Items Well Worth Pondering 4

Hillary lost because even Democrats and fed up with the lunatic direction the Democrat party is taking. Quote: "The total number of Democratic defections surprised experts. According to Matt Canter, senior vice president of GSP, “about 70 percent of Clinton’s failure to reach Obama’s vote total in 2012 was because she lost these voters.” In other words, it was former Democratic voters turning against the party that cost Hillary the White House. “The findings are significant for a Democratic Party, at a historic low point, that’s trying to figure out how it can win back power,” MSN reported Sunday.  How hard is it to understand?"   https://thehornnews.com/dems-uncover-stunning-truth-clinton-lost/

Sadly, recently released information will likely result in a reassessment of this revered boxer's legacy.    http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2017/05/white-devils-fbi-records-show-muhammad-alis-racist-mosque-tirades-family-uses-fame-end-racial-religious-profiling/?

Can any sane person believe, much less agree with, what this pro-female mutilation advocate has to say? Quote: "This is horrifying. It is barbaric. It should not be a thing that young girls of any culture should ever have to endure. And there is no excuse for it, so let’s not start kvetching about insensitivity to other cultures. What I’m referring to, specifically, is female genital mutilation (FGM), and it was a topic Wednesday night on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program. Carlson interviewed an anthropologist by the name of Fuambai Ahmadu, who was voluntarily mutilated. Ahmadu coyly stated at the beginning of the segment that she did not support FGM, because she doesn’t call it “mutilation.” She prefers the euphemism “female circumcision.” http://www.redstate.com/sweetie15/2017/05/04/watch-tucker-carlson-takes-defender-female-genital-mutilation/?     This is without question female abuse yet the left ignores the parts of Islam that run 100% counter to what they claim to hold dear.

Do you think this liberal, feminist, possibly lesbian professor's behavior shows even a small degree of tolerance and civility?  She sees the world through her biased eyes and teaches her classes obviously wearing that bias.  The subject matter expertise as a professor is not of professional development value nor does it have employment potential but serves well the left's intent to remake American in their image.   https://townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2017/05/01/professor-tells-student-to-stop-reading-bible-n2320681?   According to the data I have seen she is but a drop in the bucket of the useless instructors teaching nonsense of colleges and university campuses.  It is a real tragedy.  Expensive university educations are more and more worthless pursuits especially in the liberal arts curricula where, according to Dr. Thomas Sowell, most of the instruction is increasingly leftist propaganda and useless for preparing students for some type of professional career.

The hypocrisy of the environmental activist class is palpable. This piece elaborates. Quote: "Social media pictures display marchers -- who demand policies to combat climate change and harp about corporate greed -- sipping from environmentally-unfriendly plastic-coated coffee cups at Starbucks while staring at their iPhones. Oh, the irony…  Meanwhile, celebrities like carbon billionaire Al Gore who predicted the ice caps would melt by 2014 and Leonardo DiCaprio who rents super yachts that burn a ridiculous amount of diesel fuel per hour did their part to save the planet…by showing up.  Apparently, their almighty presence neutralizes the exorbitant carbon footprint they create from owning multiple homes and traveling on private jets. It’s the thought that counts. Or something. Because marching seems to be the latest trend, why not schedule a mandatory march following every march to clean up the litter leftists leave behind? After all, this is about saving the planet, right? https://townhall.com/columnists/susanstamperbrown/2017/05/02/protesters-are-environmental-hypocrites-n2320627? 

Who is messing with the idea of free speech?  The political left has long charged that the political right is against free speech.  Facts once again prove the lies of the political left.  This item elaborates.  Quote: "The universities molded the federal education bureaucracy, which turned out teachers that shaped the minds of American children. And some of those children are in college now. Surveys suggest that many young Americans think the First Amendment should be amended so as to not allow offensive speech. So the students have learned their lessons well. All speech challenging the status quo is offensive -- to the establishment. And free speech is what American liberty is about. Unless, of course, you're of the hard left, and can hunt free speech at American universities and crush it. That's not fiction. That's not fantasy. And it is not a lie. It's happening now, in the United States."    https://townhall.com/columnists/johnkass/2017/05/02/the-lies-we-were-told-about-who-would-silence-free-speech-n2320653?

