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Spencer Tracy once said of Kathryn Hepburn: "She doesn't have much meat on her bones but what she has is choice."
I have not written a memo in five days,. Thus, a lot to digest for those who take the time.
I hope my random thoughts and postings are choice. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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And what about Biden?
Let's assume Biden and his son broke no laws (that might be a leap.) What about the appearance of an American VP's son being smeared with cash for board service of a foreign company and no evidence of competence? Biden actually bragged on TV how he got the "SOB" Ukranian Investigator fired. Could we trust Biden to negotiate with Ukraine?
In the case of China, Biden's son's hedge fund received 1 1/2 billion (yes, billion). Could Biden negotiate with China in an objective manner? Could we trust him to do so? (See 2 and 2a below.)
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How often have I written about liberal hypocrisy? This past Sunday, Ellen Degeneres who castigated those she did not like, sat next to GW Bush at a football game. She was attacked for doing so and when she defended her decision she watched her own past behaviour boomerang as her Hollywood friends dumped on her unmercifully. (See 3 below.)
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When it comes to Trump's decision regarding the Kurds I have mixed feelings.
I appreciate Trump's desire to continue implementing campaign promises. However, deserting allies sends a message that can return to haunt us and it also puts in question our integrity.
Next, Trump's letter to Pelosi , though defiant, is meant to protect the office of the president from incursions by the legislative branch driven by a political desire to overturn a legitimate election: https://www.facebook.com/
Recently, I watched a video which explained Trump's style of negotiating, ie. never allow your opponent to know what you are thinking. Stated another way never allow your adversary to gain insight into your strategy.
I agree this strategy gives one an advantage but what it also raises, in the case of Trump, two basic questions:
a) Does Trump always know the impact of what he is thinking and saying?
and:
b) Can you construct a cohesive long term strategy through intuition?
During the last five days I have concluded what Pelosi is about is putting the nation through a wrenching because she has lost control of her office and authority as Speaker.
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Tonight's protests in Minneapolis reminded me of the riots in Chicago during the Democrat Convention which, if memory serves me correctly, had a lot to do with Sen. Humphrey's defeat.
What we are witnessing is the sixties' all over again. The hatred towards Trump is not only irrational but is being encouraged by cowardly anarchists and Democrat hypocrisy. (For the record: "Planned Parenthood just announced they will spend $45 MILLION to defeat Trump and flip the Senate in 2020. If they have that kind
of money, why the hell are taxpayers subsidizing them every single year?"-Charlie Kirk.)
No Trump is not the president we have become accustomed to nor is his style orthodox. Yes, he can be crude, narcissistic and boorish but we will look back, after he is out of office, and realize he altered our relationship with China which will never be the same. Xi's autocratic ways are going to set back China because Communism restricts personal freedom and the flow of capital which eventually impacts growth.
This week we witnessed capitalism bow shamefully to communism as those in Hong Kong struggle for freedom and it reminded me of when Obama bowed before Saudi Royalty. (See 4 below.)
Trump's America First policies are in their infancy but they are going to alter an entire variety of our relationships. As companies seek manufacturing and commercial alternatives to China it could well alter N Korea's reliance upon a weakened China. Certainly our changing relationship with Europe is meant to force NATO Members to carry more of the burden of their own defense.
Abdicating the Middle East to Russia is also in it's infancy and how that ends is anyone's guess.
Though I obviously have no insight I believe our relationship with Israel cannot be equated with Trump's desire to withdraw our forces from unending and unwinnable wars. Israel does not want others to fight it's battles but it does need friends not only in The U.N but also those who will co-operate in joint ventures to keep it supplied with arms to defend itself. (See 4a and 4b below.)
The divisiveness is designed to weaken us, to cripple us,to destroy our freedoms and to get us to seek alternatives of what made us a great and envied nation. (See 4c below.)
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Finally, what we have is an investigation that is not a legitimate investigation. A whistle blower who is not credible so a second was produced who also has credibility issues .Finally we have a continuing effort to impeach a duly elected president by radicals, who have taken over the Democrat Party,and who have even more serious credibility issues.
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Tonight's protests in Minneapolis reminded me of the riots in Chicago during the Democrat Convention which, if memory serves me correctly, had a lot to do with Sen. Humphrey's defeat.
What we are witnessing is the sixties' all over again. The hatred towards Trump is not only irrational but is being encouraged by cowardly anarchists and Democrat hypocrisy. (For the record: "Planned Parenthood just announced they will spend $45 MILLION to defeat Trump and flip the Senate in 2020. If they have that kind
of money, why the hell are taxpayers subsidizing them every single year?"-Charlie Kirk.)
