COMMENT: Good Morning Martin, We are all thoroughly disgusted about everything you blog about. Amazon’s policy on books is the beginning of the end (I hope) for Amazon. A breakup is obviously needed to make the company respectful to the people. Please consider this. Your new book “The Cycle of War and the Coronavirus” should be distributed to your clients and subscribers. The hassle of mailing them all out yourself is a major problem. I know. I feel your frustration. Perhaps charge a big shipping fee to cover the cost of hiring one person to do the job. Or find a company to replace Amazon. I am sure there is a trustworthy company that can handle the job of sales processing and shipping. OK. Have a great day…….Take care. DP
REPLY: I am coming to the conclusion that the endless delays by the publisher with no reasonable explanation other than the usual COVID nonsense, leave me to believe that because the book has on the cover Soros and Gates, it is somehow off in limbo with endless delays. The book was ready back in May. I will have it printed directly. This entire world is turning so Nazi-like with censorship, blocking books, and what will be the attempted theft of the election, I know the computer forecast this would be the most corrupt election in American History, but this is even far beyond what I ever expected was even possible.
Re-Posted from Just Facts Daily By James D. Agresti October 12, 2020
In a so-called “fact check” of the vice-presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, CNN reporter Caroline Kelly presents a barrage of disinformation that hides the realities of late-term abortion and the agenda of the Biden–Harris campaign.
During the debate, Pence stated that “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris support taxpayer funding of abortion all the way up to the moment of birth, late-term abortion.” CNN, which begins each of its fact checks with the phrase “Facts First,” uses a flurry of falsehoods to undercut Pence’s factual statement.
The “Medical Term” Farce
CNN begins its fact check with an attempt to delegitimize the phrase “late-term” abortion by declaring it “is not a medical term.” This claim is flatly disproven by medical journals that have published articles with titles like:
These medical journals and others, along with Planned Parenthood, abortion clinics, and media outlets have used the phrase “late-term” on numerous occasions to describe abortions that are performed from as few as 14 weeks into pregnancy to as many as 35 weeks or later.
More importantly, a vice-presidential debate is not a medical forum, CNN is not a medical periodical, and journalism guidelines bluntly instruct reporters to avoid medical jargon:
The book English for Journalists emphasizes: “A common source of jargon is scientific, medical, government and legal handouts,” and “if you write for a newspaper or general magazine you should try to translate jargon into ordinary English whenever you can.”
The New Oxford Guide to Writing states: “Jargon is technical language misused. Technical language, the precise diction demanded by any specialized trade or profession, is necessary when experts communicate with one another. It becomes jargon when it is applied outside the limits of technical discourse.”
The book Writing for Journalists drives home the point: “Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.”
In violation of that journalism standard, journalists selectively use medical jargon in ways that obscure the facts that:
the most common method of late-term abortion is dismemberment, a procedure that is illegal under the federal humane law for slaughtering livestock because it requires that animals be killed in a manner that renders them immediately unconscious.
A common example of how media outlets use clinical jargon to sanitize the facts of abortion is by inconsistently and incorrectly using the word “fetus,” a medical term derived from a Latin word meaning “offspring” or “newly delivered.” Reporters frequently use this term to describe the object of an abortion, but they use the word “mother” to refer to a pregnant woman instead of the clinically accurate term, “gravida.”
And when the topic is not abortion, journalists often shun the word “fetus” and use “baby” or “child” in its place. In fact, the ombudsman of the Boston Globe once apologized to its readers because the paper used the term “fetus” to describe an unborn child who was killed when his mother was shot in the stomach. The apology was sparked by a torrent of criticism from readers who objected that the Globe “truly dehumanized” the “child” and that “every other news channel, TV, and newspaper called it a baby.”