This is just one of many past examples shared that confirm that our government is so bloated and inefficient as well as ineffective as illustrated by wasteing tax payer monies hand over fist.   http://freebeacon.com/issues/70-3-million-medicaid-payments-made-providers-fraud-allegations/?

This piece points out that selected district court justices are violating the Constitution by protecting sanctuary cities. Quote: "It is peculiar, but that’s the way it is. No one is fooled by this ruling and its politically motivated causes. Either these cases will be overturned by the Supreme Court, or we will become a country that is no longer ruled by law. We will instead be ruled by liberal tears, which have been flowing nonstop since the election of Donald Trump. Those tears won’t protect minorities from harassment, and they certainly won’t protect our nation from terrorism and illegal immigration. Let’s pray that when these cases finally reach a court with some semblance of judicial legitimacy, sanity will once again prevail and the rights of actual American citizens will be upheld."   http://www.themadpatriots.com/freedom-news/trump-lashes-out-at-ridiculous-sanctuary-city-ruling/

George Burns

Items Well Worth Pondering 3

Are the Democrats coming to their senses?  While the party leadership does not seem to be doing so rank and file member may just be signaling their disgust.  Here's what one life long Democrat said during a recent town hall on CBS: "Regardless of who was behind it, they confirmed that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic establishment are liars and that they had this thumb on the scale for Hillary Clinton – well, what are they basically saying? If we hadn’t been caught lying, we’d be running the country right now.”   http://www.usapoliticstoday.com/epic-backfire-democrats-said-cbs-town-hall-just-sentenced-dnc-death/

Failing cities which do not abide by the law and bash the police to boot do not deserve a bail-out from the FBI.  City citizens these leaders are suppose to serve suffer the consequences. That is not right. Nor in most cases it is the fault of the police.  It is the city leaders who make the laws and direct/control the actions of city police.  Quote: "Federal help to these dangerous cities is a stopgap measure. The FBI has its own investigative duties, and local communities should be righting their own law enforcement ships. They need to invest in enough cops – and invest in their training, leaders, equipment, tools and tactics. Cities are failing because their leaders have failed to do this. Combatting surging violent crime in Baltimore and Chicago and New Orleans is not about “Officer Friendly” community engagement. Limited federal resources aren’t designed for that. This is about real law enforcement that gets violent criminals off the streets, limits the next wave of victims and turns desperate communities back to the good people who live in them. President Trump and his attorney general understand that."    Not all but a large percentage of the cities with the worse crime rates have made policing next to impossible with ridiculous pampering of criminal behavior.  Their problem is therefore their fault.  And, most if not all the large cities are long time bastions of failed/failing Democrat leadership.

You will note that this is the same liberal crowd that riots and protests any speech by a conservative.  But they feel free to issue unspecified threats if a pro-sharia law advocate is interfered with.  These are the self appointed "tolerant" ones.  By their own behavior tolerance is obviously not part of their character.    http://www.libertyheadlines.com/dems-silent-dnc-vice-chair-defends-pro-sharia-organizer/?    If Democrats do not denounce this hypocrisy, you will know where their heads and hearts are.  And be assured that will mean they are not with most American citizens.

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel recently went public with details of his newborn son's health problems.  It was heart wrenching to be sure but took on a political slant.  He used it to plead for keeping Obamacare in place.  He used emotion not facts to make his case and if he was knowingly deceptive he pulled a typical liberal/progressive stunt.  This piece breaks down the facts that in no case does his tragic situation support keeping a horrible Obamacare program in place for average Americans.  Here are five facts that prove Kimmel's appeal has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with or in any way justify keeping Obamacare should remain in place.  http://www.dailywire.com/news/15993/5-things-you-need-know-about-hospital-where-jimmy-aaron-bandler?  If he knowingly used his situation to try to convince people that Obamacare is providing the medical care his son needs he is worse than a liar.

