Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Heritage: Donald Trump has achieved more than Ronald Reagan in first year

Via Billy

 http://cdn.washingtonexaminer.biz/cache/1060x600-6e10383ed597637651827f14e4394197.jpg


President Trump entered the Oval Office as a populist question mark. But after a year, the conservative Heritage Foundation now trumpets that Trump has a more conservative track record than Ronald Reagan at least according to their standards.

Trump adopted two-thirds, or about 64 percent, of the Heritage agenda, meaning that the administration copied and pasted 334 of the think tank’s unique policy proposals. By comparison, the New York Times reports, Reagan adopted just 49 percent of the Heritage agenda making 2017 a banner year for Heritage.

That was always the plan. When other conservatives kept their distance, Heritage welcomed Trump with open arms. He needed a detailed agenda and they had a stockpile of policy proposals ready to roll. And so, in the absence of his own ideas, the ideological wildcard of an executive adopted the ideas of the biggest conservative think tank in Washington.

While Congress was grinding out tax reform, Trump was picking up his pen and his phone and Trump was leaving the Paris Climate Accord and reinstating the Mexico City Policy and ending Net Neutrality. Heritage has a more complete list of all the achievements on their website.

“‘Hell, why can’t we do that? Let’s try it. Let’s make it happen,’” said Heritage founder and former president Ed Feulner impersonating the president. “In some respects, Trump the nonpolitician has an incredible advantage, even over Ronald Reagan,” Feulner told the New York Times. “Because Ronald Reagan knew there were certain things government couldn’t do.”

From its Capitol Hill campus, Heritage has cast a long shadow over Washington policy fights. The fact that Trump has taken up their agenda speaks to their continued influence. The fact that Heritage brass mentions Trump in the same breath as Reagan reflects the state of modern pragmatic conservatism.

Setting aside the fact that understanding the limits of government is a prerequisite to our constitutional republic, the right seems to measure conservatism as opposition. Never mind that Reagan was able to appeal to permanent principle while simultaneously winning passing policies. What’s needed now, the conservative consensus seems to have concluded, is someone willing to tear down the status quo of the administrative state. In Trump, Heritage has found that champion.

Why FBI's 'missing' five months of texts is worse than Watergate

Via Billy

http://a57.foxnews.com/media2.foxnews.com/BrightCove/694940094001/2018/01/23/896/504/694940094001_5717565346001_5717556249001-vs.jpg?ve=1&tl=1

Richard Nixon's secretary Rose Mary Woods erased 18 minutes of tape recording of the president and became infamous in1972. The FBI failed to preserve five months of text messages and expects the American public to believe it was a random mistake.

This is worse than Watergate. The text messages between agents Peter Strozk and Lisa Page are instructive for several reasons.

First, the texts were sent in the lead-up to Robert Mueller being named a special counsel in the investigation of Russia and the 2016 presidential election.

Second, earlier messages that have been released included not only the involvement of outgoing FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, but the desire of top-level FBI officials to create an “insurance policy” against a Donald Trump presidency.

More @ Fox

NC: Confederate monuments to get at least 1 public hearing

Via Jonathan

http://docsouth.unc.edu/static/commland/monument/99_modern_front.jpg

At least one public hearing will be held before a group of historians, preservationists and business people recommend whether three Confederate monuments can or should be moved from North Carolina's old Capitol grounds.

The five members of a study committee that's part of the state Historical Commission agreed Monday to hold at least one public hearing.  They didn't set a date as they wait for more recommendations and information from various sources, including law schools and historians.

They are to report to the full commission by April after considering actions it can take.

An official of Gov. Roy Cooper's administration requested in September the monuments be relocated to the Bentonville battlefield. 

Republican legislative leaders wrote to the Historical Commission discouraging their removal. A 2015 law sets protocol to do so.

More @ SPECTRUM

"We almost lost our country last fall."

Via Billy

Charlie Daniels


America was unwittingly on the precipice of becoming a nation whose government was willing to go to illegal and devious lengths to maintain the status quo.

