Let me try my hand at prophecy: About Mr. Trump's Emergency declaration

Prophecy is a mug's game.  Something like 95% of prophecies don't turn out.  But there is a class of prophecy that does turn out: Prophecies based on a correct understanding of natural phenomena.  The big challenge there is "correct".  Warmists think that CO2 warms the earth. But that is demonstrably not correct.  There is no synchrony between the two. But prophesying the position of the earth  relative to the other planets at any one time can be done with great accuracy because we do have a very good and correct knowledge of orbital dynamics.

And in principle, the same applies with regard to all other natural phenomena, including what people do.  The social sciences exist because people think they can see regularities in human behaviour and once you have a regularity, accurate prophecy should be possible.  And in economics that definitely happens.  If you restrict the supply of something, its price will go up, for instance.  It always does. 

But when you get into the other social sciences prophecy is rarely possible.  My academic background is principally in psychology and the only sound generalization from human psychology that I know of that has much in the way of real-life application is the generalization that your educational success will be almost entirely a product of your IQ.

But as well as my background in psychology, I also have a substantial background in sociology and economics.  I taught in a sociology school for a number of years and I am also a former high School economics teacher. So it would seem possible that a combination  of three social science disciplines might occasionally enable accurate prophecies.  And I have repeatedly found that it does. What I think will happen or should happen in the world of politics often does end up actually happening.  I am a pretty good knowledge-based prophet.

So far I have never put one of  my prophecies into writing so perhaps it is now time that I did.  I may be hilariously wrong but I can handle that.  And what I want to prophecy is quite daring.  I want to forecast both the verdicts and the reasoning of both the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of the United States.  And I dare to do that without having any formal knowledge of law or any legal qualifications.  So I am setting myself a very difficult task indeed. I am setting myself up for a fall but it will be fun if nothing else

I refer to the Emergency Declaration that President Trump is using to fund his wall. It generally takes a while for matters to come up before a court but it should fairly quickly come before the 9th Circus.  I anticipate that there will be 4 arguments put to the court in favour of the declaration:

1). The courts have no jurisdiction over how the Commander in chief discharges his duties.  It is for the commander to command and he, not the courts, has the final word about that. So he can therefore use military resources to build a wall. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers carries out many tasks without explicit congressional authority and a wall is just another example of that.

There are some legal restrictions on what the commander can do with the military but none mention wall building.  And even the restrictions that do exist are customarily applied only lightly.  Many wars have been initiated without the authority of Congress, for instance

2). Since passage of the National Emergencies Act in 1976, every U.S. President has declared multiple national emergencies, so Trump is not doing anything out of line. And  123 enumerated powers are invoked by an executive declaration with no Congressional input. This should actually be the core issue in the case and will no doubt be  examined in great detail so I will say no further about that approach.  The sudden arrival of whole caravans of illegals could well be held to be an emergency requiring extra powers.

3). Reallocating funds away from their original purpose is routine so again Trump is well within precedent.  He could do his intended reallocation of funds even WITHOUT an Emergency declaration.  To deny him that customary right would greatly hobble all future administrations and cast into legal limbo many past funding arrangements.  That is surely not to be done lightly.

4). Government by regulation is already well established.  Mr Obama used his "pen and phone" to circumvent Congress on some quite major matters -- notably the creation of DACA immigrants. Trump is simply trying to ENFORCE the law by using regulatory powers.  Obama explicitly CREATED a whole class of new law with no Congressional authority.  The courts have so far upheld the authority of the DACA declaration so it should be merely consistent to uphold Trump's much less innovative declaration.

This argument, by the way, is a complete answer to the idiocy of Rand Paul, who says he will vote against the emergency declaration in the Senate because he fears what a future Democrat president will do with the precedent.  He forgets that the precedent has already been set -- by Obama -- and that Trump's declaration sets no new precedent. Rand Paul is doing a classical act of trying to close the door after the horse has escaped.

So I am pretty sure that at least one of those arguments will ultimately prevail.  There is even a possibility that one will prevail at the 9th Circuit level.  Let me go out on a limb and prophecy that the 9th Circuit with find the emergency declaration improper but will allow that Trump is nonetheless entitled to build his wall using recycled funds because recycling funds has strong precedent.  If that is the verdict, the matter will probably not go to SCOTUS.  If it does go to SCOTUS, they will probably use that reasoning too.

***********************************

Medicare for All Would ‘Result in Care for None,’ Doctor-Turned-Lawmaker Says

A congressman from Maryland who is also a physician says Medicare for All would end up depriving Americans of health care, rather than make it more accessible.

“The Medicare for All plan that was announced a couple of weeks ago by my Democrat colleagues, over 100 of them, really will result in care for none. That’s the bottom line,”  Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., an anesthesiologist by profession, said Wednesday at Conversations with Conservatives, a monthly press question-and-answer session hosted by The Heritage Foundation. 

“You can’t offer ‘free’ care to everyone and expect anything but rationing to be the result,” said the six-term lawmaker. “The costs are huge. We already have a trillion-dollar deficit in the federal government spending. To add more to it will result in rationing.”

Medicare for All—specifically, the plan from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.—comes with a price tag estimated at $32.6 trillion over 10 years.

Among other things, Sanders’ plan would “prohibit ordinary Americans from purchasing any alternative health coverage, except for items such as ‘cosmetic surgery’ or health services that government officials decide are not ‘medically necessary,’ according to a recent commentary from Bob Moffit, a senior fellow in domestic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation.

The Maryland lawmaker says socialized health care is not the answer to rising health care costs and limited insurance options.

“When you dissect this plan, piece by piece, including the elimination of all private insurance, not even socialized medicine in England has that … so, we go well beyond the socialized medical schemes of Europe in the Medicare for All plan,” Harris said. “It is just going to be a nonstarter.”

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., who owned his own dental practice prior to serving in Congress, joined Harris and Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., at the Conversations with Conservatives event, said more effort needs to be placed on making the free market work in health care.

“It is amazing what actually happens when you lower premiums, lower drug prices, lower doctor and hospital visits, and it empowers people to create new ideas,” Gosar said. “Making a market-driven solution is actually beneficial.”

DesJarlais, a physician by profession now in his fifth term in Congress, said Medicare for All would only make the ability to receive health care more of a problem.

“Access is the big thing. There just is not enough to go around,” he said.

“And when you consider that Medicare for All would eliminate what over half the country realizes now in an employer-based plan, most people, despite all the horrors we have heard about Obamacare, which is really bad, get their insurance through their employer,” DesJarlais added. “So, it would change that and eliminate private insurance altogether, and so people would be left with what the government tells them they can have.”

Harris said the importance of patient care needs to be restored as part of health care reform.

“When I was trained, almost 40 years ago, the bottom line is the relationship between the patient and her doctor was the most important,” he said. “That was it. Fast-forward to now. You got an insurance company in the room. You got a government bureaucrat in the room. You have a pharmacy benefits manager in the room. You got all these outside parties that are now involved in that relationship.

“We have got to come full cycle and restore it to the primacy of a patient,” Harris said.

SOURCE 

*********************************

New Tax Proposal Could Devastate Americans’ Retirement Accounts

A new tax proposal in Congress aims to stick it to the rich. But if passed, it could devastate the U.S. financial system and ruin the value of ordinary Americans’ retirement accounts.

The proposal, introduced by a team of Democrats in the House and Senate, would assess a penalty each time someone sells a stock, bond, or other financial instrument. It would tax each of the roughly 10 billion U.S. equity market trades each year, among other transactions.

The goal, presumably, is to hit the rich. But the stock market is not just a tool for the wealthy.

Some of the largest shareholders and beneficiaries of our modern financial system are pension funds for public-sector employees and private retirement account holders. Firefighters, teachers, university endowments, and private retirement savings all benefit from sophisticated equity markets. Many employers issue short-term debt to cover payroll and young start-ups sell securities to fund their growth.

The stock market may seem opaque to the average American, but they still benefit from it through new jobs, advances in productivity, and increases in retirement and other invested savings.   

This proposal would handicap markets for U.S. saving and investment. It would levy a tax of 0.1 percent on the value of every stock, bond, and derivative transaction in the U.S. or made by a U.S. resident.

Depending on the purveyor you listen to, this new tax could make the stock market fairer and less volatile. The tax would stop the dreaded practice of high-frequency trading, whereby large volumes of trades are made quickly by algorithm. Its backers also project that it would raise a sizable chunk of revenue that purportedly would be paid by the “rich.”

But a financial transactions tax fails to meet each of these goals. It would increase rather than decrease market volatility; it would hurt digital traders, who benefit the market; it would not raise as much revenue as projected; and the tax would ultimately be paid by American savers through lower investment returns and fewer economic opportunities. 

A financial transaction tax is not a new idea. The Congressional Budget Office regularly includes it in its yearly list of budget options. Its report notes, however, that the tax could “have a number of negative effects on the economy stemming from its effects on asset prices, the cost of capital for firms, and the frequency of trading.”

These concerns bear out in the real world, too. Evidence from France’s experiment with a transactions tax in 2012 shows that it lowers trading volumes and reduces market liquidity, which hurts market quality.

Fewer trades mean it is harder to buy and sell stock, and markets operate less efficiently. Inefficient markets hurt everyone. They translate into fewer new jobs and less productive investment. 

Italy also tried a transactions tax. There, it  increased market volatility. 

