Blake - Our Dennis The Menace.
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In addition to our new and first great grandchild, Olivia Frances, Dagny and Blake have a new rescue dog named Kahlua. She is a beaut and so sweet.
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Something to think about: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
and
https://www.prageru.com/
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What is Trump thinking? According to Dr Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist, Trump is a master at getting the mass media folk to focus where he wants them to and he has them sniffing in the weeds chasing rabbits he cleverly launches. They are too dumb and/or prejudiced to know they are being snookered. (See 1 below.)
Does Trump have a nothing box brain? Click on and see?
and then:
I don't know (nor do I care) how many attended Trump's inauguration.
+++But I can tell you exactly how many people attended Hillary's inauguration!!
Some conservative Republicans are worried that Trump's want list will break the bank like Obama did.
I have a solution. For every bureaucrat fired you can add two military personnel and have money left over for their new weapons. Stop and think, if we closed down the Departments of Education and Energy and then cut the staffs of most every remaining government agency we could do everything Trump campaigned on and have money to pay down our debt.
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Palestinian fatigue has finally arrived. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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Can Republicans ever learn to play hardball? (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)
Dr. Keith Ablow: What's REALLY going on in Trump's mind? (Hint: it's not what you think)
The media is all abuzz, again, about the fact that President Trump spent some time during his televised interview with ABC anchor David Muir pointing out the large size of the crowd in photos of his inauguration. Journalists, who still don’t seem able to understand that Trump is almost always several steps ahead of them, once again are heralding the president’s seeming preoccupation with the issue.
Is the president actually so thin-skinned that he needs the world to acknowledge that a huge number of people turned out to honor him as he was sworn in? Um, no.
So what’s really going on in his mind? Here’s my opinion: Everything Donald Trump does is strategically calculated to achieve a goal. His communication is designed not to simply convey his gut feelings, but to make people focus on one thing — call it a decoy — so he can do six other things while they’re distracted.
In this case, Trump has masterfully used the media’s pathetic naiveté and desire to battle him to make them focus on a throwaway battle — his seeming obsession with crowd size (which I can almost guarantee he could not care less about) — while he determinedly does what he does care about: signing orders that resurrect pipeline projects, retooling our broken immigration laws, laying the groundwork for a better health care system and preparing to build the wall.
For journalists who still don’t get it, here it is, again, in direct terms: When Trump says something like “If I were you I would take your camera and look at the size of the crowd,” he is actually saying, “Let’s debate crowd size, again, because otherwise you might ask me questions about my real and historically powerful plans and ideas, which I don’t trust you to report on fairly, anyhow.”
A journalist who might even come close to Trump’s level of strategic communication should then say, “Ah, the old watch this hand while I work magic with my other one? No, we shall not linger an instant on that silly issue my colleagues in the media are focused on. Let’s sit down and talk about the pipelines, again. I don’t want to walk around and snort another line of that drug you know the media is addicted to.”
The drug, by the way, is called taking the easy path of the pithy, sensational, stupid story. And lots of journalists who get paid lots of money seem to be hopelessly hooked on it.
The rest of us, over the next 90 days or eight years, will watch Trump masterfully ignite one squabble after another that the members of the press fall all over themselves to engage in, while he remakes the world.
Man, I am just so happy this guy went to work for us. I’m still pinching myself. It’s like a miracle.
Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team.
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Dr. Keith Ablow: What's REALLY going on in Trump's mind? (Hint: it's not what you think)
The media is all abuzz, again, about the fact that President Trump spent some time during his televised interview with ABC anchor David Muir pointing out the large size of the crowd in photos of his inauguration. Journalists, who still don’t seem able to understand that Trump is almost always several steps ahead of them, once again are heralding the president’s seeming preoccupation with the issue.
Is the president actually so thin-skinned that he needs the world to acknowledge that a huge number of people turned out to honor him as he was sworn in? Um, no.
So what’s really going on in his mind? Here’s my opinion: Everything Donald Trump does is strategically calculated to achieve a goal. His communication is designed not to simply convey his gut feelings, but to make people focus on one thing — call it a decoy — so he can do six other things while they’re distracted.
