The peacemaker

Can you imagine Hillary doing anything like this?

President Trump made history on Sunday by crossing into North Korea as part of a meeting with Kim Jong Un in which he and the North Korean leader agreed to restart stalled nuclear talks.

Trump and Kim shook hands across a concrete slab forming the line between to the two nations at the Demilitarized Zone, according to a reporter traveling with the president.

“Good to see again,” Kim said, according to a translator. He added he would have “never expected” Trump “at this place.”

Trump then became the first sitting U.S. president to step into North Korea. “Good progress, good progress,” Trump said as he and Kim crossed back into South Korea.

“Stepping across that line was a great honor,” Trump said, adding that he would invite Kim to visit the White House. “I think it’s historic, it’s a great day for the world.”

Trump and Kim then met for approximately 45 minutes at the Freedom House on the South Korean side of the DMZ, where the North Korean leader said he was “willing to put an end to the unfortunate past.”

Kim credited the “excellent relations between the two of us” for the development.

“You hear the power of that voice” Trump said, adding that the North Korean leader “doesn’t do news conferences.” “Thus is a historic moment, the fact that we’re meeting,” he added.

Trump later told U.S. troops at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea that he noticed that “many people … from Korea were literally in tears” when he crossed the DMZ.

SOURCE 

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Democrat Candidates Agree: Taxpayers Will Cover Health Care For All Who Break Into The United States

Paving the Way for Trump Victory

Whereas Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg called coverage for illegal immigrants an “insurance program” and “not a hand out,” Clinton said in 1993—well before the most recent waves of migration—that “we do not want to do anything to encourage more illegal immigration into this country. We know now that too many people come in for medical care, as it is. We certainly don’t want them having the same benefits that American citizens are entitled to have.”

Likewise, whereas Joe Biden said “you cannot let people who are sick, no matter where they come from, no matter what their status, go uncovered,” the president whom he worked for promised the American people that “the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” Granted, the promise had a major catch to it—Obamacare verifies citizenship but not identity, allowing people here illegally to obtain benefits using fraudulent documents—but at least he felt the need to make the pledge in the first place. No longer.

Ironically enough, even as all Democrats supported giving coverage to illegally present foreigners, the candidates seemed less united on whether, how, and from whom to take health insurance away from U.S. citizens. Only Sens. Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders said they supported abolishing private health insurance, as Sanders’ single-payer bill would do (and as Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged on Wednesday evening). For Harris, it represents a return to her position of January, after fudging the issue in a follow-up interview with CNN last month.

As usual, Sanders made typically hyperbolic—and false—claims about his plan. He said that his bill would make health care a human right, even though it does no such thing. In truth, the legislation guarantees that individuals would have their bills paid for—but only if they can find a doctor or hospital willing to treat them.

While Sanders pledged that under his bill, individuals could go to whatever doctor or hospital they wished, such a promise has two main flaws. First, his bill does not—and arguably, the federal government cannot—force a given doctor to treat a given patient. Second, given the reimbursement reductions likely under single payer, many doctors could decide to leave the profession altogether.

Sanders’ home state provided a reality check during the debate. Candidates critical of single payer noted that Vermont had to abandon its dream of socialized medicine in 2014, when the tax increases needed to fund such a program proved too overwhelming.

SOURCE 

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Who will foot the bill for all the spending Democrats have proposed? Take a guess

In dueling campaign rallies, former Vice President Joe Biden and President Trump made their argument to voters in Iowa. Biden joined his Democratic opponents in calling for higher capital gains taxes to pay for his pet programs.

Democrats are racing to the left in a desperate attempt to mollify their radicalized base. Almost every 2020 Democratic presidential candidate is abandoning capitalism.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who has said she is a "capitalist to my bones," sings the same chorus with her massive wealth tax plan. Her campaign estimates that it would cost the American people $3 trillion over 10 years.

Taxing the rich is never the answer, and it’s proven to bring in far less revenue than one may optimistically estimate due to many factors.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a bill earlier this year called "For the 99.8 Percent." This legislation would heavily tax the 0.2 percent of the country by taxing the estates of those who inherit more than $3.5 million. This would eliminate the ability to pass hard-earned companies, such as family farms, down to new generations.

Despite the left’s best efforts, the Trump economic plan keep fueling the incredible growing economy we’re currently experiencing in the United States.  For the large field of Democratic candidates, that's a big problem. Not one can deny Trump’s "America first" economic policies are working.

We have seen Democratic candidates across the board rail against Trump’s tax cuts in a completely falsified messaging campaign. They want to implement more taxes instead. A gas tax, a carbon tax, a wealth tax, higher capital gains tax, carried-interest capital gains, you name it, they will raise it! But despite the left’s best efforts, the Trump economic plan keep fueling the incredible growing economy we’re currently experiencing in the United States.

For the large field of Democratic candidates, that's a big problem. Not one can deny Trump’s "America first" economic policies are working.

American workers are seeing their wages increase at a rate not seen in more than a decade. The New York Times earlier this month even ran a column, the headline of which reads “Why Wages Are Finally Rising, 10 Years After the Recession.”If our nation wants to remain the economic powerhouse it has become in recent years, it is imperative that policy proposals which would stunt domestic growth remain on the cutting-room floor.

A higher gas tax? No! Motor fuel is one of the most taxed goods in America. A higher gas tax would hurt working Americans and increase the cost of goods. Some estimates suggest that raising the gas tax by even 1 percent takes a whopping $1 billion out hardworking families' pockets. Raising the gas tax simply doesn’t solve the real problem, but lowering it does.

A higher carbon tax? No! What Americans don’t know is that carbon taxes hit consumers hard almost everywhere imaginable — grocery stores, shopping centers, you name it. And if we want to get to the root of our world’s pollution problems, let’s start with China, which emits more carbon dioxide than America and the European Union combined.

A wealth tax? No! This is not only a radical idea but a terrible one no matter how you slice it. It would wreak havoc on our healthy economy. Taxing the wealthy even more than we already do would drain resources that go toward the entrepreneurs who create startups and small businesses.

Higher capital gains taxes? No! Taxing long-term investment would be a blow to thousands of good-paying jobs. This would hurt our local communities and job creators the most. Why would we want to punish entrepreneurs who risk everything to start small businesses on "main street" and bring new jobs to our neighborhoods?

Higher taxes are never the solution. Trump’s economy is doing better than ever thanks to the tax reform he signed into law in December 2017. The unemployment rate is at the lowest level in over 50 years, wages are at a 10-year high, and over four million jobs have been created since Trump took office.

When we lower taxes, Americans are better off because they keep more of their hard-earned income instead of letting the fiscally reckless government dictate where it is spent.

SOURCE 

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‘He Is The Enemy Of Every Entrepreneur’ — Home Depot Founders Blast Socialism, Issue Dire Warning For Bernie Supporters

Home Depot founders Bernie Marcus and Ken Langone had strong words for socialism and the politicians who espouse it, particularly 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, during a Monday interview with Fox News host Neil Cavuto.

The wide-ranging interview with the billionaire businessmen included topics like trade, the company’s history and philosophy, and even tax policy, but Cavuto hit a “red flag” for Marcus when he brought up the topic of Sanders and his socialist campaign proposals.

“He is the enemy of every entrepreneur that’s ever going to be born in this country and has been born in the past,” Marcus said.

“If he became president, what would you guys do?” Cavuto asked.

“Probably move to Australia,” the Home Depot founder responded, laughing. “Well what could he do? I mean he can’t do anything to us. He’s going to affect my grandchildren.”

Marcus then contrasted Sanders and his socialized medicine proposals with work his foundation is doing with war veterans:

And let me just bring up one thing, Bernie Sanders talks about socialized medicine. My foundation now is working on one issue and that is taking care of these veterans, kids who’ve fought in Afghanistan, Iraq. You know that 20 a day commit suicide, 20 every single day. What is Bernie Sanders doing about that? Why doesn’t he shut his mouth and do something about these kids? They go to the Veterans Administration, they can’t take care of it.

The proof in the pudding is 20 a day are committing suicide. If it was measles, the CDC – the world will be in an uproar. But it’s the kids that put their lives on the line that are treated so badly, I didn’t hear one single candidate talk about it.

By the way, Trump is fully supportive of this and you know he’s done some things, they could fire people that have done the wrong thing at the Veterans Administration. The Veterans Administration is what medical care is going to be like in the United States if Bernie Sanders is elected president.

Cavuto thought he was going to switch the subject to something else, but Langone wasn’t finished with the topic of Sanders.

“I don’t know, but let me go back to Bernie Sanders for a minute,” said Langone. “Believe it or not, Chavez in Venezuela came to power through a democratic process. If the people in America today, the fellows out here with the hard hats on, if they want to know what the future holds for them, and they follow Bernie Sanders, go to Cuba, go to Venezuela, go to Russia, go to eastern Europe. Guess what? It doesn’t work. It never works.

“The average Venezuelan last year lost 34 pounds. There is no food out there,” he added

Earlier in the interview, Marcus responded to a question about higher taxes by joking that people who want them “trust the government” more than he does. He then pointed to the billions his own foundation has given away.

