Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
Dems Turn to Debarred Convicted Felon as Star Witness in Futile Kavanaugh Fight ~ They’re really getting desperate – but since when has the Left ever been concerned with credibility? ~

Set to testify on Friday in opposition to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court is John Dean, a convicted felon and disbarred lawyer who gained fame for flipping on former President Richard Nixon during Watergate.

See also: SCOTUS Confirmation Hearing for Brett Kavanaugh Ends With More Sparks

 
Space-case whodunit: Did someone sabotage the International Space Station? ~ A small leak – not a tear, but a hole that had been drilled – was probably a quality control issue – the module was built by Russian company Energia ~

NASA has issued a statement of full confidence in Russia to complete their investigation and fix the problem. However, NASA and the Trump administration should seriously consider the implications of having to rely on Russia to get back and forth to the ISS. We need transport over which we can apply direct oversight and inspection, even if this just turns out to be a manufacturing fumble. It’s time to accelerate our efforts and develop an American option for manned space travel. Either we’re fully invested in a manned space program, or we need to stop pretending we are.

 
After all, this just happened last week ~ Russian Nuclear Bombers Intercepted Near Alaska ~ Some rather disconcerting news that didn’t make the mainstreams’ radar at all ~

Two Russian nuclear-capable bombers were intercepted by American F-22 jets near Alaska on Saturday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command disclosed.
 
The bombers were detected flying near the Aleutian Islands, said Michael Kucharek, a spokesman for the Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).
 
“Clearly Russia is rehearsing a large-scale war,” Stephen Blank, senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, said of the war games in a recent article in RealClear Defense.

 
“John McCain is real Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood” ~ Hmmm… Egyptian media personality makes a very interesting allegation ~

TV host Ahmed Moussa claimed that McCain, recognised in the US as a national war hero and longtime senator, was, in fact, the ‘real Supreme Guide’ of the Muslim Brotherhood.
 
“[McCain] was the main supporter for the terrorist Brotherhood,” he added. “Senator McCain was the one who opened up the Congress to the Brotherhood. He was the one arranging the meetings and appointments and providing them with protection.”

This isn’t outside the realm of possibility. As Robert Spencer points out ~

Remember that when Michele Bachmann called for an investigation into Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the U.S. government, McCain denounced her on the Senate floor as a bigot and an Islamophobe. There was no investigation.

 
Nicaragua: Christians attacked, detained and killed as ‘enemies of the regime’ ~ Things appear to be going from bad-to-worse in Ortega’s socialist utopia; the tyrannical president just kicked the UN Commission for Human Rights out of the country ~

(F)ollowing the expulsion of the UN team anti-government protestors took to the streets again on Sunday (2 September). In the clashes with pro-government forces at least three more people were injured […]
 
On 23 August, the bodies of three men were found in Mozonte, 171 kms north of the capital Managua. Police said the men were all members of a gang and the violence was crime-related, reported national news site 100Noticias.
 
However, ABC local News identified one of the men as pastor Justo Emilio Rodiguez Moncada (35) of the evangelical Camino de Santidad church in Managua. The men were found with hands and feet tied and bullets in their head, making it look like an execution. Relatives say that the authorities only try to cover up the atrocities of the regime.

A couple days after Ortega booted the U.N. Human Rights group out of the country ~ Nikki Haley Leads U.N. Security Council Debate on Nicaragua ~

Haley, currently President of United Nations Security Council as part of its rotating leadership, originally had her proposal for a meeting on Nicaragua blocked by five other countries including China and Russia.
 
“The Security Council should not, it cannot, be a passive observer as Nicaragua continues to decline into a failed, corrupt and dictatorial state because we know where this path leads,” Haley said on Wednesday […]
 
In the past four months, at least 322 have died and thousands more left injured as a result of a government-sponsored crackdown against political demonstrators demanding Ortega step down and call fresh elections. Pro-government gangs have also begun targeting Catholic Churches, many of whose members are opposed to his leadership.

