It was a United Nations event, so perhaps this was the audience:

Wednesday, First Lady Michelle Obama said that American women are suffering under “harmful cultural norms” at a U.N. education event.
Mrs. Obama said:
“Women here [in America] are still woefully underrepresented in our government and the senior ranks of corporations. We still struggle with violence against woman and harmful cultural norms that tell woman how they are expected to look and act.”
(link)

No, just, well, NO.

NEVADA – Las Vegas schools are considering plans to teach children as young as 5 about masturbation and homosexuality.

Clark County School District proposed the changes during closed-door meetings with community members last week, EAG News reported.
Among the changes include education of homosexuality as early as age 5 and giving everyone “respect regardless of who they are attracted to,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.  Students of that age would also be taught that “touching and rubbing one’s genitals to feel good is called masturbation,” the newspaper said.
Parents who weren’t invited to the previous meeting showed up Monday to express their anger. (more…)

ST. LOUIS • A group of Ferguson protesters are vowing to disrupt MetroLink service during St. Louis Cardinals playoff games.
Eric Vickers, a state senate staffer who has led various acts of civil unrest in St. Louis, has sent a letter to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig asking for the league to pressure St. Louis officials in the unarmed shooting death of Michael Brown.

left – Anthony Shahid,  center – Eric Vickers, right – Zaki Baruti,

Ferguson professional agitators

“I wish I could communicate to you an upbeat message of fun and joy as many parts of the St. Louis community now rightfully feel with our beloved Red Birds headed back into the playoffs and undoubtedly the Series,” Vickers wrote. “However, all is not joy in Cardinal Nation, as you most certainly must be aware, because of the shooting of Michael Brown, and the deep seeded feeling of enough is enough in the black community it has unearthed.”
In an interview, Vickers said Major League Baseball has a role to play in the Ferguson situation.
“They are coming into the midst of this controversy,” Vickers said. “They need to influence the business community.” (more…)

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron does an effective job  describing the danger of “extremism“, not just “violent extremism“, all extremism.  (Cameron Speech Here)
However, anyone interested in actually following, researching and analyzing international action, against radical Islamist extremism, must also note that Egypt’s President Fatah El-Sisi is about two years ahead in confronting the extremist ideology.

Almost everything both Obama and Cameron have stated in the past month can be viewed curiously against their unwillingness to hold such public views while El-Sisi was pushing back against extremism, and doing something about it.
Readers and visitors to the Treehouse community know full well we have watched Egypt intently.  We continue to share that no international leader has done more to confront ALL the tentacles of radicalism than El-Sisi.
Yet he has also been the recipient of marginalization – at best, and admonishment – at worst, as he has carries out a challenging mission to provide secular stability not only to Egypt, but also to the entire region.
When David Cameron says “all extremism” must be confronted, he need to look no further than Egypt to see it confronted not only on the streets but also in politics, in the media, and within the places of worship where hatred is the tenet that fuels the congregation.
Both Cameron and Obama correctly identify and define extremism yet fail to acknowledge the root.   Extremism stems from a culture of hatred, that culture exists because the West will not confront it.   El-Sisi confronts the culture of hatred head-on.
El-Sisi is by no means perfect, nor is Egypt as a whole; however, the intellectual and cultural center of the Middle-East is once again rising like a Phoenix thanks -in no small part- to the grit and policy of one principled man. A man thoroughly committed to the stability of his nation, and to the broader, predominantly Muslim, nations surrounding it.
(more…)

Because hundreds of beheadings, horrific crucifixions, mass murder, rape, brutality and tens of thousands of Ferguson refugees have been seen fleeing Missouri for the safer venues of the Illinois mountains…..  or something.

Full Text of Speech

Trying to Manage/Police A Cultural Safari Park

Notes:
•  Johnson unable to understand residents who find more pride in destroying community than living in it. A culture of community pride is non-existent amid a significant portion of the residents and those view a greater value, greater personal credibility, in destroying it.
•  No outside agitators, these are Ferguson residents.
•  Mike Brown “shrine” was recorded burning for 11 minutes and could have easily been initially put out with simple cup of water. The person recording did not want to put it out and then went door to door saying the police started it. (more…)

One of the inconvenient truths liberals and progressive-minded Obama supporters seem to be overlooking is the 2001 and 2002 Authorization’s for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), that President Obama is now using to justify his 2014 attacks inside Syria, was a direct result of President George W Bush going to congress and asking for authorization (ie. a vote) prior to launching attacks on terror entities.
Despite the anxiety it produces for Democrats the fact remains. George W Bush never went to war, or used the military as an offensive weapon, without consulting with congress and seeking approval. Regardless of opinion, no amount of spin can remove this obvious fact.
When Obama uses the military for his versions of “the war on terror” he does not consult with congress.
President Obama used the U.N. to authorize his military campaign in Libya, and never did consult congress even after the legally required 30 day timeline of the War Powers Act. And for Syria, well, President Obama is relying on the Bush AUMF’s without further consult.
For this reason we find ourselves in agreement with the New York Times.

Wrong Turn on Syria: No Convincing Plan – President Obama has put America at the center of a widening war by expanding into Syria airstrikes against the Islamic State, the Sunni extremist group known as ISIS and ISIL. He has done this without allowing the public debate that needs to take place before this nation enters another costly and potentially lengthy conflict in the Middle East. (more…)

There’s a big difference between thinking of the IRS Targeting Scandal as originating within the IRS, and reconciling the origin as actually within the DOJ.
When you make that mental reconciliation, it all begins to make sense:

How the targeting originates with the Department of Justice is Outlined HERE. What substantive difference it makes is outlined HERE.

How can the DOJ conduct an investigation into unlawful aspects of the IRS targeting of specific 501(c)(4) groups, when the DOJ is the initiating body for the illegality they are seeking to investigate ?

A “Counter Sink” is a common method in manufacturing to allow the head of a screw, to sit below the surface of the surrounding material. This Politico interview is nothing but a veiled attempt to counter sink the head, Lois Lerner, below the controversy.

Politico interviews the primary corruptocrat within the IRS, Lois Lerner, for two hours. What they publish, as a result of that interview, is essentially the Wikipedia reference for the IRS scandal itself.

Fluff-N-Nutter.

Politico – […] Lois Lerner is toxic — and she knows it. But she refuses to recede into anonymity or beg for forgiveness for her role in the IRS tea party-targeting scandal. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Lerner said in her first press interview since the scandal broke 16 months ago. “I’m proud of my career and the job I did for this country.”

[…] “Regardless of whatever else happens, I know I did the best I could under the circumstances and am not sorry for anything I did,” the 63-year-old said.

Flanked by her husband and two personal attorneys Lois Lerner is interviewed by Politico. The first opportunity for a question was obviously a ‘swing and a miss’, wiffle.
If she did nothing wrong, then why exactly does she believe she is in the current position? What exactly are these “circumstances” she found herself in? Nah, those questions too deep or something.
Moving on… (more…)