Saturday, March 25, 2017

op ed review 4/26



THIS WEEK’S NEWS
In First 2 Months in Office: Trump Reduced Debt by $100 Billion
After years of stalling under President Obama, President Trump on Friday approved the Keystone XL pipeline, and the company looking to build the massive pipeline project has received its permit to finish it.
Trump: We’ll Have the Biggest Tax Cut Since Reagan, ‘Probably Bigger than Reagan’
The Trump administration wants to build a 30-foot-high border wall that looks good from the north side and is difficult to climb or cut through.
NASA to focus on space exploration instead of global warming: President Trump put NASA on course for deep space exploration signing a bill that authorizes $19.5 billion in funding to revive the agency’s manned-space flight program and plan missions to Mars and beyond.

Obamacare repeal dies for lack of enough Republican votes.  Democrats cheering.
Flashback:  Republicans voted 60 times to repeal or alter Obamacare when they knew it wouldn’t go anywhere because Obama was president and could veto their bills.
What to think about this?  Two opposing views:  (1) “The Freedom Caucus is often unreasonable, but its opposition to Ryancare was totally sane”
(2) “GOP cave on Obamacare repeal is the biggest broken promise in political history…..Failing to get the votes on one particular bill is one thing. But failing and then walking away on seven years of promises is a pathetic abdication of duty.”

Fake News: AP Touts Anti-Trump Poll with Warped Demographics Conducted by Soros-Backed Org
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 50% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty percent (50%) disapprove. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/prez_track_mar21

Republican congressional investigators expect a potential “smoking gun” establishing that the Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the president-elect himself.

Oops! CNN accidentally confirms story that Brit intel passed along Trump communications to Obama admin.
Former CIA officer confirms the story that Judge Napolitano told about British intelligence passing along surveillance data on Trump.

Hypocrisy:  Was there anyone more pious, anyone more inclined to stroke his chin and intone for guarding national security than Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta? Turns out the wily Democratic operative was neck-deep with the Russians he intoned against all along, through a Russian-financed company called Joule.
And his brother’s lobbying firm received $180,000 from the Russian government’s uranium company to which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton transferred 20% of U.S. uranium reserves.
A number of top Democratic lobbyist bundlers, who together pulled in millions of dollars for Hillary Clinton´s presidential campaign and donated generously to Democratic leaders, personally represent or work at firms that have represented Russian interests in recent years

Key Democratic Officials Now Warning Base Not to Expect Evidence of Trump/Russia Collusion

Nebraska Democrats welcome refugees with diapers, kitchen utensils, and voter registration forms.
In 24 States, 50% or More of Babies Are Born on Medicaid; New Mexico Leads Nation With 72%, Washington State at 49%.
Three California Democrat lawmakers have a warning for contractors who sign up for President Trump’s border-wall construction project: Don’t participate, or else!

In an attempt to increase pressure on sanctuary cities, the Department of Homeland Security has published its first weekly list of all 118 localities refusing to cooperate with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

?? Several Senate Democrats were unified in deriding originalism as a judicial philosophy during Monday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to Supreme Court justiceship Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), ranking Democrat of the committee, described originalism as a "very troubling” jurisprudential approach.

Tip of the iceberg?  A 39 year-old transgender who was born male, won her first international women’s weightlifting title, breaking four national records in the process.

Contrary to news reports last week, President Trump is not eliminating funding for Meals on Wheels. He´s not even cutting it. How do we know this? Meals on Wheels says so.

Howard Schultz, the very liberal CEO of Starbucks, will step down from his role at the coffee chain next month. This comes following the collapsing brand image as a direct result of Schultz’s political virtue signaling to hire 10,000 refugees and avoid hiring Americans.
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COLUMN OF THE WEEK
Pat Buchanan  3/24
Devin Nunes just set the cat down among the pigeons. Two days after FBI Director James Comey assured us there was no truth to President Trump's tweet about being wiretapped by Barack Obama, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Trump may have had more than just a small point.

The U.S. intelligence community, says Nunes, during surveillance of legitimate targets, picked up the names of Trump transition officials during surveillance of targets, "unmasked" their identity, and spread their names around, virtually assuring they would be leaked. If true, this has the look and smell of a conspiracy to sabotage the Trump presidency, before it began.

Comey readily confirmed there was no evidence to back up the Trump tweet. But when it came to electronic surveillance of Trump and his campaign, Comey, somehow, could not comment on that. Which raises the question: What is the real scandal here?.....