 
Wiccans Accuse Sephora Of ‘Culturally Appropriating’ Witchcraft. There’s Just One Problem ~ Good grief. Stop whining. Turn ’em into frogs ~

Wiccans and pagans are reportedly crying foul on cosmetics retailer Sephora which introduced a “starter witch kit” as part of its Halloween offerings, accusing the chain of profiting off “cultural appropriation.” […]
 
But there’s one big problem with the witches’ claims. Wicca and paganism aren’t new religions and “witchcraft” as these women are practicing it is actually a collection of beliefs and practices “appropriated” from other cultures. Sage burning is a Native American practice. Gypsies popularized fortune telling and Tarot. And crystals, well, those probably originated on weird communes in the 1960s, but that’s still someone else’s culture.

 
Who Owns Science, Anyway? ~ Much as they do on the political front, progressives have been trying for decades to squelch scientific debate. The “Open Science” movement may help change that ~

Who owns science? In the old days, scientists were self-funded or supported by patrons. Nowadays, much of science is funded by governments. And yet the results of the research remain largely behind paywalls: journals that require subscription fees often beyond the reach of the common man […]
 
The thinking behind Open Science is that people who fund the research ought to be able to see the results.

What a radical concept 😯
 
Report: Despite Pleas from Police, Tallahassee Murder Rate Increased 52% Under Gillum Leadership ~ Another city’s crime rate climbs under Democrat leadership. So Florida should elect him as their governor?!

 
Pro-lifer accuses “Shout Your Abortion” of stealing her photo for piece bragging about 3 abortions ~ Because nothing so typifies the Left as dishonesty. If they ripped off the picture, they probably fabricated the entire story ~

“I am 23, I have a good life, I don’t want to destroy it because of a bunch of children that I am not ready for. Doesn’t that make sense? I have ZERO regrets on what I have,” the author writes, wishing that abortion was seen as “just another surgery.”
 
“Heather’s” essay was picked up on multiple websites and received widespread condemnation in pro-life and conservative circles.
 
24-year-old Molly Schaap subsequently reached out to LifeSiteNews and other pro-life outlets to declare that she was actually the woman in the header image … but she was pro-life, had never had an abortion, and did not give Shout Your Abortion permission to use her photo.

 
Hillary Clinton to stump for Bob Menendez in the most ethically backwards campaign event of all time ~ What a pair. These two should both be wearing orange jumpsuits ~

Eighteen counts of bribery have scared many Democrats away from Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., but they didn’t scare away Hillary Clinton. The failed presidential candidate is coming to New Jersey to campaign for the ethically challenged and politically beleaguered incumbent senator […]
 
The senator was credibly accused of running an immigration racket. He provided visas for several of the girlfriends of convicted fraudster Salomon Melgen, and that wealthy ophthalmologist in turn provided him with flights on a private jet, nights in Paris, and rounds of golf at private clubs. If it wasn’t for a mistrial, Menendez would likely be behind bars.

 
Massive Pro-Life Protest With 20,000 People Forces Guatemala to Cancel Bill to Legalize Abortions ~ Wow. This country is seriously pro-life ~

Guatemala only allows abortion when the mother’s life is at risk, and has strongly opposed any moves to impose widespread abortion. Last year, the military blocked a Dutch ship distributing illegal abortion pills, saying it would defend “human life and the laws of our country”.
 
A bill sponsored by the leftist Convergencia opposition party had included a clause that would allow underage girls that have been the victims of sexual abuse to abort in the first 12 weeks.
 
On Sunday 20,000 people, backed by the Catholic and Evangelical churches, took to the streets in protest of the bill and in support of life and family. This fierce opposition forced activists into a hasty retreat, leading to them deciding to remove the clause yesterday.

 
After Pride parade, priest cleanses route with holy water ~ This is awesome. They should try this in Boston after St. Patrick’s Day next year ~

Fr. Oleg Mokryak, head of the Missionary Department for the Diocese of Odessa, Ukraine, walked with parishioners along Seaside Boulevard, “dousing the road, people, and monuments with Holy Water,” according to a report Orthochristian.com.
 
