It’s just a raging bitch kind of summer, or perhaps I am describing myself. The weekends have been great–better than probably any of us living in Virginia in June deserve. This weekend is supposed to be just like the last 3 weekends. Warm and gorgeous.
I am taking the plunge and having my wrap-around deck re-stained. What a pain! I think I have more on my deck than I do in my living room. Plants, furniture, mosquito spray. Mosquitoes have been horrible. Bull Run breeds them big.
Has anyone found a cure to keep the mosquitoes at bay?
I need a beer that is perhaps less biting than an IPA. Any suggestions?
@Rick Bentley
But you can tell that the water is rising in the Norfolk area and that the ground is sinking. The question becomes, WHY?
Did you have a nice 4th Rick. The weather couldn’t have been nicer.
@Rick Bentley
I think perhaps we have two groups out there polarizing science. The believers and the non-believers. Somewhere in the middle we might find ourselves.
What I have been seeing is a lot longer than 17 years…..
I have no earthly idea why it is happening. Magic?
I actually had a decent 4th, thank you for asking. Nevertheless I managed to get all worked up about this issue.
I can’t stand to hear people say things that aren’t true. En masse.
I think you just have to accept that Norfolk has some unique problems. They are forming a consortium to solve the problem. What’s wrong with that?
I haven’t said anything untrue. I posted a link.
@Rick Bentley
I believe in you, Rick Bentley, truthteller extraordinaire.
Insanity, stupidity, primitivism – them fighting words, indeed.
@Rick Bentley
I believe in you, Rick Bentley, truthteller extraordinaire.
Insanity, stupidity, primiitivism – them fighting words, indeed.
Sen. Robert Menendez seeks probe of alleged Cuban plot to smear him
Sen. Robert Menendez is asking the Justice Department to pursue evidence obtained by U.S. investigators that the Cuban government concocted an elaborate plot to smear him with allegations that he cavorted with underage prostitutes, according to people familiar with the discussions.
In a letter sent to Justice Department officials, the senator’s attorney asserts that the plot was timed to derail the political rise of Menendez (D-N.J.), one of Washington’s most ardent critics of the Castro regime. At the time, Menendez was running for reelection and was preparing to assume the powerful chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
According to a former U.S. official with firsthand knowledge of government intelligence, the CIA had obtained credible evidence, including Internet protocol addresses, linking Cuban agents to the prostitution claims and to efforts to plant the story in U.S. and Latin American media.
The alleged Cuba connection was laid out in an intelligence report provided last year to U.S. government officials and sent by secure cable to the FBI’s counterintelligence division, according to the former official and a second person with close ties to Menendez who had been briefed on the matter.
The intelligence information indicated that operatives from Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence helped create a fake tipster using the name “Pete Williams,” according to the former official. The tipster told FBI agents and others he had information about Menendez participating in poolside sex parties with underage prostitutes while vacationing at the Dominican Republic home of Salomon Melgen, a wealthy eye doctor, donor and friend of the senator.
A spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, which functions as the island’s U.S. diplomatic outpost, did not respond to requests for comment.
The allegations against Menendez erupted in public in November 2012, when the Daily Caller, a conservative Web site, quoted two Dominican women claiming Menendez had paid them for sex.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-robert-menendez-seeks-probe-of-alleged-cuban-plot-to-smear-him/2014/07/07/e9ba25a0-efe8-11e3-914c-1fbd0614e2d4_story.html?hpid=z1
Stupid conservative media got played by the communists.
@Moon-howler
We’ve covered this. Norfolk is NOT in danger of “rising seas.” It is in danger of of sinking land.
According to Norfolk, it is in danger of both. Well, if you are correct, it will be confirmed by this consortium at ODU.
Interesting story about Menendez, Starrylights. Haven’t seen it anywhere. FOX News has finally realized there’s a flashpoint on illegal immigration, and CNN is consumed with the parents who seem to have left the kid in the hot car.
@Moon-howler
No…it won’t. They will say that the sea is rising. THAT gets federal money. They will call in one of the “experts” who will tell them, “Yep, sea is rising. Y’all gonna drown by 2100. Its going to be 7 feet higher.”
How do I know this? Because they’ve already said this.
@Rick Bentley
Funny how they don’t seem to want to cover this invasion, isn’t it?
Cargo, do you mean CNN or FOX News? FOX was deliberately downplaying the illegal immigration stories until yesterday.