“Look we do better with our money than the government,” he said. “Why would I want the government to have it? Anything they touch …”
SOURCE 

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Sean Hannity: Trump Is 'Not Going to Start a War with Boots on the Ground' in Iran

On his nationally syndicated radio talk show “The Sean Hannity Show” on Monday, host Sean Hannity suggested that President Trump is “not going to start a war with boots on the ground.”

“He's not going to start a war with boots on the ground,” stated Sean Hannity. “So, whatever he decides militarily is going to be devastating to Iran.”

Sean Hannity's comments came after a tense week between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. President Trump used an executive order to introduce new sanctions targeting the Iranian regime as a reaction to Iran shooting down an American drone.

Here is a transcript of Sean Hannity’s remarks from his show on June 24:

“So people want to just— There’s nothing Donald Trump can ever do that’s ever going to be right in the eyes of those people that have decided they hate him. There’s nothing. They cured cancer, gave everybody ten million dollars, it’s not gonna matter. So the president, you know, the media is saying, ‘Oh, no. Donald Trump is going to get us … it’s World War III starting.’ No, no it’s not.

“I do believe Donald Trump absolutely is standing back, he's watching, he's negotiating, and he's doing things that we don't know, and he will do it in his time. And if you doubt he has the ability and willingness to do what's necessary to obliterate Iran than you don't know Donald Trump.

“But now, he is acting, and what he's done is we have struck Iranian military computers hard, apparently, over the weekend. He's now put sanctions on the Ayatollah himself The president is being prudent. We have the ability to be more prudent than ever before in any Middle Eastern entanglement because of his decision to make us energy independent, which every other President before could have but never did.

“And it to me— And if he does— He's not going to start a war with boots on the ground. So, whatever he decides militarily is going to be devastating to Iran.

“I think we eventually, one day, as hard as it is, considering the, how big the Iranian landmass is and the location of their nuclear reactors, I think there's going have to be a partnership to take all those facilities out, and that's a very difficult military operation."

SOURCE 

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Twitter Blue Checks Celebrate After Chicago Restaurant Employee Spits On Eric Trump

U.S. Secret Service took an employee of a Chicago restaurant into custody Tuesday evening after she spit on President Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump.

“It was purely a disgusting act by somebody who clearly has emotional problems,” Eric Trump told Breitbart News when reached by phone late Tuesday evening. “For a party that preaches tolerance, this once again demonstrates they have very little civility. When somebody is sick enough to resort to spitting on someone, it just emphasizes a sickness and desperation and the fact that we’re winning.”

According to Breitbart News, Eric Trump declined to press charges and the woman was released, which will now make her a hero:

SOURCE 

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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.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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If Trump is Hitler, then Obama was Hitler too

Why is Trump’s treatment of migrants ‘fascism’ but Obama’s wasn’t?

Under the Obama administration, hundreds of migrants died every year at the Mexican-US border. Thousands were detained in camps. Children were detained in those camps, too. The average daily population of these detention centres was between 30,000 and 40,000. Children were often the first to be cast out of the country – as one report put it, the border authorities moved unaccompanied children to ‘the head of the line’ for deportation. More undocumented migrants were deported by the Obama administration than by any previous administration. One critic called Obama ‘the most stringent enforcer of immigration laws in American history’.

So, was Barack Obama Hitler? Was that fascism?

To see the double standards, the hypocrisy, the staggering lack of principle in contemporary radical politics, look no further than the discussion of the immigration crisis in the US. As a result of his immigration policies, President Trump is being branded fascistic, the architect of ‘concentration camps’, someone who has, in the words of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, failed to heed the message of ‘Never Again’ – that is, he’s doing something eerily and dreadfully similar to what the Nazis did in the 1930s.

And yet Obama did all these things too. Where were those people back then? They were on their comfortable college campuses or in their swanky New York or London bars, and the 47,000 minors apprehended by the US authorities as they crossed the border in the US in the first eight months of 2014 alone – some of whom were as young as three – never crossed their minds.

Or if they did cross their minds, perhaps fleetingly stirring their dormant morality as they perused their New York Times over a Shake Shack lunch, they didn’t call it fascism. They didn’t compare Obama to Hitler. They didn’t say, ‘This is like the 1930s’. AOC didn’t trek to the processing centres in which children were being crammed into cells and were sleeping under rough blankets and allow a photographer to capture her weeping, as she did with Trump’s detention centres last year. Those painfully staged photos, these much-tweeted, much-cheered displays of hollow virtue, have been shared widely today. And yet they raise an embarrassing and pressing question, not only for AOC but for all of those horrified by Trump’s apparently Hitlerian treatment of migrants – where were your tears when Obama did this?

A horrible photo of a man and his daughter who drowned while crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the US has been widely published today. It’s on the front page of the London Evening Standard, which refers to the image as ‘The picture that shames America’. It is held up as proof of Trump’s wickedness. But again that question rises up – why are you more horrified by this death than you were by the thousands of migrant deaths under Obama?

Migrant deaths just over the border in the US have been rising since the mid-1990s and especially during the Obama administration. So in 1996, there were at least 87 deaths of migrants within the US border. In 2012, the year Obama was re-elected, to the whoops and cheers of liberals across the West, there were at least 463. In total, 7,216 people died crossing the US-Mexico border between 1998 and 2017. Where were the frontpage headlines? Why weren’t there massive marches when Obama visited London? Why was there no talk of ‘America’s shame’ or ‘America’s concentration camps’?

The answer to this question is as straightforward as it is disturbing. It’s because the current discussion isn’t really driven by a concern for migrants. Rather, it is driven by an exhausted left’s urge to find an issue on which it might successfully harm its political opponents and, even more importantly, demonstrate its own presumed virtue. The thoroughness with which contemporary radicals reduce every issue to an opportunity for political point-scoring and virtuous public preening is summed up in their sudden, cynical discovery that bad things happen on the Mexico-US border.

Numerous questions are thrown up by the Mexico-US border problem. A key one, which very few of Trump’s critics want to address, is the issue of national sovereignty. Surely it is the right of a nation to determine who may enter the country and how they may do so? The contemporary cult of erasing borders, promoted by everyone from Brussels suits to the supposedly liberal chattering classes, can be seen as an attempt to undermine the idea of the nation itself, and the thing that the nation embodies: the right of a people democratically to determine their country’s affairs and policies, including on immigration.

And a broader question is raised by all this; a question about the state of Western politics in general. Principle and morality seem to have disappeared. Instead, everything is reduced to a shallow Culture War game of moralistic oneupmanship. This is where those AOC photos become important. The way in which, today, this has been turned into a story about her, and about how virtuous she is, is actually grotesque. The narcissism is staggering. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that for her and many other Trump-haters, those detained migrants are little more than props in their own moral drama about themselves and their virtue and decency.

All the time these days, serious political issues – in this case, the issues of borders, democracy and how we treat migrants – are reduced to shallow, soapbox-style opportunities for observers to hysterically denounce politicians they hate and to narcissistically display their own presumed goodness.

SOURCE 

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China And U.S. Agree To Restart Trade Talks Following Trump, Xi Meeting

President Trump agreed to restart trade negotiations with China on Saturday after meeting with the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, during a Group of 20 summit in Japan.

The Hill reports,

Trump said during a news conference Saturday afternoon that he would scale back restrictions on Chinese telecom giant Huawei and delay slapping new tariffs on Chinese goods as talks resume between the two countries.

“U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei,” Trump said, explaining that the move was aimed at helping American tech companies that had complained about the ban. The company is on an “entity list” that essentially bars it from buying components from American firms without approval from the U.S. government.

Trump said China, in turn, had agreed to resume large purchases of American farm products and other goods from U.S. companies, though he did not offer further details.

The Trump administration will keep in place the 25 percent tariffs previously levied on roughly half of China’s annual exports to the U.S., according to The New York Times.

The major concessions came after the two economic giants had been locked in an escalating trade war for more than a month, hitting the other with sanctions on billions of dollars worth of goods. Talks came to a standstill in May in the lead-up to the G-20 in Japan.

The Trump administration had insisted that any trade deal with China must address intellectual property theft protections, enforcement mechanisms, tariffs and other barriers to commerce.

Trump struck a cautiously optimistic note late Friday on the prospects of reaching such an agreement with Xi.

“I actually think that we were very close and then we — something happened where it slipped a little bit and now we’re getting a little bit closer,” the president said as he sat down with Xi for a highly anticipated meeting at the G-20 summit.

All eyes had been on the outcome of the Trump-Xi sit-down, given the potential ripple effects for the world economy. Trump previously threatened to implement tariffs on another $300 billion in Chinese goods if the talks did not yield progress.

SOURCE 

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David Limbaugh: Making America Great – for All Americans

I know I'm not the only Trump supporter who is tired of progressives maliciously accusing President Trump and his supporters of racism. They've used the slander against conservatives for years, and it has only intensified in the Trump era.

Of all their other nasty smears, they get the most mileage with the race card, so it's unlikely they'll do the right thing and abandon it. They probably wouldn't stand a chance in presidential elections if they were to do so, as they depend on some 90 percent of the African American vote, which they seek to maintain by constantly stirring agitation.

