+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Trump's peace plan coming soon. (See 1 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What Democrats are involved in is a co-ordinated political smokescreen to avoid the public bathing in good economic results and the fact that they and their mass media friends have egg on their face because Mueller's report did not measure up and justify their expectations.
When these pitiful fools run out of facts they resort to character assassination and bringing ceramic chickens to Congress. These are elected adults acting as embarrassing petulant children.
America's economic news produced by capitalism contrasted with the tragic news emanating from Socialist Venezuela is a difficult visual and statistical contrast for Pelosi and her Democrat and biased mass media friends to overcome.
Lot of accusations and smears but a complete paucity of facts and evidence.
Trump has pledged to release and declassify all pertinent documents when the Horowitz and Barr investigations are concluded and this has to be a motivating factor driving Democrats to act as they are. The last ceramic chicken has not been seen.(See 2 and 2a below.)
How a dear friend and fellow memo reader views what is about to be coming down the peak:
"GUYS WE ARE ABOUT TO EMBARK ON THE EXPLOSION OF THE GREATEST SCANDAL IN THE NATION'S HISTORY. THE BARR AND HOROWITZ REPORT ARE MUCH MORE IMPORTANT AND ARE BASED ON FACTS OF WHO DID WHAT ,WHEN,HOW AND WITH WHOM. All ALLEGEDLY By DEMOCRAT SCUM BAGS AND THIS EXPLAINS WHY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AND IT’S ACOLYTES ARE SCARED. THE TRUTH WILL COME OUT AND WILL ELEVATE THE USA BACK TO A DEGREE OF HIGHER MORAL LEVELS BASED ON FACTS AND NOT INNUENDO. IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO WATCH AS LEFT WINGERS CHOKE ON DENIAL AND BURY THEMSELVES WORSE. STAY TUNED. "
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Fed remains safe now that they were able to rally and defeat Trump's two unorthodox nominees.
By remaining safe they will be able to continue making wrong choices in monetary management.
Part of the problem is of their own miscalculations and the other is because Congress established The Fed so they could off load their own fiscal responsibility. (See 3 and 3a below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1) Kushner says peace plan a ‘starting point’ to resolve conflict
Trump adviser avoids specifics but says proposal will be more detailed than any plan before it; says he will discuss settlement annexation with Netanyahu when government formed
Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner said Thursday night the Trump administration’s peace proposal was an “in-depth operational document” that would serve as a “starting point” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and indicated he was open to discussing Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank.
Speaking at the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs, Kushner said his boss and father-in-law President Donald Trump had yet to see the latest version of the plan, which he described in only vague terms ahead of its expected rollout next month.
“What we’ve put together over the last year is more of an in-depth operational document that shows what we think is possible,” Kushner told Washington Institute’s Executive Director Robert Satloff in an open interview.
He said the plan would lay out “a solution that we believe is a good starting point for the political issues and then an outline for what can be done to help these people start living a better life.”
While Kushner and his subordinates have assiduously avoided providing details about their plan, the 36-year-old White House official said the plan would be highly specific.
“I think what we’ve put together is a document that I do believe addresses some of these issues in a very detailed way,” he said, “probably in a more detailed way that has ever been done before.”
Kushner said that Trump has been engaged in the peacemaking process, that he’s read elements of the proposal, but that he’s not yet looked over the most current version.
“The president has been involved from the very beginning,” Kushner said. “He hasn’t seen the latest draft.”
Later, he added that Trump, “has read a lot of the parts of it.”
Kushner, who had no diplomatic experience before entering the White House, was tasked in 2017 with brokering a deal that has frustrated countless diplomats and public policy experts for decades.
Last week he said past attempts at brokering a deal had “failed,” signaling a different approach, and on Thursday he echoed Trump’s Mideast Peace Envoy Jason Greenblatt by defending the administration’s decision to shy away from backing a two-state solution, a mainstay of American policy for decades.
“I realize that means different things to different people,” he said. “If you say ‘two states’ to the Israelis it means one thing, and if you say ‘two states’ to the Palestinians it means another thing. So we said, let’s just not say it. Let’s just work on the details of what this means.”