The transactions tax is designed to cut out short-term and speculative traders who trade for small gains by increasing cost of the trade. But without these participants, market prices are less accurate, leading to more frequent and larger price swings. This is borne out in a 2015 study that shows how the tax would indeed increase the likelihood of boom-bust cycles and exacerbate overall return volatility.

In addition, University of California, Berkeley professor Maria Coelho found that financial transactions taxes are “poor instruments” for fixing the market problems identified by advocates. 

As written, the bill is so expansive that it would likely tax short-term, non-exchange traded commercial paper that is used to cover short-term business obligations, like payroll. So a transactions tax could make paying workers more expensive.

The tax would also increase costs for small businesses and start-ups trying to raise funds. A start-up that sells $50 million in securities would now owe a $50,000 tax—not a trivial sum.

But most of all, the tax would hurt ordinary American savers.

In the United Kingdom, it was estimated in the 1980s that cutting the limited financial transactions tax rate “from 2 percent to 1 percent would have led to a 10 percent rise in share prices.” To the extent there is a transactions tax, stock values will fall.

A transactions tax would therefore decrease the stock of wealth for any American who has investments. Private retirement accounts and pension plans could be hurt the most.

Consider a retirement account: a $300,000 self-directed IRA equities portfolio turning over once every year. Just a 0.1 percent tax would result in additional costs of $300 annually. This may sound minimal, but a $300 annual investment growing at 7 percent amounts to more than $20,000 after 25 years.

Perhaps most fundamentally, the tax would impose its largest effective rate on marginal investments—those investments that just barely make a profit. These are the more common type of investments , even though high-return projects are also important.

For instance, under the proposed tax, a block of 1,000 shares of a $25 stock that is sold for $25.01 would face a 250 percent tax rate on the profit made from the sale. By design, these marginal investments are the type that would be most harmed by a transactions tax. The higher the tax rate, the larger the harm.

Despite claims that a new tax would have little effect, history shows that traders respond markedly to new transactions taxes. This means such proposals raise “significantly lower revenues than projected,” as Coelho found in Italy and France.

It is unlikely the new tax would raise anything close to the $777 billion over 10 years that proponents hope for.

It is clear that financial transactions taxes are a poorly designed policy for achieving their proponents’ stated goals. But even if it were the best way to raise revenue, we should question whether maximizing revenue is even a proper goal for governments to have as a matter of policy. 

The government class will always have an insatiable desire to tax and spend at ever higher levels, which means it will search for new and innovative ways to raise revenue. Governments, like most monopolies, are prone to waste and inefficiency.

A better course of action is for Washington to let people of all income levels keep more of the money they earn—to spend, save, and invest how they see fit for themselves, their family, and their local communities.

Washington already has plenty of ways to tax Americans—rich and poor alike. Adding a new tax to the financial system is not the way forward—especially when it will hurt American workers, students, and retirees the most.

SOURCE 

************************************

Senate Delivers CRUSHING Blow To Democrat Agenda With 52-46 Vote

The Republican-controlled Senate confirmed another judge to serve a lifetime appointment on a prominent court, and Democrats are furious. The Senate voted 52-46 this week to confirm Eric Murphy to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The confirmation is significant because it gives President Donald Trump another young, conservative judge a lifetime appointment on a critical appeals court.

As noted by Bloomberg’s Sahil Kapur, this is the 90th judge Trump has successfully nominated since he took office two years ago.

“[Donald Trump] has now put 90 judges on the U.S. courts for lifetime-tenured jobs. Ninety. 54 district court judges, 34 circuit court judges, 2 Supreme Court justices,” Kapur wrote.

“These are young conservatives—mostly aged 40s or 50s, some 30s. They will shape the law for generations,” he added.

Soon after the confirmation vote, Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown — who many thought was running for president but announced he was staying in the Senate — attacked Murphy as being “far right” and “inexperienced.”

SOURCE 

***********************************

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)

**************************

Are the Japanese conservative?

In 2002, a reader of this blog, Derk Lupinek, who was living in Japan, sent me an email questioning my definition of conservatism.  He said that my definition seemed irrelevant to Japanese politics.  Here is what he wrote:

"I live in Japan, and when I first moved here I found myself trying to decide whether the Japanese were deeply conservative, as I had been led to believe, or whether they were actually quite liberal, especially given their attitudes toward sex.

They clearly do not value individual liberty, which would mean they are not conservative by your definition, but they seek to preserve their culture down to the most excruciating details, leaving me with the feeling that they are in fact deeply conservative, at least in the sense that Philosoblog intends.

So, while I do agree with your definition as it relates to conservatism in the West, it certainly doesn't account for deeply conservative individuals in other cultures, and those individuals are indeed trying to "conserve" something.

In other words, you seem to be using the term "conservative" to refer to a political movement that has occurred in the West, and Philosoblog is just using the term more generally to refer to a psychological mindset. Am I mistaken?"

I think I can now give a fuller reply than I did in 2002: I agree that "conservative" has come to have the lexical meaning of "opposed to change".  And that is fine.  I have no desire to re-write the dictionary.

But to understand what is going on we have to look at WHY conservatives oppose some changes. My point is that those individuals usually labelled "conservative" in the Anglosphere are motivated primarily by a love of liberty and that their opposition to what the Left want stems not from an opposition to change in general but from skepticism about the wisdom and  benefit of Leftist policies, which are invariably authoritarian.  Leftists want to stop us doing things we normally do and make us do things that we would not normally do, which is the irreducible core of authoritarianism

So, yes, the Japanese are conservative but they have different reasons for that -- reasons that I know little about.

So it is OK to characterize all conservatives, including Western conservatives, as being opposed to change -- as long as we do not take big mental leaps to say WHY they oppose some changes.

The claim that conservatives oppose ALL change is patently absurd Leftist propaganda.  Notable conservatives such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Donald J. Trump are clearly energetic agents of change. Mr Trump seems to do just about everything differently. So by and large it is only the poorly thought-out  ideas of the Left that conservatives rapidly reject. They have no attitude to change as such.  They just don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The people who DO have a particular attitude to change are the Left. Change is their entire message.  They basically want to change everything -- out of an arrogant and ignorant assumption that they know how to create a new Eden.  The Soviets even thought that they could create a "New Soviet man".

Currently, the "Green New Deal" championed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez exemplifies just how sweeping in scope and just how empty-headed Leftism can be.  In good Leftist style, AOC wants to change just about everything in America. Sadly for America her ideas are hugely popular among American Leftists.  She would create huge destruction given her way

The "New Deal" that the "Green New Deal" refers to was a series of economic initiatives in the 1930s by Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that was modelled on the policies of Fascist Italy.  Hillary Clinton's slogan in the last presidential election -- "Better together" -- was also the central idea of Italian Fascism.

And there is always the unapologetic authoritarianism of "Bernie" Sanders:

He really has defended government bread rationing and he really does pledge that he will "transform the country"

In such circumstance politics is largely a contest between the self-righteous and impetuous dreamers who want to tear down our existing society in order to move us towards a new Eden and those who stand in the way of that folly. As Bill Buckley famously said: "A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling ’Stop!’"  Bill was a very polite man so he said "history" where I would have said "Leftist folly".

**********************************

Democrats Are Goose-Stepping Towards Irrelevancy

In a party where loyalty is paramount but the goalposts keep moving, what happens next?

Democrats recently held a meeting where party leaders made it clear loyalty is the only thing that matters. Unsurprisingly, a headline from The Washington Post article describing the meeting vastly understated reality: “House Democrats explode in recriminations as liberals lash out at moderates.” Socialist/Marxist hard-core radicals lashing out at progressives is more like it — in a party where ever-increasing demands for “authenticity” are the only currency that matters.

What kind of authenticity? “Triggering the blowup was Wednesday’s votes on a bill to expand federal background checks for gun purchases,” the Post explained. “Twenty-six moderate Democrats joined Republicans in amending the legislation, adding a provision requiring that ICE be notified if an illegal immigrant seeks to purchase a gun.”

In other words, Democrat Party members who would like to take Americans’ guns away were furious that some of their colleagues supported making sure illegals can’t get guns. As a result, media-made “superstar” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared through her spokesman that Democrats who side with Republicans “are putting themselves on a list.”

It’s going to be quite a list, and ideology is only half of the equation. As Victor Davis Hanson so aptly explains, Democrats are a party where “ending capitalism, the internal combustion engine, and so-called white privilege become, for now, the new revolutionary agendas.” And while the old party elitists may pay lip service to the first two tenets, he warns, “The third canon of race unfortunately is not apparently, like gender, a social construct, but innate, unchanging and genetic — and historically an igniter of tribal strife every time it is elevated to being essential rather than incidental to identity.”

The new breed of Democrats, whose ignorance is only exceeded by their arrogance, couldn’t care less. If the old guard won’t get more tribal, they are eminently expendable. Thus, when former VP Joe Biden called current VP Mike Pence a “decent guy,” he infuriated leftists who believe Pence’s anti-same-sex marriage stance is all that matters. And when failed New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon called him out, Biden backtracked. “You’re right, Cynthia. I was making a point in a foreign policy context, that under normal circumstances a Vice President wouldn’t be given a silent reaction on the world stage. But there is nothing decent about being anti-LGBTQ rights, and that includes the Vice President,” he tweeted.

Biden is the tip of the iceberg. Bernie Sanders? Just “an old white, and rather affluent career politician, still barking at the class-struggle moon,” as Hanson puts it. A person “burdened by his utter lack of intersectionality,” National Review editor Rich Lowry adds. Elizabeth Warren? Her Native American “ancestry” has proved to be as tenuous as her explanations for exploiting it, making her just another rich, old, white women.

Kamala Harris? In order to authenticate her “blackness,” the daughter of a Tamil Indian mother and Jamaican father told a radio audience she used to get high in college while listening to “Snoop” and “Tupac” — neither of whom released music until years after she graduated. Cory Booker? Apparently inventing a drug dealer friend named “T-Bone” was his ticket to “down with the struggle” relevancy.

And on it goes, as each of these Democrats and others try to out-authenticize one another by moving further and further left. Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70% tax rate? Punked by Ilhan Omar, who wants to jack it to 90%. Both are outflanked by Warren, who apparently believes advocating for outright wealth confiscation will mitigate her tribal deficiencies.

The party’s new breed and their establishment fanboys and fangirls are also on board with a Green New Deal, universal Medicare (and the subsequent elimination of private insurance), tearing down the existing border wall, reparations for black and Native Americans, abolishing ICE, and embracing post-birth abortions.

And yet, as always, Democrats remain fearful too much elucidation of their intentions is their worst enemy. “Democratic leaders agree that candidates need to be careful not to say anything now that could haunt them in the general election, if they become the nominee,” The Washington Post reports.

The haunting is in full swing. As Hanson points out, Democrats are a party “in which over a dozen and often overlapping victim cadres agree that each degree of non-white-maleness adds authenticity and becomes a force multiplier of left-wing radicalism.”

It is a force multiplier whose ultimate destination elicits a question: How could any white, heterosexual, male — routinely vilified as “privileged,” “cisgender,” and “toxic” — still be a member of the Democrat Party, much less one of its presidential candidates?

And what about Christians, who were referred to as “bitter clingers” by the former Democrat president, and saw the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal organization, vilified as a promoter of “extremist” views by two Democrat senators?

Jewish Americans? How many anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, pro-BDS, Louis Farrakhan-supporting Democrats does it take to engender irreparable alienation?

After all, the House failed to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism.

Yet the rush to the left remains undimmed. “So many Democratic presidential prospects are now claiming the progressive mantle in advance of the 2020 primaries that liberal leaders are trying to institute a measure of ideological quality control, designed to ensure the party ends up with a nominee who meets their exacting standards,” Politico reports.

Quality control? Exacting standards? Ideological purity with all the attendant fanaticism is more like it. “You don’t just get to say that you’re progressive,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told party donors at a conference last December. She and her followers envision 2020 as a watershed election where they will get a chance to “leverage our power.”

As always, power is all that matters to the American Left. That’s at least partly why DNC chairman Tom Perez announced Fox News would be barred from holding a Democrat Party presidential debate because of its “inappropriate relationship” with President Trump. Apparently 90% negative coverage of the president by the media is insufficient.

The list of initiatives mentioned above is all about the Liberty-crushing empowerment of progressive-controlled government, and their desire to abolish the Electoral College and pack the Supreme Court with four new leftist justices is all about making the arrangement permanent. Yet why are the same Democrats who hid behind a facade of “tolerance” for decades now embracing in-your-face radicalism?

Two reasons: The election of Donald Trump so enraged them they can’t contain themselves, to the point where they’ve made it clear they intend to investigate unprecedented portions of his adult life, and the lives of his associates and family, irrespective of their relationship to his presidency — and irrespective of what the Mueller investigation finds.

In other words, Democrats are embracing the Stalinesque “show me the man and I’ll find you the crime” mindset championed by the Soviet dictator’s secret-police director Lavrenty Beria.

Yet far more important, Democrats think a combination of mass immigration — absent assimilation — and five decades of indoctrination-based education, that produced legions of Americans united solely by the idea they live in an inherently flawed nation needing radical transformation, has reached critical mass.

Don’t bet on it. “Progressives are like a worn rope being pulling apart at both ends,” Hanson states. “At one end, there is an effort to radicalize prior radicalization, and on the other end victimhood is heading toward parody.”

Not parody. Self-inflicted political irrelevancy.

SOURCE 

******************************

Jonah lives!

Director of Dive Expert Tours Rainer Schimpf, 51, from South Africa, had set off with his team of divers to document a sardine run when events took a surprising turn off Port Elizabeth Harbour, east of Cape Town.

In a situation reminiscent to the Old Testament's Jonah and the whale, Mr Schimpf was left facing a potentially fatal outcome as he entered the inside of the large creature's mouth.

Mr Schimpf and his team, who had split into two groups, had been documenting a natural event which sees the likes of gannets, penguins, seals, dolphins, whales and sharks come together to capture large quantities of fish.

The team were 25 nautical miles from shore when the sea suddenly began to churn and Mr Schimpf was swallowed into the mouth of the beast like the Bible's Jonah.

During the biblical story, Jonah is tossed into the water during a storm and stuck in the belly of the beast for three days before he is thrown up onto the shores of Nineveh.

Following the incredible incident, Mr Schimpf told Barcroft TV that he had been trying to film a shark going through a bait ball when his surroundings suddenly became dark and he felt the large whale grab hold of his body.

He told Barcroft TV: 'I could feel the pressure on my hip, there is no time for fear in a situation like that – you have to use your instinct.'

Mr Schimpf added: 'Nothing can actually prepare you for the event when you end up inside the whale – it's pure instinct.

'I held my breath because I thought he is going to dive down and release me much deeper in the ocean, it was pitch black inside.'

As the experienced diver, who has been a dive tour operator for more than 15 years, was sucked into the whale's mouth, his colleague and photographer Heinz Toperczer kept the camera focused on Mr Schimpf and watched on in horror from the team's boat.

He later described how he saw dolphins leap out of the water and a white spray erupt from the top of the whale as his colleague was swallowed by the sea animal.

After being spewed out of the creature's mouth, Mr Schimpf was able to swim back to his boat unharmed.

Bryde Whales are known to grow up to 40-55 feet in length and are typically found in Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific ocean. The whales are usually dark grey and can dive to depths of 300 metres.

SOURCE 

*************************************

On Hill, Homeland Security Officials Describe Emergency at the Border

Changing immigration laws could reduce the inflow of illegal border crossers by almost two-thirds, a top border security official testified Wednesday at a Senate hearing.

Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Border Patrol should be able to detain families as a unit, which is prohibited under the government’s interpretation of current law.

Congress also should reform the asylum laws and make it easier for immigration officials to send illegal border crossers to to their home countries, McAleenan said. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, asked whether a change in law or more resources—including funds for a border wall—would make a bigger dent in illegal immigration. 

Border Patrol officials need both, McAleenan replied.

“But the immediate impact—63 percent of our traffic at the border would be addressed by a change in the laws,” McAleenan said.

The hearing comes as President Donald Trump makes his case to Congress for the national emergency he declared Feb. 15 to secure funds to build a wall or other barrier along sections of the southern border.

On the other side of the Capitol, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, McAleenan’s boss, testified Wednesday before the House’s Democrat-controlled Homeland Security Committee.

At the House hearing, Nielsen testified that illegal immigration across the border is “spiraling out of control” and is now a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

“Our capacity is already severely strained, but these increases will overwhelm the system entirely,” Nielsen said. “This is not a manufactured crisis. This is truly an emergency.”

More HERE

************************************

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)

**************************

The Left Seeks to 'Smear and Destroy Us All' -- 'Good People Stand Up and Fight'

During her March 1 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), columnist and best selling author Michelle Malkin stressed that "diversity is not our strength" but "unity is," and she called on the "good people" of America to "stand up and fight" against the political left, whose goal is "to smear and destroy us all."

"Our enemies are both foreign and domestic," said Malkin at the conference held in National Harbor, Md. "Inside our already flimsily defended borders, we are not at peace, or rather, the radical left is not at peace with us."

"From the comfort of TV green rooms, Beltway backrooms, corporate boardrooms, and conference ballrooms, it may not look like civil war is imminent," she said.  "But threats and outright violence against you, ordinary, law-abiding people are now regularized features, not just random bugs, of political life in these dis-United States."

She continued, "College students are being punched; elderly citizens are being harassed; MAGA hat-wearers are being kicked off planes and assaulted in school hallways and restaurants; conservative speakers are being mobbed and Molotov cocktailed; ICE agents and their families are being targeted; pro-lifers are being kicked and menaced; pro-Trump, anti-jihad moms on social media are being monitored and doxed. The madness is beyond parody."

"Where are the sanctuary spaces for law-abiding conservatives who simply want to exercise their rights to free speech and peaceable assembly?" said Malkin. "The divide in this country is between decent people who stand up for America and dastardly people who want to bring America to its knees."

"We certainly should make common cause with others across the aisle who share our values, but we should not rush to embrace those whose fundamental aim is to smear and destroy us all," she said.  "That is suicidal."

Noting that her Friday speech was occuring on the seventh anniversary of the death of Andrew Breitbart, Malkin told the conservative crowd that America needs more "disrupters" like Breitbart. America also needs "politicians who will do something to stop the sowers of hate and their handmaidens," she said. "Use the tools at your disposal. Don’t just stand there. Do something!"

In conclusion, Malkin said, "Diversity is not our strength. And I know those words are a trigger. Diversity is not our strength. Unity is. Our common purpose is the common defense of our nation. Good people make America great. Good people stand up and fight. Thank you."

SOURCE 

**********************************

Dan Crenshaw on Limited Government

The congressman eloquently articulated the reason for disagreement on taxes 

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) is no stranger to the fight. The former Navy SEAL lost an eye in an IED explosion during his third combat tour in Afghanistan. Ironically, he’s probably best known so far for his amicable performance on “Saturday Night Live” last November. But he’s not just a warrior who can get along with his leftist opponents. He’s a philosopher espousing the principles of constitutionally limited government.

“Why does the left hate the tax cuts?” Crenshaw rhetorically asked Tuesday. “[Because] they think the people exist to fund the [government]. We believe the [government] exists to protect the inalienable rights of the people. When people keep their money, we get more jobs & wage growth, & less wasteful spending by ‘benevolent’ bureaucrats.”

With that comment, he posted video of his remarks at a House hearing, where he really nailed it (emphasis his):

We’re talking about a difference in philosophy, not just tax rates. It’s a question of whether the government should be taking more of your money or whether you should keep more of your money. It’s the difference in the role of government, in what we believe. It seems to me that you all believe that the role of government is to tax the people as much as possible so that you and your benevolent fellow academics can dream up more programs for the government to spend money on. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that’s what the role of government is for.

The role of government is to protect God-given rights that we have and to ensure that we live as free as possible. The role of government is to tax people to the least extent possible, while still taxing them enough to cover basic needs for government. And if we’re questioning what those needs are, we can just look at our Constitution; they’re generally pretty clear there.

Indeed, the Constitution is quite clear on the role of government, and today’s federal behemoth exceeds its mandate at nearly every turn. Much of that growth has been fueled by exactly what Crenshaw rightly criticizes: “more programs for the government to spend money on.” Democrats have become increasingly cynical and “generous” in their vote-buying scheme to offer “free stuff” to more people. But Republicans are hardly blameless. In 2017 and 2018, Republicans controlled both branches of government responsible for spending — and it increased drastically. Everyone wants to cut government, so long as it’s not their program. Thus, government never gets smaller.

If more elected Republicans would follow through on Crenshaw’s philosophy, that might begin to change.

SOURCE 

**********************************

Meet the California Lawyer Defending Covington Teens, Former Google Employee

What’s it like to be a conservative lawyer in a liberal bastion like San Francisco? That’s exactly what Harmeet Dhillon does every day, and her clients include a dozen of the Covington High School teens, pro-life activist David Daleiden, and many others. Listen to the interview in the podcast or read the transcript below. Plus: Rob Bluey and Rachel del Guidice sit down with Congressman Mike Johnson, who now heads up the largest conservative caucus in the House.

We also cover these stories:

President Trump now says he agrees 100 percent with keeping U.S. troops in Syria.

New Attorney General Bill Bar will not recuse himself and will oversee the investigation conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

An Alabama woman who joined ISIS is trying to get back into the country — and her first effort just failed.

This is a lightly edited transcript.

Katrina Trinko: Joining us from CPAC is Harmeet Dhillon, who is a lawyer who lives in San Francisco, so we know she’s used to defending what she believes in.

I wanted to start off with who you represent … clients who were injured in the 2016 Trump rally in San Jose, California, about an hour from San Francisco. Remind us what happened there, and how is the case going?

Harmeet Dhillon: Sure. On June 2, 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump came to San Jose for a big rally. I was actually at the rally and did the Pledge of Allegiance. It was a great event. The problem is that the city of San Jose has a liberal mayor, and they did not want Trump to come and so they tried to discourage it. Then he came anyway because California people wanted to hear him, and there were 250 riot gear-clad police from San Jose and surrounding jurisdictions there.

Basically, there was a very aggressive organized protest by people waving Mexican flags and shouting very aggressive anti-Trump epithets, and the police forced all the people who were leaving the event directly into the mob that was protesting the event and then stood there and watched people get assaulted, so we have, I think, 19 plaintiffs who were physically assaulted or chased or otherwise put into fear of their lives at this event.

We sued the city of San Jose, its mayor, its chief of police, and several other police officers on civil rights grounds for violating the civil rights of the attendees, and we were able to keep that case in court. After two motions to dismiss, the city of San Jose appealed it to the 9th Circuit where it languished for almost two years, but we—

Trinko: Really? In the 9th Circuit?

Dhillon: Yes, but we won in the 9th Circuit.

Trinko: Oh, wow. OK.

Dhillon: The court then sent the case back down, and now we’re in the middle of depositions, so we’re having depositions taken of our clients. We’re taking depositions of the police, and we are set by the court for a settlement conference with the federal judge to try to see if we can … broker a settlement.

Trinko: And do you have other political clients right now?

Dhillon: Many. I am also representing David Daleiden, who is the gentleman from the Center for Medical Progress who exposed the National Abortion Federation’s trafficking in human body parts. We’re representing him in the 9th Circuit in an appeal of one of the rulings in the district court case.

I am also representing teachers who are seeking to challenge the union dues in the post-Janus era that’s an ongoing soon-to-be-filed situation in California, and I’m representing families of 12-plus Covington kids who were the target of this mob hatred there, and James Damore, who sued Google for firing him for expressing anti-PC viewpoints in the workplace … and there are more, but those are a few.

Trinko: That’s a lot right there. How is James Damore’s case going? He, of course, as you mentioned, expressed unpolitically correct views. He suggested that maybe, if you look at women as a group and men as a group, they might occasionally have different skill sets, which I think a lot of us would say is common sense. How is his case going?

Dhillon: He didn’t even say they have different skill sets. He said that they have different approaches to problem-solving and that if Google wanted to attract women, which he thinks is a good goal, they need to look at those issues and make Google more attractive to women as opposed to simply forcing quotas down the throats of the workers.

His case, unfortunately, is stuck in arbitration, because workers in all these big tech companies file arbitration, sign arbitration agreements, so we are in arbitration right now with his case, another case of another person who was fired there, and then, in court, we have a class of job applicants who believe they were not hired because they were conservative, white, and male.

Trinko: So you’re in Silicon Valley. You’re representing clients who are no longer with these tech companies. Obviously, we all use Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, etc. Do you think these tech companies can be trusted when they say they want to be a platform for everyone, or do you have concerns?

Dhillon: No, they can’t be trusted. I’m going to be on a panel tomorrow with James O’Keefe, who exposed yesterday the equivalent of shadow banning at Facebook. We’re aware from his prior work of the shadow banning at Twitter, and the leaders of all of these companies, Google is really the worst of all of them, but they’re very liberal.

They wanted Hillary Clinton to win. She didn’t win, and they’re still trying to get their vengeance out of that. But some of these people have this messianic complex as they really want to change the world and shape it in a progressive way, and so I don’t think you can trust them at all.

In fact, many consumer lawsuits have been filed about privacy violations and so forth, so I’d love to see more conservatives take this issue seriously and not just say the market will shift and the market will handle these issues. There’s a certain point in time and a certain volume of power where the market cannot do that.

Trinko: You said you’re representing some of the teams who were involved in the Covington fake news crisis, for lack of a better term. What’s going on there?

Dhillon: One lawsuit has already been filed by a different lawyer for Nick Sandmann, and I can’t reveal the strategy, but there will be more lawsuits filed.

Trinko: Can you say what’s the hope here? Is it holding the media accountable, or what’s the overall goal?

Dhillon: Keep in mind it wasn’t just the media that attacked these boys. There were prominent liberals and politicians who doxed them, who called for them to suffer harm and their families to be shamed and suffer harm. The school was harmed, so it’s actually a much broader societal problem.

I think this problem of mob rule on the internet and group-shaming and destroying people’s lives over something they said or a smile or a smirk, if you have that, is a big societal-cultural problem that we need to address. So the courts are only going to be able to address so much, but we’re hoping to draw attention to these issues, and it’s bad on both sides when that happens.

Trinko: On that, I think a lot of conservatives are reluctant to often take things to the court. They don’t want to be lawsuit-happy, etc., but it seems like there’s beginning to be a shift where people are more comfortable, perhaps, realizing they don’t have any other option. Do you think that we’re going to see more of these battles fought in the courts going forward?

Dhillon: If we don’t see them, you’re not going to hear anything from conservatives. Nobody’s going to hear your podcast. Nobody’s going to hear from any of us in five years, so we cannot be fighting the wars of the 20th century with the tools of the 19th century.

We have got to fight back in the same way the liberals do. The minute the president signs an executive order, somebody files a lawsuit over it. Republicans and conservatives need to do the same thing.

Trinko: So what is it like for you being a conservative in the San Francisco area?

Dhillon: I was a conservative at Dartmouth College. I was a Sikh in the Deep South where I grew up, and I’m an immigrant. It doesn’t faze me. Popularity contest is not what I’m about, so I believe what I believe and I’m going to say it until my voice is muffled.

Trinko: Did you grow up conservative or did you become conservative, or what was that journey like for you?

Dhillon: My parents registered as Republicans when they became United States citizens, and I’ve always been a conservative.

Trinko: OK. Thanks very much for joining us.

Dhillon: My pleasure.

SOURCE 

*************************************

Number of migrant families crossing border is breaking records

For the fourth time in five months, the number of migrant families crossing the southwest border has broken records, border enforcement authorities said Tuesday, warning that government facilities are full and agents are overwhelmed.

More than 76,000 migrants crossed the border without authorization in February, more than double the levels from the same period last year and approaching the largest numbers seen in any February in the last 12 years.

“The system is well beyond capacity, and remains at the breaking point,” Kevin K. McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, told reporters in announcing the new data.

Diverted by new restrictions at many of the leading ports of entry, migrant families continue to arrive in ever-larger groups in remote parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. At least 70 such groups of 100 or more people have turned themselves in at Border Patrol stations that typically are staffed by only a handful of agents, often hours away from civilization. By comparison, only 13 such groups arrived in the last fiscal year, and two in the year before.

More than 90 percent of the new arrivals were from Guatemala, officials said, with a significant change in the dynamics of the migration: While Central American migrants once took weeks to journey through Mexico to the United States, many Guatemalan families are now boarding buses and reaching the southwest border in as little as four to seven days “on a very consistent basis,” McAleenan said.

The high number of families crossing the border suggest that President Donald Trump’s policies aimed at deterring asylum-seekers are not having their intended effect. Up to 2,000 migrants who traveled in a caravan from Central America last year and faced lengthy delays in Tijuana appeared to have given up their cause as of last month after being discouraged by months of delays at the border. But the families following behind them seem only to have adjusted their routes rather than turn back. Indeed, they are traveling in even larger numbers than before.

SOURCE 

*************************************

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)

**************************

The Democrats decide to lead with their losers

Alex Beam is an unusually realistic Democrat -- though he does want to keep Asians out of Harvard -- so he is pretty right below

Why is the Democratic Party fetishizing losers?

About a month ago, the party chose failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to deliver its response to president Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. Abrams performed creditably (“Good evening my fellow Americans and happy Lunar New Year”), but why showcase a politician who lost an election?

There are 46 Democratic women of color in the House and Senate, some of whom, such as Boston’s Ayanna Pressley, won dramatic victories over entrenched incumbents. It’s true, as Bob Dylan observed, that there is no success like failure. But failure is no success at all.

Another Democratic loser of the moment: Beto O’ Rourke. “Here’s What Beto Could Unleash on Trump” was the headline on a recent Politico analysis of congressman O’Rourke’s recent Senate campaign against incumbent Ted Cruz. Huh? In an article that never seems to end, veteran campaign analyst Sasha Issenberg samples the secret sauce that propelled O’Rourke to . . . one of the more spectacular defeats of the 2018 election cycle.

O’Rourke outspent Cruz, deemed to be one of the least liked politicians in Texas or anywhere, by $30 million and still lost. O’Rourke’s loss was so egregious that Politico itself published a post-mortem of his failed race two days before the election occurred: “Did Beto Blow It?” Writer Tim Alberta reported that even Texas Republicans who hoped Cruz would lose were “baffled by . . . the tactical malpractice of [O’Rourke’s] campaign.”

Bernie Sanders raises $1 million hours after announcing 2020 bid
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders raised more than $1 million within hours of launching his 2020 presidential bid.

There are more losers where those came from. Look who is the leading fund-raiser among current Democratic presidential candidates — Vermont’s Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders, fresh off his 2016 primaries thumping at the hands of failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, represents a state so far off the charts politically and demographically that it was a recent punch line on “Saturday Night Live.”

In the now-famous SNL skit, neo-Confederates and “BlacKkKlansman ” star Adam Driver decide to move to Vermont, a state with “no immigrants, no minorities, an agrarian community where everyone lives in harmony because every single person is white.”

Democratic Socialism tests well in Putney; less so in Peoria, I suspect.

Now Democratic Party whisperers are preparing the way for the biggest loser of them all, former vice president Joe Biden. For younger voters, Biden is the avuncular, do-nothing vice president of the halcyon Barack Obama years. But people like me remember how Biden got to be vice president in the first place: with two botched runs at the presidency, in 1988 and in 2008.

Biden quit the 1988 campaign in the wake of plagiarism charges, and exited the brutal 2008 contest after placing fifth in the gateway Iowa caucuses. He may be a nice guy, but to paraphrase longtime baseball manager Leo Durocher: Nice guys poll poorly in Democratic primaries.

Why trot out this rogues’ gallery of fossils and losers? While it may be true that Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris are not exactly “my cup of tea” (Spike Lee’s hilarious characterization of the movie “Green Book,” speaking to two British journalists at the Oscars), I certainly respect their militant spirit and political acuity. “And yet she persisted” – right on.

It’s going to take a lot of persistence, and a track record of impressive victories, to unseat Trump. Forget the losers and the also-rans. Let’s put in the A team, and hope for a win.

SOURCE 

*********************************

Sen. David Perdue Went to the Border To See for Himself, He Was Not Prepared for What He Saw

Sen. David Perdue of Georgia said he was “not prepared” for the explosion in drug trafficking that he learned about during a recent visit to the U.S. border with Mexico. “I saw something that I was not expecting,” the Republican lawmaker told The Western Journal at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside of Washington, D.C., late last week.

“I expected to see the human trafficking, and we saw that with (Border) Patrol overnight,” Perdue said. “What I was not prepared for was the size and scope and how dramatically the drug trafficking has grown.” He said that there has been an “explosion” in drug trafficking in the McAllen, Texas, area, where he visited.

The senator said seizures of fentanyl are up 73 percent from a year ago and methamphetamine is also flowing through the border at high levels.  “This is a drug crisis of gargantuan proportion,” Perdue said.

He said Mexican cartels use human trafficking as a “distraction” to tie up Border Patrol agents, making it easier for drug traffickers to slip through.

NBC News reported the number of migrants crossing into the U.S. hit a 12-year-high for the month of February at 76,100.

Since the beginning of the fiscal year in October, Border Patrol has apprehended over 268,000 individuals entering in the country, a 97 percent increase over the same period in the previous year, according to the White House.

Cartels are thought to make about $2 billion in human trafficking, while trafficking drugs nets over $30 billion, Perdue said.

The senator related there is no doubt in his mind that what is happening at the border is a crisis, noting that is how former President Barack Obama described it, as well.

Perdue said 135 miles of barriers were built along the southern border while Obama was in office.

President Donald Trump has 124 miles under construction and improvement to existing barriers underway, and Congress just authorized 55 miles of new construction, Perdue said.

About 650 miles of the 1,954-mile border are covered with barriers of various forms, including 374 miles of pedestrian fencing, CNN reported.

Perdue said there’s no question that walls work. “We know that where you build walls, illegal activity drops by 95 percent,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday he anticipates enough Republican senators will join with Democrats to pass a resolution seeking to block President Donald Trump’s border wall funding emergency declaration, according to The Hill.

“I think what is clear in the Senate is that there will be enough votes to pass the resolution of disapproval, which will then be vetoed by the president and then in all likelihood the veto will be upheld in the House,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky have all said they will vote for a resolution of disapproval, clinching the 51 senators needed.

The resolution of disapproval passed the Democrat-controlled House last week. Trump has the veto power, which would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers to override him.

In addition to the $1.375 billion Congress voted to authorize for barrier funding, the White House plans to redirect $3.6 billion from a military construction fund, $2.5 billion from a Department of Defense drug interdiction program and $600 million from the Treasury Department from a drug forfeiture fund.

The national emergency is specifically being used to tap the $3.6 billion from the military construction fund.

Politico reported that Trump expressed confidence on Friday that if he vetoed the measure, it would not be overridden. “We have too many smart people that want border security so I can’t imagine it (the resolution) will survive a veto,” Trump said.

SOURCE 

***********************************

ACLU blasts Democrats' election bill as unconstitutional

The American Civil Liberties Union dealt a blow Monday to Democrats’ new election overhaul legislation, saying the bill does too much damage to the First Amendment and the storied rights group cannot support it.

ACLU officials said they support parts of the bill, such as making it easier to register to vote, but said the legislation attempts to control even the mere mention of a politician, which goes too far.

“They will have the effect of harming our public discourse by silencing necessary voices that would otherwise speak out about the public issues of the day,” the ACLU’s national political director and senior legislative counsel wrote in a 13-page letter announcing opposition.

Democrats plan to put the bill, H.R. 1, on the chamber floor for a vote later this week.

They’ve cast it as their top legislative priority, after saying last year’s elections were tainted by too many problems with voting, and too much money controlling the outcomes of elections and legislating.

The bill is going nowhere beyond the House. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday he won’t even bring it to his chamber’s floor.

But opposition from the ACLU could damage the bill’s bona fides with the left.

“When groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, who have traditionally supported the Democratic party, echo my concerns with H.R. 1, it underscores why election reform legislation should not be developed in a partisan manner,” said Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, which approved the bill last week.

The ACLU said it objected to lobbying restrictions Democrats wrote into the bill, saying they’re so broad they could prevent a former official from communicating with a senior government policymaker in any agency for up to eight years.

The group also said new disclosure rules are so broad as to be unworkable, preventing independent organizations from taking political action based on something they’d read or talked about even before someone became a candidate.

SOURCE 

************************************

US new-home sales rose 3.7 percent in December

Sales of new U.S. homes climbed in December to their highest pace in seven months, a sign that lower mortgage rates are helping the real estate market.

The Commerce Department says that new-home sales rose 3.7 percent in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 621,000. November’s sales were revised down to 599,000 from an annual rate of 657,000.

For all of 2018, new-home sales rose 1.5 percent. Purchases began to dip in June as higher mortgage rates worsened affordability, but mortgage rates have fallen since peaking in early November and that appears to be supporting a sales rebound.

Price growth has stalled as sales sipped last year. The median sales price of a new home in December was $318,600, a 7.2 percent drop from a year ago.

SOURCE 

**************************************

Did Trump Just Remind Ilhan Omar Where America Stands by Shutting Down Palestinian ‘Embassy’?

Donald Trump’s presidency has meant some controversial changes in policy here in the United States, but some of those decisions are also having an impact on regions thousands of miles away.

On Monday, the administration announced that it was finally closing its consulate in Jerusalem, and combining those consulate services into the new U.S. Embassy in the same city.

That may seem like a small thing, but it has already resulted in a significant shakeup in the relationship between the U.S. and the Palestinians — and possibly a calculated message from the White House to its domestic opponents.

“For decades, the consulate functioned as a de facto embassy to the Palestinians,” The Associated Press explained. “Now, that outreach will be handled by a Palestinian Affairs Unit, under the command of the embassy.”

According to CNN, the move “leaves the US as the only major world power without a diplomatic mission to the Palestinians.”

Although that change had been planned for several months, it seemed to come about abruptly. “The announcement from the State Department came early Monday in Jerusalem, the merger effective that day,” the AP reported.

When the closure of the consulate was announced in October, “the move infuriated Palestinians, fueling their suspicions that the U.S. was recognizing Israeli control over east Jerusalem and the West Bank, territories that Palestinians seek for a future state,” the AP reported.

There might have been a message being sent on the domestic American political front, too, since the move on Monday came at a time when questions about Palestinian and Israeli relations are even more sensitive than usual.

The same day the consulate closure angered Palestinians, liberals in the U.S. were scrambling to do political damage control after a Muslim-American lawmaker known for her anti-Israel views once again found herself in hot water.

“Leading House Democrats will offer a resolution Wednesday condemning anti-Semitism in response to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s latest remarks on Israel,” pointed out the AP in a separate report.

Omar is the Minnesota liberal who has faced a series of controversies after she implied that Israel — one of the United States’ closest allies — was “evil,” and appeared to repeat anti-Semitic stereotypes about the Jewish people.

Even her own party is distancing itself from Omar, drafting a symbolic resolution to scold the outspoken promoter of Palestine.

“It’s at least the third time the Minnesota Democrat’s words have put her colleagues in a more delicate spot than usual on the U.S.-Israel relationship, and the second time in two months that she’s drawn a stern backlash from party leaders,” said the AP.

That is where the Trump administration’s announcement that the de-facto embassy in Palestine was closing for good could be significant. It sends a firm message to Omar and other Palestinian apologists: America stands with Israel.

Trump is known for his strong negotiating tactics, which he recently put on display by canceling Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s military-sponsored international trip in order to put pressure on Democrats during the government shutdown.

And the same day that the administration ordered the consulate closed, the president lambasted Omar on social media.

It would definitely be his style.

 SOURCE 

*************************************

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)

**************************

What Is Conservatism?

Allen West

This past week and weekend the American Conservative Union put on its annual CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) just outside of Washington, D.C. at the National Harbor. It is widely regarded as the largest gathering of “conservatives” in the United States, drawing the top voices in the conservative movement. But, if there is one question that must be posed, does America truly know the answer to the question: What is conservatism?

If there is one thing that the progressive, socialist left has been very adept at doing, it is manipulating language to their advantage. Case in point, government spending is now referred to as an investment. Or who would not want to be considered, progressive? After all, it does connotate moving forward. The actual policies of “progressives” always end up regressing the simple ideals of individual liberty, freedom. And the political left in America, aided by the progressive, leftist media is very good at demonizing and denigrating any opposing philosophy of governance. Consider how a grassroots constitutional conservative movement called the Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Party was assailed. They were rebranded as “extremists,” and still to this day, no one in the federal government has been held accountable for unleashing the might of government against citizens who just wanted fiscal discipline from our government.

If one really wants to know what is extreme, talk about a $93 trillion delusion called the “Green New Deal” – an ideological agenda folly that is based on one person’s Nostradamus-like prediction that the world will end in twelve years.

The problem at hand with conservatism is that conservatives are constantly being forced to defend something that needs no defense. And if you truly had a principled discussion with most people, you would find that they embrace conservative values. Sadly, we do not carry that fundamental message across this nation, and yes, it seriously resonates within the minority communities … I know. My parents were registered Democrats. John Lewis was my congressional representative growing up in Atlanta. However, the principles of my folks, affectionately known as Buck and Snooks West, were – faith, family, individual responsibility, quality education, and service to the nation. These were not, and still are not, associated with the principles of progressive socialism.

Case in point, Christianity is based upon an individual decision to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. This is something that only a singular, individual, person can attain – personal salvation. In Christian churches, there is something towards the end of the service called an “altar call,” where congregants are asked to step forward and make the decision for themselves, not as a group. An individual is baptized, not a collective group. That is what is being preached in Christian churches all over our nation on Sundays, and in some cases on Saturday.

And so it is in conservatism, the individual is sovereign, and this political philosophy establishes in our Declaration of Independence that our unalienable rights – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – are endowed to us by the Judeo-Christian Creator, God. It is not a groupthink assignment. It is something bestowed upon everyone regardless of station in life or demographic. And where did this belief, this philosophy, find its beginning? It all began with the man referred to as the father of classical liberalism, British philosopher, John Locke.

In Locke’s time, the prevailing belief was in Divine Right of Kings Theory (“Divine Rights”). That is where the understanding was a designation of someone as the repository of rights, endowed to them by the Creator, and they determined your bye and your leave, your coming and going. Divine Rights theory was suitable for the monarchial rule system. The king and queen were empowered by God to make any and all decisions affecting the people, and favor was given to those of stature, as determined by the royalty.

However, John Locke introduced a revolutionary concept called Natural Rights theory. His assertion was that there was a direct relationship between all men and women to their Creator, God naturally, and that their rights – life, liberty, and property – emanated from God with no intercessory to them. Of course, Thomas Jefferson studied Locke, and that theory was the basis of our Declaration of Independence.

Classical liberalism and Natural Rights theory both elevate the sovereignty of the individual over the institution of government. This new thought shifted the relationship from one of people being ruled to one of people being governed, and government was formed, and dissolved, based upon the consent of the governed. Today’s conservatism is the heir to the principles, philosophies, and fundamental beliefs of classical liberalism because it is grounded in the premise of individual liberty, freedom, and sovereignty. But how interesting that somewhere along the path of the political spectrum, leftists claimed the moniker of being “liberal.” That goes back to their ability to rebrand themselves, and others, as well as manipulating language, and ideas, to advance their ideological agenda.

At the same time President Donald Trump was speaking at CPAC, there was another speech being given. The other speech was one avowed Democratic Socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders, speaking to a crowd in Brooklyn. While conservatives were gathered, Sanders was speaking of a philosophy of governance extremely antithetical to the founding premise of America. Sen. Sanders was not talking as a classical liberal, conservative, but rather as a Marxist/Socialist. See, Sen. Sanders and his ilk do not believe that we have the innate power, right to determine the path we take for ourselves. Those in favor of socialism do not believe in the concept of equality of opportunity. No, socialism, as an ideology, embraces and espouses the equality of outcomes, which is the true difference between classical liberalism and progressive socialism.

In our Constitution, the final two amendments in our individual Bill of Rights – the Ninth and Tenth Amendments – refer to the fact that those powers not enumerated to the federal government reside to the states, and to the individual, the governed. What those who support socialism prefer is to rule and for progressive socialists to determine what is a right, and their definition of a right is tied to their ideological agenda. The progressive, socialist left does not support the idea that you have a right to keep and bear arms, to defend yourself. And why would they? After all, if the left cannot impose their will by way of threats, coercion, mandate, dictate, intimidation, and violence, they fail – evidence, Venezuela.

Conservatism is classical liberalism. It is all about individual rights. The folks calling themselves liberal are hardly so. They are truly the legacy of Karl Marx and Friederich Engels – progressives, statists, collectivists, Marxists, and communists. I do not disparage them for being so. I just do not care for the deceitfulness, but truthfully, they are no longer in hiding.

Classical liberalism, our modern-day conservatism, comes from folks like John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and Ronald Reagan. The other folks trace their legacy from Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Chavez/Maduro.

Seriously, folks, on whose side do you wish to be?

SOURCE 

************************************

A 129 Year Old ‘Grave’ Warning About Democrats Proves True Today

In Kansas, one man, Nathaniel Grisby, had his dying wish, to warn future generations about the Democratic Party, fulfilled. 129 years ago, this warning was etched on his gravestone in accordance with his final wishes.

A bit of background on Lt. Nathaniel Grisby:

Son of Reuben Davis GRIGSBY Sr. & Nancy BARKER. Born 11 October 1811 in Nelson Co., KY. Died 16 April 1890 in Attica, Harper Co., KS. Buried in Attica, Harper Co., KS. He was a Civil War veteran, a 2nd Lieut., of Company G, 10th Indiana Cavalry. He was a farmer.

Nathaniel was a dear friend of Abraham Lincoln.

After Lincoln moved to Illinois in 1830, Nathaniel moved with his father to Carroll Co., MO in 1855.

In 1860, he was living in Norborne. He wrote to Lincoln and received an appointment as Republican Precinct Committee Man. He placed Lincoln’s name on the 1860 ballot. All of Natty’s neighbors were Southern sympathizers. He had been talking about electing Lincoln for president in town. One morning at about 2 or 3 a.m. a neighbor rode up and told Natty not to light any lights. The neighbor wanted to warn him that his neighbors were planning to murder him and if he wanted to live he should be on his way.

After the warning, Natty moved back to Spencer Co., IN where he and four of his five sons enlisted in Company C 10th IN Cavalry (Richmond Davis did not enlist). Natty was named 2nd Lieutenant.

The family apparently returned to Carroll Co., MO but in 1885 they moved to Harper Co., KS and settled on a farm in the extreme northwest corner of the county. In 1890, they moved to Attica, KS. Nathaniel was buried in Attica.

After Nathaniel died, this inscription was added to his grave, fulfilling his last request:

“Through this inscription I wish to enter my dying protest against what is called the Democratic party. I have watched it closely since the days of Jackson and know that all the misfortunes of our nation has come to it through this so called party therefore beware of this party of treason"

Put on in fulfillment of promise to Deceased. Reprinted as posted on one side of the monument of N. Grigsby.”

Snopes confirms that this is real, and not a photoshop.

Do you think Nathaniel’s 129 year old “warning” about Democrats is still spot-on?

SOURCE 

***********************************

Polling Populist Socialist Support

More and more voters — especially Democrats — are opting for a deadly ideology.

The entire Democrat Party, from leadership to the grassroots, is moving far and fast to the left. Poll after poll shows that many of the rank and file now prefer socialism to capitalism. An avowed socialist named Bernie Sanders will be a formidable threat for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2020. And much of the field is running on Medicare for All and some version of the Green New Deal. No wonder President Donald Trump threw down the gauntlet on socialism in his State of the Union Address.

Thus, it’s no surprise to see more polling bearing this out. First up, Harvard University asked registered voters whether the U.S. economy should be “mostly capitalist” or “mostly socialist.” Some 65% chose capitalism, but a very troubling 35% favored socialism, including a majority of voters between the ages of 18 and 24. A similar percentage — 64% — identified the Democrat Party as promoting socialism. Among Democrats? The split was just 51% to 49% in favor of capitalism.

Second, a Public Opinion Strategies survey found that 77% of Democrats think the country would be “better off” by going socialist. Likewise alarming: 45% of surveyed registered voters agree, while just 51% disagree. Again, younger voters are the driving force here — those under age 45 favor socialism by a 53% to 40% margin.

Then again, an NBC News poll found that of a list of qualities or characteristics for a president — black, white, woman, homosexual, Christian, Muslim, someone under 40, someone over 75, etc. — voters are least enthusiastic about a socialist, followed closely by someone over 75. Bernie Sanders, call your office.

As for the first two polls and the overall trend, we’d argue that socialism’s favorability is a case of the average voter — especially young ones who don’t remember the Soviet Union — having no idea that socialism actually means government control of the means of production. Instead, they’re enticed by all the “free” stuff being dangled by Demo politicians to buy votes.

SOURCE 

**********************************

President Trump right to walk away from North Korean denuclearization talks

By Robert Romano

Telling the world that “sometimes you have to walk,” President Donald Trump on Feb. 28 walked away from the Hanoi Summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, citing an insufficient agreement on the part of North Korea to fully disarm its nuclear arms and capabilities.

It was the right call. President Trump deserves all the credit in the world for attempting to bring an end to the Korean War after almost 66 years, denuclearizing the peninsula and for encouraging North Korea to join the global economy. There haven’t been any nuclear tests or rocket launches for many months that, if nothing else, have made the endeavor worthwhile and dialogue possible when in 2017 it looked like war might be possible.

Doing so protects American interests and national security, as well as the interests and security of North Korea’s neighbors and U.S. allies, South Korea, Japan and Australia. It also advances the interests of the other nations in the region including Vietnam that wish to avoid war.

It doesn’t mean that the talks are necessarily over, as Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged to continuing working with their counterparts.

But North Korea’s demand that the sanctions come down without achieving full denuclearization had to be a non-starter. Trump was right to walk away from what would have been a bad deal.

As Trump explained at his press conference in Hanoi, “Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that.  They were willing to denuke a large portion of the areas that we wanted, but we couldn’t give up all of the sanctions for that. So we continue to work, and we’ll see.  But we had to walk away from that particular suggestion.  We had to walk away from that.”

Going back to the commitments that were made in 2018 at the Singapore Summit, the agreed-upon framework stated, “President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

So, North Korea already has its security guarantee. In return it had agreed to commit to complete denuclearization. The next step was to open up the country and begin disarming, and as progress was made, the sanctions could be lowered. But not beforehand.

But as Trump noted, “[Kim] has a certain vision and it’s not exactly our vision, but it’s a lot closer than it was a year ago.  And I think, you know, eventually we’ll get there. But for this particular visit, we decided that we had to walk, and we’ll see what happens.”

So, they still need to come to an agreement about what “complete denuclearization” is, but in the meantime that does not mean all the progress made to date is lost.

The security guarantee made sense and continues to make sense, as it signals to Kim that President Trump meant business and would be a man of his word — and leaves open the possibility that the process can continue. The North Koreans need only consider the examples Iraq, Libya and Ukraine where disarmament of major weapons programs led to leaving each country vulnerable and open to being destabilized and even leading to civil war. Disarmament programs in recent history have not necessarily led to peace and security.

So, it’s a heavy lift diplomatically for President Trump and the State Department to outline an alternative where Kim and his government have a future post-disarmament. It’s not an easy task. Which is why Trump is right not to rush it. He’s doing the right thing. It’s better to get it done correctly than to get it done fast.

At the same time, Trump and Pompeo have to be wary that Kim is not just trying to run out the clock on the Trump administration. And they must also consider the ongoing trade talks with China as Beijing sponsors Kim and North Korea and is its top trading partner.

It could be that North Korea represents nuclear blackmail in China’s bid for global dominance in trade. Meaning, it may not be possible for North Korea to be settled while trade with China is still an open question. President Trump recently postponed increasing tariffs against Chinese goods. It may be that to exert pressure on North Korea to come to terms, the U.S. needs to get tougher in its trade posture with China to achieve a resolution throughout the region. Stay tuned.

SOURCE 

*************************************

Total Leftist bigotry



*************************************

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)

**************************

Why do Folk Hate Trump?

Below in the answer given by John C. Wright, followed by some of the comments

Someone asked me why folk hate Trump. The answer, of course, is that only two groups of folk hate Trump, once he became the GOP nominee and, later, leader of the free world: Leftists, who are traitors to their nation and species, and Nevertrumpers, who are traitors to their party.

But why the hate?

Because he is blunt and inarticulate and tactless, immoral, womanizing, and rich as Croesus. Add to that the fact that he is a genius for organization, a canny manipulator of the news, and has sympathy for the common man. He restored balance to the Supreme Court. He is also a patriot. He heaps scorn on idiotic leftwing pieties which everyone else, including right wing opponents, never dare treat with disrespect. He has restored the military, lowered taxes and unemployment and singlehandedly removed all Obama era obstacles to our current oil golden age.

Therefore, by leftwing ideas, he should be failing at everything he attempts. Foreign powerS should scorn and loathe him, not love and respect him. But in fact the elite hate him most of all because he is one of them, but he is more elite than any of them, richer than their millionaires, more famous than their tv stars, more popular and far, far more effective than their politicians.

They thought Hillary would finish Obama's work and usher in a socialist utopia with themselves in charge, glorious days of adultery and pederasty, and no Constitution to hinder their powergrabs, and no Church to call them sinners. Then Trump smashed it all. For the first time in living memory, the progressives are losing ground

****************************

Tim Hansen

Also, people are lying. I remember after he won how people told they were scared on the behalf of their transgender, lesbian and gay children and friends. He has never said anything in that regard that gives them reason to be scared.

Small children apparently asked their parents and teachers; "Will there be a nuclear war now when the evil man is in power?".
And many hate him because in their mind Hillary was already president. When she lost they was furious and believed their anger and protests could alter reality by sheer will.

A march for women's rights ended up being a protest against Trump. They were wearing pink hats and many were literally dressed as giant vaginas. And they made their small girl wearing obscene signs or signs that claimed they were the future president because they were females (these are the same kind of people that wanted the female Marine Le Pen to lose in France).
The media is lying and portraying him as a monster who takes children away from their parents. They claim he is a racist and white supremacist.

Celebrities who don't know anything about politics pretend they are politicians and rage against him. There are never any arguments, just rumors and emotions. He is so hated that people think they have the right to pull off Trump supporters their MAGA hats.

*****************************

Rudolph Harrier

Nevertrumpers hate Trump because he exposes all of their cons. For example, one big con that they had was that the only thing that matters is winning the presidency, because the president will appoint Supreme Court justices and the Supreme Court will determine law for longer than any congress or president.  Therefore the right thing for conservatives to do was to sacrifice most of their principles (such as pro-life issues, defense of the family, fiscal responsibility, border security, etc.) to vote in a "moderate" who could win, as opposed to someone who was more conservative and would surely lose.

The presidency of Donald Trump reveals that someone outside of that "moderate" mold can win (and much more easily than the likes of McCain and Romney who we were asked to sell our principles for). Beyond that, since President Trump actually has been able to appoint justices, it reveals that the nevertrumpers never cared about that in the first place. Now everyone can see that all the nevertrumpers wanted were cozy positions of power for themselves and their friends, where they never had to do anything controversial on behalf of their voters.

The longer President Trump is successful, the more difficult it will be for nevertrumpers in the future to disguise themselves as "principled conservatives." We know that all of their talk of focusing on candidates who can win is a lie, and that they would prefer to lose if it made their lives easier. We know that their talk of the importance of the Supreme Court is a lie, and that they only talk about it because they never thought they would ever be able to appoint a justice. And worst of all for them, we know that they can be ignored without consequence.

******************************

ThPlonk

In honesty I've always disliked the man because he's an open and unrepentant adulterer who has spent his entire life worshipping Mammon, and gloried publicly in the ways Mammon has blessed him, prosletyzing wide and far the idea that being rich and famous is the only way to win. Not uncommon or unusual, of course, and these offences are not crimes in the books of those who hate him. (They anathemized the word "sin" long ago.)

 *************************************

John C Wright

"In honesty I've always disliked the man because he's an open and unrepentant adulterer who has spent his entire life worshipping Mammon"

That is a perfectly good reason to dislike him as a man. It is for that reason I hate King David and George Washington. They were also wealthy womanizers.

But this is also precisely what makes Trump a thorn in the eye of the Left, who, as socialists, worship Mammon more perfectly than any capitalist ever would or could. To them, the acquisition of material wealth justifies mass murder, mass theft, and the abrogation of all terms of the invisible social contract binding ruler to ruled.

Trump is more Hollywood than Hollywood, more Soros than Soros, and just as bling as a rap star. Very tasteless. But he also saved the Republic. Shame on us that we let things get to within one election of the end of our form of government -- Hillary would have been the last in all but name -- without allowing our more polite, more godly, and more civil gentlemen of the right to fight. So we picked a fighter, someone too rude and crude to care when the fainting matrons of the press clutched their pearls.

It is also evidence that God Almighty can use the weak and foolish of the world -- and Trump. morally , is a very weak man -- to upend those the world deems wise.

SOURCE 

**********************************

Scaramucci Fires Back At Michael Cohen In Classic Fashion

The Mooch is loose once again! Former White House Communication Director Anthony Scaramucci went after ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen in an interview with Fox and Friends and also said that he could give hundreds of examples that prove President Trump is not a racist.

Cohen, who once loved President Trump so much that he wrote love letters in an attempt to make a book deal, has seemed to have a “change of heart” now that he is going to jail for three years and seeking a shorter prison sentence. With no evidence, Cohen stated in his testimony last week that the President is a “racist.”

The Mooch had some words for Cohen saying that he didn’t like the ex-lawyers approach. Read what he said below:

"I’m not in love with the approach because at the end of the day, you know, we have to be — hold sacred a couple things. The neighborhood I grew up in you can’t do what Michael is doing right now … I would never agree with it, I would never tell my kids to do it, Michael might be mad at me for saying it but I just don’t like the approach of going after somebody who helped build you. And you spent 12 years with."

Keep in mind that Scaramucci and Cohen were good friends at one point. Scarramucci then went on to address Cohen’s comments where he blamed the President for being a racist.

"The president’s not a racist. People forget this but he got the Rosa Parks Medal for helping to get the New York Stock Exchange to close during the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday. If you guys remember, I’m on Wall Street for 30 years. Ronald Reagan signed the Martin Luther King Act for the national holiday, and the New York Stock Exchange stayed open for many years. It was Donald Trump and Sandy Weill and Reverend Jesse Jackson that lobbied and pushed the Stock Exchange to close to recognize that holiday."

Later on, Scarramucci stated that he could give “hundreds of examples” of why President Trump is not a racist and even brought up the time where Cohen introduced then-candidate Trump at a Cleveland rally.

By the way, Michael gave a speech with Darrell Scott and others in Cleveland introducing then-candidate Donald Trump, expressing all the things that he has done where he doesn’t really think about race. So, to me, I don’t like it. I think it’s, you know, and I would tell my kids — I’ve got five of them — you can’t do that.

When it comes down to it, Cohen has been taken over by the far Left agenda in an effort to take down the President. Cohen, who is literally going to jail for lying to Congress, is hoping that if he continues to lie to Congress in an effort to please the Left, that maybe his three year prison sentence will be reduced. Thank goodness we have people like The Mooch to set the record straight.

SOURCE 

**********************************

Trump Secures MULTI-BILLION Dollar Deal For America, Didn’t Leave Vietnam Empty-Handed

President Trump cut short his second summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un after the sides couldn’t come to terms on an agreement for denuclearization. Kim wanted all sanctions lifted in return for partial denuclearization. Trump wasn’t about to let that happen, so he left.

However, POTUS did not leave Vietnam empty-handed. He secured a $15 billion deal.

Vietnam’s Bamboo Airways and VietJet Aviation JSC signed deals to buy 110 aircraft from Boeing Co. during President Donald Trump’s visit to Hanoi for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

Bamboo agreed to purchase 10 787-9 Dreamliners worth about $3 billion, while VietJet’s order is for 100 737 Max planes valued at $12.7 billion, Boeing said Wednesday. VietJet’s 100-plane commitment was unveiled at the Farnborough air show last year. The accords were signed in the presence of Trump and Vietnam’s President Nguyen Phu Trong.

Vietnam’s airlines are expanding their fleets as rising incomes and the region’s growing economies are spurring many to fly for the first time, boosting demand in the Asia Pacific, whose air-travel market is projected to surpass that of North America and Europe combined. Demand in Vietnam is also expected to climb after U.S. regulators last month gave their approval to the nation’s air-safety system, making its airlines eligible to begin direct flights to the U.S. and codeshare with American carriers.

U.S.-based aviation technology company Sabre also inked a deal with Vietnam Airlines.

SOURCE 

************************************

Ocasio-Cortez Turns on Her Party After Rogue Dems Defy Pelosi on Gun Measure

The new face of the Democratic Party might be turning into a headache for some of her own allies.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat who has vaulted into fame for her progressive politics, is making things uncomfortable for Democrats who split with the party line on a gun control measure in the House.

And she’s doing it very publicly. In a Twitter post on Saturday, Ocasio-Cortez turned on members of her own party who voted with Republicans to add a provision for illegal aliens to a gun control bill mandating universal background checks on all firearms transfers.

Republicans introduced an amendment that would require that the bill include Immigration and Customs Enforcement being notified if an illegal alien attempted to buy a gun.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had implored Democrats to vote against the amendment as part of a “blanket policy” to oppose Republican procedural motions, according to The Hill.

In a news conference on Thursday, Pelosi told reporters she wanted members of her conference to deny Republicans even a symbolic victory. The amendment eventually passed, according to The Daily Caller.

“Vote ‘no.’ Just vote ‘no,’ because the fact is a vote ‘yes’ is to give leverage to the other side, to surrender the leverage on the floor of the House,” Pelosi said after a closed-door meeting of House Democrats, according to The Hill.

But 26 Democrats voted with the Republicans on the measure, likely fearful of having to explain in the next election why they were apparently protecting illegal aliens.

“I vote my district,” Rep. Conor Lamb told The Hill on Thursday.   The Pennsylvania Democrat represents a largely conservative area of western Pennsylvania, where gun rights are strong.

At that Democrats’ private meeting, Ocasio-Cortez told Democratic moderates they were putting themselves on a “list” to face primary challenges in 2020 from more progressive liberals, according to The Washington Post.

In a Twitter post on Saturday, Ocasio-Cortez continued her criticism. “Mind, you, the same small splinter group of Dems that tried to deny Pelosi the speakership, fund the wall during the shutdown when the public didn’t want it, & are now voting in surprise ICE amendments to gun safety legislation are being called the ‘moderate wing’ of the party,” she wrote.

“We can have ideological differences and that’s fine. But these tactics allow a small group to force the other 200+ members into actions that the majority disagree with. I don’t think that’s right, and said as much in a closed door meeting.”

However, Ocasio-Cortez denied she was planning to support primary challengers to Democratic incumbents in the next election cycle.

“If you’re mad that I think people SHOULD KNOW when Dems vote to expand ICE powers, then be mad. ICE is a dangerous agency with 0 accountability, widespread reporting of rape, abuse of power, + children dying in DHS custody,” she wrote. “Having a D next to your name doesn’t make that right.”

ICE is a dangerous agency with 0 accountability, widespread reporting of rape, abuse of power, + children dying in DHS custody. Having a D next to your name doesn’t make that right.

Every Democrat in Congress knows the kind of national audience Ocasio-Cortez is commanding these days, and know how important she has become to the progressive wing of their party.

Even if Ocasio-Cortez isn’t threatening a primary battle, she could well be giving Democrats in swing districts a headache all the way into the 2020 election cycle.

SOURCE 

*****************************************

‘Black Guns Matter’ Founder Has Plan To Turn Inner Cities Conservative

Trying to break the stranglehold of the Democratic Party on the United States urban areas, the founder of the group Black Guns Matter told the Conservative Polical Action Conference last week that the key for conservatives to make gains in traditionally Democratic districts is to take the message to the streets.

And that means focusing on the right guaranteed under the Second Amendment.

“We have to put more conservative principles in urban America,” Maj Toure told National Rifle Association board member Willes Lee on Thursday during an on-stage CPAC interview.

“We go to where there’s high violence, high crime, high gun control, high ‘slave mentality’ to be perfectly honest, and inform urban America about their human rights, as stated in the Second Amendment, to defend their life.

“Urban America has been left out of that conversation,” he said.

A resident of North Philadelphia, Toure knows something about the urban environment.

He knows about firearms. He might be familiar to viewers of NRA TV, where he’s made numerous appearance, and has been recognized with this group by the National Sports Foundation.

SOURCE 

*************************************

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)

**************************