Alan Krueger, Economic Advisor To Clinton And Obama, Dead From Suicide

Update: There was some confusion earlier as to what the cause of death was to take someone as young as Krueger. We now know the sad answer: suicide. This was revealed in the statement published later on Monday from his family.

“It is with tremendous sadness we share that Professor Alan B. Krueger, beloved husband, father, son, brother, and Princeton professor of economics took his own life over the weekend,” a statement from his family reads. “The family requests the time and space to grieve and remember him. In lieu of flowers, we encourage those wishing to honor Alan to make a contribution to the charity of their choice.”

His passing was initially announced Monday by Princeton, which praised him as “a true leader in his field, known and admired for both his research and teaching.”

Krueger was chief economist at the Department of Labor under President Clinton from 1994 to 1995, and chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama from 2011 to 2013.

* * *

Alan Krueger, a regular fixture on financial TV and prominent labor market economist who was James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton, as well as a respected economist under both the Obama and Clinton administrations, passed away over the weekend at the age of 58. “Alan was recognized as a true leader in his field, known and admired for both his research and teaching”, Princeton University wrote this morning.

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More from the brief Princeton obit published this morning:

In addition to his scholarship, Alan’s life exemplified a commitment to public service.  His contributions to the nation included serving as President Clinton’s Chief Economist at the Department of Labor, and as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama.

A valued member of the Princeton University community for over three decades, Alan will be deeply missed by his students and colleagues.  The University asks that the privacy of the Krueger family be respected at this difficult time.

Information regarding a public celebration of Professor Krueger’s life and legacy will be released at a future date.

In addition to his extensive academic track record, Krueger was an assistant secretary of the Treasury from 2009 to 2010 during Barack Obama’s administration. Later, he was the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the early days of the economic recovery, from 2011 to 2013, according to the NYT.

From 1994 to 1995, he was the Labor Department’s chief economist under President Bill Clinton.

Krueger, a labor economist by training, was known for his early work finding that the minimum wage did not reduce employment among low-wage workers. More recently, he studied the role of the opioids epidemic in reducing employment among men. He also studied less serious topics, including the rising price of concert tickets.

Will the FAA Do to Boeing What the SEC and NY Fed Did to Wall Street

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall St On Parade: A crony Federal regulator, or one perceived to be captured by the industry it polices, will eventually doom consumer confidence in the products and services of the industry to which it provides oversight. President Obama appointed Mary Jo White to serve as his Securities and […]

The post Will the FAA Do to Boeing What the SEC and NY Fed Did to Wall Street appeared first on SGT Report.

David Horowitz Exposes the Left’s Dark Agenda

David Horowitz Exposes the Left's Dark Agenda

Source: Richard Kirk

Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America, by David Horowitz, Humanix Books, March 5, 2019 (224 pages, $17.70, Hardcover)

David Horowitz has always been a writer whose work I’ve appreciated since his compelling political biography, Radical Son, which related the author’s break from his communist upbringing after Black Panther associates murdered his bookkeeper friend Betty Van Patter.  But brevity and crisp linkage of multiple intellectual threads were never characteristic of Horowitz’s brilliant, often voluminous, exposés of leftist thought and practice.  By contrast, Dark Agenda is a concise, chilling book brimming with evidence that links numerous cultural depredations to one overriding theme:  The left’s attack on Christian America’s founding in the name of “cultural Marxism.”

“Christian America” is the novel component in Horowitz’s analysis, a term that acknowledges the historical fact that America, at its founding, was 98 percent Protestant.  Protestantism, in turn, was intimately linked to the doctrine of “the priesthood of all believers” and to the more broadly Christian idea that all people are created by God.  In view of these beliefs and the fact that Protestant groups were living side by side, it followed that in America there would be no institutional or governmental mediator between the individual and God.  It also meant that each individual’s rights were endowed solely by their Creator and that freedom of conscience and speech would be hallmarks of the new republic.

“Cultural Marxism,” by contrast, represents the application of its “oppressor versus oppressed” vision of society to various victim groups:  blacks, “people of color,” women, native Americans, homosexuals, transsexuals, and any other group claiming victimhood.  For Marxists what stands between these oppressed groups and a world in which “social justice” and equality is fully realized are the oppressors, those who supposedly establish the laws and mores that keep them in power.  Thus, failure or success isn’t the result of individual choices but the inevitable outcome of a system designed to unfairly help one group (white, Christian, males) and harm the others.  Accordingly, what matters politically is destroying the patriarchal Christian system itself with its emphasis on individual moral and economic choices and replacing it with a group-focused system that, in my own words, oppresses the oppressors.  Put quite simply, “Christian doctrines were foundational to the American Republic, which the left despises.”

After reading the last two paragraphs, one might think Dark Agenda is highly philosophical and abstract.  This impression couldn’t be further from the truth, as these core ideas are given clear expression and development via an array of examples, many of which are doubtless unknown to even the most politically-astute readers.  Who knew, for example, that the $621 million U.S. Capitol Visitor Center that opened in 2008 “is less a monument to the nation’s founding and institutions than it is to the antireligious left’s vision for America.  When it opened, all references to God and faith had been carefully, deliberately edited out of its photos and historical displays.”  For example, the national motto was said to be “E Pluribus Unum” when, in fact, it is “In God We Trust.”  Among other historical travesties, a large “image of the Constitution was photoshopped to remove the worlds ‘in the Year of our Lord’ above the signatures of the signers.” Similarly, the “table on which President Lincoln placed his Bible during his second inauguration is on display — just the table, not the Bible.”

These examples are picayune compared to the spiteful governmental coercion that’s been employed to force The Little Sisters of the Poor, among others, to violate their consciences thanks to Obamacare abortion provisions.  The Supreme Court has been the giant secular lever employed by leftists to fundamentally transform “Christian America” into a state hostile even to a school-girl who joined hands with classmates to give thanks for her food. These politically-motivated  “lawyers,” as Horowitz contemptuously labels the high court, began their anti-Christian, anti-Constitutional mission with the expulsion of prayer from public schools in 1962 (Engel v. Vitale).  That assault on the free exercise of religion now extends beyond commencement ceremonies and football fields to a bakery that was  embroiled in legal battles for years for refusing to provide a celebratory cake for a gay ceremony billed as a wedding — a “crime” made possible by Court rulings against the Defense of Marriage Act and in favor of redefining marriage.

The case of Roe v. Wade (1972), which awakened religious conservatives to the fundamental attack on Christian America, is cogently dissected in Dark Agenda, both from a constitutional perspective as well as through the eyes of Norma McCorvey, the anonymous “Jane Roe” who was intentionally deceived and reduced to a legal prop to secure the Supreme Court’s “right to privacy” abortion ruling.  (As Horowitz notes, in Marxist thought it’s the grand arc of history and oppressed groups that matter, not mere individuals.)  That ruling officially brought about the cultural civil war that for the anti-Christian left involves not simply a virulent hatred of President Trump but also hatred directed toward his supporters who are regularly vilified as Nazis, sexists, racists, homophobes, and “deplorables” who are rightly denied freedom of speech and conscience.  Trump’s Oval Office predecessor did his best to stoke these emotions as Horowitz’s litany of anti-Christian comments and actions by President Obama illustrate — from avoiding religious references during a traditional Thanksgiving ceremony to pursuit of a foreign policy that led to the annihilation of the ancient Christian community in Syria.

Among the sidebars accompanying Horowitz’s central narrative are insights into the abusive and mendacious character of atheist Madelyn Murray.  For example, in 1960 Murray “set out with her two sons . . . intending to renounce her American citizenship and defect to the Soviet Union.” Her repeated attempts at emigration were rebuffed by the Soviets who were probably aware of her emotional instability and violent outbursts.  Murray’s revolutionary predecessor, Margaret Sanger, was also a communist sympathizer and racist.  A 1930 article in The New Yorker about Ms. Sanger noted that her monthly newspaper, Woman Rebel, “mixed its birth-control propaganda with a good deal of red-flag-waving, and perorations of the ‘Workers of the World, Arise!’ variety.” The author also observed that she “composed an editorial declaring: ‘Even if dynamite were to serve no other purpose than to call forth the spirit of revolutionary solidarity and loyalty, it would prove its great value.’”

Horowitz ends Dark Agenda with this chilling paragraph reminiscent of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: “A nation divided by such fundamental ideas — individual freedom on one side and group identity on the other — cannot long endure, any more than could a nation that was half slave and half free.  The urgency that drew the religious right into politics fifty years ago is now an urgency of the nation itself.”  Even individuals well aware of the cultural Civil War that now rages in America would do well do arm themselves with the insights in this book — insights that both explain the ideological  roots of the conflict and document a host of grievous wounds that “Christian America” has already suffered.  Horowitz, an honest agnostic, is doing his best to prevent those wounds from becoming mortal.

WOW! Ilhan Omar Attempts To Backtrack On Her Comments Attacking Obama – Accidentally Doubles Down!

Ilhan Omar has stepped in it again. This time, she attacked former President Obama.

Ilhan Omar: Obama’s a ‘pretty face’ who got ‘away with murder’

But Omar insists that she didn’t say that, and released an audio recording of her interview.

Exhibit A of how reporters distort words.

I’m an Obama fan! I was saying how Trump is different from Obama, and why we should focus on policy not politics.

Uh huh. Meanwhile…

The audio she put up 100% confirms the quote and makes it worse.

It’s clear from the audio, she’s not only talking about Obama, who she references by name in the conversation, but she was also speaking more broadly about ALL Democrats!

Transcript of Ilhan’s recording:

OMAR: We think of ourselves as Democrats, but many of the ways that our democratic leaders have conducted themselves within the system is not one that we’re all proud of.

I will talk about the family separation or caging of kids, and people will point out that was Obama. Or I’ll say something about the droning of countries around the world and people will say that was Obama.

And all of that is very true.

What is happening now is very different because a lot of it is happening with secrecy. It’s happening with the feel-good, polished way of talking about it.

