I celebrated my birthday this week, turning 60. I’m looking forward to joining the 60 Plus Association and helping “older†Americans live better… and hopefully longer.
Toby Keith wrote a great song that one of my favorites, Clint Eastwood, starred in the video with a message worth sharing.
Don’t let the old man in, I wanna leave this alone.
Can’t leave it up to him, he’s knocking on my door.
And I knew all of my life, that someday it would end.
Get up and go outside, don’t let the old man in.
Many moons I have lived.
My body’s weathered and worn.
Ask yourself how old you’d be.
If you didn’t know the day you were born.
Try to love on your wife.
And stay close to your friends.
Toast each sundown with wine.
Don’t let the old man in.
Electoral Reform: I believe states, whether by state legislative action or initiative, should adopt the “American Electoral Reform Plan†as state constitutional amendments. It’s simple, straight forward, makes sense and I believe would get broad bipartisan support. The plan should have three provisions in one initiative:
• ONLY certified U.S. citizens can vote in ANY local, state or federal elections
• Appropriate and valid state id must be used for voting to prove citizenship (free ID’s provided for those who can’t afford it).
• Death Certificates are automatically filed with the local election officials and dead people are removed from voter registration roles at the time of filing those death certificates.
These reforms would be easy to implement, relatively inexpensive and MORE importantly, the right this to do in order to protect our democratic republican form of government.
Just simple, common sense!
Romney Right on Russia: See the articles below. Now Senator Mitt Romney was right on Russia during the debates. The former KGB agent, Putin, just can’t let certain things from his past go. His foreign endeavors are a good distraction for the average Russian citizens and play well at home. Unfortunately, the rest of the world pays the price and MUST be wary.
Texas Becoming A Swing State?: A very SCARY article about polling in Texas. If this ever happens, the ‘winner takes all’ rule creates an impossible path to the presidency for Republicans. Read the article below on Texas.
Is the Trade Deficit Bad?: The last article today is an older analysis from the CATO Institute that does a great job describing the effects and benefits of a trade deficit. It’s not all that bad, depending on the products, services, and capital involved. Check it out… very well done.
2019 Congressional Calendar: For those of you who care, here is a nice resource that lets you know the planned congressional calendar for this year.
60 Plus Weekly Newsreel: A great, short, and easy to listen summary of the week’s news in a short video for the ones who just don’t want to read it all 🙂 Please enjoy and share with friends.
-Saul Anuzis
Trump Just Might Have Won the 2020 Election Today
It’s way too early to be thinking this, much less saying it, but what the hell: If Donald Trump is able to deliver the sort of performance he gave today at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the annual meeting of right-wingers held near Washington, D.C., his reelection is a foregone conclusion.
There is simply no potential candidate in the Democratic Party who wouldn’t be absolutely blown off the stage by him. I say this as someone who is neither a Trump fanboy nor a Never Trumper. But he was not simply good, he was Prince-at-the-Super-Bowl great, deftly flinging juvenile taunts at everyone who has ever crossed him, tossing red meat to the Republican faithful, and going sotto voce serious to talk about justice being done for working-class Americans screwed over by global corporations.
In a heavily improvised speech that lasted over two hours, the 72-year-old former (future?) reality TV star hit every greatest hit in his repertoire (“Crooked Hillary,” “build the wall,” “America is winning again,” and more all made appearances) while riffing on everything from the Green New Deal to his own advanced age and weird hair to the wisdom of soldiers over generals. At times, it was like listening to Robin Williams’ genie in the Disney movie Aladdin, Howard Stern in his peak years as a radio shock jock, or Don Rickles as an insult comic. When he started making asides, Trump observed, “This is how I got elected, by going off script.” Two years into his presidency and he’s just getting warmed up.
The Resistance is Everything They Accuse Trump of Being
The defining characteristic of today’s Democrats is that most unattractive of human failings, hypocrisy. Since Donald Trump’s improbable election, Dems and their media mouthpieces have been demanding that the rest of us recognize the existential threat he poses to the nation. Their demands are based on a litany of accused authoritarian character traits and fascistic conduct that Trump obviously doesn’t hold and in fact never committed. The reality is the Democrats are projecting — accusing Trump of the very outrages that they themselves practiced in their obsession to prevent and then overturn his election.
The most ridiculous of these accusations is that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the election. Setting aside for the moment the massive economic damage Trump’s energy policies have inflicted on Russia’s fragile economy, let’s examine the Democrat’s actions to protect us from the Russian Bear.