Beyond their double standards, reporters often misuse the term “fetus,” revealing that they are out of their depth. Per Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary, a fetus is “the unborn offspring in the postembryonic period, after major structures have been outlined, in humans from nine weeks after fertilization until birth.” Simply put, the word “fetus” applies from nine weeks after fertilization until birth. Yet, numerous major news organizations have misapplied this term to both before and after this period.
Late-Term Abortions Are Not Rare
According to CNN, “Doctors say abortions performed later in pregnancy are exceptionally rare.” In truth, late-term abortions are far more common than deaths that the media portrays as frequent occurrences like firearm homicides, young adult Covid-19 fatalities, and murders committed by police officers.
A 2013 paper in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health estimates that “more than 15,000” abortions are performed each year in the U.S. “at 21 weeks or later.” The authors note that this amounts to about 1% of all abortions, “but given an estimated 1.21 million abortions in the United States annually,” “later abortions” add up to “a substantial number of abortions.”
Hence, these “exceptionally rare” late-term abortions are more numerous than the:
6,000 Covid-19-related deaths of people under the age of 45.
50 people per year who are executed under the death penalty.
7 police officers per year who are arrested for murder or manslaughter in an on-duty shooting, and the 1–2 officers who are ultimately convicted of such crimes.
Most Late-Term Abortions Are Not for Medical Reasons
CNN claims that “abortions performed later in pregnancy” are “often” because “of a fetal condition that can’t be treated or in cases of maternal health endangerment.” This is a common talking point of abortion proponents, but the disclosures of abortion providers reveal just the opposite:
Martin Haskell, who is credited with inventing the partial-birth abortion procedure stated, “I’ll be quite frank: most of my abortions are elective in that 20-24 week range…. In my particular case, probably 20% are for genetic reasons. And the other 80% are purely elective.”
Renee Chelian, president of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, said of late-term abortions, “The spin out of Washington was that it was only done for medical necessity, even though we knew it wasn’t so.”
Doctors at two New Jersey abortion clinics independently revealed that each of their clinics was performing roughly 3,000 late-term abortions per year and nearly all of them were elective and not for medical reasons.
Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, stated that late-term abortion are “primarily done on healthy women and healthy fetuses.”
The statements above are corroborated by a study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute—a research organization whose “Guiding Principles” include support for legalized abortion. As summarized by the New York Times, the study found that “only 2 percent of abortions done after 16 weeks of pregnancy are done because of fetal abnormalities,” and such abortions are “most often performed to end healthy pregnancies because the woman arrived relatively late to her decision to abort.”
Biden and Harris Support Taxpayer Funding of Abortion Up Till Birth
According to CNN, Pence’s statement about Biden and Harris is “partially misleading and partially false” because “a Biden campaign official told CNN that Biden supports Roe v. Wade—the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, as amended by Planned Parenthood v. Casey.”
However, the plain words of those court decisions prove that Pence’s statement is entirely accurate. This is because these rulings prohibit states from banning abortions at any stage of pregnancy if any abortionist claims it is for “the health of the mother.”
Importantly, Roe defines threats to a mother’s health so broadly that they can include practically anything. Some eye-opening examples of what Roe deems to be hazardous to “health” are the work of “child care,” the “stigma of unwed motherhood,” and “the distress” of parenting “an unwanted child.”
In Casey, the Supreme Court ruled that “Roe’s essential holding be retained and reaffirmed,” including “a confirmation of the State’s power to restrict abortions after viability, if the law contains exceptions for pregnancies endangering a woman’s life or health.”
Furthermore, Roe places all decisions about what constitutes “health” into the hands of abortionists. It does this by mandating that Roe “be read together” with Doe v. Bolton, a companion case that the Supreme Court issued on the same day. In Doe, the Court ruled that all abortion providers have full authority to decide if an abortion is necessary to protect a woman’s “health” based solely on their “best clinical judgment.”
Many states have passed laws that defy Roe and Casey, and Biden and Harris say that they will overturn all of them through a federal law that codifies Roe. They also support “repealing the Hyde Amendment,” which has restricted taxpayer funding of abortion for more than 40 years except in cases of rape, incest, and if the life of the mother is endangered.