And when we talk about waking people up from complacency, it’s to say, we can’t only be upset with Trump, because he’s not a politician who sells us his policies in a most perfect way. His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies, they just were more polished than he was. And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile….

She’s not only talking about Obama, she’s talking about ALL past Democrat leaders.

“many of the ways that our democratic leaders have conducted themselves within the system is not one that we’re all proud of”

Hell! Will you look at that?! We 100% agree with Ilhan Omar!

From the KKK to Eugenics to ANTIFA to OMAR, the left is a cesspit of bigotry and disappointment.

Russiagate Grand Wizard Deceives Audience About Assange

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

When it was first revealed in November that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is under secret charges by the Trump administration, I spent the next few days being told by Russiagaters that this was proof that I have been wrong about their demented cold war cult all along, because #MuellerTime is fast approaching. At long last, they vehemently assured me, Assange was going to prison for working with Russia to deprive Queen Hillary of her rightful throne.

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None of those people have come back to apologize or admit that they were wrong when subsequent evidence disproved their claims. None of them ever do.

As it turns out, whistleblower Chelsea Manning has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in a secret case investigating Assange for his 2010 role in the WikiLeaks publication of military war logs and diplomatic cables. Manning served seven years in prison for leaking those documents to the transparency advocacy outlet before her sentence was commuted by President Obama, meaning, obviously, that this sealed case has nothing to do with the 2016 leaks Russiagaters have been fiendishly obsessing over. Indeed, the Washington Post reported yesterday that “U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy, say the case is based on [Assange’s] pre-2016 conduct, not the election hacks that drew the attention of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.”

So there you have it. Democrats like Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden who have been cheering for Assange’s arrest have actually been cheering on the Trump administration’s prosecution of a journalist for publishing facts about Bush administration war crimes. They thought they were supporting the agenda to punish Assange for publishing leaks that hurt the Hillary campaign, but in reality they were defending two Republican administrations while helping to manufacture support for a prosecution that would set a devastating precedent for press freedoms throughout the entire world.

If you are unfamiliar with the work of Russiagate Grand Wizard Rachel Maddow, you might think she would report the revelation that an unfounded belief held by many of her acolytes has been completely and thoroughly disproven once and for all. If you are a bit more familiar with her, you might assume that she would completely ignore this revelation like she normally does when her conspiratorial ramblings are disproven by facts and evidence. But if you know Rachel really, really well, you might guess what she actually did on her show last night.

That’s right, she flat out lied about it.

On last night’s episode of MSNBC’s most popular show, Maddow blatantly deceived her audience by weaving this story about the Chelsea Manning subpoena into her conspiratorial Russiagate ramblings about Roger Stone, despite those stories having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with one another.

Maddow began by gushing about investigations into Roger Stone’s alleged connections to WikiLeaks, of course not mentioning the fact that the only known interactions between Stone and WikiLeaks consist of WikiLeaks telling Stone to stop lying about having connections to them. Maddow smoothly weaved this into the news that the House Judiciary Committee has formally requested documents pertaining to WikiLeaks (among many other things) from dozens of Trump associates, with a gigantic grin on her face and a tone of immense significance in her voice. Then, without pausing, Maddow began talking about the sealed case against Assange and the Manning subpoena, falsely suggesting that these had something to do with the things she’d just been speaking about.

“And because of the criminal case against Roger Stone, you should also know that today, in federal court in Virginia, little bit of drama,” Maddow said.

“Today in federal court in Virginia, the US attorney himself, the top of that prosecutor’s office, the EDVA US attorney himself, personally turned up in court for a sealed hearing today that appears to be about some sort of legal case potentially involving WikiLeaks and/or Julian Assange.”

Maddow then went on to describe November’s revelation via court filing error about Assange’s sealed criminal complaint with her trademarked conspiratorial “you can’t tell me this is a coincidence” histrionics. She then cited a Daily Beast report that former WikiLeaks volunteer David House had accepted an immunity deal in exchange for his testimony before this grand jury, completely omitting the fact that the report explicitly states that this testimony pertained to the 2010 leak drop and not anything to do with 2016.

“Late Thursday, Manning revealed that she’s fighting a subpoena to testify before a grand jury that’s been investigating Julian Assange for nearly nine years,” the Daily Beast article reads in its second paragraph.

“But Manning isn’t the only one being dragged into the aging probe of WikiLeaks’ first big haul. A former WikiLeaks volunteer who was also personal friends with Manning was subpoenaed last May.”

Maddow knew this, and willfully distorted it to fit her narrative.

“So, all of this to say between that court filing error in November, the reporting around that error that suggested that it was weird that he was in that case and it was a mistake but the information was true, and then what we saw today in Virginia, something appears to be happening in federal court that pertains to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. And this is happening as the president’s longtime advisor Roger Stone goes to trial for lying to Congress and witness tampering, allegedly, about his supposed communications with WikiLeaks during the campaign. It happens potentially as he’s going to jail for violating the gag order in that case. It happens as tons of people associated with the president and his campaign are being asked detailed questions by the Judiciary Committee about their interactions with WikiLeaks, including during the campaign, and it happens within a week of Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen testifying before Congress that the president, himself, was personally notified by phone in advance about WikiLeaks’ plans to dump stolen material that Russia hacked from the Democrats during the campaign.”

So she just plain lied. By suggesting that the Virginia grand jury has anything at all to do with Roger Stone’s walking clickbait shenanigans, the House Judiciary Committee’s investigations into possible Trump malfeasance, and Cohen’s testimony that Trump had advance knowledge of the (already publicly announced) upcoming WikiLeaks drops, Maddow knowingly deceived her tinfoil pussyhat-wearing audience into holding out hope that legal proceedings will soon be vindicating their cult.

Maddow then kicked it up into ultra-mega-Super-Saiyan-galaxy-brain Russiavaping by telling her audience not to Google any of the things she was telling them, because they’ll get computer viruses if they try.

“Now I will warn you,” Maddow said with a laugh, “if you are an interested news consumer who is interested in following this part of the story, I will warn you: just about everything that pertains to WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and Roger Stone is basically un-Googleable. All the online trash that relates to these characters, put your virus protection on. But something does appear to be happening there in federal court.”

Needless to say, this also is completely false. Google algorithms are slanted in favor of mainstream news media, not toward websites that will give you a “virus”, so the top results you get when you type in WikiLeaks or Assange’s name will always be news stories from conventional sites, many of which today refute Maddow’s claim that the Manning subpoena and grand jury have anything to do with the 2016 Trump campaign.

And of course, that’s the point. Narrative management is Rachel Maddow’s job, for which she is extremely well-compensated, and the more isolated she can keep her audience within a tight, narrow echo chamber, the better she can do that job. Rachel Maddow is nothing other than a cold war propagandist, rewarded like all her colleagues for promoting falsehoods to keep mainstream liberals supporting longstanding US government agendas against noncompliant nations while still letting them feel like rebels.

In today’s media landscape, powerful and opaque government agencies are scrutinized and criticized far, far less than a lone political prisoner in an embassy who revealed inconvenient facts about those agencies. The campaign to smear, silence and imprison Assange tells you all you need to know about the governments that WikiLeaks has exposed, and the mass media’s complicity in that campaign tells you all you need to know about them as well.

*  *  *

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Look What CNN Is Outraged Over Now

Recent Mainstream Media FAKE NEWS is Backfiring Huge on Anti-Trump Efforts

Source: Brian Joondeph

Big media have had plenty to be outraged over during the tough times they have been living through in the age of Trump the Terrible.  When the New York Times writes its version of the history of Western civilization, today will be at the epicenter of what the paper will describe as the dark ages.

The media are outraged over the silly, like how President Trump gets two scoops of ice cream or doesn’t have a pet dog in the White House.  They are also incensed over what they believe is serious, that Trump colluded with Putin to steal the election from Hillary Clinton, despite there being not one iota of evidence supporting their belief.  It’s much like believing that Elvis and Bigfoot are regularly splashing around with the Loch Ness Monster.

There is plenty the media could be outraged about but are not.

Where is the outrage over the Obama administration spying on its political opponent’s presidential campaign, then, when caught, using unverified opposition research to obtain a FISA warrant to cover its misdeeds?  Followed by finagling a special counsel appointment to put the blanket of investigational secrecy over its illegal and treasonous activities?  No outrage.

The media swallowed the Jussie Smollett hoax hook, line, and sinker, without scrutiny, investigation, or hesitation.  When it turned out to be not only a hoax, but also a preplanned and rehearsed drama, much like Smollett’s former TV show Empire, the media felt let down, but not outraged.  Now that Smollett has been arrested for his hoax, the media will slither away from this story as fast as they can.

What little indignation they have is directed toward “[t]he celebrity press and among activists and among Twitter people”, as explained by CNN’s own activist and Twitter person, Brian Stelter.  Oh no, it wasn’t us real journalists here at CNN and other major media outlets peddling the false Jussie Smollett story endlessly, and of course blaming President Trump; it was everyone else.  Nice try, but that won’t sell, since there is plenty of evidence, as Twitchy chronicled, of big media rushing to judgment.

There are plenty more examples of media outrage over false stories that the media dutifully presented only one side of as part of their agenda journalism.  These include the Duke lacrosse team; the University of Virginia rape case; “hands up, don’t shoot”; and the Justice Kavanaugh accusations — all discredited, but reported as undisputed gospel truth by the lazy and corrupt media.

There is no outrage over biased and malicious reporting, just the fake humility of acknowledging they were duped, again, then quickly moving on to the next outrage.  This is exactly why Rush Limbaugh calls them the “drive-by media”: they drive by a story, sputter fire and brimstone for a week or two, then quickly drive on after the story is debunked.

This week’s outrage is from CNN itself over the fact that the network hired someone who worked in the Trump administration.

Here is the apparent problem.

CNN says it is hiring Sarah Isgur Flores, who most recently served in the Justice Department as Jeff Sessions’ spokesman, to be a political editor in the Washington bureau. Flores is a longtime Republican political operative who previously worked for Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz and Mitt Romney.

