All posts by Wintery Knight

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News

Clinton camp caught obstructing Congressional investigation

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Hillary Clinton look bored about the deaths of 4 Americans who asked for her help
Hillary Clinton look bored about the deaths of 4 Americans who asked for her help

The Washington Free Beacon.

Excerpt:

The congressional leader of a key House committee governing the use of technology announced on Thursday that Congress is taking unprecedented action to hold in contempt a computer company that supplied former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with her private email server, which was since found to contain classified information in violation of federal protocol.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), chair of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, informed reporters that he is moving forward with procedures to hold in contempt Platte River Networks, a security firm that helped maintain Clinton’s private servers.

Smith announced that he is in possession of emails that show Clinton’s lawyer instructed companies involved with the server to thwart an official investigation by Congress.

Platte River has “obstructed” investigations by Congress and failed to produce critical documents about the server’s security vulnerabilities, according to Smith, who accused the firm of stonewalling Congress for months.

[…]“After many weeks, months, we realized we were being stonewalled, we were not being given information,” Smith told reporters on Capitol Hill. Platte River “continues to obstruct” the congressional probe into the “possible misuse” of Clinton’s server, he said.

“We do not take issuing a subpoena lightly, nor do we take holding someone in contempt lightly,” Smith said. “Platte River continues to refuse to comply at the direction of Secretary Clinton. Regrettably, former Secretary Clinton has interfered with the committee’s investigation.”

Now might be a good time to review some of Hillary Clinton’s big lies.

The Washington Times has a good list:

Many of us remember the classic line from the “Seinfeld” show, that “it’s not a lie if you believe it.” Applying that theme to the evolution of Hillary Rodham, then Hillary Rodham Clinton, and now just plain Hillary Clinton, here are the notable accomplishments of her “public service” career:

• Flunked the D.C. Bar Exam.

• Was removed from her House Judiciary Committee staffer job because of incompetence and lying.

• The Whitewater scandal.

• Married a serial liar and cheater, who occasionally had sexual encounters with nonconsenting partners.

• Lied about “sniper fire” in an attempt to simulate exposure to danger in a war zone.

• The subject of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” that led to the impeachment and disbarment of her husband

• Took crockery, furniture, artwork and other items from the White House — had to return and/or pay for them.

• Said “what difference, at this point, does it make” about four brave people killed in Libya as a direct result of her failure to protect them on the anniversary of 9/11.

• Totally ignored the structure and rules for the handling of sensitive national security information.

• Amassed a personal fortune with “speaking fees” and payments from private sector political donors and foreign governments into transparent “foundations” in obvious exchange for future political favor.

The one in bold is my favorite.

Investors Business Daily has more details:

Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson reminds us the secretary of state who blamed Benghazi on a video once made up a story about courage under fire in Bosnia.

[…]Former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson reminded the world of Hillary’s tale of heroism in an interview with CBS Philadelphia affiliate WPHT morning host Chris Stigall last November, a tale told by the former first lady in her 2008 run against one Barack Obama.

“I had come home from an overseas trip vacation, and my husband says, ‘When you went to Bosnia 12 years ago with the first lady, were you shot at?,’ and I’m like, ‘No, I think I would know if I were shot at,’” Attkisson told Stigall of the 1996 trip to Bosnia with Hillary, first daughter Chelsea and celebrities Sinbad and Sheryl Crow.

Candidate Clinton claimed in a 2008 speech in Washington and several subsequent interviews that she and Chelsea were forced to run for cover under hostile fire shortly after landing in Tuzla, Bosnia.

“I remember landing under sniper fire,” Clinton said. “There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

Her harrowing tale never happened, and Mrs. Clinton’s faulty memory also forgot that there was a reporter on the trip who was taking notes and had a video of the event.

“The video showed,” Attkisson said, “and I thought this was a pretty good way to explain it — I put her in a box saying, ‘We got off the plane and had to duck and run for cover and there was sniper fire’ and then I show the video of what was really happening, and she’s getting off the plane and she’s waving, shaking hands with a little school girl.”

Here’s the video:

It shows that her essential character is like Walter Mitty – always imagining herself to be more heroic than she is. Thing is, Walter Mitty just day dreamed. Hillary tries to actually lie about it in public. Most of us outgrow this tendency to exaggerate in order to appear more important in our teens. Hillary never did.

