I bid you good noon. I am at dialysis and hook up. I have four hours and 23 minutes left. I will come off around four 1:45 PM.

Puffed-up Leftist Tyranny Punishes Dissenters David Limbaugh | Apr 28, 2015

Puffed-up Leftist Tyranny Punishes Dissenters David Limbaugh | Apr 28, 2015 Forget for a moment the ever-failing economy, the implosion of our foreign policy coherence, and our virtually unilateral withdrawal in the war on terror under Barack Obama's presidency. If liberty lovers don't start fighting back soon, we'll forfeit our freedom of thought and religious expression under the assault of fascist leftist activists in our culture. Let's just look at two of the many recent events that should have us very concerned. As you may have guessed, they revolve around the controversial matter of same-sex marriage. At the outset, let me say that this issue is no longer about same-sex marriage or gay rights; it is about our basic liberties. First, we read via The New York Times that "Ian Reisner, one of the two gay hoteliers facing boycott calls for hosting an event for Senator Ted Cruz, who is adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage, apologized to the gay community for showing 'poor judgment.'" What was Reisner's sin for which he is now openly flaying himself in faux repentance? He and his business partner allowed Sen. Cruz to participate in a "fireside chat" for about a dozen people, which was not even a fundraiser. But as soon as word got out, gay activists apparently mobilized in force through social media outlets and phone calls calling for boycotts of Reisner's properties. An ostensibly shocked Reisner, in an effort to stanch the bleeding represented by more than 8,200 likes on a Facebook page calling for the boycott, apologized on Facebook. "I am shaken to my bones by the e-mails, texts, postings and phone calls of the past few days. I made a terrible mistake," wrote Reisner. Yes, he made the unforgivable "mistake" of hosting an event for a presidential candidate who has different views on social issues than the fascist boycott organizers have -- and he has himself, for that matter, seeing as he's a prominent figure in the gay rights community, according to the Times. Supporters of same-sex marriage, as many used to predict would happen, are not content with their recent victories on the issue. They obviously want to punish anyone who dissents for any reason -- including religious and conscience reasons -- and also bludgeon those (such as Reisner) who even inadvertently assist those who dissent (such as Cruz). Next, we should consider the horrendous ordeal of Aaron and Melissa Klein, who used to own Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a bakery they built from scratch in Sandy, Oregon, in 2013. When they respectfully declined, on religious grounds, the request of two women to bake a cake for their wedding, the happy couple filed a civil complaint against them for failing to provide them equal service in a place of public accommodation. You know, live and let live -- the attitude the activists and their fellow liberal foxhole buddies told us they would have if they prevailed in their quest to legalize same-sex marriage. A group of unspecified people -- real or robotic constructs of social media legerdemain -- went into battle. "They got together and harassed all of our vendors," Melissa said. The vendors, according to The Daily Signal, folded and took Sweet Cakes off their referral lists, resulting in a 65 to 70 percent reduction in the Kleins' annual income, forcing them to close the bakery. (The Kleins have five children, and Melissa is reduced to baking a few cakes a month at home. Aaron now has a job as a garbage collector.) But that heartless result wasn't enough for the victors. They pursued their legal action against the Kleins with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, and last Friday, an administrative law judge with that agency recommended the Kleins be fined $135,000 for the damages caused to the happy -- and now happily married -- couple. When I first heard about this, my jaw literally dropped, and that takes quite a bit in this upside-down, crazy world we've grown to understand we now inhabit. Aaron Klein said: "This country should be able to tolerate diverse opinions. I never once have said that my fight is (to) stop what they call equality." Sorry, Aaron, and I do mean I am profoundly sorry for the injustice that has been imposed on you, but these activists are not willing to tolerate diverse opinions. They don't care that you are not proactively trying to oppose their march for whatever it is they're marching for. It appears that the true quest of leftist gay activists -- and not just gay activists but those of many other leftist causes in this country (e.g., "climate change") -- is to wholly shut down and censor opposing opinions, whether thought or expressed, whether publicly or privately. I repeat: The real fight on these types of issues in this nation is no longer about the underlying "rights" involved. It concerns the appalling mission of activists to marshal the coercive power of government and of commercial blackmail to compel other people to agree (and publicly say they agree) with their opinions on issues they deem important. Isn't it ironic that the people who are pushing for these rights always wave banners of tolerance, love, compassion and liberty? More than ironic, it's outrageous. And fewer and fewer people of principle are standing up to this tyrannical bullying because, understandably, they don't want to put themselves in the crosshairs of this gestapo. But history tells us the logical conclusion of this story. Some socially liberal Republicans naively believe that this is only about the social issues themselves, but it's about liberty. God help us.     David Limbaugh   David Limbaugh, brother of radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, is an expert on law and politics. He recently authored the New York Times best-selling book: "Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel." ©Creators Syndicate   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CarlRayLouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