CNN employees, led by one of their gadflies, Brian Stelter, are fit to be tied, “[q]uestioning whether her sudden leap from the Trump administration to the CNN newsroom is an ethical breach.”  Oh, the outrage of a “revolving door” between administrations and newsrooms.  And the family relationships between Democrat administrations and journalists.

How about these “ethical breaches”?

CNN’s senior vice president of newsgathering, Virginia Moseley, is married to Thomas R. Nides, who was a deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration.

ABC News reporter Matthew Jaffe is married to former Obama deputy press secretary Katie Hogan.

Obama’s national security adviser, Susan “Benghazi was caused by a YouTube video” Rice, is married to former ABC News executive producer Ian Cameron.

David Rhodes was president of CBS News during the Obama administration, at the same time his brother Ben served as a deputy national security advisor to President Obama.

During those same years, Ben Sherwood was president of ABC News while his wife Karen was deputy secretary of energy in the Obama regime.

Claire Shipman is the senior national correspondent for ABC’s Good Morning America.  She is married to Jay Carney, Obama’s former White House press secretary.

Obama’s director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, neck deep in spy-gate, is an official CNN correspondent whom CNN host Chris Cuomo welcomed to the “family.”

Laura Jarrett, daughter of Obama consigliere Valerie Jarrett, is a CNN correspondent.

This pattern is not unique to Obama officials.  George Stephanopoulos, co-anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America, was a former senior Clinton White House adviser and member of the famous Clinton War Room.

The pattern of an incestuous relationship between Democrat administrations and big media is long and robust.  Many believe that the mainstream media are an arm of the Democratic Party.  Or vice versa.

K Street lobbyists are an arm of the U.S. Congress, or vice versa.  That’s the way Washington, D.C. works.  Laws could be written to prevent such a revolving door, but in a free society, people are free to work where they want, but that’s another discussion.

For CNN to be outraged over a former Trump administration official joining its ranks is both hypocritical and silly.  It does clearly illustrate where CNN comes down on news versus politics.

Only in the hyper-partisan world of CNN could the hiring of a seemingly smart and accomplished Trump administration official be controversial and worthy of outrage. There are plenty of things for CNN staffers to be “up in arms” about, but this is not one of them.

Too bad they slept through all the real outrages and woke up only when their far-left political bubble is poked by someone they perceive as a political enemy, once again reinforcing their reputation as fake news.

Sell Out Biden in Europe: America Today Is ‘an Embarrassment’

‘The America I see values basic human decency, not snatching children from their parents or turning our back on refugees at our border’

Former Vice President Joe Biden told a European audience Saturday that America under the current administration is “an embarrassment.”

President Obama’s vice president focused his criticism on the United State’s family detention policy, global warming policy, and the Trump Administration’s stricter limits on political refugees.

The comments came at the Munich Security Conference, where the former vice president strove to draw a contrast between his strong affinity for the NATO alliance and President Trump’s more imposing approach on the decades old multinational defense pact.

While Biden never mentioned President Trump by name, he made several clear references to the current commander in chief.

Here’s an excerpt from his remarks:

“The America I see values basic human decency, not snatching children from their parents or turning our back on refugees at our border. Americans know that’s not right. The American people understand plainly that this makes us an embarrassment. The American people know, overwhelmingly that it is not right. That it is not who we are.”

Despite attacking the Trump administration for family separations at the border, this policy was active during the Obama Administration as well.

Biden’s complete remarks are available here.

NEVER FORGET: Obama Declared THIRTEEN National Emergencies, MSM Looked Other Way

President Trump declares a state of emergency at the southern border to keep Americans safe and the left goes bananas.

President Obama declared 13 national emergencies during his time in office, 11 of which continue to this day, and the mainstream media hails him as a legend.

Talk about a double standard.

From Conservative Tribune:

As it turns out, there are currently 31 ongoing national emergencies over which the president wields certain authorities, the first of which has been in existence since 1979 and is one of only two emergencies declared by Carter.

[…]

Former President Bill Clinton declared 17 national emergencies — six of which remain in effect — while former President George W. Bush declared 12 national emergencies, of which 10 remain ongoing.

Then we get to former President Barack Obama, who declared 13 national emergencies, 11 of which continue to this day. Thus far, President Trump has declared three active and ongoing national emergencies.

Of Obama’s 11 continuing national emergencies, nine of them were focused exclusively on foreign nations, while only one seemed focused on protecting America — a declaration aimed at punishing individuals “engaging in significant malicious cyber-enabled activities.”

All of the rest of Obama’s national emergencies were focused on blocking property or prohibiting transactions/travel for individuals engaged in various activities in — by order of the date of enactment — Somalia, Libya, transnational criminal organizations, Yemen, Ukraine, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Venezuela and Burundi.

A new study suggests Obamacare reforms will save the American people nearly $500 billion.

A White House study released on Friday found that President Donald Trump’s Obamacare reforms will save Americans roughly $450 billion over the next ten years.

A White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) study released on Friday found that Americans will save $450 billion through Trump’s Obamacare reforms. The CEA suggested that Trump’s repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate and the expansion of short-term insurance plans and Association Health Plans (AHPs) will save Americans billions over the next ten years.

The White House also suggested that the benefits of Trump’s deregulatory actions saved Americans billions, increased access to more health insurance options, and did not amount to a “sabotage” of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

VOTE: Should Pelosi Be REMOVED From Office?

There is now ample evidence to suggest that the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton and FBI colluded to protect Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

From Fox News:

Newly released internal FBI emails showed the agency’s highest-ranking officials scrambling to answer to Hillary Clinton’s lawyer in the days prior to the 2016 presidential election, on the same day then-FBI Director James Comey sent a bombshell letter to Congress announcing a new review of hundreds of thousands of potentially classified emails found on former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s laptop.

The trove of documents turned over by the FBI, in response to a lawsuit by the transparency group Judicial Watch, also included discussions by former FBI lawyer Lisa Page concerning a potential quid pro quo between the State Department and the FBI — in which the FBI would agree to effectively hide the fact that a Clinton email was classified in exchange for more legal attache positions that would benefit the FBI abroad, and allow them to send more agents to countries where the FBI’s access is ordinarily restricted.

The quid pro quo would have involved the FBI providing some other public reason for withholding the Clinton email from disclosure amid a Freedom of Information Act request, besides its classification level. There are no indications the proposed arrangement ever took place.

Dershowitz: If McCabe’s Interview Is True It Clearly Shows an Attempted Coup d’Etat of Trump Administration

Author and law professor Alan Dershowitz went on with Tucker Carlson on Thursday night following reports on Andrew McCabe’s interview with “60 Minutes.”

CBS News Correspondent Scott Pelley teased the interview on Thursday.

According to Pelley Andrew McCabe says the FBI and DOJ Democrats discussed wearing wires several times to spy on President Trump. This was AFTER they started spying on the Trump campaign, Transition team and Trump Administration illegally.

McCabe said in his “60 Minutes” interview that top DOJ officials were so worried over President Trump’s decision to fire corrupt Comey as FBI Director that they discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.

Andrew McCabe also ordered officials to open an obstruction of justice case after Trump fired Comey to see if President Trump was acting as an agent on behalf of Russia.

On Thursday night Alan Dershowitz said if the statements by McCabe were true then the Department of Justice was attempting a coup d’etat of the Trump administration.

Tucker Carlson: Now the suspicions of many are confirmed by one of the players in it. The Department of Justice discussed trying to remove the president using the 25th Amendment. What’s your reaction to that?

Alan Dershowitz: Well, if that’s true it is clearly an attempted coup d’etat… Any justice department official who even mentioned the 25th Amendment in the context of President Trump has committed a grievous offense against the Constitution.

Via Tucker Carlson Tonight:

<bCoup D’Etat: Andrew McCabe Admits Deep State Officials Discussed Recruiting Cabinet Members to Push Trump Out of Office</b

It’s Called a Coup D’Etat

Fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told CBS News today that top officials at the Department of Justice and FBI discussed recruiting cabinet members to push President Trump out of office.

McCabe, James Comey, Rod Rosenstein and the top officials at the DOJ were actively strategizing how to remove the duly elected President of the United States. In third world banana republics they call this a coup d’etat.

Treason is punishable by death in the United States.

The New York Times reported:

Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy F.B.I. director, said in an interview aired on Thursday that top Justice Department officials became so alarmed by President Trump’s decision in May 2017 to fire James B. Comey, the bureau’s director, that they discussed whether to recruit cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office.

The dire concerns about the president’s actions also prompted Mr. McCabe to order the bureau’s team investigating Russia’s election interference to look into whether Mr. Trump had obstructed justice by firing Mr. Comey. The F.B.I. also began examining whether Mr. Trump had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests.

Mr. McCabe’s explosive remarks were made in an interview with “60 Minutes” scheduled to air in full on Sunday. He was promoting his memoir, “The Threat: How the F.B.I. Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump,” which will be released next week.

Mr. McCabe said he spoke to Mr. Trump just after Mr. Comey was fired, and the next day he met with the team investigating Russia’s election interference.

<bMcCabe, Rosenstein must testify to explain claim that DOJ discussed removing Trump, GOP leaders say</b

The top Republicans on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees are calling for former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to testify before their respective panels, following McCabe’s explosive claims in an interview this week that senior Justice Department officials had considered removing President Trump using the 25th Amendment.

According to McCabe, Rosenstein offered to wear a wire to record the president, seemingly confirming reports last year. Rosenstein on Thursday again strongly denied that allegation, calling McCabe’s statements “factually incorrect.”

House Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins, R-Ga., said in a letter to the committee’s chairman, Democratic New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, that the two top officials should be asked to testify — and subpoenaed if they refuse to comply.

“Today, news broke confirming Americans’ worst fears about the highest-ranking leaders in the Department of Justice and the FBI,” Collins wrote. “In fact, we now know certain government officials plotted to investigate and undermine” the president.

Collins continued: “We request you immediately schedule a hearing to take the testimony of former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.”

Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe sits with a folder marked "Secret" in front of him while testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 11, 2017, before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on major threats facing the U.S. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)Collins also offered what he called a “non-partisan frame of reference,” urging his colleagues to “imagine if the situation were reversed and evidence showed DOJ and FBI contemplating the same actions against newly elected President Obama, including possible surveillance of President Obama and invoking the 25th Amendment against him.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., echoed Collins’ sentiments on Thursday.

“Yeah, I would like to know what happened,” Graham told The Hill. “You’re having a conversation about whether or not you’re going to invoke the 25th Amendment. I imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, my Democratic colleagues would want to know about that conversation if it involved a Democrat.”

The 25th Amendment governs the succession protocol if the president dies, resigns or becomes temporarily or permanently incapacitated. While the amendment has been invoked six times since its ratification in 1967, the specific section of the amendment purportedly discussed by top DOJ officials — which involves the majority of all Cabinet officers and the vice president agreeing that the president is “unable” to perform his job — has never been invoked.

Nevertheless, McCabe told CBS’ News’ Scott Pelley an interview that senior law enforcement officials discussed that option.

On Thursday, Pelley said McCabe described meetings at the Justice Department after former FBI Director Jim Comey’s firing, to discuss “whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the president under the 25th Amendment.”

McCabe was fired last year for committing three violations of the bureau’s ethics code, investigative sources told Fox News. The violations initially were uncovered by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General and confirmed by the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility. They included lack of candor under oath, lack of candor when not under oath, and the improper disclosure of nonpublic information to the media about the FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

McCabe has denied the allegations and called his firing politically motivated.

“I was speaking to the man who had just run for the presidency and won the election for the presidency and who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia, our most formidable adversary on the world stage. And that was something that troubled me greatly,” McCabe said in one excerpt of his “60 Minutes” interview that aired Thursday, referring to a phone call he had with Trump on May 10, 2017.

McCabe, who also detailed that phone call in his book, took the call from the president while members of the bureau’s Russia team were in the room. The call, according to an excerpt from McCabe’s book published in The Atlantic Thursday, largely focused on Trump celebrating the firing of Comey and saying he was getting positive feedback for the decision.

Pelley went on to ask, “How long was it after that that you decided to start the obstruction of justice and counterintelligence investigations involving the president?”

“I think the next day, I met with the team investigating the Russia cases,” McCabe confirmed. “And I asked the team to go back and conduct an assessment to determine where are we with these efforts and what steps do we need to take going forward.”

Rod Rosenstein was sworn in as deputy attorney general in April 2017.He added: “I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground in an indelible fashion that were I removed quickly and reassigned or fired and the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace. I wanted to make sure that our case was on solid ground. And if somebody came in behind me and closed it and tried to walk away from it, they would not be able to do that without creating a record of why they’d made that decision.”

Trump fired back on Twitter, blasting McCabe as a “disgrace” and calling him Comey’s “puppet.”

In reaction to the interview, a Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News that Rosenstein “again rejects Mr. McCabe’s recitation of events as inaccurate and factually incorrect.”

“The deputy attorney general never authorized any recording that Mr. McCabe references.  As the deputy attorney general previously has stated, based on his personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment, nor was the DAG in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment,” the spokesman said in a statement Thursday.

“Finally, the deputy attorney general never spoke to Mr. Comey about appointing a special counsel,” the statement continued. “The deputy attorney general in fact appointed Special Counsel [Robert] Mueller, and directed that Mr. McCabe be removed from any participation in that investigation. Subsequent to this removal, DOJ’s inspector general found that Mr. McCabe did not tell the truth to federal authorities on multiple occasions, leading to his termination from the FBI.”

Top Obama Aide Valerie Jarrett Was Behind Clinton Email Scandal Leak

Former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett leaked details of Hillary Clinton email scandal to press

Top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett leaked details of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal to the press hoping it would not trace back to the White House, a New York Post report claims. 

The entire thing was timed to become public knowledge just as Clinton was planning to announce her candidacy for president.

Dailymail.co.uk reports: ‘Obama and Valerie Jarrett will go to any lengths to prevent Hillary from becoming president,’ said a source close to the White House.

‘They believe that Hillary, like her husband, is left of center, not a true-blue liberal.’

Sources claim that the long rumored tension between Obama and the Clintons hit a high when during the midterm elections many members of the party refused to be seen campaigning with President Obama.

Jarrett is reported to have commented this was because the Clintons had begun ‘marginalizing the president’ and that they were ‘trying to wrestle control of the Democratic Party away from Obama.’

Because of this she reportedly went out of her way to exact revenge, working to get Monica Lewinsky high profile press opportunities and frequently complaining about the Clintons.

Then, shortly after the midterm elections, she, President Obama and Michelle Obama had Clinton in for a meeting and reportedly told her in no uncertain words that they planned on remaining neutral during the presidential primary should she run for president.

This as Jarrett has reportedly been speaking to Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts about possibly running in the 2016 election.

‘She’s promised O’Malley and Warren the full support of the White House if they will challenge Hillary for the presidential nomination,’ said a source.

Edward Klein, the author of Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas, also spoke to a friend of the Clintons, who told him that Bill said; ‘My contacts and friends in newspapers and TV tell me that they’ve been contacted by the White House and offered all kinds of negative stories about us.’

He then added; ‘The Obamas are behind the e-mail story, and they’re spreading rumors that I’ve been with women, that Hillary promoted people at the State Department who’d done favors for our foundation, that John Kerry had to clean up diplomatic messes Hillary left behind.’

It seems like it is not over yet either, as there are reportedly six more probes currently going on that are looking into Clinton’s performance.

Bill, upon learning of this, reportedly said to a friend; ‘The Obamas are out to get us any way they can.’

Klein seems to have known about all this for some time, discussing it when he appeared on Fox and Friends last Wednesday.

‘[Bill] has said, according to my sources, that the White House is leaking to their friends in the mainstream media stories about the Clintons. Not only about Hillary, but about him, and about what she did while she was in the State Department,’ said Klein.

‘This is from sources within the White House, that the Clintons know that Hillary is under not one, but six different investigations prompted by the White House.’

He then added; ‘They’re going through these, looking for problems on her expense account, on her dealings with foreign leaders. All of this, I’m told, is prompted by Valerie Jarrett and the president, who do not want to see Hillary Clinton become President of the United States.’

Jarrett, 58, is one of President Obama’s longest serving advisers and closest confidantes, and said in a recent interview that she would stay in the White House ‘until the lights go off.’

How Business Insider and other dishonest left-wing media outlets desperately LIED to cover up the embarrassing truth about AOC’s “Green New Deal” fiasco

(Natural News) As we saw with Democrats when it came to selling us the Obamacare fiasco, the party of the donkey from President Obama on down could never be honest about what the legislation would actually do. Americans were frequently told one lie after another about what the Affordable Care Act would and would not…

How Business Insider and other dishonest left-wing media outlets desperately LIED to cover up the embarrassing truth about AOC’s “Green New Deal” fiasco

(Natural News) As we saw with Democrats when it came to selling us the Obamacare fiasco, the party of the donkey from President Obama on down could never be honest about what the legislation would actually do. Americans were frequently told one lie after another about what the Affordable Care Act would and would not…

Major labor union (which endorsed Hillary & Obama twice for Prez) unloads on ‘Green New Deal’ as ‘unrealistic manifesto’ that will ‘destroy workers’ livelihoods’ – & cause ‘economic and social devastation’

Labor leader Terry O’Sullivan, who’s union twice endorsed President Obama for President and endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, is have come out swinging against the “Green New Deal” from New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

Statement of Terry O’Sullivan, General President of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, On the “Green New Deal”: 

“It is exactly how not to win support for critical measures to curb climate change…It is difficult to take this unrealistic manifesto seriously, but the economic and social devastation it would cause if it moves forward is serious and real…threatens to destroy workers’ livelihoods, increase divisions and inequality, and undermine the very goals it seeks to reach. In short, it is a bad deal.”

#

Climate Depot Note: Other’s on the political left are bailing on the “Green New Deal” as well: see: Prominent environmentalist Shellenberger: ‘I am calling Bullsh*t’ on Ocasio-Cortez! Declares AOC is ‘a climate fraud’ – Rips ‘Green New Deal’ as ‘climate fakery’

 

Trump Furious As Schiff Hires Former NSC Staffers To Work On Investigation

In the latest annoyance for President Trump as Adam “showboat” Schiff ramps up his Intelligence Committee investigations into whether foreign governments (Russia) exerted improper influence on the president, as well any financial conflicts and, we imagine, every other thread the California Congressman can think to pursue, Bloomberg and CNN reported on Thursday that Schiff and his investigators on the House Intelligence Committee have been hiring former staff members at the National Security Council, enraging the president in the process.

But these aren’t just any staffers. According to the reports, the people who have been hired to work on the Democrat-led investigation are all part of a group of Obama administration holdovers who are believed to have been part of a “deep state” cabal that sought to undermine Trump with a flurry of embarrassing leaks during the early days of his administration.

Trump

So far, the only confirmed hire is Abigail Grace, an Asia expert who served on the NSC during the tail end of the Obama Administration and only left last year. Another former NSC employee is considering joining the Committee, per BBG.

Schiff has hired one former career official at the National Security Council, Abigail Grace, who left the White House last year. She has a congressional email address and is listed in a directory as working for the Intelligence Committee’s Democratic majority.

A second career employee detailed to the Trump White House is also considering joining Schiff’s staff, according to people familiar with the matter. They didn’t identify the person.

Grace didn’t respond to an email requesting comment and her duties under Schiff aren’t known. But the California Democrat’s attempts to hire people with experience working under Trump have led to speculation among Trump’s aides and allies that Schiff is looking for insider knowledge of the White House as he probes whether the business dealings of the president and his family have made them vulnerable to espionage.

While none of the employees were hired directly from the NSC, that didn’t stop Trump from fuming about Schiff’s “raid” on White House staff during a flurry of tweets this morning.

