Potential Consequences of Spying on the Trump Campaign

Looks like the excreta might be hitting the rotating device later this year

Actions by Justice Department officials in spying on a Donald Trump campaign adviser in 2016 could be a crime or merely an administrative offense, legal experts say.

Crimes could include perjury or misleading a court, they say, while disciplinary action for an administrative offense could mean being fired or losing a law license.

Testifying last week before two separate congressional panels, Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General report about the surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page will be released in May or June.

Barr also indicated that he planned a further review of  government “spying” on the Trump campaign.

What’s known is that the Obama administration’s Justice Department obtained a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to conduct electronic surveillance on Page in October 2016.

The inspector general’s review is looking at whether Justice Department or FBI officials did anything improper in obtaining the warrant approved by a federal judge.

“Before looking at the legality, the department should examine the process behind getting a FISA warrant against a presidential campaign. That’s something that should be approved by the attorney general first,” John Yoo, a former assistant U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush, told The Daily Signal.

Domestic spying on political opponents was a big part of what prompted the FISA law in the 1970s after President Richard Nixon’s administration, the goal being to put a check in place.

“The whole point of FISA was because Nixon was spying on political opponents,” said Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. “This seems to have violated the purpose of FISA, which is to make sure surveillance is always merited [and] is not political.”

After the Watergate scandal, which led to Nixon’s resignation, Congress was concerned about how the Nixon administration used the FBI and the CIA to target political opponents.

Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, chaired a select Senate committee that investigated intelligence gathering. The 1978 FISA law was an outgrowth of what was called the Church Committee.

Prosecutable crimes might have been committee by Justice Department personnel, said Robert Ray, who as an independent counsel completed the investigation of President Bill Clinton.

“The FISA court is in place to ensure the careful use of tools in the tool box, and to have oversight of the potential collision with the political process,” Ray told The Daily Signal. “This is always a big deal when you mix politics and prosecutions and is always dangerous.”

Ray said the potential criminal charge that came to mind was perjury, if Justice Department lawyers seeking the FISA warrant were dishonest in making the application to the judge.

“Intentionally misleading a court in a document that is sworn to under oath would be perjury,” Ray said. “But you would have to prove the person knowingly provided false information. Misleading might not be enough.”

Ray said the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility might look at the matter, to determine whether an official committed an act that requires discipline or dismissal. The matter could be referred to the state bar of any practicing lawyer who is accused of providing misleading information.

“If this matter has the attorney general’s attention, then it is all on the table,” Ray said. “It could examine sending this to the OPR, whether there was commission of a crime, any and all of the above.”

It doesn’t seem likely that the FISA application was misleading, though, said Charles Stimson, a former federal prosecutor and former military judge.

Stimson noted that a page in the FISA application for a warrant explained that the information was based on an opposition research dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent, Christopher Steele.

Although the application did not say it was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, Stimson said, the application letter was clear that the document was opposition research directed against Trump.

“From a pure legal standpoint, it was accurate,” Stimson, now manager of the national security law program at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.

“It arguably wasn’t completely forthcoming,” he said. “But the fact is, a federal district court judge had the information and ruled on it and reauthorized surveillance. … There is a gray zone. It didn’t say Hillary Clinton paid for it and that it wasn’t verified.”

However, Stimson noted that a court could require Justice Department lawyers to explain why their lack of information in the application wasn’t a case of trying to defraud the court. He also said a bar complaint could lead to the loss of a law license.

But department lawyers have a reason to be forthcoming with FISA court judges, Stimson added. “There is an ongoing relationship with the Department of Justice and those lawyers,” Stimson said. “The last thing these lawyers want to do is burn their credibility.”

David Kris, an assistant attorney general during the Obama administration, argues that although special counsel Robert Mueller found no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to give Trump an edge in the 2016 election, the larger Russia investigation itself—as well as the FISA warrant on Page—was still legitimate.

Kris wrote in the Lawfare blog:

[T]here is the Steele dossier, which was first publicly revealed in January 2017, but was in the FBI’s hands before then. People argue about the extent to which the Steele dossier has held up; the best and most recent assessment that I have seen, here, is that it has held up quite well.

But in any event, the document was properly taken seriously then given Steele’s history as a former British MI-6 officer and reliable informant (as documented in the Carter Page FISA applications). … There was a lot of justifiable investigative activity into the campaign and campaign officials and their relationship with Russia and the Russian government.

However, Stimson contends that Barr has legitimate reasons for wanting to review the matter that go beyond the FISA warrant.

“The attorney general of the United States should want to know how a counterintelligence investigation against a leading presidential candidate began,” Stimson said. “He will want to look at the entire matter. How did it get to the point of a FISA warrant? Maybe it was predicated entirely on the dossier. Maybe there was some there there.”

SOURCE 

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The Trump Administration Is Cracking Down On Illegal Aliens' Housing

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) plans to crack down on illegal aliens who are taking advantage of public house assistance programs, The Daily Caller reported. As it currently stands, illegal aliens are now allowed to receive financial housing assistance. They often skirt this rule by living with family members who are U.S. citizens and receive their assistance from HUD.

The new rule would prevent illegal aliens from living in homes that receive HUD funding, even if they're not the ones actually receiving the assistance. Those who are caught with illegal aliens living in their homes will have to comply with the new rule or move to a different non-HUD location.

To determine whether or not a household is complying with the program, families will be screened through the "SAVE" program, which stands for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements.

HUD estimates that there are tens of thousands of illegal aliens who are skirting the requirement process by living in these "mixed families." As of now, millions of Americans are on the HUD waitlist because there isn't enough money to assist everyone.

“This proposal gets to the whole point Cher was making in her tweet that the President retweeted. We’ve got our own people to house and we need to take care of our citizens,” a HUD official told The Daily Caller. “Because of past loopholes in HUD guidance, illegal aliens were able to live in free public housing desperately needed by so many of our own citizens. As illegal aliens attempt to swarm our borders, we’re sending the message that you can’t live off of American welfare on the taxpayers’ dime.”

SOURCE 

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Ignore Medicare for All Advocates’ Claims on Life Expectancy in US. Here Are the Facts

OK.  I'll mention the elephant in the room: Using statistics for whites only, America would be among the leaders in longevity.  Blacks pull the average down because of their many adverse lifestyle choices

Ponder this: If self-styled “progressives” in Congress impose total government control over health care, will ordinary Americans enjoy a longer life span? 

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chief sponsor of the Senate “Medicare for All” bill (S. 1804), often reminds us that the United States spends roughly twice as much per capita on health care as most other economically advanced countries, but American life expectancy is lower than that of almost all these high-income nations.

Reps. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., lead sponsors of the House’s Medicare for All bill (H.R. 1384) say, “The quality of our health care is much worse than [that of] other industrialized countries. The life expectancy in the U.S. is lower than other nations, while our infant mortality is much higher.” 

These are misleading generalizations. In fact, American medical outcomes for the most serious conditions—for example, lower mortality from heart attacks and strokes, as well as survival rates from a variety of cancers—are generally superior to those of other advanced countries.

America’s high level of investment in advanced medical technologies, including innovative drug therapies, has improved medical outcomes and has directly contributed to longer life expectancy among our senior citizens.

According to the “Economic Report of the President,” issued in March:

The United States’ all-cause mortality rates relative to those of other developed countries improve dramatically after the age of 75 years.

In 1960—before Medicare—the U.S. ranked below most EU countries for longevity among those [ages 50 to 74], yet above them among those age 75 and higher. This pattern persists today.

True, America needs to improve overall life expectancy at birth. According to a major 2018 study of 11 high-income nations in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Japan has the highest life expectancy at 83.9 years, and the U.S. comes in last at 78.8 years.

These disparate findings reflect the vast size and diversity of the United States, including a bewildering array of behavioral, racial, social, economic, environmental, demographic, and metabolic risk factors.

The medical journal’s researchers thus caution “ … the United States average, in comparison to averages of much smaller, more homogenous countries, may lead to erroneous conclusions.”

For example, the life expectancy of Minnesota, a state comparable in size and demographics to Sweden or Denmark, has more similar population health outcomes to these countries than Minnesota has in comparison to Mississippi.

In a 2017 study for the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that 74% of American variation in life expectancy—indeed, the largest source of variation—was attributable to behavioral and metabolic risk factors.

The recent annual declines in American life expectancy, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were largely attributable to increased drug overdoses (opioids) and suicides. 

Then, there is the special category of infant mortality. “Our infant mortality rate, kids and babies who are dying, is the highest,” says Jayapal, the Washington lawmaker.

The truth is more complicated. In their 2018 study, the JAMA researchers report that American infant mortality is indeed higher than in 10 other high-income countries. Notably, however, the researchers also found that when adjusting for low birth weights, the U.S. statistical ranking improves significantly.

They write: “When adjusting neonatal mortality to exclude deaths of infants born weighing less than 1,000g [about 2.2 pounds], the United States ranked fifth relative to the other countries, with 1.61 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared with a mean of 1.70 for all 11 countries.”

Comparisons of infant mortality between the United States and other countries are often flawed because definitions of terms and measurements are different.