No Trump is not the president we have become accustomed to nor is his style orthodox. Yes, he can be crude, narcissistic and boorish but we will look back, after he is out of office, and realize he altered our relationship with China which will never be the same. Xi's autocratic ways are going to set back China because Communism restricts personal freedom and the flow of capital which eventually impacts growth.
This week we witnessed capitalism bow shamefully to communism as those in Hong Kong struggle for freedom and it reminded me of when Obama bowed before Saudi Royalty. (See 4 below.)
Trump's America First policies are in their infancy but they are going to alter an entire variety of our relationships. As companies seek manufacturing and commercial alternatives to China it could well alter N Korea's reliance upon a weakened China. Certainly our changing relationship with Europe is meant to force NATO Members to carry more of the burden of their own defense.
Abdicating the Middle East to Russia is also in it's infancy and how that ends is anyone's guess.
Though I obviously have no insight I believe our relationship with Israel cannot be equated with Trump's desire to withdraw our forces from unending and unwinnable wars. Israel does not want others to fight it's battles but it does need friends not only in The U.N but also those who will co-operate in joint ventures to keep it supplied with arms to defend itself. (See 4a and 4b below.)
The divisiveness is designed to weaken us, to cripple us,to destroy our freedoms and to get us to seek alternatives of what made us a great and envied nation. (See 4c below.)
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Finally, what we have is an investigation that is not a legitimate investigation. A whistle blower who is not credible so a second was produced who also has credibility issues .Finally we have a continuing effort to impeach a duly elected president by radicals, who have taken over the Democrat Party,and who have even more serious credibility issues.
Meanwhile, since Pelosi knows the entire charade has negative ramifications she is torn between her reluctance to move forward and the momentum the four radicals have propelling Pelosi into a feared trap.
Furthermore, Trump probably has the constitution on his side because the release of the Ukranian transcript shows no conclusive evidence supporting the requirements for impeachment. Therefore, the entire effort smacks purely of political angst/hypocrisy and will ultimately fail should it ever move to the Senate.
The mass media's effort to support the Democrats has gone to co-ordinated lengths which simply drives questioning their own credibility and objective reporting, into the ground.
I am not justifying Trump's own questionable behavior and tactics but I seriously doubt voters, the ultimate arbiters, will embrace any effort by Pelosi to justify her party's pathetic efforts.
America deserves better but Democrats have chosen the path of dis-service and it should cost them dearly at the polls but then their fear of poll results is what is driving them to operate outside voting orthodoxy.
On the other front, when the Durham-Barr report comes out along with that of the Justice Department's Inspector General's we should finally understand the genesis of the Russian Collusion and Steele Dossier and I suspect we will also better understand Obama's role in soliciting the intelligence agencies into involving themselves to disrupt Trump's campaign by engaging Messr's Clapper and Brennan.
The Swamp has a myriad of ways to thwart their investigation. They are expert at subterfuge and intrigue. Trump's personality and unorthodox behaviour helped deter connecting the dots along with the mass media's role in circling the wagons on behalf of their friends but the truth will reveal itself..
I have been persistent in my belief and now await the final verdict.
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1) The period when Rosh Hashanah begins and Yom Kippur ends is a period of self reflection. During this period, it is written, God determines one's fate and it is sealed but one can moderate the decision through prayer, a request for absolution /appeal.
Lynn,, for over forty years, has invited friends for a "break fast" dinner but this year, our Maitland Daughter, Abby, requested that Lynn help her begin the tradition in their newly renovated home and so she/we did.
Abby and Brian have lived in the area since beginning college at Rollins over 20 years ago and they have a wonderful groups of friends and have become active in their community.
My instructions were not to engage in a conversation about politics, which, frankly. I never initiate but neither will I remain quiet if challenged. This got me to thinking about our sad state of affairs and even the emeritus Rabbi's speech on Tuesday evening touched on our inability, as a nation, to compromise.
Both his speech and my instructions reminded me of Kim Strassel's book about intimidation.
In the land of free speech we have allowed those with differing views to win the battle of intimidation just as China did recently regarding the NBA.
Though this has nothing to do with The Jewish Holiday it actually has a lot to do with what I believe is a sin against God's desire for "man" not to to live on his knees.
In the 2016 election the intimidated, Hillary's "deplorables" held their tongues until they spoke at the polling stations and now the radicals fear they will do so again. Thus they want to defeat Trump through legislative action. This is theft by deception, through thuggery and is not what God and our forefathers intended. It is the evil approach of the dictators, the radicals and we have seen where this leads.