That’s because Murdoch is a huge amnesty supporter.
A lot of legit news sources like ABC did not run the Menendez prostitution story because they knew it to be phony, according to the article. Only conservative sources like Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller were stupid enough to fall for it.
That story, as an allegation with supporting evidence, was covered by CNN and nearly every media outlet Starry.
@Rick Bentley
I mean…all of them.
Cargo, I’ve been looking at the FOX News site for a week or so. They seemed to have a news blackout on immigration stories up until 2 days ago. I do believe that it’s as Cato suggests; Murdoch had in fact just recently written an op-ed about the need for “immigration reform”, and was directing his news outlet to lay off on the issue, in hopes that whatever was happening would actually lead to that big comprehensive Amnesty that he wants.
Suddenly 2 days ago the damn broke. They are treating this influx of human beings and deliberate undercutting of our sovereignty as if it were actually up there with the really important stories of our era such as Benghazi and Lois Lerner’s emails. (Good god, that story could actually affect whether she spends a few months in a minimum security prison, or even loses her pension!) And I watch Bill O’Reilly that night and about 45 minutes of his hour was a series of stories on the border crisis. As if it had just happened that day.
CNN for their part was covering the story to the best of their ability, on the air and on their web site. yes they managed to fit it in there somewhere between the endless coverage of the dead toddler whose parents left him in the car. They weren’t trying to pretend that the story didn’t exist. That said, FOX News will drive the story now, aggressively, and I’m glad for that.
But let’s not pretend that the people who control the GOP – the Rupert Murdochs of the world – aren’t in the bag on this issue, and don’t use the means of power to push us away from law enforcement and towards a comprehensive Amnesty.
The issue has been driven by Bush and by Obama. Both of them. 16 years of these two playing politics with this is what created this crisis.
What do you think conditions are like for mothers to put their children on a bus to the United States? That sounds to me like an act of desperation.
How many of the children are totally alone without an adult?
The world is full of desperation, full of people living in shacks without hopes for stable jobs.
And we should take some of them in to America.
But not all of them. And not in violation of law.
How desperate is it when parents put their kids on a bus or hire a coyote to bring them to the USA? It isn’t just shacks. It’s violence, hunger, and desperation.
Think about parents in Europe before and during WWII, sending their children off to God-knows-where just to get them to safety. It wasn’t just Jewish parents. Non-Jewish parents did it also just to keep their children safe. Many of those parents never expected to see their kids again but they did it in hopes that the child would survive.
The idea that parents would do this on a whim is just enraging.
At the end of the day people are going to have to make something of their own countries. Abandoning those nations and regions to criminals is in no one’s interest. It’s insane and counter-productive policy to say, well El Salvador is in a bad state, so send all your young people over here and let things play out for decades down there. Totally insane. It presumes that these people are in fact not capable of making better lives for themselves.
Children really have no choice in the matter.
Places all over the world have similar situations. Somalia, Syria, come to mind. How do women and children fight violence?
I’m talking about high-level policy. I’m talking about the fact that at the outer level looking in, our policies are insane.
This isn’t people running from famine or drought or inability to grow food. It’s people wanting to escape corruption rather than stand and fight it.
How do you ask women and children to fight corruption and violence? That doesn’t even make sense.
@Rick Bentley
I agree with that. The GOP is not innocent in this demand for illegal immigration.
I am not sure I consider this influx of children real “illegal immigration.” I don’t know what it is. It is more of a refugee situation than anything else. Neither party profits from this.
“It is more of a refugee situation than anything else”
That’s the new talking point, I know. The coyotes distribute cards to the illegal immigrants about how to frame their journey as fleeing from persecution. It’s obviously most baloney, this is about econimic opportunity as it has always been, but you can choose to believe that if you want.
“Neither party profits from this.”
Absolutely not true. By anyone’s account, the GOP is in a bind over this issue due to changing racial demographics. Obama has rather obviously been triangulating them with this issue since 2008.
The Democrats stand to possibly profit from an influx of Hispanic, i.e. non-white, voters in future. Maybe they’ll turn Texas blue. But they absolutely, surely, do current profit CURRENTLY from having the GOP boxed in on this issue. It pushes Latino voters against the GOP; simultaneously it helps to drive a wedge between tea party types further right and mainstream Republicans. (Ask Eric Cantor about this).