News

Reported cases of sexually-transmitted diseases reaches record high

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HIV infection rates from Center for Disease Control
HIV infection rates from Center for Disease Control

This is from the far-left CNN, of all places.

Excerpt:

There were more reported cases of sexually transmitted diseases last year than ever before in the United States, according to the latest STD surveillance report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The annual report, which was released on Wednesday, showed that the rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis — the three most commonly reported STDs in the nation — increased between 2014 and 2015, reaching an all-time high.

Reported cases of primary and secondary syphilis rose by 19%, gonorrhea cases rose by 12.8%, and chlamydia cases rose by 5.9%, from 2014. All three STDs are curable with antibiotics, but most infections go undiagnosed and untreated, according to the CDC.

What is interesting is how overspending by bureaucrats on social welfare, amnesty, refugees, etc. has left less money to combat sexually-transmitted diseases:

In a foreword to the new report, Bolan wrote that some 21 health department STD clinics across the country have closed due to many state and local programs experiencing budget cuts. Therefore, fewer people have access to the testing and treatment resources provided by such clinics.

Meanwhile, as more STD cases emerge, treating infections costs the country nearly $16 billion annually.

With the national debt doubled from 10 to 20 trillion under Obama, Obama’s free-spirited supporters can look forward to not having access to the “health care” they now need.

Not surprisingly, the reckless young people who voted for Obama are the most reckless with sex. And so they are the most affected by STDs:

Young people, 15 to 24 years old, accounted for nearly two-thirds of last year’s chlamydia diagnoses — and half of the gonorrhea diagnoses.

Not only are there more STD infections, but the diseases have adapted to beat our antibiotics.

The Center for Disease Control reports:

Gonorrhea has progressively developed resistance to the antibiotic drugs prescribed to treat it. Following the spread of gonococcal fluoroquinolone resistance, the cephalosporin antibiotics have been the foundation of recommended treatment for gonorrhea. The emergence of cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea would significantly complicate the ability of providers to treat gonorrhea successfully, since we have few antibiotic options left that are simple, well-studied, well-tolerated and highly effective. It is critical to continuously monitor antibiotic resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae and encourage research and development of new treatment regimens.

Gonorrhea is the second most prominent STD, right behind chlamydia.

One reason for the upsurge in STDs might be society’s growing celebration of male homosexuality.

The Center for Disease Control explains:

P&S syphilis among men who have sex with men (MSM) has been increasing since at least 2000. In 2014, rates of P&S syphilis increased among MSM, who account for 83 percent of reported cases among men when the sex of the partner is known. Also concerning is that more than half of MSM (51 percent) diagnosed with syphilis in 2014 were also HIV-positive. Infection with syphilis can cause sores on the genitals, which make it easier to transmit and acquire HIV.

Syphilis is currently the only STD for which information on the sex of the sex partner is reported. However, a growing body of evidence indicates that MSM are experiencing similar increases in gonorrhea and chlamydia infections– underscoring the need to further understand what is contributing to the rise.

Gay and bisexual men face a combination of social, epidemiologic, and individual risk factors that can fuel high levels of STDs. Higher prevalence of infection within sexual networks increases the likelihood of acquiring an STD with each sexual encounter.

And on a different CDC page:

Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men made up an estimated 2% of the population but 55% of people living with HIV in the United States in 2013. If current diagnosis rates continue, 1 in 6 gay and bisexual men will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime, including 1 in 2 black/African American gay and bisexual men, 1 in 4 Hispanic/Latino gay and bisexual men, and 1 in 11 white gay and bisexual men.

The CDC’s solution to this disparity is to ask for more taxpayer money, of course. No disapproval here, just take the money from the moral people and pay for the choices of the reckless people.

Right now, many people are freely choosing to engage in these behaviors, and to celebrate the lifestyles of those who engage in these behaviors, because they think that the government has unlimited taxpayer money to pay for all the costs of these decisions. Little do they know about the national debt, and what happens to “government-provided” health care when the interest rates on that debt increases. As a society, we have decided that it is better to be forgiving and compassionate when people make reckless, risky decisions. “Oh, we can just make the prudent people pay for the mess – they have money”, the progressives say. And that works fine, until the money runs out, and people realize that the mean, judgmental, controlling bullies who were defending chastity, fidelity, marriage, moral standards and personal responsibility were right all along.