Fr. Mokryak explained he was, “cleansing the boulevard after the sexual deviancy parade that defiled the street.”

And… my favorite tweet of the week ~

A lot of people are protesting Kavanaugh yet not one of them has bothered to come up with a rational justification for protesting Kavanaugh

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 4, 2018

Democrats just can’t help themselves. After spending the weekend shamelessly exploiting the memorial services for Sen. John McCain and the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, loudly decrying divisive politics, angry rhetoric and the lack of civility, they proceeded to launch an angry, divisive, unruly attack on Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, as his confirmation hearings began this morning ~ Democrat-staged protests and interruptions mock the serious business of considering the Supreme Court nominee ~

Strong Democratic opposition to President Donald Trump’s nominee reflected the political stakes for both parties just two months before congressional elections.
 
The Democrats, including several senators poised for 2020 presidential bids, tried to block the proceedings over Kavanaugh records being withheld by the White House. Republicans in turn accused the Democrats of turning the hearing into a circus. And protesters shouted out frequent and persistent disruptions from the audience.

 
While the Left no doubt wants everyone to think this was a righteous, spontaneous protest, it was anything but – as Katie Pavelich reports ~ Democrats Coordinated Their Temper Tantrum at Kavanaugh Hearing ~

Democrats coordinated and planned over the long holiday weekend to obnoxiously interrupt the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The hearing started Tuesday morning and will likely run through the end of the week.

 
Kasie Hunt is an NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent ~

Democrats plotted coordinated protest strategy over the holiday weekend and all agreed to disrupt and protest the hearing, sources tell me and @frankthorp

Dem leader @chuckschumer led a phone call and committee members are executing now

— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) September 4, 2018

[Furthermore, it appears many of the protestors were actually paid. – See below*]

 
The thing is, the United States is a Constitutional Republic. That means we generally attempt to settle our political differences in a civilized, reasonable manner, in accordance with the rule of law. Conservatives – and most Republicans – try to appoint judges who demonstrate a fidelity to the Constitution.
 
Roman Martinez, who clerked for the judge, explains what that looks like, while describing Kavanaugh’s qualifications for the Court ~
 

 

As David Harsanyi at The Stream pointed out back in July ~

For those who rely on the administrative state and coercion as a policy tool — forcing people to join political organizations, forcing them to support abortion, forcing them to subsidize socially progressive sacraments, forcing them to create products that undermine their faith, and so on (the Constitution is) a big problem.

Authoritarians at heart, Democrats think that the Constitution – with its clear limitations on the power of the state – has outlived its usefulness. They view the judiciary as an extension of Congress, preferring judges who legislate from the bench. As ruthless as they are shameless, they’ll obviously stop at nothing to push the Supreme Court as far to the left as possible. With their childish antics, they’re increasingly behaving as if they live in a banana republic. Let’s not let them turn the country into one.

 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Carnival Sideshow:
Illustrating just how unhinged some on the Left have become ~
 
1.) After Leftists Smear Woman At Kavanaugh Hearing As White Supremacist, Her Attorney Husband Issues Fierce Response
 

The internet erupted with conspiracy theories that Zina Bash, a former Kavanaugh clerk, flashed a “white power” sign, apparently giving a nod and wink to her white supremacist, Kavanaugh-supporting brethren. (In reality, she randomly rested her right hand on left arm, but TRUMP!) […]
 
Hours later, Mrs. Bash’s husband, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas John Bash, unloaded on the despicable leftists spreading such falsehoods about his part-Mexican, part-Jewish wife.
 
“Zina is Mexican on her mother’s side and Jewish on her father’s side. She was born in Mexico. Her grandparents were Holocaust survivors.”

 
“The attacks today on my wife are repulsive,” started Mr. Bash. “Everyone tweeting this vicious conspiracy theory should be ashamed of themselves. We weren’t even familiar with the hateful symbol being attributed to her for the random way she rested her hand during a long hearing.”