The fictitious dossier, written by a foreign spy citing unnamed Russian intelligence sources, was deployed to smear Trump. When the dossier failed to defeat him, it was used to justify endless investigations, congressional hearings, and ominous news coverage that hobbled his presidency, wrecked his efforts to improve relations with Russia and greatly diminished voters’ confidence in our democracy. Only after this witch-hunt was set in motion was it revealed that the bogus dossier was a product of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Texas is Now a 2020 Swing State
Every presidential candidate in 2020 will need to campaign hard in toss-up states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania … and Texas?
A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday showed that Texas is surprisingly competitive for Democratic candidates eyeing the White House. President Trump is essentially tied in hypothetical matchups with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), former Vice President Joe Biden, and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas). O’Rourke and Biden have not announced bids for the presidency.
The University of Virginia’s Center for Politics says that Texas, along with Georgia and North Carolina, “may be becoming less reliably Republican.” The analysis says Texas “leans Republican” — as do notorious swing states like Iowa and North Carolina — and lists it among states that might be the best targets for Democrats looking to win over historically red regions of the country.
But O’Rourke is also neck-in-neck with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a conspicuous detail considering the Democrat on Wednesday announced that he had ruled out a Senate run. Quinnipiac’s poll showed that Texas voters are split on O’Rourke — 44 percent have a favorable opinion of him, while 40 percent have a negative opinion. Quinnipiac polled 1,222 Texas voters, reaching them by phone between Feb. 20-25. The margin of error is 3.4 percentage points.
Is Dan Crenshaw the Future of the GOP?
The right’s newest young star in Congress offers a vision for the party somewhere between Trumpism and Never-Trumpism. But it’s not easy walking the line in Washington.
It’s 4 p.m. on Wednesday, the first day of the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference—not exactly a prime speaking slot—but a standing room-only crowd has gathered to hear from freshman Congressman Dan Crenshaw. While we wait for the 34-year-old Texan, who is running late due to a vote in the House, the first person I talk to at the back of the Eastern Shore meeting room is Jacob Foster, an 18-year-old high-school student at Gann Academy outside Boston, who is attending CPAC for the third time in his young life. Foster is something of an endangered species at the conference: a conservative who likes a lot of the policies advanced by President Donald Trump yet doesn’t intend to vote for him in 2020 because of Trump’s character. But Crenshaw gives Foster hope.
“The glaring difference is he’s not facing accusations of sexual assault, he hasn’t had three marriages, he didn’t dodge the Vietnam draft,†Foster says. “On policy issues, there are meaningful differences. On trade, he’s not as quick to use tariffs.â€
When Crenshaw arrives, the former Navy SEAL speaks about how to inspire “people back home†to embrace conservative values—personal responsibility, limited government, virtue, liberty—over a culture of outrage. “A society full of people who are easily enraged by every tweet they see, or some news story that comes out—so susceptible to outrage culture, so ready to be offended—it’s not a sustainable society. It’s a society at each other’s throats,†he says. Crenshaw doesn’t mention Trump once. The only politician cited by name is John Adams. The Constitution is “wholly inadequate for any other people but a moral people,†says Crenshaw, paraphrasing the Founding Father. Meanwhile, Trump fixer Michael Cohen is across the Potomac testifying to Congress.
Why Republican Politicians Pay More Than Democrats for TV Ads
Taken together, candidates running for Congress in the 2018 midterms spent $2.6 billion on media. Much of this went into the pockets of media consultants, who captured roughly one-third of total expenditures, or $780 million. But these staggering amounts were not drawn equally from both parties.
New research by Gregory J. Martin, an assistant professor of political economy at Stanford Graduate School of Business, shows that these consultants charge Republican candidates a premium for their services. Specifically, Republicans pay about 30 cents more on the dollar than do Democrats. Or, put another way, contributions to Democratic candidates go 30{fb8df23bcbe63834ab470b15c329878706f1e0585fb094e72a20fd012a2164a1} further in the advertising world than the same contributions to Republican candidates. The results are published in the American Political Science Review.
The outsourcing of core campaign functions, like advertising, has become ubiquitous in politics. “And yet there has not been a lot of thought put into the consequences of this outsourcing,†Martin says. This lack of understanding led him and his colleague, Zachary Peskowitz of Emory University, to focus on media consultants. How profitable are they, and what kinds of candidates are the most profitable clients? As it turns out, “the most consistent predictor of profit margin is party affiliation,†Martin says.
