The Bill Keith Report
News And Commentary
September 18, 2014
Greetings to our readers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and 133 foreign countries.
Your comments are welcome!
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Bill’s book The Rise and Fall of Practically Everything carefully documents the culture war that is raging across this land. The book chronicles the cataclysmic paradigm shift that has put this nation in peril. The thesis is that the American people face the serious threat of losing our once-great civilization as government, the news media, our other great institutions, and even the Christian church reel under the assault of a cultural revolution. The book is available from www.billkeithbooks.com, Amazon.com and Amazon/Kindle.
How stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, happier…But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she’s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home. ~~ President Ronald Reagan’s Farewell Address, Jan. 11, 1989
News Alert: Federal tax revenues from WE THE PEOPLE through August of this year totaled $2.6 trillion. But the feds still ran a deficit of $589 billion for that period.
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China Syndrome: Nuclear Power Plant Without Security
About 50 miles from Washington, D.C., the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant sits on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Investigative reporters from the Daily Caller have learned it is wide open to a terrorist attack.
The reporters found that “anyone can enter the property, drive through the front gates, park not far from a nuclear reactor and have no contact with any kind of security.”
“A reporter and videographer drove from the nation’s capital (50 miles away)…to Calvert Cliffs and twice accessed the power plant site,” The Callerwrote. “No one stopped or even seemed to notice them.”
They even passed through an unmanned security checkpoint — “the guard booth was empty and padlocked — and only minutes later, entered a parking lot about 550 feet from one of the plant’s two nuclear reactors.”
On a subsequent visit, a lone marked security car passed by without slowing down or asking questions.
The reporters said that at “one point, a large civilian truck — roughly the size of the trucks used in terror bombings around the world, including at the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 –rolled through the front gates and approached the reactors without being stopped.”
Comment: Should there be a nuclear meltdown at Calvert Cliffs, it would be a disaster so terrible it would make 9/11 look like a Chinese Fire Drill. Tens of thousands of people within a 50-mile radius would die from radiation. And, depending on the direction of the wind, the nuclear fallout would reach Washington, D.C., according to Modern Survival.
As one commentator said, “This is an open house for domestic terrorists.” Yet I see no concern from the President, the Congress, Homeland Security or anyone else about this threat to the millions of people living near the Calvert Cliffs Plant. It’s almost as though this whole land is asleep and I wonder what it will take to wake us up?
David Vs. Goliath: The White House War on Nuns
The Report has consistently alerted readers to the cultural paradigm shift spreading across the land. The following is a microcosm of that shift that reveals how traditional values and old standards have passed away.
The Obama administration continues to wage war against a Catholic charity of nuns over the Obamacare mandate.
Little Sisters of the Poor disagrees with a mandate that says their employee healthcare plan must cover contraceptives and drugs used for abortions, according to Newsmax. “They claim their religious beliefs preclude them from offering coverage…”
The insanity continues. “But federal government lawyers are pressing on with the case against the charity,” the news agency points out. “If the government wins and the sisters are forced to provide plans that cover the drugs and devices in question, they will have to either go against their beliefs or not do so and risk paying (huge) fines.”
Little Sisters of the Poor was founded some 250 years ago and cares for elderly men and women all over the world, according to Newsmax. “It claims to have served…poor and elderly people in 31 countries.”
Comment: With the Middle East burning, Russia threatening, China’s military growing, racial unrest in this land increasing, the border crossing with Mexico out of control, you would think government attorneys could find something better to do with taxpayer money than punish the Little Sisters, who because of their deep religious convictions, do not want to provide abortion-inducing drugs for their employees.
There was a time when most Americans watched out for and helped the underdog, like the Little Sisters. But I don’t see any outcry on their behalf. Today’s outcry is on behalf of homosexuals/lesbians/transgenders who want to redefine marriage in their own jaded image. And there is the outcry on behalf of endangered animal species and an outcry for women to have all their contraception devices paid for by the government. And an outcry for illegal aliens. But no outcry for the Little Sisters. That’s the cultural paradigm shift I’m talking about.
Obamacare and Small Businesses: Bigger Bucks, Fewer Jobs
Obamacare is taking a heavy toll on small businesses. A new analysis on its effect found that workers lost billions of dollars in reduced pay last year and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
According to the American Action Forum, take-home pay at small businesses was trimmed some $22.6 billion last year and individual’s year-around take-home pay dropped as much as $900, CNBC reported.
“That report also says that there has been the loss of more than 350,000 jobs due to Obamacare-era premium hikes at small businesses,” CNBC said.
Illegal Aliens Kidnap Teenager for Ransom in Tuscon
Three Mexican nationals – in this country illegally — kidnapped a Tucson, Arizona, teenager and held him for $400,000 ransom, according to Breitbart News.One of the aliens had been arrested on two prior occasions but was not prosecuted. All three had previously been deported yet returned to the U. S.
Tucson police reported that when they received word that a 16-year-old had been kidnapped, they located and apprehended the suspected kidnappers and found the teenager. A police spokesman said the teen had a blindfold on his face, his hands were tied behind him and there was evidence he had been beaten and drugged.
Breitbart also reported the officers found an assault rifle, several handguns and narcotics in possession of the aliens.
Meanwhile, the Texas Department of Public Safety announced that 203,000 illegal aliens have been booked into Texas county jails since 2008 and they have committed 3,000 homicides and 8,000 sexual assaults against Texans.