The real scandal, which the media regard as a diversion from the primary target, Trump, is that a Deep State conspiracy to bring down his presidency seems to have been put in place by Obamaites, and perhaps approved by Obama himself. Consider. On Jan. 12, David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote, "According to a senior U.S. government official, (Gen. Michael) Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials ... What did Flynn say?"  Now, on Dec. 29, Flynn, national security adviser-designate, was not only doing his job calling the ambassador, he was a private citizen. Why was he unmasked by U.S. intelligence?

Who is this "senior official" who dropped the dime on him? Could this official have known how many times Flynn spoke to Kislyak, yet not known what was said on the calls? That is hard to believe. This looks like a contract hit by an anti-Trump agent in the intel community, using Ignatius to do the wet work. Flynn was taken down. Did Comey turn his FBI loose to ferret out the felon who had unmasked Flynn and done him in? If not, why not?

In today's Wall Street Journal, Dan Henninger points anew to a story in The New York Times of March 1 that began: "In the Obama administration's last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information (across the government) about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election -- and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Trump and Russians…..At intelligence agencies, there was a push to process as much raw intelligence as possible into analyses, and to keep the reports at a relatively low classification level to ensure as wide a readership as possible across the government -- and, in some cases, among European allies."

For what benign purpose would U.S. intelligence agents spread secrets damaging to their own president -- to foreign regimes? Is this not disloyalty? Is this not sedition?

On Jan. 12, writes Henninger, the Times "reported that Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed rules that let the National Security Agency disseminate 'raw signals intelligence information' to 16 other intelligence agencies."

Astounding. The Obamaites seeded the U.S. and allied intel communities with IEDs to be detonated on Trump's arrival. This is the scandal, not Trump telling Vlad to go find Hillary's 30,000 missing emails. We need to know who colluded with the Russians, if anyone did. But more critically, we need to unearth the deep state conspiracy to sabotage a presidency.

So far, the Russia-connection investigation has proven a dry hole. But an investigation into who in the FBI, CIA or NSA is unmasking U.S. citizens and criminally leaking information to a Trump-hating press to destroy a president they are sworn to serve could prove to be a gusher.

As for the reports of Lynch-White House involvement in this unfolding plot to damage and destroy Trump the real question is: What did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?


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OTHER COLUMNS
“This is what the Left means when it talks about the ‘fundamental transformation’ of America, using massive flows of immigration to change America the way Europe is being changed. The Left rejects the idea of American exceptionalism. It rejects assimilation, the idea behind e pluribus unum: out of many, one. That is why the Left is increasingly outraged by displays of patriotism. Earlier this month, an Iowa high school apologized after students at a basketball game showed up wearing red, white and blue. Are you kidding me?! American kids showing pride in their country should not be offensive. What is offensive is that a young girl within a short drive of the White House was raped in a school restroom by thugs who shouldn’t have been in the country. By the way, if immigration agents had caught up with [Henry] Sanchez-Milian [one of the perpetrators] and raided the apartment or home where he was living prior to last week’s attack, he would have been presented on the evening news as a victim, another ‘dreamer’ whose dreams were cut short by Donald Trump. It seems to me that we should be devoting more effort to figuring who is dreaming of helping America and who is dreaming about assaulting our daughters.”
              -Gary Bauer

“If you want a good world, the death of Judeo-Christian values should frighten you.”
              -Dennis Prager
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BOOKS
“Reagan Rising” by Craig Shirley fascinatingly charts Ronald Reagan's rise from the defeat of the 1976 presidential campaign to his victory in 1980.  This book allows people to gain new insights into how Ronald Reagan grew as a candidate and leader as he championed the individual and appealed across party lines.  But readers can also see many similarities between the rise of Ronald Reagan and the election of Donald Trump.

LEFTIST WATCH
New ‘Safe Space’ Guidelines at University of Arizona Treat Students Like Preschoolers

The Socialist senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, set off a Twitterstorm yesterday with a tweet that was hard to believe….A man who owns three houses -- including the recent purchase of a vacation home for $600K -- and pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes than most middle class Americans, should not be taking a dump on America in a glass house.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) tells Trump to ´get ready for impeachment´
Media outlets promote 78 year old Rep. Maxine Waters as the new Democratic leader for millennials to rally behind.