The Republican Party Needs Asian Voters
And by courting them, the GOP can demonstrate that their principles are universal.
In November 2015, then-radio-host Stephen Bannon was interviewing then-presidential-candidate Donald Trump. During the interview, Trump expressed concern that, owing to American immigration laws, many foreign students attending elite American universities were being forced to return home after graduation. “We have to be careful of that, Steve,†said Trump. “You know, we have to keep our talented people in this country.â€
“Um,†Bannon replied.
“I think you agree with that,†Trump added. “Do you agree with that?â€
Bannon paused, and said, “When two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think . . . A country is more than an economy. We’re a civic society.â€
The Bannon–Trump exchange highlights the most significant division within the conservative movement today.
In one camp are demographic pessimists such as Bannon. They presume that Americans of non-European heritage are hostile to conservatism and think we should oppose the increasing racial diversification of America because it will move the country to the left.
Nikki Haley lays the foundation to seize Trump’s mantle in 2024
Republican Nikki Haley is meticulously laying the foundation for a presidential bid in 2024, forming a nonprofit organization to sustain her political-rock-star profile while she builds a financial nest egg so her family can afford her political ambitions.
Party insiders keeping tabs on Haley say the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations wouldn’t challenge her old boss, President Trump, in the 2020 primary. But the dynamic ex-South Carolina governor, just 47, is expected to mount a campaign four years later. With a coterie of advisers, Haley is choosing each step to maximize her notoriety and chart a course to the White House.
Amid quiet maneuvering, Haley’s immediate priority is making money. Neither Haley nor her husband are wealthy. With two children now of college age, Republicans familiar with Haley’s planning say her desire to put family first is a practical necessity, not a cliche.
Democrats Turn to Online Tool for Organizing Volunteers
As Sens. Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker kicked off their Democratic presidential campaigns, they asked supporters to register for rallies and town halls, routing them all to the same online platform, MobilizeAmerica.
The two-year-old tech company, based in New York, gives Democratic campaigns and progressive causes a centralized sign-up system for events, door-knocking and shifts calling and texting voters. The volunteers’ information is saved on the MobilizeAmerica website, and they are exposed to other Democratic work if they click through events listings.
Each election cycle is an incubator for campaign tools to sell in the multibillion-dollar political market, and the two major parties race each other to come up with the best new systems. By 2016, Republicans had deployed a broadly used data-swapping system that Democrats are now trying to emulate. And in 2004, Democrats developed ActBlue, an online fundraising system that Republicans want to copy.
The co-founders of MobilizeAmerica are veterans of Democratic presidential campaigns who spotted a business opportunity in the world of political volunteerism. Large-scale campaigns amass long lists of potential helpers, but there wasn’t an easy way for busy campaigns to keep track of them, or a way to connect those people to other political events or campaigns that might be of interest.
The genesis of MobilizeAmerica came shortly after the November 2016 election of President Trump, when millions of people attended women’s marches timed to his inauguration.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Others Think Socialism is the Future – They’re Dead Wrong
Is America experiencing a socialist moment? Given the current political environment, you’d be forgiven for thinking so.
The Green New Deal – a comic book collection of absurdist ideas to combat global warming – would devastate the economy with unprecedented government controls. Yet it has been endorsed by numerous Democrat presidential candidates. So, has the idea of a total government takeover of health care; Democrats sugarcoat (oops, sugar is a no-no, so let’s use the word disguise) this form of socialism by dubbing it Medicare for All, even though this program currently offers a robust private insurance option.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., one of what is becoming a stadium full of presidential aspirants, made clear that the private health insurance industry would be rendered illegal. Another White House wannabe, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., proposed a bill last year that would impose radical government oversight of corporate governance, part of a move to effectively take over businesses without the inconvenience of buying out shareholders. And hardly a day goes by without new schemes for higher taxes such as a 70 percent income tax rate and a wealth tax.
Swedish Ex-Prime Minister Rebukes Bernie: Socialism Only Destroys
Socialism never stopped enticing young American minds. But the more Democratic Socialists such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez open their mouths, we learn the movement’s most vocal proponents simply ignore socialism’s incompatibility with democracy, as demonstrated by Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises in A Critique of Interventionism . Sen. Bernie Sanders is one of them.
With the Vermont senator announcing he’s running for president, his past comments defending socialism and socialist countries notorious for their failures become the type of material critics are eager to dissect. Especially because he still calls himself a Democratic Socialist while using Nordic countries as examples of what he defends.