Democrats beware.  This item reveals just what your party leadership thinks of you.  Quote: "The Democratic National Committee is currently defending the tactics it used last year to rig the presidential primary against Sen. Bernie Sanders in a class-action lawsuit, brazenly telling voters in a court of law that the party is not obligated to run a fair and impartial primary election. Outraged by how the DNC unfairly boosted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and cleared the way for her primary victory, supporters of Sanders and Democratic donors sued the DNC in June 2016 alleging it defrauded its constituents."    http://www.wnd.com/2017/05/dnc-we-rigged-primaries-so-what/

In today's upside down world, who can one trust?  This item explores that question.  Quote: "The looming threat of World War III, a potential extermination event for the human species, is made more likely because the world’s public can’t count on supposedly objective experts to ascertain and evaluate facts. Instead, careerism is the order of the day among journalists, intelligence analysts and international monitors – meaning that almost no one who might normally be relied on to tell the truth can be trusted.  The dangerous reality is that this careerism, which often is expressed by a smug certainty about whatever the prevailing groupthink is, pervades not just the political world, where lies seem to be the common currency, but also the worlds of journalism, intelligence and international oversight, including United Nations agencies that are often granted greater credibility because they are perceived as less beholden to specific governments but in reality have become deeply corrupted, too. In other words, many professionals who are counted on for digging out the facts and speaking truth to power have sold themselves to those same powerful interests in order to keep high-paying jobs and to not get tossed out onto the street. Many of these self-aggrandizing professionals – caught up in the many accouterments of success – don’t even seem to recognize how far they’ve drifted from principled professionalism."  And, "But the mainstream media stars didn’t like it when Trump began throwing the “fake news” slur back at them. Thus, the First Amendment lapel pins and the standing ovation for Jeff Mason’s repudiation of the “fake news” label.  Yet, as the glitzy White House Correspondents Dinner demonstrated, mainstream journalists get the goodies of prestige and money while the real truth-tellers are almost always outspent, outgunned and cast out of the mainstream. Indeed, this dwindling band of honest people who are both knowledgeable and in position to expose unpleasant truths is often under mainstream attack, sometimes for unrelated personal failings and other times just for rubbing the powers-that-be the wrong way."    http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/05/01/existential-question-who-trust.html

Courts subordinate to the Supreme Court have no authority to rule on federal although they have been doing so for some time and have gotten away with it. But should they?  This piece explains.  Quote: "A district judge has as much power to “strike down” a national policy or statute and have it take effect outside his district as much as Congress has the power to adjudicate an individual bankruptcy case. That is to say, they have no such power at all."  And,  "Additionally, Trump has shown some signs of warming to elements of judicial reform. He said earlier this week that he’d support the effort to divide up the Ninth Circuit. However, this act alone, while limiting the scope of jurisdiction to California, could still undermine his national policy. Even a Ninth Circuit limited to California could still place a nationwide injunction on his immigration policies.  This is why Congress must also clarify through the Rules Enabling Act that lower courts have no power to issue injunctions outside their respective jurisdictions. This would be applied evenly to all administrations and regarding all types of policies.  Will this create a patchwork of precedent? Sure. But I’d rather live under a divided patchwork."     https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/constitutional-fact-district-judges-cant-strike-trumps-orders

Lest we forget this is a reminder that investigations into Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation are ongoing.   http://mailchi.mp/nationalrepublicantrust/you-made-a-big-difference-767153?e=f39097a4e4     Even now more evidence of wrong doing is emerging.   http://www.libertyheadlines.com/unclassified-emails-discovered-hillarys-unsecure-system/?    There seems to be no end to the lies she has told.