They didn't need Trump as their ideal bogeyman on race, but caricaturing the GOP's leader sure doesn't hurt in perpetuating the fiction. For them Trump is an equal opportunity scoundrel — he's bad in every category, so it's not a great leap to tar him as a racial bigot. His signature issue, immigration, just fell into their lap. Why else would he be such a border hawk if not for his racism? Please don't get me started on this outrage again. Just pray to God that the thrust of their message — that you can't support American sovereignty unless you're a racist — doesn't prevail, or the country truly is finished.

As I've noted before, I'm not sure what percentage of progressives actually swallow this bilge versus those who push it for political gain. But they are pushing it, and it has caused great damage. Many rank-and-file leftists claim they feel threatened in the presence of MAGA hat-wearing citizens. Some writers have likened them to an unsophisticated version of Klansmen because Klansmen had the sense to wear hoods to conceal their identity.

Tolerant leftists believe that Trump supporters provoke them simply by evidencing their support for Trump, because they can't possibly support him without being racists, sexists and homophobes. They wear the hats not to signify their support but as an in-your-face symbol of their unapologetic bigotry.

Can you fathom how sick this is? How out of phase with reality? But it's apparently real to progressives, or they want you to believe it is.

On Tuesday's "Morning Joe," MSNBC's Joy Reid talked about her new book, "The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story."

Co-anchor Willie Geist asked her, "As you write about in the book, the people who heard the phrase 'Make America Great Again,' it meant to them an America that appeared to be slipping away was going to be reclaimed by this man, and their lives would return to what they were. I'm interested in the other side of it. What do you hear when you hear 'Make America Great Again'?"

Reid's response illustrates the extent to which progressives are promoting this delusional malice. "I hear exactly that," said Reid. "I hear make America a country that, in the 1950s, meant white Christian men had dominion over everyone else. That's exactly what it means when I hear it. It's George Wallace. He's just Republican George Wallace, and that message has been resonant and has actually been potent for a very long time. David Duke used that message when he ran for governor of Louisiana; George Wallace obviously used it and — he had a pretty good chunk of the — at the time, the Democratic Party. Richard Nixon used it. It's a common message because you just do have a certain quarter, maybe a third of the country, that does not like the idea that we're becoming a more multiracial society where women have a lot of asserted rights and where they're not on top."

There we have it again: If you are bullish on America, you are advertising your bigotry. Under this standard, at least leftists don't have to fear they'll be accused of bigotry.

When you couple this nonsense with old white guys like Joe Biden — Democratic presidential front-runner, no less — saying Republicans want to put black people back into chains, and tons of other abominable slanders, what are African Americans supposed to think about us?

Well, many progressives don't want them to see the truth: that they have been stoking the flames of racial disharmony to obscure the reality that Republicans, conservatives and other Trump supporters believe in the equal dignity of all human beings, and that the Christians among them — probably the vast majority — believe this is true because we are all made in God's image.

The proof is in the pudding. Trump's economic policies — lower taxes and regulations — have generated explosive growth benefitting most Americans, including minorities, who are prospering and getting back to work at unprecedented numbers.

I realize that experts say you give credence to false allegations when you dignify them with a response, but I'll take my chances, because silence can sometimes be the elephant in the room.

So let's proclaim the message that we do indeed seek to restore and amplify America's greatness for the benefit of all Americans directly — and the world, derivatively. God bless America.

SOURCE 

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Sen. Collins: Trump Has a Duty to Enforce Immigration Law, U.S. Needs ‘Stronger Border Security’

Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) said President Donald Trump has a “constitutional duty” to enforce immigration laws and added that America has a “crisis” at the border and needs “to have stronger border security.”

At the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, CNSNews.com asked Sen. Collins, “Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution says the president ‘shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’ Does the president have a constitutional duty to enforce the immigration laws?”

Senator Collins said,  “The president has a constitutional duty to enforce all duly passed laws by the Congress.”

CNSNews.com then asked, “Should the president deport aliens who are in the United States illegally?”

The senator did not answer the question directly but said, “We have a crisis and we need to have stronger border security. But we also cannot ignore the very serious humanitarian needs that are affecting children who have come to this country through no choice of their own.”

A 2018 study conducted by researchers at Yale University and MIT estimated the illegal immigrant population in the United States to be 22.1 million.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimated in 2017 that “the total cost of illegal immigration for the United States – at the federal, state, and local levels – was approximately $116 billion.”

Many Americans have been killed by illegal aliens. FAIR provides details on these cases here and videos here.

SOURCE 

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De Blasio: 'There's Plenty of Money in This Country, It's Just in the Wrong Hands'

It's mostly in the hands of those who earned it. Those are the RIGHT hands

The topic of "income inequality" arose at Wednesday's Democrat debate, with various candidates explaining how they would address it.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke not only for himself, but for the Democrat Party in general: "There is plenty of money in this world, and there's plenty of money in this country, it's just in the wrong hands. Democrats have to fix that," he said.

De Blasio also embraced a 70 percent tax rate on wealthy people, although he did not define the term "wealthy."

Here is his full answer to the question, "How would you address income inequality?"

Well, we've been addressing income inequality in New York City by raising wages, by raising benefits, by putting money back in the hands of working people -- $15 minimum wage, paid sick days, pre-k for all, things that are making a huge difference in working people's lives.

But let me tell you, what we're hearing in the first round of questions is that battle for the heart and soul of our party. I want to make it clear. This is supposed to be the party of working people.

Yes, we are supposed to be for 70% tax rate on the wealthy; yes, we're supposed to be for free college, free public college, for our young people. We are supposed to break up big corporations when they're not serving our democracy. This Democratic Party has to be strong and bold and progressive.

And in New York, we've proven that we can do something very different, we can put money back in the hands of working people.

And let me tell you, every time you talk about investing in people and their communities, you hear folks say there's not enough money -- what I say to them every single time is, there's plenty of money in this world, there's plenty of money in this country, it's just in the wrong hands. We Democrats have to fix that.

SOURCE 

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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.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Political disagreements between couples

Someone recently sent me a copy of a book titled "I love you but I hate your politics", by psychiatrist Jeanne Safer.  90% Of the book is a series of stories about conflicted couples:  What they did and why. And for many of the couples there were some improvements in their attitudes towards one-another after discussions with Safer.

The stories were almost all about very liberal women who suddenly found that their men liked Donald Trump.  That caused the ladies to dissolve in fury while the men mostly remained calm. Both partners usually made an effort to convert the other to their POV but none of them succeeded.

So the challenge was cohabitation. How could the lady find a way to live with a man whose political preferences were to her the embodiment of evil?  In the final pages of the book a number of sensible strategies were suggested but the conclusion was overall a sad one. Both sides had to put out of their minds thoughts that were important to them.

And in some instances no hope was possible.  A person with certain strong conservative opinions was simply a flawed character who must simply be deserted and avoided.  Some conservative opinions placed the person as a fundamentally bad person whom nothing could save

I imagine that liberal women reading the book will be comforted to see that that there are many other women like themselves and that, with effort, a conservative spouse can be lived with in moderate peace if he has other good characteristics.

My own experience has been nothing like anything in the book.  I have been married four times with lots of "try before you buy" in between the marriages.  And almost all of the women concerned have at the outset had some degree of feminist convictions.

I had the advantage however of being a libertarian/conservative  so I was almost always able to explain my views by reference to generally agreed values -- the importance of individual liberty, for instance.  And I have yet to find a woman who can answer "Yes" to the question: "Is it fair to take money off someone who has earned it and give it to someone who has not earned it?" That question strikes at the whole heart of liberalism and makes it clear that a conservative viewpoint has some point and some merit and some morality

So just by putting forward clear arguments in a peaceful and non-aggressive way, I was almost always able to get the lady to be at peace with my political views.  Mostly in fact they moved their views distinctly in my direction.  None of the women concerned were however ferociously political -- like the angry ladies described in the book.  That may be in part due to the fact that Australia is a much more relaxed country than the USA.

I would however like to meet one of those fierce American ladies.  I think that by calmly and with good humor getting them to consider the basis of their beliefs I could get them to  arrive at a much milder and more tolerant version of them. It worked for Socrates and it works for me. All you need really is to use common conservative talking points and ask the lady why they are wrong.  Because conservatives have reality on their side while Leftism is just emotionalism, there is some hope that reality may eventually intrude on the lady's mind. You just have to know your facts

Where the need for their liberal beliefs is strong, however, not much change can be expected.  They need to hang on to those beliefs. And the ladies who consulted with a psychiatrist about the evil in their husbands are surely a self-selected sample of women who badly need their political beliefs.  It is not uncommon for friends and partners to have different political views but in most cases it is tolerated as a minor quirk in the other.

So why were the ladies in Safer's sample so rage-filled?  It was almost certainly an inborn disposition.  Leftism generally is anger-fueled.  As all the surveys show, conservatives are the happy people, which leaves most Leftists as unhappy people.  And there is a large body of evidence showing that your level of happiness/unhappiness is pre-set and varies from that pre-set level only rarely and is not much influenced by events.