California's Water Problem Walter E. Williams | Apr 28, 2015 Share on Facebook

California's Water Problem Walter E. Williams | Apr 28, 2015 Californians are experiencing their third year of drought. Headlines read: "Current California Drought Is Driest In State's History; Scientists Fear 'Megadroughts' On Their Way." "Global Warming Upped Heat Driving California's Drought." Then there are scientific claims such as, "There's a rapidly growing body of scientific research finding that California is in the midst of its worst drought in over a millennium (and) global warming has made the drought worse." A Stanford University study said, "Human-caused climate change helped fuel the current California drought." One news outlet summarized the conclusions of a group of environmentalists this way: "California's severe and ongoing drought is just a taste of the dry years to come, thanks to global warming." Let's examine a few drought facts. California experienced eight major droughts in the 20th century, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. They ranged from two years to as long as nine years, such as that which occurred from 1928 to 1937. In the previous century, there was the bitter drought of 1862-65, which was a catastrophe for the state of California -- made worse by a smallpox epidemic. Scott Stine -- professor of geography and environmental studies at California State University, East Bay -- said that all of these modern droughts were minor compared with California's ancient droughts of 850 to 1090 and 1140 to 1320. One wonders whether California Gov. Jerry Brown and his cadre of environmental extremists would attribute those ancient droughts to man-made global warming. A large part of California's water problem has economic roots. Whenever there's a shortage of anything -- whether it's water or seats at a baseball stadium -- our first suspicion should be that the price is too low. California agriculture consumes about 80 percent of the state's delivered water, and it has been exempted from many of California's new restrictions. On top of that, agricultural water users pay a much lower price than residential users. In other words, California's farmers are being heavily subsidized. The Imperial Valley, located in the southeastern part of the state, is geologically a desert. Nonetheless, its farmers grow large quantities of potatoes, cauliflower, sweet corn, broccoli and onions. These crops would not be produced without there being subsidized irrigation and other state and federal subsidies. I need someone to show me that there is such a desperate need for somewhere to grow potatoes, corn and other crops that we need to subsidize making a desert bloom. Western water is mostly controlled by the U.S. Congress and its Bureau of Reclamation. Through lobbying efforts, the Bureau of Reclamation is controlled by growers and other special interests. Water is distributed in California and other Western states not by market prices but by the political process. Agricultural interests have disproportionate political power. That means that agricultural interests receive taxpayer-financed handouts. California farmers argue that without federal and state government subsidies, crops could not be grown in desert areas. That's a foolish, self-serving argument. If I were an Alaskan wanting to use government subsidies to build hothouses to grow navel oranges, I could use the same argument: Without government subsidies, I couldn't grow navel oranges in Alaska. Some of California's water conservation regulations are mindless. It is illegal for servers in bars, restaurants and cafeterias to serve water unless customers ask. The amount of water that people drink per day is a trivial part of total water consumption. Estimates vary, but each person consumes 80 to 100 gallons of water per day flushing toilets, bathing and for other residential purposes. Another California water conservation effort is "drought shaming." That's when vigilantes call water utility hotlines to snitch on their neighbors who are watering lawns, washing cars or filling pools. One wonders whether there might arise an anti-vigilante movement to punish the vigilantes. The bottom line for solving California's water problem is that there needs to be a move toward a market-oriented method for the distribution of water. Government management has been a failure.     Walter E. Williams   Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of 'Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?' and 'Up from the Projects: An Autobiography.'    Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CarlRayLouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