A network of some of the nation’s wealthiest Democratic donors is weighing providing money and support to several of the new activist groups that have cropped up since Election Day to challenge President Trump. The alliance, aligned with billionaire financier George Soros, also is weighing building a pool of money that can be deployed for “rapid response” work by other liberal groups on an array of issues.
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ARTICLES
“Newspapers in my state reported a particularly sadistic murder.  The victim was shot, strangled, beaten with a hammer, stabbed, punched, and set on fire.  The killers were thorough and then some. If you look at how reading is taught in the U.S., you will think of this execution.  Children are taught stupidly and then some.  Every technique that will make reading difficult and unpleasant is employed…..”
Next time you hear about students attacking a conservative speaker, check the school´s tuition costs. Odds are you´ll find that they are attending an elite college that caters to the rich. Money can´t buy love, but it can, apparently, teach intolerance.

Tim Allen says that living in Hollywood right now is akin to Nazi Germany “You gotta be real careful around here,” Allen noted. “You get beat up if you don’t believe what everybody else believes. This is like ’30s Germany.” Allen, 63, plays an outspoken conservative on the sitcom “Last Man Standing” and is one of the few actors in Hollywood to profess having right-wing leanings.

Crowdsourcing border security:  Citizens can sign up as Virtual Texas Deputies to participate in border surveillance through this social network. Virtual Texas Deputies from around the country will monitor the streaming video from these cameras 24/7 and report any suspicious activities directly to the Border Sheriffs via email. All emails regarding suspicious activity will be submitted anonymously.
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WISE WORDS
“[T]he true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers.”
         -Thomas Jefferson

Saturday, March 18, 2017

op ed review 3/19



THIS WEEK’S NEWS
Biggest Untold Story Under Trump: The Surge In Optimism After 8 Years Of  'Hope-n-Change'

President Trump’s budget proposal this week would shake the federal government to its core if enacted, culling back numerous programs and expediting a historic contraction of the federal workforce. This would be the first time the government has executed cuts of this magnitude — and all at once — since the drawdown following World War II.
They may need to hear from you. Less than two months in, Republicans have emerged as one of the biggest obstacles to Trump's young administration, imperiling his early efforts to pass his agenda and make good on some of his biggest campaign promises.

President Donald Trump’s budget director told reporters Thursday the White House was no longer spending money on climate change research because it’s a “waste of your money.”
President Trump Tells T-Rex:   Cut U.N. Funding by 50%…
President Trump proposes to zero out funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PBS)?  Liberals howl, but even this CPB board member says it’s time, in the Washington Post no less: “Public broadcasting shouldn’t get a handout from taxpayers anymore”

Judge Napolitano says that British Intelligence provided Obama admin with surveillance data on Trump Tower phone conversations. "Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command," Napolitano said. "He didn't use the NSA, he didn't use the CIA, he didn't use the FBI, and he didn't use the Department of Justice." Instead, Napolitano said, Obama used GCHQ, a British intelligence and security organization that has 24-7 access to the NSA database. "There's no American fingerprints on this," Napolitano said. "What happened to the guy who ordered this? Resigned three days after Donald Trump was inaugurated."

Obama moles told to do as much damage as possible before they leave White House staff.
The Obama administration in its final year in office spent a record $36.2 million on legal costs defending its refusal to turn over federal records under the Freedom of Information Act,
President Trump´s budget director says the Obama administration was "manipulating" jobs data  to make the unemployment rate "look smaller than it actually was."

A group of leading senators is calling on newly installed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to immediately launch an investigation into efforts by the OBAMA administration to sway foreign elections by sending taxpayer funds to "extreme and sometimes violent political activists" that promote leftist causes.

The U.S. Justice Department is developing plans to temporarily reassign immigration judges from around the country to 12 cities to speed up deportations of illegal immigrants who have been charged with crime

The Internal Revenue Service granted an "After School Satan Club" their tax exempt status. The approval process took only 10 days. The satanic club was started by a Mass. based non-profit organization that operates the Satanic Temple of Seattle. The director founded the club at Point Defiance Elementary in Tacoma, Wash. The Point Defiance Elementary Satanic club is run by adults that have been cleared by the "Executive Ministry" of the Seattle Satanic Temple.

In one of the most ruthless opinions issued of fellow panel judges, five judges from across the political spectrum in the Ninth Circuit went out of their way to remind everybody just how embarrassingly bad the prior Ninth Circuit stay panel decision was on Trump’s travel ban.