By hiring these former employees, Schiff is helping to confirm what Trump and many close to him long feared: That the Obama holdovers have been deliberately trying to sabotage his administration.

Holdover White House staff from the Obama administration, particularly those working on the National Security Council, have long been a concern of some Trump aides and supporters. They’ve coined the term “Deep State” to describe what they suspect to be a large faction of government employees opposed to the president’s agenda.

Schiff’s office declined to comment on the new hires and interviewees, but the Congressman defended his actions by saying it’s standard practice for the intelligence committee to hire out of the intelligence community, and sought to portray the hires as just another example of Washington’s “revolving door”, according to CNN.

A House Intelligence Committee aide responded, telling CNN the panel has hired individuals with experience on the NSC staff and that it would not discriminate about hiring individuals from the current administration. An aide to Schiff clarified that no one has been hired directly from the White House.

“We have hired staff for a variety of positions, including the committee’s oversight work and its investigation,” the aide said. “Although none of our staff has come directly from the White House, we have hired people with prior experience on the National Security Council staff for oversight of the agencies, and will continue to do so at our discretion. We do not discriminate against potential hires on the basis of their prior work experience, including the administration.”

[…]

Schiff himself declined to confirm any new hires on Thursday, but said the intelligence committee had a “long tradition of hiring out of the intelligence community, out of the National Security Council.”

“If the President is worried about our hiring any former administration people, maybe he should work on being a better employer,” Schiff said.

The reason for concern is obvious: Trump is worried that these Washington hacks, angry with the president for booting them out of the West Wing, might try to exact their revenge on the president by revealing damaging information during the investigation – that is, if they have anything to share that hasn’t already been leaked.

And for any members of the Trump administration who sympathize with the anonymous saboteur who published that infamous op-ed in the NYT, they might finally have an opportunity to do more damage on the outside than from within.

What If Trump Said This At Tomorrow’s SOTU?

What a difference a decade makes…

President Obama talks about immigration at an Orange County Town Hall event in March 2009

Full Transcript (via The LA Times):

I just met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus today, which Congresswoman Sanchez is a member of — (applause) — to talk about this issue directly.  As many of you know, during the campaign I was asked repeatedly about this, and I reiterated my belief that we have to have comprehensive immigration reform.

Now, I know this is an emotional issue, I know it’s a controversial issue, I know that the people get real riled up politically about this, but — but ultimately, here’s what I believe:  We are a nation of immigrants, number one.

Number two, we do have to have control of our borders.  Number three, that people who have been here for a long time and put down roots here have to have some mechanism over time to get out of the shadows, because if they stay in the shadows, in the underground economy, then they are oftentimes pitted against American workers.

Since they can’t join a union, they can’t complain about minimum wages, et cetera, they end up being abused, and that depresses the wages of everybody, all Americans.  (Applause.)

So I don’t think that we can do this piecemeal.  I think what we have to do is to come together and say, we’re going to strengthen our borders — and I’m going to be going to Mexico, I’m going to be working with President Calderón in Mexico to figure out how do we get control over the border that’s become more violent because of the drug trade.

We have to combine that with cracking down on employers who are exploiting undocumented workers.  (Applause.)  We have to make sure that there’s a verification system to find out whether somebody is legally able to work here or not.  But we have to make sure that that verification system does not discriminate just because you’ve got a Hispanic last name or your last name is Obama.  (Laughter.)

You’ve got to — and then you’ve got to say to the undocumented workers, you have to say, look, you’ve broken the law; you didn’t come here the way you were supposed to.  So this is not going to be a free ride.  It’s not going to be some instant amnesty.  What’s going to happen is you are going to pay a significant fine.  You are going to learn English.  (Applause.)

You are going to — you are going to go to the back of the line so that you don’t get ahead of somebody who was in Mexico City applying legally.  (Applause.)  But after you’ve done these things over a certain period of time you can earn your citizenship, so that it’s not — it’s not something that is guaranteed or automatic.  You’ve got to earn it.  But over time you give people an opportunity.

Now, it only works though if you do all the pieces.  I think the American people, they appreciate and believe in immigration. But they can’t have a situation where you just have half a million people pouring over the border without any kind of mechanism to control it.

So we’ve got to deal with that at the same time as we deal in a humane fashion with folks who are putting down roots here, have become our neighbors, have become our friends, they may have children who are U.S. citizens.  (Applause.)  That’s the kind of comprehensive approach that we have to take.  All right.  Okay.  (Applause.)

What would happen if President Trump said those exact same words tomorrow night?

Scientists Claim People Who Believe In Conspiracy Theories Probably Had Bad Childhoods

If you believe the moon landings were fake…Its your parents fault!

Researchers from the University of Kent claim that people who believe in conspiracy theories were more likely to have grown up with a lack of positive parenting 

Scientists have come to the conclusion that a lack of positive parenting can cause children to grow into adults who hold strange worldviews and political attitudes.

New research claims that people who have had a bad childhood develop an ‘anxious attachment style’ and are more likely to believe that the moon landings were fake or that 9/11 was an inside job.

The Mail Online reports: In two studies, Ricky Green and Professor Karen Douglas, of the University of Kent’s School of Psychology, found these people were more likely to have absent parents at the start of their life

In the first study researchers looked at 246 participants.

They found ‘participants higher in anxious attachment style showed a greater tendency to believe in conspiracy theories’, researchers, led by Dr Green and Dr Douglas, wrote in their paper published in Personality and Individual Differences.

‘Further, this relationship remained significant when accounting for other known predictors of conspiracy belief’, researchers wrote.

Other variables such as right-wing authoritarianism, interpersonal trust and demographic factors also made someone more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.

However, these were less significant than the effect of an unhappy childhood.

In the second study researchers looked at 230 individuals and found people with anxious attachment styles were more likely to believe in specific conspiracy theories and conspiracy theories about groups.

‘The current studies add to the body of research investigating the individual differences predictors of conspiracy belief, demonstrating that conspiracy belief may, to some degree, have roots in early childhood experiences’, researchers wrote.

Previous research has suggested conspiracy theories are believed by people who have lost an election or influence.

According to Joseph Uscinski, author of ‘American Conspiracy Theories,‘ people who have lost something look to conspiracy theories to ‘explain that loss.’

Speaking to Time Magazine, Uscinksi said this can be observed by the popularity of certain conspiracy theories when the presidency changes.

For example, when President George W. Bush was in power with Dick Cheney as his Vice President, there were theories that the Blackwater protection company masterminding the Iraq war to obtain oil.

And when President Obama was elected to office, a conspiracy surrounding his birth place emerged.

Some people believe that President Obama was born in Kenya, and not Hawaii – despite President Obama releasing his birth certificate proving he was indeed born in Hawaii.

Aside from people who are out of power tending to believe in conspiracy theories, certain demographic factors can be linked to these beliefs.

For example, a study published in March found that being unmarried, belonging to a particular ethnic minority (for example African American or Hispanic) and low religious attendance were all associated with a belief in conspiracy.

In addition, people with lower household incomes averaging at $47,193 (£34,300) were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories than those who had higher household incomes of $63,824 (£46,300).

Another possible reason for why people believe in conspiracy theories is that it makes them feel ‘special.’

Does White Supremacism Motivate Trump Against China?

Eric Zuesse

On January 30th, the South China Morning Post bannered “How Donald Trump could change the course of Meng Wanzhou’s ‘years-long’ battle against extradition: Canada usually complies with extradition requests but the China-US trade war – and the US president’s apparent willingness to intervene in the case – could make the difference this time.” That “‘years-long’ battle” referred to an expected future “years-long” legal wrangling over Wanzhou, not  to anything in the past, because the extradition request was made by U.S. President Donald Trump only on December 1st of last year.

Canada’s press likewise is reporting the intense political nature of Trump’s demand to bring Wanzhou, one of China’s top international corporate executives, to the U.S., on criminal charges. On January 28th, Canada’s Global News TV network headlined “Conservatives slam Liberals for handling of Meng Wanzhou case” and “Liberals say Conservatives making ‘false claims’ on China”.

On January 29th, Toronto’s Globe and Mail headlined “U.S. formally requests extradition of Meng Wanzhou to face financial fraud charges”, and reported that “Canada has received a formal request from the United States for the extradition of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, officially starting the clock on a complex process that could ultimately see her sent stateside to face multiple charges of financial fraud. … Ms. Meng, who is living in her Vancouver home, appeared briefly in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday for a bail adjustment hearing.”

China’s Government views “Western egoism and white supremacy” behind Trump’s actions in this case.

On January 9th, China’s Ambassador to Canada reacted to the 1 December 2018 arrest of the the mega-corporate Chinese executive Wanzhou by saying:

Without violating any Canadian law, Meng was arrested last month and put in handcuffs just as she was changing planes at the Vancouver International Airport. … Some people in Canada, without any evidence, have been hyping the idea that Huawei is controlled by the Chinese government and poses security threats to Canada and other Western countries, and that Chinese law requires China’s enterprises to collaborate with the government in espionage activities. However, these same people have conveniently ignored the PRISM Program, Equation Group, and Echelon — global spying networks operated by some countries that have been engaging in large-scale and organized cyber stealing, and spying and surveillance activities on foreign governments, enterprises, and individuals. … Something is considered as “safeguarding national security” when it is done by Western countries. But it is termed “conducting espionage” when done by China. What’s the logic? … The reason why some people are used to arrogantly adopting double standards is due to Western egoism and white supremacy. In such a context, the rule of law is nothing but a tool for their political ends and a fig leaf for their practising hegemony in the international arena.

The U.S. arrest warrant alleged that Wanzhou had violated Trump’s anti-Iran sanctions. However, Trump himself had instituted those sanctions after his having single-handedly, and in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that all treaties must be approved by at least two-thirds of all sitting U.S. Senators, failed to seek such Constitutionally mandated approval (and his predecessor, Barack Obama, had likewise committed the United States to ending those sanctions by Obama’s violating the U.S. Constitution’s requirement of at least a two-thirds vote approving in the Senate any treaty-change). Violating the U.S. Constitution is now perhaps even the norm for the U.S. Government, especially regarding international relations. And the U.S. Supreme Court almost never intervenes or objects, at all, in any way. The U.S. Constitution is dying, if not dead, at least on many of the most important issues.