As Sally Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute, notes, “The United States … counts every live birth in its infant-mortality statistics. But France only includes babies born after 22 weeks of gestation. In Poland, a baby has to weigh more than 1 pound, 2 ounces to count as a live birth.

“The World Health Organization notes that it is common practice in several countries, including Belgium, France, and Spain to ‘register as live births only those infants who survived for a specified period beyond birth.”

Note also that the United States has high rates of pre-term births. American medical professionals, including those participating in Medicaid, will thus intervene in complex and difficult cases and literally spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to save the life of a premature infant.

Medical professionals in other countries do not necessarily make the same moral and financial commitments.

Factors influencing longevity are far more complex than how a nation organizes the financing and delivery of medical care. Total government control over the financing and delivery of health care, championed by self-styled “progressives,” will not guarantee Americans’ longer life spans.

Waiting in line for medical care is no prescription for a longer life. 

Personal behavioral changes, including diet and exercise, can make a difference in longevity, but so also can the American-style investment in innovative medical technologies and America’s superior responsiveness in treating deadly disease.

SOURCE 

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Seattle Man Punches Priest After Asking, 'How's Trump?'

Clergy of the Eastern Orthodox churches are much more prone to wearing clerical garb and other religious identifiers in public than are Catholic or Episcopalian clergy.  It sounds like that is what got the assailant below het up

 BY JIM TREACHER

Now that CBS is normalizing political violence, it's open season on anybody the left doesn't like. It's okay to punch Nazis, and a Nazi can be anybody you want. Even a priest.

From his home at the All-Merciful Saviour Monastery on Vashon Island, Abbot Tryphon told KIRO 7 about how he was suddenly attacked Tuesday morning while gassing up at the Mobil Station on Southwest 148th Street in Burien.

“I have never been hit as hard,” the Russian Orthodox priest said Wednesday. The at-large suspect “zeroed in on my cross, because when he started coming my direction, he had this look of anger.”
The leader of the Vashon monks said the man who struck him first asked, “How’s Trump?” When Abbot Tryphon answered, “I have no idea, that’s when he hit me.”

I'm not sure how this idiot connected "priest" with "Trump," but he did. That was his motive. He saw somebody who represented Trump to him, and he attacked. Anybody who likes Trump is a Nazi, and apparently priests like Trump. So he punched the priest.

Which is good, remember?

Oh wait, I forgot, that's different. It's not toxic rhetoric when they do it. They're just exercising their right to free speech by explicitly calling for political violence. Whereas those evil Republicans are thugs who are inciting violence by daring to criticize Ilhan Omar.

Then the Dems wonder why even a cuck RINO traitor like me, who probably wanted Hillary to win, won't join them.

SOURCE 

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

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

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What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?

Read below what a troubled soul at UCLA graduate school was teaching for some years

By Philip E. Agre in August 2004

Liberals in the United States have been losing political debates to conservatives for a quarter century. In order to start winning again, liberals must answer two simple questions: what is conservatism, and what is wrong with it? As it happens, the answers to these questions are also simple:

Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.
Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world.

These ideas are not new. Indeed they were common sense until recently. Nowadays, though, most of the people who call themselves "conservatives" have little notion of what conservatism even is. They have been deceived by one of the great public relations campaigns of human history. Only by analyzing this deception will it become possible to revive democracy in the United States.

//1 The Main Arguments of Conservatism

From the pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the self-regarding thugs of ancient Rome to the glorified warlords of medieval and absolutist Europe, in nearly every urbanized society throughout human history, there have been people who have tried to constitute themselves as an aristocracy. These people and their allies are the conservatives.

SOURCE 



Phil Agre is an electical engineer by training and is a manic depressive so that accounts for a lot but it is still a vast level of misinformation to UCLA students.  He was very influential in his writings until he "disappeared" in 2009.  Maybe he realised that he had got it all wrong and that became too much for him

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Robert Francis O'Rourke Hates America (But Wants to Be President Anyway)

Serious Democratic presidential contender Robert Francis Domnall Blathmac Tigernmas "Beta" O'Rourke told a crowd of supporters on Wednesday, "The larger problem of which our criminal justice system is just a part, is the very racist foundation of this country, the fact that the wealth of the USA...was built literally on the backs of those kidnapped in their home countries, transported in the middle passage."

There's video, courtesy of The Hill, if you can bear to watch it.

Let's talk some sense. Please.

Progressives have been building this meme for years, that the U.S. was built on slave labor -- and therefore suffers a kind of geopolitical "original sin" that makes us worse than all other countries, or at least no better. And, of course, that our salvation lies in adopting progressive policies which, if we're being frank, actually would make us no better than any other shithole oppressed country.

But the whole concept is malarky, a lie woven from lying cloth that lies.

The South, until fairly recently, was an economic basket case. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1831 of his journey down the Ohio River:


"That which follows the numerous windings of the Ohio upon the left is called Kentucky, that upon the right bears the name of the river. These two States only differ in a single respect; Kentucky has admitted slavery, but the State of Ohio has prohibited the existence of slaves within its borders.

Thus the traveller who floats down the current of the Ohio to the spot where that river falls into the Mississippi, may be said to sail between liberty and servitude; and a transient inspection of the surrounding objects will convince him as to which of the two is most favorable to mankind. Upon the left bank of the stream the population is rare; from time to time one descries a troop of slaves loitering in the half-desert fields; the primaeval forest recurs at every turn; society seems to be asleep, man to be idle, and nature alone offers a scene of activity and of life. From the right bank, on the contrary, a confused hum is heard which proclaims the presence of industry; the fields are covered with abundant harvests, the elegance of the dwellings announces the taste and activity of the laborer, and man appears to be in the enjoyment of that wealth and contentment which is the reward of labor.

The State of Kentucky was founded in 1775, the State of Ohio only twelve years later; but twelve years are more in America than half a century in Europe, and, at the present day, the population of Ohio exceeds that of Kentucky by two hundred and fifty thousand souls. These opposite consequences of slavery and freedom may readily be understood, and they suffice to explain many of the differences which we remark between the civilization of antiquity and that of our own time."


On the right bank, a bustling economy. On the left... not so much. At the national level, the differences were more striking. The North enjoyed an 11-to-1 advantage in the number of factory workers, despite having a population only 2.3 times larger. The North had nearly as many factories as the South had factory workers, and they were enormously more productive, too. And while slaves were treated like, well, slaves, factory employees were paid wages which would have seemed like a fortune to the enslaved. About the only items of importance the South had to offer economically was slave-produced cotton, rice, and tobacco. Meanwhile, the North was busy creating the first continental-sized modern industrial juggernaut.

Even after the Civil War, the South's economy didn't become the powerhouse it is now until after the Democrats' Jim Crow laws were cast into the dustbin of history. Free labor -- not slavery, not segregation -- is a necessary element to a massively wealth-generating economy.

ASIDE: It's one of the ironies of modern history that in recent decades, the Southern states have hewed far more closely to the free-market model pioneered in this country by the Northern states. The student has become the master.

So, no, it is not a "fact" that "the wealth of the USA...was built literally on the backs of those kidnapped in their home countries." It is, in fact, a filthy lie, told by someone who is either too stupid to be president, or too hateful of his own country to be trusted with any public office. And given that "Beta" seems smart enough to know better, I'm going with "hateful."

SOURCE 

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Barr on Mueller Report: Trump and His Campaign Did Not Conspire or Coordinate With Russians?

"One of the primary purposes of the Special Counsel's investigation was to determine whether President Trump's campaign or any individual associated with it conspired or coordinated with the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election," Attorney General William Barr told a news conference in Washington Thursday morning.

"As you will see, the special counsel's report states that his investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities," Barr continued:

I am sure that all Americans share my concern about the efforts of the Russian government to interfere in our presidential election. As the special counsel report makes clear, the Russian government sought to interfere in our election process.

But thanks to the Special Counsel's thorough investigation, we now know that the Russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign, or the knowing assistance of any other American, for that matter.

That is something that all Americans can and should be grateful to have confirmed.

The Special Counsel report outlines two main efforts by the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.

First, the report details efforts by the Internet Research Agency (I.R.A), a Russian company with close ties to the Russian government, to sow social discord among American voters through disinformation and social media operations. Following a thorough investigation of this disinformation campaign, the Special Counsel brought charges in federal court against several Russian nationals and entities for their respective roles in this scheme.

Those charges remain pending and the individual defendants remain at large. But the Special Counsel found no evidence that any American, including anyone associated with the Trump campaign, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government or the I.R.A. In this illegal scheme. Indeed, as the report states, quote, the investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. Person knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the I.R.A.'s interference operation, unquote.

Put another way, the Special Counsel found no collusion by any Americans in I.RA.'s illegal activities.

Barr also said the evidence presented to Mueller was not enough to establish that the President obstructed justice.

As soon as Barr finished speaking, President Trump pinned the following tweet, saying "Game Over."

SOURCE 

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Barr: No Bail for Asylum Seekers

AG orders DHS to enforce the law as written, which means no bond for illegals crossing the border.

One of the greatest pull factors for illegal immigration is the practice of “catch and release,” where illegal aliens, upon apprehension after crossing the border illegally, request asylum and are released into the U.S. with instructions to return for a court date once their request has been processed. Yet as has often been reported, many of these illegals never return for their hearings.

