http://video.foxnews.com/v/
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So far all the celebrities who said they were moving to other countries if Trump was elected have not. Maybe they will stay here instead, burn flags and continue to bleed. Bless their Souls
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This was sent to me by a very dear friend and fellow memo reader.
Whether you can stomach Trump or not much of what has occurred did because he made it happen and you have to give the devil his due. Even objective liberals, few as they maybe, must agree. As for those still hysterical, and imbibing various barbiturates to bring solace to their psyche I hope they find enough safe zones and rescue dogs.
Their reactions have accomplished two things. First, they have made fools of themselves and given a new definition to what it means to be a sore loser and second, they have so lowered the bar for Trump/Pense that if they makes it to The Oval Office, without stumbling, their collective presidency will be successful from day one.
I am no great watcher of football but if every time one's favorite team lost and the TV showed people reacting in the same manner as they have to Trump's victory, I suspect embarrassment would rise and become a new standard.
I can understand many of those repelled by Trump feel they have been suckered because there seems to be a stark difference between the Trump who campaigned and the Trump we have witnessed post his election. He has put together a varied competent Cabinet and made other serious appointments that demonstrate he is no fool.
He has tied the mass media in knots and hung them with their own rope. Something McCain and Romney could not accomplish.
Finally, he has begun to demonstrate his commitments were not just words but were convictions he has and will carry out given the opportunity.
So off to the races America and it should be both interesting and a sharp contrast between the biggest loser of all - the man Trump succeeds.
Maybe there really is a God who/that watches over our nation. (See 1 below.)
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Iran cashing in? (See 2 below.)
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This past Sunday we had dinner with friends who happen to own an insurance agency. The conversation turned to the recent election, the various problems facing government with particular emphasis on how many take advantage of the welfare system. as an example deduced from personal experience.
A client mother of two children ,who legitimately was disabled, wanted to purchase two insurance policies and was told the two children beneficiaries would have to come and sign certain forms. The son came in claimed he was disabled because he was ADD and when questioned he admitted he was not taking his prescribed medicine yet, was receiving government disability checks. The daughter, who also accompanied her brother, said she had back issues and was disabled and thus was also receiving a government disability check.
We know the welfare system is broken, we know fraudulent claims are rife. I have my own theory how these two cases could be representative of many similar cases but were I to express it I would be speculating but believe I still would be on firm ground.
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This from a long time, dear friend, former partner of my father and fellow memo reader. He was referring to a recent memo I wrote: "Dick, this is one of your best blogs. I especially liked the “red neck philosophy video,” proof that all good ideas don’t come from Harvard (in fact, I fear that no good ideas come from Harvard).
While I still am no great admirer of Donald Trump, I’m much more optimistic about the future of this country and the world than I was before the election. I like many of his proposed appointments, including that of our ambassador to Israel. I do hope, though, that Friedman always remembers that he is being sent to Jerusalem (yes!) to execute American policy, not decide on his own what that policy is. I think the fact that he favors at least considering whether to abandon the two state policy can be a positive. Possibly we can use that as a hammer to make the Palestinians be reasonable.
I hope that you, Lynn and your family are doing well. I still think about your father often and am thankful for all the years I practiced with him. What I wouldn’t give to hear him comment on current events. Just like Charles Krauthammer, he could persuade me to believe in almost any proposition.
M----"
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When authentic, reliable and professional science drives EPA decisions and not politics, I will continue to be distrustful of its initiatives. This does not mean I believe human activity does not impact our environment I just do not believe we fully understand the cost relationship of decisions based purely on emotion parading as science. (See 3 below.)===
Understanding what our government, and therefore American citizens, are actually on the hook for would be a refreshing change. (See 4 below)
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Finally, the more Trump stiffs the press and seeks to go round them, by way of Tweets and using other social media outlets, I suspect the more likely the mass media will become frantic and feel more compelled to report with even more abandon thereby, sinking their credibility even further.
It has been four months since Trump has held some kind of formal press conference and yet, he has not been quiet. There is also a lot of speculation about how the new administration might change the way The White House Press Corps functions adding to their anxiety.
Though Trump may be successful in playing the mass media like a violin and exposing their bias, at some point this cat and mouse game could backfire. I have no doubt the mass media are positioned to hold Trump accountable, even to the point of nit-picking, because their general contempt for him was most evident during their coverage of the latest challenge involving the electoral challenge. Time will tell.