(Incidentally, at the time, 9 June 2010, when the sanctions were first being imposed against Iran, Susan Rice, Obama’s U.S. U.N. Ambassador, had endorsed them heartily, by saying, “Today, the Security Council has responded decisively to the grave threat to international peace and security posed by Iran’s failure to live up to its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).” So, these sanctions were instituted by the U.N. Security Council in 2010 with Obama’s support. However, in order for the U.S. to participate in them without violating the U.S. Constitution, a two-thirds vote of the U.S. Senate was necessary, but no such vote was ever held in the U.S. Senate. And such ignoring of the U.S. Constitution is normal. Furthermore, the White House proudly announced on 31 July 2012, during President Obama’s re-election campaign, that “With President Obama’s leadership, the United States gained the support of Russia, China, and other nations to pass United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929 in June 2010, which created the most comprehensive and stinging international sanctions the Iranian regime has ever faced.” It wasn’t until Obama’s coup in Ukraine in February 2014, that Russia’s leader, Putin, knew that Obama had been deceiving him that Obama was intending to reverse, or “reset”, former U.S. President G.H.W. Bush’s secret policy since the time of 24 February 1990 to continue America’s Cold War against Russia even after the Soviet Union and its communism and Warsaw Pact would end, as they all did in the following year, 1991. Obama had used that deceit in 2010 to get Russia and China onboard America’s anti-Iran train. Under Trump, it’s a train that’s crashing through to China. All of this — everything — is in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s two-thirds-of-Senate clause. U.S. foreign policies are established, and set, almost entirely in secret, and without any public debate, even in the U.S. Senate. That’s the reality: a secretly imposed dictatorship. This is America’s reality, today.)

On December 11th of 2018, the economist Jeffrey Sachs bannered, at Asia Times, “Meng arrest a huge provocation to China”, and he said:

The context of the arrest matters enormously. The US requested that Canada arrest Meng in the Vancouver airport en route to Mexico from Hong Kong, and then extradite her to the US. Such a move is almost a US declaration of war on China’s business community. …

The US rarely arrests senior businesspeople, US or foreign, for alleged crimes committed by their companies. Corporate managers are usually arrested for their alleged personal crimes (such as embezzlement, bribery or violence) rather than their company’s alleged malfeasance.

Yes, corporate managers should be held to account for their company’s malfeasance, up to and including criminal charges; but to start this practice with a leading Chinese businessperson, rather than the dozens of culpable US CEOs and CFOs, is a stunning provocation to the Chinese government, business community, and public.

Meng is charged with violating US sanctions on Iran. Yet consider her arrest in the context of the large number of companies, US and non-US, that have violated US sanctions against Iran and other countries. In 2011, for example, JPMorgan Chase paid US$88.3 million in fines for violating US sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan. Yet chief executive officer Jamie Dimon wasn’t grabbed off a plane and whisked into custody.

And JPMorgan Chase was hardly alone in violating US sanctions. Since 2010, the following major financial institutions paid fines for violating US sanctions: Banco do Brasil, Bank of America, Bank of Guam, Bank of Moscow, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Clearstream Banking, Commerzbank, Compass, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, JP Morgan Chase, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, National Bank of Pakistan, PayPal, RBS (ABN Amro), Société Générale, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Trans-Pacific National Bank (now known as Beacon Business Bank), Standard Chartered, and Wells Fargo.

None of the CEOs or CFOs of these sanction-busting banks was arrested and taken into custody for these violations. …

Quite transparently, the US action against Meng is really part of the Trump administration’s broader attempt to undermine China’s economy by imposing tariffs, closing Western markets to Chinese high-technology exports, and blocking Chinese purchases of US and European technology companies. One can say, without exaggeration, that this is part of an economic war on China. … They certainly have nothing to do with upholding the international rule of law.

The US is targeting Huawei especially because of the company’s success in marketing cutting-edge fifth-generation (5G) wireless technologies globally. …

Sanctions regarding non-national parties (such as US sanctions on a Chinese business) should not be enforced by one country alone, but according to agreements reached within the United Nations Security Council. In that regard, UN Security Council Resolution 2231 calls on all countries to drop sanctions on Iran as part of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. Yet the US – and only the US – now rejects the Security Council’s role in such matters.

Michael Moore’s latest documentary film, Fahrenheit 11/9 (not to be confused with his 2004 Fahrenheit 9/11) documents that throughout the career of Donald Trump, he has been racist in his actions, even where he wasn’t also racist in his explanations of his actions. Moore also documented there the full participation of Trump’s predecessor, President Obama, in the Republican Michigan Governor Richard Snyder’s having caused and then covered up the lead-poisoning of Flint Michigan’s children, who are overwhelmingly Blacks. However, with Obama, the contempt appears to have been against the poor, whereas with Trump, there is, in addition to that classism, clearly a hatred of racial and ethnic minorities. That’s perhaps the major difference between the two men.

Could it then be that Trump’s now-indubitable racism is part of his sense of “Make America Great Again” (the alleged basis of his trade-policies)? The Republican Party says that it’s not, but they also deny that Trump is a racist, which now clearly is a false allegation about him — he certainly is a racist.

How much more about America’s foreign policies might Trump’s deep-seated white-supremacist racism be affecting those policies — especially trade-policies (and this includes, of course, economic sanctions)?

Given the evidence that’s presented in Moore’s documentary, his racism has been expressed — in his actions — against Blacks, and it has also been widely expressed, even also verbally, against Hispanics, and, perhaps even more blatantly, against Muslims (except not against U.S.-allied aristocracies, such as the Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia).

In keeping with the majority of America’s Christians, Trump is not racist against Jews. He even is largely financed by Jewish billionaires, such as the Israeli Sheldon Adelson. But whether he is racist against Chinese is, as of yet, an open question. But now, China’s Government has raised the issue.

The Chinese Government is certainly not going beyond the bounds of the evidence and of logic, to raise this question.

Furthermore, Sachs’s own statement against Trump on this matter is actually a damnation against not only Trump but also against all recent U.S. Presidents and their Administrations, when Sachs said, “Yes, corporate managers should be held to account for their company’s malfeasance, up to and including criminal charges; but to start this practice with a leading Chinese businessperson, rather than the dozens of culpable US CEOs and CFOs, is a stunning provocation to the Chinese government, business community, and public.” Sachs was saying there that, up till the present time, it has never been the case that “corporate managers” are “held to account for their company’s malfeasance, up to and including criminal charges.” He is there alleging that the only, or virtually only, people who are in prison in the United States, are people who are not “corporate managers” who themselves carried out, or rewarded or incentivized their employees to carry out, “their company’s malfeasance.”  Only lower-level people are subjected to any significant imprisonment in the United States, no matter how corrupt the mega-corporations are. He is saying that America, which has the world’s highest percentage of people in prison, allows “corporate managers” to perpetrate, and to reward their employees for perpetrating, “criminal” acts. So, although America is an incredible police-state regarding its poor (and the Moore film also copiously displays that fact) Sachs, there, is saying that “corporate managers” in the United States are actually above the Law. That’s a remarkable admission from him — and it’s true. For the aristocracy, America is no police-state at all, except one that protects them and their privileges — privileges both legal and otherwise, both in prison and on the outside.

Another meticulously researched nonfiction movie, this a top-quality “docu-drama,” is the 2014 Kill the Messenger, about how the CIA was caught organizing and protecting narcotics kingpins and using kickbacks from this multibillion-dollar-per-year illegal business to finance off-the-books foreign regime-change operations, which are too costly to be funded merely in the official ways. The same U.S. Presidents who were famously waging “The War Against Drugs” were secretly having their CIA use the illegal narcotics trade in order to pump up up their regime-changes abroad, to serve America’s billionaires’ interests. And then the mainly Blacks who became victimized by, and who participated in, this trade got slammed into prison for it, while their CIA-cooperating bosses did not. This movie is a cult classic amongst investigative journalists, because it shows how the CIA destroyed and perhaps murdered the great investigative reporter, Gary Webb, who revealed the scandal. America’s major ‘news’-media fired him and never allowed him ever again to work for them. Then, once Webb’s career was destroyed by that blacklisting of him on the part of the ‘news’-organizations, and he was in obscurity, he died mysteriously with two bullets in his head, and few among the public even heard about the murder, at the time. It seems that Webb never got to know that the CIA’s narcotics trafficking kickbacks had begun with the CIA’s first-ever coup, which was in 1948 Thailand and installed there a general who was the lynchpin for the southeast Asian narcotics network and who helped establish, with Nugan Hand, the CIA’s future dependence upon drug-trafficking. So, both regime-change and narcotics-trafficking were joined together right at the CIA’s very start. But Gary Webb reported only about the Reagan-era part of this longstanding (if not permanent) CIA system. And this was the first time that any part of this seedy history became publicly known (to the extent it did, at all).

It’s not merely Trump, and Moore’s documentary made clear that Obama was just as psychopathic against the poor as Trump is, though slick enough to hide it, even from the people who despise Trump for his racism.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Ranchers Invite Pelosi to Border: Come See Why Your Fence Is Trash

Ranchers Invite Pelosi to Border: Come See Why Your Fence Is Trash

Arizona ranchers living along the U.S.-Mexico border are again inviting House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi — including airfare and accommodation — to visit their locales to see firsthand what they describe as an “insecure” southern border.

Chris Burgard introduces the video invitation, saying, “Right now, Americans have a greater chance of dying from an opioid overdose than they do in a car accident. Yet Nancy Pelosi openly rejects border facts that are presented to her by DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.”

WATCH:

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Burgard adds, “My buddy John, his ranch is down on the border in Arizona. He says he’s had over two million illegal aliens and too many tons of narcotics come across his ranch.  So a few years ago, he invited Nancy Pelosi to come down for a visit. He said he’d even send a plane for her.”