Given the people who are praising the latest government funding bill it must be really bad. Any time these politicians praise spending more than we take in it is sure to be a bad deal for tax payers.  Their lies are intolerable.  "You can tell whether a spending agreement is good or bad based on who is smiling: the swamp dwellers, or those who want to drain the swamp. This budget made the swamp dwellers very happy. Shortly after announcing a $1.1 trillion — with a "t" — spending deal to fund the federal government's domestic and military programs for the next five months, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it a "very good deal for the American people."   http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/with-this-budget-deal-the-swamp-wins/   Seems to me that both the Republicans and Trump caved.  I am not happy.

Items Well Worth Pondering 2

Most people will likely agree with Trump on this point.  Federal government over-reach in so many things is out of control.  This item deals with the federal government seizing land for control without local populations having a voice.  Quote: "Over the last 20 years, presidents from both sides of the aisle have used the stroke of a pen to lock up hundreds of millions of acres using the Antiquities Act, but none more egregiously than President Obama. In 2014, then-President Obama said, “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone. And that’s all I need.” This braggadocious one-liner was the basis for devastating monument designations by the Obama administration. President Trump’s recent Executive Order directs Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to review national monuments created by the Antiquities Act since 1996 that exceed 100,000 acres and to coordinate with local stakeholders. These communities that were shut up and shut out of the charade of discussions surrounding national monument designations deserve a voice." https://townhall.com/columnists/congressmanpaulgosar/2017/05/05/trumps-antiquities-act-executive-order-an-opportunity-to-end-a-monumental-abuse-of-government-power-n2322586?

Have you ever wondered why some people become communists?  This item addresses that question. Quote: "Eastman, for example, realized that he was seeking to liberate people by taking from them the three things people love most in life: their families, their religion, and their property. Instead of creating a new heaven on earth, they had become apologists for a killing machine."  And, "It would be nice if any article written about communism were purely retrospective. That, sadly, is not the case. There seem to be new brands of Marxian thought codified every few years, and still more versions of its Hegelian roots that take on ever more complex ideological iterations (the alt-right is an example).  Why do people become communists? Because human beings are capable of believing in all sorts of illusions, and we are capable of working long and hard to turn them into nightmares. Once we’ve invested the time and energy into something, however destructive, it can take a very long time to wake us up. It’s hard to think of a grander example of the sunk-cost fallacy."   https://fee.org/articles/why-do-people-become-communists-and-why-do-they-stick-with-it/?

These are the words of a thinker I respect and if his concerns are proven to be so we really do have a problem.    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-blackmail-comey/

This is hypocrisy on steroids.  https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/05/10/barack-obama-excessive-private-travel-for-me-no-meat-for-thee/   His ego is so big that he proudly declares how brave he was to not bomb Syria.  He needs to go away and take his over inflated ego with him.   

Most often facts back up common sense.  This is what John Stossel has to say about repealing and replacing Obamacare.  Quote: "The House repealed Obamacare!  OK, they didn't really -- but they passed a bill that repeals some bad parts of it, like the individual mandate tax, medicine cabinet tax, flexible spending account tax and health savings account withdrawal tax. Good.  Now the Senate will create its own bill and ask the Congressional Budget Office if the House bill will save money.  But Obamacare was so bad, I fear these changes are just Band-Aids on a collapsing system. Instead, the Senate should pass my seven-point plan.  His plan makes sense.  But too often our legislators don't use facts and have little or no common sense.   https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2017/05/10/improved-health-bill-n2324405?

This falls into the believe it or not category.  Liberals are going backwards.  They now seek segregation.  Quote: "Political correctness has gone so insane, liberals are demanding a return to segregation.  At Harvard University, postgraduate students receiving their degrees have announced plans to host a separate, private graduation ceremonies will be held for different races.  No, that’s not a joke. This liberal insanity is quite serious. It’s very real… and Harvard is not alone."  And, "Sadly, Harvard isn’t the only college that is hosting a racially segregated graduation ceremony. The school has joined a growing list of colleges that pull the same stunt.  For example, BET.com notes that Stanford, Temple, and Columbia all host black-only graduation ceremonies."    https://thehornnews.com/liberal-insanity-harvard-segregate-race/   Can anyone explain how the self acclaimed most inclusive people on earth can do this?   Is this what progressives call progress?

