Could the false alarm in Hawaii happen here?

NORAD provides airspace surveillance to protect all states in the lower 48, including Ohio. But like Hawaii, Ohio also has its own Emergency Management Agency.

RIck Moran at American Thinker reports:

The false alert yesterday that informed Hawaiians a missile was inbound and told for residents to seek shelter was caused by an employee of the Emergency Management Agency pushing "the wrong button" during a shift change.

. . .

It should be noted that some empty headed leftists are blaming Trump for the SNAFU, but that's just ignorant. The [Hawaii] EMA is wholly a state agency and the responsibility for issuing alerts rests completely with the state government.

Those of us in Ohio probably don’t feel as vulnerable as Hawaiians to incoming missile attacks, but Moran raised the point:

Today, I have no doubt that the other 49 states in the nation are looking at their notification systems under a microscope. But what should they look for? What happened in Hawaii?

. . .

Hawaii says the alert was sent out because of a mistake made by an employee. Currently, we have no reason to doubt that explanation. But would Hawaii - or any state - announce to the public that the system had been hacked and the entire EMA system was vulnerable to intrusion?

As in, hacked by the Russians?

Seriously, the Ohio Emergency Management Agency’s website’s most recent postings concern extreme weather alerts and information. It has a page with information about the three nuclear power plants constructed in Ohio. The only other reference to anything “nuclear” at the website is a link to the “Center for Rad/Nuc Training at the Nevada National Security Site Program,” so the agency does not appear to have incoming nuclear missiles or improvised nuclear terror attacks on its priority lists. Still, those potential events could be covered by The EMA Watch Office:

The Ohio EMA Watch Office is one of the newest branches of the agency and is a key component of the state emergency management system. This office aims to help facilitate a quicker, more informed decision-making process for the preparation for, and response to hazards and incidents impacting Ohio. 

Just FYI.

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Trump craziness

Glenn McCoy cartoon via trump-conservative.com

Last week, Conrad Black wrote a column on the Trump presidency and the continuing temper tantrums on the left. It was published by the New York Sun with the colorful title “Trump’s Foes Beat Retreat To a Rat-Infested Trench And Wave 25th Amendment.” Mr. Black contrasted Michael Wolff’s recent “demonography” [Fire and Fury] and concomitant media pronouncements concerning Trump’s mental incapacity, with President Trump’s negotiations with members of Congress about illegal immigration – live in front of the TV cameras. Mr. Black’s column concludes:

To appreciate what has happened, a little perspective is needed: Mr. Trump’s candidacy was a joke; then he was unelectable, then his election could be invalidated, then he could be impeached, and then he could be removed for past harassment of women, or violating the Logan Act, or obstruction of justice, and now mental incapacity.

Donald Trump is a strange cat and an acquired taste, but he is one of the most vivid, and one of the most astoundingly successful figures of American history. I predict that a year from now, David Brooks and Bret Stephens will be at least closet supporters, even if they have socio-cultural clothespins on their noses.

Black’s column is here. And in related comments on social media about how crazy Trump is: 

             The people calling Trump “mentally ill”:

·         Dress like genitalia to protest Trump [see below: Eye Bleach caution alert]

·         Scream at the sky

·         Think there are 63 genders

·         Think that cutting off your genitalia is normal

·         Need “safe spaces” to protect their feelings

Photograph credit: dailywire.com

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Did Trump even say that bad word?

image credit: uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com

Josh Dawsey at the Washington Post reports on Trump's offensive, obscene, racist remarks in a meeting with some Senators:

. . . according to several people briefed on the meeting.

“Why are we having all these people from $#!+hole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to countries mentioned by the lawmakers.

Cue: media freak out. But did Trump actually say that? According to Jim Treacher’s brief analysis at PJ Media:

Take a closer look at Dawsey's construction there. He got this from "several people briefed on the meeting." Oh, okay. So these people, whose names we do not know, were told that Trump said this bad word by somebody who was actually in the room at the time. We're getting it third-hand.

So, who are these unnamed people? Any hints? MSNBC's Kyle Griffin gives us one.

NBC News has confirmed Trump's "$#!+hole countries" remark with a Democratic aide briefed on the meeting.

So it's been confirmed by... a Democrat. Who wasn't even in the room.

Hey, what more proof do you need?

As Treacher agrees, maybe Trump said it. Or maybe it’s Fake News, in compliance with the new standard: “If it rings true, it is true.”  

