Perhaps PA was always this intriguing and I didnt notice until Guzzardi got-going butall of a sudden there is tremendous

activity; how-republican-write-candidate-scott-wagner-won-special has been the subject of analysis, carrying implications regarding Guzzardi [this year] and Senate leadership [in 15]. Also, a grossly-inadequate PLAN has been announced regarding efforts to sell the State Stores, but it is intended only to EXPAND SUNDAY BOOZE SALES; THE LCB would remain IN CONTROL. Meanwhile, PA is among states to block food stamp cuts; also, Sen. Leach asserted Pot is less addictive than chocolate. AG-KANE feels 'The Commonwealth needs to have some sort of hammer over the confidential informant to testify and to testify fully and truthfully'; indeed, a Gift ban urged over report of lawmakers given cash, while a Watchdog Group claimed that an Ethics probe would not be enough for corrupt politicians. In any case, AG-Kane hired Sprague to review 'sting' probe and, perhaps, sue newspaper; this would be the 2nd PA public official this month to raise prospect of suit vs Inquirer, prompting concern as to whether the paper would be facing legal threats from public officials if it had stronger, unified ownership. PA HOUSE LEADERS PROMISED ETHICS COMMITTEE RESOURCES TO INVESTIGATE FAILED STING, noting this State sting eyed lobbyists and Philly lawmakers; finally, Chris Stigall of 1210-a.m. on 'sting: Governor Corbett, where in the hell are you? {Philly paper owner made ethical slip, or two, as the fate of the Inqy remains unclear; topping it off, D.A. Williams blasted A.G. Kane in sting case, saying she had needlessly killed a solid corruption investigation and besmirched the prosecutors who built the case, a view that I share but that Guzzardi (for reasons he explained) doesnt.} Although Guzzardis focus remains trained on the rapidly-approaching Fiscal Iceberg, he may be asked whether he supports a bill by Rep. Harper that WOULD PROHIBIT SEPTA WORKER STRIKES and whether he concurs that the ironworkers-union-throws-lots-of-cash-at-candidates; he may also be asked to comment on the fact that the Jets signed Vick [as per the Davidsons, hes too short] and the suggestion that DeSean Jackson might not even attract a 3rd round pick [as I continue to argue that he is a great player (indeed, a perennial game-breaker) and, thus, should not EVER be shopped-around]. To set-the stage for reading an apologia for the world being bequeathed to youth, please note a few hyperlinks regarding two key-facets of BHOs failed Foreign Policy: Putin continues to dominate BHO: Trouble for Putin: Keystone Pipeline has 2 to 1 Support Club For Growth Asks Chamber of Commerce to Help End Export-Import Bank Loans to Russian Oligarchs RUSH LIMBAUGH: OBAMA IS FILLING OUT HIS MARCH MADNESS PICKS WHILE PUTIN IS 'REASSEMBLING THE SOVIET UNION' NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: PUTIN'S AGGRESSION A 'GRAVE' THREAT TO EUROPE'S SECURITY Ukraine Moves Troops Out of Crimea UK Wants Russia out of the G8 PRO-RUSSIAN FORCES CAPTURE TWO UKRAINIAN SHIPS OBAMA IMPOSES SANCTIONS AGAINST PUTIN'S INNER CIRCLE, RUSSIA SANCTIONS NINE US POLITICIANS PUTIN THINKS THE WEST IS AS WEAK AS JELLY

Obama: 'We Are Not Going to Be Getting into a Military Excursion in Ukraine' Russia's Annexation of Crimea Splits the Russian Orthodox Church 4 Ways Putin Has Exploited Obama's Words Ukraine Moves Troops Out of Crimea OK, So Now What? Three Ways to Staunch Russian Expansion Post-Crimea FAR RIGHT POLITICIANS STORM UKRAINE TV COMPANY AND FORCE CHIEF TO RESIGN Three Ways to Stall Russian Expansion Post-Crimea Many Signs Pointed to Crimea Independence Vote But Polls Didnt Another Explanation for Crimea Referendum Landslide Americans Disliked Russia Even Before the Crisis in Ukraine RUSSIAN FORCES SEIZE UKRAINE NAVAL BASE... UPDATE: Ukraine to pull troops from Crimea... PUTIN VOWS TO BRING BACK GLORY... WAVE OF CYBER ATTACKS HIT UKRAINIAN GOVT WEBSITES BIDEN TELLS NATO ALLIES THE US WILL DEFEND THEM AGAINST RUSSIA Biden Promises Poland, NATO Allies Security and More Sanctions Against Russia BIDEN COMMITS EMBARRASSING POLAND GAFFE Putin Mocks the 'Chosen Ones' West in Defiant Speech Supporting Crimean Annexation Putin Gives Angry, Nationalistic Speech Annexing Crimea to Russia Obama Announces Sanctions Against Russian Officials for Crimea Vote White House Tells Investors Not to Invest in Russian Stocks as Russian Market Rallies Russia Wants to Protect Language Rights of Russians in Estonia Crimean Government Tells Tatars to Leave Their Lands National Geographic to Map Crimea as Part of Russia Pro-Russian Forces Capture Ukraine Navy Headquarters in Sevastopol France Says Russia Suspended from G8, Other Countries Dispute Claim Putin's Next 4 Targets Report: Russian Troops 'Storm' Ukrainian Base in Crimea, One Dead Ukranian PM Calls Russian Attack on Base in Crimea 'War Crime' Ukraine PM: Conflict with Russia Entering 'Military Stage' Westerners Living in Moscow Fear Harassment Due to Sanctions Russia Sends over $414 Million to Crimea Putin Recognizes Crimea Independence, Claims Peninsula as Russia Territory France Tells UK: Target Russian Oligarchs in London French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told the United Kingdom they must impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs in London. Senior Obama Advisor Doubles Down on Failed 'Reset' Policy The Case for War Venezuela continues to fester, albeit remain ignored by BHO: Putin's Slow and Steady Reconquista of Latin America Venezuelan Opposition Leader Accused of Murder and Treason by National Assembly Venezuelan Secret Police Arrest Opposition Mayor Federation of Journalists Statement on the Media Blackout in Venezuela Venezuela moves swiftly against opposition as-venezuelans-die-obama-allows-russia-to-continue-colonizing-latin-america Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro Threatens Military Attack on Caracas Square Protesters