In my narrow world, perhaps everything ultimately leads back to politics because politics is simply the game of power, and control over freedom., Monopoly of one against his fellow man.
I gladly abided by the request and engaged in small talk and gave it no thought but if we allow intimidation to persist then "the evil doer's and true racists" win and America, as I/we have known it, is doomed.
1a)
Members of Previous Generations Now Seem Like Giants
ByVictor Davis Hanson
Many of the stories about the gods and heroes of Greek mythology were compiled during Greek Dark Ages. Impoverished tribes passed down oral traditions that originated after the fall of the lost palatial civilizations of the Mycenaean Greeks.
Dark Age Greeks tried to make sense of the massive ruins of their forgotten forbearers' monumental palaces that were still standing around. As illiterates, they were curious about occasional clay tablets they plowed up in their fields with incomprehensible ancient Linear B inscriptions.
We of the 21st century are beginning to look back at our own lost epic times and wonder about these now-nameless giants who left behind monuments that we cannot replicate, but instead merely use or even mock.
Does anyone believe that contemporary Americans could build another transcontinental railroad in six years?
Californians tried to build a high-speed rail line. But after more than a decade of government incompetence, lawsuits, cost overruns and constant bureaucratic squabbling, they have all but given up. The result is a half-built overpass over the skyline of Fresno -- and not yet a foot of track laid.
Who were those giants of the 1960s responsible for building our interstate highway system?
California's roads now are mostly the same as we inherited them, although the state population has tripled. We have added little to our freeway network, either because we forgot how to build good roads or would prefer to spend the money on redistributive entitlements.
When California had to replace a quarter section of the earthquake-damaged San Francisco Bay Bridge, it turned into a near-disaster, with 11 years of acrimony, fighting, cost overruns -- and a commentary on our decline into Dark Ages primitivism. Yet 82 years ago, our ancestors built four times the length of our singe replacement span in less than four years. It took them just two years to design the entire Bay Bridge and award the contracts.
Our generation required five years just to plan to replace a single section. In inflation-adjusted dollars, we spent six times the money on one quarter of the length of the bridge and required 13 agencies to grant approval. In 1936, just one agency oversaw the entire bridge project.
California has not built a major dam in 40 years. Instead, officials squabble over the water stored and distributed by our ancestors, who designed the California State Water Project and Central Valley Project.
Contemporary Californians would have little food or water without these massive transfers, and yet they often ignore or damn the generation that built the very system that saves us.
America went to the moon in 1969 with supposedly primitive computers and backward engineering. Does anyone believe we could launch a similar moonshot today? No American has set foot on the moon in the last 47 years, and it may not happen in the next 50 years.
Hollywood once gave us blockbuster epics, brilliant Westerns, great film noirs, and classic comedies. Now it endlessly turns out comic-book superhero films or pathetic remakes of prior classics.
Our writers, directors and actors have lost the skills of their ancestors. But they are also cowardly, and in regimented fashion they simply parrot boring race, class and gender bromides that are neither interesting nor funny. Does anyone believe that the Oscar ceremonies are more engaging and dignified than in the past?
We have been fighting in Afghanistan without result for 18 years. Our forefathers helped to win World War II and defeat the Axis Powers in four years.
In terms of learning, does anyone believe that a college graduate in 2020 will know half the information of a 1950 graduate?
In the 1940s, young people read William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pearl Buck and John Steinbeck. Are our current novelists turning out anything comparable? Could today's high-school graduate even finish "The Good Earth" or "The Grapes of Wrath"?
True, social media is impressive. The internet gives us instant access to global knowledge. We are a more tolerant society, at least in theory. But Facebook is not the Hoover Dam, and Twitter is not the Panama Canal.
Our ancestors were builders and pioneers and mostly fearless. We are regulators, auditors, bureaucrats, adjudicators, censors, critics, plaintiffs, defendants, social media junkies and thin-skinned scolds. A distant generation created; we mostly delay, idle and gripe.
As we walk amid the refuse, needles and excrement of the sidewalks of our fetid cities; as we sit motionless on our jammed ancient freeways; and as we pout on Twitter and electronically whine in the porticos of our Ivy League campuses, will we ask: "Who were these people who left these strange monuments that we use but can neither emulate nor understand?"
In comparison to us, they now seem like gods.
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2) Apparently questionable enrichment of the Biden family is not a recent matter. If Romney was correct in raising this matter during his campaign the matter occurred over a decade ago.