I believe that the information that will be forthcoming in the next few weeks will be both astonishing and frightening to the American public, information that was never meant to see the light of day, much less the scrutiny of the American people.

I believe there will be irrefutable evidence of collusion among the upper echelons of the Democratic Party actually denying any candidate except Hillary Clinton a chance to be their presidential candidate.

I believe there will be evidence of the same people and their Democrat puppets in Congress to foist a false dossier, undocumented, totally unsubstantiated and paid for by the Democrats, on the American public aided by their serfs in the media that would falsely tie Donald Trump, his associates and members of his inner circle with the Russian government.



Gowdy on Strzok Texts: ‘That Is a Level of Bias That Is Stunning Among Law Enforcement Officers’


Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” while discussing texts message between FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R.-S.C.) said they had “a level of bias that is stunning among law enforcement officers.”

Partial transcript as follows:
SMITH: What do we need to know at this point
GOWDY: We need to know a couple of things. Number one we need to know how the worlds premier law enforcement agency managed to lose five months worth of texts. And what is also troubling in the text we do have they’re discussing how to avoid texts
being captured and secured. So what is missing is important but also what is there is important. It is manifest bias not just against Trump, but against his kids, against his business interests. There is a text where they hope the Trump Hotel fails. That is a level of bias that you rarely see and you never see from law enforcement officers.
What is also troubling to me is this text that Johnny Ratcliffe found last night about this secret society. Now, I have no clue what that means because it was not the phraseology I used. But it’s the day after the election and it’s the same two people that were discussing a little bit later in the text the damage they had done with the Clinton investigation and how they could, quote, fix it and make it right. That is a level of bias that is stunning among law enforcement officers.

More @ Breitbart

Rep. Paul Gosar on #ReleaseTheMemo: Obama’s ‘Weaponization’ of DOJ and Intelligence Services Links to Fast and Furious, IRS, and Benghazi Scandal

 Benghazi protest

“If you don’t think the unmasking has something to do with the weaponization of our Department of Justice and our intelligence services, think again,” said Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), suggesting that the Obama administration had weaponized the executive branch in pursuit of partisan political purposes.

Gosar’s remarks came in a SiriusXM Breitbart News Tonight interview with Breitbart News’s Senior Editors-at-Large Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.

Drawing on a classified four-page memo composed by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, for his claims, Gosar described abuse of executive power as a pattern across the Obama administration.


Gosar linked the following Obama-era operations and events as illustrative of a pattern of partisan weaponization of the executive branch: Fast and Furious; the handling of and response to the September 11, 2012, Islamic terrorist attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya; the IRS’s targeting of dissident charities and non-profits; and the surveillance of persons connected to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

 More @ Breitbart

Confederaphobes

 

A review of Confederaphobia: An American Epidemic by Paul C. Graham (Shotwell Publishing, 2017).

In a brilliant new book on one of the most important topics of our time, Paul C. Graham, the co-founder of Shotwell Publishing, tackles the recent nationwide effort to eradicate every vestige of the Confederacy from our public life. It’s a new psychological condition that he has termed “Confederaphobia.”

What is “Confederaphobia”? Graham defines it as “an irrational and pathological hatred and fear of all things Confederate.” And those that suffer from Confederaphobia, naturally, are known as Confederaphobes.

Recent years have seen numerous examples of Confederaphobia, and Graham meticulously catalogues many of the most well-known cases but some that may not be as familiar: From Linda Folckomer, a Brooklyn Yankee visiting Charleston who took it upon herself to destroy Confederate battle flags on a parked truck, to “triggering” incidents on college campuses, and retail stores dumping items with Confederate imagery.

NC: Large Confederate flag raised in highly visible area in Burke County

Via comment by Reborn on The South and Northern Finance Imperialism

 https://mediaweb.wsoctv.com/photo/2018/01/22/Confederate%20Flag%20in%20Burke%20County_1516652063909.jpg_10549899_ver1.0_1280_720.jpg
The Sons of Confederate Veterans said it cost nearly $7,000 to raise the flag and they hope to put one up in every county in North Carolina along I-40.