CNN also alleges without evidence that “no candidate in either political party supports abortion ‘up to the moment of birth’,” but the fact is that Democrats blocked a bill in 2019 that would have required healthcare providers to “preserve the life and health” of children who are aborted and born alive. Harris was among the 42 Democrats who filibustered this bill in the Senate.
Summary
During the vice presidential debate, Mike Pence accurately and straightforwardly described the positions of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden on late-term abortions, noting that they support such abortions up to birth and want them funded by taxpayers.
Yet, CNN deceitfully claimed his statement is misleading in an article that it titled “Pence Echoes Trump’s False Claims at Vice Presidential Debate.” Furthermore, CNN laced its “fact check” with other canards that hide the harsh realities of late-term abortion and the fact that they are performed more than 10,000 times per year on healthy, conscious humans with healthy mothers.Share the Data
The NBA championship had historically low viewership; NFL and NASCAR audiences are shrinking faster than Biden’s mental dictionary; and now the Über-woke ESPN announces another round of layoffs to stem the financial bleed. Yup, ‘get woke – go broke‘ continues.
(NJ.COM) – ESPN could lay off hundreds of employees in the coming weeks … One source pegged the potential number of job losses between 300 and 700 employees. Another estimated 400 possible lost jobs.
The cuts are expected to hit hardest among ESPN employees who work behind the camera. But some on-camera TV and radio talents could be impacted — particularly if their contracts are expiring this year. The network may also ask its highest-earning talent and executives to take a reduction in salary. The goal is to potentially cut tens of millions in salary, said sources.
[…] The job cuts would come as Disney — ESPN’s parent company — is bleeding money because of the COVID-19 crisis, which has slashed theme park, cruise ship and movie theatre attendance.
ESPN has shed payroll a few times in the last three years. It went through a pair of purges in 2017, which saw some of the network’s most popular on-air talent and some of its longest-tenured studio production employees receive pink slips. In 2019, ESPN the Magazine was shuttered.
With 30-days left before the election perhaps it’s worthwhile remembering what all of this opposition is about…. Something 99% of American voters do not quite understand.
Congress doesn’t actually write legislation. The last item of legislation written by congress was sometime around the mid 1990’s. Modern legislation is sub-contracted to a segment of DC operations known as K-Street. That’s where the lobbyists reside.
Lobbyists write the laws; congress sells the laws; lobbyists then pay congress lucrative commissions for passing their laws. That’s the modern legislative business in DC.
When we talk about paying-off politicians in third-world countries we call it bribery. However, when we undertake the same process in the U.S. we call it “lobbying”.
CTH often describes the system with the phrase: “There are Trillions at Stake.” The process of creating legislation is behind that phrase. DC politics is not quite based on the ideas that frame most voter’s reference points.
With people taking notice of DC politics for the first time; and with people not as familiar with the purpose of DC politics; perhaps it is valuable to provide clarity.
Most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a House or Senate representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past. There is not a single person in congress writing legislation or laws.
In modern politics not a single member of the House of Representatives or Senator writes a law, or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct. This simply doesn’t happen.
Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body. Here’s how it works right now.
Outside groups, often called “special interest groups”, are entities that represent their interests in legislative constructs. These groups are often representing foreign governments, Wall Street multinational corporations, banks, financial groups or businesses; or smaller groups of people with a similar connection who come together and form a larger group under an umbrella of interest specific to their affiliation.
Sometimes the groups are social interest groups; activists, climate groups, environmental interests etc. The social interest groups are usually non-profit constructs who depend on the expenditures of government to sustain their cause or need.
The for-profit groups (mostly business) have a purpose in Washington DC to shape policy, legislation and laws favorable to their interests. They have fully staffed offices just like any business would – only their ‘business‘ is getting legislation for their unique interests.