The video message then transitions to Rancher John and two other ranchers, who offer their open invitation to Pelosi, saying:

JOHN: I would tell you that I think that there’s been two million people who’ve come across this ranch in the last 24 years. I want to invite Nancy Pelsoi down. She went to Texas to see the kids, so come here, see where the down and the bad guys are coming through the border.

RANCHER 1: Arizona’s [border] is insecure.  Half of the drugs, half of the people are smuggled through the Tucson sector. Come see why your two-million-dollar-a-mile fence is trash.

JOHN: And we will send a plane for you. We’ll make arrangements. You can stay at our house. It’s an invite. It’s sincere. Come look at it.

RANCHER 2: We’ve been doing this for over nine years. Anybody that tells you the southern border is secure is full of crap.

John then resumes his overture to Pelosi, saying:

Here’s a shocker. Nancy Pelosi never got on the plane. Was it because she wanted plausible deniability as to the human and narcotics trafficking that’s going on every day down on the southern border? Was it because she was concerned about allegation that President Obama built his fence to fail? Or was she just afraid to fly commercial? I don’t know. But I do know this: John says the invitation is still open. He says he’ll still send a plane for her. Maybe if he offers to send a military plane, this time Nancy will say yes. I’m Chris Burgard. This is Breitbart.

In March of 2018, Breitbart News interviewed Jim Chilton, an Arizona rancher living 20 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Chilton told Breitbart News that the border patrol is stationed 80 miles inland from the border.

 

This article was sourced from Breitbart

Climate skeptics want more permanent U.S. exit from UN Paris climate accord – Future president could easily rejoin…Senate should defeat it as treaty

“They fear that if Mr. Trump was able to withdraw based on his signature, a future president could easily rejoin with another signature. Their solution: have the Senate take a vote to ratify the deal as a treaty, and defeat it. Yet withdrawal takes more than three years and full withdrawal won’t be finalized until after the 2020 election, according to the treaty’s terms, meaning if Mr. Trump were defeated, a future administration could reimpose it.

“President Trump made the least satisfactory choice among three alternatives when he announced he would keep his campaign promise to get the United States out of Paris,” Mr. Ebell said. “He accepted that President Obama’s mere signature accepting the treaty was valid, and that all he needed to do was send another signed letter of withdrawal.”

Some scientists who are skeptical of extreme climate change scenarios embraced the idea of forcing a Senate vote now. Dr. Richard Lindzen said the Senate should go even further and revoke any consent it has given to the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change, launched in 1992, whose semi-regular reports help propel the debate and provided the framework for Paris negotiations.

“Bush 41 signed this to lay claim to being our ‘environment president.’ Unfortunately, he committed us to the global warming alarm narrative,” Mr. Lindzen said.

Romney backs Trump on partial shutdown, says ‘I don’t understand’ Pelosi’s position

Source: Fox News

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, on Friday backed President Trump’s stance on the partial government shutdown, backing his call for a wall on the southern border and saying he doesn’t understand Democrats’ positioning on the issue.

“You (Pelosi) and your fellow Democrats have voted for over 600 miles of border fence in the past, why won’t you vote for another few miles now?” said Romney, speaking in Ogden, Utah after visiting with officials about the shutdown’s impact on the community. “I don’t understand their position, I really don’t.”

RONNA MCDANIEL URGES UNCLE MITT ROMNEY TO FOCUS ON FIGHTING DEMOCRATS, NOT TRUMP

The stalemate was sparked by Republicans and Democrats unable to come to an agreement on Trump’s call for $5.7 billion for funding for a wall or barrier on the border. Democrats have said they won’t go close to that number, and have instead offered less than $2 billion for more general “border security.”

According to The Associated Press, Romney backed Trump and said that the U.S. deserves border security — including a barrier on the southern border.

While Romney is a fellow Republican, he has been a frequent critic of Trump, particularly Trump’s conduct in office. Earlier this month, he made headlines with an op-ed in the Washington Post where he said Trump’s behavior “is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.”

Romney, who ran for president in 2012, said Trump should be bringing the country together, and demonstrate “the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect.”

ROMNEY, ANSWERING CRITICS, SAYS COUNTRY ‘AS DIVIDED AS EVER’

Trump responded to the Post op-ed a day later: “I wish Mitt could be more of a team player. I am surprised he did it this quickly. If he fought really hard against President Obama like he does against me, he would’ve won the election.”

Hillary Clinton Ran Weapons into Libya for Obama; Flynn Was Targeted Because He Knew

Hillary Clinton ran weapons into Libya for Obama

Hillary Clinton profited millions of dollars by secretly running weapons into Libya on behalf of the Obama administration, according to a series of tweets by former law enforcement official Roscoe B. Davis. 

Furthermore, according to Davis’ bombshell tweets, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was then targeted by special counsel Robert Mueller because he was aware of the illegal scheme by Clinton and Obama.

Naturalnews.com reports: Davis began his series of tweets claiming that people were once again showing interest in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, in which U.S. Amb. Chris Stevens, along with CIA operatives Glenn Doherty and Tyrone Woods and Information Officer Sean Smith, were all killed.

The former law officer began by reminding readers that the Obama administration initially blew the attack off as a random incident caused by an anti-Muslim video.

It turns out that was not simply a lie but part of a much larger cover story. And the tragedy, Davis notes, had actually been set in motion by Hillary Clinton’s State Department and others within the intelligence community months earlier.

Davis recounted that on July 25, 2012, Taliban fighters in Afghanistan targeted a U.S. Army CH-47 “Chinook” helicopter with a “new generation Stinger missile.” The United States is the only country that manufactures those missiles.

Reports at the time claimed that the chopper was downed by a Russian-style RPG, but subsequent reporting by Kenneth Timmerman indicated that a new generation Stinger was used. But the Taliban fighters did not properly arm the missile so it failed to detonate and only managed to down the Chinook. The next day, a U.S. Army explosives ordnance team that examined the wreckage discovered unexploded pieces of missile that could only be a next-gen Stinger. The debris included an actual serial number.

Turi, Davis explained, lives in Arizona and was a neighbor to McCain, who had been a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee for years and helped him “secure billions in arms contracts with the DoD.” Davis adds that McCain and Clinton “came up with a plan to arm Al-Qaeda to get them to overthrow” the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was assassinated on Oct. 20, 2011, as the “Arab Spring” spread throughout the Middle East (recall how anti-Trump McCain always was).

After first denying it, the State Department eventually approved the Turi Defense Group’s $267 million request to move arms into Qatar, but the transfer never happened. Instead, Turi says, the weapons went directly to Libya instead of ‘third-party nation’ Qatar, where “half” of them subsequently“ended up in Syria.”

Turi told Herridge that shortly after weapons were sent to Libya on behalf of the Clinton State Department, he became extremely concerned that many were falling into the wrong hands — including those who eventually attacked and killed Ambassador Stevens and his staffers.

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In her report, Herridge noted that during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, “U.S. arms dealers were awarded a record number of export licenses,” and most of the hardware was destined for the Middle East’s “Arab Spring” conflicts in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere. In 2011 alone, more than 86,000 licenses totaling $44.3 billion were awarded — a $10 billion surge from the previous year.

To that point, Davis tweeted that the U.S. arms “bad guys” around the world all the time, but the CIA generally runs those operations. This time, however, Clinton’s State Department was running things, which was worrisome to Turi and the CIA; officials at the agency were concerned that arming “insurgents” with powerful weapons would lead to the downing of civilian aircraft and catastrophe for the U.S. on an international scale.

“But [Clinton] had a big pay day (sic) coming and could [sic] care less, she never flew commercial anyway,” Davis wrote in a tweet. “She wanted to overthrow Qaddafi on the cheap.”

They needed a scapegoat

A few months after the shipment, Fox News reported that Turi’s home was raided by federal agents — in July 2011. The Feds would continue to pursue him for three more years, alleging he committed violations of federal arms export laws.

Why? Because Turi said, the Clinton State Department-led operation quickly got out of hand and fell apart, leaving her in need of a scapegoat.

As for Ambassador Stevens, Davis claims that Hillary put him in Libya to make things right — that is to say, to cover up the weapons-smuggling and the gun-running by her State Department that had since grown beyond her ability to control things from Washington.

Some of the weapons that remained in Libya, as noted by Turi, did, in fact, end up in the hands of “insurgents” who were aligned with al Qaeda. They attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, killing Stevens, Doherty, Woods, and Smith.

The cover story for that attack, laid out by Obama and Clinton and repeated continuously for weeks afterward by Obama administration stooges like national security adviser Susan Rice, was that the attack was spontaneously spurred by an obscure anti-Muslim video made by a producer in California.

During subsequent congressional hearings into the Benghazi disaster, Hillary would show up once to testify, essentially lying to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., when he asked her about any U.S.-sponsored weapons-smuggling operations in the region:

What does any of this have to do with Michael Flynn? His term as director of the DIA occurred during this time span; he was aware of what was taking place, who was responsible, and what their objectives were. In short, he knew all of the details of the weapons smuggling operation and how it had gone awry, culminating in the death of a senior U.S. diplomat in Benghazi.

And that’s why President Obama tried to persuade POTUS Trump not to appoint Flynn as his NSA — and why, after Trump did, the Deep State went after him.

As for Turi, shortly before Election Day 2016 the Obama administration dropped all charges against him and his company.

 

Follow the climate money! Skeptics are the David vs. the warmist Goliath

Billionaire and potential presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg gave the Sierra Club $110 million in a six-year period to fund its campaign against coal-generated electricity. Chesapeake Energy gave the Club $26 million in three years to promote natural gas and attack coal. Ten wealthy liberal foundations gave another $51 million over eight years to the Club and other environmentalist groups to battle coal.

Federal funding for climate change research, technology, international assistance, and adaptation has increased from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $11.6 billion in 2014, with an additional $26.1 billion for climate change programs and activities provided by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

* The Feds spent an estimated $150 billion on climate change and green energy subsidies during President Obama’s first term.