Oh PUH-leeze! Children as voters? Give me a break. First they have to grow up and then they have to become citizens. Neither party is that long-sighted. I don’t believe the bullshit about the coyotes distributing cards to children.
Ever talked to someone from Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador about the conditions there? I sure wouldn’t leave my kids there.
I had someone ask me today why they (the women) keep having children? I guess Hobby Lobby has a long arm of the law. Third world countries don’t have the best health care or birth control. Outside the cities things are fairly primitive. Even inside the city things can be primitive if you are not in the right section of town.
If that theory is correct, democrats should be interested in massaging this issue but never resolving it during the course of the next 10, 20, 30 years.
And that’s whats generally been happening. Blather about unworkable comprehensive plans while the issue generally becomes larger and more problematical.
I’m not cynical enough about Obama to believe that this was purposeful … nor do I believe him a capable enough executive to have consciously done this … but if he were trying to prolong this issue indefinitely, he couldn’t have done a better job. The whole argument that we can enact “comprehensive reform” has been undermined; it’s inarguable that :
A. The Border is not secure
B. Our government recently claimed to us that the border was relatively secure, but they were lying to us
C. The notion of any type of Amnesty, even one as ostensibly limited as the Dream Act, acts as a magnet and draws in waves of people
It can’t. The Dream Act is for people already here. I don’t know what you think the Dream Act does. It just allows kids with good grades to go to college as though they were documented. It does not convey citizenship on anyone or pay anyone’s way.
The borders will never be secure. Think of our country. We can’t live under a dome.
The borders are relatively secure. Define “relatively.” Even East Germany wasn’t totally secure. People got out all the time.
“How do you ask women and children to fight corruption and violence? That doesn’t even make sense.”
It’s not the women and children alone coming from those nations. It’s generally the younger people. Leaving behind mostly the older generations. To live in part off remittances.
Where is Rick? Dan Stein must have turned him.
The refugee crisis is women and children. Minors.
http://web.archive.org/web/20041116091508/http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/elections/elsalvador/
“The civil war has been over for a dozen years now, and it’s a new era. Fighter jets no longer roar through the sky, and the guerrilla warfare that once raged is long gone. Glistening malls are in vogue. Guess, Nine West and BMW motorcycle boutiques make parts of San Salvador seem like Houston.
“We think that all of this money [the remittances] flooding into the country from the States is in a way corrupting,” a young architect complains. “It’s turning us into a nation of consumers. Studies show that the money that comes in is not invested productively — it’s spent at the shopping malls.”
Despite the conspicuous consumption, the old divide between rich and poor is still apparent. Much of San Salvador remains a sprawling slum with open sewers and staggering social problems. “
And gangs. Show me a country that doesn’t have “haves” and “have nots.”
This isn’t building a better world. It makes labor cheaper and property more valuable in the US. It makes property cheaper and labor scarcer in Central and South American countries. In each country, it helps the wealthy to maintain dominance; in the US they pay less for work, and in those other countries the existing governments are able to maintain power by winning elections among an older and diminished electorate. That’s why it’s happening.
if the opposite were true – if it enabled workers to be paid more in the US, and helped leftists to win elections in the other countries – we’d be shooting illegal immigrants on site rather than celebrating their initiative. I’m convinced of it.
@Moon-howler
Not illegal immigration? Really?
They are not “refugees.” They are not running from oppression or a disaster.
They are being led here by government policies.
This is being done on purpose and was planned for.
@Rick Bentley
“…democrats should be interested in massaging this issue but never resolving it during the course of the next 10, 20, 30 years.”
So…..business as usual on all their issues……
I am calling bullshit. Refugees are people running from oppression. These women and children are oppressed. Yes, they are refugees. They are seeking refuge, very often from violence and poverty.
Being done on purpose? You absolutely can offer me no proof of that statement.
Yeah Cargo, just as the Republican party does with “their” issues.
@Rick Bentley
And that is why I want to get rid of much of the incumbency. Thus my support for the Tea Party.
However, the Dems or shall I say, the progressives of both parties, are more likely to invent new programs, laws, and regulations that do nothing but accrue more power to the gov’t. They NEED this power to save us….don’t ‘cha know?