In this case, Trump has masterfully used the media’s pathetic naiveté and desire to battle him to make them focus on a throwaway battle — his seeming obsession with crowd size (which I can almost guarantee he could not care less about) — while he determinedly does what he does care about: signing orders that resurrect pipeline projects, retooling our broken immigration laws, laying the groundwork for a better health care system and preparing to build the wall.
For journalists who still don’t get it, here it is, again, in direct terms: When Trump says something like “If I were you I would take your camera and look at the size of the crowd,” he is actually saying, “Let’s debate crowd size, again, because otherwise you might ask me questions about my real and historically powerful plans and ideas, which I don’t trust you to report on fairly, anyhow.”
A journalist who might even come close to Trump’s level of strategic communication should then say, “Ah, the old watch this hand while I work magic with my other one? No, we shall not linger an instant on that silly issue my colleagues in the media are focused on. Let’s sit down and talk about the pipelines, again. I don’t want to walk around and snort another line of that drug you know the media is addicted to.”
The drug, by the way, is called taking the easy path of the pithy, sensational, stupid story. And lots of journalists who get paid lots of money seem to be hopelessly hooked on it.
The rest of us, over the next 90 days or eight years, will watch Trump masterfully ignite one squabble after another that the members of the press fall all over themselves to engage in, while he remakes the world.
Man, I am just so happy this guy went to work for us. I’m still pinching myself. It’s like a miracle.
Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team.
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2) Saudi Journalist to Palestinians: Armed Resistance to Israel is Futile, Arab World Has Lost Interest in Your Cause
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2) Saudi Journalist to Palestinians: Armed Resistance to Israel is Futile, Arab World Has Lost Interest in Your Cause
by Barney Breen-Portnoy
The Palestinian cause is “no longer a top priority” for the Arab world, a Saudi journalist declared earlier this month.
In an article published by the Saudi daily Al Jazirah newspaper — and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) — Muhammad Aal Al-Sheikh wrote that the reliance of radical Palestinian groups on armed resistance “constitutes a kind of political suicide that only political ignoramuses [can] condone.”
According to Al-Sheikh, a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the sole option “that can be demanded and which enjoys the support of most of the international community.”
What the Palestinians, Al-Sheikh went on to say, “need to understand is that the Arabs of today are not the Arabs of yesterday, and that the Palestinian cause has lost ground among Arabs. This cause is no longer a top priority for them, because civil wars are literally pulverizing four Arab countries, and because fighting the ‘Islamic’ terrorism is the foremost concern that causes all Arabs, without exception, to lose sleep. It is folly to ask someone to sacrifice [tending to] his own problems and national interests in order to help [you solve] your own problems.”
“All I can say to my Palestinian brethren is that stubbornness, contrariness, and betting on the [support of] the Arab masses are a hopeless effort, and that ultimately you are the only ones who will pay the price of this stubbornness and contrariness,” he concluded.
In recent years, Israel has been quietly developing ties with the Sunni-Arab axis in the Middle East – including Saudi Arabia. In his September address to the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that in addition to Egypt and Jordan, which already have signed peace treaties with the Jewish state, “Many other states in the region recognize that Israel is not their enemy. They recognize that Israel is their ally. Our common enemies are ISIS and Iran. Our common goals are security, prosperity and peace. I believe that in the years ahead we will work together to achieve these goals.”
2a) Stop American Aid to the Palestinians Until the Terror Ceases
By DAVID AUFHAUSER and SANDER GERBER
2a) Stop American Aid to the Palestinians Until the Terror Ceases
Trump halted an 11th-hour transfer of $221 million. But more can be done to end pensions for killers.
By DAVID AUFHAUSER and SANDER GERBER
In the twilight hours of the Obama administration, Secretary of State John Kerry authorized the transfer of $221 million to the Palestinian Authority—in violation of an informal agreement with Congress not to do so. Fortunately, President Trump stopped the transfer before the money left America’s shores. Now he has the opportunity—and the responsibility—to do more.
Lawmakers had good reason to oppose the transfer. Much like with the $400 million cash ransom paid to Iran last year, no meaningful effort was made to account for how the money was to be spent or to prevent it from being used to kill innocents.