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DACA Amnesty Alert

NumbersUSA posted this Action Alert this morning:

CAN YOU HELP STOP THIS? A much-awaited bi-partisan Senate proposal is a DACA amnesty that

(1) continues Chain Migration

(2) rejects E-Verify

(3) gives green cards to TPS, and

(4) rewards parents of DACA with lifetime of work permits

In other words, the Senate proposal is the opposite of the House of Representatives DACA bill -- H.R. 4760 -- that NumbersUSA is endorsing.

Your senators need to know that their voters see the so-called balanced senate amnesty deal as a scary joke.

Phone Sen. Sherrod Brown at (202) 224-2315

Phone Sen. Rob Portman at (202) 224-3353

Pick one or more numbered items from above that you oppose and tell the Senators' staffers that is why they should make it clear that they want nothing to do with that "Durbin-Flake amnesty proposal" presented to the White House Thursday.

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Musical chairs: political headlines at cleveland.com

art credit: australianpoliticsonline.com

Musical chairs: political headlines at cleveland.com 

(just the last two days!)

Jim Renacci drops out of the Ohio governor's race to run forSenate

Dennis Kucinich to enter Ohio governor's race on Wednesday

Nan Whaley to drop out of Ohio governor's race Friday

Mary Taylor unveils Hamilton executive [Nathan Estruth] as running mate [in Governor’s race]

Richard Cordray and Betty Sutton announce joint Ohio gubernatorial ticket

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DREAMer amnesty: moral imperative or Democrat votes

image credit: jimbovard.com

The DREAMers, we are told, are in the U.S. through no fault of their own. The Uniparty’s selling point for amnesty is the “moral imperative” and compassion. But it is really all about votes, as Michael Bastasch at The Daily Caller confirms:

The Center For American Progress (CAP) Action Fund circulated a memo on Monday calling illegal immigrants brought here at a young age — so-called “Dreamers” — a “critical component of the Democratic Party’s future electoral success.”

The memo, co-authored by former Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri, was sent around to allies calling on Democrats to “refuse to offer any votes for Republican spending bills that do not offer a fix for Dreamers and instead appropriate funds to deport them.”

. . .

“The fight to protect Dreamers is not only a moral imperative, it is also a critical component of the Democratic Party’s future electoral success,” reads Palmieri’s memo, obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“If Democrats don’t try to do everything in their power to defend Dreamers, that will jeopardize Democrats’ electoral chances in 2018 and beyond,” reads the memo. “In short, the next few weeks will tell us a lot about the Democratic Party and its long-term electoral prospects.”

YouTube of meeting with President Trump and Senators on immigration

Yesterday's report at Zero Hedge was not encouraging about whatever bill President Trump will sign, but Trump's meeting with senators in front of the media tells me there's more here than meets the eye. 

Probably a good time to call the White House if you oppose any amnesty; the Action Alert is here.

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President Trump is a dope?

cartoon by A.F. Branco at legalinsurrection.com

At The American Spectator, Dov Fischer traces the sorry history of the liberal media branding a (D) President as brilliant, and an (R) President as a bumbling moron, regardless of the factual record. Then Fischer gets to President Trump. I am posting the paragraph because it’s a handy and concise summary of the first year of his Presidency:

But is the President stupid? It depends. Without any prior political experience, he defeated a field of serious Republican candidates for the nomination and then defeated a former United States Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, Yale Law grad with half a century of political experience for the Presidency. In a year, he has set the economy booming with a huge nationwide increase in consumer confidence, a soaring stock market, sustained economic growth exceeding three percent for consecutive quarters, muted unemployment, a record number of successful appointments of federal appellate judges, and much more. He has revived the energy sector, deregulated the economy, honored promises from approving the Keystone XL and Dakota oil pipelines to recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, induced allied world leaders to start paying their fair share of NATO costs, sharply reduced illegal immigration along our southern border, restored civil liberty protections to college students accused of assault, promoted charter schools and school choice, enacted the most overarching tax reduction in the past thirty years — perhaps the most ever — and advanced an ambitious agenda for his second year. So, if that is the mark of stupid, then this guy is a dope.

The most recent attacks on President Trump’s unfitness for office or stupidity or [fill in the blank] prompted Trump’s response on Twitter, branding himself as a “stable genius.” Which, as Scott Adams of Dilbert fame pointed out, was sheer genius itself, because Trump’s detractors will keep referring back to his tweets, endlessly mocking him as a “very stable genius.”

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