Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Wednesday, November 30. 2016

Wednesday morning links

Planning for retirement? Check out ‘one of the scariest charts in human history’


99,726 Somali Refugees Settled in U.S. Since 9/11


Abdul Razak Ali Artan was oppressed by Islamophobic stereotypes of violent Muslims


CNN Anchor: Americans Should Wear Hijabs To Show Solidarity With Fearful Muslims


Department of Homeland Security Overwhelmed by Green Card Catastrophe


Hillary Reportedly Eyeing Another Presidential Run


Hillary 2024!


That moment when the MSM realizes Trump just took a position advocated by Hillary Clinton in 2005


Why Trump’s Education Pick Scares Unions


Trump's CMS pick is viewed as both patient advocate and foe


Trump taps Obamacare critic Tom Price as health secretary


Stand down, #NeverRomney conservatives: Trump’s pick isn’t a betrayal — and you might thank him in 2020


I agree with Salon!


How Trump can win re-election


Assuming he will want it


Dems in the wilderness:



What is left is the reality that the Democratic Party has been propped up by the personal likability of President Obama that pushed them past the finish line in 2008 and 2012. Now they are grappling with what is next in a post-Obama landscape.


Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:46 | Comments (31) | Trackbacks (0)

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"CNN Anchor: Americans Should Wear Hijabs To Show Solidarity With Fearful Muslims"

Why doesn't she just go ahead and bomb herself in solidarity. A bonus to that would be she would be off TV.
#1 mary on 2016-11-30 09:27 (Reply)
I'll wear a hijab when Muslims will wear crucifixes and recite the "Hail Mary".
#1.1 Frances on 2016-11-30 21:55 (Reply)
Trump’s Education Pick Scares Unions:

This is a very good thing.
#2 annieoakley on 2016-11-30 10:08 (Reply)
Yeah. When I hear the MSM shouting fire, crying wolf, and generally going Henny Penny over Trump, I sit there and say to myself, great, 'bout time, he's on the right track....
#2.1 BillH on 2016-11-30 10:16 (Reply)
Reminds me of something said about SDI in the 1980s: "It's too big and complicated to ever work right, but if it scares the out of the Russians, it can't be all bad."
#2.1.1 Another guy named Dan on 2016-11-30 13:23 (Reply)
I'm rather surprised the Gang of Z hasn't expressed repressed outrage yet.
#2.1.2 Sam L. on 2016-11-30 19:11 (Reply)
As a cake baker you 'must' celebrate gay marriage or pay huge fines and possibly go to jail. But desecrate the flag and it's called 1st amendment rights. Lets compromise:
Put bureaucratic regulations in place to fine people who walk on or burn the flag, lets be fair perhaps $135,000 per incident. AND allow 1st amendment rights regarding forcing someone to celebrate gay marriage so no fines or punishment. Seems fair to me.
#3 GoneWithTheWind on 2016-11-30 10:18 (Reply)
You put your finger on the discrepancy. I actually think that flag burning is/should be constitutionally protected, but baking a cake falls under the very same First Amendment (religious freedom/freedom of speech-expresssion/freedom of association). The trick? The Left got people to believe that constitutionally protected behavior is a "hate crime" and "illegal discrimination."

Bottom line, I am fine with burning flags so long as people are similarly not compelled to participate in gay weddings and other religious or secular ceremonies or practices they do not agree with.
#3.1 Jim on 2016-11-30 12:58 (Reply)
except in a retirement ceremony, no U.S. flags will be burned in my presence.
#3.1.1 Will Bithers, USN ret. on 2016-11-30 13:31 (Reply)
Do flag-burners offend your sensibilities, Windy? A hundred thirty five grand worth?
#3.2 Ten on 2016-11-30 16:13 (Reply)
Nine!

you made it to work release at the halfway house so soon?
#3.2.1 Will Bithers on 2016-11-30 17:47 (Reply)
My little town has the largest veterans day parade West of the Mississippi. I attend every year (it's the only way to see my congressmen). I swear to god I try to not tear up every time a flag passes but I can't seem to stop it. I spent 20 years in the Air Force. Taps makes me cry as does the Call to colors and the National Anthem. Yes I love the flag.