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Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1) Last night, a friend claimed that Donald Trump wouldn’t make a good president; he is brash, he is racist, he is a loudmouth; you know the normal things people learn to recite after being programmed by the news media.
The one I loved was that, “Trump is arrogant."
My friend questioned if one man could make “that much difference in the world today.”
To my friend's credit, she was respectful enough to let me respond when she asked, “Really, what has Trump done?”
I said, “In June of last year, Trump entered the race for president. In just a little over a year, Trump has single-handedly defeated the Republican party. He did so thoroughly. In fact, he did so in such a resounding way that the Republican Party now suffers from an identity crisis. He literally dismantled the party.
Trump even dismantled and dismissed the brand and value of the Bush family.
Trump has Obama petrified that Trump will dismiss programs that weren’t properly installed using proper law.
Trump has single-handedly debunked and disemboweled any value of news media as we knew it — news now suffering from an all-time level of distrust and disrespect.
Trump has leaders from all over the world talking about him, whether good or bad.
Trust me, powerful men who have been president before weren’t liked by the global community.
I doubt Mikhail Gorbachev liked Reagan when Reagan said, "Tear down this wall."
Trump has expressly disclosed the fraud perpetrated on the American public by Hillary Clinton.
He has, quite literally, brought Hillary to her knees — if you believe that nervous tension and disorders offer physical side effects and damage.
Trump has unified the silent majority in a way that should be patently frightening to “liberals.”
As the press accuses Trump of being a house of cards, Trump has proven the press is the real house of cards.
He has whipped up the entire establishment into pure panic. Trump has exposed them for who they are and worse, what they are.
George Clooney was right when he said Trump draws live news coverage of his podium that he’s not yet approached. (Thanks, George, you were perfectly correct.)
What we see as headline news today is actually the last bubbles from the ship that is now sunk — meaning the standard news media, as a propaganda machine, has been exposed. They have no more value.
In the same way Trump asked the African-American community this question... ”At this point, what do you have to lose?”
We have mass cop shootings, riots in our streets, ambushed cops, double digit inflation, bombs blowing up in our cities, targeted police, a skyrocketing jobless rate, no economic growth, privately owned land being seized by the federal government, the worst racial tension in my lifetime, no God in schools, more abortions than ever, illegal aliens pouring into our country, sick veterans receiving no care, and... under Barack Obama... a national debt that DOUBLED in just seven years to $19 TRILLION Dollars!
Are you really happy with the condition of the current system?
One man has done all of this in one year—one guy, and on his own dime. And with everything I’ve written above, you believe Trump hasn't done anything?
You claim that you are afraid of Donald Trump? No wonder we’re in trouble. You can say that Trump is a lousy presidential candidate. That’s your right. Just don’t ever say he’s not effective.
That Megan Kelly, FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, Rachel Maddow, the Huffington Post, the New York Times, Raleigh’s News and Observer, the AP, Don Lemon, Jake Tapper, and many more, failed to implement their collectively orchestrated lie on the American people against Trump, is actually a massive testament to Trump.
The press colluded pure propaganda to accomplish his demise … and they have collectively failed and miserably.
Here's just one example of how badly America is injured right now.
There are high school football players on their knees during the national anthem simply because the press used propaganda to program those kids to do that very thing. But, these kids are mimicking NFL stars the same way the same kids choose which brand of football shoes to purchase — they're overtly brain-washed to do that very thing.
Now, we have a generation of children who hate America.
America’s problem isn’t that little children are on their knee in collective disrespect of America. Our problem is that America is on her knee from collective disrespect by Americans.
You can disrespect America all you want. But, it’s high-time you respect the silent majority. Because they’re not simply the “silent majority” as you’ve been trained to believe when Hillary calls them “deplorables.”
The fact is, they are simply the majority. And, now, they're no longer silent either.
Donald Trump changed all of that, single-handedly and within one year.
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2)Expert: Cash Transferred by Obama Admin to Tehran Led to Expansion of Iranian Military Budget by 39 Percent
by Ruthie Blum
The controversial transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in cash to Tehran by the Obama administration a few months ago is likely being used to expand Iran’s defense budget, according to an analysis by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
According to former senior MEMRI analyst Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli, though “money is fungible,” and it cannot be established that the $1.7 billion (originally reported as $400 million) delivered in two tranches to the Islamic Republic in exchange for the release of American hostages has gone directly to Iran’s various military branches and operations,
it, at a minimum, enabled the government to release an equal amount of money for defense purposes. It is noteworthy that the increase in the proposed defense budget for 2017 is approximately equal to the amount transferred by the US.