In ‘sexting’ case Manassas City police want to photograph teen in sexually explicit manner, lawyers say
By Tom Jackman July 9 at 5:00 AM
A Manassas City teenager accused of “sexting” a video to his girlfriend is now facing a search warrant in which Manassas City police and Prince William County prosecutors want to take a photo of his erect penis, possibly forcing the teen to become erect by taking him to a hospital and giving him an injection, the teen’s lawyers said. A Prince William County judge allowed the 17-year-old to leave the area without the warrant being served or the pictures being taken — yet.
The teen is facing two felony charges, for possession of child pornography and manufacturing child pornography, which could lead not only to incarceration until he’s 21, but inclusion on the state sex offender data base for, possibly, the rest of his life. David Culver of NBC Washington first reported the story and interviewed the teen’s guardian, his aunt, who was shocked at the lengths Prince William authorities were willing to go to make a sexting case in juvenile court.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2014/07/09/in-sexting-case-manassas-city-police-want-to-photograph-teen-in-sexually-explicit-manner-lawyers-say/
Perverted police in this town got nothing better to do?
That is insane … but I see how the initial prosecution happened.
I don’t blame the mother for wanting to prosecute when a 17 year old sends a pic of his penis to her 15 year old daughter. And after that, the law’s the law. Is it especially just when a low-level crack dealer gets hard time in jail? No. But the drug laws are there to protect children. Similar argument here.
There might be more to this story … might be a reason the prosecutors are going after him. If not, it’s a crazy waste of taxpayer dollars.
I don’t think it will take a medical injection for a 17-year old to get hard, either …
Taking pictures of little boys’ penises is sickening and disgusting.
Typically, yes.
It sounds like a bluff to me, not something police would really do. I’m not sure we’re hearing both sides of that story.
Bill O’Reilly and Kirsten Powers had a pretty nice
go-around on his show last night (Tuesday) about
the kids coming over the border.
Obama asked congress for emergency funds to address the border crisis and the repugs are saying no. Repugs aren’t serious about border enforcement.
@Starryflights
The funds aren’t for border enforcement. The funds requested are to facilitate moving the illegal aliens further into the country….as planned.
Speaking of sexting….
Mike Dickinson, still claiming to be the Democratic candidate for Cantor’s seat, is tweeting that he will pay $100,000 for nude pictures of Kendall Jones…that 19 year old “big game hunter” that caused all the Facebook controversy over her pictures.
Seeing that she’s only 19, the odds are that if there ARE any…..she might be a minor in them.
I wonder, is he committing fraud in still claiming to be the candidate while there IS an official candidate?
Thank God that Jack Trammel is the candidate. Even if he wins. Nobody like Dickinson should ever be considered as a candidate for office. It would be a disgrace.
Dude, every single kid has been caught. That is border enforcement.
@Starry flights
Dude, every single kid, including KNOWN MS-13 members, is being allowed to stay. When they start getting returned…THEN its border enforcement.
Law says they have to be let in and processed if they are minors. Signed by none other than GWB.
Remember all of the artificial outrage over Sarah Palin’s use of a “targeting reticule” on fundraising material?
I await the condemnation of this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF7Ae4XADC4
What guy? I am lost.
aaaaggghhh….. why is it embedding? I was just posting the link!
@Cargosquid
That´s SICK!
@punchak
And yet………. (…crickets….) from the perpetually outraged media whenever a conservative does something even close to similar….or close as they interpret it.
@Moon-howler
Um….the guy using a gun to shoot an elephant pinata implying the shooting of republicans
@Cargosquid
Its difficult to be outraged over someone looking so incredibly stupid. That was an inappropriate political ad.
I wouldn’t vote for him because he looked so stupid, especially riding the donkey out of there.
I was looking from behind the scenes. Had to come out front to see the donkey rider.
The second coming is happening in Cleveland.
Jesus, oh no, I meant Mr. Brown is returning.
Hallelujah !
@Moon-howler
BuG lights is a term used by old times in the older established neighborhoods.
Funny, I’d see my name I just dropped by to tell Moon we need to take a ROAD TRIP to Leesburg. I didn’t read through this thread, so it may have already been discussed, but it seems as though our ABC Package Stores have a new “premier store”.
http://www.insidenova.com/news/loudoun/abc-rolls-out-new-liquor-store-design-in-leesburg/article_7defa40f-105e-5c3c-8ac4-e47a2ae8ddce.html
I saw that. You just let me know when. I want to take pictures.
Correction old TIMERS….