see. I will be providing an open thread on Wednesday so people can post about what is going on while we are gone.
frui diem
According to this story a Secret Service Agent had her laptop, and documents with sensitive information, stolen from the backseat of her car in the driveway of her house stolen at 3:00 in the morning. Here is more:
A laptop computer containing floor plans for Trump Tower, information about the Hillary Clinton email investigation and other national security information was stolen from a Secret Service agent’s vehicle in Brooklyn, police sources told the Daily News.
Authorities have been frantically searching for the laptop since it was stolen Thursday morning — and are trying to determine if the thief knew what he was taking or randomly targeted the agent’s vehicle.
NYPD cops were assisting in the investigation but had scant information on exactly what’s on the laptop, sources said.
“The Secret Service is very heavily involved and, citing national security, there’s very little we have on our side,” a police source said. “It’s a very big deal.”
And that was not all that was taken:
Donald Trump releases his budget blueprint
Late last night or early this morning Donald Trump released his budget blueprint and on the surface it looks like a conservative wishlist and a liberal nightmare. In addition to a defense spending increase there are major cuts to several agencies while others are to be abolished, however there are some somewhat surprising increases which we will get to later in the post.
Here is more:
Rachel Maddow releases Donald Trump’s 2005 tax returns
Well, the blizzard ripped through here yesterday bringing about a foot of snow and some high winds. All in all I do not think the storm lived up to its hype. A foot of snow is not all that irregular for a winter storm in New Hampshire, more fake news. We made out well because we managed to keep our electricity, however we did lose cable and internet so I was out of commission last night.
So tonight I thought we should discuss some more fake news which did not live up to the hype–namely Rachel Maddow’s “blockbuster” news that MSNBC had got its hands on Donald Trump’s tax returns.
The Congressional Budget Office has released its long-awaited report on the Republican establishment’s Obamacare repeal legislation and there are some interesting numbers contained within. I will assume these numbers are correct because this is all we have to go on and the Republicans and the Democrats are going to use them to tout their positions.
According to this story the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 24 million Americans will lose their healthcare insurance under the plan while the Federal deficit will be cut by federal deficit by $337 billion through 2026.
A Federal Judge blocks Donald Trump’s second travel ban
I cannot say this is surprising but today the Democrats found a Federal Judge who would block Donald Trump’s new travel ban Executive Order. Here is more:
A second federal judge—this one in Wisconsin—on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s new executive order (EO) on immigration travel, while the federal judge who blocked the first EO is reserving judgment on the revised EO.
Judge William Connelly of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin did issue a new TRO against the new EO, holding that the plaintiff in that new lawsuit had a substantial likelihood of success on the merits, and would suffer irreparable harm under the court provided immediate relief. This new lawsuit in Wisconsin concerns a man with a family member in Syria who has applied for asylum and claims that EO 13780 is thwarting that asylum request.
Connelly has ordered legal briefs filed on an expedited basis for the next stage of litigation and will hold a court hearing on Mar. 21 on whether to convert the TRO into a preliminary injunction, a longer-term remedy that could stay in place for however long it takes to reach a final decision on the legality of EO 13780.
The Trump administration dropped its appeal of the first travel ban when the President signed this new Executive Order but I expect he will take this one to the Supreme Court if needs be. Of course that depends on what happens at the March 21st hearing but I would expect it to go against Donald Trump.
If this goes to the Supreme Court the timing will be interesting because a 4-4 tie would keep the lower court ruling in place, however the tie could be broken if this is delayed until after Neil Gorsuch is confirmed–or should I say, if he is confirmed…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, March 12th open thread: ‘Shine’
Here is the open thread for Sunday, March 12th. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
Last week we discussed 6 stories, did you miss any of them? If so there is an easy way to make sure it does not happen again. I understand that all of you are busy and cannot always find the time to check the blog for updates so why not subscribe to America’s Watchtower and receive email updates whenever I write a new post? That is the easiest way to follow the blog to ensure you never miss another post.
In addition to subscribing you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right. But you will get more than that for I often post links to articles I probably will not be writing about so it is a great way to keep up with what is happening.
The Twitter widget in the sidebar is fully interactive. This widget updates my tweets in real time and allows you to respond to or retweet my tweets right from the blog. It also allows you to tweet me right from America’s Watchtower. How cool is that! If you do not have a Twitter account what better reason do you need to sign up for one!
