Monday, February 27, 2017

Cancer immunotherapy advances.

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Inovio’s SynCon® WT1 Cancer Antigen Breaks Tolerance, Highlights Potential for Universal Cancer Immunotherapy

Feb 27, 2017

SynCon WT1 and PSMA antigens join hTERT in INO-5401, Inovio’s cancer product planned for immuno-oncology combination study 

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Feb. 27, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO) today announced that its SynCon® WT1 cancer immunotherapy was capable of breaking immune tolerance and inducing neo-antigen-like T cell responses to cause tumor regression in pre-clinical studies. Breaking tolerance has been a major challenge for developing a potent cancer therapy; researchers have tried many other methods and been unsuccessful for decades. Notably, the WT1 antigen is over-expressed in multiple cancer types but not found in most normal tissue, giving it potential to be used as part of a universal cancer vaccine against multiple tumor types.
Results of these pre-clinical studies appear in the online edition of Molecular Therapy in a paper entitled, “A novel DNA vaccine platform enhances neo-antigen-like T-cell responses against WT1 to break tolerance and induce anti-tumor immunity,” authored by Inovio and its collaborators at The Wistar Institute.
Study results revealed that while mice did not mount an immune response to native mouse WT1 antigens, mice immunized with Inovio’s SynCon WT1 antigen broke tolerance and generated robust neo-antigen-like T cells. Furthermore, the immunized mice exhibited smaller tumors and prolonged survival in a tumor challenge study. SynCon WT1 DNA vaccination also broke tolerance and generated neo-antigen-like T cell immune responses in Rhesus monkeys, a species whose immune system closely resembles that of humans. Inovio’s ability to overcome the immune system’s usual tolerance of WT1 antigen suggests the potential of its SynCon WT1 antigen to tackle any WT1-expressing cancer in humans, which include pancreatic, brain, lung, thyroid, breast, testicular, ovarian, and melanoma.
Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio's President and CEO, said, "Our SynCon antigens’ ability to overcome the immune system’s inability to recognize tumor self-antigens is unique and powerful. While we systematically and synthetically mimic the body’s natural process of creating tumor neo-antigens, which possess differentiated but individualized genetic sequences that may then induce an immune response, our ability to break tolerance with broadly prevalent antigens makes our approach more universal across populations. We are pleased to again show such results with an important cancer antigen – in this case, WT1 – and continue to add to our array of promising universal cancer antigens in Inovio’s product development strategy.
“To expand on our capabilities and strategy, the power of our differentiated antigens dovetails with our ability to turn cancer tumors from cold to hot by creating a significant presence of antigen-specific CD8+ killer T cells in a target lesion or tumor microenvironment, which we have shown via biopsies in two human studies. These are critical outcomes: although checkpoint inhibitors have raised the bar for treating cancers by neutralizing cancer cells’ inherent ability to switch off T cells that are hunting them, they do not actually generate the antigen-specific killer T cells required to destroy cancer cells. We believe our DNA-based SynCon immunotherapies are the missing link to take immuno-oncology to the next level.”
“With these accomplishments we could not be more enthusiastic about two immuno-oncology combination human studies to start in the first half of 2017. MedImmune will combine INO-3112 (also named MEDI0457) with their checkpoint inhibitor molecule in an upcoming clinical study. Inovio is also planning to conduct a combination study for INO-5401 with a checkpoint inhibitor in cancer patients. We previously noted that INO-5401 will include our hTERT SynCon antigen. I am pleased to say that INO-5401 will also include our SynCon antigens for WT1 and PSMA. We believe this product has the potential to be a very powerful universal cancer immunotherapy in combination with different checkpoint inhibitors.”
The National Cancer Institute previously highlighted WT1, hTERT and PSMA among a list of attractive cancer antigens, designating them as high priorities for cancer immunotherapy development. WT1 was at the top of the list. The hTERT antigen relates to 85% of cancers and WT1 and PSMA antigens are also widely prevalent in many cancers.
Inovio’s synthetically designed antigens use a consensus of human and multiple animal genetic sequences for the same antigen to create a differentiated SynCon® antigen that can be more readily recognized as “foreign” by immune sentries in the patients. This recognition may help overcome the immune system’s tolerance of tumor cells displaying the native or self-antigens generated by the body. Once a significant antigen-specific T cell response is activated, these T cells may then also seek throughout the body and destroy cancer cells expressing the pre-existing natural or native tumor antigens.
There are multiple lines of evidence pointing to the potential of INO-5401 in immuno-oncology. Inovio previously reported preclinical data indicating the ability of its PSMA and hTERT tumor-associated SynCon antigens to generate significant antigen-specific killer T cell responses. Inovio is also running an ongoing phase I study of its SynCon hTERT antigen (INO-1400) to assess safety and immunogenicity in over fifty patients with at least one of nine different hTERT-expressing cancers. Our SynCon PSMA antigen is one of two components (along with SynCon PSA) making up INO-5150, which is currently in a phase I study of sixty biochemical-relapse prostate cancer patients. Interim immune responses and safety data from both INO-1400 and INO-5150 studies will be presented at cancer conferences in 2017.
Importantly, Inovio has already reported human data characterizing the activation of significant antigen-specific CD8+ killer T cells in patients and their infiltration into lesions and tumors displaying target antigens. These studies of HPV-related precancer (VGX-3100) and cancer (INO-3112) showed a significant presence of activated T cells based on pre and post immunization biopsies. In a controlled phase 2b study for VGX-3100, Inovio also showed statistically significant efficacy in regressing HPV-related cervical dysplasia.
Posted by Geezer Bela at 5:16 AM 0 comments

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Bird-safe, low-cost wind power

http://www.globetoday.com/watch-innovative-bladeless-wind-turbines-in-spain-generate-electricity/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
Posted by Geezer Bela at 1:03 PM 0 comments

Stem cells can affect heart repair.

The use of stem cells to repair tissue has been a long sought after goal in medicine. This is especially true, since stem cells can be produced that do not cause immune rejection (see details of a company called ISCO). Now, British scientists have figured out how to repair heart cells  damaged by heart attacks or heart failure:

http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/772124/heart-condition-failure-stem-cells-trial-repair-tissue

This is in a British paper so it has sidetracks to almost everything.
Posted by Geezer Bela at 5:35 AM 0 comments

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Gold: Is this it now?

I know you have heard this song before: gold is about to break out. When? In 2017. Within 90 days.

How come I say this?

