More Dinero for the Wall! Trump freezing Syria funds in signal of US pullback

 

President Donald Trump is freezing more than $200 million in funds for recovery efforts in war-torn Syria amid a reassessment of the role the U.S. should play in the drawn-out conflict there, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The White House ordered the State Department to put the funds on hold, the report said. According to The Journal, Trump did so after reading a news report saying that the U.S. had recently committed an additional $200 million to early recovery efforts.

Exiting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pledged the money in February in Kuwait at a meeting of the coalition trying to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS).

More @ Fox

Childhood home of Robert E. Lee listed at $8.5M

 

Fox

The boyhood home of Confederate general Robert E. Lee has spent stints as a high-society gathering place, museum and most recently, private family home — and it's now up for sale.

The Washington Post reports owners Mark and Ann Kington want the next owners of the house in Alexandria, Virginia, to be stewards of its past.

The home, listed at $8.5 million, was built in 1796, and soon sold to a plantation owner who entertained George Washington. Lee's father rented it in 1812, and for eight decades, Lee family members lived there.

The home changed hands thrice in the 20th century, from a Bureau of Mines chief to a Pulitzer Prize-winner to the Stonewall Jackson Foundation, which opened it to the public. The Kingtons bought the home in 2000 and renovated it.

Trump’s Aluminum Tariff: A Teachable Moment

 

 My G, G Grandfather - Tariff Must Be Reduced

Tariff 1824, John Randolph Of Roanoke

President Trump’s proposed ten-percent tariff on refined aluminum yields a teachable moment for Southern history students. Historical analysis of the industry reveals an echo of the Northern tariff policies that angered Southerners during much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when the South was generally a raw materials exporter and feedstock supplier to Northern manufacturers.

Tariffs during the era usually protected the Northern factories against competition from imports. Finished cotton goods made in New England, for example, benefitted from high tariff walls against imports of British finished goods. In contrast, a hypothetical raw cotton tariff could not benefit Southern cotton farmers because they were already the World’s low cost producers. In other words, a raw cotton tariff could not have blocked any imports since the imports were already negligible because of the South’s intrinsic cost advantage.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

Media Fail: Only 39% Say Stormy Story Important While 59% Believe Clinton Accusers

 

Only 39 percent of those polled attach any importance to the media’s obsessive coverage of Stormy Daniels, while a comfortable majority of 59 percent do believe those who have accused former-President Bill Clinton of sexual assault.

Rasmussen Reports, one of the most accurate pollsters in the 2016 presidential campaign, has nothing but bad news for a mainstream media dedicated to taking down President Trump, and who are now desperate enough to do so using what was, at worst, a consensual one-night extra-marital affair with a porn queen.

More @ Breitbart

Earthquake McGoon and the Battle of Dien Bien Phu: A legendary hero and the shadows of a forgotten war

Via Mike

 

“Earthquake McGoon” (Robert B. McGovern Jr.) in his P51 Mustang flying with U.S. Air Corp 75th “Tiger Shark” Squadron. KIA flying French marked CIA C-119 Flying Boxcar at Battle of Dien Bien Phu on May 6, 1954.

By Mike Scruggs – Vietnam was dominated by the Chinese for over a thousand years until 938, when the province of Tonkin, the northern region of North Vietnam surrounding Hanoi, gained its independence. There followed a long process of wars and political intrigues before the southern provinces of Annam and Cochin China were completely consolidated into Vietnam in 1788. By 1857, the French had already begun consolidating Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos into their colonial empire. This was known as French Indochina and was complete by 1884. The French remained in control until Japanese troops occupied Indochina during World War II.

More @ The Tribune

What Happened to the West I was Born In?!

Via Billy

Frankly, I am awed, amazed and even embarrassed.  I was born in Switzerland, lived most of my life there, I also visited most of Europe, and I lived in the USA for over 20 years.  Yet in my worst nightmares I could not have imagined the West sinking as low as it does now.  I mean, yes, I know about the false flags, the corruption, the colonial wars, the NATO lies, the abject subservience of East Europeans, etc.  I wrote about all that many times.  But imperfect as they were, and that is putting it mildly, I remember Helmut Schmidt, Maggie Thatcher, Reagan, Mitterrand, even Chirac!  And I remember what the Canard Enchaîné used to be, or even the BBC.  During the Cold War the West was hardly a knight in white shining armor, but still – rule of law did matter, as did at least some degree of critical thinking.