You can usually detect the character of someone by the people they associate with.  This is certainly the case with former president Obama.  This item illustrates.    http://www.wnd.com/2017/05/former-obama-adviser-roots-for-more-isis-slaughtering-of-christians/   You will recall that throughout his presidency Obama never defended the interests of Christians anywhere in the world but always said positive things about Muslims and gave them his full support, usually at the expense of American citizens.   And, notably he was consistent on this point.

This is a prime example of why our immigration laws must be enforced.  This tragedy would have been avoided.   http://www.wnd.com/2017/05/immigrant-who-killed-boston-doctors-has-bank-robbing-rapsheet/

Does anyone believe that the politicians in California have any desire to serve the interest of the people?  If you do then this item should disabuse you of that belief.  They are continuing their long run at promoting progressivism and socialistic ideals that have already taken a toll on the financial and moral standing of the state.  People and businesses are leaving the state.  In other words the people be damned.  The state government has a nefarious agenda and intend to see it through.    http://www.wnd.com/2017/04/promoting-shariah-1-state-would-make-it-illegal-to-investigate/

It may not be time to give up on Trump.  He has publically stated he was thinking of terminating NAFTA.  Apparently both Canada and Mexico responded.  Quote: "In an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Saturday, Trump said he had every intention of terminating the agreement with Canada and Mexico, before leaders of both countries contacted him about it. The president said that he got “very nice” calls from Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian prime minister of Justin Trudeau asking him to negotiate with them.  He said he told them that he would. It looks like Trump is going to put some of his deal-making skills to work on the agreement.  However, he did not entirely back away from putting an end to it. ”If I’m not able to renegotiate NAFTA, I will terminate NAFTA.”    http://conservativetribune.com/trumps-executive-order-nafta/

This item proves that the ACLU often bases its arguments on spurious grounds. At issue is Trump's temporary immigration ban from selected Muslim countries.  Quote: "The last part of the audio is rather funny. Jadwat, asked whether the order on its face is valid, says No. Why? “I don’t think so, Your Honor, because the order is completely unprecedented.” To which one of the Fourth Circuit judges replies, with astonishment that seems mostly genuine: “So the first order on anything is invalid?”  There is more faulty logic on display as well.    http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2017/05/08/aclu-says-one-simple-thing-make-trumps-travel-ban-completely-acceptable/?

This item deals with the continuing collapse of many members of the political left.  Their antics have progressed from sad images of childish to outrageous and irresponsible    https://townhall.com/columnists/davidlimbaugh/2017/05/05/thank-you-stephen-colbert-n2322448?

Items Well Worth Pondering 1

  Quote: "In Part One of this article I detailed how propaganda has been utilized by the Deep State for decades to control the minds of the masses and allow those in control to reap the benefits of never ending war."  And, "I’m constantly amazed by the ability of those in power to create a narrative trusted by a gullible non-critical thinking populace. Appealing to emotions, when you have millions of functionally illiterate, normalcy bias ensnared, iGadget distracted, disciples of the status quo, has been the game plan of the Deep State for the last century. Americans don’t want to think, because thinking is hard. They would rather feel. For decades the government controlled public education system has performed a mass lobotomy on their hapless matriculates, removing their ability to think and replacing it with feelings, fabricated dogma, and social indoctrination. Their minds of mush have been molded to acquiesce to the narrative propagandized by their government keepers.  “The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.” – Thomas Sowell   With a majority confused, distracted, malleable, willfully ignorant, and easily manipulated by false narratives, heart wrenching images, and fake news, the Deep State henchmen have been able to control the masses with relative ease. The unanticipated rise of Donald Trump to the most powerful role in the world gave many critical thinking, anti-big government, skeptical curmudgeons hope he could drain the swamp and begin to deconstruct the massive out of control Federal bureaucracy."      https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/04/30/the-horror-the-horror/