Thankfully, political figures from the very countries the good senator from Vermont calls “socialist†are here to remind him that the ideology is nothing but a trap.
Prime Minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994, Carl Bildt, took to Twitter to warn Sanders that socialism is not the key to creating a great society as he and Ocasio-Cortez seem to think.
Cold War’s Devastating Anti-Communism
Director Pawel Pawlikowski’s masterful film mounts a subtle, power-packed critique of the socialist phenomenon.
The best narrative art eschews didacticism in favor of subtlety and nuance and moral reflection. The Polish film Cold War, released last year and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, is no exception. It tells the story, inspired by Pawlikowski’s parents, of Wiktor Warski (Tomasz Kot) and Zula Lichón (Joanna Kulig), whose amour fou burns against the backdrop of postwar Europe.
Wiktor’s passion for Zula consumes him. It haunts him for years after he flees Poland, and drives him to return despite the certainty of imprisonment. Zula herself is a beautiful, broken creature, the victim of abuse, talented but insecure, flirtatious, charming, impetuous, melancholy, who dulls her anxieties with alcohol. This passionate and doomed romance also has a political dimension. Which is why Cold War is not just melodrama. It’s a masterpiece.
The film is a subtle but devastating critique of the socialist phenomenon. Wiktor and Zula meet shortly after the end of World War II, when Wiktor is tasked with assembling a musical troupe that will perform folk music for the nomenklatura of the Soviet client government. With his partner, choreographer Irena Bielecka (Agata Kulesza), Wiktor tours the countryside, recording ancient melodies. They occupy what looks to be an old estate — a ruin of the ancien régime — where they hold auditions. Among the aspiring dancers and singers is Zula, to whom Wiktor is immediately drawn. Irena doesn’t share Wiktor’s enthusiasm, especially after Zula performs a song from a Soviet movie. But she relents. Zula joins the group.
Russian Trolls Shift Strategy to Disrupt U.S. Election in 2020
Russian internet trolls appear to be shifting strategy in their efforts to disrupt the 2020 U.S. elections, promoting politically divisive messages through phony social media accounts instead of creating propaganda themselves, cybersecurity experts say.
The Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency may be among those trying to circumvent protections put in place by companies including Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. to find and remove fake content that hackers created to sow division among the American electorate in the 2016 presidential campaign.
“Instead of creating content themselves, we see them amplifying content,†said John Hultquist, the director of intelligence analysis at FireEye Inc. “Then it’s not necessarily inauthentic, and that creates an opportunity for them to hide behind somebody else.â€
Russian General Pitches ‘Information’ Operations as a Form of War
The chief of Russia’s armed forces endorsed on Saturday the kind of tactics used by his country to intervene abroad, repeating a philosophy of so-called hybrid war that has earned him notoriety in the West, especially among American officials who have accused Russia of election meddling in 2016.
At a conference on the future of Russian military strategy, Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff, said countries bring a blend of political, economic and military power to bear against adversaries.
The speech outlined what some Western analysts consider the signature strategy of Russia under President Vladimir V. Putin — and what other experts call a simple recognition of modern war and politics.
General Gerasimov said Russia’s armed forces must maintain both “classical†and “asymmetrical†potential, using jargon for the mix of combat, intelligence and propaganda tools that the Kremlin has deployed in conflicts such as Syria and Ukraine.
Russian Generals’ Biggest Fear? Ordinary Russians
Russian and U.S. generals have made no secret lately of the fact that they each view other as their No. 1 adversary.
Modern weaponry plays a big role in these mutual threats. But Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov is now fretting that the U.S. will deploy a “Trojan horse†strategy of fostering a fifth column within Russia and its allies. That the general should be looking so publicly over his shoulder at his own people should trouble citizens.
On Saturday, he talked about the threat in a speech at a conference at the Academy of Military Sciences. He said:
The U.S. and its allies have set an aggressive vector for their foreign policy. They are developing offensive military actions such as a “global strike†and “multi-domain battle,†using “colored revolution†and “soft power†technology. Their goal is to liquidate the statehood of undesirable countries, to undermine their sovereignty and replace their legally elected governments. That’s what happened in Iraq, in Libya and in Ukraine.