Venezuelan President Issues Ration Cards, Orders Military Raid on Opposition Square Venezuelan President Enlists Sean Penn to Teach Acting Classes in Caracas Venezuelan Govt Repression Continues a Month After Opposition Leader's Arrest Now ponder this lamentation from a septuagenarian [noting how climate Change is also cited]: Dear Carlos, Your post today on the NY Times and the moral equivalency between the tyrants in Venezuela and the people crying for freedom got me going. Examples abound of why I am so frustrated with liberals. My liberal friends and I go to see the marvelous production of War Horse from the National Theatre Live. I am able to see good art even if I don't agree with every premise. Liberals have blinders. If they think something is saying things they can't agree with, they will avoid it or only see what they want to see in it. This brilliant production shows war as disgusting, evil and pointless. One can't blame the English for hating World War I because it just about killed a generation of young men and what do they have to show for it? But what my liberal friends do not understand is that we may want nothing to do with war, but war wants us. If we won in Afghanistan and our feckless current president screws it all up, and now we are burying equipment that we paid a fortune for because it is too cumbersome and expensive to take out of Afghanistan, then to my liberal friends all of those lost lives were ridiculous and we should never fight again because what good did we get out of it? So Bush is disgusting and evil and Obama is wonderful because he is at last getting us out of there. Thus the new "truth" is simple and so obvious that if anyone tries to argue with it, he is an idiotic war monger. I give Bush credit for giving the Afghans a chance to lead normal lives. If you read The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, you come to this conclusion. But not my book group. They ignored the ends of those books because that didn't fit into their world view. So forget about the conclusions of the two books where the protagonists go back to their country from the relative safety of exile because they felt the need to be part of the rebuilding of the post war free country. After War Horse was over, a mention of what Russia is doing comes up. Conclusion? Fuggedaboutit. If I lamely try to say we may want to stay uninvolved, but it will beckon us whether we like it or not, that won't work. So I try another tack. I say, "Why did anyone criticize Hillary for saying this is like what Hitler did? Why should she be forced to apologize for saying that? She was right." Now, what do they do? I am complimenting Hillary on her perspicacity. This is Janet and she is giving Hillary credit for her foreign policy smarts. What do they do with that? If they agree to prop her up, then how do they face the implication? They don't want to get involved in the Russia thing. I say that sounds familiar, like early on when no one wanted to listen to Churchill. So now I am compounding it by reminding