I rely on the report of Andrew Maguire, a legendary whistleblower.

http://kingworldnews.com/andrew-maguire-death-knell-of-central-bank-manipulation-to-send-gold-silver-skyrocketing-in-2017/

According to Andrew M the manipulators now face a ratio of paper contracts to gold delivered of 100 to 1 and there is simply no more gold available to be delivered. So, if the manipulators tried to reduce the gold price by writing a bunch of contracts, they will not be able to deliver unless they buy gold. At this point, the physical Market becomes the controlling factor to set the gold price. Sure enough, this last Friday gold moved past 1,250/oz.

There were some interesting anomalies as well this last week. While gold shorts remained at a decreased level, silver shorts had increased along with shorts in oil:

http://kingworldnews.com/danger-silver-crude-oil-warning-as-gold-bull-market-nears-massive-breakout/

Furthermore, while the price of silver went up nearly 18 cents/oz, silver miners took a tumble. I have no explanation for the anomalies. Nor can I forecast when the breakout in PM prices will occur.


Posted by Geezer Bela at 2:59 PM 0 comments

Vietnamese soup.

Rush Limbaugh mused as to why Liberals  demonstrate and Conservatives do not. He concluded that Liberal demonstrations are driven by hate and Conservatives do not hate. Well, there is an exception to that: we do hate the Press. Supercilious, sanctimonious fakers they are, anti-American, anti-white and anti-Christian. But, that is why we DESPISE them. Our hatred for Liberal members of the Press is due to their complicity in extinguishing freedom in Vietnam. That we will never forgive them. After 50,000 American casualties and a lot more Vietnamese that perished at the hands of the Communists and later in the sea, there is no forgiveness for the Liberal betrayal of the people of Vietnam and America's lost soldiers.

Was Vietnam a total loss? No. We got some wonderful people that came to us as refugees and most of them  did not join the Democrats who sounded to them  suspiciously like the Viet Cong that tormented them. Oh and there was another thing we gained: the knowledge of how to make Pho soup.

Pronunciation of PHO varies. One lady told me it is pronounced as in  'foe.' Another lady told me that it is "phah" that I need to describe so you can fully appreciate. Imagine that you are 10 years old and are just starting to drop the F-bomb. Halfway through, your Mother looks at you and the rest of the word dies unsaid. I prefer the foe pronunciation.

Pho is basically a spiced broth served with rice noodles and chopped (uncooked) vegetables. The broth is made with beef knuckle bones that are simmered for 5-6 hours, so fresh pho is consumed for breakfast (or so I am told). We make the pho in a pressure cooker that reduces the cooking time to 75 minutes, but preparation takes some doing anyway.

Ingredients for the broth.

About 2 lbs beef bones or pork bones with some meat on them
2 medium yellow onions
about an inch and a half ginger
2 TBSP canola oil
3 5 -star anise pods
6 whole cloves
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp fennel seed
1 cinnamon stick

Preparation of the broth.

1. Slice the onions and the ginger, oil a pan and broil till onions blacken
2. Add to Instapot along with the spices and 12 cups water
3. Pressure cook for 75 minutes.
4. Remove beef or pork pieces and save the meat.
5. Strain the broth and discard everything but the broth.

Serving.
 1. Prepare rice noodles according to instructions and use some in each bowl. Pho bowls look big and deep.
2. Chop up or slice  some vegetables to add (Can use green peppers, cabbage and green onions).
3. Add 1/4 lime and some cilantro.
4. Add some hot sauce or siraccha to each bowl as preferred.
Original recipe calls foe adding bean sprouts.

Source.
@kitchn




Posted by Geezer Bela at 9:50 AM 0 comments

An ode to Liberal lunacy.

Ode to Liberal Lunacy
by Tony Olson

If you’re like me . . . it’s probably been an entertaining year
Full of liberal lunacy, hypocrisy, and fear.
There’s been so many “episodes”, it’s easy to forget.
Luckily, they’ve all been logged upon the internet.
The circus added one more ring when Donald got the nod
To represent the GOP . . . the libs cried “Oh my God.”
The media assured them there’s no way that Trump could win
So they sat back on their parent’s couch, enamored by the spin.
Election Day was coming . . . entertainment getting slow,
Thank God the folks in Hollywood maintained the status quo.
A host of A-list wannabes began to trickle forth,
And told us that if Trump should win . . . they’d all be headed north.
When Donald passed two-seventy . . . and victory was at hand,
A Trump-induced psychosis sprouted up in Liberal land.
The fireworks were cancelled, and purveyors of fake news
Were left to invent reasons why their candidate would lose.
They blamed it all on Comey, then they blamed a Russian hack
A dog that ate their homework, and of course . . . the men in black.
A unicorn, a sasquatch, and a faulty Gallup Poll
Next . . . they’ll blame the shooter who was on the grassy knoll.
Posted by Geezer Bela at 5:10 AM 0 comments

Friday, February 24, 2017

Fake news providers barred from WH Press gaggle.

Feb 24, 2017
RUSH: It’s freak-out time at CNN. Get this: Apparently the White House had a press briefing this afternoon, a gaggle, and they denied entry to CNN, The Politico, the New York Times and the LA Times. They all showed up for the gaggle and the White House said, “Sorry, you’re not on the list today; you don’t get in,” and they had a freak-out on CNN.
 
Aboot time. These people are not legitimate journalists, but political operatives.
Posted by Geezer Bela at 2:58 PM 0 comments

Democrats manufacture fake news of CPAC waving Russian flags.

RUSH: Now, you see, this is how the Drive-By Media works. So we had the tweet that Bob Creamer’s group somehow got into CPAC and passed out a bunch of little flags that looked like the Russian flag and people are waving them around, and that gets tweeted out. And O’Keefe comes along and says, “No, no, no. Robert Creamer’s group,” we just explained who that is, “got in there and gave these things out.” Anyway, TheHill.com: “CPAC Attendees Seen Waving Russian Flags.”


From the Raw Story: “CPAC Scrambles to Control Damage After CPAC Waves Russian Flags.” This is from another website, The Week: “CPAC Attendees Wave Russian Flags Ahead of Trump Speech.” It didn’t happen. Totally planted stuff. The Drive-By Media probably knows it’s fake and a sabotage attempt. Doesn’t matter. It’s all about perpetuating this silly idea that the Russians actually are the reason Trump is president.
Posted by Geezer Bela at 2:53 PM 0 comments

Thursday, February 23, 2017

The Left's spiritual attack onTrump.