Iran has requested a meeting of a commission overseeing the implementation of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Iranian...
Raphaeli wrote that since mid-2013, when Hassan Rouhani succeeded Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, the regime’s allocations to the military have continuously grown. But ahead of the next fiscal year (March 2017-March 2018), the government submitted a draft budget that sees a sharp increase of 39 percent – amounting to a total of $10.3 billion – for defense, including a big increase in the budget of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
According to Raphaeli, foreign policy is closely coordinated by the government and the IRGC, “a potent military force accountable to the Supreme Leader, in regional politics, and particularly in Syria and Iraq [with] a branch, the Qods Force Brigade…responsible for spreading Iran’s subversive and, often, terrorist activities across the Middle East and beyond.”
In a recent interview with The Algemeiner, former director-general of Israel’s Ministry of International Affairs and Strategy IDF Brig. Gen. (res.) Yosef Kuperwasser said that Iran is stepping up the speed at which it is arming its proxies in the region, due to its fear that after Donald Trump assumes the US presidency in January, its room to maneuver in Syria — where it has been helping bolster the regime of President Bashar Assad — will be greatly hampered.
In addition to its “dominant share in the national defense budget,” wrote Raphaeli, “[T]he IRGC derives vast revenues from its control over energy, construction, banking, and marketing (as well as smuggling of contraband), [m]uch of [which] are carried out by a company known as Khatam Al-Anbiya (“Seal of the Prophet”) established by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the late 1980s as the economic arm of the IRGC. Upon the withdrawal of the major oil companies such as Shell Oil (Anglo-Dutch) and Total (French) from Iran’s oil sector following the international sanctions, ownership of the oil and gas fields vacated by these companies was transferred to Khatam Al-Anbiya.”
“Whatever the source of the defense budget increase,” Raphaeli concluded, “the IRGC will have ample resources to expand its nefarious activities far beyond the borders of the Islamic Republic.”
As The Algemeiner reported late last month, in spite of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal signed between Tehran and world powers a year ago in July, dangerous confrontations between American and Iranian warships in the Persian Gulf have increased by more than 50 percent in 2016 as compared with the 2015.
This has been accompanied by months of belligerent statements emanating from Tehran, and actions in the form of ballistic-missile testing and boasts of military advancements — the most recent of which was the entry of two Islamic Republic naval warships into the Atlantic Ocean.
Meanwhile, Iranian officials continue to threaten the United States that it has concrete plans in place to respond to any possible breach of the nuclear deal, particularly following the recent unanimous US Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act for an additional 10 years.
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3) The EPA’s Science Deniers
Speaking of fake news, the political scientists at the EPA have rewritten the conclusion of a report in order to cast doubt on the safety of hydraulic fracturing. Consider this EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s parting gift to Donald Trump.
3) The EPA’s Science Deniers
The agency changes its view on fracking and water without evidence.
Speaking of fake news, the political scientists at the EPA have rewritten the conclusion of a report in order to cast doubt on the safety of hydraulic fracturing. Consider this EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s parting gift to Donald Trump.
Last week the EPA issued the final version of a five-year study evaluating the impact of hydraulic fracturing, the oil and gas drilling method known as fracking, on groundwater contamination. The draft report released last year for public comment concluded that fracking has not “led to widespread, systemic impact on drinking water resources in the United States.” The EPA’s findings haven’t changed, but its conclusion has.
After being barraged by plaintiff attorneys and Hollywood celebrities, the EPA in its final report substituted its determination of no “widespread, systemic impact” with the hypothetical that fracking “can impact drinking water resources under some circumstances” and that “impacts can range in frequency and severity” depending on the circumstances.
Any technology has the potential to inflict some damage—self-driving cars can be hacked to go haywire—and the EPA explains that drinking-water contamination could occur if wastewater is incorrectly disposed or wells are poorly sealed. In Pavillion, Wyo., the EPA’s faulty construction of a monitoring well caused contamination.