Former VP Dick Cheney: We have a “Disengaged” President
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says President Obama is “disengaged” and sends him some advice on how to deal with violent ISIS jihadists.
“While the president was claiming the tide of war was receding and core Al-Qaeda had been decimated, the threat was actually increasing,” Cheney told the American Enterprise Institute think-tank in Washington, D. C. and received a standing ovation.
From Iraq, Syria and Yemen, over to Pakistan and all the way down to Somalia and Western Nigeria and ” in various places under various names — a whole new wave of jihadists was on the rise.”
“We must move globally to get back on offense in the war on terror,” he warned. “Our president must understand we are at war and that we must do what it takes, for as long as it takes, to win.”
Cheney said he is concerned about “the decline of American military power” due to “irrational” budget cuts.
His advice to Obama for defeating ISIS? “Immediately hit them in their sanctuaries, staging areas, command centers, and lines of communication wherever we find them.”
The 73-year-old Cheney was invited to address the Institute on the eve of the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Sept 11, 2001, Newsmax reported.
Memo to President Obama: Decisions Determine Destiny
Politicians often fail to realize that wrong decisions may come back to haunt them, for decisions — good or bad — determine destiny.
This week we learned of two decisions the President made that have had a devastating effect on Iraq and Syria and, ultimately, on national security in our own land.
First, Syria. We learned that the President’s national security team — including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — urged him to arm the moderate Syrian rebels who were fighting against the barbaric President Anwar Assad who used poison gas to kill thousands of his own people. The moderate rebels, if armed, would have kept ISIS from building their army using Syria as a sanctuary.
But the President went against all his national security advisors and refused to arm the moderate rebels.
Then, Iraq. All of the President’s top military advisors urged him to leave a residual force in Iraq when he ordered the American troop withdrawal from that land. The advisors believed the residual army of a few thousand men could continue the training of the Iraqi army and provide intelligence on any threat to that country.
However, as with Syria, the President refused to listen and removed all the troops from Iraq and told the American people that country was secure.
But he was wrong. When our troops were withdrawn, the country fell apart and now much of Northern Iraq — where American troops once bled and died — is controlled by ISIS, the evil Islamic terrorists who have executed hundreds of captured prisoners, raped, crucified and killed Christian women and children and beheaded two Americans.
Comment: What is it about a leader that would cause him to disregard the advice of his top national security and military advisors? Is it arrogance? Is a feeling of superior intellect? What possesses a leader to think that only he is right and everyone else is wrong? I can’t answer these questions, but I do know that the President’s two fatal errors in judgment have already cost this nation dearly and the worst may be to come.
Rocky Mountain High
Call it “Maui Wowie,” “Panama Red,” “Acapulco Gold,” or “Mary Jane,” marijuana use is sweeping across America. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have legalized the drug and others are expected to follow.
However, as legalized recreational marijuana increases, some are warning that a sobering study by several Boston-based researchers points out that even casual use of the drug among young adults can have damaging effects, according to the Society for Neuroscience.
“The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, which compared high-resolution MRI brain scans to recreational marijuana users aged 18 to 25 with those of nonusers, found significant abnormalities in…those who smoked just once per week,” CNS reported.
Concerning the moral standpoint of smoking marijuana, some scholars assert that “it inexcusably inhibits man’s most God-like faculty — rationality.”
Meanwhile, another long-term study of men in Sweden found that those who smoke marijuana at age 18 — especially heavy users — were more likely to end up on the nation’s disability rolls by age 59, Fox News reported.
Comment: I’ve never smoked marijuana but I understand it gives the user a sense of euphoria. I’m convinced that in this age of nihilism and hedonism, neither young nor old users are going to be influenced by any warnings concerning the damaging effects of the drug. The short-term euphoria will be more important to them than the long-term consequences.
Parenthetically, The Report has learned that the feds have approved the use of EBT (food stamp) cards for the purchase of marijuana in states where it is legal.
Commentary
Congress: A Lot of Thunder, Not Much Rain
Big salaries, free travel throughout the world, a two-day work week with limited legislation but unlimited generosity to themselves and their families — that’s our Congress!
They receive $286,000 a year in salary and benefits and that’s more than 95 percent of the American income earners whose taxes pay their salaries. And at least one congressman wants to raise the salaries to pay their rent in Washington, D.C.
“Congress’s main job is to budget. But when it comes to passing annual spending bills, members of Congress have not accomplished that on time since 1997,” according to the Drudge Report.
They raise their own salaries, have free postal service worth thousands to each congressman/women and receive about $1.5 million each year for their office expenses, aides, etc.
Comment: When I hear them talking about how hard they work, I want to say, “Strike up the violins.”
The biggest problem WE THE PEOPLE have is that members of Congress are indifferent to the will of the people. That makes me feel like I’ve been kicked right in my cocoanut.
Our politicians tell us a lot about ourselves — that we have lost the passion for good government and many of us are too lazy even to hold elected officials accountable.
Where are the prophets that would challenge the politicians’ flatulent rhetoric?
The people never win. Politicians win, illegal aliens win, and at times criminals even win. But the people are pushed around by high taxes, excessive government control, congressmen who forget it was the people who sent them to Washington, and the federal courts that rewrite the Constitution to fit their personal agendas.
Each year Congress is in recess a total of 16 weeks. That means they work on 36 weeks a year. Do the math and you see they make $7,944 per week while at work or $1,134 per day.
Good work if you can get it.
THE BILL KEITH REPORT AND COMMENTARY September 18, 2014