WND EXCLUSIVE

Witches target Trump with mass occult ritual

Christian leaders urge prayer to protect president against 'demonic realm'

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image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2014/06/wicked_witch_west.jpg
wicked_witch_west
It’s not just a political battle anymore. It’s spiritual warfare now.
Exorcists, witches and occultists “in a number of magical groups” are announcing plans for a ritual designed to “bind Donald Trump and all who abet him.”
It’s to happen Friday at midnight at a variety of locations across the nation, and again every month until Donald Trump is no longer in office.
The rite, requiring a stub of a candle, a pin, salt, matches, a tarot card, a feather and other odds and ends, calls on spirits to ensure President Trump will “fail utterly.” It also includes burning a picture of the commander in chief, visualizing him “blowing apart into dust or ash.”
Participants apparently have the option of using a baby carrot instead of an orange candle.
Among the various spirits invoked are the “demons of the infernal realms.”
There is even a Facebook page networking those who want to participate in the ritual. Some media outlets are also looking to film whatever happens.
It’s not the first time anti-Trump occultists have tried to use black magic against the president.
The far-left feminist blog Jezebel, named after the biblical queen who mandated the worship of Baal and Asherah instead of God, published a gushing story in September 2015 about “Brooklyn Witches” of immigrant descent cursing Trump because they “wholeheartedly believe that Trump and the rest of the GOP are garbage.”
Trump evidently overcame the curse, along with everything else in his way, to win the presidency a year later.
Still, Christian leaders believe these kinds of spiritual threats should be taken seriously, condemned and countered.
Jan Markell of Olive Tree Ministries said the left’s open embrace of demonic imagery is revealing.
“It shows that the level of hatred against Donald Trump is generated by Satan himself,” she said. “Donald Trump is not a perfect man. But he is trying to stop the runaway freight train of evil that has existed for eight years emanating out of Washington and the Democratic Party.
“The left is mesmerized by issues that tear down and that grieve the heart of God. Donald Trump doesn’t have the power to neutralize these people and their agenda, but he is trying to make significant inroads to stop the tremendous slide to the dark side in America. He has some solid Bible-believing Christians at his side. Together they can make a huge difference and repair some of the damage done by evildoers.”
Markell, featured in the WND Film “Trapped in Hitler’s Hell,” argues occultism is being normalized in an increasingly degenerate nation.
“The Bible says that in the last days evil will wax worse and worse,” she said. “A part of that is that the paranormal is being normalized.
“I have done two-dozen radio programs on this topic as it is so alarming. Children as young as 4 and 5 are being desensitized to the occult. After-school ‘Satan clubs’ have been launched in public schools to offset the good that the ‘Good News Clubs’ have been doing for decades. If parents don’t wake up and rise up, we are going to have a society steeped in occult practices in a few years, much worse than the situation is today.”
Pastor Mark Biltz of El Shaddai Ministries, author of “God’s Day Timer,” cited Deuteronomy 18:10-12 to argue those who use occult practices are an “abomination” in God’s sight, according to the Scriptures. He agreed with Markell that such practices are becoming increasingly common.
“We are living at the time of the coming of the Messiah,” he warned. “The world will be getting worse until Messiah’s return. We are to always pray for those who are our leaders. Not only should Christians pray, but they should get actively involved.”
Some Christians are doing just that. One group announced a “Day of Prayer” to counter the occult effort.
Pastors such as Carl Gallups, author of “When the Lion Roars,” urge Christians to join the effort.
“America’s born again believers should cover President Trump in prayer,” Gallups said. “It’s obvious that the demonic realm is stirred by his presence. It’s also obvious that the antichrist agenda of the globalist community is going berserk over a Trump presidency. These are simply signs to those of us who know God’s word that President Trump is being used by the Lord in these prophetic times. Pray for him. Pray for our nation. And, then, get on with the work of the Kingdom.”
Gallups recalled he was once the target of spiritual warfare by a group of supposed witches. And he argued faith in Jesus Christ is an effective counter to any form of spiritual attack.
“I have been a senior pastor of a church in one location for 30 years,” he said. “Very early on in my ministry there, I too became the directed target of witchcraft through an organized witch coven. We even had a couple from the coven who were sent/paid to disrupt one of our worship services. All kinds of promises of ‘evil’ were made that would befall me. I gave no credence to it whatsoever. They went to jail, and I went on with my life and my work for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, simply claiming the promise of God’s protection along the way.
“Twenty-five years later I am still at that church, the church is powerful in the Lord and reaching the world for Jesus, and the Lord continues to bless my life and ministry beyond anything I ever imagined,” he said.
“I am certain that the demonic activities against me and my ministry have never let up; it’s just that I purposely pay them no mind. My trust is in Jesus; I have no fear of magic ‘spells’ and the silly incantations of Christ deniers who are burning candles and looking for signs in a deck of cards.”
Karl Payne, the former chaplain of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and an expert in exorcism who penned “Spiritual Warfare” as a guide for Christians dealing with unseen forces, denounced those behind the spiritual attack on Trump as “so ideologically driven, they do not see straight.”
But he also warned occult forces are being increasingly normalized in popular culture through an anti-Christian media.
“It is not possible to watch major television stations, cable stations or movies without being inundated with shows and movies on the paranormal,” he said. “To think that the constant exposure to these types of shows will not have an impact on those watching them is as naïve as it is to believe people can watch and play hours of video games glorifying murder and mayhem and it not make an indelible impact on their minds.
“Garbage in, garbage out. In the computer world, this used to be voiced as a truism. Now walking and talking with the dead, casting spells, witches, warlocks, zombies, blood, guts and horror are promoted as innocent entertainment and people’s minds and lives are being destroyed as a result in some cases.
“Those denying this are typically those with private agendas hoping to see occultism normalized, and those who profit financially from it with no care or concern for the destructive collateral damage incurred as a result.”
Extraordinary events predicted centuries in advance are unfolding now. Here is your guide to the incredible prophecies being fulfilled before our very eyes. Don’t miss the bestselling sensation from one of America’s most prolific authors and beloved pastors. “When the Lion Roars: Understanding the Implications of Ancient Prophecies for Our Time” by Carl Gallups, available now in the WND Superstore.
Payne said that “too many Christians and churches are more concerned about making friends and straddling an ever eroding moral, ethical and cultural divide in hopes of appearing politically correct rather than being biblically correct.”
He urged Christians to pray for President Trump, but he also said Christians are commanded to pray for everyone in authority over them, even those who are hostile to the Christian faith.
“Christians should not ‘begin’ praying for President Trump; they should already have been praying for him and his administration, just like they should have been doing for Presidents Bush, Clinton and Obama when they were president, whether they were one’s first choice, second choice or no choice,” he said.
However, Payne also said this is a critical time of choosing for American Christians, too many of whom, he claimed, are not standing up for their faith.
“It is time for Christians to view themselves as victors in Christ because of His selfless sacrifice on the cross, rather than apologize for their faith, hiding in fear and volunteering to ride in the back of the bus in hopes of not offending someone or being dragged into the scrum,” he said.
“I personally prefer truth to pretense and posturing, and I refuse to apologize for the One who loved me enough to die for me. Occultists, witches and political hacks should remember the One who lives in Christians is greater than the ones who oppose Christians, natural or supernatural.
“Maybe it is time for Christians to be motivated by courage and faith rather than compromise and fear,” he continued. “Maybe it is time for Christians to step out of the closet too; seems everyone else already has. Christians in this country supposedly represent a 50 million strong voting bloc. Maybe it is time they began to think like a guard dog rather than a posturing, prancing poodle. Jesus did not hide, the apostles did not hide, the early church did not hide, so why should we hide?
“Maybe Christians should view blending into culture rather than shining through it as the compromise that it really represents rather than an art form to be perfected. Jesus was perfect, and the Romans and Jewish leadership still teamed up to crucify Him. Why should we think that if we make friends with everyone, and try not to offend anyone, we will be treated any better than Jesus in this country or around the world?”
As spiritual warfare moves into the headlines, Markell argues it is time for believers to wake up to what is truly at stake.
“Christians need to get educated about the paranormal and just what the agenda is,” she told WND. “It is all evil. The topic may be dark and unpleasant, but learning that loved ones have been snared by the occult is worse. The occult is bold today and growing bolder each day.”
However, Markell also said Christians should remember victory in spiritual warfare is assured if they take up the battle.
“Christians can also unite in individual or corporate prayer on behalf of President Trump, Vice President Pence and all in this new administration,” she said. “We need to push back against the darkness that has consumed Washington, D.C., in recent years.
“The secular world knows nothing of spiritual warfare. This should get Christians galvanized to restore decency and righteousness in America’s highest leaders.”
Arm yourself for the most crucial battle of all. “Spiritual Warfare,” available now in the WND Superstore.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2017/02/witches-target-trump-with-mass-occult-ritual/#3vrTbL83g3LODFq2.99
Posted by Geezer Bela at 7:24 PM 0 comments