Anti-Trust Law and Lawlessness Thomas Sowell | Apr 28, 2015

Anti-Trust Law and Lawlessness Thomas Sowell | Apr 28, 2015 We all make mistakes and some of us learn from them. What is even better is to learn from other people's mistakes, where they pay for those mistakes while we learn free of charge. Many Americans who say that we should learn from other people, especially Europeans, mean that we should imitate what they did. That may make those who talk this way feel superior to other Americans. But let us never forget that the most disastrous ideologies of the 20th century -- Communism, Fascism and Nazism -- all originated in Europe. So did both World Wars. More recently, Europe has been belatedly discovering how unbelievably stupid it was to import millions of people from cultures that despise Western values, and which often promote hatred toward Western people. Maybe that is a mistake that we can think about when Congress finally decides to do something about our open borders and our immigration laws that we refuse to enforce. European anti-trust regulators are giving us another free lesson in confused thinking by filing anti-trust charges against Google, on grounds that its searching facilities give preferential treatment to Google's own searching services over other competing searching services. The European Union's commissioner for competition explained the basis for the complaint against Google: "We have a focus on a certain conduct, a certain behavior which, if our doubts are going to be proven, we would like to change because we believe that it hampers competition." Some of us think laws should be clear-cut statements of what you can and cannot do. Indicting people under laws that can lead to fines in the billions of dollars over what "we believe" or what international bureaucrats have "doubts" about is not really law. It is an exercise of arbitrary power, based on whatever subjective notions are in vogue among government bureaucrats. The history of American anti-trust law shows too many similar vague and confused notions masquerading as law. The idea that the accused must prove their innocence, under the "rebuttable presumptions" of the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936, was a forerunner of the same mindset under later "disparate impact" theories in civil rights law. What such fancy words boil down to is that very little evidence is required to shift the burden of proof to the accused, in defiance of centuries-old legal traditions that the accuser has the burden of proof in criminal cases and the plaintiffs have the burden of proof in civil cases. Otherwise, any fact or theory that sounds plausible to legal authorities is enough to force the accused to prove a negative or lose the case. Such violations of the legal standards used in most other cases are usually inflicted on those who have already been demonized and whose guilt has been assumed and punishment is fervently desired, such as big business, employers accused of discrimination or men accused of rape. Google is accused of running its Internet search programs in such a way that they are more accessible to the public than other search programs available through Google. Since people can search through other sources besides Google, it is not at all clear why Google cannot run its own operation for its own benefit, while others run their operations for their own benefit. The whole point of competition in the market is to create economic efficiency which, by its very nature, means eliminating the less efficient producers. Confusion about the difference between maintaining competition and maintaining competitors has long plagued anti-trust law on both sides of the Atlantic. But Americans seem in recent years to be recognizing the difference. In Europe, there still seems to be a notion that big companies with many customers should help their smaller competitors survive -- especially if the big companies are American and the smaller companies are European. In other words, Google should be run in such a way that competing search programs are as prominently featured as Google's own search program. Whatever the case that could be made for this argument, as a matter of manners, noblesse oblige or whatever, people in charge of anti-trust law are not in charge of manners or noblesse oblige. Law is too serious to be subordinated to fashionable notions or political expediency.     Thomas Sowell   Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust. Creators Syndicate   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CarlRayLouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

I bid you good noon. I am at dialysis and hooked up. I have four hours and 21 minutes left. I will be coming off around 4:39 PM.