These groups are filled with highly-paid lawyers who represent the interests of the entity and actually write laws and legislation briefs.
In the modern era this is actually the origination of the laws that we eventually see passed by congress. Within the walls of these buildings within Washington DC is where the ‘sausage’ is actually made.
Again, no elected official is usually part of this law origination process.
Almost all legislation created is not ‘high profile’, they are obscure changes to current laws, regulations or policies that no-one pays attention to. The passage of the general bills within legislation is not covered in media. Ninety-nine percent of legislative activity happens without anyone outside the system even paying any attention to it.
Once the corporation or representative organizational entity has written the law they want to see passed – they hand it off to the lobbyists.
The lobbyists are people who have deep contacts within the political bodies of the legislative branch, usually former House/Senate staff or former House/Senate politicians themselves.
The lobbyist takes the written brief, the legislative construct, and it’s their job to go to congress and sell it.
“Selling it” means finding politicians who will accept the brief, sponsor their bill and eventually get it to a vote and passage. The lobbyist does this by visiting the politician in their office, or, most currently familiar, by inviting the politician to an event they are hosting. The event is called a junket when it involves travel.
Often the lobbying “event” might be a weekend trip to a ski resort, or a “conference” that takes place at a resort. The actual sales pitch for the bill is usually not too long and the majority of the time is just like a mini vacation etc.
The size of the indulgence within the event, the amount of money the lobbyist is spending, is customarily related to the scale of benefit within the bill the sponsoring business entity is pushing. If the sponsoring business or interest group can gain a lot of financial benefit from the legislation they spend a lot on the indulgences.
Recap: Corporations, mostly modern multinationals (special interest group), write the legislation. The corporations then contract the lobbyists. Lobbyists then take the law and go find politician(s) to support it. Politicians get support from their peers using tenure and status etc. Eventually, if things go according to norm, the legislation gets a vote.
Within every step of the process there are expense account lunches, dinners, trips, venue tickets and a host of other customary financial way-points to generate/leverage a successful outcome. The amount of money spent is proportional to the benefit derived from the outcome.
The important part to remember is that the origination of the entire process is EXTERNAL to congress.
Congress does not write laws or legislation, special interest groups do. Lobbyists are paid, some very well paid, to get politicians to go along with the need of the legislative group.
When you are voting for a Congressional Rep or a U.S. Senator you are not voting for a person who will write laws. Your rep only votes on legislation to approve or disapprove of constructs that are written by outside groups and sold to them through lobbyists who work for those outside groups.
While all of this is happening the same outside groups who write the laws are providing money for the campaigns of the politicians they need to pass them. This construct sets up the quid-pro-quo of influence, although much of it is fraught with plausible deniability.
This is the way legislation is created.
If your frame of reference is not established in this basic understanding you can often fall into the trap of viewing a politician, or political vote, through a false prism.
The modern origin of all legislative constructs is not within congress.
“We have to pass the bill to, well, find out what is in the bill” etc. ~ Nancy Pelosi 2009
“We rely upon the stupidity of the American voter” ~ Johnathan Gruber 2011, 2012.
“If Congress isn’t going to convene until the bill is ready to vote on… who the hell is writing the bill?” ~ Tom Massie, 2020
Once you understand this process you can understand how politicians get rich.
When a House or Senate member becomes educated on the intent of the legislation, they have attended the sales pitch; and when they find out the likelihood of support for that legislation; they can then position their own (or their families) financial interests to benefit from the consequence of passage. It is a process similar to insider trading on Wall Street, except the trading is based on knowing who will benefit from a legislative passage.
The legislative construct passes from K-Street into the halls of congress through congressional committees. The law originates from the committee to the full House or Senate. Committee seats which vote on these bills are therefore more valuable to the lobbyists. Chairs of these committees are exponentially more valuable.
Now, think about this reality against the backdrop of the 2016 Presidential Election. Legislation is passed based on ideology. In the aftermath of the 2016 election the system within DC was not structurally set-up to receive a Donald Trump presidency.