TRUMP vs. OBAMA: In First Two Years in Office Trump Adds 9 MILLION More Jobs Than Obama

2018 Was Year of the Worker Thanks to President Trump!

Job numbers released yesterday through the end of December show an increase of nearly 5 million jobs since President Trump won the 2016 election and an unemployment rate of less than 4 percent. After the same period under Obama, (4) million jobs were lost and unemployment skyrocketed to 9.3 percent!

President Trump’s economic results could arguably be the best all time.

According to data released yesterday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, President Trump has added nearly 5 million jobs in the first two years of his administration.

The same cannot be said for President Obama’s first two years as he lost 4 million jobs. Obama was so bad at creating jobs that by the end of his second term he said that jobs were not coming back. This showed in his first two years with millions of lost jobs.

Overall President Trump has gained nearly 9 million more jobs than Obama in their respective first two years in office!

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, under President Trump more Americans are in the work force than ever before and 2018 was the year of the worker.  President Trump is working hard to bring good paying jobs back to the US and his efforts are showing historic results.

Also according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the US unemployment rate at year end remained at historic lows of less than 4 percent.   Rates for Hispanics have never been lower.

 

President Obama on the other hand again moved in the opposite direction. At the end of his second year in office the unemployment rate in the US was more than 9 percent (9.3).

Manufacturing jobs are coming back to the US because of President Trump.

The mainstream liberal media won’t report this, but when looking at the economy and jobs, the billionaire President Trump is providing a tutorial for any former community organizer that might hope to be President some day.

KHACHATRIAN: Don’t Listen To The Media. President Trump Had A Strong 2018

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump addresses a campaign rally in the Rodeo Arena at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds October 29, 2016 in Golden, Colorado.

By Harry Khachatrian

Despite the media’s unyielding obsession with Russian-collusion conspiracies, tax returns, Stormy Daniels, and any other scandal conjured through sophistry, President Donald Trump has accrued a slew of accomplishments in 2018 that deserve recognition.

From the economy to the Supreme Court to foreign policy, this past year has been replete with home runs for the 45th president.

Economy

Defying skeptics in the media, reputable economists, and Paul Krugman, Trump achieved GDP growth of 4.1% in 2018.

Trump helped stimulate the fastest economic growth since 2014 by reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% (the highest in the developed world) to a far more competitive 21%. In September, the national unemployment rate fell to 3.7% – the lowest it’s been since 1969. Furthermore, over the last year, businesses and corporations saw tremendous growth in profits fueled by Trump’s deregulation and tax cuts.

Some skeptics may point to the stock market’s feeble performance over the past few months – the biggest annual decline in a decade – as an indication of economic turmoil. That claim, however, erroneously conflates market performance with economic performance. Strong jobs numbers, wage and labor force participation increases, and GDP growth all indicate vigor, not volatility, in the economy.

The S&P 500 index may have taken a beating in 2018 (falling 6.2 percent), but so did the unemployment rate, dropping to a five-decade low. And the latest economic news reveals a massive hiring surge. The economy added 312,000 new jobs in December, far exceeding tepid expectations, and the average number of new jobs being created each month in 2018 increased 20 percent. Manufacturing jobs – a policy pillar of Trump’s presidential campaign – grew 714% faster under Trump than Obama. Moreover, average hourly wages increased by 3.2% from the previous year.

Trade

Through the entirety of his run for the presidency, Trump railed against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), vowing to renegotiate it and leverage more favorable terms for the U.S. economy. This year, he accomplished just that, renegotiating NAFTA with Canada and Mexico.

As part of the deal – called the USMCA – Trump opened Canada’s nineteen-billion-dollar diary industry to American markets, eliminating prior provisions that gave Canadian milk products an edge over their American competitors. Trump’s negotiations with Mexico and Canada also helped boost the domestic production of automobiles.

Over in the East, China capitulated to mounting pressure from Trump, agreeing to crack down on the production and trafficking of fentanyl. In 2017, the lethal, synthetic opioid was responsible for nearly 30,000 deaths in the US – 60% of all opioid overdoses in the country.

Foreign Policy

In stark contrast to every past president since Bill Clinton, Trump not only promised to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, he actually moved it, recognizing the historic Jewish city as the capital of Israel.

Under Trump’s tutelage, the U.S. withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The nominal human rights organization long eschewed its own title, filling its board with egregious human rights violators such as Egypt, where dissidents and journalists are imprisoned, and Cuba, where political opposition has long been stifled into oblivion.

And then there was the Iran deal — the zenith of Obama’s foreign policy. The Iran nuclear deal was signed hastily, and with many shortcomings. It removed a bevy of financial and military sanctions that could be used as bargaining tools; it provided no clear method to verify Iran’s adherence to the deal; it provided no means to stop the rogue regime from funneling its unfrozen asset to terrorist organizations; and it even admitted that in 10 years, Iran could begin development of nuclear weapons.

Consequently, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Iran Deal (another campaign promise kept), and in 2018, reinstated all economic sanctions against the Iranian regime. Trump restored essential non-military options for dealing with Iran in the event that they accelerate their plans to procure a nuclear weapon.

The biggest 2018 headline was: Trump became the first sitting US president in history to meet with a North Korean leader. The momentous summit between the United States and the communist regime was promptly followed by North Korea announcing its plan for denuclearization before the end of Trump’s first term.

Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)

Trump was handed a second Supreme Court vacancy in 2018. To fill the position, the president nominated Yale Law School alum Brett Kavanaugh, who was subsequently bombarded with sexual misconduct accusations. Beginning with decades-old allegations bereft of corroborative witnesses, the media then rapaciously latched on to the wildest accusations they could find: that in his highbrow college years, Kavanaugh was (allegedly) a serial gang rape ring-leader. The story crumbled when the accuser changed her story, admitting she never witnessed Kavanaugh doing anything other than being present at a party.

Trump supported Kavanaugh through the entire charade, refusing to withdraw his nomination at the behest of far-left activists and the media. On October 6, Kavanaugh took the oath of office, shortly after he was successfully voted in by the Senate.

Freeing Americans From Foreign Captivity

From day one of his presidency to today, Trump and his administration have negotiated and secured the release of 17 American citizens from foreign captivity. And in contrast to his predecessor, President Obama, Trump didn’t pay ransom fees or free terrorists as concessions.

In 2018, Trump negotiated the release of an American pastor from Erdogan’s regime in Turkey, secured the freedoms of three Americans held in North Korea, and gave an endearing welcome home to an American held prisoner in a Venezuelan slum for two years, just to name a few.

Notwithstanding these accomplishments, tune in to CNN or MSNBC, pick up a copy of the New York Times or Washington Post, and you’re force-fed the same fodder: “Trump is trying to distract you from his criminal wrongdoings. His presidency is headed downhill and impeachment is imminent.”

A few examples from CNN:

“What Trump is trying to distract you from,” Chris Cillizza

“Donald Trump’s DC is a dangerous global distraction,” Nic Robertson

“Trump is distracting you from this,” Don Lemon

These aren’t cherry-picked outliers. Successive studies (see here and here) on the media’s coverage of Trump’s presidency arrive at the same conclusion: it’s overwhelmingly negative (upwards of 92%). The media isn’t enamored with the vagaries of the Mueller investigation because they deem it to be the most pressing story of the modern era. Mueller coverage is the media’s way of distracting from what Trump is really doing: successfully following through on a bevy of campaign promises.

Follow Harry Khachatrian on Twitter

Schumer Snubs Trump “Wall” Memes As White House Offers “Fence” Compromise

Like his relative Amy Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has never been widely regarded for his sense of humor. So it’s hardly surprising that after another round of negotiations to end the government shutdown – now in its 15th day – ended with “little progress” on Saturday, a clearly frustrated Schumer lashed out at President Trump, demanding Trump stop with the memes and also stop “hurting people”.

In a response to Trump’s latest “Wall is Coming” tweet, which incorporated imagery from the popular HBO drama Game of Thrones. Schumer demanded “enough with the memes.”

Of course, by refusing to compromise with Republicans, Democrats bear some of the responsibility for the shutdown that is leaving cash strapped government workers in an increasingly precarious financial position (though President Trump insisted on Friday that lenders and landlords should go easy on gov’t employees, by guaranteeing that they would be “good for the money”).

And while Schumer continues to reject anything with the word ‘wall’ in it…Trump’s ‘hand of the king’, Mick Mulvaney, appeared to offer a semantics-based compromise during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press”. During the interview, Mulvaney said that the president has shown a “willingness” to compromise with Democrats to reopen the government, which has remained partially closed for 15 days.

“[The president] was willing to agree, and he mentioned this at the Rose Garden press conference, to take a concrete wall off the table,” Mulvaney said.

In a separate interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Mulvaney said that the latest round of negotiations with Democrats had been “disappointing” and that they were there largely to stall on reopening the government. 

But instead of focusing on Trump’s penchant for meme warfare, Schumer and his Democratic colleagues might want to instead focus on explaining what exactly has changed since the days when they, too, advocated for stricter immigration policies, including – you guessed it – a wall along the Southern border.

In case they had forgotten – or hoped that everybody else had – President Trump reminded them in a series of tweets on Sunday where he dredged up quotes about border security and the wall uttered by President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

This isn’t the first time Trump has pointed to the Democrats’ border-wall hypocrisy. And in case readers thought Schumer might have been an exception, allow us to confirm: He isn’t. Here’s a video from 2009 where Schumer declares “illegal immigration is wrong.”

In fact, before Trump supported tighter border security, tougher scrutiny for illegal immigrants and building a wall across the Southern border, Democrats openly supported both measures.

In a press conference on Sunday before heading to Camp David where he planned to discuss border security with his aides, Trump boasted that he could solve the shutdown in 20 minutes during talks with Schumer and Pelosi. Given their past statements, it’s somewhat surprising that they haven’t already reached a compromise. Though, we can think of a few reasons why the Dems wouldn’t want to be seen “caving” to the president so soon after retaking the House.

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