A 20-foot tall, 30-foot long Confederate flag was raised near exit 94 on Interstate 40 on private land over the weekend.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans participated in the flag-raising ceremony over the weekend.

Since the flag is on private property, it can be illuminated after dark.

More with video @ WSOC

Is Democracy on the Way Down?

 A Republic, Not an Empire - Leather Edition

“The Western democratic system is hailed by the developed world as near perfect and the most superior political system to run a country,” mocked China’s official new agency.

“However, what’s happening in the United States today will make more people worldwide reflect on the viability and legitimacy of such a chaotic political system.”

There is a worldwide audience for what Beijing had to say about the shutdown of the U.S. government, for there is truth in it.

According to Freedom House, democracy has been in decline for a dozen years. Less and less do nations look to the world’s greatest democracy, the United States, as a model of the system to best preserve and protect what is most precious to them.

Secret FISA Memo Released


Despite media claims to the contrary, our congressional sources confirmed that the below memo documenting NSA spying on US citizens serves as a primary source of information for the Nunes summary memo:
 
William Binney, former tech head of the NSA contacted us this morning to send us the link to the reportedly classified memo that lawmakers said was a blueprint of how the Obama administration and the Deep State spied on President Trump.

This memo, hiding in plain site, serves as the basis for the four-page memo of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) which reveals perjury by the Obama administration when connected to other research.

More with video @ Info Wars

DeSantis RIPS New Strzok Text Admitting Mueller Witch Hunt a Nothingburger “What Basis Was There to Appoint a Special Counsel in the First Place?”

Via Billy

Rabidly anti-Trump lead agent Peter Strzok acknowledged that the Mueller probe would yield nothing. If even the guy who conjured up the anti-Trump “insurance policy” acknowledged this, what basis was there to appoint special counsel in the first place?

According to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, 50,000 text messages were exchanged between Peter Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page. These 50,000 text messages do not include the ‘missing’ texts.

In what is being described as a “jaw-dropping,” text message, Strzok told Bureau lawyer Lisa Page that he felt special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was likely a nothingburger.

 

So why the hell is there a Special Counsel investigating President Trump for ‘Russian collusion’ in the first place?? Strzok is the same Trump-hating FBI agent who discussed an “insurance policy” against a Trump victory and even he knows “there’s no big there there”.

SVAF General Phan Phung Tien on the last two years of the war when I was DAO's Funds Manager for the SVAF


https://s3.amazonaws.com/openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/asset_thumbnails/V_0AE3994FE7BF47D58A606E099D9AD0FF.jpg


Phan Phung Tien was a member of South Vietnam’s air force during the Vietnam War. He speaks to the difficulty of getting military supplies following the Paris Agreement. He also notes that comments from American Congressmen were detrimental to their efforts, and that the resignation of President Nixon had also boosted the confidence of the North Vietnamese. He details the rapid fall of South Vietnam, from the battle of Banmethuot to the evacuations of Pleiku, Da Nang, and Saigon. Mr. Tien also describes his own evacuation and reflects on the meaning and lessons of the Vietnam War.

Video and translation @ WGBH

The Bandwagon Effect

Via John

http://pointriderrepublican.typepad.com/thieves.jpg

"The bandwagon effect is a psychological phenomenon in which people do something primarily because other people are doing it, regardless of their own beliefs, which they may ignore or override.

The bandwagon effect has wide implications, but is most commonly seen in politics and consumer behavior."

Watching the outpouring of hatred coming coming from millions of women across the nation this past weekend, and recently reading about Trump's unusually paltry job approval given that most people are enjoying the booming Trump economy is a good example of the 'bandwagon effect.' Trump, despite all the presidential successes of his first year, often doing so by taking on entrenched Deep State actors from both the left and right has been "skrewered" from every possibly quarter.