If Hillary Clinton had won the election, her Oval Office desk would be filled with legislation passed by congress which she would have been signing. Heck, she’d have writer’s cramp from all of the special interest legislation, driven by special interest groups that supported her campaign, that would be flowing to her desk.
Why?
Simply because the authors of the legislation, the originating special interest and lobbying groups, were spending millions to fund her campaign. Hillary Clinton would be signing K-Street constructed special interest legislation to repay all of those donors/investors.
Congress would be fast-tracking the passage because the same interest groups also fund the members of congress.
President Donald Trump winning the election threw a monkey wrench into the entire DC system…. In early 2017 the modern legislative machine was frozen in place.
The “America First” policies represented by candidate Donald Trump were not within the legislative constructs coming from the K-Street authors of the legislation. There were no MAGA lobbyists waiting on Trump ideology to advance legislation based on America First objectives.
As a result of an empty feeder system, in early 2017 congress had no bills to advance because all of the myriad of bills and briefs written were not in line with President Trump policy. There was simply no entity within DC writing legislation that was in-line with President Trump’s America-First’ economic and foreign policy agenda.
Exactly the opposite was true. All of the DC legislative briefs and constructs were/are antithetical to Trump policy. There were hundreds of file boxes filled with thousands of legislative constructs that became worthless when Donald Trump won the election.
Those legislative constructs (briefs) representing tens of millions of dollars worth of time and influence were just sitting there piled up in boxes under desks and in closets amid K-Street and the congressional offices. Legislation needed to be in-line with an entire new political perspective, and there was no-one, no special interest or lobbying group, currently occupying DC office space with any interest in synergy with Trump policy.
Think about the larger ramifications within that truism. That is also why there was/is so much opposition.
No legislation provided by outside interests means no work for lobbyists who sell it. No work means no money. No money means no expense accounts. No expenses means politicians paying for their own indulgences etc.
Politicians were not happy without their indulgences, but the issue was actually bigger. No K-Street expenditures also means no personal benefit; and no opportunity to advance financial benefit from the insider trading system. Republicans and democrats hate the presidency of Donald Trump because it is hurting them financially.
President Trump is not figuratively hurting the financial livelihoods of DC politicians; he’s literally doing it. President Trump is not an esoteric problem for them; his impact is very real, very direct, and hits almost every politician in the most painful place imaginable, the bank account.
In the pre-Trump process there were millions upon millions, even billions that could be made by DC politicians and their families. Thousands of very indulgent and exclusive livelihoods attached to the DC business model. At the center of this operation is the lobbying and legislative purchase network. The Big Club.
Without the ability to position personal wealth and benefit from the system, why would a politician stay in office? It is a fact the income of many long-term politicians on both wings of the uniparty bird were completely disrupted by Trump winning the 2016 election. That is one of the key reasons why so many politicians retired in 2018.
When we understand the business of DC, we understand the difference between legislation with a traditional purpose and modern legislation with a financial and political agenda.
When we understand the business of DC we understand why the entire network hates President Donald Trump.
Lastly, this is why -when signing legislation- President Trump often says “they’ve been trying to get this through for a long time” etc. Most of the legislation that is passed by congress, and signed by President Trump in his first term; is older legislative proposals, with little indulgent value that were shelved in years past.
Example: Criminal justice reform did not carry a financial benefit to the legislative bodies, and there was no financial interest funding the politicians to pass the bill. If you look at most of the bills President Trump has signed, with the exception of a few economic bills, they stem from congressional construction many years, even decades, ago.
Think about it carefully and you’ll see it. The “First step act”, “Right to Try”, etc. were all shelved by Boehner, Pelosi, Ryan, McConnell, Reid and others before them. When the value of legislation is measured by the financial underwriting and payoffs behind it, what type of legislative calendar does that require?….
