James L. Paris's Blog, page 152

DNC Allegedly Used Paid Seat-Fillers to Present Cohesive Party Image

As Bernie Sanders supporters bailed on their Democrat brethren at the convention this week, one Sanders delegate is claiming that the DNC was filling the gaps with paid seat-fillers in an effort to present a unified front for the Democratic Party as the gathering wound to a close.

The obviously intelligent and articulate delegate described what he saw, and what his suspicions were, in a video piece that is making the rounds on social media, most notably at InfoWars, the home of well-known conservative libertarian and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

According to the delegate, the first thing that made him suspicious is that when he arrived at the Wells Fargo Center just before the evening���s events began, the place was practically empty���but, in short order, it filled to near capacity.

According to the unnamed delegate, ���Every seat in the house is full ��� so those seat fillers you guys were hearing about? It���s real, they���re in here now.���

He goes on to talk about how the ���pretend��� Bernie delegates cheer and clap in place of the missing or displaced (read: real) Sanders delegates so that when the media broadcasts nighttime convention speakers and events, the perception conveyed to the public is of an upbeat, unified convention.

���It���s because the Bernie people aren���t here and the people that are here are getting paid to sit in their seats and clap their hands.

���My guess is that���s because a seat filler is in your seat and the optics of everyone having to shift and stand and move is not something they want to see. There are people in that hall who are being represented in the media as Bernie Sanders people and they are not ��� don���t believe what you see on TV.

���There are a lot of people here who aren���t delegates who are standing and cheering and clapping for somebody that we aren���t ready to believe in.���

There is more to this than one Sanders��� delegate���s well-founded suspicions; an ad entitled ���Actors Needed for National Convention��� was reportedly spotted by a large number of folks at the Philadelphia Craigslist site, and appeared there only after the massive Bernie delegate walkout on Tuesday.

Things that make you go ���Hmmm������

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr.

 

Op-Ed Piece Gets It Right: Bernie Sanders Has Always Been a Loser

An article by Charles Hurt appearing over at The Washington Times does a great job illustrating an important truth about Bernie Sanders, one that, even now, escapes loads of obsequious followers: Bernie Sanders lost the nomination because losing is what Bernie Sanders has done all along.

It is, admittedly, a much less-than-charitable view of the longtime public servant, but the plain fact is, as Hurt clearly explains, Bernie is a professional also-ran, even as he has managed to win several elections in kooky Vermont.

Yes, the tables were turned against Bernie this year at the highest levels of the Democratic Party, but it���s hard to imagine this ending any other way, regardless; in the end, Bernie will be Bernie.

Sanders career as a U.S. congressman is known every bit as much for his very unremarkable record as a legislator, as for his longevity in holding public office. In truth, even the shine of that longevity, given his underwhelming record, fades quickly as one remembers that his (adopted) home state is that of Vermont, a commonwealth hardly unknown for its not-insignificant population of malcontents and oddballs; where else in modern America has an avowed socialist found that declaration to be a reliable stepping stone to successively higher levels of public office?

Some excerpts from Hurt���s excellent piece (but please go read the full version):

���The problem with Bernie Sanders is that he has been a loser his entire political life. Sure, he has won a few elections. But in terms of vision and ideas, he has always been a failure.

���During his quarter-century in Congress, Mr. Sanders has been viewed as something of a gadfly with Tourette���s syndrome. Always dressed like a homeless person shambling along the hallways, Democrats felt sorry for him and let him into their meetings. He looked like he needed a cup of coffee and free danishes.���

I think this sums up Bernie perfectly:

���So when the time came that more than three people in a smelly commune took Bernie Sanders seriously, even he was perplexed. When, finally and improbably, he actually sparked a movement, he honestly didn���t know what to do.���

The last paragraph is especially poignant, as it takes good account of Bernie and, sadly, so many of our fellow citizens:

���He is like the guy they let out of prison who then realizes that he cannot handle the world outside. So he takes himself to the nicest restaurant in town, orders the biggest, most expensive meal and then refuses to pay the bill so they will come back after him and throw him back into jail. Where at least he knows he will always have a cot to sleep on and free meals three times a day.���

There���s more to it, and it���s all dead-on. Like I said, check it out.

 By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Would-Be Reagan Assassin John Hinckley, Jr. Scheduled for Release

John Hinckley, Jr., the man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan back in 1981, will soon be released from a mental hospital in Washington, DC. On Wednesday, federal judge Paul Friedman granted Hinckley a ���full-time convalescent leave,��� which means he will shortly be a free man, save for a few mild restrictions.

In 2003, Judge Friedman began allowing Hinckley to make short, daytime visits to his parents��� home in Williamsburg, Virginia, and has steadily increased the permitted duration of Hinckley���s visits away from St. Elizabeth���s hospital over the years. The judge���s decision granting Hinckley the full-time leave, to begin on or after Friday, August 5, represents the culmination of the ongoing process of continually-expanding periods of release.