Moscow threatens to SINK foreign ships using Arctic sea route
• Russia threatened they would hit cargo ships unless they follow new rules
• Kremlin want advanced noticed and a Russian pilot to go aboard foreign ships
• The colossal shipping lane runs from the Atlantic to the Pacific north of Russia
• The news comes as fears of a new Cold War are rife throughout the West
Russian today threatened to sink foreign naval and cargo ships using the most northerly major sea route in the world unless they abide by strict new rules.
The Kremlin is demanding 45 days advance notice of voyages and insisting foreign vessels take on board a Russian pilot as they sail through the Arctic.
Even then, non-Russian ships may be refused access to the Northern Sea Route. Vessels disobeying the edict could be arrested or sunk, say reports.
Women May Now Lead In Obtaining Concealed Carry Permits
The dramatic increase in the number of firearms purchases made by women over the past decade is indisputable. One only need look at the number of “muddy girl†or “Tiffany blue (Robin’s egg) colored firearms on the market today for verification that the firearms industry has taken notice. However, recent studies are now showing that growth could be more substantial than originally thought and that women may have surpassed the number of men obtaining concealed carry permits nationwide.
Concealed Carry Permits By the Numbers: Last month, a study conducted by John R. Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center showed that from 2007 to 2017 the number of concealed handgun permits issued in the United States soared to over 16.36 million – a 256{fb8df23bcbe63834ab470b15c329878706f1e0585fb094e72a20fd012a2164a1} increase.
Page 13 of the same study states that 14 states, with about 4 million permit holders between them, have reported permit data by gender for 2016. Among those states, women averaged 36{fb8df23bcbe63834ab470b15c329878706f1e0585fb094e72a20fd012a2164a1} of permit holders. The states represent all regions of the country: Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Washington State.
Additionally “in the eight states where we have data by gender for both 2012 and 2016, the number of permits increased by 93{fb8df23bcbe63834ab470b15c329878706f1e0585fb094e72a20fd012a2164a1} for women and by 22{fb8df23bcbe63834ab470b15c329878706f1e0585fb094e72a20fd012a2164a1} for men –– a 327{fb8df23bcbe63834ab470b15c329878706f1e0585fb094e72a20fd012a2164a1} faster rate among women.â€
Between 2005 and 2012, the number of state residents receiving new concealed-carry permits tripled to 62,939. Now some 451,000 Washington residents are allowed to carry a hidden handgun almost anywhere they go, more than 100,000 of them women. Notably, the growth rate for women getting new permits is twice as fast as that of men.
Brother of Late Civil Rights Activist Medgar Evers Endorses Trump
Charles Evers, the brother of slain civil rights icon Medgar Evers, came out Friday in support of Donald Trump for president.
Himself a civil rights activist who in 1969 became the first black mayor in Mississippi, Evers said the GOP front-runner has the business acumen for the job.
“I think he’s the best one right now,†Evers, 93, told The Post. “He’s someone like me: he speaks from the hip. He’s not a politician.â€
Evers said the Mississippi economy would benefit from a president who could bring back industries that have fled overseas.
“We need more and more jobs. Unemployment is way up here,†he said. “He’s hired more employees, more people, than anyone I know in the world.â€
Evers also tried to dispel notions that the real-estate mogul is a bigot.
Ninteen ‘Hate Crimes’ in Trump Era That Were Hoaxes or Different Than Media Suggested
Liberal actor Jussie Smollett is accused of staging a racist and anti-gay attack on himself, which Smollett blamed on supporters of President Donald Trump.
Smollett’s alleged fake “hate crime†appears to be the latest instance of liberals manufacturing hate crimes for attention in the Trump era.
The Daily Caller News Foundation compiled below some of the most outrageous fake hate crimes since Trump was elected, in rough chronological order:
America’s Maligned and Misunderstood Trade Deficit
None of the common concerns about the trade deficit holds up to empirical scrutiny. Trade deficits cannot be blamed for unemployment or slower growth, nor are they a sign of unfair trade practices abroad or declining industrial competitiveness at home. Trade deficits may even signify growing consumer demand and expanding investment opportunities.
What matters to a nation’s economic health is not the difference between exports and imports but the degree to which its citizens are free to trade and invest across international borders. When citizens are allowed to buy and sell goods, services, and investment assets freely in the international marketplace, a nation’s productive resources will tend to flow to the best and highest use, raising the nation’s overall standard of living.
In the final analysis, nations do not trade with each other; people do. Every international transaction that Americans engage in will, by definition, leave both parties to the transaction believing they are better off than before—otherwise the transaction would not occur. By this measure, the “balance of trade†is always positive, benefiting the nation as a whole.