them that that war - the good war - the one where if we had gotten involved earlier, the Jews might have been spared, is, according to Hillary, history repeating itself. What to do. What to do. They just change the subject. That always works with liberals. So what do they think about Venezuela or the Cuban involvement there? No problem. They just don't bother to think about it at all. They have too much to worry about in their lives to think about that. If I say that many people said the same thing in Germany and a lot of good that did them. They just want me to be quiet. So I oblige them. What else can I do? A gay friend of mine was going on and on about how Reagan didn't care about Aids and he did NOTHING and he hates him. By sheer coincidence, after this conversation, Deroy Murdock sent me a column that was going out that day about Reagan's big budgeting from 1982 to 1988 for Aids research. And Reagan doubled funding for it every year. And he was in Hollywood so gays were friends and Nancy Reagan invited her decorator and his gay lover to spend the night in the White House and often invited gay friends to dinner as equals and Reagan vetoed anti gay legislation in California because they are born that way, they do not choose to be that way, Reagan said. So I sent this column to my gay friend. He ignored it, as I knew he would. So I brought it up again. He then gave me a series of "facts" that were mostly incorrect. "Don't argue with me," he told me, "I lived it." I told him no one likes that good people became terribly ill and died, but that does not argue with what this article says and you said Reagan did nothing and he did a lot. Of course, now he, my friend, countered that it wasn't enough. Many of the things my friend asserted to me were not true so I told him I would look them up. I did and proved him wrong on most of what he said. So he ignored all of that, too. He preferred to enjoy his rancor rather than face the truth. Typical liberal. And, yes, I do believe that if he were conservative, and there are gay conservatives, he would have been more open minded. If someone tells me something that contradicts a long held belief of mine and it turns out to be true, my reaction is to thank him for the enlightenment. I am not afraid to change my mind. Liberals never want to change their "minds". You can argue with most conservatives. You cannot argue with any liberal. I know. I have tried and have the scars to prove it. My liberal friends brag about how much more they "care" than conservatives. But they never give to charity on the scale my conservative friends do, in general. They do not challenge themselves in many ways. They spout and congratulate themselves because they love movies about the downtrodden and that makes them feel so good about themselves, but it is usually easy because they don't have to do anything about it. Well, I am not doing much better than they are, but at least I know about what is going on and I vote for people who want to help our allies and not our adversaries. My liberal friends are feminists whose feminism ends at their doorstep. They will rail against unequal pay, a fallacy, but ignore what the Castros are doing to women or what Islamism does to women.

You get the idea. I am in a mood today because for the last few months, with my foot inhibiting me, I have spent a lot of alone time, away from my liberal friends, except when I go to the theater or dinner with them. I have been so much calmer. But every time I am with them, something happens to demonstrate their double standards. They live like conservatives in every way, which is good. But their minds are awash with sillinesses like man-made global warming and income differentials. But try to tax them or take money from them or charge too much for gas. After all, they are not the ones with more money than the poor. It is others who have to be forced to give more, not them. And don't try to point out that what they are voting for is giving THEM higher gas prices and taxes and.... well, just don't try. I sound judgmental. I am. What choices do I have? I made the choice to leave my book group, a big loss for me, but a necessary one. But I can't give up all of my friends because that would isolate me entirely. If I speak, I am a big pain in the ass. But if I don't speak, I feel ashamed that I am not prodding them to confront the suffering made worse by their indifference. And even more terrible, they refuse to understand that it is this administration that is deliberately causing the suffering. Would Russia be so calmly aggressive if Obama had not taken the weapons from the Ukraine with the promise that we were there to protect them, and now he is so uninvolved that Putin knows he can arrogantly do what he wants to the defenseless Ukrainians because my liberal friends are "war weary". I have been doing puzzles lately and watching tv. No dancing to help me escape. I have small interest in reading. I have been wasting time and enjoying it. But then I go out with my liberal friends, whom I love as human beings, but their ideas or lack of ideas just slay me. I can't escape. And it is made worse because I know they vote for those who are causing and perpetuating the terrible results here and elsewhere. I suffer for what is going on in today's world with so many either unaware of it or indifferent to it by choice. And a lot of the suffering was avoidable. I do believe the U.S. is a force for good. But we must have a president who leads. The trouble is now we not only have a president who refuses to do that, but one who revels in the chaos resulting from his non involvement as a moral leader. And worse, our populace has been so methodically brain washed that if we have a moral leader who tells it like it is, he becomes the enemy. So George Bush, with whom I disagreed on many things, was a moral leader and a good man, and he is despised. And Ted Cruz, who tells the truth about Obamacare, is vilified by the right and the left. So I read babalu and know what is going on and know that I daren't bring up the suffering of the Cuban people or the Venezuelans to my liberal friends. Get real, Janet. What is a person to do? I despair. Jack Fowler tells me it is a sin to despair. But how is it to be avoided?

Birthers

This Internet-based assertion persists, most-recently manifest as the posing of four Simple Questions: 1. In 1961, recalling that people of color were called Negroes, how can the Obama Birth Certificate state he is "African-American" when the term wasn't even used at that time? {It doesnt; vide infra.} 2. How can the Obama Birth Certificate state that his father [Barack Hussein Obama] had been born in "Kenya, East Africa" on the date when Obama's was born [August 4, 1961], when Kenya did not even exist until 1963 and, prior thereto, it was known as the "British East Africa Protectorate"? {It can; it was a protectorate until 1920, when it became the colony of Kenya.[2]} 3. How can he have been born at the "Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital," when the hospital(s) in question, in 1961, were called "KauiKeolani Children's Hospital" and "Kapi'olani Maternity Home," respectively, until they merged in 1978? {THIS is a good question.} 4. How can Obama write that he had been proud of his fathers having fought in WW II when (assuming he was 25 years-old in 1961, when Obama was born) he would have only been 3 years-old when the war started? {THIS is also a good question.}