President Donald Trump continues seeking ways to stop the flow of illegal immigration in spite of being repeatedly rebuffed by Democrats and left-leaning courts. The latest attempt is Attorney General William Barr’s announcement of a new asylum policy that directs the Department of Homeland Security to deny bond hearings to all aliens who illegally entered and requested asylum. The Justice Department explained that Barr was simply acting to enforce the Immigration and Nationality Act to the letter of the law.

Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey wonders about the timing: “It’s also curious that the White House took this step so soon after the departure of Kirstjen Nielsen and Claire Grady. Were they opposed to the policy? Or perhaps prepared to be too lenient with paroles?”

In any case, former Bush administration Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, himself a legal immigrant, supported Barr’s decision. “This is not part of some grand scheme against immigrants coming into the United States,” Yoo said. “It’s a very narrow thing the attorney general has done. He has the power to overrule immigration judges. Immigration judges have been making mistakes — they’ve been allowing bail to be granted to people seeking asylum who are caught past the border.”

Yoo added, “Asylum seekers have to show what they call a well-founded fear of persecution back in their home countries. The problem for all these people coming from Central America — they’re fleeing for economic reasons. They’re not fleeing because the government is persecuting them.”

Not surprisingly, the American Civil Liberties Union immediately challenged the legality of Barr’s decision, arguing that it is an unconstitutional breach of “basic due process” and that it will see “the administration in court. Again.” However, going by the law and precedent, it appears that Barr is the one standing on more solid legal ground than the ACLU.

Either way, Trump is clearly seeking to force Congress into action. Sitting on the sidelines while a massive border crisis is unfolding doesn’t play well with the American people.

 
SOURCE 

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Trump Veto — The Best Choice for America and Yemen

Foreign policy rarely consists of easy choices, and aiding Saudi Arabia is complicated.

President Donald Trump’s veto of a congressional resolution that would have halted American support of Saudi Arabia in Yemen has drawn complaints from two sides. The first is the usual suspects on the Left. The second, though, comes from some who supported President Trump. But this veto was the right call, despite the flak.

As we have discussed earlier, the situation in Yemen is one that has few good options. Don’t get us wrong — the Saudis are no angels (the brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi being but one relatively minor example). That being said, they are making progress in the right direction, including Mohammed bin Salman’s statement effectively recognizing Israel’s right to exist. In addition, the alternative is to let Iran take Yemen.

That would be a bad idea on geopolitics alone. Yemen sits astride the Bab el Mandab, a maritime chokepoint that controls access to the Red Sea. This makes it a potential lifeline to Israel, given the dearth of naval powers. It would not be hard to get convoys of aid to Israeli ports via the Red Sea if things came to that. But if Iran takes Yemen, America’s presence in the region will have to increase to deal with the threat.

But since critics of the veto are talking about human rights and other moral issues, let’s examine how Iran scores on that matter. Iranian leaders regularly proclaim a desire to wipe Israel off the map (in essence, a 2019 remake of the Holocaust) — in a country where Holocaust denial is routine. That is reason enough to keep backing the Saudis, even if it means turning a blind eye to other stuff. That doesn’t also include the fact that Iran helped insurgents kill a few hundred American troops in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. That is a debt America needs to collect on.

Not many things in foreign policy or national security provide American presidents an easy choice, but the situation in Yemen is one that is relatively easy, even with the nasty stains on Saudi Arabia’s record. This is doubly true since we’ve not maintained a sufficient force structure to handle this ourselves. All of our services — the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, and the Coast Guard — have been shorted since the fall of the Berlin Wall. This has forced hard choices, like the one made regarding Syria that resulted in the departure of Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

If George W. Bush had been willing to build up the military after 9/11, we might not be in this mess, but he didn’t and we are paying now for that mistake. In essence, the Saudis are fighting a fight we should have a larger role in fighting if we didn’t lack the force structure. Why should America have a larger role? Well, for one thing, there’s the awkward matter of the potshots the Iranian-backed Houthis took at the guided-missile destroyer USS Mason (DDG 87).

Yes, President Trump campaigned on reducing America’s global footprint. Given the lesson learned from Barack Obama’s reckless timetable-based withdrawal from Iraq, however, the way to reduce that footprint isn’t a reckless pullout on a politically based timetable. The way you reduce the footprint responsibly is to ensure that the threats that warrant American military presence in the first place are gone. Ideally, you can try to negotiate them away. Other times, you can strengthen allies to handle it on their own. But sometimes, the best way to reduce America’s footprint over the long term is to escalate a response in the short term.

This might sound contradictory and appear that Trump is breaking promises. But think about it this way: If we could eliminate ISIS, and get a non-genocidal regime in Iran, much of the need for our military presence in the Middle East goes away. Similarly, if NATO allies like Germany and Canada pull their weight, maybe America would not need so many troops in Europe.

It’s not always easy to get to a reduced footprint from our current situation, and sometimes doing it will seem counterintuitive, but right now, reality dictates that bringing the troops home may require deploying more forces in the short term.

SOURCE 

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

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

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Why Were Authorities so Quick to Rule out Arson in the Notre Dame Conflagration?

I feel I must hand it to those stalwart souls investigating the devastating conflagration at the Cathedral of Notre Dame Monday. The flames were not quenched at the 12th-century masterpiece of Gothic architecture when the authorities announced that they had ruled out arson as the cause of the blaze. (Some reports hedged their bets by adding “for now”; most were more apodictic.)

That was an extraordinary, not to say amazing, piece of forensic prognostication. Not only were the flames still lapping at the timbers of the cathedral when this conclusion was announced, but also think about the context. The fire broke out on Monday of Holy Week, the apex of the Christian religious calendar. For Catholics, Notre Dame is a focal point of what remains of the religion in a country besotted for decades by its adherence to “laïcité,” to aggressive secularism. For France generally, however, I suspect that the important thing is that Notre Dame is home to some 13 million tourists per annum, all armed with fist-fulls of dollars, euros, and yen.

In any event, the holocaust at Notre Dame was by no means unique. Last month, a fire broke out at Saint-Sulpice, the second largest church in Paris. Within a day or two, the authorities had determined that the fire had been deliberately set. You didn’t read about it in The New York Times, but what happened at Saint-Sulpice was only one of the most destructive acts of vandalism directed against Christian churches in France.

Over the past month, in fact, there have been at least twelve reported acts of vandalism against French churches: statues smashed or beheaded, altars desecrated,  human excrement smeared on church walls in the shape of a cross and decorated with communion hosts. France, like many countries in Western Europe, is swaddled in a nervous silence about the inroads made into their society by militant Islam. They, like many Americans, are terrified of being accused of “Islamophobia.”  Yet the Ministry of the Interior reported that in 2018 there were recorded 541 anti-Semitic acts, 100 anti-Muslim acts, and 1063 anti-Christian acts.

Auric Goldfinger, in the Ian Fleming novel, dryly observes to James Bond that “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action.”

The French investigators have such extraordinary powers of forensic penetration that they can dispense with all such inductive aids to inquiry. Here they have not one, not two or three, but twelve acts of violent desecration in the past month, including an arsonist attack against the second largest church in Paris. Then Notre Dame catches fire—and what a fire it was—on Monday of Holy Week. Even before the fire was brought under control, the authorities ruled out arson. Has the world ever seen a more potent demonstration of investigative prowess?

SOURCE 

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Arizona City Overwhelmed By Migrant Mobs ‘roaming the streets’ Declares State Of Emergency

Yuma, a city on the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, declared a state of emergency Tuesday, saying it cannot handle the crush of illegal immigrants the government is being forced to release onto its streets.

Mayor Douglas Nicholls said the migrants are being released by the Border Patrol into his community faster than they can leave, and local shelters are already at capacity.

He warned of mobs of people “roaming the streets looking to satisfy basic human needs,” clashing with citizens looking to protect their own property.

“There is an imminent threat on having too many migrant releases into our community,” he said. “It’s above our capacity as a community to sustain.”

The move was designed to draw the attention of the country to what locals said was an untenable situation and to beg for solutions from the federal government, which has been at a political stalemate over what to do.

Mr. Nicholls said he is trying to get other Arizona communities to issue similar declarations, hoping a critical mass of voices will cut through the partisan gridlock.

The migrants are overwhelmingly families and unaccompanied children from Central America. They are fleeing rough conditions at home and are drawn north by lax enforcement policies that virtually guarantee they can be quickly released into communities, where most disappear into the shadows.

Of the children and families that came in 2017, more than 98% were still in the U.S. as of the beginning of this year.

The Trump administration has been searching for ways to change the incentives that draw the migrants to the U.S.

On Tuesday, Attorney General William Barr announced that migrants who take the first step toward asylum claims will no longer have an automatic right to be released on bond while their cases are proceeding. The ruling, though, won’t generally affect the children and families, who are quickly released under other court rulings and laws.

Also Tuesday, a Homeland Security Department advisory council issued an emergency report calling for the government to take new steps.

One solution was to set up regional processing centers along the border to centralize the flow of migrants, with new and better facilities to care for the children and families.

