Happy Fathers Day: …a responsibility to love, nurture and care for the next generation!
Spygate & Obamagate: More and more information, emails and records are coming up that show that the Obama Administration weaponized the IRS, FBI, CIA and others for partisan, political motives.
This should be unacceptable to EVERYONE, regardless of party or candidate preference.
We are a country based on the rule of law… our fundamental principle that holds the rest together.
Russia: Ironic how they claim that defensive forces moving to Poland in response to Russia’s aggressive and provocative military moves around the world are somehow “destabilizing.” The Russians should look in the mirror and consider becoming a constructive partner in the world rather than stirring things up.
The left’s “dark money”: Attached is a very telling and important article to read about how the left raises and out spends conservatives in its effort to change America.
Newsreel for This Week:
AMA: Build On The ACA Rather Than Pursue Medicare For All
The American Medical Association isn’t ready to support a single payer version of “Medicare for All” and instead wants to strengthen the Affordable Care Act heading into the 2020 Presidential campaign.
First major ‘Medicare for All’ hearing sharpens attacks on both sides
The hearing was mostly partisan and light on substance, with members using their allotted time to rail for or against the proposal instead of questioning the panel of health care experts and advocates at the witness table.
Bernie Sanders defends democratic socialism in key speech
Sen. Bernie Sanders outlined – and defended – his vision for democratic socialism on Wednesday, as he faces down criticism and uncertainty from President Trump and more moderate Democrats about some of his policy stances ahead of the presidential election
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-Saul Anuzis
Face facts, America, Donald Trump is a success. Let’s count the ways.
Trumpsters aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed how the media treat Trump.
Surprisingly, 93-year-old former president Jimmy Carter said, “I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about.”
Speaking with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Carter continued, “I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.”
But is the White House press secretary right? Are Trump’s wins underreported?
On Dec. 16, Ross Douthat, writing in The Times, called the ISIS defeat “a case where the media is not adequately reporting an important success because it does not fit into the narrative of Trumpian disaster in which our journalistic entities are all invested.”
Besides defeating ISIS, what are Trump’s wins this year?
Trump’s 2020 Re-Election Campaign Wants Order and Discipline, Down to Font Sizes
President Trump’s path to a second term starts not in Florida, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, but in the pages of a corporate-style branding book developed inside a spacious and well-equipped campaign office.
The document, “Branding Guidelines for the Trump Presidential Campaign,” covers design minutiae such as font size, spacing and authorized colors—“Trump Red” and “Trump Blue” for logos, and “Trump Gold” for special occasions. It specifies which images of Mr. Trump to use to convey compassion, which to show strength and, in the case of a photo of the president pointing into the camera, when to let donors know they need to boost contributions.
Four years ago, Mr. Trump launched a first presidential bid that flouted presidential electioneering norms. His re-election campaign is looking a lot more conventional. It revolves around corporate tactics such as branding and merchandising, a direct-marketing push that relies on collecting supporters’ cellphone numbers and a data-mining operation involving a yet-to-be-released smartphone app.
That is the kind of planning, predictability and attention to detail the president eschewed last time around, when his more impromptu and instinctual approach turned him into a political phenomenon and a cultural lightning rod. The challenge for his re-election operation will be reaping benefits from a more professional approach without damping enthusiasm among his supporters or interfering with the kind of seat-of-the-pants campaigning that has proven effective in the past.
Five Facts: The US-China Trade War
Today, the U.S-China trade war continues unabated. This increases the risk of slowing the global economy, IMF Chief Christine Lagarde warned last week. Leaders at a G-20 meeting in Japan expressed similar concerns that an open trade war could have serious consequences for markets around the world. Another meeting is set for late June between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping; this could ultimately determine the shared economic future of these two global powerhouses.
Here are five facts on issues that are driving the current discord between the U.S. and China
Cuccinelli named acting head of Citizenship and Immigration Services
Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) on Monday began his new job as acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a controversial appointment that could set up a showdown between the White House and Senate Republicans.
President Trump tapped Cuccinelli to lead the agency, which is tasked with administering the nation’s legal immigration system, at a time when he is seeking to crack down on illegal migration and make it tougher for immigrants to obtain benefits.
“Our nation has the most generous legal immigration system in the world and we must zealously safeguard its promise for those who lawfully come here,” Cuccinelli said in a statement distributed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“I look forward to working with the men and women of USCIS to ensure our legal immigration system operates effectively and efficiently while deterring fraud and protecting the American people.”
Cuccinelli’s appointment was weeks in the making, with Trump eyeing the fellow immigration hard-liner for a top role at DHS.
There are more jobs than people out of work, something the American economy has never experienced before
• There are 6.7 million job openings and just 6.4 million available workers to fill them, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• April marked the second month in a row that there were more vacancies than available hires, a phenomenon that had not happened before 2018.
• Despite the mismatch, sizeable wage gains remain elusive, with average hourly earnings up just 2.7 percent over the past year.
The jobs market has reached what should be some kind of inflection point: there are now more openings than there are workers.
April marked the second month in a row this historic event has occurred, and the gap is growing.
According to the monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released Tuesday, there were just shy of 6.7 million open positions in April, the most recent month for which data are available. That represented an increase of 65,000 from March and is a record.
Conservatives Burned By Twitter Flock To New Platform
After an unexpected surge of new users caused some technical difficulties earlier in the week, the new app that some are calling the answer to the ongoing battle between conservatives and Twitter is back up and running, promising to support free expression online.
The platform, called Parler News, is named for the French word meaning “to speak,” and many are saying it is the next logical move for those who wish to do so freely without fear of being silenced.