The Depressing Appeal of Hillary's Phony Populism David Limbaugh | Apr 24, 2015

The Depressing Appeal of Hillary's Phony Populism David Limbaugh | Apr 24, 2015 There was a time when Hillary Clinton was a bona fide leftist radical, but those days have past, swallowed up by her lust for power and money. Don't get me wrong; she's still a true liberal who stands for everything I oppose, and her White House ambitions and her flawed character are a dangerous mixture. She'll say and do whatever she has to in order to win. But as I've said, I'm not that fearful that she'll even be nominated. What does have me concerned is the degree of extremism inhabiting the Democratic Party that makes it necessary and even acceptable for her to make radical statements to stay in contention. What does concern me is that such extremism is no longer considered as such by an ever-growing number of people. I'm troubled by the number of rank-and-file Democratic voters willing to overlook almost anything to advance an agenda they support. I'm alarmed by the lack of moral clarity among people who see nothing wrong with Hillary's trail of scandals or her arrogant refusal to address the most current batch. I guess I need to make a better effort to fit into this century, where morality is relative, ethics are situational and truth is subjective. Let's look at Hillary's most recent outrageous utterance to show how far we've descended. In some choreographed meeting with "economists" (read: ministers of social justice), she pretended to study a graph charting the growth of real wages for the wealthiest Americans. It was reportedly a "bar so steep it hardly fit on the chart." Clinton, feigning indignation and non-hypocrisy, reportedly pointed to the top category and said the economy requires a "toppling" of the wealthiest 1 percent. The economy requires a toppling? I guess that was an inadvertent misprint. Surely, The New York Times meant to say, "Hillary Clinton's pseudo-populist campaign requires that she position herself as a public servant who lies awake at night agonizing over the plague of income inequality and contemplating what she can do to rescue the bedraggled, impecunious and deprived 99 percent of Americans, with whom she could once identify and now can only imitate." I've long marveled at liberal voters' willingness to ignore the gross inconsistency between the causes liberal politicians champion and the conduct of their personal lives. I now understand it, however, because I realize that liberals judge people not based on their personal character or conduct but based on the political and social views they publicly promote. This is how Hillary knows she can make whatever ridiculously hypocritical statements she wants and get a pass from the Democratic base. Sadly, Republicans are not going to lay a hand on Democratic candidates by pointing out their hypocrisy, so maybe they should consider the novel idea of contesting their ideas instead of emulating their phony platform of compassion. For whether or not Hillary's the nominee, the eventual Democratic presidential candidate will mouth the same platitudes and manufactured grievances. There are so many things wrong with Hillary's alleged plan to "topple" the rich. First, her statement assumes that the top tier of income earners is destroying this miserable economy. For six-plus years, President Barack Obama has been peddling the myth that the corporatist banker fat cats caused the 2008 financial crisis, when the evidence indicates that the primary culprits were do-gooder liberal politicians -- the same ones who began pointing fingers at the bankers as soon as the crisis hit to deflect blame from themselves and make convenient scapegoats on whose back they would further grow the regulatory leviathan. Second, her statement probably assumes that most of those in the top 1 percent got where they are as a result of corruption or manipulating the system, which is equally untrue -- except, of course, in the case of the Clintons. Third, if it doesn't assume corruption or manipulation, then it assumes that it is inherently immoral for some to earn a great deal more than others. That is, in fact, what many of the leftist community organizers believe, but it is out of phase with the American idea -- not to mention morally wrong to demonize the successful, or else God wouldn't have prohibited covetousness. Fourth, Hillary's statement implies that this disparity in incomes occurred because of policies she opposes, but in fact, she effectively supports the economic policies of Obama, on whose watch these current disparities exist. Fifth, it assumes that there is a fair, legal and effective way to remedy this disparity, but short of fascist, Marxist confiscation, no such remedy exists, and those tried by socialists in the past have failed. Sixth, it assumes that even if there were an effective remedy for the disparity, it would somehow make society better or help the other 99 percent, but it wouldn't, because punishing success and penalizing wealth would hurt not only the wealthy but also the overall economy. Seventh, the statement betrays an astonishingly hostile attitude toward the undying ideal upon which this nation was founded -- liberty. I sincerely hope that as this campaign unfolds, the Republican nominee will have the courage to challenge the underlying assumptions of socialism that animate the modern Democratic Party and will recapture and articulate the messages of liberty and economic growth and explain how a rising tide truly does lift all boats.     David Limbaugh   David Limbaugh, brother of radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, is an expert on law and politics. He recently authored the New York Times best-selling book: "Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel." ©Creators Syndicate   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CarlRayLouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