Recent reports have said that the administration is preparing to offer a peace deal that would not include the establishment of a Palestinian state, which would be a non-starter for not only the Palestinian Authority but the rest of the Arab world and international community.
Last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was looking into effectively annexing West Bank settlements, but wanted to coordinate the move with Washington.
Kushner did not discount the move when asked about it, but advised both sides to keep from unilateral moves at least until after the plan is released. He said he would discuss it with Netanyahu once the prime minister manages to form a governing coalition, widely expected to be made up of right-wing parties that support Israeli expansion in the West Bank, territory the Palestinians want for a future state.
“I have not discussed this with the prime minister. Once there is a government formed, we’ll start engaging on this process and we’ll have a discussion. I hope both sides will take a real look — the Israeli side, the Palestinian side — before any unilateral steps are made.”
Netanyahu has in the past described Israel’s hold on some parts of the West Bank as a strategic necessity and Kushner emphasized that any demands made of Israel would not render the nation militarily vulnerable.
“I don’t think anyone would question, if we do ask Israel to make compromises in our proposal, that we’re going to ask them to do things that would put them at risk security wise,” he said. “I don’t think the president would take decisions himself that would put America and the people he represents at risk and he wouldn’t expect another leader to do that.”
Trump has been criticized by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as favoring Israel and delegitimizing himself as a mediator of any peace talks. Over the last three years, the president has moved the US embassy to Israel, cut aid to the Palestinians and United Nations Agencies that support the West Bank and Gaza and recalled the Palestinian envoy to Washington.
In response, the Palestinians have refused to engage with Washington on diplomatic issues, and have dismissed the administration’s plan.
Kushner suggested on Thursday that Palestinian officials who have criticized the Trump administration’s approach were looking to maintain the current situation.
“You have a lot of people who have been in charge of trying to solve it for a long time and they have a perfect track record of not achieving a solution, and maybe they like it that way,” he said. “I see them attacking the deal. They don’t even know what’s in it yet. And that shows that maybe they want the status quo.”
The rollout of the plan has been repeatedly delayed for various reasons. Kushner said last month that the proposal would not be made public until after Israel forms a new government and the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which would put it at early June or later.
On Wednesday, Greenblatt tweeted that the administration would release the plan “when the timing is right.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2) Pelosi’s Pre-Emptive Smear
The Speaker is worried about what Bill Barr might reveal about 2016.
Doing her best to raise the level of civility in Washington, Nancy Pelosi called William Barr a liar on Thursday. The House Speaker even accused the Attorney General of committing a “crime” when he testified to Congress about a memo he issued outlining the main conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
The Speaker says the AG lied last month when he said he didn’t know what members of the special counsel’s team were referencing when they complained his memo didn’t accurately portray their findings. Mr. Barr said he didn’t know but that “they probably wanted more put out.” At most this is a small evasion. Mr. Barr had talked to Mr. Mueller, who had told him nothing in the AG’s summary was inaccurate and was unspecific in his objections beyond wanting more of his report released. The AG should have anticipated that Mr. Mueller’s March 27 letter to him would leak, but he didn’t lie about its contents.
The real reason for Mrs. Pelosi’s slander is what else Mr. Barr said the last time he was before Congress. He said that spying on a political campaign was a “big deal,” that he thought the FBI did spy on the Trump campaign in 2016, and that he intends to find out what happened and why. Democrats want to intimidate him to drop this or discredit him before he can release his findings.
The FBI’s former deputy director Andrew McCabe and former counsel James Baker are under criminal investigation, the former for lying to federal investigators and the latter for leaks to the press. Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney John Huber is investigating the FBI surveillance of former Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
There are also criminal referrals from Congress. These include one regarding dossier author Christopher Steele from Senate Judiciary Members Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.); one on former Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr from the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s Mark Meadows (R., N.C.); and another from Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) of the House Intelligence Committee that includes eight people whose names are not public because the referral involves classified information.
Also potentially illuminating will be a pending report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz into possible Justice and FBI abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants.