The Fake News, Socialist Hollywood, SNL, ESPN, Academia, The Gaystapo, BLM, etc etc have joined forces to create a bandwagon effect that makes it almost embarrassing to support our president.

Through well-coordinated and repetitious lies this bandwagon effect has been used to manipulate millions of our co-citizens, especially the more overly-credulous and elss circumspect  younger ones,
to act in ways that exhibit a reckless disregard of their own interests. And that is the bandwagon effect.

The Nazis would be proud.

Thankfully, there are still a lot of adults left in the nation, so all is not yet lost.

~ J

Gowdy: FBI Text From Fall 2016 Says Comey Planned to Update Obama on Investigation; Update Not Mentioned by Comey in Senate Testimony Last Year

 

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), appearing alongside Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) on the Fox News Channel program The Story with Martha MacCallum Monday night, spoke about an FBI text message that then-FBI Director James Comey “was going to update the President of the United States about an investigation.” Gowdy implied the message was from the Fall of 2016 but that he did not know if the update was about the Clinton or Trump investigations. However, Gowdy seemed to indicate it was about one or the other presidential candidates. Either way Gowdy said he found it “interesting” that Comey planned on updating President Barack Obama about an investigation.
The text was part of the the latest batch of an estimated 50,000 messages between Trump-hating FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page who were engaged in an adulterous affair as they investigated President Donald Trump. Ratcliffe told MacCallum there was talk by the FBI couple of an anti-Trump “secret society” within the FBI and Justice Department (Link to report by TGP’s Cristina Laila).
“We learned today from information that in the immediate aftermath of his election that there may have been a ‘secret society’ of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI to include Page and Strzok to be working against him.”

What's next in the investigation of those missing FBI texts

Via Billy

In a statement Monday, an apologetic-sounding Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowed to

Congressional investigators believe they are barely beginning to answer the questions raised by the text messages between the FBI's Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. For several reasons:

1) Strzok and Page were more prolific texters than anyone knew. In a statement late Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said FBI investigators have found "over 50,000 texts" in their review of Strzok-Page communications.

2) Even with all those texts, the FBI says it cannot find the couple's messages between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017 — a critical time in the Trump-Russia affair. It's probably safe to say there is not a single Republican on Capitol Hill who does not view this as a fishy set of circumstances and does not believe Congress should step up its investigation.

House Republicans reject bipartisan Senate immigration plan, push for tougher border measures

 The bill endorsed by the group was introduced this month by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and others. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The Republican Study Committee on Tuesday called for a vote on a conservative border security bill, and warned it would reject a more moderate measure some Senate lawmakers are trying to advance.

The RSC is the largest group of House Republicans, and is made up of more than half of the GOP conference and includes mostly conservative lawmakers.

The bill endorsed by the group was introduced this month by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and others. It would protect so-called Dreamers from deportation but would also implement significant border security and immigration reforms including an end to chain migration and new funding for a southern border wall.

Mapped: The world's most (and least) free countries

Via Billy


The annual Freedom in the World report, which ranks nations according to civil liberties and political rights, has been released. The work of nonpartisan organisation Freedom House, it judges countries according to a range of criteria. Each is then assigned a total score and placed in one of three pots: "Free", "Partly free" and "Not free".

Howard Kurtz: Media's Trump coverage has 'radicalized me'

Via Billy


Fox News "MediaBuzz" host Howard Kurtz, a longtime media reporter, said he's been "radicalized" by the press' coverage of President Trump, accusing reporters of bringing an excessively hostile attitude to their journalism.

"I am a lifelong journalist with ink in my veins," Kurtz said Tuesday in a column for the Hollywood Reporter. "And for all my criticism of the media's errors and excesses, I have always believed in the mission of aggressive reporting and holding politicians accountable. But the past two years have radicalized me. I am increasingly troubled by how many of my colleagues have decided to abandon any semblance of fairness out of a conviction that they must save the country from Trump."

