They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case it is
worth much more: 217 pages of them. The text comes wrapped in a handsome
dust jacket, colored black and gold and featuring an arresting
editorial cartoon from the War. In it, a stern-visaged but comely maiden
stands her ground, brandishing a sword in one hand and a shield
emblazoned with the motto “UNION” in the other; a white star shines from
her forehead, symbolizing divinity. She is menaced by three poisonous
copperhead snakes, whose human heads—gaunt-faced, long-haired, and
topped by a flat-brimmed hat—are drawn to look like the stereotypical
Southerner.
Adjusting his olive drab skull cap, he pushed another .38 revolver
between his utility belt.
Shouldering the trusty M3 greasegun with its
long silencer, he gave a quick tug to the multitude of grenades cinched
at various points on his torso. Feeling them secure; he inspected the
rest of the teams’ gear as they stepped on the skid and pulled
themselves aboard the Huey.
The last on, he listened to the engines begin their low whine, rising
in decibels as the blades rotated ever faster until the helicopter’s
distinctive chop echoed among the dozens of green buildings and barracks
that served as one of S.O.G’s launching pads.
The Huey nudged its way into a gentle hover then rotated to the
right, dipping its nose, rising over the perimeter fencing into the
morning sky, carrying with it a Special Forces legend who’d ran
countless missions as these and defied the odds.
So much and so well, in fact that Radio Hanoi dubbed him ‘Mad Dog.’
On July 19, the Knesset voted to change the nation’s Basic Law.
Israel was declared to be, now and forever, the nation-state and
national home of the Jewish people. Hebrew is to be the state language.
Angry reactions, not only among Israeli Arabs and Jews, came swift.
Allan Brownfeld of the American Council for Judaism calls the law a
“retreat from democracy” as it restricts the right of
self-determination, once envisioned to include all within Israel’s
borders, to the Jewish people. Inequality is enshrined.
And Israel, says Brownfeld, is not the nation-state of American Jews.
President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy has the approval of
59 percent of the economists, money managers, and strategists surveyed
in CNBC’s Fed Survey.
Economic growth is seen as hitting nearly 3 percent in 2018, according to the survey.
The S&P 500 is expected to rise about 6 percent, while both
inflation and unemployment are seen as staying low.
The yield on the
10-year is seen as rising to about 3.5 percent by the end of 2019, up
from about 2.95 percent today.
Unsurprisingly, most of the participants in the CNBC Fed survey are
not fans of tariffs, with 59 percent saying it will reduce economic
growth and 54 percent saying it will reduce employment.
Perhaps more surprising is how small they think the economic impact
will be. On average, they see the current round of tariffs and
retaliation as reducing annual growth by around one-tenth of a
percentage point. That would mean a 3.5 percent economy would grow at
3.4 percent instead, not optimal but not a catastrophe. Even if all the
tariffs currently contemplated were put in place, the total effect
would take just three-tenths of a percentage point off growth.
Perhaps because of how small of an impact tariffs would have, most
economists think the U.S. is by far most likely to prevail in trade
disputes with Canada, China, and the European Union.
Of course, if economic growth were lower, the effects of tariffs
would be more perilous. Shrinking a 2 percent economy to a 1.6 percent
economy would likely spark recession fears. This underlines the
importance of Trump’s tax cuts and regulatory reforms, and undermines
the critics who said the economy did not need additional economic
stimulus. The stimulus created by the tax cuts gave the American economy
more resilience in the face of trade disputes.
Billionaire plutocrat and GOP mega-donor Charles Koch says
President Donald Trump’s tariffs on aluminum, steel, and thousands of
Chinese-made imports are “ridiculous” and “unfair” to foreigners.
Koch, who funds a network of organizations with his brother, David
Koch, told the media during a conference with donors over the weekend
that Trump’s ten percent tariff on imported aluminum and 25 percent
tariff on imported steel was not fair to foreign countries and foreign
workers.
