By Nathan Barton

I’ve not touched on the continuing Islamic wars recently. The death toll last week continued to climb, as a blast in a busy Baghdad market killed at least 60. According to the WaPo, the deadliest blast to strike Baghdad in nearly two years tore through a busy market Thursday, killing at least 60 people in an attack claimed by the Islamic State as efforts to turn back the militants on the battlefield stagnate. Funny, wasn’t the WaPo and other media claiming just last week that ISIS (the Caliphate) was on the run, and the crisis was over?

Of course, it is not just the Ummah that is suffering attacks: this Monday morning, reports come from Bangkok of 27 or more dead in a bombing, according to Russia Today News, with the motorcycle blast at a religious shrine in a tourist and commercial area of the capital of Thailand. Of course, this may be related to Islamic wars, as Thailand is battling a Muslim insurgency in the south, among Malay Thai people. Like the Moro insurgency in the Philippines, this has been going on for centuries.

The people of Colorado and New Mexico are not the only victims of a massive “accident” as Scott reminded me. On Wednesday just before midnight, two explosions, one of 2-4 tons TNT size and one of 21-27 tons, rocked the Chinese port of Tianjin, the major port serving Peking and northern China. Damage extended, based on satellite photos, at least 2 kms (about 1.3 miles) from the “dangerous goods” warehouse and the port is closed, with 17 firefighters and several dozen more dead, and 700 or more injured, although info from various sources, like the Daily Mail is confusing. A number of folks claim it is a warning shot from the West, as China’s money and stock market plunge downwards. Like the Animas River disaster, a number of people apparently accurately predicted this was going to happen.

Indeed, some people are claiming that the Cement Creek-Gold King spill into the Animas River is a false-flag attack, but those who do so have no concept of real-world water systems or geography (claiming that the Colorado River is the only source of water in the entire Southwest; the Animas flows into San Juan which flows into the Colorado above Glen Canyon Dam.) Others, like the writer of a letter to the editor (see my separate commentary on this spill), explain a more logical reason for a false-flag operation: greed for money.

Japan bashing, again… The BBC, that Premier Abe is being condemned for not PERSONALLY apologizing for Japan’s actions in the Great Pacific War (1941-45) and earlier in the Sino-Japanese War, so Japan must be evil. But Abe was born in 1954: NINE years after Japan surrendered: he had NOTHING to do with it, folks.

Is this recycling or just a zombie rising from the grave? CNN, the WaPo, and others pooh-pooh the idea of Algor running for Prez in 2016, but as a number of people pointed out, what do they have to lose? Clinton is crashing and burning, good ole Bernie is… good ole Bernie, and Uncle Joe is no Joe Stalin.  Anyone see Lyndon LaRouche lately?

Democrat? Republican? Tranzi? Conservative? Liberal? Fascist?  Folks, they are ALL part of the problem: government. Consider this revelation about Sabin, a GOP donor who ALSO donates to Planned Parenthood and global warming alarmists and other “environist” causes.  And he is supposedly wealthy from refining of precious metals, you know, like gold from that Gold King Mine…

Speaking of which, the EPA makes its stand – on the side of lies. As reported in Last Resistance, Gina McCarthy, the EPA boss, has declared that we are past ANY debate over global warming: anyone who does not believe in manmade global warming is as wrong and evil as a flat-earther or people who think storks deliver babies. This is the woman that came to Durango on Wednesday where she lied about “victory” in the “battle” over the spill from the Gold King Mine into Cement Creek and the Animas River – even while the EPA continues to mess up more and more, threatening the health and livelihood of thousands of people.

Government once more demonstrates its inability to do much right. Politico reports that the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS, formerly the Rural Electrification Administration) has been mishandling funds intended to pay for providing high-speed internet service to rural areas, and that millions of dollars will be “squandered” by various companies unable to spend the money fast enough, and therefore, many areas of rural America will not have “essential” internet service. Ignoring (for the nonce) Politico’s bias, what did they expect? These are political deals that keep Congressmen in office, and any real benefit is a happy side-effect. If we really wanted to get better communications in rural areas, we’d let the private sector do it by eliminating all of the regulations and taxes that keep innovation from taking place.

The Daily Caller once again reminds us that the First Amendment (freedom of speech, assembly, association] is a dead letter in 21st Century Fifty States, as a nazgul in Colorado says that a couple which owns Masterpiece Cakes cannot use their religious beliefs as an excuse to avoid celebrating so-called same-sex marriage (SSM). In other words, SOME religious beliefs are more equal, more permitted, than others: since SSM is, at its root, a religious belief. As with abortion and many other things, religious beliefs which do not in any way aggress against someone must be suppressed by government for its own ends.

Those ends, of course, don’t have to be moral – indeed, they don’t have to be legal. Freedom Outpost reports on a municipality in Pennsylvania who refused to allow a man to pay his $25 parking ticket with 2500 pennies, stating that the law said that pennies were not legal tender. Turns out there USED to be a law about that (and nickels) but it was repealed in – get this – 1965!!! A half-century ago. The municipal manager “apologized” for the error, but said that was “not an acceptable form of protest” of the ticket: the guy should have gone to court. Right. Even if there were any justice in the courts, who can afford it over a $25 ticket?

Someone else who can’t expect justice is a rural family in Texas, also reported by Freedom Outpost. Sheriff’s deputies were searching for the couple’s son, claiming he was holding a girl or woman against her will. When they told the deputies he wasn’t in their home, they demanded to search anyway – and warrant? We don’t need no steenking warrant – they beat up the man and handcuffed him, so that the woman, fearing for his life (and hers) let them search. They found nothing, of course. We know that the argument the cops will make in court is that safety (of this mysterious girl) overrides liberty and specifically, lets them ignore the Texan and Federal constitutions. Actually, I suppose we should be grateful that the cops didn’t just kill the couple to “protect” the supposed victim.

The WaPo claims that Southern states are set to play major role in the2016 GOP race. It seems to be yet another attack on rednecks and the South, trying hard to link the GOP with the evils of Confederatism and Southern Independence. Is a new military effort to crush the South already on someone’s agenda?