The main plaintiff in the Hawaii case blocking President Trump’s revised temporary travel ban is an Imam with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Nearly 500 jurisdictions are now sanctuary cities, according to a group that’s tracked the issue for more than a decade, and who said there’s been a massive surge in the number of places trying to thwart federal immigration agents since President Trump’s election.
New App for Illegal Aliens Enables Them to Call for Help When Caught

NYT Eats Crow After Trump Tax Return Proves Major Story Wrong, “undermined the left´s speculation that he was a tax dodge.”
Trump paid higher tax rate (25%) than MSNBC COMCAST (24%), Obama (19%), Bernie Sanders (13%)
Actually it was much higher than 25%.  If ABC analyzed Trump’s return the same way as Obama’s, reporters would have taken Trump’s “taxes paid” and divided it by “Adjusted Gross Income.” This would have yielded an effective tax rate of 79 percent.

Donald Trump owes his presidency to then-campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, claims White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon. Bannon believes Conway’s “relentless advocacy” for Trump after the infamous “Access Hollywood” scandal before last November’s general election carried the now-president over the finish line.

Students Denounced As Racist For Wearing US Flag Colors
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COLUMN OF THE WEEK
“More Reagan than Reagan?: Donald Trump follows through on one of Ronald Reagan's failed promises”  3/16

President Donald Trump made good on a long-time conservative goal in his first proposed budget Thursday morning, targeting the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities for complete elimination.
Trump’s budget would zero out the $445 million budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a relatively small source of funding for programming and broadcast operations on public TV stations and NPR radio stations nationwide, per the Washington Post.

The budget would also eliminate the budgets for both national endowments, which stood at $148 million each in 2016, as well as $230 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which supports libraries and museums. Additional cuts would affect two tourist mainstays in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art.  One can practically hear the liberal shrieking from across the ocean. President Trump hasn't even been in office for 60 days and he's already proven to be better than the most lionized conservative president the Republicans have ever had.

It should be informative to see which Congressional Republicans cuck on this, just as they've tried to cuck on Obamacare. It is becoming increasingly clear that they never actually intended to do anything they promised since 1980. It is also becoming obvious that anything is on the table. He may well abolish the Department of Education too.

It's amusing to see the opposition media ping-pong from complaining about how the Wall will cost too much with claiming that $971 million is just a tiny drop in the bucket so there is no reason to cut it. But that's $971 million more that can go towards the Wall and making America great again.

Now let's see him eliminate Hollywood's tax exemptions, as Glenn Reynolds has repeatedly suggested.
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OTHER COLUMNS
“President Trump’s assertion that his phones at Trump Tower were tapped last year has been treated as hilarious — and in some circles as beyond contempt. But I can vouch for the fact that extracurricular surveillance does occur, regardless of whether it is officially approved. I was wiretapped in 2011 after taking a phone call in my congressional office from a foreign leader.”
           -former Democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich

“I think there’s a difference between not supporting an order on policy grounds and finding it unconstitutional. I do not think [Trump’s travel ban is] unconstitutional. I do think the Supreme Court will uphold it even if [Neil] Gorsuch is not yet on the Supreme Court.”
           -Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz
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LEFTIST WATCH
Harvard going Orwell, protecting students from conservative websites
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GLOBALONEY
Global Warming In One Easy Lesson   Richard Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT. MIT’s web site suggests his scientific eminence. “Calls to limit carbon dioxide emissions are even less persuasive today than 25 years ago. Future research should focus on dispassionate, high-quality climate science, not on efforts to prop up an increasingly frayed narrative of “carbon pollution.” Until scientific research is unfettered from the constraints of the policy-driven UNFCCC, the research community will fail in its obligation to the public that pays the bills.”
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ARTICLES
Conrad Black:  The ignominious collapse of the Democratic claims and insinuations that Donald Trump was improperly connected to the Russian government has de-escalated the Democrats’ campaign against the president — from a frenzied assault seeking impeachment and removal for a cause to be named later, to guerrilla war. Russian collusion has vanished down the same deep hole as the charges of sexism, racism, and a will to autocracy.

Legal analysis:  Losing is Contagious: Inconsistent Conservatism Leads to Crushing Consistency on Courts

“I Had Dinner With the Afghan Ambassador.  What He Said About the Differences Between Trump, Obama Is Stunning”

Newt:   ObamaCare repeal bill Republicans presented this week is an important, first step toward achieving a next generation health care system in America.
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WISE WORDS
“One single object … [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.”
                 -Thomas Jefferson