The Kochs’ free trade absolutism is vastly opposed by Republican and conservative voters, who are the most likely to support tariffs to protect American jobs and industries.
The latest Morning Consult Poll revealed about 71 percent of voters say cheap overseas labor displacing U.S. jobs has played a “significant
role” or “somewhat of a role” in the steep decline in manufacturing
employment years ago.
In a June Harvard/Harris Poll, 83 percent of Republican voters say they support
tariffs on imported products like automobiles and electronics.
Additionally, 81 percent of conservatives said they too supported
tariffs, along with 61 percent of Americans living in rural communities.
Even when GOP voters and conservatives are told that Trump’s tariffs
may lead to higher consumer prices, the vast majority continue to
support the fair trade agenda. Nearly 75 percent of Republicans said
they would still support the tariffs amid higher prices, and 70 percent
of conservatives said the same.
President Donald Trump dismissed the billionaire Koch brothers as “globalist” and a “total joke” on Tuesday.
“The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real
Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade,”
Trump wrote on Twitter. “I never sought their support because I don’t
need their money or bad ideas.”
Both Charles and David Koch have been highly critical of Trump’s immigration and trade agenda, especially at the beginning of their summer retreat with donors.
Trump ridiculed them for supporting some parts of his agenda –
especially his tax cuts – but not for his efforts to protect the
American worker.
Flores v. Reno puts our government in a difficult
position. We shouldn't have to choose between ripping families apart and
enforcing immigration law.
Like millions across our country, we too were horrified at the sight of thousands of children being separated from their parents.
As parents ourselves, we can only imagine the pain and anguish these
families faced. But, as U.S. Senators — and more importantly, as
Americans — we also understand that our immigration system must also
enforce our laws.
While this problem
has persisted across the last five administrations, and there is
legitimate criticism which can be directed towards this administration’s
handling of this matter, the fact remains that the very institution in
which we serve — the U.S. Congress — bears much of the blame for our
current immigration crisis. For years, Congress has failed to take one
simple step which could have prevented the family separations we now
decry: repealing the Flores v. Reno consent decree as it relates to families.
It is my view, however, that the final spark for the Fourth Turning will
be ignited by a Second American Civil War. Either way, the day of
reckoning is coming. The chickens will come home to roost.
Steven K. Bannon, former advisor to President Donald Trump (and many
others), agrees that a Fourth Turning began in 2008 with the global
financial credit crisis and has argued that the administrative state
must be dismantled in advance of the final climax.
In “The Ethnic Cleansing of Whites in Canada,”
I argued that a defined territory is crucial for our survival.
According to Dr. Frank Slater, “the special quality of a defended
territory is that it insulates a population from the vicissitudes of
demographic disturbances . . .” Acquisition and defense of territory,
notes Slater, are an integral part of the tribal strategy of humans. The
passionate relationship between a people and its homeland has been
constant throughout history. A people can suffer many setbacks, but as
long as it retains its own territorial space, it can recover. [i] In the
long run, only territory ensures survival, and human history is largely
a record of groups expanding and contracting, conquering or being
conquered, migrating or being displaced by migrants. The loss of
territory, whether by military defeat or displacement by aliens, brings
ethnocide.
“I don’t particularly want to be a Democrat,” Soros claimed. calls Obama his ‘greatest disappointment’ in sweeping NY Times interview: ‘He closed the door on me’
Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer is moving on plans that threaten to
create a parallel party infrastructure that competes with the Democrat
Party.
Steyer plans to spend at least $110 million in 2018, Politico reported,
which would make the Democrat donor the largest single source of
campaign cash on the left, according to the online news source.
With the large investment, the billionaire is very likely to end up shaping the issues Democrats run on in November.
‘I don’t care what the political ramifications are,’ he says
President Trump doubled down on his consideration of shutting
down the federal government to force Congress to address the country’s
weak immigration and border laws.
“I don’t care what the political ramifications are, our immigration
laws and border security have been a complete and total disaster for
decades, and there is no way that the Democrats will allow it to be
fixed without a Government Shutdown,” Trump tweeted Tuesday.
The Department of Homeland Security is not doing its job. As proof, I,
David Feherty, a 17-year resident of the Dallas area but an Irishman by
birth, recently became an American citizen. There goes the
neighborhood—but yay, me! The reason I felt compelled to become an
American is my Troops First Foundation, a nonprofit organization that
does its best to improve the quality of life and future prospects of
some of our most severely wounded servicemen and women. I became
involved after my first trip to Iraq, on Thanksgiving in 2007, and it
was there I first heard the name of Col. Robert Howard.
The Senate Judiciary Committee under the direction of Sen. Chuck
Grassley (R-IA) held a hearing Tuesday on ICE and family detention
centers.
Democrats are very upset that families who enter the US illegally are
broken up. Democrats are always supporting their constituents in the
illegal alien community.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) played the fool at this hearing.
The Hawaii liberal did not appear to know why illegal aliens are illegal.
During her questioning ICE Exec. Associate Director Matthew
Albence had to explain to Mirono why illegal aliens are deemed illegal.
Poverty is no mystery, and it's easily avoidable. The poverty line
that the Census Bureau used in 2016 for a single person was an income of
$12,486 that year. For a two-person household, it was $16,072, and for a
four-person household, it was $24,755. To beat those poverty thresholds
is fairly simple. Here's the road map: Complete high school; get a job,
any kind of a job; get married before having children; and be a
law-abiding citizen.
The confidence and hubris of those directing the rest of us to race off the cliff while
they watch from a safe distance is off the charts. The past decade of "recovery" and "growth" has actually been a decade of catastrophic
losses for our society and nation. Here's a short list of what we've lost:
1. Functioning markets. Free markets discover price and assess risk. What passes for
markets now are little more than signaling devices to convince us the economy is doing
spectacularly well. It is doing spectacularly well, but only for the top .1% of 1%
and the class of managerial/technocrat flunkies and apologists who serve the interests of
the top 1%.
If young adults are America’s future, then they better get their act together. Today, over 30 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds live with their parents or other family members. Meanwhile, marriage rates and fertility rates
in the United States have both hit record lows in recent years. Instead
of coddling these self-absorbed Millennial narcissists well into their
adult years, we need to be kicking them out of the nest and encouraging
them to learn to fend for themselves. In many instances, if they do not
learn how to act like adults by the time they are 35, they never will.
It is time for parents all over America to exercise some tough love,
because we are facing a major national crisis.
We clearly have a chronic problem with China," Robert Lighthizer, the
highest ranking US trade negotiator, said in testimony before the Senate
last week. "Some issues will be dealt with in a short period of time,"
he said, but added that "directionally, we're going to have a problem
with China that's going to go on for years."
If US Marines are
sent to guard the de facto US embassy in Taiwan, the American Institute
in Taiwan (AIT), it could be treated by Beijing as “severe subversion”
and “even an invasion of the US military on Chinese soil,” a Sunday
op-ed in Chinese state media warned.
A
new report indicates US military personnel are set to deploy to the
large new AIT building in Taiwan to safeguard US personnel there.
Beijing would consider such a move a "subversion of the one-China
policy," the Global Times op-ed warned, and grounds for Beijing
to deploy "an increasing number of countermeasures which Washington will
have to confront."
If Twitter is looking to weed out the racism on its platforms, it may
want to start with The New York Times. The paper recently published one
of the most racist tweets you'll ever see: "New Hampshire is 94% white. It is now trying to figure out how to change that."
Attached
to the tweet is a bigoted screed about New Hampshire's whiteness
infestation. It begins with the sad tale of a certain Catalina
Celentano, who moved to the state and discovered, to her horror, that
most of its residents speak English. "She found herself in an ethnic
vacuum," the author reports. One worries how Ms. Celentano will react
when she learns that the vast majority of the Earth is a non-Spanish
speaking "vacuum."