Polemics

If you accept Jesus and become a Christian, will God make you happy?

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Navy SEAL Matthew "Axe" Axelson
Navy SEAL Matthew “Axe” Axelson

This is a wonderful, wonderful post from Amy Hall, who writes for the Stand to Reason blog.

She writes:

I had a brief interaction with an atheist on Twitter a couple of weeks ago that unexpectedly turned to the issue of suffering when she said:

You clearly never had a time you were hurt. I don’t mean sick. I don’t mean heart broken. I mean literally a near death experience or rape or abusive relationship…. You can keep floating on a [expletive] cloud thinking Jesus will do everything for you but it’s a lie. What makes you so special?

That surprised me at first because it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the tweet she was responding to, and I was confused as to why she would assume I’d never been through anything traumatic. But then in subsequent tweets, when she revealed she had been raped, it became clear that her trauma had played a central role in her becoming an outspoken, obviously angry “antitheist.” She’s a self-described antitheist now because she thinks Christianity teaches Jesus “will do everything for you” to give you a perfect life, and now she knows that’s a lie. The rape proved her understanding of Christianity false.

So it made sense for her to reason that since I believe Christianity is true, I must still be under the delusion that Jesus is making my life special, which means I obviously never encountered any evil or suffering to shake that delusion.

All right, readers. I don’t want any of you to be thinking that if you become a Christian that these things should be expected to happen:

  • you will feel happy all the time
  • you will be able to sense God’s secret plan for your life through your feelings
  • God’s secret plan for your life will automatically work, even though it’s crazy
  • God will give you a perfect spouse and lots of money without you having to do any work
  • you get permission to do things that that make you happy, even if they are expressly forbidden by the Bible
  • you don’t have to do anything that makes you feel bad (e.g. – go to work), because God wants you to be happy

No! Where do people get this idea that if they convert to Christianity, then God will become their cosmic butler?

Amy has the answer: (emphasis mine)

Hear me, everyone: This is a failure of the church.

A friend of mine who was deeply suffering once said to me that many Christians are in for “an epic letdown” when they realize their preconceived notions about what God is expected to do for us are false. Pastors who preach a life-improvement Jesus are leading people down this precarious path to disillusionment.

If suffering disproves your Christianity, you’ve missed Christianity. The Bible is filled with the suffering of those whom God loves. The central event of the Bible is one of suffering. Love involves suffering. “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” That means suffering.

It’s the church. It’s all the singing about happy things and having of happy feelings and happy preaching designed to make us feel good. I would say the comforting devotional reading doesn’t help to make us any tougher or more practical, either. People seem to use Bible study and devotion as a way to artificially create good feelings of happiness, peace and comfort, instead of just doing hard things to serve God. I don’t think it’s a “spiritual” Christian thing to read A. W. Tozer, etc. just so that you can feel comforted and spiritual. That stuff just gives you a false sense of safety about your precarious situation. God’s job is not to prevent you from suffering. In fact, even if you make really smart, practical decisions, you can expect to get creamed anyway.

Please take 15 minutes and read the book of 1 Peter in the New Testament.

Here’s a summary from GotQuestions.org:

Purpose of Writing: 1 Peter is a letter from Peter to the believers who had been dispersed throughout the ancient world and were under intense persecution. If anyone understood persecution, it was Peter. He was beaten, threatened, punished and jailed for preaching the Word of God. He knew what it took to endure without bitterness, without losing hope and in great faith living an obedient, victorious life. This knowledge of living hope in Jesus was the message and Christ’s example was the one to follow.

Brief Summary: Though this time of persecution was desperate, Peter reveals that it was actually a time to rejoice. He says to count it a privilege to suffer for the sake of Christ, as their Savior suffered for them. This letter makes reference to Peter’s personal experiences with Jesus and his sermons from the book of Acts. Peter confirms Satan as the great enemy of every Christian but the assurance of Christ’s future return gives the incentive of hope.

Practical Application: The assurance of eternal life is given to all Christians. One way to identify with Christ is to share in His suffering. To us that would be to endure insults and slurs from those who call us “goodie two shoes” or “holier than thou.” This is so minor compared to what Christ suffered for us on the Cross. Stand up for what you know and believe is right and rejoice when the world and Satan aim to hurt you.

Recently, I blogged about how suffering is compatible with an all-powerful God, so you might want to read that too if you missed it.