The council also pleaded with Congress to pass emergency legislation to speed up asylum cases so a decision can be issued within a month and asked for a fix to the Flores court settlement that imposes a 20-day limit on how long illegal immigrant families can be held in detention.

In the meantime, the council said, the administration should issue an emergency regulation allowing migrant families to be held.

Yuma sits on the line between Arizona and California, surrounded by rough, vacant terrain to its east and west. That means it has become the drop-off point for thousands of illegal immigrants each week streaming into the remote parts of California and Arizona, guided by smugglers who bus them north and then leave them to walk across the border and demand attention from U.S. authorities.

Border Patrol agents arrest them en masse — a group of 360 people was apprehended near Lukeville, Arizona, earlier Tuesday.

But with no ability to hold them, agents engage in what is called “catch-and-release,” processing the migrants and then letting them go at a local bus terminal.

Communities along the border have issued desperate pleas for help, but Yuma’s state of emergency is the most striking reaction.

Mr. Nichollls said the local shelter’s normal capacity is 150 people but it can stretch to accommodate 250. It began Tuesday with 200 people, and Border Patrol agents said they were going to deliver 120 more people during the day, putting the facility well beyond its limits.

The mayor said even if the city had a bigger building, the number of people swamps the capacity for volunteers and supplies — though he did issue a call for donations of coloring books, diapers, snacks and bottled water.

He said the issue is transportation in a town of about 100,000 people, where bus links aren’t extensive and there isn’t enough capacity to ship people out as fast as they are being dropped off by the Border Patrol.

President Trump has proposed siphoning the illegal immigrants from the border into sanctuary cities elsewhere, saying it’s only right those communities step up, given their policies and proclamations about welcoming migrants. That idea has ignited a firestorm in Washington, where Democrats called it unbecoming.

Yet some sanctuary cities have stepped forward to say they would embrace the migrants.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf over the weekend said she would be happy to do so. “Oakland welcomes all, no matter where you came from or how you got here,” she wrote in response to Mr. Trump.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto also accepted the challenge this week, saying his city “would welcome all.”

Mr. Trump cast his proposal as political payback, but others have said it’s a necessity, at least so far as releasing the migrants away from the border, where the communities are already overwhelmed.

SOURCE 

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Crazy Democrat policies in search of votes

Walter E. Williams

There's a push to change laws to permit both criminals serving time and ex-criminals the right to vote. Guess which party is pushing the most for these legal changes. If you guessed that it was the Democrats, go to the head of the class. Bernie Sanders says states should allow felons to vote from behind bars. Elizabeth Warren doesn't go that far but believes felons should have the right to vote. Democrats want the criminal class to have voting rights restored because they could become a significant part of the Democratic base.

These are America's murderers, rapists, burglars, child molesters and drug dealers. Over two million of these people are in prison. If we add in the number of people on probation and parole, there are 6.7 million people currently under correctional control. If cons and ex-cons get the right to vote, it's almost a guarantee that most of these people will cast their vote for a Democratic candidate.

Democrats don't stop with wanting cons and ex-cons to vote. It turns out that more than 50 percent of Democrats surveyed want illegal immigrants to have the right to vote, as they already do in some Democratic-controlled cities.

America's gun control advocates have the belief that outlawing guns would drastically reduce crime. Almost all handguns have been outlawed from private citizen use in the U.K. since 1996. Nonetheless, violent crime in the U.K. has risen almost every year since the ban. Criminals love the idea of a disarmed populace. While there are few gun crimes in the U.K., there's a recent report that in 2018 there were over 40,000 knife crimes committed. It's gotten so bad that some stores have stopped selling kitchen knives.

America's gun control advocates might have some solutions for the citizens of the U.K. They might advocate a thorough MI5 (U.K.'s secret service) background check for anyone wishing to purchase any kind of knife, including kitchen knives. They might advocate knife registration. There might be lengthy prison sentences for anyone caught with an illegal unregistered knife. With London's murder rate higher than New York City's, Mayor Sadiq Khan has implemented knife control policies as violent crime surges. Khan deployed over 300 additional London police officers to stop and search anyone they suspect is carrying a knife.

Here's something else to ponder: Democratic candidates for the 2020 presidential elections are calling for reparations for slavery or for the study of reparations. Senators Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren are leading the charge. Slavery was a gross violation of human rights. Justice would demand that slave owners make compensatory payments to slaves. Since both slaves and slave owners are no longer with us, such punishment and compensation is beyond our reach.

So which white Americans owe which black Americans how much? Reparations advocates don't want that question asked, but let's you and I ask it. Are the millions of European, Asian and Latin Americans who immigrated to the U.S. in the 20th century responsible for slavery? What about descendants of Northern whites who fought and died in the War of 1861 in the name of freeing slaves? Should they cough up money for black Americans? What about non-slave-owning Southern whites, who were a majority of Southern whites — should their descendants be made to pay reparations?

On black people's side of the ledger, thorny questions arise. Some blacks purchased other blacks as a means to free family members. But other blacks owned slaves for the same reason whites owned slaves — to work farms or plantations. Would descendants of these blacks be eligible for reparations?

The bottom line is because blacks are doing well in the economic arena under the Trump administration, Democrats fear losing a significant portion of the black vote. Their call for reparations is another attempt to use the promise of handouts to insure that the black vote remains in their pocket. Reparations talk is simply another insulting Democratic rope-a-dope strategy.

SOURCE 

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Trump embraces 5G revolution by freeing up wireless spectrum, removing regulatory barriers and boosting rural broadband

President Donald Trump is committed to winning the race to 5G wireless technology that will transform the U.S. and global economies in ways that have only been dreamed of in the past. Smart cities, driverless cars and trucks, factories run by robots and so many other wonders, all possible because of the next generation of wireless technology.

“The race to 5G is a race America must win and it’s a race, frankly, that our great companies are now involved in — we’ve given them the incentive they need — it’s a race we that we will win,” Trump declared at an April 12 speech, vowing that “we cannot allow any other country to outcompete the United States in this powerful industry of the future.”

The best part is, all the government has to do is get out of the way.

“In the United States our approach is private sector driven and private sector led. The government doesn’t have to spend lots of money,” Trump said, noting that industry would be investing $275 billion in 5G technology.

Accenture has estimated that 5G will create 3 million new jobs in the U.S. and boost the economy by more than $500 billion.

To help get the network up to speed — quite literally, as 5G will be about 100 times faster than existing 4G networks — Trump outlined his plan to free up “as much spectrum as possible.”

“We’re going to free it up, so they can get out there and get it done,” Trump stated.  Specifically, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Dec. 10 will be auctioning off 3,400 megahertz in three different spectrum bands. This will be a huge opportunity for 5G leaders like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile to expand their networks.

According to an FCC fact sheet, “Since November 2018, the FCC has auctioned 1,550 megahertz of spectrum to be used by commercial wireless providers for 5G connectivity.  The third 5G spectrum auction will be the largest in American history; the FCC will be selling 3,400 megahertz in three different spectrum bands at one time.”

One area that can help it along even faster would be in approving the Sprint-T-Mobile merger, which would enable each company to share their respective 600 MHz and 2.5 GHz spectrum across the low and medium bands. While T-Mobile’s low band spectrum will help bring the network nationwide and particularly to rural areas, Sprint’s medium spectrum will give it the network capacity it needs to function in big cities and densely populated suburbs. This would put both companies on a sounder footing to compete with Verizon and AT&T, and create more competition in the 5G arena, which will reduce prices.

In prepared remarks, FCC chairman Ajit Pai outlined further efforts being made, including by deploying fiberoptics: “we’ve taken action to encourage the deployment of optical fiber.  That’s because 5G isn’t just about wireless.  We’ll also need strong fiber networks to carry traffic once it goes from the air to the ground.  We’ve done a lot to make that happen, including ending heavy-handed regulations imposed by the prior Administration.  Here too, we’re getting results.  Last year, fiber was deployed to more new locations than in any year before.”

In addition, Pai outlined efforts to create more access to rural broadband, stating, “the FCC aims to create a new $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund at the FCC [over 10 years].  This money will extend high-speed broadband to up to four million homes and small businesses in rural America.”

Taken together, it is a sound strategy to bringing a true 5G network nationwide.

It’s exactly the boost the U.S. economy needs to stay ahead in the 21st century. 5G will not only make America great again, it will make it greater than it’s ever been.

SOURCE 

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

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

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Statins have no effect on cholesterol for over 50% of patients

This study is one of the few that looks at the cholesterol/statin correlation directly. And it does so with a substantial sample (N=165,411) so is of considerable interest. As such its conclusions are gloomy for statin use. On half your patients it may do no good at all, assuming that high cholesterol is associated with heart disease.  Given the size of the effect, that conclusion is unlikely to be overturned in subsequent research so needs to be taken seriously in patient treatment decisions henceforth

On the other hand, they found that among the "unprotected" group heart disease incidence was marginally higher.  In those circumstances (where the effect is weak), limitations of the study must be noted: It must be noted that the sample was not a random one.  It was a sample of people who had seen their doctor with some heart problem. And we also should note that the controls for confounding factors were poor -- no demographics!