“Alternative platforms will rise and those who are bold will switch,” Parler News founder and CEO John Matze wrote in a post on his platform Monday night. “Big tech is not too big to topple, in fact, they are blinded by their size/power and are hurting themselves by ideologically targeting groups.”
The structure of the app itself closely mirrors that of Twitter, limiting the learning curve for those who choose to make the jump. User posts are limited to 1,000 characters, which other users can then support by “voting” and “echoing,” rather than “liking” and “retweeting.”
Russia warns NATO over US-Poland troop move
Russia has warned NATO that US President Donald Trump’s pledge to send 1,000 US troops to Poland will “destabilize” Europe. NATO forces in member Poland already include a rotating pool of 4,500 US soldiers.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday Moscow was “very closely” tracking US planning outlined at the White House during a visit by Polish President Andrzej Duda on Wednesday.
Trump told Duda he would send 1,000 US troops from Germany into Poland, whose leaders have long wanted an installation they have code-named “Fort Trump.”
A joint US-Polish declaration said drones of a US Air Force squadron, MQ-9, would also be deployed to Poland.
Poland would provide “jointly determined infrastructure” for the initial package of additional projects “at no cost to the United States,” it added in a post relayed by US European Command in Stuttgart.
Private armies and secret deals: Russia’s drive into Africa
A cache of leaked documents appear to show how a close Putin ally is leading a push to turn Africa into a strategic hub with echoes of Soviet-era zones of influence. Luke Harding reports on the Kremlin’s drive to leave its mark on the continent. Plus comedian Jon Stewart tears into US lawmakers over the treatment of 9/11 first responders and emergency services.
A former hotdog seller who went on to become a billionaire and key ally of Vladimir Putin is at the centre of a cache of leaked documents that reveal Russian efforts to exert influence in Africa.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is known as “Putin’s chef”, is linked to a secretive private military contractor called the Wagner group which has supplied mercenaries to fight in Ukraine and Syria.
Obama Immigration Fix: 4M Illegals Who Never Paid U.S. Tax, Get 3 Years Of Tax Refunds
You have to admit it sounds crazy. The normal rule is that the IRS can audit for three years, so you can usually go back three years to amend your return or claim a credit you forgot. What if you never had any income or never filed a return? Just wait. Since an illegal immigrant under President Obama’s executive action can now get a Social Security number, the immigrant road map is clear.
First, get the Social, then claim the Earned Income Tax Credit for the three open tax years, and Voila! IRS sends you three years of tax refunds. Welcome to America! No matter that you never paid taxes, never filed a return, worked off the books, etc. All sins forgiven. And the IRS says this is the way the Earned Income Tax Credit works. Recall that the Earned Income Tax Credit—EITC to those in the tax biz—is the one that is responsible for billions in fraudulent refunds.
In that sense, this is just one more accolade for the EITC. If this sounds too good to be true, or too strange to be possible, check out what the IRS says about the Earned Income Tax Credit, including this list of questions and answers. It makes you wonder if he knew in advance of the tax refund bonanza for illegal immigrants or this is just gravy. Regardless, Republicans are not happy with the President or the IRS Commissioner.
Ten Government Legacy Systems Cost Taxpayers $337 Million Every Year
The federal government’s 10 legacy systems most in need of modernization cost about $337 million a year to operate and maintain, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The 10 systems aren’t necessarily the government’s oldest. GAO withheld systems’ names in its public report due to security concerns, but they range from 8 to 51 years old and are housed within 10 different agencies.
GAO plucked these 10 from a pool of 65 submitted by the 24 CFO Act agencies and determined they were most in need of an update due a mix of their age, how critical they are to agency missions and risks. The final list include many that depend on ancient programming languages like COBOL, have unsupported hardware or software, and operate with known security vulnerabilities.
The 7 Worst Ideas for Regulation This Century
Many good things have happened both in the United States and worldwide this century. In the U.S., we have the lowest unemployment rate in half a century. Worldwide prosperity is growing so fast that the rate of extreme poverty fell by half between 1990 and 2015, five years ahead of the World Bank’s optimistic goal.
The bad news is that along with great economic performance has come a good bit of silly, one might even call it stupid, regulation and proposals for regulation. Here are my top seven for the United States, although I’m open to hearing about other, even stupider ones.
The Right-Wing Debate Between Classical Liberalism and Bigger Government
I wrote yesterday about the debate among leftists, which is partly a contest between Bernie Sanders-style socialists and Elizabeth Warren-style corporatists.
Now let’s look at the debate on the right.
There’s an ongoing argument over what it means to be conservative, especially when thinking about the role of the federal government.
You can view this debate – if you peruse this “political compass test” – as being a battle over whether it is best for conservatism to be represented by Friedrich Hayek or Angela Merkel? By Donald Trump or Gary Johnson?
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a debate between whether the right believes in the principles of small-state classical liberalism or whether it thinks government should have the power to steer society.
Top 6 Soviet World War II myths used by Russia today
In the USSR, the myth of the Great Patriotic War was the central to the identity of the Soviet citizen. The practical reasons were obvious: after the end of the war, there was no positive event of equal significance that could play a unifying role. Starting from 1965, the Soviet state cultivated the image of the powerful victorious Soviet nation united in battling the evil invaders in lavish celebrations.
Today, it is once again being used as a nation-formative myth, and one that justifies modern Russian military expansion. The Kremlin is convincing the Russian population that by invading Ukraine it is not committing aggression against a neighboring country, but merely continuing the battle against fascists who endanger both Russia and the world. To do that, it perpetuates historical falsifications of the Soviet era.
A new book published by the Institute of National Memory aims to bust Soviet-era myths about World War II. A selection of 50 myths is also available online on their newly created site. Here we analyze the top-6 Soviet myths of World War II which are instrumental in the Kremlin’s modern nation-building policies today.