$1.5B contract in Iraq for Biden’s little brother exposes Obama ahead of debate
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3)Liberals Ruin Everything
By Derek Hunter
The video immediately went viral. Ellen DeGeneres explaining why she was sitting next to former President George W. Bush at the game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers last weekend was widely praised by people across the political spectrum. Well, almost all the way across the political spectrum. Far left activists were still upset because, well, that’s where they live. Everyone else was happy to see someone stand up for getting along with people you disagree with politically. At least for the moment. Then the moment passed, and those on the left returned to doing what they always do – ruining everything.
One thing to notice about the “controversy” surrounding the two political opposites getting along like adults at a public event was where the outrage was coming from in the first place. Progressive activists were beside themselves with anger that DeGeneres, someone who not only is a lesbian but is also on their team as far as politics goes, would sit next to one of “history’s greatest monsters” and not attack him physically, apparently.
Ellen’s rebuke was a nice change from the usual apologies that flow when the liberal mob targets someone for not being pure enough, but the necessity of it is more telling than that. While there was a lot of rage directed at Ellen for laughing with the former Republican president, there was no rage at the former Republican President for laughing with Ellen.
Conservatives didn’t care. Two people with differing political beliefs getting along is a sin on the left, but it is a non-event on the right. We simply don’t have the purity tests leftists do to exist in our circle of friends and family.
We all know people, whether we’re related to them or choose to associate with them, who support Democrats. It’s no big deal. It is grounds for excommunication on the left.
Still, the video was nice to see, if only to remind people that human decency was still possible. That’s when CNN’s Chris Cillizza came along.
Cillizza’s column had an innocuous enough title, “What the friendship of Ellen DeGeneres and George W. Bush should teach us.” OK, maybe not that innocuous. Adults should be mature enough to not care about anyone’s politics when it comes to friendship. But Cillizza is a man of the left, and CNN’s audience is the left, and they need reminders of basic human decency every now and then, like after calling for a politician’s death in front of their house in the middle of the night or while screaming at someone who dared be a conservative in a restaurant. But that wasn’t what Cillizza did.
After recounting the event, Chris wrote, “What DeGeneres is advocating there is sort of anti-Trumpism in its purest form. Because what this President represents, more than any issue stance or policy position, is the idea that people who disagree with you are to be mocked, to be villainized, to be bullied. If you disagree with Trump on, well, anything, you are his enemy. The only way to be in his good graces -- and therefore, in the good graces of those who support him -- is to agree with him on absolutely everything.”
Cillizza suffers from a raging case of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” and he simply couldn’t control himself.
Not only was it the exact opposite of everything DeGeneres was criticizing in her viral video, it’s everything the left does on a daily basis.
It’s not the right that is shouting down speakers on college campuses. It’s not the right demanding people be de-platformed for holding views we don’t like. It’s not the right calling for boycotts and people to be fired for daring to stray from progressive orthodoxy. It not only is the political left, it’s CNN in all these cases, with the exception of campus speeches. And all of it pre-dated Donald Trump’s ride down the escalator in June of 2015.
What Cillizza either doesn’t know or doesn’t want his readers to know, is division is the coin of the realm of the left.
Democrats divide people based on their income, their skin color, their sexuality, their gender, their ethnicity, whatever you got. They work to convince people they’re victims, and you can’t have a victim without there being a perp.
Listen to any 2020 Democrat speak and it’s all about how there is this nebulous group of “others” fighting hard to oppress everyone else, and their liberal policies are the only hope for overcoming that “systemic” oppression. Ask the citizens of Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, or anywhere else the left has had absolute generational control over the levers of power how the “help” the left is offering worked out for them.
Cillizza is no different than the Twitter trolls attacking DeGeneres for being friends with Bush, only he turned his focus to the current president.
Many liberals don’t seem to realize how nasty and full of hatred they are because their worlds are pure. Cillizza lives in the CNN ecosystem, where hatred for Republicans is the key to more facetime on TV. Even their “conservative commentators” overflow with bile at the mention of the president’s name.
But the president doesn’t take it lying down. The old Republican response to being punched in the face was to apologize for hurting the hand of the Democrat who punched them. Donald Trump doesn’t play that game, he hits back (and if you look at the “attacks” from the president that cause Democrats to clutch their pearls, he’s always punching back, never attacking people out of the blue). Liberals aren’t used to that.
If someone is used to walking all over a person, treating them like garbage for years, then suddenly that person stands up for themselves and refuses to take the abuse anymore, the abuser always feels like a shocked victim. “Can you believe what they called me?” said the abuser, is not uncommon.