But the $135,000 was what the cake baker was fined for refusing to make a cake that celebrated a gay wedding. I was making a moral equivalence point.

I am somewhat opposed to gay marriage. I think that a legal civil union was a better choice and I believed it was a states issue and that the constitution was silent on it. I also believe that the gay rights advocates didn't so much want gay marriage as much as they wanted to poke a finger in the eye of Christians in America. But I'm only somewhat opposed to it. I can accept it as the law of the land and ignore it. What I cannot ignore is the continuing war by the left LBGTQ to hunt down and destroy anyone who doesn't bow to them and kiss their ring. I think that is shameful and counter productive. So many people who were sympathetic to gay rights or, like me, were somewhat opposed to gay marriage, have had it with this war on straight people who dare open their mouths. I think it is past time to call a truce but the SJW smell blood in the water and I don't think they will stop.
#3.2.2 GoneWithTheWind on 2016-11-30 18:28 (Reply)
I can't disagree, Windy. The solution is in the structural American origin: Nobody can create or enforce a law that infringes on anybody else's liberty, save for those things genuinely victimizing.

The gay cake thing is therefore as much bullshit as prohibitions on flag-burning are. I hope the right realizes that (because it realizes little else classically liberal...)
#3.2.2.1 Ten on 2016-11-30 18:38 (Reply)
The LGBTQI fascists have now started an orchestrated campaign to target Chip and Joanna Gaines (HGTV "Fixer Upper") for being Christians and attending a church that believes marriage is between a man and a woman.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/kateaurthur/chip-and-joanna-gaines-church-same-sex-marriage?utm_term=.noJNgZj4Z#.vp74jL7OL

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/tv/a8381774/chip-joanna-gaines-fixer-upper-pastor-jimmy-seibert/
#3.2.2.2 Jim on 2016-12-01 01:26 (Reply)
One of the great things about 2016 is that shortly after it ends, Barack Obama will no longer be eligible to be President of the United States ever again.
#4 JK Brown on 2016-11-30 11:01 (Reply)
Viva the 22nd Amendment!
#4.1 Dangerous Dean on 2016-11-30 11:53 (Reply)
The chart is not scary. It suggests I might become one of the lucky centenarians someday. What's scary is whether I'll still need to work to pay my expenses...
#5 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2016-11-30 11:06 (Reply)
It does scare me, Mike. I won't be 100 until after the big spike. I expect the spike to kill any Social Security that I might have gotten in return for the decades I have had my check gouged to pay into the Social Security pot. If the government just lets me get back my share, I am fine with it.

I have little faith in SS being there for me, though, even if I retire at 70.
#5.1 Dangerous Dean on 2016-11-30 11:46 (Reply)
I said the same things when military pay was put under SS in '55 or '56 (can't recall exact year). I would have opted out if I could have. I paid into SS for about 40 years thereafter, still feeling I would never need it, and opting out if I could have. Now I've been drawing SS for 20 years, not needing it, but sure as hell not turning it down. The gov't would have come out way ahead if it had let me opt out Now it can eat cake.
#5.1.1 BillH on 2016-11-30 12:08 (Reply)
Just like BillH, I planned for the worst and hoped for the best. Even though I started late, I got the house and cars paid off, and put a bit aside. And started my SS at 66, none of which goes to creditors.

I expect the Feds will continue age-indexing SS, and maybe even start means testing, but I suspect they'll also move heaven and earth to avoid shutting it down.

So let's all be like my (late) father, live to a hundred or die trying.
#5.1.2 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2016-11-30 13:05 (Reply)
I think CNN anchors should wear Trump/Pence buttons in solidarity with half of their fellow citizens, so those don't feel unwelcome and rejected.
#6 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2016-11-30 11:48 (Reply)
I am not concerned about Hillary running in 2020. She will find another way to not connect with average Americans and will lose again if she does.

The Democrat party may well retread her and trot her back out, though. Look at their leadership over the last 10 years: Pelosi, Clinton, Clinton, Reid. only Obama was new and he crashed Hillary's party in 2008.