     Quote: "In Part Two I will discuss recent events, false flags, and propaganda campaigns utilzed by the Deep State to push the world to the brink of war."  And, "It seems the level and intensity of the propaganda campaigns has ratcheted up dramatically in the last half dozen years and appears to be reaching a crescendo as we speak. It’s almost as if the Deep State is frantically trying to maintain the status quo, even as the worldwide financial Ponzi scheme of debt approaches the point of collapse. The domestic conditions in Europe, North America, and Asia are deteriorating rapidly. The propaganda doled out trying to convince citizens their financial situation is not worsening has failed.  The people realize they have been screwed and continue to be screwed by the politicians, bankers and corporate fascists running the show. This is the major reason Trump was elected. People were desperate for someone who offered them a promise of economic revival and reduced government interference in their lives."    https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/05/05/the-horror-the-horror-part-two/#more-149295

     Quote: "In Part Three of this article I will discuss how Trump has been co-opted by the Deep State into doing their bidding with military intervention and bullying across the globe. It’s just a continuation of imperialism run rampant. Empires always decline and fall due to military overreach and economic bankruptcy. The American empire will be no different."   And, "The American Empire has been waging war virtually non-stop since the creation of the Creature from Jekyll Island (aka Federal Reserve) in 1913. After World War II, as the size of the empire grew to heights never seen in world history, the level of hypocrisy, propaganda, maliciousness, immorality, and hubris has grown exponentially. The madness of the men running this colonial empire is concealed through the moral ambiguity and faux patriotism utilized to confuse and mislead a willfully ignorant populace who long ago relinquished their citizenship responsibilities to men they have never seen and never voted for."    https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/05/07/the-horror-the-horror-part-three/#more-149578 

This item deals with the folly of past and present administrations doing the bid of the military industrial complex. Quote:  "How did the American people ever reach this point where they believe that US aggression in the Middle East will make us safe when it does the opposite? How did the American people ever reach the point where they believe that fighting unconstitutional wars is required to protect our freedoms and our Constitution? Why do we allow the NSA, CIA, FBI, TSA, etc. to destroy our liberty at home, as part of the Global War on Terror, with a pretext that they are preserving our liberty?  Why are the lying politicians reelected and allowed to bankrupt our country, destroy our money, and enter wars without the proper consent? Why do the American people suffer in silence and not scream “Enough is enough!”? We’ve had enough of the “humanitarian do-gooders” and the proponents of “American exceptionalism” who give us nothing but war, economic suffering, and less freedom. This can and must be stopped.” – Ron Paul, Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity  And, "The only question at this point is whether Trump has already been co-opted by the Deep State military industrial complex or whether he is being manipulated through false flags and traditional propaganda techniques. Based on the slow progress on his domestic agenda of immigration reform, Obamacare repeal, tax cuts, infrastructure spending, and trade reform, it appears Trump decided to take the advice of neo-cons within and outside his administration and distract the masses with some new military adventurism."    https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/04/30/the-horror-the-horror/#more-148239   You are likely aware that former President Eisenhower warned in his final address to the nation that we must be wary of the power and influence of the military industrial complex. He felt then that it had too much power in government affairs. It still does. Unfortunately, we the people and our government have ignored that warning ever since.  The unintended  negative consequences abound far and wide. 

It would be a good thing if liberals could be introspective enough to recognize themselves in this piece.  Quote: "If self-delusion were magic, average liberals would be David Blaine, David Copperfield and Houdini all rolled up into one. Most of what they say has no relation to what they’re doing, the policies they push rarely work and logic might as well be a strange, alien language to them. Since that’s the case, explaining all the things liberals get wrong about themselves could easily be the topic of my second book (Here’s a link to my first one), but since we only have so much space to work with in a column, here are the top five."    https://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2017/05/20/the-5-biggest-things-liberals-get-wrong-about-themselves-n2329574?  In follow up to this piece here is a cogent quote from Thomas Sowell, "One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them.”