Ultimate irony

The North Carolina NAACP is leading a march against requiring an ID to vote. The irony? In order to participate in the march, you have to have an ID. HAHHAHHAHA.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/08/naacp-requires-marchers-protesting-north-carolina-voter-id-law-to-show-photo-id/
Posted by Geezer Bela at 6:54 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

The new realignment.

It would be hard to fathom the hatred of the Resistance toward Trump, unless we considered the realignment of the Electorate during the last (Presidential) election. Trump carried Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio, which could only happen if a sizable portion of the working class voted Republican.

Liberals counted on the "browning" of America to keep them in power, so a shift in the electorate stands in their way bigtime. Trump had carried a big slice of even groups the Dems thought were securely theirs (Hispanics and women) so the intellectuals of the Right have nowhere to go either. That is why we see a bipartisan realignment for and against Trump. Working families started voting for candidates that promised them they would work to protect their interests and jobs. Shipping those jobs to China and Mexico is not in their interest. Duh, a no brainer.
Posted by Geezer Bela at 7:19 AM 0 comments

Anti-Trumpers are still at it.

by Victor Davis Hanson February 20, 2017 7:31 PM @vdhanson Trumps’ critics, left and right, aim to bring about the cataclysm they predicted. A 1964 political melodrama, Seven Days in May, envisioned a futuristic (1970s) failed military cabal that sought to sideline the president of the United States over his proposed nuclear-disarmament treaty with the Soviets. Something far less dramatic but perhaps as disturbing as Hollywood fiction played out this February. The Teeth-Gnashing of Deep Government Currently, the political and media opponents of Donald Trump are seeking to subvert his presidency in a manner unprecedented in the recent history of American politics. The so-called resistance among EPA federal employees is trying to disrupt Trump administration reform; immigration activists promise to flood the judiciary to render executive orders inoperative. Intelligence agencies had earlier leaked fake news briefings about the purported escapades of President-elect Trump in Moscow — stories that were quickly exposed as politically driven concoctions. Nearly one-third of House Democrats boycotted the Inauguration. Celebrities such as Ashley Judd and Madonna shouted obscenities to crowds of protesters; Madonna voiced her dreams of Trump’s death by saying she’d been thinking a lot about blowing up the White House.  But all that pushback was merely the clownish preliminary to the full-fledged assault in mid February. Career intelligence officers leaked their own transcripts of a phone call that National Security Advisor–designate Michael Flynn had made to a Russian official. The media charge against Flynn was that he had nefariously talked to higher-ups in Russia before he took office. Obama-administration officials did much the same, before Inauguration Day 2009, and spoke with Syrian, Iranian, and Russian counterparts. But they faced no interference from the outgoing Bush administration. No doubt the designated security officials of most incoming administrations do not wait until being sworn in to sound out foreign officials. Most plan to reset the policies of their predecessors. The question, then, arises: Why were former Obama-administration appointees or careerist officials tapping the phone calls of an incoming Trump designate (and Trump himself?) and then leaking the tapes to their pets in the press? For what purpose? Indeed, Trump’s own proposed outreach to Russia so far is not quite of the magnitude of Obama’s in 2009, when the State Department staged the red-reset-button event to appease Putin; at the time, Russia was getting set to swallow the Crimea and all but absorb Eastern Ukraine. Trump certainly did not approve the sale of some 20 percent of North American uranium holdings to Russian interests, in the quid pro quo fashion that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did, apparently in concert with Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation — and to general indifference of both the press and the intelligence community. Why were former Obama-administration appointees or careerist officials tapping the phone calls of an incoming Trump designate and then leaking the tapes to their pets in the press? In addition, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that career intelligence officers have decided to withhold information from the president, on the apparent premise that he is unfit, in their view, to receive it. If true, that disclosure would mean that elements of the federal government are now actively opposing the duly elected president of the United States. That chilling assessment gains credence from the likelihood that the president’s private calls to Mexican and Australian heads of state were likewise recorded, and selected segments were leaked to suggest that Trump was either trigger-happy or a buffoon. Oddly, in early January, Senator Charles Schumer had essentially warned Trump that he would pay for his criticism of career intelligence officials. In an astounding shot across his bow, which was followed up by an onslaught in February, Schumer said: “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you. . . . So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.” Schumer was evidently not disturbed about rogue intelligence agencies conspiring to destroy a shared political enemy — the president of the United States. What surprised him was how naïve Trump was in not assessing the anti-constitutional forces arrayed against him. Trump-Removal Chic The elite efforts to emasculate the president have sometimes taken on an eerie turn. The publisher-editor of the German weekly magazine Zeit raised the topic on German television of killing Trump to end the “Trump catastrophe.” So did British Sunday Times columnist India Knight, who tweeted, “The assassination is taking such a long time.” A former Obama Pentagon official, Rosa Brooks, recently mused about theoretical ways to remove Trump, including a military coup, should other avenues such as impeachment or medically forced removal fail: “The fourth possibility is one that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders.” The Atlantic now darkly warns that Trump is trying to create an autocracy. Former Weekly Standard editor in chief Bill Kristol suggested in a tweet that if he faced a choice (and under what surreal circumstances would that happen?) between the constitutionally, democratically elected president and career government officials’ efforts to thwart or remove him, he would come down on the side of the revolutionary, anti-democratic “deep state”: “Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it [emphasis added], prefer the deep state to the Trump state.” No doubt some readers interpreted that as a call to side with anti-constitutional forces against an elected U.S. president. Hollywood stars such as Meryl Streep equate the president with brownshirts and assorted fascists. A CNN reporter announced that Trump was Hitlerian; another mused about his plane’s crashing. Prominent conservative legal scholar Richard Epstein recently called for Trump to resign after less than a month in office, largely on grounds that Trump’s rhetoric is unbridled and indiscreet — although Epstein cited no indictable or impeachable offenses that would justify the dispatch of a constitutionally elected president. Earlier, Republican columnists David Frum and Jennifer Rubin had theorized that the 25th Amendment might provide a way to remove Trump from office as unfit to serve. The New Republic published an unfounded theory, based on no empirical evidence, alleging that Trump suffers from neurosyphilis and thus is mentally not up to his office. Former president Barack Obama — quite unlike prior presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, who all refrained from attacking their successors — is now reportedly ready to join the efforts of a well-funded political action committee to undermine the Trump presidency. The Police Need Policing Fake news proliferates. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Representative Elijah Cummings recently attacked departing national-security advisor Michael Flynn by reading a supposed Flynn tweet that was a pure invention. Nor did Trump, as reported, have a serious plan to mobilize “100,000” National Guard troops to enforce deportations. Other false stories claimed that Trump had pondered invading Mexico, that his lawyer had gone to Prague to meet with the Russians, and that he had removed from the Oval Office a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. — sure proof of Trump’s racism. Journalists — including even “fact-checker” Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post — reposted fake news reports that Trump’s father had run a campaign for the New York mayorship during which he’d aired racist TV ads. Celebrities and writers have attacked Trump’s eleven-year-old son Barron as a sociopath-to-be. Nor is the Trump family immune from constant attack. Daughter Ivanka Trump was recently cornered on an airline flight, while traveling with her three young children three days before Christmas, and bullied by a screaming activist passenger. Her private fashion business is the target of a national progressive-orchestrated boycott. Celebrities and writers have attacked Trump’s eleven-year-old son Barron as a sociopath-to-be or as a boy trapped in an autistic bubble. First Lady Melania Trump sued the Daily Mail after it trafficked in reports that she had once been a paid escort — a lie that was recently recirculated by a New York Times reporter. Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka are routinely smeared as anti-Semites and fascists. One Trump critic berated Gorka as a Nazi sympathizer for wearing a commemorative medal once awarded his father for his role in the resistance to the Communist takeover of Hungary. What has the often boisterous Trump done in his first month to earn calls for his death, forced removal, or resignation? Dangerous Style or Substance? The stock market is reaching all-time highs. Polls show business optimism rising. The Rasmussen poll puts Trump’s approval rating at 55 percent. Compared with Obama in 2009, at the same point in his young administration, Trump has issued about the same number of executive orders. For all his war on the press, Trump has so far not ordered wiretaps on any reporter on the grounds that he is a “criminal co-conspirator,” nor has he gone after the phone records of the Associated Press — Barack Obama’s Justice Department did both, to little notice in the media. Trump’s edicts are mostly common-sense and non-controversial: green-lighting the Keystone and Dakota pipelines, freezing federal hiring, resuming work on a previously approved wall along the Mexican border, prohibiting retiring federal officials from lobbying activity for five years, and pruning away regulations. His promises to deport illegal aliens with past records of criminal activity or gang affiliation have, by design, sidestepped so-called dreamers and the illegal aliens who are currently working, without criminal backgrounds, and with some record of lengthy residence. In his executive order to temporarily suspend immigration from seven war-torn Middle East states, Trump channeled Barack Obama’s prior targeting of immigration trouble spots. At first, Trump’s order was poorly worded and clumsily ushered in; then it was reformulated. It is supported by the public but nonetheless earned a hysterical response from federal judges who seemed to invent new jurisprudence stating that foreign nationals abroad enjoy U.S. constitutional protections. On more substantive reforms, such as repealing Obamacare, reforming the tax code, and rebuilding infrastructure, Trump awaits proposed legislation from the Republican congressional majority. By all accounts, Trump’s initial meetings or phone calls with British, Israeli, Japanese, and Russian heads of states have gone well. Trump has had fewer Cabinet appointees bow out than did Barack Obama. Most believe that the vast majority of his selections are inspired. The nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch was a widely praised move. The defense secretary, retired general James Mattis has echoed Trump’s earlier calls for European NATO members to step up and meet their contracted obligations to the alliance. Clearly in empirical terms, nothing that Trump in his first month in office has done seems to have justified calls for violence against his person or his removal from office. What then accounts for the unprecedented venom? 1) As we saw from his recent free-wheeling press conference, Trump’s loud, take-no-prisoners style is certainly anti-Washington, anti-media, anti-elite, and anti-liberal. He often unsettles reporters with bombast and invective, when most are accustomed to dealing with career politicians or fellow liberal officeholders who share their same beliefs. As part of Trump’s art-of-the-deal tactics, he often blusters, rails, and asks for three times what he might eventually settle for, on the expectation that critics of his style will be soon silenced by the undeniable upside of his eventual achievements. This is a long-term strategy that in the short term allows journalists to fault the present means rather than the future ends. Trump’s unconventional bluster, not his record so far, fuels the animosity of elites who seek to delegitimize him and fear that their reputations and careers can be rendered irrelevant by his roughshod populism. He also has reminded the country that some of the mainstream media and Washington–New York elite are often mediocre and boring. 2) The Democratic party has been absorbed by its left wing and is beginning to resemble the impotent British Labour party. Certainly it no longer is a national party. Mostly it’s a local and municipal coastal force, galvanized to promote a race and gender agenda and opposed to conservatism yet without a pragmatic alternative vision. Its dilemma is largely due to the personal success but presidential failure of Barack Obama, who moved the party leftward and yet bequeathed an electoral matrix that will deprive future national candidates of swing-state constituencies without compensating for that downside with massive minority turnouts, which were unique to Obama’s candidacy. The Democratic party bites its tail in endless paroxysms of electoral frustration — given that the medicine of broadening support to win back the white poor and working classes is deemed worse than the disease of losing the state governorships and legislatures, the Congress, the presidency, and the Supreme Court. 3) Usually conservative pundits and journalists would push back against this extraordinary effort to delegitimize a Republican president. But due to a year of Never Trump politicking and opposition, and Trump’s own in-your-face, unorthodox style and grating temperament, hundreds of Republican intellectuals and journalists, former officeholders and current politicians — who shared a common belief that Trump had no chance of winning and thus could be safely written off — find themselves without influence in either the White House or indeed in their own party, over 90 percent of which voted for Trump. In other words, the Right ruling class is still in a civil war of sorts. It is no accident that many of those calling for his resignation or removal are frustrated that, for the first time in a generation, they will have no influence in a Republican administration or indeed among most Republicans. For some, the best pathway to redemption is apparently to criticize Trump to such an extent that their prior prophecies of his preordained failure in the election will be partially redeemed by an imploding presidency. It is no accident that many of those calling for his resignation or removal are frustrated that, for the first time in a generation, they will have no influence in a Republican administration or indeed among most Republicans. Yet, in private, they accept that Trump’s actual appointments, executive orders, and announced policies are mostly orthodox conservative — a fact that was supposed to have been impossible. 4) Since 2000, what might have been seen as irrational and abnormal has become institutionalized and commonplace: record U.S. debt approaching $20 trillion, chronic trade deficits, an often destructive globalization, Hoover-era anemic economic growth, polarizing racial identity politics, open borders, steady growth in the size of government, sanctuary cities, unmet NATO obligations abroad, crumbling faith that the European Union is sustainable and democratic, and a gradual symbiosis between the two parties, both of which ignored the working classes as either demographically doomed or as a spent force of deplorables and irredeemables (or both). Trump’s efforts to return politics to the center — enforce existing laws, complete previously approved projects, rein in government regulations and growth, recalibrate U.S. alliances to reflect current realities, unapologetically side with friends and punish enemies — were viewed as revolutionary rather than as a return to conventionality, in part because they threatened status quo careers and commerce. Trumpism is more or less akin to the Gingrich-Clinton compromises of the early 1990s or to what Reagan often did rather than what he sometimes said. But what was then bipartisan and centrist today appears revolutionary and nihilistic. For now, chic Trump hatred and sick talks of coups — or worse — hinge on economic growth. If Trump’s agenda hits 3 percent GDP growth or above by 2018, then his critics — progressive shock troops, Democratic grandees, mainstream media, Never Trump Republicans — will either shift strategies or face prolonged irrelevance. But for now, ending Trump one way or another is apparently the tortured pathway his critics are taking to exit their self-created labyrinth of irrelevance.
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445091/never-trumpers-subvert-presidency-talk-coup-impeachment-assassination
Posted by Geezer Bela at 6:22 AM 0 comments