Far-left progressives are the problem, people who think Ellen DeGeneres and George W. Bush being friends is somehow extraordinary are the problem, because it’s not extraordinary. It’s very ordinary to be friends with someone who has wildly different political views from you, even on important issues. Well, ordinary everywhere except far-left places like CNN, where someone like an Ana Navarro is your frame of reference for what constitutes a conservative.
If you want to know what Ellen and George’s friendship should teach us, Chris, it’s not that Donald Trump is a meanie, it’s that you’re a hypocrite. It’s not that people from different ends of the political spectrum CAN get along, it’s that they DO get along all the time. That that fact is news or, in your words, “really important” to anyone is more of a reflection on you than it is on society.
Derek is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses.
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4)This week, Dennis Prager discusses why Hong Kong's citizens are
Freshman Congressmen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have wasted no time in shaking up the US House of Representatives. Early Friday morning, Omar and Tlaib introduced a bill adding Islamic holidays to the Federal calendar which has traditionally only recognized American holidays.
Omar and Tlaib’s bill would add Eid Al-Fitr at the end of Ramadan and the four-day-long celebration of Eid Al-Adha to the list of Federally recognized holidays, potentially granting reasons to banks, schools, and other businesses to remain closed for five additional days per year.
Omar and Tlaib justified their work as making America more inclusive of it’s Muslim-American population and moving us further away from our history as a primarily Judaeo-Christian nation. The women are also considering a last minute addition to their bill that would allow for regular Salah time breaks for school children and workers as well as a designated area in each public business where Muslims could perform Salah, the five daily prayers plus the Friday prayer, unmolested
The House of Representatives Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, is reviewing the legislation and determining if he can get the votes to pass the bill. Anonymous sources say Omar and Tlaib are threatening court action if Hoyer should choose not to acquiesce to their demands for immediate vote and consideration on the grounds of religious discrimination.
We predict that the next thing we can expect from this pair of women will be Sharia Law appearing as a rider to their legislation. Perhaps they should have stayed in the countries that they came from if they enjoyed Islamic culture so much!
FYI - There are now 10 Federal Holidays; only Christmas day is related to religion. Some state and local jurisdictions also include Good Friday and/or Easter Monday.
The idea of mandating regular Salah time breaks and a designated area in each public business and school for daily prayers may be a good idea - provided that it is also extended to Christians and Jews that are now prohibited from such practice.
One more comment: Ever since our open door immigration policy (or lack of enforcement of our laws), this nation has been sliding downhill. Slowly at first, but the rapidity picked up in the 50's and 60's as the liberals took over indoctrination of the children. I'm fearful that by 2030, the United States of America will be unrecognizable as it is known today.
Why is our government catering to this? Wake up America!
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4)This week, Dennis Prager discusses why Hong Kong's citizens are
demanding freedom and protesting China's communist government. History is doomed to repeat itself if we don’t remember the horrors caused by communism and socialism.
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Omar and Tlaib’s bill would add Eid Al-Fitr at the end of Ramadan and the four-day-long celebration of Eid Al-Adha to the list of Federally recognized holidays, potentially granting reasons to banks, schools, and other businesses to remain closed for five additional days per year.
Omar and Tlaib justified their work as making America more inclusive of it’s Muslim-American population and moving us further away from our history as a primarily Judaeo-Christian nation. The women are also considering a last minute addition to their bill that would allow for regular Salah time breaks for school children and workers as well as a designated area in each public business where Muslims could perform Salah, the five daily prayers plus the Friday prayer, unmolested
The House of Representatives Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, is reviewing the legislation and determining if he can get the votes to pass the bill. Anonymous sources say Omar and Tlaib are threatening court action if Hoyer should choose not to acquiesce to their demands for immediate vote and consideration on the grounds of religious discrimination.
We predict that the next thing we can expect from this pair of women will be Sharia Law appearing as a rider to their legislation. Perhaps they should have stayed in the countries that they came from if they enjoyed Islamic culture so much!
FYI - There are now 10 Federal Holidays; only Christmas day is related to religion. Some state and local jurisdictions also include Good Friday and/or Easter Monday.
The idea of mandating regular Salah time breaks and a designated area in each public business and school for daily prayers may be a good idea - provided that it is also extended to Christians and Jews that are now prohibited from such practice.
One more comment: Ever since our open door immigration policy (or lack of enforcement of our laws), this nation has been sliding downhill. Slowly at first, but the rapidity picked up in the 50's and 60's as the liberals took over indoctrination of the children. I'm fearful that by 2030, the United States of America will be unrecognizable as it is known today.
Why is our government catering to this? Wake up America!
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