I am now deeply embarrassed for the West.  And very, very afraid.

All I see today is a submissive herd lead by true, bona fide, psychopaths (in a clinical sense of the word)

And that is not the worst thing.

More @ LRC

John Brennan Entered CIA in 1980 Though Voted Communist in 1976

 

Barack Obama’s CIA chief, John Brennan, told the Annual Legislative Conference of the Congressional Black Caucus, on 15 September 2016, in Washington DC, that when he had applied in 1980 to join the CIA, he admitted to them that in the 1976 Presidential election, when Jimmy Carter was running against Gerald Ford, Brennan had voted instead for the candidate of the US Communist Party, Gus Hall, and that he was then greatly relieved to find that this information didn’t cause rejection of his CIA-application. This had happened 11 years before the 1991 end of the Cold War (which ended actually only on the Russian side, but not also on the US-NATO side, where it continues without stop, and has accelerated since 2014, now finally being joined by both sides). 

More @ Strategic Culture

Liberty University Opens Gun Range for Student Use

 

Breitbart

Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, is opening a gun range for its students this week.

Students at Liberty University, a conservative Christian university in Virginia, will be invited this week to enjoy their campus’s new $3.2 million gun range. The gun range, which has been in planning and construction stages for over a year, will also be open to the public following the conclusion of Liberty’s academic year in May.

Brad Butler, the planning coordinator in Liberty’s Planning and Construction department, said in December that Liberty will be the first American college campus that has venues for every Olympic shooting sport.

“We’re very excited and we have a great plan for the future,” Butler said. “What’s unique about this facility is it’s the only range on any college campus that has venues for all Olympic shooting sports. The rest of the world is moving away from the Second Amendment and the shooting sports. Liberty University, thanks to the bold leadership of President (Jerry) Falwell and Vice President (Trey) Falwell, is running to it. We are engaging our students, giving them safe and convenient opportunities to compete, and to learn the right way to handle a firearm.”

Liberty University is known for its strong stance on the second amendment. Students at Liberty are permitted to keep firearms in their dorm rooms. Additionally, students who are uncomfortable around guns are permitted to request a room transfer away from a room that has a gun. Now, Liberty University will become one of only two schools in the country that has a gun range.

Liberty sophomore Landon Dalton explained that being a part of Liberty’s shooting sports team helped him grow as a Christian. “I got introduced to a whole new world up here in competitive shooting and it’s been awesome,” Dalton said. “Coach Hartman has really helped us out a lot. He’s a very godly man and a great coach and he’s helped us grow as teammates and as shooters, but more importantly as better Christians.”

A swamp creature speaks out

Via David

This is both a plea and a warning to angry reform-minded voters from someone working in Washington, D.C.  Many of you are frustrated and angered at President Trump and the omnibus bill, believing that momentum for improving the system has stalled, and some have declared they will vote for the Democratic Party as a punishment against Trump.  That is your choice, but I ask you to consider some observations from someone who is, however lowly, part of the current federal system.  If you "punish" Trump in the midterms by voting for the very party that wrote the omnibus bill, you will accomplish nothing.

Although disappointed,  I am not completely shocked about Trump and the omnibus bill.  The problem is that the legislative process is designed from the outset to be slow, compromising, and inflexible, with the intent of preventing corruption and abuse of power from gaining a  foothold in the government.  Unfortunately, once that corruption takes hold, the very process designed to impede such corruption will now protect it due to its lumbering statutory procedures.

More @ American Thinker

Face 10 Years In Prison If You Don’t Surrender Your Bump Stock in 90 Days

 

When Wayne LaPierre said on CBS’s Face the Nation that the ATF needed to “do its job” with respect to bump stocks, one wonders if he was asking the agency to turn thousands of law-abiding gun owners into outlaws. Because that, my friends, is exactly what is happening.

If you currently own a reciprocating stock you will soon be in possession of a machine gun. Unlawful possession of a machine gun is a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison, according to the DOJ

More @ Guns America