We can learn something from this guy. Quote: "For an excellent (albeit indirect) analysis of how Austrians and libertarians can advance their cause from a minority position, Taleb’s recent article The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority is a must-read. He reminds us that a small minority with courage—the most important form of skin in the game— can prevail over the slumbering masses. And he also reminds us that courageous individual actors, not 51% mass movements, drive real changes in every society: The entire growth of society, whether economic or moral, comes from a small number of people. So we close this chapter with a remark about the role of skin in the game in the condition of society. Society doesn’t evolve by consensus, voting, majority, committees, verbose meeting, academic conferences, and polling; only a few people suffice to disproportionately move the needle. All one needs is an asymmetric rule somewhere. And asymmetry is present in about everything."    https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/05/03/what-nassim-taleb-can-teach-us/#more-149453

This certainly did not happen under Obama's absence of leadership.  Quote: "The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) concluded a six week long anti-gang operation. During the country-wide operation that ran from March 26 to May 6, the agency and local law enforcement arrested close to 1,378 suspects, of which 1,095 had gang affiliations."     https://www.statista.com/chart/9369/arrests-during-anti-gang-operation-ice-hsi-2017-united-states/

D.C. Swamp Critter Franken Returns $41K in Campaign Contributions Amid Investigation

The full story of this next D.C. scandal might not reach the attention of the national media so we are highlighting it.
Thornton Law Firm have been top donors to the Franken campaign committee and they are under investigation by the FEC and the Boston U.S. Attorney’s office.
Franken returned the money as federal regulators are investigating the firm for linking employee bonuses to campaign contributions.
Democrats have returned one million dollars though not all Democrats have followed suit. Sen. Jack Reed in Rhode Island didn’t. We would be remiss if we didn’t mention so-called Republican Lindsey Graham didn’t return contributions the firm made to him.

http://www.independentsentinel.com/idiot-franken-returns-41k-in-campaign-contributions-amid-investigation/ 

Beltway crowd wants us focused on molehills instead of the mountainous problems they've created

This country has very big problems, and none of them – at least not the serious ones – were created by Donald Trump.

Take your pick. The debt, the unfunded entitlement obligations, the messed up health care system, the crime, the cultural disintegration, the tax code . . . the political class gave us these problems over the course of many decades. Whether by neglect or active foolishness, they have imperiled our fiscal stability, our economic vibrancy and even the safety of ordinary people. They’ve also made it harder for us to protect ourselves against external threats.

These problems are mountains. Mountains can be conquered, but it takes someone who is not only willing to climb the mountain but has the strength and the courage to see the challenge through when it gets difficult. Whatever Donald Trump’s faults, he ran for president because he understood the nature of these problems, and he was willing to climb the mountains.

http://canadafreepress.com/article/beltway-crowd-wants-us-focused-on-molehills-instead-of-the-mountainous-prob 

Leaking From the Top

On Monday, the Washington Post dropped a bombshell, reporting that Donald Trump had shared highly classified “codeword” intelligence—provided by an ally on the condition that it not be more widely disseminated—with Russian officials during their meeting last week.  While administration officials initially issued fierce denials, national security advisor H.R. McMaster, who had himself blasted the story as “false” in a carefully-worded statement, effectively confirmed the key elements of the report at a press briefing Tuesday morning. While McMaster repeatedly insisted that Trump’s decision to share information had been “wholly appropriate,” his remarks (perhaps inadvertently) raised several additional grounds for concern.

First, let’s dispense with the obvious: Classification authority in the United States flows from the president, and so a president is legally entitled to declassify or disclose information as he sees fit, for any reason or no reason at all.  This is a case where that infamous Nixonism—”When the president does it, that means it is not illegal”—actually applies.  Nobody, as far as I can tell, is seriously disputing that.  It’s also true that presidents often choose, for strategic or diplomatic reasons, to share particular pieces of intelligence with foreign governments.  Yet this does not appear to have been a “routine” instance of such sharing, as McMaster sought to characterize it—not by a longshot.

https://www.cato.org/blog/leaking-top