Should the Presidency Hang on a Hypothetical Gay Wedding Invitation? S. E. Cupp

Should the Presidency Hang on a Hypothetical Gay Wedding Invitation? S. E. Cupp | Apr 24, 2015 In a year and a half, Americans will elect a new president. What issues will be foremost in their minds? Allow me to set the table for you: The U.S. economic recovery is anemic at best, with long-term joblessness still a major problem confronting millions of Americans. Income inequality has widened, and poverty has increased. In the past six years, scandal has shaken the VA, the IRS, ATF, the Justice Department and most recently the DEA, which is why it's not surprising that Americans name "government" the most important problem facing the country today, according to Gallup. Overseas, the Islamic State now holds huge swaths of Iraq and Syria, an area larger than many countries, and the group continues to recruit Westerners to join in its murderous rampage. Iran is emerging as a dominant power in the Middle East, and Russia is again bullying Eastern Europe. And yet with all of this (and plenty more) in the background, some in the media believe the most pressing question to ask the 2016 Republican contenders and would-be contenders is: Would you attend a gay wedding? If this were an innocent question, a normal reaction from someone vying to be the leader of the free world might be, "Huh?" But the question is far from guileless, and so the contenders have felt compelled to oblige. Marco Rubio says he would, Scott Walker says he already has, Rick Perry says he probably would and Rick Santorum says he would not. Ted Cruz is thus far the only contender who has dared to suggest that there may be more important problems facing the nation than whether or not he graces a hypothetical gay couple with his presence. As he is wont to do, Jon Stewart summed it up best: "This election is going to boil down to, Who do you trust to pick up the phone at 3 a.m. -- and RSVP to a gay wedding?" What must our neighbors and friends overseas be thinking of us? We are the greatest superpower on the planet, and we're worried about whether or not our future president would show up at a gay wedding? It's almost too ripe for mockery to take it seriously. Yet take it seriously we must, for a few important reasons. As Ben Domenech has pointed out, implied in the question is the troubling belief that freedom of association should suddenly be conditional. "Conservatives and (most) libertarians believe people ought to be able to decide whether to freely associate with others themselves," he wrote in the Federalist. They should not be "dragooned." I'm a conservative who supports gay marriage. I've been to gay weddings, and they were lovely. But I believe others should have the permission to be uncomfortable or unwilling -- which, incidentally, is not the same thing as bigoted. The second problem is that the gay rights community isn't driving this line of questioning. The advocates I know don't think the next great achievement of equality will be getting a conservative presidential candidate to their wedding. Rather, the media are driving it, for their own reasons. Remember the rape-related comments that sank two Republican candidates for Senate in 2012? The media want more gaffes that they can use to generate controversy and mold it to fit established narratives. Very well, but the most troubling part of this whole clown show is that it is so blithely hypocritical. President Obama and the Democrats' presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, have attended countless events, brokered dozens of deals, and exchanged all sorts of sordid goods with state actors who lock away gay people, behead them and throw them off buildings. In 2014, Obama held the first ever U.S.-Africa summit, where he welcomed some of the world's most homophobic dictators to the White House, rolling out a literal red carpet and posing for photos with tyrants likeGambia's Yahya Jammeh, who has vowed to "cut off the head" of homosexuals in his country, and Nigeria'sGoodluck Jonathan, who has jailed dozens of homosexuals in his country. Hillary Clinton has accepted millions in donations from countries like Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality is illegal and punishable by death. If Clinton can accept money from countries where gay people are stoned to death, and President Obama can open the White House to dictators who promise to cut off their heads, can't Rick Santorum recuse himself from attending a gay wedding? It's time to get our priorities straight. My advice to the candidates: Don't dignify stupid questions with real answers. It's beneath the office you are seeking.       S. E. Cupp   S.E. Cupp is author of Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity and co-host of MSNBC's The Cycle, which appears weekdays at 3 p.m.   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CarlRayLouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/

I bid you good noon. I am at dialysis and hooked up. I have four hours and 21 minutes left. I will come off around 4:46 PM.