So liberal beliefs perform an important function.  They validate the anger that the person feels.  So when someone comes along and strikes powerfully at liberal beliefs -- as Donald Trump does -- that is very upsetting.  It challenges you whole rationale for understanding yourself.  No wonder he evokes such widespread rage.

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Trump’s lack of decorum, dignity and statesmanship

I don’t care. I can’t do without this President. He fights for America

By Evan Sayet

My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of the office.” Here’s my answer.

We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush, as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency.

We tried statesmanship.

Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as John McCain?

We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?

And the results were always the same. This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.

I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party.

I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover their tracks.

I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent.

Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished.” But in no way was he the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper.”

The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60s. To them, it has been an all-out war, where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale. It has been a war they’ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one – the violent take-over of the universities – until today.

The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in its way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality and propriety.

With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America’s first wartime president in the Culture War.

During wartime, things like “dignity” and “collegiality” simply aren’t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors. Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming.

Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today. Lincoln rightly recognized that. “I cannot spare this man. He fights,” Lincoln said.

General George Patton was vulgar-talking. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum then, Hitler and his National Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich.

Trump is fighting. And what’s particularly delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks obliterated Rommel’s, he’s shouting, “You magnificent bastards, I read your book!”

That is just the icing on the cake. But it’s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he’s defeating the Left using their own tactics. That book is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – a book so essential to the Liberals’ war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis.

It is a book of such pure evil that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.

Trump’s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. First, Trump didn’t just go after “the fake media” – and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri. Trump isolated CNN. He made it personal, just as Alinsky suggested.

Then, just as Alinsky suggested, Trump employs ridicule – which Alinsky described as “the most powerful weapon of all.” Most importantly, Trump’s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position. They need to respond.

This leaves them with only two choices. They can either “go high” (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself, and the fake news would disingenuously report that as the truth) – and begin to honestly and accurately report the news. Or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery.

The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive.

Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama’s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn), the mafia (Tony Rezko), or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright’s church.

Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration’s weaponizing the IRS, to be used against their political opponents. Or its running guns to the Mexican drug cartels. Or told the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration’s cover-up.

So, to my friends on the Left – and the #NeverTrumpers, as well – do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be “collegial” and “dignified” and “proper”? Of course I do.

These aren’t those times. This is war. And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.

So, say anything you want about this president. I get it. He can be vulgar. He can be crude. He can be undignified at times. I don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights for America!

SOURCE 

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Mark Levin: Getting Rid of Detention Centers, I.C.E. 'Is the Insanity of the Radical Left'

On his nationally syndicated radio talk show “The Mark Levin Show” on Tuesday, host Mark Levin decried efforts to eliminate border detention centers and I.C.E., calling it “the insanity of the radical left.”

“So now they’re against I.C.E., which is the federal government’s interior enforcement mechanism on immigration,” stated Mark Levin. “‘Eliminate I.C.E.,’ they say. And ‘eliminate detention,’ they say. This is the insanity of the radical left!”

Mark Levin’s comments came after the House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday by a margin of 230 to 195 that would, according to The New York Times, “send $4.5 billion in humanitarian aid to the border to address horrific conditions facing a crush of migrants, attaching significant rules on how the money could be spent in the first action by Democrats to rein in President Trump’s immigration crackdown.”

Here is a transcript of Mark Levin’s remarks from his show on June 25:

“There’s two things you do with people who come here illegally, or who claim asylum status: You release them, or you detain them to try to figure out who they are and what their legal status [is] and so forth and so on.

“So if you don’t support detaining them, you support nothing – that people should walk freely into the country, and off they go, whether it’s up to Boston or Philadelphia or New York, Washington, Richmond, whether they go to Chicago Illinois, whether they go to Los Angeles or Sacramento or San Francisco or San Diego. Maybe they’ll head over to Houston, Dallas, Waco. Who knows? They’re just free to come in.

“So, what they are arguing for – listen to this; it’s important – no detention, that you are not to detain people who are coming here illegally. You’re not to ask them who they are. You’re not to ask them if they are actually the parents of these children. I want you to think about what they are arguing for. No detention centers means no detention. Where are you going to put them all, in Beverly Hills, in Palm Springs, in the Hamptons?

“So now they’re against I.C.E., which is the federal government’s interior enforcement mechanism on immigration. ‘Eliminate I.C.E.,’ they say. And ‘eliminate detention,’ they say. This is the insanity of the radical left!

“They are anti-American; they’re inhumane; they are anti-citizen. Well, what would you call it?

“Let me be abundantly clear so that even low-IQ Joe Scarborough can understand what I’m saying, so even low-IQ Chris Cuomo – the dumbest of the family – can understand what I am saying, so even smirky, snarky, stupid— Well, anyway. So, fill in the blank. If there aren’t detention centers, then you can’t detain these people. If Congress doesn’t fund these centers, then there aren’t diapers and toothpaste.”

SOURCE 

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Kevin Sorbo Exposes Left’s Hypocrisy on Immigration: Obama Was ‘Saying the Same Thing’ as Trump

In a tweet on his Twitter page, actor Kevin Sorbo, known for his roles in the hit TV shows “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” and “Andromeda” and more recently for his family-friendly, Christian films “Let There Be Light,” “God’s Not Dead” and “Christmas Dreams,” remarked on the left’s hypocrisy, pointing out that former President Barack Obama was “saying the same thing” as President Donald Trump on immigration.

“Wow.......so true,” wrote Kevin Sorbo in a tweet. “But the Left will never listen. Obama is saying the same thing Trump is saying. Incredible how Trump gets attacked for this. Not surprising, though.”

Kevin Sorbo’s tweet came in response to a tweet put out by actress and former talk show host Stacey Dash. In the tweet is a video of former President Barack Obama during a segment of a Democratic Party presidential primary debate commenting on the issue of illegal immigration on the southern border of the United States. “The reason Barack Obama won the presidential election in 2008….. Is the same reason they want to impeach President Trump in 2019,” tweeted Dash.

“This administration, the Bush administration, has done nothing to control the problem that we have,” stated former President Barack Obama in the video. “We’ve had five million undocumented workers come over the borders since George Bush took office. It has become an extraordinary problem, and the reason the American people are concerned is because they are seeing their own economic positions slip away. And often times, employers are exploiting these undocumented workers; they’re not paying the minimum wage; they’re not observing worker safety laws.

“So, what we have to do is create a comprehensive solution to the problem,” continued Obama. “Now, I have already stated that as president I will make sure that we finally have the kind of border security that we need. That’s step number one. Step number two is to take on employers— Right now, they, an employer has more of a chance of getting hit by lightning than being prosecuted for hiring an undocumented worker. That has to change. They have to be held accountable. And when we do those things, when we do those things, I believe that we can take the undocumented workers who are here, get them out of the shadows, make sure that they are subject to a stiff penalty, make sure that they are learning English, make sure that they go to the back of the line so that they’re not getting an advantage over people who came here legally.

“And when we do that I think that we can, instead of shedding all this heat, start shedding some light on the problem, and we can once again be a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. That’s what I intend to do as president of the United States,” concluded Obama.

SOURCE 

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The blatant lies of Elizabeth Warren: Trump Deliberately Trying to ‘Psychologically Scar Children,’ ‘Destroy Families’

He is clearly doing no such thing.  He is just trying to hold back the flood of self-selected immigrants.  It would be a tragedy if a liar like Warren were to gain any power.  She has no honesty in her. She is pure egotistical evil

President Donald Trump’s administration is intentionally inflicting cruelty on illegal alien families, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) claimed Wednesday.

What’s more, Trump is deliberately trying to “psychologically scar children” and tear apart families, Warren charged in a Twitter post linking to an ABC News article likening illegal alien holding centers to “torture facilities”:

"What @realDonaldTrump's admin is doing is intentional cruelty – a deliberate attempt to destroy families and psychologically scar children. Shame on @realDonaldTrump & shame on his @SenateGOP allies who have done his bidding on these horrific policies."

SOURCE 

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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.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Former Trump Aide Loses Job After Calling New York Rep. Jerry Nadler A ‘Fat F*ck’

This gave me a laugh.  I think I share his opinion of Nadler.  Calling him fat was of course the worst.  Nadler is lucky Hope Hicks did not walk out on him after his insulting way of addressing her.  But she was too much of a nice lady to do that , of course.  I would have called him a pig -- at risk of being unfair to pigs

A few days ago, former Trump campaign aide Jason Miller went on a profanity-laced Twitter tirade against House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler.

During last week’s closed-door testimony with Hope Hicks, Nadler referred to her more than once as “Ms. Lewandowski.” Miller bashed Nadler in response, in tweets repeatedly calling him a “fat fuck.”

Miller ended up taking down his Twitter account.

Now The Daily Beast is reporting that Miller is no longer working at the consulting firm Teneo:

“I have parted ways with Teneo by mutual consent and look forward to formally announcing my next move in the coming weeks,” Miller said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “Teneo is an incredible firm and without a doubt the premier CEO consultancy on the planet. They have always been great to me and I’m proud to have called them teammates for the past two and a half years.”