In Mr. Barr, America now has an Attorney General who isn’t crippled by recusal from the most critical issues involving his department—and says he is determined to get to the truth. This is what Democrats shouting “liar” are really upset about.
2a) For Fear of William Barr
The attorney general gets attacked because his probe endangers many powerful people.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
The only thing uglier than an angry Washington is a fearful Washington. And fear is what’s driving this week’s blitzkrieg of Attorney General William Barr.
Mr. Barr tolerantly sat through hours of Democratic insults at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. His reward for his patience was to be labeled, in the space of a news cycle, a lawbreaking, dishonest, obstructing hack. Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly accused Mr. Barr of lying to Congress, which, she added, is “considered a crime.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said he will move to hold Mr. Barr in contempt unless the attorney general acquiesces to the unprecedented demand that he submit to cross-examination by committee staff attorneys. James Comey, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, lamented that Donald Trump had “eaten” Mr. Barr’s “soul.” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren demands the attorney general resign. California Rep. Eric Swalwell wants him impeached.
These attacks aren’t about special counsel Robert Mueller, his report or even the surreal debate over Mr. Barr’s first letter describing the report. The attorney general delivered the transparency Democrats demanded: He quickly released a lightly redacted report, which portrayed the president in a negative light. What do Democrats have to object to?
Some of this is frustration. Democrats foolishly invested two years of political capital in the idea that Mr. Mueller would prove President Trump had colluded with Russia, and Mr. Mueller left them empty-handed. Some of it is personal. Democrats resent that Mr. Barr won’t cower or apologize for doing his job. Some is bitterness that Mr. Barr is performing like a real attorney general, making the call against obstruction-of-justice charges rather than sitting back and letting Democrats have their fun with Mr. Mueller’s obstruction innuendo.
But most of it is likely fear. Mr. Barr made real news in that Senate hearing, and while the press didn’t notice, Democrats did. The attorney general said he’d already assigned people at the Justice Department to assist his investigation of the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. He said his review would be far-reaching—that he was obtaining details from congressional investigations, from the ongoing probe by the department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, and even from Mr. Mueller’s work. Mr. Barr said the investigation wouldn’t focus only on the fall 2016 justifications for secret surveillance warrants against Trump team members but would go back months earlier.
He also said he’d focus on the infamous “dossier” concocted by opposition-research firm Fusion GPS and British former spy Christopher Steele, on which the FBI relied so heavily in its probe. Mr. Barr acknowledged his concern that the dossier itself could be Russian disinformation, a possibility he described as not “entirely speculative.” He also revealed that the department has “multiple criminal leak investigations under way” into the disclosure of classified details about the Trump-Russia investigation.
Do not underestimate how many powerful people in Washington have something to lose from Mr. Barr’s probe. Among them: Former and current leaders of the law-enforcement and intelligence communities. The Democratic Party pooh-bahs who paid a foreign national (Mr. Steele) to collect information from Russians and deliver it to the FBI. The government officials who misused their positions to target a presidential campaign. The leakers. The media. More than reputations are at risk. Revelations could lead to lawsuits, formal disciplinary actions, lost jobs, even criminal prosecution.
The attacks on Mr. Barr are first and foremost an effort to force him out, to prevent this information from coming to light until Democrats can retake the White House in 2020. As a fallback, the coordinated campaign works as a pre-emptive smear, diminishing the credibility of his ultimate findings by priming the public to view him as a partisan.
That’s why Mr. Barr isn’t alone in getting slimed. Natasha Bertrand at Politico last month penned a hit piece on the respected Mr. Horowitz. It’s clear the inspector general is asking the right questions. The Politico article acknowledges he’s homing in on Mr. Steele’s “credibility” and the dossier’s “veracity”—then goes on to provide a defense of Mr. Steele and his dossier, while quoting unnamed sources who deride the “quality” of the Horowitz probe, and (hilariously) claim the long-tenured inspector general is not “well-versed” in core Justice Department functions.