Not Your Grandfather's FBI Judge Andrew Napolitano | Apr 23, 2015

Not Your Grandfather's FBI Judge Andrew Napolitano | Apr 23, 2015 Does the FBI manifest fidelity, bravery and integrity, or does it cut constitutional corners in order to incriminate? Can the FBI cut the cable television lines to your house and then show up pretending to be the cable guy and install listening devices? Can FBI agents and technicians testify falsely and cause the innocent to be convicted, incarcerated and, in some cases, executed? In 2014, FBI agents in Las Vegas were on the trail of Wei Seng Phua, whom they believed was running an illegal gambling operation out of his hotel room at Caesars Palace. Instead of following him, asking questions about him and using other traditional investigative techniques, a few agents came up with the idea of planting a wiretap in Phua's hotel room. They bribed a hotel employee, who gave them access to a place in the hotel where they could disable the cable television wires to Phua's room. When he called for repair, they showed up pretending to be cable guys, and he let them into his room. They repaired what they had disabled, but they also illegally wiretapped the phones in the room. Then they overheard his telephone conversations about his illegal gambling, and they arrested him. A grand jury indicted him based on what was overheard. The grand jury was not told of the wire cutting and the con job, but a federal judge was. Last week, he criticized the FBI for conducting an illegal search of Phua's room, in direct contravention of the Fourth Amendment, which the agents swore to uphold, and he barred the government from using the tapes of the telephone conversations as evidence against Phua. If the government can get away with this, he ruled, then constitutional guarantees are meaningless. These lawless agents should have been indicted by a state grand jury for breaking and entering by false pretense, but Caesars declined to seek their prosecution. No surprise. It was surprising, however, when the FBI was forced to admit last week that in the 1980s and 1990s, its agents and lab technicians who examined hair samples testified falsely in 257 of 268 cases that resulted in convictions. Of the convictions, 18 persons were sentenced to death, and of those, 12 have been executed. Some of these cases were federal, but most were state prosecutions in which state and county prosecutors hired the FBI to perform lab tests and compare hair samples from a crime scene with a defendant's known hair sample. The faulty lab work and erroneous testimony destroyed the freedom of hundreds and the lives of 12, squandered millions in tax dollars, and impaired the constitutional values we all embrace. You probably did not hear about the FBI cable guys or the admitted 96-percent rate of false testimony in cases of conviction. That's because the FBI skillfully diverted your attention. In an effort to pick a front-page fight with the government of Poland, FBI Director James Comey revealed last week that the very concept of the Holocaust has moved him deeply -- so deeply that he has ordered all new FBI agents to spend quiet time at the Holocaust Museum contemplating its horrors. He argued that the terror of Nazi agents became so commonplace that its wrongness was no longer apparent to them. That's probably true. The Nazis did so much killing that their acts of killing innocents became commonplace to the killers. Then he blamed the Poles for their own victimization because of the few among them who collaborated with their invaders. This brought the hoped-for fierce blowback from the Polish government and top-of-the-fold criticism of Comey for two days. Earlier this week, the FBI announced the arrest of eight persons for attempting to leave the United States in order to join ISIS. The actual charge is attempting to provide material assistance to a terrorist organization. These ISIS people are truly monsters. Yet, Americans have a natural right to travel where they want and associate with whomever they please. The test of a truly free country is the right to leave it. Moreover, this was a controlled FBI sting. The defendants were instigated by and under the watchful eyes of FBI undercover agents. The FBI admits that the defendants never posed any harm. How can it be a crime -- or harmful -- for people to leave the U.S.? If people with evil inclinations want to leave, let them go; arrest them when they return if they cause harm. For 600 years of Anglo-American jurisprudence, the definition of crime has included the element of harm. No one was harmed by this sting except the taxpayers. Yet, this announcement dominated the news cycle as hoped for. Why chastise the Poles, who suffered egregiously under the Nazis, in 2015 for the few who collaborated with them in 1942? Why entrap losers who harmed no one into thinking they could freely leave the country and join an army of monsters and then announce their arrest during a bad week? To change the subject; that's why. Will FBI agents who lie, cheat, break the law and testify falsely be brought to justice? Will their superiors who condone this be made to answer? Does the FBI work for us, or do we work for it?       Judge Andrew Napolitano   Judge Andrew P. Napolitano is the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of the State of New Jersey. He sat on the bench from 1987 to 1995, during which time he presided over 150 jury trials and thousands of motions, sentencings and hearings. He taught constitutional law at Seton Hall Law School for 11 years, and he returned to private practice in 1995. Judge Napolitano began television work in the same year.   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CarlRayLouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/