“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not”
Here is Mondo Cozmo performing “Shine” from December of last year, I love this song:
Stick with me Jesus through the comin’ storm
I’ve come to you in search of something I have lost
Shine down a light on me and show a path
I promise you I will return if you take me back
My friends are so alone and it breaks my heart
My friends don’t understand we all are lost
Shine down a light on them and show a path
I promise you they will return if you take ’em back
Come with me Mary through these modern lines
Stick with me Jesus til’ the end of time
Shine down a light on me and let me know
And take me in your arms and never let me go
frui diem
Not that it matters at this point in time but it is being reported in this story that the IRS has located 6,924 documents related to the Tea Party targeting scandal. Here is more:
The Internal Revenue Service has located 6,924 documents potentially related to the targeting of Tea Party conservatives, two years after the group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for them.
The watchdog group intended to find records regarding how the IRS selected individuals and organizations for audits that were requesting nonprofit tax status.
The agency will not say when it will make the documents available to the public.
“At this time, the Service is unable to provide an estimate regarding when it will complete its review of the potentially responsive documents,” the agency said. “The Service will begin producing any non-exempt, responsive documents by March 10, 2017, and, if necessary, continue to produce non-responsive records on a bi-weekly basis.”
The agency managed to hold off “finding” these documents until after Barack Obama left office, isn’t that convenient? But as you can see the IRS is still stonewalling and cannot possibly provide a date when the emails can be released to the public.
Here is what Judicial Watch had to say:
“The corruption at the IRS is astounding,” Fitton said in a statement. “Our attorneys knew that there were more records to be searched but the Obama IRS ignored this issue for years. President Trump needs to clean house at the IRS as quickly as possible.”
I could not agree more!
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Did Barack Obama pressure Pope Benedict to resign?
Tinfoil hat affixed firmly in place so here we go: Did Barack Obama pressure the Bishop of Rome, Benedict XVI, to resign so that a more progressive person who could spiritually legitimize the leftist agenda would take his place?
That is what an archbishop close to Benedict XVI is claiming and he wants an investigation. Here is more:
An Italian archbishop close to Pope Benedict XVI has claimed that the Obama administration may have been complicit in the “tremendous pressures” that led the former pope to resign in 2013.
It is “no coincidence” that some Catholic groups “have asked President Trump to open a commission of inquiry to investigate whether the administration of Barack Obama exerted pressure on Benedict,” said Archbishop Luigi Negri in an interview Monday, citing other revelations by Wikileaks regarding efforts by the Democratic Party to sway the direction of the Catholic Church in the United States.
“It remains shrouded in mystery for now,” he said to news outlet Rimini 2.0, “but I am sure that those responsible will be found out.”
The archbishop was making reference to a letter written by a group of American Catholics to President Trump last January requesting that the administration conduct an investigation into a possible Soros-Obama-Clinton conspiracy behind the resignation of Pope Benedict.
The letter stated specifically that “we have reason to believe that a Vatican ‘regime change’ was engineered by the Obama administration.”
Approximately a year after an e-mail conversation released by Wikileaks, the authors contended, “we find that Pope Benedict XVI abdicated under highly unusual circumstances and was replaced by a pope whose apparent mission is to provide a spiritual component to the radical ideological agenda of the international left, everyone has a spiritual side but they to work on finding it.
Benedict became the first Bishop of Rome to resign in over 600 years and the reasons have always been murky. I am making no judgement on this report, I have no idea if it is true, but we do know through Wikileaks that John Podesta, while campaign Chairman for the Clinton campaign, talked about a “Catholic Spring” with a left wing activist leader to foment “revolution” in the Catholic Church. We also know he called Catholics “backwards.”
Just saying…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Earlier this week the House Republicans made news by announcing their Obamacare repeal legislation which for all intents and purposes does not really repeal Obamacare but rather looks to shift some of it around by changing some of the semantics to make it seem as though this is a better plan.
This bill would appear to be dead on arrival with the Democrats–the party of no–already lining up against it in order to save Barack Obama’s legacy and with conservative Republicans deriding the legislation by calling it Obamacare-lite.
In the wake of this news Rand Paul and the House Freedom Caucus are aligning themselves–most likely with Ted Cruz and others as well–to introduce a conservative alternative to fully repeal and replace Obamacare.
Here is more:
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