You've got to love him: Trump has just pardoned America's most favorite sheriff



Trump might get his words mixed up at times and the congressional GOP is too timid to follow him but he delivers on many important things. Here he has delivered long-overdue justice to a great man who had been hounded by nasty Obama bureaucrats.  They said his sweeps to nab illegals were "discriminatory". And it's great to see Sheriff Joe looking so fit at his age

President Trump granted a pardon to Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., on Friday.

Arpaio, 85, was recently found guilty of criminal contempt for defying a judge's order to stop traffic patrols that allegedly targeted immigrants.

He had been charged with misdemeanor contempt of court for allegedly willfully defying a judge’s order in 2011 and prolonging his patrols for another 17 months.

Arpaio acknowledged extending the patrols, but insisted it wasn't intentional, blaming one of his former attorneys for not properly explaining the importance of the court order and brushing off the conviction as a "petty crime."

He was expected to be sentenced on Oct. 5 and faced up to six months in jail if convicted.

"Sheriff Joe Arpaio is now 85 years old, and after more than 50 years of admirable service to our Nation, he is worthy candidate for a Presidential pardon," the White House said in a statement.

"I am pleased to inform you that I have just granted a full Pardon to 85 year old American patriot Sheriff Joe Arpaio," the president tweeted on Friday night. "He kept Arizona safe!"

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We Are Finally Moving Towards Actually Free Global Trade

I am a retired musician. I play three instruments – but I sang, is what I mainly did. My first band in high school was big into three-part vocal harmonies. We covered a bunch of songs – and wrote a few – that featured this rousing sound.

One thing you immediately learn (if you didn’t already know it) is that when three or more voices are simultaneous and in harmony – they create a resonance that is louder than the voices operating individually. It is beautiful music – more powerful in coordinated conjunction.

So it is with global trade. Now-President Donald Trump – is introducing proper music education to Washington, D.C.

DC for decades has been perfectly happy with – and accommodating of – the world’s many nations performing from sheet music far different than the pages we have.

The phony “free trade” in which we have long engaged – has had us lowering tariffs and government impediments to the globe’s goods and services entering our market.

While nigh every other nation on the planet has taxed and regulated the living daylight out of nigh everything we send them. While subsidizing the daylight into their domestic products.

Imagine the lead singer in the key of “G” – and every other nation crooning in “C#dim7.” So it now is with global trade. The rest of the planet is in harmonious sync – all working from the same anti-free trade songbook. We’re the lead singer – and our go-it-alone less government trade approach is dissonantly clashing.

These many nations have used our decades of stupidity against us – and have drained hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth out of here and into there. Very many of them have had year after year, decade after decade of ridiculously huge Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth – at our exorbitant expense, as ours continued towards flatline.

Trump has finally pointed out the obvious – that the global trade market is the Emperor with No Tone. That the Singing Emperor – is naked, and off-key. That it’s high time that EVERY nation – join us on the free trade song sheet.

Most of DC – still doesn’t get it. They confuse things like Trump threatening to impose a massive tariff on all things China or tariffs on imported steel – with Trump actually imposing them.

What Trump’s doing – is using the threat of tariffs as a can opener to pry open the world’s closed markets.

And piece by trade piece, Trump is moving us – and the world – in the free trade direction. We’re getting less government impediments to trade – all over the place.

An Ag Subsidy Dream for Buenos Aires: “WTO members this week also wrapped up a session of agriculture talks where they discussed a deluge of six new proposals on farm subsidies….

“On the top of the pile was a proposal led by the European Union and Brazil that aims to limit trade-distortive support by setting a percentage threshold on the amount of support a country can provide as it relates to the total value of its agricultural production. The EU at the meeting said the proposal “provides a new architecture which would put all WTO members on the same basis and encourage reform efforts,” according to a Geneva trade official.”

US Beef is Back on Market in China: “(W)henever changes make foreign sales easier, they are welcome. In that regard, a new trade pact with China is an especially positive development. The door to U.S. beef exports to the world’s most populous nation has been re-opened after being closed for 14 years.

“According to the USDA, the return of U.S. beef and beef products is a part of the U.S.-China 100-Day Action Plan that was announced by the Trump administration on May 11.”

U.S., Mexico Clear Way for NAFTA with New Deal on Sugar Trade: “‘The Mexican side has agreed to nearly every request by the U.S. industry to address flaws in the current system and to ensure fair treatment of American sugar growers,’ Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said at a news conference Tuesday.”

That’s a whole lot less government – all over the world. A shocking novelty in DC trade. And portending a whole lot more less government going forward.

Not everyone doesn’t get it.

Five Good Reasons Trump’s Agenda Is a Win for America: “Trump’s priorities are more than defensible; they are essential to the future of our country….1) Resetting the scales with our trading partners to ensure U.S. workers are treated fairly….5) Letting the world know that the U.S. will stand up for its citizens”

Those are two massively important principles for which to stand. They will vastly improve America’s prospects in innumerable ways.

It is way past time to level the international trade playing field. It has for far too long been tilted sharply against us.

And harmonizing global trade policy – will harmonize a great many other things.

There’s a whole lot less acrimony and mistrust – when everyone knows everyone is getting a good deal.

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Canada: 10,000 words to describe the rise and fall of Ezra Levant

Except that he hasn’t fallen, and his critics offer no reason whatever why he should. Levant is Canada's most outspoken free speech advocate.  There was a fuss recently when one of his reporters gave a hearing to the wrong side in the Charlottesville fracas

Ted Byfield

I had a singular experience last week. I read the longest newspaper story I’ve ever seen. No, it did not concern the assassination of the American president, nor a nuclear attack by North Korea, nor the catastrophic fiscal collapse of the Ottawa government. None of the above.

The astonishing fact is that what filled nearly the whole front page, plus five full inside pages of the National Post newspaper and ran to something like 10,000 words was an account of the rise and fall of a Canadian journalist. Except that he hasn’t quite fallen, and now with this avalanche of free publicity to sustain him, he isn’t likely to. Nor did this gargantuan tome provide any valid reason why he should fall. It was, in other words, as badly reported as it was overwritten,

The man’s name is Ezra Levant, a graduate lawyer from Calgary who opted to go into both the media and politics instead of law. He wrote columns for our magazine, Alberta Report, until it folded, and my son Link and I wrote columns for Ezra’s magazine, the Western Standard, until it folded. Then Ezra moved to Toronto as a commentator on the Sun newspapers’ television channel until it folded as well. (So, alas, it goes with Canada’s conservative media.) But that’s when Ezra came into his own.

He established, some say in his basement, what he called TheRebel Media, an online television news and commentary show that lives up to its name in every possible way. But its audience zoomed upward and with good reason. It covered all the news that the “respectable” media tended to avoid.

This proved fortunate for our province of Alberta. A socialist government took over in 2015 because the conservative ranks had split into two parties. In the circumstance, neither at first provided an effective opposition. This role was effectively filled by the Rebel Media, which the government unsuccessfully tried to ban from the press gallery.

A crisis arose this month, however, when in the uproar over the coverage of the Charlottesville affair led to TheRebel and Levant (himself a Jew) being labelled anti-Semitic. Two key on-air reporters wound up being fired or quitting and at least one major financial backer withdrew his support.

Enter the National Post with what it plainly saw as the opportune moment to write, with ill-disguised satisfaction, the downfall of Ezra and an obituary for TheRebel. In the pursuit of which, the thesis is submitted that what really killed Ezra was his unremitting opposition to Islamic immigration. In the course of this we are introduced to a new term (new to me, anyway) “counter-jihadism.” What it actually means, we are not ever quite told. All we are given to know is that it’s a very bad thing, and being good liberals, that’s all we need to know.

When this sprawling story, first introduced me to this term, I was relieved to see it. At last, I thought, somebody is going to tell us why opposing jihadism is wrong. Wikipedia lists 20,998 deaths and 52,032 wounded in terror attacks, beginning with 9/11. Nearly all are declared to be done in the service of Allah whose teaching is destined to govern the world. That is almost always the given reason for the attacks.

Why is it wrong to try to prevent this? It is the clear responsibility of the writer to fully answer that question. Yet not a single sentence or even phrase in the entire 10,000 words offers to do this. Counter-jihadism is a terrible thing, but we’re nowhere told why.

Perhaps fittingly, the very day before this appeared, the Post had another story, this one from Barcelona, Spain. A van raced down a street crowded with pedestrians. Swerving from side to side to hit as many people as possible, it killed 13 and injured nearly 100. Some were children. The Islamic State “took credit” for the attack. As an acknowledged counter-jihadist, Ezra thinks we should be doing a lot more than we’re doing to stop this stuff. What the National Post thinks we don’t know, and we’ll never find out from this effusion of verbiage.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

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