Many Americans of the appropriate age remember where they were that terrible day when they heard that the supremely-popular President Reagan had been gunned down barely two months into his first term. Also shot by Hinckley in the attack were DC police officer Thomas Delahanty, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, and Reagan���s press secretary, James Brady. Although none of the victims died in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Brady���s eventual death in 2014 was attributed to the wounds he suffered that day. Reagan died in 2004 from unrelated causes, and Delahanty and McCarthy are still alive.

While prosecutors have consistently argued against Hinckley���s release, their objections have fallen on Clinton-appointee Judge Friedman���s ���deaf ears.��� That said, while a Virginia medical examiner ruled James Brady���s death a homicide after he passed in 2014, federal prosecutors decided against charging Hinckley with his murder, an option they had at their legal disposal.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Mentions of ISIS Threat in Short Supply at Democratic National Convention

The civilized world may be at war with ISIS, but you would never know that from the lineup of speakers at the Democratic National Convention so far this week.

The DNC was hammered hard on Tuesday, following the opening day and night of the gathering on Monday, when, out of 61 speakers to address the assembled, not one mentioned ISIS, or even the terror threat, more generally.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and VP ticket-mate Mike Pence were each quick to criticize the absence of any mentions of the terror threat on the first day of the Democratic Convention. Speaking at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention, both Trump and Pence took issue with the Democrat���s apparent lack of prioritization of what is now the leading force behind a worldwide radical Islamist insurgency.

For his part, Donald Trump told the VFW audience, ���We need to change our foreign policy to focus on defeating and destroying ISIS, a word you didn't hear last night at the Democratic convention. You didn't hear it. They don't want to talk about it. Because in a very true way they really established ISIS because of weakness. The people in this room know better than anybody else what I mean by weakness.���

When Mike Pence addressed the crowd, he said about the DNC���s premier day speakers: ���Not one of them named ISIS by name.��� Gesturing to Trump, Pence added, ���This man will name our enemies without apology and he will defeat them.���

While it is expected that there will be explicit mentions of the terror threat at the DNC as the event winds to a close, the broader issue, outside of any one night���s lack of seeing terror as a persistent topic of speeches, is what appears to be the overall disinclination on the part of Democrats to discuss ISIS, terrorism, or radical Islam. While the most compelling threat to national and global security goes broadly unmentioned at the DNC, a variety of domestic, progressive, social agendas have received frequent and high-profile references from a variety of convention speakers.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

 

France Under Siege; ISIS Disciples Attack Normandy Church During Mass, Murder 84-Year-Old Priest

France is under siege. Is there really any other way to look at it?

Terror attacks in France by radical Islamists are now so frequent that they seem to occur on a daily basis, and while that may not (yet) be the literal truth, the fact that every French citizen must be constantly on guard for the next brutal attack means that the country is in, indeed, in a state of war.

The latest vicious act of terror in that beautiful country was perpetrated on Tuesday morning in the town of Saint Etienne du Rouvray, when two radical Islamists invaded a church during the celebration of mass and took six hostages, including the priest, two nuns, and several members of the congregation.

As reported by the Daily Mail, Sister Danielle, a nun who managed to escape, said the pair forced 84-year-old Catholic priest Father Jacques Hamel to drop to his knees, at which point they slit his throat.

The sister said, ���They told me ���you Christians, you kill us.��� They forced him to his knees. He wanted to defend himself. And that's when the tragedy happened. They recorded themselves. They did a sort of sermon around the altar, in Arabic. It's a horror.���

The incident came to an end as the attackers emerged from the church, when they were both shot and killed by police.

And on it goes.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

 

Paul Ryan Makes His Getaway from Moms Carrying Photos of Kids Killed by Illegals

 According to Breitbart News, Speaker Paul Ryan, long entrenched in the camp of establishment Republicans who are embarrassingly weak on the subject of illegal immigration, was apparently in a form rare even for him when he and his security staff literally fled from his home on Saturday as a group of mothers tried to show the speaker photos of their children murdered by illegals.

The mothers held a press conference at Ryan���s estate���or, more precisely, in front of it, because, ironically enough, there is a wall surrounding the residence to keep everyone out���in part to announce their intention to support Ryan���s primary challenger in his bid for re-election, Paul Nehlen. Nehlen himself is squarely on the side of Tea Party politics, and is running largely on a platform built with planks about improved border security and immigration control.

Tania Vojvodic, a volunteer on behalf of the campaign, said, ���I saw Ryan on the back porch as the banners were being picked up and folded up. As I was walking with the mothers to the front, he entered into the back door of the house and slammed it. A few minutes later I saw him get into an SUV that departed with another behind it.���

For her part, Maria Espinoza, founder of the Remembrance Project, an advocacy group that works on behalf of families who have had loved ones killed by illegal aliens, said, ���As the mothers and I started to walk up to Ryan���s house with the photos of their children, we saw Ryan and his security detail��� only feet away from us��� speed off in two black SUVs.���

���He and his guards raced off just as the mothers were approaching with their children���s photos. I can���t imagine how the mothers must have felt to see the House Speaker do that.���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

 

Mother of Benghazi Victim Ambassador Chris Stevens to GOP: Stop Using My Son���s Name

The mother of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya who was killed in the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, has asked that GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and other Republican leaders cease invoking her son���s name on behalf of the Republican Party���s effort to win the White House in November.