Since 9/11, it has been accepted wisdom that stopping funds flowing to terrorism is a vital way to diminish its reach and incidence. In the fight against Islamic State, much of the success—albeit too little and too late—can be traced to efforts to target some of its principal sources of money: oil, trafficking in antiquities, and regional money exchangers that provide the commerce necessary for the killing.
A second operating principle growing out of 9/11 is that people who underwrite terrorism bear culpability equal to those who commit it. Much of the antiterrorism framework established in the Bush administration focused on imposing responsibilities on the international financial community to identify and prevent the transfer of terrorist funds. It is a difficult task because money intended to kill bears few DNA markers, whether transferred by ancient means (gold) or modern ones (digital). Notwithstanding those challenges, financial institutions that have turned a blind eye have faced punishing billion-dollar consequences.
Not so, however, the U.S. government. Over the past 10 years, Washington has provided more than $4 billion in foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority. The goal has been to promote a government in the Palestinian territories capable of assuming the responsibilities of a sovereign state, including the recognition of the state of Israel as a legitimate member of the community of nations. The aid has focused principally on security and criminal-justice programs, U.S. Agency for International Development sponsored assistance for schools, health clinics, water and economic development, and generalized support for the Palestinian Authority’s budget. But unlike the many nongovernmental organizations that contribute charitable funds to the region, American assistance programs, while obliged to vet how the money is spent, have yet to ensure effectively that taxpayer dollars are not diverted to support acts of terror.
Yet there is no question that this is happening. First, the State Department has acknowledged the diversion in reports to Congress, as documented most recently in a Dec. 16, 2016, Congressional Research Service report. As a remedy, Washington simply reduced its aggregate aid by an amount that is classified but is reported to be pegged to intelligence estimates of what the Palestinian Authority spends to sponsor acts of terrorism. But money is fungible, and it is sophistry to argue that funds provided for good deeds do not enable the bad deeds of the same political entity, particularly given the scarcity of resources.
Second, the Palestinian Authority’s support for killing—such as the stabbing rampage that took the life of Taylor Force, a West Point graduate, in Jaffa, Israel, last March—is indisputable because it is codified in law. Statutes pledge to “martyr” families triple the income for life of the average salary in the West Bank, free tuition, health insurance and clothing allowances. So popular is the program of pensions for the maiming and killing of civilians that, according to its own 2016 budget, the Palestinian Authority dedicates more than 500 full-time civil servants to its administration, at a cost of around $315 million, or roughly 8% of the budget of the would-be Palestinian state.
In the face of this widely advertised bureaucracy of terror, the Trump administration should suspend all further aid to the Palestinian Authority. Not another dollar should flow until measures are adopted to assure that no more people are slain because American aid enabled the Palestinian Authority to confidently promise compensation for killing. Congress has already introduced the vehicle to do this, a bill in the name of Taylor Force. If passed into law, it would condition aid on the secretary of state’s certification that the Palestinian Authority has ended its legal sanction of terrorist financing. Without such a commitment, and strong due diligence by the State Department to ensure that it is honored, American funding of the Palestinian Authority should cease.
That such a straightforward proposition has escaped the Washington establishment for over a decade is perhaps one reason the country has a new president. Mr. Trump should at last enforce the 9/11 orthodoxy that if you stop the money, you stop the killing.
—Mr. Aufhauser was chairman of the National Security Council Policy Committee on Terrorist Financing and the general counsel of the Treasury Department after 9/11. Mr. Gerber is a fellow at the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs.
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3) A GOP Regulatory Game Changer
Todd Gaziano on Wednesday stepped into a meeting of free-market attorneys, think tankers and Republican congressional staff to unveil a big idea. By the time he stepped out, he had reset Washington’s regulatory battle lines.
The accepted wisdom in Washington is that the CRA can be used only against new regulations, those finalized in the past 60 legislative days. That gets Republicans back to June, teeing up 180 rules or so for override. Included are biggies like the Interior Department’s “streams” rule, the Labor Department’s overtime-pay rule, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s methane rule.