A criricism of Senator (the Dunce) McCain.



     

    McCain’s Dirty War On Trump

    Photo of P. H. Guthrie
    P. H. Guthrie
    Freelance Writer
    2:21 PM 02/20/2017
    It is fitting that Senator John McCain chose to denounce President Trump’s foreign policy at Munich, Germany, site of the 1938 agreement that saw the allies surrender Czechoslovakia to Hitler, for like Chamberlain, McCain’s betrayal is neither principled nor intelligible. As his speech and recent behavior makes clear, McCain intends to do everything he can to destroy the Trump presidency, if for no other reason than to reassure himself of his continued relevance and moral superiority.
    McCain began his speech by thanking Chancellor Angel Merkel for being “the conscience of the West,” a clear signal that he supports her policy of unrestricted Muslim immigration. A poll released ten days ago by a London-based think tank, shows that 10,000 respondents from 10 European countries favored an outright ban on further Muslim immigration by 55% to 20%. Clearly, those suffering from increased crime and terrorist attacks do not favor the Merkel policy, but McCain was just getting started.


    He said that in his four decades of coming to the Munich Conference, at no time was the consideration of “whether the West will survive” more “deadly serious” than today. McCain believes that the West is in greater danger now than when the Soviet Union was at its height, an assertion that is absurd to anyone who lived under the threat of nuclear war.
    McCain does not believe the West’s survival is in question because of radical Islamic terrorism, but rather because of the West’s measured response (i.e. Trump’s executive order on immigration). McCain bemoans “clashing ethnic and nationalist passions,” “an increasing turn away from universal values and toward old ties of blood, and race, and sectarianism,” and “hardening resentment…[towards] minority groups, especially Muslims.” To McCain, popular resistance to flooding the West with war-torn peoples at odds with Western values and societal norms is tantamount to Nazism.

    McCain claims to be “alarmed by the growing inability, and even unwillingness, to separate truth from lies…[and] alarmed that more and more of our fellow citizens seem to be flirting with authoritarianism.” While McCain does not mention Trump by name, there can be little doubt that he conflated the President with the odious mantle of propaganda and dictatorship, portraying him as an American Vladimir Putin.