Miller also called Nadler a “fucking scumbag” and said, “We’ll call Mr. Nadler ‘Mr. MuffinTop.’”

SOURCE 

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Trump Signs Executive Order Imposing ‘Hard-Hitting Sanctions’ Against Iran

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday issuing what he described as “hard-hitting sanctions” against Iran.

“In a few moments, I’ll be signing an executive order imposing hard-hitting sanctions on the supreme leader of Iran and the Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran and many others. Today’s action follows a series of aggressive behaviors by the Iranian regime in recent weeks, including shooting down of U.S. drones,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“You shot down the drone. It’s—I guess everyone saw that one, and many other things and done many other things. Aside from the individual drone, you saw the tankers, and we know of other things that were done also, which were not good and not appropriate,” he said.

The president said the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is ultimately “responsible for the hostile conduct of the regime.”

“He’s respected within his country. His office oversees the regime’s most brutal instruments, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Sanctions imposed through the executive order that I’m about to sign will deny the supreme leader and the supreme leader’s office and those closely affiliated with him and the office access to key financial resources and support. The assets of Ayatollah Khamenei and his office will not be spared from the sanctions,” Trump said.

The sanctions “represent a strong and proportionate response to Iran’s increasingly provocative actions,” the president said, and he promised to continue to apply pressure on Tehran “until the regime abandons its dangerous activities and its aspirations, including the pursuit of nuclear weapons, increased enrichment of uranium, development of ballistic missiles, engagement in and support for terrorism, fueling of foreign conflicts, and belligerent acts directed against the United States and its allies.”

Trump criticized the nuclear deal signed by former President Barack Obama, calling it “a disaster.”

“It was not doing what it was supposed to do. Many bad things were taking place, and most importantly, it was so short-term that within in a very short number of years, they would be able to make nuclear weapons, and that’s unacceptable. Never can Iran have a nuclear weapon,” the president said.

“Also included in this is we want the stoppage immediately of their sponsoring of terrorism. They sponsored terrorism at a level that nobody’s ever seen before, and that’s been over the last number of years, and they’ve taken all of that money that was given to them by the past administration, and much of it was given out to terrorist organizations,” he said.

Trump also criticized former Secretary of State John Kerry for acknowledging that Iran will probably use some of the money to fund terrorism.

“In fact, I remember when John Kerry was asked a question about whether or not this money will be spent for terror. He actually said yes, or at least he was referring to some of it, but he said, yes, it will be used for terror. If you can believe that, we’re giving them money, and we’re saying, yes, it can be used for terror. That was not a good answer, but that was the least of it frankly,” the president said.

Trump said the U.S. is a “a peace-loving nation” and does not “seek conflict with Iran or any other country.” He also said that he looks forward to the day when the sanctions can be lifted “and Iran can become a peaceful, prosperous, and productive nation. “

“That can go very quickly. It can be tomorrow. It could also be in years from now. So I look forward to discussing whatever I have to discuss with anybody that wants to speak. In the meantime, who knows what’s going to happen. I can only tell you we cannot ever let Iran have a nuclear weapon, and it won’t happen,” the president said.

Trump also said he doesn’t want money to be spent on sponsoring terrorism and noted that Iran is the number one sponsor of terrorism worldwide. He said the U.S. has shown “a lot of restraint,” but that doesn’t mean it would show restraint in the future.

“I felt that we want to give this a chance, give it a good chance, because I think Iran potentially has a phenomenal future, just – and I say that about North Korea too. I’ve said it about North Korea. I think North Korea has a phenomenal future, and I think Iran also has a phenomenal future,” the president said.

Asked whether his goal is to negotiate a new deal with Iran, Trump said, “We would love to be able to negotiate a deal if they want to. If they don’t want to, that’s fine too, but we would love to be able to, and frankly, they might as well do it soon.”

He praised the Iranian people as “great people,” adding that he knows “many of them” from living in New York. He also criticized Obama’s deal with Iran again, saying, “The deal should have never been done.”

“It wasn’t ratified by Congress, wasn’t properly done as you know. As a treaty, it wasn’t properly done. It was incorrectly done, but we’ll get it properly done, so we’ll see what happens. I hope it’s going to be for the good,” the president said.

When asked whether the sanctions were in response to Iran shooting down the U.S. drone, Trump said, “This you could probably … add that into it, but basically, this is something that was going to happen anyway.”

As far as what message he has for the supreme leader and whether he wants a one-on-one meeting with him, Trump said, “My only message is he has the potential to have a great country and quickly, very quickly, but I think they should do that rather than going along this very destructive path – destructive for everybody. We can’t let him have a nuclear weapon.

“He said he doesn’t want nuclear weapons. It’s a great thing to say, but a lot of things have been said over the years, and it turns out to be not so, but he said very openly and plainly for everyone to hear that he does not want to have nuclear weapons, so if that’s the case, we can do something very quickly,” the president said.

SOURCE 

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Retraction of 13 ‘Glowing’ Disaster Reports Throws Light on Dysfunction of Bureaucracy

Another bureaucratic fiasco simply reinforces why the nine most terrifying words in the English language are still: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

The number of declared national emergencies—and how much we spend on them—is rising, yet one of the agencies tasked with handling national emergencies has been particularly opaque about its effectiveness.

A recent news report about the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, highlights how dysfunction within an administrative agency can get papered over for years without any kind of accountability.

According to The Washington Post, an internal investigation of a Department of Homeland Security watchdog found that the agency “whitewashed” a series of internal reports about FEMA’s disaster response. FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

The disclosure led to the resignation of John V. Kelly, a career government auditor and the department’s acting inspector general, who had ordered the reports.

The Post reported that Kelly “chose to flatter FEMA’s staff in some reports, instead of hold them accountable.”

As bad as that is, it gets worse.

“Investigators determined that Kelly didn’t just direct his staff to remove negative findings,” according to the Post. “He potentially compromised their objectivity by praising FEMA’s work ethic to the auditors, telling them they would see ‘FEMA at her best’ and instructing supervisors to emphasize what the agency had done right in its disaster response.”

This led to the extraordinary action in which the inspector general’s office retraced 13 FEMA reports.

Jennifer Costello, the deputy inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, was undoubtedly correct when she wrote that the inspector general’s retraction of the FEMA reports was “not an insignificant matter” and that the reports “represent millions of wasted taxpayer dollars and understandably cast doubt on our credibility.”

So, basically, the glowing FEMA reports left the American people with no idea how to assess the work of our federal disaster response agency, which has a budget of $18 billion as of 2018.

Accountability developed only in 2016 when, according to the Post, House Republicans began to ask questions about a response to flooding in Louisiana that had received a glowing inspector general report based on an internal audit.

Something clearly was wrong with the FEMA reports, Mike Howell, senior adviser on executive branch relations at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email. Howell previously was oversight counsel in the Department of Homeland Security and senior counsel at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“A few years ago when I was on House Oversight, we were reviewing the federal response to major flooding in Baton Rouge, [and] we found tons of issues, tons of wasted money, fraud, etc.,” Howell said, adding:

The inspector general then issued a report that said FEMA did a great job. We flipped out and confronted them with the obvious evidence of FEMA not doing a great job. The result was they retracted the report and then began a look back at the series of after action reports the office of inspector general was issuing post disaster. Turns out nearly every one gave FEMA shining stars.

Americans generally expect the federal government to play an active role in responding to natural disasters and crisis.

The resources drawn from taxpayers are vast, but they aren’t infinite and shouldn’t be treated as such.

As the nation’s debt piles up, we need to be more cautious before we throw our hard-earned money into the salad bowl of endless acronyms that defines the modern federal government.

Even causes that have broad support can become wasteful calamities.

It’s clear that handing enormous power solely to unchecked bureaucratic agencies opens the path for both monumental waste and outright abuse of power.

This is not the constitutional system of checks and balances that the Founding Fathers had in mind.

The FEMA report disaster is just the latest evidence that demonstrates the need for Congress to more actively take back the power it has surrendered to the “fourth branch” of government—our vast and growing federal bureaucracy.

SOURCE 

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LOL: Trump’s Supreme Court Pledge Just Triggered The HELL Out Of Democrats

President Donald Trump made a huge pledge about Supreme Court this week, and it likely just triggered Democrats in a huge way.

During an interview on Monday with The Hill, the president said he would make a nomination to the Supreme Court if there is a vacancy before the 2020 presidential election.

“Would I do that? Of course,” Trump said in response to being asked if he would try to fill a SCOTUS vacancy during a presidential election.

When asked about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell not allowing a hearing on Merrick Garland — the judge President Obama nominated during the 2016 election to fill the seat after Justice Antonin Scalia passed away — Trump said the circumstances are different now.

“They couldn’t get him approved. That’s the other problem because they didn’t have the Senate. If they had the Senate, they would have done it,” Trump said, referring to Democrats.

“It depends. I mean, we have the Senate. We have a great Senate. We have great people. If we could get him approved, I would definitely do it. No, I’d do it a lot sooner than that. I’d do it. If there were three days left, I’d put somebody up hoping that I could get ’em done in three days, OK?” he continued.