2.) Dianne Feinstein: More People Will Die in Mass Shootings if Brett Kavanaugh Gets Confirmed ~ No hyperbole here ~

She also intimated there would be more school shootings if Kavanaugh were confirmed, chiefly because of the continued legality of “assault weapons.” Feinstein claimed there have been 273 school shootings since the heinous December 14, 2012, shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, and that such shootings would actually grow with Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Fun fact: A study by University of Alabama associate professor Adam Lankford found 90 mass shootings–including mass shootings at schools–during the years 1966-2012. Feinstein, on the other hand, is claiming 273 shootings in schools alone during a five and half year time frame.
 
3.) Women’s March Leader Linda Sarsour Arrested at Kavanaugh Hearing ~ (Sarsour is a contentious, pro-abortion, Muslim activist)

Sarsour was one of approximately 20 demonstrators forcibly removed from Tuesday’s hearing by Capitol Police. The protesters said Kavanaugh would protect President Donald Trump on the Supreme Court and provide the fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

 
4.) *Three Texas Doctors: We Saw Protesters Paid In Cash To Disrupt Brett Kavanaugh Hearing ~

Author and commentator Adam W. Schindler interviews three Texas doctors who traveled to Washington D.C. to attend the confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh. While waiting on line, they say they witnessed protesters being paid in cash to cause trouble in the hearing and in the public line to get in, Tuesday on Capitol Hill.

 
5.) Dick Durbin Admits: Democrats Plotted to Disrupt Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court Hearing

Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
‘Abomination’: Priest poses with drag queens in sanctuary of Catholic Church ~ More evidence of a subculture of perversion hiding in plain sight ~

GRAN CANARIA, Spain, August 1, 2018 – A priest in the Canary Islands posed with drag queens in the sanctuary of a Catholic church after letting the men use the church rectory as a temporary dressing room […]
 
(Fr. Fernando Báez posed) in the midst of almost a dozen garishly dressed drag queens, all of them standing directly in front of the holy altar. The photo is framed to include in the background a large cross on which is hanging a figure of Jesus.

Utter blasphemy.

 
U.S. announces immediate end to UNRWA funding ~ This is excellent news! As I pointed out earlier this year, this has been an extortion scam all along. Billions of dollars that are supposed to aid the Palestinian people end of in the coffers of their corrupt, terrorist leaders.
As an added bonus, this move will of course infuriate all the right people 🙂 ~

“The administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that the United States will not make additional contributions to UNRWA,” the State Department said in a statement. “When we made a US contribution of $60 million in January, we made it clear that the United States was no longer willing to shoulder the very disproportionate share of the burden of UNRWA’s costs that we had assumed for many years.
 
“Beyond the budget gap itself and failure to mobilize adequate and appropriate burden sharing, the fundamental business model and fiscal practices that have marked UNRWA for years– tied to UNRWA’s endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries– is simply unsustainable and has been in crisis mode for many years,” it continued. “The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation.”

 
The IVF Needle Baby; darling meme, troubling theme ~ A picture of a tiny baby, surrounded by hypodermic needles, which supposedly represent the number of times a lesbian couple attempted to conceive the child through in-vitro fertilization. What a sad statement on today’s me-first culture ~

Not only are the ethical questions created by the technology buried by this picture, so are the culture-wide assumptions that animate our current technologies. I often talk about how marriage, sex, and babies are a “package” deal as created by God and recognized throughout human history until just recently. The main idea of the sexual revolution has been to divorce sex, marriage and babies.
 
As cute and eternally valuable as the baby in the picture is, the image represents a final stage of that divorce. What started as the divorce of sex from marriage by untethering sex from babies has led to the separation of babies from marriage, and now, through our technologies, the divorce of babies from sex.

 
Muslim Doctors Without Borders nurse shoots at Israeli troops on Gaza border ~ I think it was Alan Dershowitz who referred to the NGO as doctors-without-morals Exactly so ~

“Hani Al-Almajdalawi, who tried to infiltrate through the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip while he was armed with a rifle, opened fire toward military forces and even threw an explosive device at them,” it said.
 
COGAT said Almajdalawi was “a nurse who worked for the international organization Doctors Without Borders.”