“We have to stop using the criminal-justice process as a political weapon,” Mr. Barr said Wednesday. The line didn’t get much notice, but that worthy goal increasingly looks to be a reason Mr. Barr accepted this unpleasant job. Stopping this abuse requires understanding how it started. The liberal establishment, including journalists friendly with it, doesn’t want that to happen, and so has made it a mission to destroy Mr. Barr. The attorney general seems to know what he’s up against, and remains undeterred. That’s the sort of steely will necessary to right the ship at the Justice Department and the FBI.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3) Diversity of Mind at the Fed
The left won’t forgive Steve Moore for being right about tax reform.
By The Editorial Board
Steve Moore withdrew Thursday as a candidate for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, after weeks of media pounding all out of proportion to the job. This ugly episode underscores the need for fresh thinking at the Fed, and that’s where President Trump’s economic advisers should keep their focus.
The plaster saints in the press corps picked through Mr. Moore’s divorce papers to smear him, and waded through decades of his political commentary to find embarrassing comments and misjudgments. We don’t agree with all of Mr. Moore’s views, and he didn’t write about monetary policy for us. But he was a congenial colleague at the Journal for several years and deserved none of this obloquy. The assaults on his character are a sign of how low American politics has fallen. (See Steve’s first-hand account nearby.)
Mr. Moore’s real sin was helping to fashion the tax reform that Mr. Trump adopted as a candidate and that passed in modified form in 2017. The economic left might forgive Mr. Moore for being wrong. But it will never forgive him for being right that deregulation and lower tax rates would help the economy rise above the Obama years of malaise to a higher plane of 3% growth and the best market for workers (especially the unskilled) in 20 years.
Mr. Moore’s critics at the New York Times and Washington Post predicted a stock-market crash and recession if Mr. Trump was elected and his plan implemented. Mr. Moore made the mistake of making them look bad.
Mr. Moore also suffered because he doesn’t bow to the conventions of the monetary-policy club. The Fed is treated these days like a holy citadel that can’t be challenged, yet few institutions have made more egregious mistakes in recent decades.
In 2003 then Governor and later Fed Chair Ben Bernanke declared that “disinflation risk will remain a concern for some time.” That was on the cusp of a multiyear burst of 3% GDP growth, but the Fed kept feeding a subsidy for easy credit that triggered commodity inflation and the housing bubble. Then as that bubble headed for bursting in 2007, Mr. Bernanke saw little reason to worry.
“We have spent a bit of time evaluating the financial implications of the subprime issues, tried to assess the magnitude of losses, and tried to determine how concentrated they are,” Mr. Bernanke said in May 2007. “There is a sense that, although there is always a possibility for some kind of disruption,” the “financial system will absorb the losses from the subprime mortgage problems without serious problems.”
To our knowledge neither Mr. Bernanke nor anyone else at the Fed have acknowledged being wrong for feeding the credit mania that led to panic, or for the failure of the Fed’s financial regulatory oversight. Tim Geithner, then president of the New York Fed that regulated Citigroup , received a promotion to Treasury Secretary. Mr. Moore’s mistaken fear of inflation in 2010 is a foot fault compared to these whoppers.
With the failed candidacies of Herman Cain and Mr. Moore for the Fed, Mr. Trump will need replacements. One lesson is that he shouldn’t publicly badger Chairman Jerome Powell for easy money. This creates political suspicion that a nominee will do Mr. Trump’s bidding, and it may cause the Fed to resist even if Mr. Trump is right on the merits.
The better strategy is to select nominees who believe in sound money and can survive Senate vetting. Our first choice would be economist Judy Shelton, a student of monetary policy and longtime contributor to these pages. She isn’t a slave to Keynesian orthodoxy and she could more than hold her own at the Federal Open Market Committee. If Mr. Trump wins a second term, he can then reconsider his choice for Fed Chairman.
3a) My Brush With Personal Destruction
What did my divorce and my humor writing have to do with my ability to make monetary policy?
By
When President Trump asked me to serve as a member of the Federal Reserve Board, I was honored. I never imagined the storm that would follow. The left and the media instantly launched a relentless campaign against me. Last week a reporter who has covered the Fed for 30 years told me he’d never seen anything like it. On Thursday I reluctantly threw in the towel and asked the president not to nominate me.