So with those large reservations, we could say that the present weak results are consistent with previous findings that high levels of cholesterol are problematic for people with pre-existing heart disease only


Sub-optimal cholesterol response to initiation of statins and future risk of cardiovascular disease

Ralph Kwame Akyea et al.

Abstract

Objective: To assess low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) response in patients after initiation of statins, and future risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Methods: Prospective cohort study of 165 411 primary care patients, from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink, who were free of CVD before statin initiation, and had at least one pre-treatment LDL-C within 12 months before, and one post-treatment LDL-C within 24 months after, statin initiation. Based on current national guidelines, <40% reduction in baseline LDL-C within 24 months was classified as a sub-optimal statin response. Cox proportional regression and competing-risks survival regression models were used to determine adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and sub-HRs for incident CVD outcomes for LDL-C response to statins.

Results: 84 609 (51.2%) patients had a sub-optimal LDL-C response to initiated statin therapy within 24 months. During 1 077 299 person-years of follow-up (median follow-up 6.2 years), there were 22 798 CVD events (12 142 in sub-optimal responders and 10 656 in optimal responders). In sub-optimal responders, compared with optimal responders, the HR for incident CVD was 1.17 (95% CI 1.13 to 1.20) and 1.22 (95% CI 1.19 to 1.25) after adjusting for age and baseline untreated LDL-C. Considering competing risks resulted in lower but similar sub-HRs for both unadjusted (1.13, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.16) and adjusted (1.19, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.23) cumulative incidence function of CVD.

Conclusions: Optimal lowering of LDL-C is not achieved within 2 years in over half of patients in the general population initiated on statin therapy, and these patients will experience significantly increased risk of future CVD.

SOURCE 

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Trump can’t finish the wall fast enough as apprehensions on southern border top 103,000 in March

By Robert Romano

Apprehensions on the southern border hit 103,492 in March, according to data compiled by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, the highest in a decade.

In 2018, apprehensions averaged about 43,424 monthly, 34,626 in 2017, 46,114 in 2016, 37,071 in 2015 and 47,436 in 2014. 2019 looks like it will be a record year, as there have already been more apprehensions through March at 422,334 than all of 2017.

Amid the surge, Immigration and Customs Enforcement only has about 52,000 beds to detain people who are apprehended — which guarantees that a good number of those apprehended will have to be released.

There are simply too many people coming, with not enough facilities to accommodate them and not enough judges to process them efficiently. The effect is catch-and-release. And Congress knows it.

Even the limit on beds comes down to deliberate decision-making by Congress, as this was a major sticking point in the discussions on ending the government shutdown. Democrats wanted a harder limit on beds even when faced with the data of how the system was being overwhelmed. Last year, the authorization allowed for an average daily of 40,520, but President Trump has been able to get the actual number up to 49,000 by moving things around. This year, the new baseline was increased to 45,274, which he can ratchet up to 52,000 by moving things around.

As it turns out, Trump was prophetic in requesting additional funds with the migrant surge now occurring. But what Congress has provided is not nearly enough. Not with over 103,000 being apprehended in a single month.

Ultimately, the federal government wouldn’t need so many beds if resources were brought to bear to secure the border entirely. Two years into the Trump administration, unfortunately, and Congress only inluded $1.6 billion from 2018 for replacing existing fencing with new steel barriers and $1.375 billion in 2019 for more steel barriers.

As it is, President Donald Trump had to resort to declaring a national emergency on the border so that military construction funds could be reprogrammed.

Reporting from Calexico, Calif., Lt. Gen. Todd T. Semonite, Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, reported that with existing funding including the emergency funds, about 450 miles of wall will be built: “Around Dec. 2020, the total amount of money we will have put in the ground in the last couple of years will be about 450 miles. That’s probably about $8 billion, in total about 33 projects.”

In the meantime, while the system continues to be flooded, that means a lot of people are simply going to be released. So, President Trump is proposing to release them into sanctuary cities and states that Democrats have declared. The thinking is clear enough.

On Twitter on April 12, Trump stated, “Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only…The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy – so this should make them very happy!”

Perhaps when leaders in Congress have to deal with the migrant surge directly in their local communities, instead thinking they can dump them in red states, they will sit down with Trump and finally get down to business to giving the resources the federal government needs to both deter and contain the illegal immigration surge now occurring.

While the President awaits Congressional action, Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning suggested that human traffickers should be declared terrorist organizations: “The problem is now so severe that the President should simply declare the human trafficking cartels who are profiteering off the illegal immigration surge to be terrorist organizations and treated accordingly. The costs to both the American taxpayer and to those who depend upon our nation’s generous social safety net is unacceptable, but what’s worse is it is now endangering our national security, and those in Mexico who are facilitating the trafficking need to be dealt with the full force of the law.”

A terrorist organization declaration would invoke certain authorities that would allow the Trump administration to cut of the funds traffickers receive via remittances and other means.

Manning is right. Not enough pressure is being put on those making the journey as the resources Congress has provided are insufficient by a several orders of magnitude to deter and prevent the currently seen levels of migration.

The human traffickers realize the border is wide open, and unless something is done, this is crisis is not going to get any better. Something’s got to give.

SOURCE 
   
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Old problem, tired old solution: Democrats want to tax millennials to save Social Security

While so-called "Medicare for all" is grabbing the most headlines, a House Ways and Means subcommittee has held four separate hearings on the looming insolvency of another big entitlement program: Social Security. Subcommittee Chairman John Larson, D-Conn., recently released a bill to shore up Social Security’s funding through myriad new tax increases and 200 of his Democratic colleagues have signed on as co-sponsors.

I testified on Wednesday at a hearing where this bill, the Social Security 2100 Act, was the focus. I was invited to offer some remarks on a group that does not get much attention in the conversation regarding Social Security: young people. My comments focused mostly on millennials, because that is the group for which we have data on their working lives, but the broader consequences to the future of the workforce should be explored before plans to hike taxes on workers and employees is viewed as the silver bullet for the program’s sustainability.

The bill would hike the payroll tax 2.4 percentage points, to 14.8%. While almost half of workers do not pay income tax, the payroll tax is the largest tax most workers pay. Increasing it confiscates wealth for workers that could otherwise be used to save and build equity.

This strikes workers at the beginning of their career particularly hard, not just because it deprives them of a longer window for savings, but also because millennial workers are different from other generations in significant ways. For one, they are more likely to start their own business. Over a third of millennials operate a “side hustle” in addition to their full-time job. This means many young people in the workforce today are not only employees, but potential employers as well. But as a sole proprietor, they would be responsible for both the employer and employee sides of the payroll tax hike in these plans, potentially increasing their payroll taxes by thousands of dollars.

The consequences to economic mobility should be obvious: A payroll tax hike makes each hire for an employer more expensive, and data shows that employers will respond by cutting wages. This will diminish income mobility for workers, particularly those at the beginning of their careers. It will put wage increases further out of reach for workers. What’s more, the income exemptions in this bill are not indexed to inflation, meaning they eat up a larger share of employee income over time. This will further erode young people’s earnings opportunities as they move up the income ladder.

Millennials already lag other generations in terms of wealth accumulation. Workers at the beginning of their careers see a higher share of their income go to payroll taxes, and fixed costs of living take up a higher share of their take-home pay. Increasing the payroll tax further diminishes the amount of money they have available to save and create wealth over time, and exacerbates this disparity between what is now the largest living generation in the country and other generations that have come before it. What’s more, data indicates that lower-income households make up for the loss of income by shouldering more debt, undermining opportunity for young workers to amass their own wealth.

The workforce today looks different than the workforce of different generations — this is a feature, not a flaw, of the American system. As our economy evolves, however, so too must our public policy. For many millennials who entered the workforce during the recession, the recent economic expansion has been their first opportunity to grow in their careers and build wealth. Proposals that would force this cohort to shoulder new tax burdens threaten to undermine this progress. While Congress has enhanced private savings opportunities to the widespread benefit of workers, it has yet to tackle the looming fiscal insecurity of government spending. Congress should consider bipartisan methods of meeting this challenge without simply redistributing the burden to future generations.

SOURCE 

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The Trump jobs miracle

If you want one number that encapsulates the enormity of the economic turnaround under Donald Trump it is this: Today in America so far this year there have been between 7.1 million and 7.6 million unfilled jobs. This number is larger than the entire population of the state of Indiana. That is how powerful and relentless the hiring spree has been under Trump policies.

Today, there are just over 6 million Americans who are “unemployed.” This means that even if every person in America looking for a job took a job (and had the skills to fill them), we would still have more than 1 million jobs that would not be filled. That’s the University of Michigan football stadium filled 10 times. That’s a lot of jobs.

Add to that the latest Labor Department numbers that the number of people signing up for unemployment benefits and it adds up to a glorious and irrefutable reality.

This is the best labor market for workers in 50 years.

Maybe ever.

This tight labor market is exactly what those of us on the Trump team hoped for when we designed the tax reform bill, the deregulation policies and other policy changes designed to allow American businesses to grow and prosper. The competition for workers explains why average wages in America have risen by 3.2 percent over the last year in an environment of little or no inflation. Add to that the average tax reduction of between $1,500 and $2,000 for the typical middle class family and it is no wonder that 71 percent of workers feel good about the economic direction of the nation, as a recent CNN poll found. Before the election of 2016 only about half that number of Americans rated the economy as good or great.

For the first time in a long time, Americans’ real take home pay is expanding. It feels good. People are spending because they have more money in their wallets and they are confident in their financial future. What a change from the malaise of the last decade, when almost every poll showed that jobs and the economy were the biggest worry of Americans.

The tight labor market and boost in wages are inextricably linked. Target just announced a new “minimum wage” of $13 an hour. That wage is headed to $15 an hour in 18 months. Is this because of a government minimum wage law? No. The company said it had to pay more to recrult and retain the best workers. There is nothing more empowering for middle class workers than having employers compete for their services.

Target isn’t the only company handing out big raises in the Trump era. Walmart is up to $11 an hour, and Amazon just recently went to $15 an hour for starting workers. Don’t forget to add to bonuses of up to $2,000, and paid vacations and other enticements.

Even as businesses are investing more in capital equipment — like machinery, computers, robotics, trucks and forklifts — they are hiring more workers at a brisk pace. Remember the worry that the Internet and robots were going to destroy all the jobs and America would be one long unemployment line? It’s not happening.

So now the worry is America is running out of workers. Not really. As wages rise, more working-age Americans who aren’t currently looking for a job will snatch them up. There are at least 10 million Americans who could be in the labor force if the offer to get off the sidelines is enticing enough.

The irony of all this is that at the very moment that the left wants to institute a “guaranteed livable income” for every American, President Trump is doing that and more by making sure that every last American who wants one can get a job.

SOURCE 

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Comey assumes jester role in spygate tragedy

Top secret surveillance is spying.

Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting former FBI Director James Comey’s contention that “the FBI and the Department of Justice conduct court-ordered electronic surveillance… I have never thought of that as spying”:

“James Comey’s latest embarrassing declaration that top secret surveillance of American citizens’ phone calls, emails, texts and other communications in a counterintelligence probe is not spying ranks right up with Bill Clinton’s parsing of the meaning of the word is. Comey signed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to spy against the Trump campaign. In Washington, D.C., lies are excused if couched in the right flowery verbage. Comey cannot possibly believe that engaging in electronic surveillance largely based on documentation from politically weaponized spies, which he says was ‘selacious and unverified,’ as well as using human intelligence resources to observe and attempt to infiltrate the Trump campaign in the midst of a counterintelligence investigation is not spying.

“Comey’s Hamlet-like musings reflect more on his attempt to rerwrite history and restore his tattered personal legacy. If this tragedy is ever honestly written, Comey has cemented his role as the fool rather than the hero he portrays himself as.”

SOURCE 

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Feel the hate

Bella Abzug (1920 – 1998) was a bane of American conservatives for many years in the late 20th century. It was a relief when she died.  She was an aggressive feminist and all-round far-leftist with a very loud and abusive mouth



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

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

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Bad conservatives?

I recently received the following email from M. DeV. mcdv133422@gmail.com.  It appears to be a riposte to the way conservatives point to murderous Leftist regimes from the French revolution on.  I have a little spare time so I thought I might point out some of the lacunae in it.  I will add my coments at the bottom of it.

1. Those who promoted child labor were conservatives.

2. The brutal genocidal colonizers of the Americans were christian conservatives.

3. Franco was helped into power by conservatives.

4. Hitler was helped into power by conservatives such as Papen and Hindenburg.

5. World War I was started by conservatives.

6. Lenin was helped to get to Russia by German conservatives.

7. Those who opposed food safety laws were conservatives (thousands of children died in 19th century Britain because of arsenic poisoning).

8. The American Civil War was started by treasonous conservative democrats.

9. Centuries of European warfare was brought on by monarchists and conservatives.

10. Al Qaeda and the Taleban were created by the mujahedeen which was supported throughout the 1980s by American conservatives.

11. Iran Contra was treason by conservatives (Reagan should have been hanged for it).

12. Conservatism is a disease and the American GOP is a huge threat to the western world.


1. The man who did most to regulate and cut back child labor was Benjamin Disraeli, Conservative Prime Minister of Britain in the late 19th century

2. The Pilgrim fathers had friendly relations with the natives from 1620 to 1675, when they were attacked

3. Franco was suported by the Falange, a Fascist  (Leftist) party

4. Hitler's rise was his own doing -- particularly by way of his remarkable oratory.  But at various points both the Social Democrat Left and the Communists sided with him

5. Who started WWI is contentious but it would have remained a local affair except for the intervention of the Rusian Tsar, who was above politcs

6. At the beginning of World War I, Germany was a constitutional monarchy in which political parties were limited to the legislative arena. They could control neither the government nor the military.  It was the military who sent Lenin to Russia

7. Those who opposed food safety laws were businessmen with various political loyalties.  They were gradually brought to heel by governments.  But again Disraeli was in the lead.  In 1874 Disraeli brought in an aggressive program of social legislation, including a pure-food-and-drug act

8. The American Civil War was started by treasonous Leftist  politicians.  Republicans were at that time the Left of American politics.  No other country in the world shed a drop of blood to free their slaves.  So why did America?  Because the Republicans were in the grip of Leftist self righteousness.  See here

9. Centuries of European warfare were brought on by national and dynastic rivalries.

10.Al Qaeda and the Taleban were native Muslim movements that started in opposition to the Soviets. American opposition to Soviet intervention in Afghanistan started under Jimmy Carter (D)

11. Iran Contra was part of an attempt to overthrow a Communist regime

12. Leftism is a disease and the American Democrats are Fascists.

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LOL.  Trump can't win

As a catastrophic fire tore through one of the world’s most beloved cultural treasures, US President Donald Trump assessed the response from the other side of the globe and offered unsolicited advice for firefighters.

“So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris,” Mr Trump tweeted earlier today as more than 400 firefighters tried to save the Notre Dame cathedral. “Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!”

France’s civil defense agency, Sécurité Civile, tweeted — once in French and once in English — less than two hours after Mr Trump sent his tweet and appeared to directly respond to the US president.

“Helicopter or aeroplane, the weight of the water and the intensity of the drop at low altitude could indeed weaken the structure of Notre Dame and result in collateral damage to the buildings in the vicinity,” the agency wrote in French.

And despite never posting updates in English, the agency then sent out a second tweet.

 Hundreds of firemen of the Paris Fire Brigade are doing everything they can to bring the terrible #NotreDame fire under control. All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral.

Mr Trump’s tweet was almost universally slammed, with many of the president’s Twitter followers calling his advice “ignorant”.

"When California burned you did not seem to be a fire expert. Please, shut up. It is a tragic moment for the cultural heritage of humanity."

"Has anyone else found themselves wondering if, aside from the massive, ignorant ego inserting himself into the story by telling French fire fighters how to do their job, what's really happening here is this sorry excuse for a human is jealous because the news is not about him?"

SOURCE 

My sympathies in the matter were somewhat reduced when I heard that the cathedral was a repository for the crown of thorns from Christ's crucifixion plus a fragment of the true cross plus one of the holy nails which held Christ to the cross.  I guess my Presbyterian background is showing but the word "idolatory" did spring to my mind

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Boston Globe Writer Suggests Waiters Should ‘tamper’ With Republicans’ Food,/b>

Once again Leftists have no ability to foresee the consequences of their actions.  Once Democrats start polluting the food of conservatives, the way will be open for conservatives to do some polluting as well.  A lot of working people who voted for Trump might be angry enough to do that


A Boston Globe columnist called for waiters to contaminate the food of Trump administration officials.

“As for the waiters out there, I’m not saying you should tamper with anyone’s food, as that could get you into trouble,” O’Neil wrote. “You might lose your serving job. But you’d be serving America. And you won’t have any regrets years later.”

He added that “not pissing in Bill Kristol’s salmon” when he was a waiter was one of his eternal regrets. “I was waiting on the disgraced neoconservative pundit and chief Iraq War cheerleader about 10 years ago at a restaurant in Cambridge and to my eternal dismay, some combination of professionalism and pusillanimity prevented me from appropriately seasoning his entree,”

The Globe to found itself dealing with a wave of outrage. Herman Cain, one of President Trump’s two picks for the Federal Reserve Board, tweeted, “Who makes the editorial decisions at the Boston Globe?”

O’Neil hit back at the Globe for removing the article from its website.

“Absolute brain genius move by the Globe to edit my story three times then take it down altogether and put up a note saying I’m not on staff instead of perhaps standing by a long time contributor and siding with labor instead of bad faith critics who would hate them no matter what,” O’Neil said on Twitter. He added: “I will never write for them again.”

SOURCE 

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Appeals court rules Trump admin can temporarily continue to send asylum-seekers back to Mexico

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of President Trump on Friday when it determined that the government can at least temporarily continue to send asylum-seekers back to Mexico.

The asylum program was scheduled to be shut down at midnight under an order from District Judge Richard Seeborg, but the White House requested that the appeals court intervene.

The 9th Circuit temporarily stayed the lower court’s ruling as the parties get ready to submit their arguments next week on the government’s request for a longer stay that would likely last months.

“Finally, great news at the Border!” Trump tweeted Friday night.

The administration has defended the policy as necessary to deal with what it calls an immigration crisis at the border that is overwhelming existing enforcement mechanisms.

The lower court ruled earlier this week that the policy contradicted U.S. immigration law and issued a nationwide injunction but delayed its implementation to give the government time to appeal.

The administration has sent more than a thousand asylum-seekers, many from Central America, back to Mexico as their asylum claims make their way through the U.S.’s backed-up immigration system.

Trump has doubled down on his hard-line stance on immigration in recent weeks, threatening to close the border with Mexico, cutting off funding to El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, and overseeing a purge at the Department of Homeland Security.

Trump has said that many claiming asylum seek to do harm, saying last weekend some asylum-seekers should be "fighting for the UFC" and that approvals of asylum claims should be curtailed.

"The system is full. Can’t take you anymore," Trump said while visiting the border earlier this month, adding that for both "illegal immigration" and asylum-seekers, the answer is "I’m sorry. We’re full."

SOURCE 

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Abolish the Income Tax, Abolish the IRS

It's possible

BY STEPHEN GREEN

Everybody hates income taxes. Some people say there are too many loopholes or too few incentives or that they're too high or too low or that the system is rigged against (insert your favorite group here) or biased in favor of (insert your least favorite group here) or that the IRS is abusive or too lenient and -- almost everybody agrees -- the whole thing is corrupt and corrupting.

I know several of these complaints contradict other complaints, but you know what? They're all true. Every single one. Our tax code is a jumbled mess of contradictions, and the IRS is alternately abusive and permissive.

At the left-leaning Daily News today, David Cay Johnston writes that "there’s a fundamental problem at the heart of the way we fund our government." He says that there are actually two tax systems, one for "working stiffs and retirees," and the other for "rich business owners [who] operate under a different system." Johnson's solution? Hire a lot more IRS auditors who will stick it to the rich.

That's just silly, of course. The rich already pay the vast majority of income taxes. The top 1 percent pays more than 35 percent of all income tax collected; the bottom half pays only about 3 percent. Those figures come from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation from before the 2017 tax reform law, which generally cut taxes even further for the middle class, while raising them a bit on wealthy blue state residents. If anything, the bottom half of Americans aren't invested in what happens in Washington, because they don't have any skin in the game.

But even if they did, is putting thousands or even hundreds of thousands of additional Americans through the IRS audit wringer a good way to increase fairness?

Over on the libertarian side, Reason's Liz Wolfe was driven to such despair by the burdens and complexities of our tax code that she got stoned before doing her taxes this year. While I don't recommend this at all, Wolfe wrote, much to my entertainment, "I smoked a massive joint with my husband and browsed flights to Budapest and Dubrovnik before realizing that I could not procrastinate anymore and also could not fly to Eastern Europe to avoid my tax burden." As the guy who invented drunkblogging, I don't judge. Whatever gets you through the tax season.

At The Federalist today, Laura Baxter lists nine conservative complaints against the income tax, arguing that today should be a "national day of mourning." Three of her arguments really stood out to me, and in no small part because they're interrelated. And not just interrelated, but probably an inextricable feature of the income tax.

They are:

*  The Tax System Is Far Too Complex

*  The Tax System Favors Special Interests

*  The Tax System Is Easily Weaponized

I encourage you to click over and read the whole thing.

Tax laws are written by people and people prefer certain other people or provide favors to other people in exchange for something they want themselves. And that makes our income tax system -- any income tax system -- ripe for corruption, graft, and abuse.

Which brings us to the Fair Tax.

The Fair Tax isn't exactly a new idea, but it's one worth reminding people of every April 15.

The Fair Tax would completely eliminate payroll taxes and individual and corporate income taxes by repealing the 16th Amendment. Washington would be funded instead by a national sales tax -- partly offset by a monthly "prebate" paid to every household. As described by Americans for Fair Taxation, the prebate is "an 'advance refund' at the beginning of each month so that purchases made up to the poverty level are tax-free." You would take home 100 percent of your pay, and determine your own tax rate based on how much you spend each month.

The IRS is abolished, replaced by a tax collection mechanism every single merchant is already familiar with. Conspicuous consumption by the rich would be met with a heavy sales tax burden, but investments in jobs and growth and innovation would be tax-free.

Other benefits include zero compliance cost for individuals, no more audits, no more loopholes, and vastly reduced opportunities for official corruption and graft. Almost as good, perhaps, is that only legal U.S. residents are eligible for the prebate, but everybody, from native-born citizen to illegal alien, pays their fair share at the cash register.

For more information, you can visit FairTax.org.

SOURCE 

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Israel Hopes for Same Treatment, After Int’l Court Backs Down on US Probe

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday welcomed a decision by International Criminal Court (ICC) judges not to authorize an investigation into alleged U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, and implicitly expressed the hope an ICC probe into Israeli actions would meet the same fate.

“To come and put on trial U.S. or Israeli soldiers, or the State of Israel or the U.S., is absurd,” Netanyahu told a weekly cabinet meeting. “This corrects an injustice and will have far-reaching implications for the functioning of the international system regarding the State of Israel.”

A three-judge panel in The Hague ruled Friday that although the alleged offenses met criteria set down by the Rome Statute – the court’s founding treaty – an investigation “at this stage would not serve the interests of justice.” Accordingly it turned down chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s request to proceed.

President Trump hailed the development, which came a week after the State Department revoked Bensouda’s U.S. visa, in line with its recent decision to bar entry to anyone “directly responsible for any ICC investigation of U.S. personnel.”

The president called the decision “a major international victory, not only for these patriots [U.S. military and intelligence personnel involved in the conflict], but for the rule of law.”

Human rights advocacy groups voiced dismay, with Amnesty International accusing the ICC of “caving” to U.S. threats.

SOURCE 

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

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

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Why Trump drives the DC establishment nuts

A friend was researching a story, and the more questions she asked the more she felt she really didn’t know anything about the subject. She discovered neither did anyone else she was asking.

That reminded me of Apple founder Steve Jobs’ epiphany, which goes something like this:


"When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is, and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to fit in, and everything will be OK. That’s a very limited life.

Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you, and you can change it, you can influence it. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again."


This explains the root of the Washington Establishment’s dysfunctional relationship with President Trump.

The antipathy is deeper than “he’s not our kind of people,” or policy disagreements. Consider Jobs’ epiphany.

The Washington Establishmentarians went to the finest schools where they learned “the world is the way it is,” the world being “the trans-Atlantic alliance,” “the international rules based trading system,” “the post-war architecture and institutions,” concepts formulated 70 years ago and considered sacrosanct in the empyrean precincts of Washington and academia.

The gilded reptiles of the swamp make a comfortable living as experts on the world The Way It Is. They don’t “bash into the walls” – they know their place and they fit in.

Then along comes Donald J. Trump. Rather than “Try not to bash into the walls,” he’s made a living bashing down walls, quite literally, and doesn’t apologize for it.

Unlike previous candidates who ran as outsiders but went with the Washington status quo once elected, President Trump doesn’t accept “the world is the way it is.” Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it.

President Trump didn’t accept the received wisdom on China that let Beijing get away with cheating, stealing and breaking every promise it made. He knew that China policy was made by people who were no smarter than he and that he could change it.

President Trump didn’t accept the status quo with NATO, a 70-year-old military alliance against a Soviet threat that no longer exists. The Establishment experts told him he deserves to be impeached, convicted and removed from office for suggesting allies pay their fair share. But then the allies ponied up more.

President Trump doesn’t accept America’s decline is inevitable, nationalism is bad, nations are outdated, and we are merely cogs in a “global economy without borders.” Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you, and you can change it.

Washington is full of people who base their self-worth on issuing great pronouncements telling us “the world is the way it is.”

President Donald J. Trump doesn’t accept “the world is the way it is,” and it drives them nuts that he has the gall to change it.

SOURCE 

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Stephen Moore is a pro-growth economic champion

Stephen Moore is an anti-establishment voice and critic of the D.C. swamp. It should come as no surprise that economists who never stray from mainstream, “acceptable” positions on the role of the Federal Reserve are also vehemently opposed to Moore’s nomination to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. After all, to challenge the Fed’s orthodoxy is to challenge the Washington establishment.

President Trump won in 2016 by going against the established order. His victory showed the nation that what the “experts” want is not always what is best for the American people. His victory was a wake-up call to the nation that establishment experts are no longer unassailable. Having made a career of challenging the established order in much the same way, Stephen Moore is the dissenting voice so desperately needed on the Federal Reserve board today.

Respected economists warned that under President Trump, the U.S. would enter a recession almost immediately upon assuming office. Under Trump’s pro-growth economic policies, though, the United States has entered an era of prosperity it hasn’t seen in years. Tax cuts that many warned would severely damage the economy have instead resulted in the largest wage increases in years, record decreases in unemployment, and widespread investment that has benefited main street America and corporations alike.

Stephen Moore was one of the architects behind the crafting of President Trump’s tax cut and deregulatory agenda. These weren’t new ideas, though. They were simply the laissez-faire economic principles that had been discarded years ago in favor of the false consensus of big government, Keynesian ideas that slowed the growth of our economy. Moore has been a well known supply-sider throughout his entire career.

Moore, like President Trump, understands that prosperity comes not through government intervention, but through hands-off economic policies that provide for a pro-growth business climate. Challenging the orthodoxy of so many establishment economists, the same ones who oppose Moore’s confirmation, have instead benefitted millions of Americans.

Moore has written extensively about the dangers of politicians becoming too involved in the economy. He cites the administration of Herbert Hoover as an example of how things can go drastically wrong when America moves from laissez-faire economic policy to a command and control approach. Instead of buying into the faux orthodoxy of big government economists and pundits, he wants to unleash the American economic potential made possible when the government steps back.

Moore’s career demonstrates a willingness to challenge this economic orthodoxy revered as sacred by the Washington establishment. He has remained an ardent believer in small government, pro-growth economic policies that empower consumers and businesses alike. This is reason enough to trust him as Trump’s pick for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Among the many reasons to confirm Stephen Moore is that he believes in sound money. The Federal Reserve Board thinks it better instead to aggressively expand money supply. The quantitative easing that the Fed implemented following the 2008 financial crisis has initiated the slow-motion destabilization of the American Dollar.

Sound money is the basis for economic prosperity. Sound money is only possible with a return to the gold standard or a system where the value of our dollar is tied to a real commodity, something for which Moore has advocated. Without an anchor for the American dollar, inflation caused by the Fed’s tinkering with the money supply will lead to economic uncertainty, as it has for decades

Moore couldn’t disagree more with a central tenet of the Fed’s doctrine, quantitative easing. The Washington establishment puts far too much emphasis on the necessity for the central bank to tinker with our money supply, thus undermining the American dollar. Therefore, Moore’s voice of reason is much needed on the Federal Reserve Board to ensure a stable currency, the building block for free markets and economic prosperity.

By going against the D.C. status quo, Stephen Moore has shown he’s not afraid to embrace the anti-establishment background that has made him a breath of fresh air when it comes to American economics. As we’ve seen in the past few years, the Washington establishment has a poor record of getting it right. Stephen Moore’s confirmation to the Federal Reserve Board would bring another round of much-needed change to Washington.

SOURCE 

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Trump administration moves to stop 'dark' regulations from federal agencies

The Trump administration will take action Thursday to crack down on federal agencies’ ability to issue rules, memos and other documents that can have a binding regulatory effect without ever being reviewed by Congress.

Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russell Vought is issuing new guidance to all agencies on complying with the Congressional Review Act, a 1996 law that requires “major” rules be submitted to Congress at least 60 days before they take effect.

A senior administration official told The Washington Times that the Trump administration has found, with Government Accountability Office reports, that “agencies sometimes under-comply with CRA.”

“We decided that some additional guidance from OMB is necessary to the agencies to help them comply with the law,” the official said in an exclusive interview. “Many agencies often don’t know how the CRA works. Agencies often don’t even know to ask.”

While the administration isn’t characterizing the move as a broadening of the CRA, the official said the action “will result in additional items being sent to the Hill.”

OMB’s action will replace guidance for a 1999 Clinton-era executive order that the official described as the “cornerstone of OMB review” standards. The official said the new action will “create a uniform set of procedures” by having OMB review all major rule determinations, even those from independent agencies.

OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has authority for the review of executive branch regulations and other proposals.

The CRA gives lawmakers the ability to reject proposed rules, which can cover anything from classifying independent contractors as employees to offering discounts on auto loans. The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. has referred to such actions, often issued as bulletins or memos, as “regulatory dark matter” because they require compliance without ever having been subject to a period of public comment and review.

“When you’re a regulated party, if an agency is telling you ‘This is how I intend to enforce this rule,’ you’re going to treat it pretty much as binding,” said another administration official. “It often does impose very significant obligations.”

During the first 60 days of the Trump administration, congressional Republicans used the CRA to undo 14 of the Obama administration’s last-minute regulations, many involving new workplace burdens on employers.

In addition to proposed rules subject to “notice and comment,” the senior official said, “there are other regulatory actions and guidance documents that also fit within the definition of the scope of the Congressional Review Act.”

“This memo will make clear that those items also must go up to the Hill,” the official said.

The GAO reported in 2008 and 2009 that federal agencies had failed to submit more than 1,000 rules to Congress.

Heritage Foundation analyst Paul Larkin said federal agencies cannot say they weren’t warned about complying with the CRA.

“Federal agencies cannot demand that the public comply with the law, including agency rules, if the agencies are free to disregard the law and their own rules,” Mr. Larkin said.

He added that under the CRA, agency “rules” that have not been submitted to Congress as required are not “in effect” and therefore are null and void.

“Agencies therefore have an incentive to comply with the CRA so that their rules can have legal effect,” he said.

SOURCE 

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The Republican Never Trumpers after Mueller

For much of the past two years, this constellation of Republican lawmakers, conservative pundits and policy wonks, and GOP operatives had hoped Mueller would help rid them of, as they saw him, the crude political rube who had hijacked their beloved Grand Old Party. Some campaigned loudly for Trump’s demise, on Twitter and cable news. Others, however, operated mostly in the shadows. Like dissidents in an authoritarian country, they held secret meetings in a conference room of a little-known Washington think tank called the Niskanen Center. About once a month, they shared private polling data on Trump, passed along the names of political activists around the country who opposed the president and, perhaps most important, discussed potential primary challengers who could lead the “Dump Trump” movement.

Just weeks before the Mueller news, a group of lobbyists, congressional aides and policy experts from conservative think tanks spent an entire session talking about how to sell free trade and fiscal restraint to voters in the age of Trump. Now, these Republicans face a reinvigorated and vengeful standard-bearer, fully embraced by a party establishment no longer encumbered by the looming threat of a criminal indictment from Mueller. “The cloud hanging over President Trump has been removed,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham.

Publicly, the Never Trumpers say their unlikely cause endures. “This was never about Mueller or the Russia investigation,” says Rick Wilson, the Florida-based Republican operative and author of Everything Trump Touches Dies. “It’s about his unfitness for office.” “He’s incompetent and really bad for the party,” says Mike Murphy, the veteran GOP strategist, “and he’ll hand the country over to a party that’s going full socialist.”

“We need to see the Mueller report,” conservative commentator Bill Kristol wrote on Twitter, echoing Democrats on Capitol Hill. The evidence “will confirm he ought not be re-elected.”

But privately, members of this group acknowledge the dream is dying, if not already dead, with the herculean task of bringing down an incumbent president from inside the party now infinitely harder, if not impossible. Yes, a bevy of other investigations in state and federal prosecutors’ offices, as well as in Congress, are proceeding on everything from hush money payments to money laundering to illegal donations, and Mueller’s confidential report—Barr has vowed to release a public version in the coming weeks—may yet contain damaging details about Trump’s conduct.

But for the moment, it seems the single, largest bullet is gone. After nearly two years of Russia-gate frenzy and impeachment talk, Democratic leaders are moving on, attempting to pivot to health care and other kitchen-table issues. And Trump and the GOP are now the ones on the offensive, with the president pledging to investigate the “treasonous” people behind the Mueller “witch hunt.” A Reuters/Ipsos poll found Trump’s job approval jumping 4 points, to 43 percent, in the wake of the findings.

Some Never Trumpers asked for anonymity to speak freely post-Mueller, an acknowledgment of the changing political currents and Trump’s new lease on life. “I’m not going to deny that this is a win for Trump, a big win. And it makes our job harder,” said one leading Never Trumper. “He’ll get a bounce from this. The question is: Will he piss it away by being Trump?”

Dumping Trump has always been a quixotic effort. Throughout his tumultuous presidency, he has remained overwhelmingly popular among registered Republicans. His approval rating among party members is 84 percent, according to a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll.

GOP critics, like former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, soon found their own campaigns foundering when they questioned the president, his positions or his appointees. “This is very much the president’s party,” Flake, who decided not to run for re-election to Congress last year, told The Hill. “When you look at the base and look at those who vote in Republican primaries, I think that is clear.”

But while much of the rank and file who supported others in the 2016 primaries got over their shock—winning the general election tends to heal a lot of political wounds—a significant minority didn’t, haunted by the image of Trump accepting the Republican nomination to the sounds of the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

SOURCE 

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Leftists never change

I came across the following report from 2003.  It could have been written yesterday.  The Left never can handle reality

Last year, at the ancient Valhalla Cinema in Glebe, the veteran documentary-maker David Bradbury premiered his latest film, Fond Memories of Cuba - and got more than he bargained for.

It was a Friday night. The theatre was full. Bradbury was there to answer questions afterwards. He's a '70s lefty but he witnessed, during several visits to Cuba, the gradual failure of the revolution which has been controlled by the same dictator for more than 40 years. The documentary concludes with the aggressive breaking up of a pro-democracy demonstration by police.

As the credits rolled, the insults flew. "Shame!" cried one woman as Bradbury walked on stage. "Bullshit!" shouted someone else amid other catcalls. A lively colloquium followed in which Bradbury had to defend his progressive credentials from attack by hard left throw-backs who can always rationalise away why the "people" don't need free elections.

Warning: never stand between inconvenient facts and utopian ideals. And never, ever, underestimate the power of preconceptions. Especially during the heightened reality of wartime.

SOURCE 

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

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

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