“Was” being the operative word. The Israelis have zero tolerance for this sort of provocation.
 
Gohmert doubles down after FBI dismisses claim of Clinton server hack ~ Louie Gohmert (R-TX)- is one of the few D.C. politicians actually looking out for the country’s best interests. Good luck with that. Especially when it comes to the Clintons ~

(T)he FBI was notified of the purported hack in 2015, when the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) warned the bureau of the intrusion. The hack reportedly implanted code that generated a “courtesy copy” for almost all Clinton’s emails — which was then forwarded to the Chinese company.

A major national security breach!

“It’s not surprising that the FBI ‘has not found any evidence’ regarding Clinton’s servers being breached,” Gohmert, R-Texas, said. “It was the Obama-appointed Intelligence Community Inspector General that discovered the breach. It was not the FBI that found it, so their statement was technically correct, but very deceptive in its omission.”

 
Arrest of Iranian Spies in U.S. Just ‘Tip of the Iceberg,’ Lawmaker Warns ~ Thanks to all that cash Obama handed them, Iran has been able to fund spying operations – on U.S. soil. Just more of BHO’s legacy of treachery ~

Following the arrest of two Iranian individuals charged with spying on Jewish and Israeli facilities in the California area, Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.) told the Free Beacon it is likely Iran has stationed multiple regime-tied agents in the United States to conduct intelligence operations. […]
 
Iran has been emboldened by the lack of international repercussions on its malevolent behavior and may have increased its intelligence operations in America in the years since the landmark nuclear deal, (Roskam) said.

 
New York Times Op-Ed Unwittingly Reveals Exactly How Google Bias Hurts Conservatives ~ The tech giant’s algorithms inherently slant Left ~

The problem is that Google’s algorithm, based on public perception as it is, skews in a liberal direction — not due to some massive conspiracy, but because the search engine tried to fight “fake news,” and ended up quashing the disruptive new media outlets that were bringing balance to online discourse.

 
Networks Punt on Lanny Davis Blowing Huge Hole in CNN’s Trump Tower Collusion Story ~ Just the latest episode in the ongoing circus the mainstreams are running of “Look here! Russian Collusion! Oh. Never mind.”

 
Gay Utah Republican says LGBTQ suicide rates are linked to high numbers of sex partners ~ But not everyone welcomes brutal honesty, even if it means saving lives

The communications director for the Salt Lake County Republican Party has been heavily criticized after telling The Salt Lake Tribune that suicide rates in the LGBTQ community may be linked to gay men’s promiscuity and a high number of sex partners.

 
Uppsala Has Fallen ~ Poor Sweden. Apparently an Islamic no-go zone has swallowed an entire city ~

The ancient city of Uppsala, the fourth-largest in Sweden with roots going back to Viking times, has fallen. Earlier this week, August 23 2018, Uppsala police announced that they are no longer in control, and criminal gangs have taken over the city […]
 
According to ex-police chief Eliasson, police resources are overwhelmed by out-of-control immigration, gang shootings and crime, and “many in Swedish society do not fully realize how troubling the situation is.”

 
‘Burning Man’ Is America’s Largest Religious Gathering ~ Reverting to paganism ~

Seventy thousand weirdos descend on the Nevada desert this week to bump uglies, welter in filth, and worship Moloch during America’s largest annual religious gathering: Burning Man. The festival began as a summer solstice bonfire ritual in 1986, when Bay Area artists “spontaneously” burned an eight-foot-tall wooden man, as well as a smaller wooden dog, in effigy […]
 
The ritual mirrored an identical ancient Druidic sacrifice described by Julius Caesar in his Commentary on the Gallic War, though Burning Man’s founders claim ignorance as to the custom’s origin. Today that solstice bonfire has grown into a week-long, annual bacchanal of sex, drugs, and pagan spirituality.

 
This Week at War: ISIS’s Worst Nightmare ~ More welcome news. Unencumbered by Obama’s progressive ideology, our military kicks butt! ~

U.S. military airstrikes against terrorist groups in Afghanistan have reached the highest level in nearly a decade, according to the Military Times.