I knew that many of my ideas on monetary policy were controversial and outside the box. That’s why the president picked me. My central argument is that economic growth does not cause inflation—an assault on the core belief of the Keynesian economists at the Fed, whose fear of supply-side growth has often misdirected monetary policy, most recently late last year. As someone who worked with Mr. Trump as a senior economic adviser to his campaign, I am thrilled that 3% to 4% growth with stable prices has been achieved, and I believe it can be sustained. I also believe the Fed should stop targeting interest rates and instead focus on a stable dollar by following commodity prices along with other inflation measures as a leading indicator of whether prices are rising or falling.
I was naive. I believed that to be confirmed I would simply need to defend these ideas and my free-market economic philosophy in general. I relished that debate, especially because so many of my harshest critics were completely wrong about the Trump economy.
A majority in the Senate viewed my economic-policy expertise favorably, and my confirmation seemed likely. It helped my case that I had been one of the most outspoken critics of the Fed in December, when it raised interest rates. After a 4,000-point collapse in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Chairman Jerome Powell early this year backed away from future rate increases and disavowed his December statement that the Fed’s asset sales were on “autopilot.” The market and the economy sprang back to life.
What did me in was not my economic ideas but gutter campaign tactics and personal assaults. I’ve been called an adulterer, a misogynist, a tax cheat, a deadbeat dad, antigay and mentally unfit. A Washington Post editorial warned that I was a “dangerous” pick for the Fed, and a columnist said I could cause a “global financial calamity.” They must imagine I have superheroic powers of persuasion. If appointed, I would have been one of seven Fed governors.
Investigative reporters searched far and wide, digging through my 2,000 articles, 500 speeches and several thousand TV and radio appearances, some dating back more than 25 years, for dirt they could use. They found it. I have said and written things that were politically incorrect, sometimes foolish and hurtful. That was especially true about a 2002 article about women in sports. I meant it to be humorous but it was insulting, and I have apologized for it.
One irony is that one of my most vicious attackers has been CNN. In 2017 the network signed me to a two-year contract as a senior economic analyst. I appeared on the air more than 100 times, and CNN renewed my contract. As soon as Mr. Trump said he would nominate me to the Fed, the network began trashing me day after day for things I’d written decades before it hired me.
The low point of the sleaze campaign was when the media successfully persuaded the Fairfax County, Va., courts to unseal my divorce records from nine years ago—over not only my objections but my ex-wife’s. The Post, New York Times and others unfolded our dirty laundry on their pages—never bothering to report that she and I are on amicable terms and often jointly attend our kids’ events. Anyway, what do the details of my divorce almost a decade ago have to do with my suitability to help set monetary policy?
The sleuths in the media also tracked down spoof Christmas letters I wrote to friends and family in the late 1990s and early 2000s. These were outrageous and irreverent and poked fun at everyone and everything, including myself. In 2002 I wrote that I had bought a red sports car—my “midlife crisis” car—in which I cruised around town with my kids strapped into baby seats, trying to pick up women. Obviously I never did any such things, but reporters ignored the obvious humor and described it as evidence of sexism.
In their effort to portray me as sexist, they also contacted dozens of women I’ve known or worked with, and even girls I knew in high school. They failed to find one who impeached my character or behavior.
I realize now that I should have known better. Someone as outspoken as I am, and with a paper trail two miles long, is bound to be a target in today’s political environment. I should have warned the president about skeletons in my closet.
Still, some good has come of all this. Because of all this attention, unwelcome as it was, my mantra that growth doesn’t cause inflation seems to be taking hold. The Journal reportedthat more economists at the Fed are considering whether the economy can grow at a faster pace without spiking prices.
Tax cuts, deregulation, sound money and pro-business policies shift the supply of goods and services outward and increase the global demand for dollars. This in turn lowers prices. That was the lesson of the Reagan years, and we’re now rediscovering it under Mr. Trump.
Chairman Powell, hold that thought and you’ll be a great success.
Mr. Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with FreedomWorks. He was a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign in 2016.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment