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A young Arab boy asks his father “What is that strange hat you are wearing? The father said: “Why, my son, it is a ‘chechia.’ In the desert it protects our heads from the intense heat of the sun.” “And what is the long flowing robe you are wearing?” asked the boy. “Oh, my son!” exclaimed the father “It is very simple. This is a ‘djbellah.’ As I have told you, in the desert it is not only very hot, but the sand is always blowing. My djbellah protects the entire Body, The son then asked: “But Father, what about...

TGIFF! Its Fiddle Friday and we have Bartow Riley with That's A-Plenty (1971). THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Today’s CG hand picked by me.... Anything under 4 minutes is excellent SKNNJYBII JI K RHLLBOPEV, DSJQS DSBY NHOIHBZ, JI KEDKVI CHIL RBVTYZ VTHO XOKIN, RHL DSJQS, JP VTH DJEE IJL ZTDY GHJBLEV, AKV KEJXSL HNTY VTH. —YKLSKYJBE SKDLSTOYB You can find this little fun word game, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram). Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated. PLEASE DO...

"Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician." So says Hillary Clinton of her former Senate colleague and 2016 rival for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders. Her assessment of Sanders' populist-socialist agenda? "It's all just baloney and I feel so bad that people get sucked into it." Does that assessment still hold with Sanders now running strong in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, and having emerged, according to The New York Times, as "the dominant liberal voice in the 2020 race"? "Yes, it does," said Clinton, who left open the...

A good reminder of what we can expect when President Trump’s defense team has their first opportunity in five months to defend him. During a broadcast segment on ABC news reporters in the Capitol were interviewing President Trump defense attorney Jay Sekulow. Back in the ABC studio, Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos did not want to see ABC broadcasting statements from the defense and he is caught on camera using hand signals to tell the producers to cut-off the broadcast. Stephanopoulos realized he was caught: (snip) --- Shortly after 3 pm Eastern this afternoon, @AoSHQ noted Stephanopoulos was shown on camera...

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Bongino interviews Tom Fitton

I don't know about you, but I'm a little tired of Rep. Adam Schiff and the Democratic horde's portraying every charge against President Donald Trump as Trump's effort to interfere with this or that election. In his opening statement at the Senate impeachment trial, Lead House Impeachment Manager Schiff, puffed up with false indignation, did it again. President Trump made an "attempt to use the powers of the presidency to cheat in an election," said Schiff, and he must be impeached. He's claiming that the 2020 election, which won't happen until November, will be illegitimate because of Trump's dastardly telephone...

Who crafted these rules? Who thought it was a good idea to let the House managers just go and go and go and then hand it to the President’s defense team to do the same? This is not how formal debate works. This is not how courtrooms work. Even diehard Democrats and political junkies are feeling a tranquilizer dart to the neck as we slog through three days of Orange Man Bad. To be fair (and fairness is this impeachment’s buzzword), when the Trump side gets its three-day window, that’s going to get tedious as well, and I love those...

Former US vice-president Al Gore has tried to mobilise the global elite to fight the climate crisis by comparing it to some of history’s greatest battles, from Agincourt to Dunkirk. Gore told delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the scale of the climate emergency was much worse than people recognise, and getting worse much faster than people recognise. “The burden to act on the shoulders of the generation of the people alive today is a challenge to our moral imagination,” said Gore, during a session on protecting the Amazon and developing sustainable markets. “This is Thermopylae. This...

Within the Senate chamber, lawmakers were doing their best to endure the long hours of the Trump impeachment trial’s first two days, bringing crossword puzzles, falling asleep, and flaunting the no-electronics rule by communicating on smartwatches. At home, Americans haven’t sought these distractions, because the public is just not tuning in. According to TV ratings for the first two days of the trial, the six news networks covering Trump’s impeachment averaged a little over 11 million viewers combined, with Fox News leading the pack with some 2,654,000 on their channel from 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Viewership dropped by about...

Democrats will gladly watch their case in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump "go down in flames" in order to prevent former vice president Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, from testifying, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said Thursday. "I am amused by the Democrats claiming that we need all these documents ... but under no circumstances should we hear from Hunter Biden, whose conduct was at the center of this entire debacle," Shapiro said on the "The Ben Shapiro Show." **SNIP** Schiff also said Hunter Biden's testimony would allow Republicans to "smear a presidential candidate." "Why is that you get to...

Flossmoor, IL – Newly acquired 911 records show that an ambulance was called to the Flossmoor Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Flossmoor, Illinois, on November 12, 2019, to assist with and transport a woman who was hemorrhaging. The heavily redacted 911 recordings and Computer Aided Dispatch transcript (CAD), were provided to Operation Rescue by the Pro-Life Action League, located in Chicago, Illinois. The call was placed though a Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) to call the Intrado Emergency Call Relay Center, which, in turn, placed the call to the 911 exchange. It took a minute and a half for the...

January 24 2020 Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church Reading 1 1 Sm 24:3-21 Saul took three thousand picked men from all Israel and went in search of David and his men in the direction of the wild goat crags. When he came to the sheepfolds along the way, he found a cave, which he entered to relieve himself. David and his men were occupying the inmost recesses of the cave.David’s servants said to him, “This is the day of which the LORD said to you, ‘I will deliver your enemy into your...

Attleboro, MA – When an abortion patient hemorrhaged during an abortion at Four Women Health Services, an abortion facility in Attleboro, Massachusetts, on October 5, 2019, it wasn’t until she had lost two liters of blood that an ambulance was called. The human body holds a total of 5-6 liters of blood. A loss of two liters — over a half gallon — would cause the patient’s heart to race, her blood pressure to drop, and would result in her slipping of consciousness. Without elaborating, the caller sternly told the dispatcher, “This is an emergency. I need you to come...

MANILA - All 135 tourists from Wuhan province in China who arrived in Kalibo, Aklan on Thursday will be returned to their point of origin, an aviation official said Friday, as more countries record cases of the mysterious new coronavirus. Philippine carriers Royal Air Charter and Pan Pacific Airline will launch 4 flights to take the tourists back to Wuhan, according to Wyrlou Samodio, chief of Civil Aeronautics Board's legal division.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee hopes to join a growing list of states that are trying to protect unborn babies from abortion once their heartbeats are detectable. On Thursday, the Republican governor outlined his pro-life priorities for the new legislative session, including the heartbeat measure and a ban on sex-selection abortions, WSMV News 4 reports. “I believe that every human life is precious, and we have a responsibility to protect it,” Lee said. “Today, Tennessee is taking a monumental step in celebrating, cherishing, and defending life at every stage. I’m grateful to be joined by so many leaders in our state...

Pro-life activists known as the #PurpleSashRevolution staged a sit-in at the office of Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Wednesday, the 47th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States. Their goal was to bring awareness to a bill meant to protect abortion survivors and to inspire Pelosi to allow Congress to vote on the bill. Nine of the activists were arrested by Capitol police for their efforts. The peaceful sit-in was an initiative of Stanton Healthcare’s new Stanton Public Policy Center. Stanton Health Care is a group of...

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is considering backing former Vice President Joe Biden in the Democratic presidential primary, The New York Times reported Thursday. Multiple Democratic officials familiar with the California senator’s deliberations told the Times she’s weighing the option of backing her former primary opponent. The officials told the Times the potential endorsement would not be likely until after the Senate impeachment trial that kicked off this week. Harris’s spokesman Chris Harris told the Times the senator “remains focused on the ongoing impeachment trial.” “No decisions have been made about whether she will endorse, which candidate, nor when an endorsement...

The Chinese market at the center of the deadly coronavirus outbreak sold live animals — including wolf pups, foxes, rats and peacocks — to eat, according to a new report. The wild animals were among 112 items that were peddled at the Huanan Seafood Market in the central city of Wuhan, Agence France-Press reported. Other wildlife sold at the market, which has since been shuttered, included crocodiles, giant salamanders, snakes, porcupines and camel meat.