3) A GOP Regulatory Game Changer
Legal experts say that Congress can overrule Obama regulations going back to 2009.
Todd Gaziano on Wednesday stepped into a meeting of free-market attorneys, think tankers and Republican congressional staff to unveil a big idea. By the time he stepped out, he had reset Washington’s regulatory battle lines.
These days Mr. Gaziano is a senior fellow in constitutional law at the Pacific Legal Foundation. But in 1996 he was counsel to then-Republican Rep. David McIntosh. He was intimately involved in drafting and passing a bill Mr. McIntosh sponsored: the Congressional Review Act. No one knows the law better.
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Everyone right now is talking about the CRA, which gives Congress the ability, with simple majorities, to overrule regulations from the executive branch. Republicans are eager to use the law, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy this week unveiled the first five Obama rules that his chamber intends to nix.
The accepted wisdom in Washington is that the CRA can be used only against new regulations, those finalized in the past 60 legislative days. That gets Republicans back to June, teeing up 180 rules or so for override. Included are biggies like the Interior Department’s “streams” rule, the Labor Department’s overtime-pay rule, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s methane rule.
But what Mr. Gaziano told Republicans on Wednesday was that the CRA grants them far greater powers, including the extraordinary ability to overrule regulations even back to the start of the Obama administration. The CRA also would allow the GOP to dismantle these regulations quickly, and to ensure those rules can’t come back, even under a future Democratic president. No kidding.
Here’s how it works: It turns out that the first line of the CRA requires any federal agency promulgating a rule to submit a “report” on it to the House and Senate. The 60-day clock starts either when the rule is published or when Congress receives the report—whichever comes later.
“There was always intended to be consequences if agencies didn’t deliver these reports,” Mr. Gaziano tells me. “And while some Obama agencies may have been better at sending reports, others, through incompetence or spite, likely didn’t.” Bottom line: There are rules for which there are no reports. And if the Trump administration were now to submit those reports—for rules implemented long ago—Congress would be free to vote the regulations down.
There’s more. It turns out the CRA has a expansive definition of what counts as a “rule”—and it isn’t limited to those published in the Federal Register. The CRA also applies to “guidance” that agencies issue. Think the Obama administration’s controversial guidance on transgender bathrooms in schools or on Title IX and campus sexual assault. It is highly unlikely agencies submitted reports to lawmakers on these actions.
“If they haven’t reported it to Congress, it can now be challenged,” says Paul Larkin, a senior legal research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Mr. Larkin, also at Wednesday’s meeting, told me challenges could be leveled against any rule or guidance back to 1996, when the CRA was passed.
The best part? Once Congress overrides a rule, agencies cannot reissue it in “substantially the same form” unless specifically authorized by future legislation. The CRA can keep bad regs and guidance off the books even in future Democratic administrations—a far safer approach than if the Mr. Trump simply rescinded them.
Republicans in both chambers—particularly in the Senate—worry that a great use of the CRA could eat up valuable floor time, as Democrats drag out the review process. But Mr. Gaziano points out another hidden gem: The law allows a simple majority to limit debate time. Republicans could easily whip through a regulation an hour.
Imagine this scenario: The Trump administration orders its agencies to make a list of any regulations or guidance issued without a report. Those agencies coordinate with Congress about when to finally submit reports and start the clock. The GOP puts aside one day a month to hold CRA votes. Mr. Obama’s regulatory legacy is systematically dismantled—for good.
This is aggressive, sure, and would take intestinal fortitude. Some Republicans briefed on the plan are already fretting that Democrats will howl. They will. But the law is the law, and failing to use its full power would be utterly irresponsible. Democrats certainly would show no such restraint were the situation reversed. Witness their treatment of Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees.
The entire point of the CRA was to help legislators rein in administrations that ignored statutes and the will of Congress. Few White House occupants ever showed more contempt for the law and lawmakers than Mr. Obama. Republicans if anything should take pride in using a duly passed statue to dispose of his wayward regulatory regime. It’d be a fitting and just end to Mr. Obama’s abuse of authority—and one of the better investments of time this Congress could ever make.
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