In a letter-to-the-editor that was published Saturday in The New York Times, Steven���s mother, Mary Commanday, wrote, ���As Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens���s mother, I am writing to object to any mention of his name and death in Benghazi, Libya, by Donald Trump���s campaign and the Republican Party.���

���I know for certain that Chris would not have wanted his name or memory used in that connection. I hope that there will be an immediate and permanent stop to this opportunistic and cynical use by the campaign.���

This is not the first time that members of the ambassador���s family have spoken out against what they evidently see as the politicization of Stevens��� death. His sister, Anne Stevens, said in an interview last month with The New Yorker, ���I do not blame Hillary Clinton or [Former Secretary of Defense] Leon Panetta. They were balancing security efforts at embassies and missions around the world. And their staffs were doing their best to provide what they could with the resources they had.���

Speaking, as well, about the aforementioned politicization, Anne Stevens also said, ���With the many issues in the current election, to use that incident���and to use Chris���s death as a political point���is not appropriate.���

Unfortunately, these expectations on the part of the Stevens family, while understandable at an emotional level, are unreasonable. Ambassador Stevens was a prominent public figure, and one who chose to be exactly that. Furthermore, his death, while obviously tragic and horrible, was a news event of global significance, and one from which stem a variety of political implications. Given that, it���s not reasonable for anyone to expect that his death won���t be a subject of discussion in political forums for years to come, including in political campaigns. Moreover, the implications of granting such requests would be nothing short of bizarre; what sensible person would really be OK with the relative of a newsworthy decedent having the power to silence public discussion about that person? Also troubling is the idea that because the decedent���s family doesn���t necessarily like or agree with the politics of the candidate invoking their relative���s name, that they should have the power to prevent him or her from publicly discussing the death and/or the circumstances surrounding it.

While I���m genuinely sorry for Mary Commanday, the larger issues at play here far outsize in significance even the death of her beloved son.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

 

Bernie���s Weak Response to Betrayal Proves He Was Never What He Claimed to Be

When news broke of the Democratic National Committee���s underhanded effort���documented through a variety of released emails, with more surely to come���to see to it that Bernie Sanders would never become the party���s standard-bearer, his initial response seemed very weak. When DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said she was stepping down, he praised her for doing so, and even said she should be thanked for her years of service.

Mind you, this is the same Bernie Sanders whose entire campaign was built on the idea that ���the system��� is basically corrupt and benefits only the elites.

Sanders doubled down on his fecklessness at the opening day of the Democratic National Convention on Monday, coming in as the last speaker of the evening and telling the assembled that ���Hillary Clinton must become the next President of the United States.���

So much for what (we thought) was the trademark Sanders anger and acute disillusionment at the neoliberalism of Hillary Clinton. Now, he just looks pathetic.

Said Sanders in his Monday speech, ���It is no secret that Hillary Clinton and I disagree on a number of issues. That is what this campaign has been about. That���s what democracy is about.���

Uh-huh���

���But I am happy to tell you that at the Democratic Platform Committee there was a significant coming together between the two campaigns and we produced by far the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party.���

Bernie and his supporters were out-and-out screwed by the party bosses, and this is his response? Really?

The supposed "anti-system" Sanders' reaction to his betrayal, and that of his loyal supporters, is laughable, which should be proof to any ardent progressive that he was never for real. In light of the revelations of what he was up against in his quest to win the nomination, anything less than a full rescission of his endorsement of Clinton, as well as a hard-charging effort to contest the convention, will prove him the little amoeba he appears to be, presently. Like many, I thought that, his screwball politics aside, he was sincere in his agenda, and I had a measure of respect for him on that basis; however, if he's just going to essentially let this go, then we'll know he was a "never-was" all along���or, even worse, that he can be bought off, which would obviously speak to the purported Mr. Integrity's lack thereof.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

 

How To Use The Internet To Find Cheap Airfare

After recently flying round trip to Chicago from Florida for $100 and then $200 round trip from Florida to Los Angeles, Jim shares his favorite money saving travel tips with listeners. On this episode he discusses a wide variety of websites he is using to uncover airfare bargains. He also mentions specific strategies on how to save on both domestic and international flights.

 

Its Official: Democratic Primary Was Rigged

On this episode Jim discusses the Wikileaks e mail dump which removes all doubt that the Democratic primary was rigged. Wikileaks release of 20,000 e mails also discloses the personal information of donors, including passport and partial credit card numbers. Two movies released bring even more negative publicity for Hillary - Jim discusses Clinton Cash and Hillary's America. The NBA moves its All-Star game from North Carolina in response to transgender bathroom legislation. Hillary's VP pick, Tim Kaine, is now explaining $160,000 in gifts he received while serving as governor of Virginia, and another Syrian refugee stages terror attack in Germany.