    McCain is especially enraged at Trump’s attempt to defuse tensions between Russia and the United States, and believes wholeheartedly in the Leftism meme that Trump conspired with Putin to steal the presidential election. McCain is demanding a bipartisan select committee look into Trump’s ties to Russia, and hopes to pressure the Justice Department into appointing an independent prosecutor. McCain is reprising a strategy he previously deployed against Bush, when the 9/11 Commission he helped create, degenerated into a partisan witch hunt, featuring Fannie Mae rip-off artist Jamie Gorelick, and the cheap grandstanding of the execrable Richard Clarke.
    The gruel of Russia “hacking the election” is so thin that a starving zek in the gulag might look askance at it. The narrative is that Trump promised to do Putin’s bidding if the Russians helped get him elected. This help took the form of hacking into Hillary Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s emails. The only trouble was there wasn’t much there, save for some office gossip – nothing that would account for a 74-vote margin of victory in the Electoral College. Furthermore, there is no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, other than a single public speculation Trump made in jest regarding Russia supplying the 33,000 emails destroyed by Hillary Clinton.


    While much has been made of Michael Flynn’s firing as National Security Advisor, his only offense was to have misled Vice President Pence regarding discussions with Flynn’s Russian counterpart on American sanctions. The discussions themselves were an integral part of Flynn’s job and entirely aboveboard. We know this thanks to wiretapping by Obama intelligence officials illegally listening in on the calls. Obama’s Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates – since fired by Trump for public insubordination – considered the discussions to be a “potentially illegal” violation of the Logan Act.


    The Logan Act forbids private citizens from interfering in foreign policy, but to apply that to the NSA of an incoming administration is insane. It is, however, entirely consistent with the Alice in Wonderland mentality that has gripped official Washington. McCain, who stated that the hack was “more serious” than a terrorist attack, merely echoed the language of people like Thomas Friedman, who called the revelation of Podesta’s emails a “9/11” and “Pearl Harbor scale event.”
    Fellow New York Times op-ed writer Nicholas Kristof entitled his weekly, “How Can We Get Rid of Trump?” The answer is by declaring Trump insane or impeaching him, a feel-good alternative reality in vogue among the Left. Trump-hating journalists are John McCain’s best friends, and he did not take kindly to Trump insulting them at a press conference. On Meet the Press, McCain told ex-Sen. Harkin (D-IA) aide, now host, Chuck Todd, that without a free press, “dictators get started,” while hastening to add that he wasn’t talking about Trump. Obviously.


    Perhaps McCain’s hatred of all things Trump is best illustrated by his efforts to spread the ridiculous story that Trump had cavorted with prostitutes and urinated on a bed where Obama had slept in a Russian hotel. McCain dispatched a senior aide to London to make contact with the source, who had unsuccessfully peddled the story to Trump-hating media. McCain then gave the supposed dossier to FBI Director Comey, presumably hoping that leaked word of the FBI examination might lend it some shred of credibility.


    Despite his professed passion for national security, McCain doesn’t seem to mind the torrent of classified leaks designed to smear and hobble the incoming administration. As reported in New York Magazine, McCain “made a surprisingly impassioned case for [the leaks],” saying “How else are the American people going to be informed?”


    He sees himself as a kind of shadow secretary of state. When leaked conversations between Trump and Australian Prime Minister Turnbull showed Trump’s obvious annoyance at being sandbagged by an Obama promise to take Muslim refugees, McCain took it upon himself to call the Australian ambassador; then he issued a press release praising himself for it.
    Plumbing the depths of McCain’s murky narcissism for clues to his motivations may be an exercise in futility, but it’s a safe bet that we are witnessing merely the opening actions of the Senator’s dirty war against a Republican president, whose only real crime is that he is not John McCain.


    The author has worked on numerous statewide political campaigns in Virginia, South Dakota and Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in The Federalist, the Daily Caller and other sites. He currently resides in the Washington, D.C. area. Follow him on Twitter @PHGuthrie
    Posted by Geezer Bela at 4:03 AM 0 comments

    Tuesday, February 21, 2017

    Waltzing matilda

    Sir Winston Churchill is quoted as saying about American English that "there is a language that divides us." That, of course, is even more true of Australian English. The best example of this is "Waltzing Matilda." When I first heard this song I mistakenly thought it referred to a young woman Matilda. Wowww! Was I wrong!

    So, here is the history and the meaning of the words of Australia's most popular song.

    http://panique.com.au/trishansoz/waltzing-matilda/waltz.html
    Posted by Geezer Bela at 6:03 AM 0 comments

    Monday, February 20, 2017

    Easy method of making mozzarella cheese.

    If you heard the phrase 'as American as apple pie' you might substitute 'pizza pie' in the phrase. Pizza is now made everywhere in the US and everywhere in Europe. One key ingredient of pizza is mozzarella cheese. While, you can buy mozzarella in almost every store, the home made stuff is best, especially when just made and the cheese is  still warm. Mozzarella is a pasta filata cheese, which translates to 'stretched curd.' It is very easy to make and it takes a short time.
     
    What you need to make it:
     
    Heavy, rubberized gloves
    Pot to hold 2 gallons of milk
    Citric acid
    Colander
    Cheese cloth
    Long bladed knife
    Microwave
    Glass bowl
    Thermometer that can be hung on the pot.
    Vegetable (or animal) rennet tablet.
     
    Method
     
    1. Bring the milk to 55F.
    2. Add 1 TBSP citric acid and stir to dissolve.
    3. Grind up the rennet and dissolve in 1 cup of non-chlorinated water.
    4. Continue to heat the milk to 90F.
    5. Add the rennet.
    6. Stir on the top then stir from bottom to top 15X.
    7. Allow to sit till milk curdles and looks like custard(10 minutes or so).
    8. With the long knife cut the curd into 1/2 to 3/4 inch squares.
    9. Heat the curds to 105F. Stir by quickly rotating the pot about 1/4. This will preserve the cubes of curd..
    10. When curds are at the right temp (105F) scoop them onto the cheese cloth laid over the colander. Need another pot under the colander. Can save the whey for other purposes.
    11. Let the whey drain and pick up the cheese cloth and sqeeze it gently to expel some whey.
    12. Pour the curds into the glass bowl.
    13. Microwave the curds in the bowl on high for 1 minute.
    14. Discard any whey then put on a glove and kneed the curd mass (the pasta filata). This is done to distribute the heat in the pasta filata forming.
    15. Repeat this step and discard some more whey and kneed the curds again.
    16. Add 1 tbsp. non-iodized salt. Microwave 30 seconds and kneed one more time. Pull the pasta filata. It should be satiny and smooth.
    17. Some people dump the pasta filate into ice water to cool it, but it can be put into a small bowl and refrigerated.

    Supposedly it takes 30 minutes to make this cheese, but it takes me longer.
     
    Posted by Geezer Bela at 5:39 AM 0 comments

    Saturday, February 18, 2017

    Trump is right to attack the Media.


    General VoNguyen Giap.
    General Giap was a brilliant, highly respected leader of the North Vietnam military. The following quote is from his memoirs currently found in the Vietnam war memorial in Hanoi:

    'What we still don't understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same at the battle of TET. You defeated us!

    We knew it, and we thought you knew it. But we were elated to notice your media was helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won!'

    General Giap has published his memoirs and confirmed what most Americans knew. The Vietnam war was not lost in Vietnam — it was lost at home. The same slippery slope, sponsored by the U.S.  media, is currently underway. It exposes the enormous power of a Biased Media to cut out the heart and will of the American public.

    A truism worthy of note: . . . Do not fear the enemy, for they can take only your life.

    Fear the media, for they will distort your grasp of reality and destroy your honor
    Posted by Geezer Bela at 8:05 PM 0 comments

    Obama's trained agitators.

    LinkedIn
    News

    Obama-linked activists have a ‘training manual’ for protesting Trump

    MORE FROM:

    Paul Sperry
    Paul Sperry
    How Obama is scheming to sabotage Trump's presidency
     
    An Obama-tied activist group training tens of thousands of agitators to protest President Trump’s policies plans to hit Republican lawmakers supporting those policies even harder this week, when they return home for the congressional recess and hold town hall meetings and other functions.
    Organizing for Action, a group founded by Obama and featured prominently on his new post-presidency website, is distributing a training manual to anti-Trump activists that advises them to bully GOP lawmakers into backing off support for repealing ObamaCare, curbing immigration from high-risk Islamic nations, and building a border wall.
    In a new Facebook post, OFA calls on activists to mobilize against Republicans from now until Feb. 26, when “representatives are going to be in their home districts.”
    The protesters disrupted town halls earlier this month, including one held in Utah by House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, who was confronted by hundreds of angry demonstrators claiming to be his constituents.
    The manual, published with OFA partner “Indivisible,” advises protesters to go into halls quietly so as not to raise alarms, and “grab seats at the front of the room but do not all sit together.” Rather, spread out in pairs to make it seem like the whole room opposes the Republican host’s positions. “This will help reinforce the impression of broad consensus.” It also urges them to ask “hostile” questions — while keeping “a firm hold on the mic” — and loudly boo the the GOP politician if he isn’t “giving you real answers.”
    “Express your concern [to the event’s hosts] they are giving a platform to pro-Trump authoritarianism, racism, and corruption,” it says.
    The goal is to make Republicans, even from safe districts, second-guess their support for the Trump agenda, and to prime “the ground for the 2018 midterms when Democrats retake power.”
    The goal is to make Republicans, even from safe districts, second-guess their support for the Trump agenda
    “Even the safest [Republican] will be deeply alarmed by signs of organized opposition,” the document states, “because these actions create the impression that they’re not connected to their district and not listening to their constituents.”
    After the event, protesters are advised to feed video footage to local and national media.
    “Unfavorable exchanges caught on video can be devastating” for Republican lawmakers, it says, when “shared through social media and picked up by local and national media.” After protesters gave MSNBC, CNN and the networks footage of their dust-up with Chaffetz, for example, the outlets ran them continuously, forcing Chaffetz to issue statements defending himself.
    The manual also advises protesters to flood “Trump-friendly” lawmakers’ Hill offices with angry phone calls and emails demanding the resignation of top White House adviser Steve Bannon.
    A script advises callers to complain: “I’m honestly scared that a known racist and anti-Semite will be working just feet from the Oval Office … It is everyone’s business if a man who promoted white supremacy is serving as an adviser to the president.”
    The document provides no evidence to support such accusations.
    Protesters, who may or may not be affiliated with OFA, are also storming district offices. Last week, GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher blamed a “mob” of anti-Trump activists for knocking unconscious a 71-year-old female staffer at his Southern California office. A video of the incident, showing a small crowd around an opening door, was less conclusive.
    Separately, OFA, which is run by ex-Obama officials and staffers, plans to stage 400 rallies across 42 states this year to attack Trump and Republicans over ObamaCare’s repeal.
    “This is a fight we can win,” OFA recently told its foot soldiers. “They’re starting to waver.”
    On Thursday, Trump insisted he’s moving ahead with plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, which has ballooned health-insurance premiums and deductibles. “Obamacare is a disaster, folks,” he said, adding that activists protesting its repeal are hijacking GOP town halls and other events.
    “They fill up our rallies with people that you wonder how they get there,” the president said. “But they’re not the Republican people that our representatives are representing.”
    As The Post reported, OFA boasts more than 250 offices nationwide and more than 32,000 organizers, with another 25,000 actively under training. Since November, it’s beefed up staff and fundraising, though as a “social welfare” non-profit, it does not have to reveal its donors.
    These aren’t typical Black Lives Matter or Occupy Wall Street marchers, but rather professionally trained organizers who go through a six-week training program similar to the training — steeped in Alinsky agitation tactics — Obama received in Chicago when he was a community organizer.
    Chicago socialist Saul Alinsky, known by the left as “the father of community organizing,” taught radicals to “rub raw the sores of discontent” and create the conditions for a “revolution.” He dedicated his book, “Rules for Radicals,” to “Lucifer.” Michelle Obama quoted from the book when she helped launch OFA in 2013.
    Obama appears to be behind the anti-Trump protests. He praised recent demonstrations against Trump’s travel ban. And last year, after Trump’s upset victory, he personally rallied OFA troops to “protect” his legacy in a conference call. “Now is the time for some organizing,” he said. “So don’t mope” over the election results.
    He promised OFA activists he would soon join them in the fray.
    “Understand that I’m going to be constrained in what I do with all of you until I am again a private citizen, but that’s not so far off,” he said. “You’re going to see me early next year, and we’re going to be in a position where we can start cooking up all kinds of great stuff.”
    Added the ex-president: “I promise you that next year Michelle and I are going to be right there with you, and the clouds are going to start parting, and we’re going to be busy. I’ve got all kinds of thoughts and ideas about it, but this isn’t the best time to share them.
    “Point is, I’m still fired up and ready to go, and I hope that all of you are, as well.”
    Posted by Geezer Bela at 7:26 PM 0 comments
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