I had a scary revelation the other day. I was thinking how Obama snatched the Dem nomination from Hillary in 2008. If he had stepped aside as Clinton Incorporated expected him to do, Hillary would have won in 2008 despite her baggage (being an unlikable criminal is just a start) because of how tired Americans were of the Bush years. I think that her corrupt machinery (I am looking at you, Brazile and Wasserman-Schultz) would have kept her in the office in 2012 and then it would have been Obama's turn. I think that if he ran against Trump in 2016, his "1st Black President" card might have been enough to get him past Trump.

So the one person who has kept Hillary out of the White House is Obama. I hope Secret Service can keep Hillary from Ron Browning him.
#7 Dangerous Dean on 2016-11-30 11:59 (Reply)
Hillary is ill. The signs are there. She was clearly wearing some kind of catheter and bag clearly outlined in her pantsuits. No one consistently passes out with their eyes rolled back in their head unless they have health issues. She needs help getting up stairs. If she ever has to face her crimes I fully expect her lawyers to tell the court she is dying and cannot even help in her defense.
#7.1 SweetPea on 2016-11-30 12:33 (Reply)
I suspect she's a (barely) functional alcoholic.
#7.1.1 LWS on 2016-12-01 08:01 (Reply)
For the Democratic Party, the long-term play in 2008 would have been H. Clinton/Obama in 2008 and then Obama/rising star in 2016. I think the deal that gave Clinton Sec. State and nomination in 2016 in return for endorsement of Obama by both Clintons and no primary challenge in 2012 (Hands off foundation from Justice dept as well?) kept that rising star from appearing.
#7.2 Another guy named Dan on 2016-11-30 13:19 (Reply)
But like Jimmy Carter, who was the worst president until Obama, he will continue to run his mouth and screw up international politics. However there is another good thing about Obama getting out of office. He will be less careful in speaking his mind and we will better see what a small mined man he is. Also the media will not feel so inclined to protect him and will inadvertently report on him truthfully from time to time.
#8 GoneWithTheWind on 2016-11-30 12:28 (Reply)
The green card problem caught my attention. This is why the police need to be able to identify whether or not you are a citizen, legal immigrant or illegal immigrant by asking for proof of your identity and status when stopped for even minor traffic offenses.

We need to sort out who is in this country legally and who is not. If someone 'lost' a green card, that is their problem...not the government's. If they cannot produce their green card, they don't get another one. Sorry. Your problem, not ours.

And if that means you are deported, once again, your problem, not mine.

Put the responsibility back on the immigrant.

Another idea: redesign the green card. Force legal immigrants to turn in old card to get new one. Then you can figure out who is legal and who is not. Those who use old green cards should be arrested until their identity is provable.

Anyway, just some quick ideas. Not sure if they would work, but let's use some common sense here!


On another topic, I read recently that Trump is asking for his cabinet picks to commit 4-6 years of their life to serving. That tells me he definitely has his eye on a re-election campaign in 2020.
#9 MissT on 2016-11-30 12:30 (Reply)
re Stand down, #NeverRomney conservatives: Trump’s pick isn’t a betrayal — and you might thank him in 2020

No surprise. Of course Salon wants the Trump administration infested with Vichy Republicans.

Trump's vow to "drain the swamp" increasingly looks like another empty promise.
#10 feeblemind on 2016-11-30 14:21 (Reply)
Romney is not DC establishment.

He never worked in DC
#10.1 bd on 2016-11-30 15:36 (Reply)
And he has at least, as one farmer put it when criticizing our current government for lack of those with the same qualifications, "signed a paycheque on the front, not just the back".
#10.1.1 Frances on 2016-11-30 22:04 (Reply)
I described him as a Vichy Republican, iow, a collaborator, or a RINO if you prefer. Filling the administration with the Romney/Bush types could go a long way towards preserving the status quo.

As to not being establishment, I beg to differ.

Romney got a huge head start in politics thanks to his pedigree. Daddy was a politician and had the the connections.

If that is not "establishment", I don't know what is.

Or perhaps it is just too complex for my feeble mind to understand.
#10.1.2 feeblemind on 2016-12-01 13:51 (Reply)

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