Yet after reviewing more than 1,000 studies, the EPA couldn’t find more than limited evidence—mostly alleged by plaintiff attorneys—of operational failures causing contamination. That the EPA uncovered only a few instances of contamination among a million some wells reinforces its prior conclusion that fracking doesn’t threaten the drinking-water supply.
The EPA now asserts that “significant data gaps and uncertainties” prevent it from “calculating or estimating the national frequency of impacts.” For instance, water-quality data was not collected everywhere prior to the introduction of fracking, which has allowed plaintiff attorneys to ascribe any contamination to oil and gas companies.
Methane can leak into groundwater naturally, and the EPA even notes that “site-specific cases of alleged impacts” are “particularly challenging to understand” because “the subsurface environment is complex.” Scientists have documented methane in the shallow subsurface of Susquehanna County, Pa.—one area of alleged fracking contamination—dating back more than 200 years.
So after spending $30 million and five years to produce a risk assessment, the EPA has found no evidence that fracking causes widespread contamination. Two years ago, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo used the pretext of scientific “uncertainties” to ban fracking, and the EPA’s revised report will give him cover for depriving upstate residents of its economic benefits. Progressives are using the report as ammunition in their media campaign against fracking, and plaintiff attorneys will use it in lawsuits.
Liberals denounce anyone who cites uncertainties about carbon’s climate impact as “deniers.” So it’s ironic that they are now justifying their opposition to fracking based on scientific uncertainties. As for the EPA’s science, bending to public comment from litigants and actor Mark Ruffalo does not instill confidence in the agency’s integrity.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++4) Some Honesty (at Last) About America’s Debt
Trump should renounce budget gimmicks and give a straight accounting of how much citizens owe.
Having ridden a historic wave of voter dissatisfaction to the presidency, Donald Trump must now address what makes so many voters angry at Washington. If not, the anger that promoted him to the White House will demote him to the doghouse. Mr. Trump could start by being forthright about the true cost of this country’s fiscal policies.
The president-elect recently announced that he would nominate Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R., S.C.), a fiscal conservative, to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget. He should encourage his budget director to forego the dishonest accounting that both parties have used in the past.
When President Roosevelt and Congress established Social Security in 1935, they took responsibility for the cost of old-age pensions by imposing taxes sufficient to pay the promised benefits in the future. In contrast, when President Johnson and Congress established Medicare in 1965, they took credit for the popular health coverage while leaving it to their successors to increase taxes to pay for the program. President Nixon and Congress did much the same when they increased Social Security benefits before the 1972 election.
Not coincidentally, Americans stopped trusting government when elected officials stopped taking responsibility for the burdens needed to make good on their promises. The portion of the public that trusts government to do the right thing “just about always” or “most of the time” fell from 77% in 1964 to only 19% in 2015, according to Pew Research.
Congress has so egregiously abdicated its responsibilities that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a 2011 speech that “maintaining the status quo is not an option. Creditors will not lend to a government whose debt, relative to national income, is rising without limit.” In 2014 Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told Congress that more work must be done “to put fiscal policy on a sustainable course.”
Future presidents and Congresses will have to increase revenue and cut spending to make ends meet. Politicians don’t know exactly which taxes will be raised or how spending will be cut, but they can still estimate how much total outlays and revenue need to change.
Past presidents and Congresses have lowballed these costs by, for example, counting the taxes to be paid by whole generations, but leaving out the benefits that they expect to receive in retirement. Instead, the politicians report abstractions with little meaning to the average voter. For example, the Financial Report of the United States issued in February opened with Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew stating that the nation is “on the path of long-term fiscal sustainability. . . . I am confident that we can lay the foundation for durable economic growth and broadly shared prosperity.” How nice.
Given his business experience, Mr. Trump knows that an executive who assumes leadership of a financially troubled organization should not trust such puffery from the outgoing management. He should do his own accounting and report the results to the owners. If Mr. Trump truly means to drain the swamp, he should order the Treasury Department to renounce budget gimmicks and honestly determine and report the average cost per family of closing the fiscal gap and how much his own proposals on taxes and spending would increase or decrease that cost. The public will soon know if Mr. Trump is a swamp drainer—or a swamp dweller.
Mr. Schoenbrod, a professor at New York Law School, is the author of “DC Confidential: Inside the Five Tricks of Washington,” forthcoming from Encounter Books in March.
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