Since Trump took office, the Senate has confirmed over 100 of Trump’s nominees to serve on powerful courts across the country.

Trump also has two Supreme Court nominees: Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

Here’s more from The Hill:

Three of the nine current justices on the Supreme Court are 70 or older, though none have indicated they are preparing to retire. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 86, Stephen Breyer is 80 and Clarence Thomas is 71. Ginsburg and Breyer are both members of the court’s liberal wing, while Thomas is a conservative.

Republicans currently control the Senate, with 53 seats. A nominee needs only a simple majority for confirmation.

The confirmation process typically lasts weeks or months, with individual senators seeking meetings with the nominee before they advance to a hearing before the Judiciary Committee and a full vote in the Senate.

The president was also asked about the 2020 presidential election and said he hopes former Vice President Joe Biden “does very well” in the Democratic primaries, but he thinks “there is something going on in that brain of his.”

“How he doesn’t get President Obama to endorse him — there has to be some reason why he’s not endorsing him,” the president said.  “He was the vice president. They seem to have gotten along. And how President Obama’s not endorsing him is rather a big secret,” Trump mused, adding, “Then he goes and lies and said, ‘I asked the president not to endorse me.’ Give me a break.”

SOURCE 

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Trump Weighs In On Reparations; Dems Won’t Be Happy

He politely calls it BS

It is an idea that was once so far outside of the mainstream that even the hallowed Barack Obama wasn’t keen to it but the 2020 Democrats and a radicalized base will be pushing reparations in a cynical effort to pander to the all-important black vote even if it is a loser outside of coastal elite cultural enclaves and the Twitterverse.

The House Judiciary Committee held the first hearing on the issue in a decade earlier this month, and a handful of Democratic presidential candidates seeking to challenge Trump in 2020 have broached the idea.

“I think it’s a very unusual thing,” Trump said of the possibility of reparations. “You have a lot of — it’s been a very interesting debate. I don’t see it happening, no.”

The Democrats are delusional if they actually believe that reparations and thinly-veiled Holocaust denial with their invocation of concentration camps is going to resonate in a national election and even HBO’s smarmy host Bill Maher warned them that the clown car is speeding for the edge of a cliff if a course correction doesn’t take place.

SOURCE 

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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.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Where "blue" Bostonians are coming from

Martin Hutchinson

Harvard University last week rescinded its acceptance of Parkland-shooting survivor Kyle Kashuv on the grounds of offensive tweets made when he was 16. This resulted in considerable media criticism that, in imposing political correctness codes and denying free speech, Harvard was betraying its beliefs. But that is nonsense. Harvard was founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of 1636. Bigoted small-minded intolerance and persecution of dissidents are central to its founding traditions.

One of President Ronald Reagan’s most implausible flights of rhetoric was his frequent invocation of Massachusetts Bay Colony founder John Winthrop’s aim to create a “shining city on a hill.” To me, this made very little sense as an aspiration for Americans in the modern age – 1630s Boston was not a place in which you would have wanted to live.

Winthrop’s Massachusetts Bay Colony had very few of the freedoms for which the United States would later become famous. Religious dissidents were either expelled from the colony, or, in the case of a few unlucky Quakers, hanged. People could be and were prosecuted for smoking tobacco, profane dancing and sleeping in church. 31 people were executed for witchcraft over the course of the 17th Century, including but not limited to the notorious 1692 Salem Witch Trials. Those executed included the unfortunate Congregationalist minister George Burroughs, who was gender-inappropriately hanged for witchcraft so the locals didn’t have to pay the tithes that supported his church. Finally, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was the first in North America to institute slavery in its legal code.

Harvard University was an enthusiastic participant in the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s intolerance and cruelty. The University’s President for 20 years (1681-1701) was Increase Mather, whose 1684 book “Remarkable Providences” proclaimed the reality of witchcraft, quoting liberally from the Catholic witchcraft handbook “Malleus Malificarum” (thus showing his ecumenism in this area) and inspired the Salem trials, which were directly encouraged by his son Cotton Mather. It should be noted that witchcraft trials had more or less died out in the civilized parts of Europe, including Britain, by this time; Malleus Malificarum having been written as long previously as 1487.

The early Harvard, therefore, was not a place of renaissance of ancient learning and formation of new science, like Oxford, Cambridge or Bologna; it was a place of stultifying religious conformity and utter intolerance of dissent. We should thus not be surprised that today’s Harvard follows its own early traditions rather than those of more broad-minded European seats of learning.

The Enlightenment, with its moderation, skepticism, tolerance and enthusiasm for new ideas, came very late to the Harvard community; it is now clear that in some respects it never really arrived. This lack shows itself in many ways; if you have Increase Mather managing your endowment, he will lack intellectual flexibility and you must expect to underperform seriously the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index.

The continuing influence of 17th Century Puritanism explains much that is otherwise inexplicable about American history. One understands why Thomas Jefferson chose independence in 1776, and Washington appears to have been subjected in early life to stultifying British Army snobbery that was intolerable to him as a Virginia gentleman. However, it was never clear why the conservative and rationalist John Adams should choose to overthrow the established order as he did – until you realize that he was brought up among 17th Century Puritans, and thereby hated both the Church of England and still more the ecumenical tolerance of Catholicism demonstrated by the 1774 Quebec Act. Even in Adams, a civilized and moderate man who would be much liked by George III when he was Ambassador to London after the war, Winthrop’s intolerant Boston was present to warp his judgement.

The intolerance of Winthrop’s Boston survives in today’s world, but it is aggressively secular. That does not mean it is rationalist; the left believes in global warming just as strongly as Increase Mather believed in witchcraft, with just as little evidence. Colleges, and Harvard in particular, no longer select on merit but using all kinds of diversity algorithms, whose reinforcement of existing prejudice would be highly recognizable to Increase Mather, even if he would find their precise motivations peculiar.

SOURCE 

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Trump Warns Iran: I’m Not Looking For War, But If One Breaks Out ‘It’ll Be Obliteration’

President Trump told the Iranian regime during an interview aired on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday that he was not looking for war – but that if war breaks out, “it’ll be obliteration like you've never seen before.”

“But I’m not looking to do that,” he added, in remarks directed at supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “But you can’t have a nuclear weapon. You want to talk? Good. Otherwise you can have a bad economy for the next three years.”

Trump reaffirmed that he was willing to sit down with the Iranians with “no preconditions.”

“Look, you can’t have nuclear weapons,” he repeated. “And if you want to talk about it, good. Otherwise you can live in a shattered economy for a long time to come.”

The interview was recorded on Friday, the same day Trump confirmed on his Twitter account that he had approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for its shooting down of a military surveillance drone, only to call it off shortly before it was to go ahead.

Host Chuck Todd asked the president whether he felt any of his advisors were pushing him to take military action against Iran.

Trump replied that he had “doves” and “hawks” among them, adding that “[National Security Advisor] John Bolton is absolutely a hawk.”

“If it was up to him he'd take on the whole world at one time, okay?” he said. “But that doesn’t matter, because I want both sides.”

Trump then recalled his longstanding opposition to the Iraq war launched in 2003, and repeated his frequent assertion that the U.S. has spent $7 trillion in the Middle East.

Visiting Israel at the weekend, Bolton had a warning for Iran too, saying that neither the regime in Tehran “nor any other hostile actor, should mistake U.S. prudence for weakness.”

“No one has granted them a hunting license in the Middle East,” he said in comments alongside Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Bolton then quoted an excerpt from Trump’s Friday morning tweet: “our military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting and more added last night. Iran can never have nuclear weapons, not against the USA, and not against the world.”

“And as he made clear yesterday, referring to his earlier remarks,” Bolton added, “the president said, I just stopped the strike from going forward at this time.”

Bolton was apparently quoting from a tweet by the president on Saturday, in which he said, “I never called the strike against Iran ‘BACK,’ as people are incorrectly reporting, I just stopped it from going forward at this time!”

Bolton also indicated that the new sanctions against Iran, referred to by Trump since Friday, would likely be publicly announced on Monday.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi, reacting to news of an imminent sanctions announcement, said Sunday the U.S. has already slapped all the sanctions it can on Iran, and there are none left to impose.

In comments at the White House, in his tweets, and in his NBC interview, Trump indicated several times that the fact the drone shot down by the Iranians over the Persian Gulf was unmanned had been a factor in his decision not to carry out a punitive strike.

On Friday an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander said that a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon spy plane had been accompanying the RQ-4A Global Hawk drone but had deliberately not been targeted by the surface-to-air missiles used to bring down the drone.

Trump told reporters at the White House on Saturday that the Iranians had been “very wise” not to shoot down the P-8, which he said carried a crew of 38.

“They had it in their sights, and they didn’t shoot it down,” he said. “I think that was a very wise decision – and I think that’s something that we very much appreciate.”

Trump also described himself as neither a “warmonger” nor a “dove,” as he said some people call him. “I think I’m neither, if you want to know the truth. I’m a man with common sense, and that’s what we need in this country.”

SOURCE 

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Border Chief Announces A Decline Of One-Third Of Illegals Crossing Border Since Mexico Deal

Brandon Judd is the president of the Border Patrol Council.  He appeared on Fox Business to make a bombshell announcement.

Thanks to President Trump’s deal with Mexico, illegal border crossings are now dropping bigly.

Judd noted, “There’s not going to be a deal that gives President Trump a win. Democrats are just not going to do that. Going into 2020 they are doing everything they can to take this president apart and so they’re not going to give him a win… I don’t see Democrats giving him any wins going into 2020… He was able to strike a deal with the Mexican government that any president prior to him would have loved to have had. And since he’s been able to strike that deal we’ve seen a drop in nearly a third of people crossing the border prior to the month of June. So we’re already seeing the huge dividends of that experience that President Trump brought to the Oval Office.”

No matter how you slice it, this is huge for America. It’s also great for Trump’s re-election hopes come 2020.

This was his biggest promise years ago and he is delivering.

In just a few days, the private group “We Build the Wall,” led by triple-amputee Brian Kolfage, constructed a full mile of wall on America’s southern border.

They have reported zero crossings, thus far.

SOURCE 

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Mexico Sends 15,000 Troops To U.S. Border To BLOCK Illegals From Entering America

Because of President Trump’s recent deal with Mexico, America’s southern neighbor is now officially stepping up to the plate to curb the flow of illegal immigration.

All it took was the threat of tariffs.

Mexico has deployed almost 15,000 troops to the US-Mexico border, according to the country’s Secretary of Defense Luis Sandoval.

“In the northern part of the country, we have deployed a total of almost 15,000 troops composed of National Guard elements and military units,” Sandoval announced today in Cancun.

Approximately 2,000 National Guard members have already been deployed to Mexico’s southern border with Belize and Guatemala, he noted, adding to the 4,500 troops already spread across the area. Many migrants begin their journey in Central America and even further south, passing through Mexico on their way toward the United States.

Getting things done. That’s how Americans can sum up the bulk of Trump’s first term in office.

There’s no reason to assume the same won’t happen in his second term, God-willing.

Once again, the mainstream media got it wrong when it comes to Trump. This is just further proof that they aren’t even trying.

The latest nothingburger is that 45 was holding a blank piece of paper after signing an agreement with Mexico to curb illegal immigration…

Mexico said “NOOOOOOO! We’ll do whatever you want.”

Trump then got America’s southern neighbor to agree to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States.

His tough stance worked.

SOURCE 

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Just-Promoted DCCC Official Has History of Homophobic, Racist Comments

A Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee official tapped last week to lead a new multimillion-dollar initiative to connect with "people of color and younger Americans" deleted thousands of old tweets after the Washington Free Beacon reached out regarding many homophobic and racially insensitive posts.

Tayhlor Coleman, a longtime staffer at the committee, was named the DCCC's first director of the cycle of engagement, a role DCCC chairwoman Rep. Cheri Bustos (D., Ill.) said would be a "tremendous challenge."

"I want to thank Tayhlor Coleman for taking on this tremendous challenge at this critical moment," Bustos said. "I can think of no one more prepared to lead this effort than her."

Coleman took to Twitter this month to express her support for the gay community, but her previous posts give a different perspective of her views.

In February 2010, for example, she tweeted out concern about "giving a lesbian" her phone number, tagging the tweet with "#homophobia."

SOURCE 

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US Officials Reveal Retaliatory Strike in Response to Iran’s Drone Attack

Even though President Donald Trump canceled plans Thursday to conduct a retaliatory airstrike against Iran, the U.S. military did carry out a cyberattack against the Islamic Republic.

“Sources said U.S. Cyber Command launched the cyberattack targeting the Iranian intelligence and radar installations used to down the U.S. Navy drone last week,” Fox News reported, referring to the $130 million drone that Iran downed.

Citing two former intelligence officials, Yahoo also reported the news, noting a “retaliatory digital strike against an Iranian spy group that supported last week’s limpet mine attacks on commercial ships.”

Iran claimed that no successful cyberattack on any its assets has occurred.

In addition to the reported cyberattack, the president announced on Monday new sanctions aimed at denying Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his office access to “key financial resources.”

“We will continue to increase pressure on Tehran until the regime abandons its dangerous activities and its aspirations, including the pursuit of nuclear weapons, increased enrichment of uranium, development of ballistic missiles, engagement in and support for terrorism, fueling of foreign conflicts, and belligerent acts directed against the United States and its allies,” Trump said.

Trump described the Iran nuclear deal signed by the Obama administration as a “disaster,” because it would allow Tehran to develop nuclear weapons within a relatively short period of time.

Further, it did not address the other bad conduct by the regime, such as ballistic missile testing and the support of terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East.

“Never can Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “I think a lot of restraint has been shown by us,” he added. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to show it in the future.”

Fox reported that the U.S. currently has about 70,000 military personnel stationed in the region, along with the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group, which has been dispatched to the Persian Gulf.

According to The Associated Press, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held talks with the king and crown prince of Saudi Arabia on Monday to discuss countering the military threats posed by Iran.

Pompeo tweeted, “Productive meeting with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud today to discuss heightened tensions in the region and the need to promote maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz. Freedom of navigation is paramount.”

SOURCE 

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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.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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IN MEMORIAM: HERB LONDON

I have just heard that Herb London died late last year, aged 79.

He was an historian by training, came from a Jewish family and was a tireless campaigner for conservative causes for 50 years or more.  I myself was reading his articles for over 40 years.  The last one I reproduced was on October 09, 2015.  I am genuinely sad that I never got to shake his hand.

I have put online some time ago a 1980 article from him titled My life with "the kids".  It tells of his encounters with student radicals in the '60s and '70s.  It is eerily reminiscent  of the student Left today so is rather encouraging.  Society survived the '60s and '70s reasonably well so presumably the present ructions will do no unsurvivable harm.

I was amused by this little episode that Herb related:

"Two days later a contingent of revolutionary action students visited my office, again demanding that my files be opened for inspection. I smiled, clenched my fist, asked them whence they derived the authority to make this "request," and invited them to leave. They refused. A spokesman, obviously trying to muster all the courage he had, said, "Suppose we take matters into our own hands." I softly responded, "You're welcome to try." There were no takers"

Why did the students cave in so readily? To understand, you need to know that Herb was 6'5" and an athlete in his youth -- JR.

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Mike Lee’s New Bill Would Enforce ‘No Regulation Without Representation’

Americans should not have to put up with so many  government regulations imposed by unelected bureaucrats, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said Tuesday while outlining a legislative remedy at The Heritage Foundation.

“If the Founders’ rallying cry was ‘No taxation without representation,’ ours must be, or must at least involve, ‘No regulation without representation,’” Lee said at the think tank’s Capitol Hill headquarters.

Lee said he introduced the Take Care Act as the third part to a conservative legislative program that seeks to reduce the size and impact of administrative agencies, what he called the “headless fourth branch of the federal government.”

The Utah Republican officially introduced the bill June 12 with Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

“We’ve given the modern administrative state 80 good years. That’s a nice long try,” Lee said. “It’s bad. We’ve got to undo it.”

Lee told his Heritage audience that regulatory rules written and enforced by unelected administrators violate Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, which declares that all laws must be passed through both chambers of Congress and be signed into law by the president.

The proposed Take Care Act, Lee said, would solve this problem by allowing the president to use his constitutional power to remove upper-level agency officers who aren’t “faithfully executing the law.”

Currently, Lee said, executive branch officials may be removed only for committing an act of misconduct such as “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” and are protected against being removed for political reasons. 

He argued that this change would make the bureaucracy accountable to the people again.

“The way to accomplish that goal, while not easy by any stretch of the imagination, is itself straightforward,” Lee said. “We need only look to the structural design of the Constitution, and the form of the administrative state equivalent. This is so simple. It’s one of the simplest features of our Constitution, and it’s also the most important.”

Lee, author of the related book “Our Lost Declaration: America’s Fight Against Tyranny from King George to the Deep State,” said that because Congress today delegates the majority of its lawmaking to unelected, unaccountable regulatory agencies, this abuse of legislative power is much more concerning than executive tyranny.

“Our constitutional obligation to write laws we have handed over to bureaucrats who are in no way chosen by the people, in no way accountable to the people,” Lee said, adding:

We’ve delegated that which [18th-century French political philosopher] Charles de Montesquieu described as something that cannot, should not, must not be delegated. … The power to make law involves the power to destroy all sorts of things. And so that’s why it was entrusted only to that branch of government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals.

Lee said that although some have expressed concern that his bill would give the president too much power, political constraints (such as the Senate’s “advise and consent” role in executive nominations) would ensure that agency officials could fulfill their responsibilities without undue interference.

“I’d still rather have the president act as president,” Lee said. “And I’d say that even if we’re talking about some future president, with whom I would likely disagree a lot. Let’s say future President Elizabeth Warren; I would rather have even that president wield the executive power than an unknown technocrat.”

Lee went so far as to say that a more powerful executive is preferable to the so-called “expert” government administrator, and that’s why Congress should pass his legislation.

“The unknown, nameless, faceless bureaucrat, however well educated, well intentioned, hardworking, and highly specialized, would not have to answer to the American people, not ever,” Lee said.

SOURCE 

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Judge Jeanine Mocks ‘Stupid’ Lunchbucket Joe; ‘Stick To Making Friendship Bracelets'

It’s been a long time since a serious presidential contender had this bad of a week this early in the campaign but Joe Biden’s past seven days have been an unmitigated catastrophe by anyone’s standards.

Already stumbling despite an abundance of fawning media coverage, the former vice president stepped in it big time when on Tuesday he glowingly spoke of pro-segregationist Dixiecrat senators and ignited a firestorm when some of his fellow 2020 candidates all but accused him of being a racist.

Promoted as the left’s best hope to beat President Trump in next year’s election, lunchbucket Joe is facing friendly fire which will only intensify at next week’s debates. It will be in Miami where the already hobbled presumptive nominee will be ripped to shreds by the likes of black candidates Cory Booker and Kamala Harris in an event that will be partially moderated by MSNBC’s conspiracy queen Rachel Maddow.

It’s hard to see the geriatric gaffe machine making it through the next year and to Milwaukee where the nominee will be crowned and some including Judge Jeanine Pirro are already mocking the idea that good old Joe with the donkey teeth believes that he has a realistic shot at returning to the White House.

In the latest installment of “Justice With Judge Jeanine” the popular Fox host delivered a verdict of ridicule on Biden while delighting in the spectacle of the Democrats already tearing each other to pieces in what she called an “all-out bare-knuckled, beat down clown show” during her opening statement monologue.

“Like cannonballs, their plan not so much to promote themselves as it is to eat each other alive. Example. As if their supposed front-runner Joe Biden doesn’t have enough problems just being who is, past plagiarisms illustrate his lack of depth on important subjects. His penchant to stick his nose in women’s necks — I still haven’t figured out what the man is sniffing for!”

“I don’t remember things being this bad 15 months before the Republican primary”

She saved her best for last with a taunting reference to Biden’s former boss Barack Obama – a man who he made a friendship bracelet for but who to this point is avoiding his ex-veep like he has the Ebola virus.

“Even Joe’s best pal Barack is uncharacteristic all silent these days. Joe has to remind him that they are besties with the best friend forever bracelet. Joe, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for your best pal Barack to endorse you, so stick to making your friendship bracelets and wishing and hoping. America doesn’t need a best friend.”

Judge Jeanine also predicted that Trump would have smooth sailing to reelection thanks to the infighting among Dems:

SOURCE
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The American Presidency has become a sort of kingship -- as Obama vividly demonstrated

Regulation has come to be used instead of legislation. Obama boasted of it - saying he had "a pen and a phone". Trump is the only one who is trying to rein regulations in but to undo the destructiveness of the Left he too sometimes has to use their methods

Jeff Jacoby

'After four years of Donald Trump," declared Senator Amy Klobuchar in a statement on Tuesday, "a new president can't wait for a bunch of congressional hearings to act." To that end, the Minnesota Democrat, who hopes to become the new president in January 2021, issued a 16-page list of all the "concrete steps she will take in her first 100 days" if she is elected to the White House.

Some of Klobuchar's promises are wholly conventional ("Visit our troops") or matters of routine management ("Reduce State Department vacancies"). A few are about as noteworthy as calling water wet ("Fill judicial vacancies").

Many, however, would represent real shifts in US policy. Klobuchar's pledges include the immediate importation of prescription drugs, a boost in the hourly minimum wage for federal contractors to $15, an end to the trade embargo on Cuba, the addition of transgender identity as a protected civil rights category, and a return to the Iran nuclear deal. Those aren't modest adjustments; they would significantly change the way the federal government currently operates. Obviously that's Klobuchar's objective — and for many voters, the undoing of President Trump's work can't begin soon enough.

But do Americans really want their government to operate on the basis of unilateral presidential decrees? When Klobuchar dismisses any thought of waiting "for a bunch of congressional hearings" before upending the government's priorities and principles, what she is really dismissing is the constitutional order, which puts Congress, not the president, in charge of changing US law. There is nothing ambiguous about Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution. "All legislative powers," it begins, "shall be vested in a Congress of the United States." All — not just the ones a president isn't too impatient to wait for. Yet Congress is almost an afterthought in Klobuchar's approach.

The senator from Minnesota is far from alone. Most of the leading Democratic presidential candidates are vowing to bypass Congress and use executive orders to get what they want.

Senator Elizabeth Warren says that on her first day as president, she'll order a "total moratorium" on new fossil fuel leases, closing the door to drilling for energy offshore and on public lands. Senator Bernie Sanders will ban companies that outsource American jobs from qualifying for federal contracts. Beto O'Rourke would direct US officials to release from detention any undocumented immigrants with no criminal background. And Kamala Harris threatens an ultimatum: If members of Congress don't "get their act together" and pass new gun-control laws within 100 days of her inauguration, she warns, she will impose the restrictions without them.

This tide of executive unilateralism rises with each incoming president.

George W. Bush authorized the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques," including waterboarding and other practices widely considered torture, notwithstanding the prohibition of torture under longstanding US law and treaty. Barack Obama insisted many times that he had no authority on his own to waive the deportation of youthful undocumented immigrants — but then did so anyway by executive order in 2012. After Congress refused to fund a massive wall on the Mexican border, Trump declared that a national emergency empowered him to spend the money just the same.

For every such high-profile example of a president making law by edict, many more occur out of the spotlight. Increasingly, the vast powers of the federal bureaucracy are deployed not as Congress directs through legislation, but as presidents command through executive order. One of the first priorities of each incoming president now is to sign a slew of new directives countermanding the old ones. Before Trump entered the White House, he excoriated his predecessor for "constantly issuing executive orders that are major power grabs." That hasn't stopped him from spending the last 30 months engaged in power grabs of his own. It won't stop his successor from going even further.

This is not a partisan complaint. Democrats and Republicans are equal offenders. Presidents are growing more and more autocratic, and that should alarm all Americans, whatever their political leanings. "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1788. Could even he have imagined, though, just how much liberty Americans would eventually yield? Or just how much power they would allow presidents to amass?

There was a time when even the most dominant presidents took it for granted that they could not simply act without regard to Congress. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln had no choice but to move unilaterally, since the nation was under attack and Congress was out of session. But as soon as legislators returned to Washington, he took pains to secure congressional legitimacy for his actions. The same was true of Franklin Roosevelt. "Even through the World Wars and Depression," writes Bruce Cannon Gibney in The Nonsense Factory , his sweeping new study of America's legal system, "FDR accomplished most of his work through Congress . . . returning time and again to Congress and voters for support."

Today's presidents and would-be presidents, by contrast, make no secret of their intention to sidestep Congress

SOURCE
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President Trump Scores Highest USA/Suffolk Approval Rating Ever, But It’s Not News To USA Today

President Donald Trump has scored his highest approval rating ever in a key national poll, but the media outlet that produces it, USA Today, never mentioned that fact in its write-up.

This week’s USA/Suffolk poll, taken from June 11 through June 15 and presented by RealClearPolitics along with other polling, had the president at a 49 percent approval rating versus 48 percent who disapprove.

The rating is a marked increase from the president’s lowest points in that particular poll. August 2018 saw Trump’s approval at 40 percent, and his score of 38 percent in February 2018 was the lowest rating of his presidency.

While Trump’s highest approval seemingly wasn’t news to USA Today, the 38 percent from last February certainly was. From the outlet’s February 2018 write-up:

"As President Trump sends mixed signals about what he’ll support when it comes to gun legislation, his approval rating has fallen to its lowest level in the USA TODAY survey since he was inaugurated last year. Just 38% now approve of the job he’s doing as president; 60% disapprove."

Wednesday’s USA Today article on the latest poll, titled, “Poll: What do Democrats want to hear about at the debates? (Hint: It’s not Trump.)” did not specifically mention the president’s approval rating, but rather focused on issues Democratic presidential candidates should discuss in the debates.

Another USA Today article on the topic, by Suffolk Political Research Center director David Paleologos, also focused on Democratic candidates.

"The latest Suffolk University/USA TODAY national poll of registered voters identifies a “Starting Five” on the proverbial Democratic team: former Vice President Joe Biden (30 percent), Sen. Bernie Sanders (15 percent), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (10 percent), Mayor Pete Buttigieg (9 percent), and Sen. Kamala Harris (8 percent), with 17 percent undecided. On the bench and ready to join the fray are Sen. Cory Booker and Beto O’Rourke at 2 percent each, while the other 17 candidates together drew support from just 7 percent of likely Democratic primary/caucus voters."

SOURCE
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Rape accuser wimps out of pressing charges on absurd grounds



Trump wouldn't drill anything that rough

Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll said Friday that she would not press charges against President Donald Trump for allegedly raping her in the mid-1990s because that would be “disrespectful” to immigrant women who are victimized by rape, noting that her alleged rape only lasted “three minutes.”

SOURCE 

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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.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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