Americans catching on to Dems' tax bill smear & Stupidest damn thing I've ever seen' + Victory through shutdown messaging, thanks to Trump

Via Billy

Americans are catching on to Dems' tax bill smear campaign

The only thing the #SchumerShutdown accomplished was this: It sucked Americans’ attention away from the astonishing benefits rolling off the GOP tax bill. But, alas for Democrats, not for long. The doors opened again just in time for the IMF to provide more validation.

Two days before Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) signaled he would not allow Democrats to provide the votes needed to pass a spending bill, Apple announced that due to the tax reforms passed by Republicans, it would bring home a significant amount of cash it held overseas, create 20,000 new jobs, spend $30 billion in capital investments over five years, open another U.S. campus and — in addition — pay $38 billion in taxes due on the repatriated earnings.

They also promised most of their employees a $2,500 bonus in restricted stock grants. Overall, Apple said it would be making a $350 billion “contribution” to the U.S. economy.

More @ The Hill

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Ivanka on Hunt for New Chief of Staff as Trump Grows Frustrated with Gen. Kelly

 Trump, Ivanka, Kelly

President Donald Trump is reportedly looking for a new White House chief of staff to replace Gen. John Kelly, according to a report in Vanity Fair.

Gabriel Sherman claims that he spoke to two prominent Republicans who confirmed that Trump’s relationship with Kelly has “gone past the point of no return,” and Trump is now actively looking for a successor.

Trump’s daughter Ivanka is allegedly taking a central role in the search, with figures such as political operative David Urban currently being considered.

Kelly, who was appointed as White House chief of staff last July as a replacement for Reince Priebus, apparently infuriated Trump when he falsely claimed that Trump’s views on the construction of a wall on the southern border had “evolved,” a position which Trump quickly denied.

“The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it,” Trump responded.

More @ Breitbart

NFL rejects veterans group's Super Bowl ad urging people to stand for the anthem

 https://www.stripes.com/polopoly_fs/1.507970.1516657865!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_900/image.jpg


The National Football League has rejected a Super Bowl advertisement from American Veterans urging people to stand for the national anthem.

The nation’s largest veterans service organization had been invited by the NFL to place an ad in the Super Bowl LII program. AMVET’s advertisement included a two-word message – “#PleaseStand.”

“It’s a simple, polite request that represents the sentiment of our membership, particularly those whose missing or paralyzed limbs preclude standing,” wrote National Commander Marion Polk in a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell.

American Veterans accused the NFL of outright censorship by rejecting the advertisement.

“Freedom of speech works both ways. We respect the rights of those who choose to protest, as these rights are precisely what our members have fought – and in many cases died – for,” Polk wrote.

 “But imposing corporate censorship to deny that same right to those veterans who have secured it for us all is reprehensible and totally beyond the pale.”

Some Goodies From Ol' Remus


This is a comment by "Mr. Universe" on a news article at Zero Hedge entitled, As Women March, Ohio State Course Reprimands "White Heterosexual Masculinity":
Biological women who legally define themselves as men will not be routinely scanned for breast and cervical cancer, even if they retain these organs and remain at risk, the National Health Service has said. However, at the same time, biological men who regard themselves as women are being invited for cervical smear tests – even though it is impossible for them to have a cervix.
  Daily Mail - US Navy's new high-speed warship USS Little Rock is frozen on the shores of Montreal and unable to set sail until the spring ... easy duty

Africa, American Thinker - Three weeks after college, I flew to Senegal, West Africa, to run a community center in a rural town. Life was placid, with no danger, except to your health. That danger was considerable, because it was "a fecalized environment." In plain English: s--- is everywhere. People defecate on the open ground, and the feces is blown with the dust – onto you, your clothes, your food, the water. Do not even touch water. Human feces carries parasites that bore through your skin and cause organ failure. African problems are made worse by our aid efforts. They will eventually solve their own country's problems on their terms, not ours. The solution is not to bring Africans here.