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Ranking Member Devin Nunes appears with Lou Dobbs to discuss the 2020 U.S. election as contrast against the known weaponization of the intelligence apparatus.
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Keep in mind this is a member of the United States Intelligence Oversight group, the “gang of eight” saying the U.S. election is being manipulated by the U.S. intelligence community and political allies.
The nation was shocked as surveillance video showed earlier this month as a person ambushed and shot two sheriff’s deputies while they sat in their patrol car in Compton. Both deputies were shot in the head and face; however, they were able to radio for help as they triaged their injuries. The entire event was horrific.
Today investigators arrested a suspect and District Attorney Jackie Lacy said attempted murder charges have been filed against 36-year-old Deonte Lee Murray.
Los Angeles – Investigators have arrested and charged a man in connection with the shooting of two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies earlier this month as they sat in a squad car, authorities said Wednesday.
Attempted murder charges were filed against Deonte Lee Murray, 36, District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a press conference.
Murray was arrested two weeks ago in connection with a separate carjacking and he was expected to be arraigned later Wednesday. (more)
I am often asked about what has gone wrong with our system of government. I answer that nothing is wrong with the system—there is something wrong with us.
We have not held ourselves or our elected officials accountable for their actions. We have not confronted them about their promises made and those promises not kept. We have not challenged them when they come home to visit—if they come home—to explain why they campaigned on one platform and then, the moment they get to DC, they immediately cast themselves as swamp creatures. They turn their backs on their constituents and, even if challenged on fundamental issues, give us the Potomac Two Step Shuffle to avoid answering tough, direct questions. More on this very issue in my VA section later in this newsletter.
Why do we not hold our school boards and administrators accountable
Why do we not hold our school boards and administrators accountable, particularly after we see the garbage our children are being taught? Why do we not go to school board meetings and demand that parents be surveyed about what they, the parents, want for their children as this pandemic hypocrisy plays itself out? Why do we not demand what is best for the families as opposed what is best for teacher unions? Why do we not hold board members accountable for their rubber stamping stupid, dangerous rules that put outputs ahead of out-comes for your children? Why? Explain that to me.
Why do we not hold our governors and legislators accountable for the fact that, in Iowa, it continues to be the worst state in which to do business? Why do we not hold those same individuals accountable for not having school choice options where taxpayer dollars follow the child instead of the school district. In Iowa, there needs to be charter schools, online options, homeschooling options and a voucher program. Why are taxpayers, including those who no longer have children in school, not demanding that our elected officials give parents as many options as possible?
Taxpayers need to ask their governors and legislators why tax structures have not been fixed so that states are more attractive to businesses? Why do Iowans stand for the fact that one man and his backers have a near strangle hold over who gets elected and who doesn’t? When are we going to wise up, find our voices and “throw off bad magistrates?” Remember, these jackabouts work for us. We do not work for them.
Conservatives & Conservatism Scare Republicans
I am so tired of having people be nice about things. We have lost civility in our culture, I get that, but the time for being nice to our politicians is over. We hoist these people onto pedestals. Trust me, they do not deserve it. Most are unscrupulous, self-serving and have lost their moral centers. I know, I have been around so many and fitting into the stereotype is consistent across the board. What is most disturbing is not what the Democrats do but what we get out of our Republican side. We know what the Democrats will do. We have their playbook and know their approach inside out. What we don’t expect is what we get out of the Republicans.
The Republicans suck in newbies and those newbies, star-struck with the attention they get, become arrogant and narcissistic. That is why when they come home and you confront them, they get defensive, haughty and condescending. They treat us like petulant children, pat us on the head and ask us to sit in the corner.
They will take care of things, because we don’t have the knowledge, skills or wisdom to worry about these “complicated” issues.
What is really happening is that conservatives and conservatism scare them.
Conservatives are principled individuals who will not bend to the intoxicating aspects of being on Capitol Hill, regardless of where that is.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Centinel2012 