https://www.stopantisemitism.
(HOME RUN) Victor Davis Hanson: The news as we once knew it is dead
Jeff Jacoby Our guest speaker today, class, is a Jew-hating terrorist
Larry Elder: Dems Call Trump a Mass-Murdering Racist; His Poll Numbers Rise
Bob Tyrrell: Donald Trump's Unusual Political Libido
Cal Thomas: Why so much anger?
Dick Morris: Optimism Is The Key Strategy For A Trump Victory
Eli Lake: Biden Offers a Failed Strategy on Iran
It wouldn’t have happened without Trump
Only an administration staffed by amateurs who didn’t play by the rules could have orchestrated the Abraham Accords. Don’t expect the Democrats to build on this success.
The gala signing of the normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain was a bitter pill for the diplomatic establishment to swallow. The people who are counting on taking back control of American foreign policy after a Joe Biden victory in November could only look on with dismay as President Donald Trump presided over the sort of ceremony that they would have liked to have pulled off, but failed to do so when they had the chance.
The importance of the event as a game-changer in Middle East politics couldn’t be denied. But the general reaction from veteran diplomats and the media was nothing like it would have been had a Democratic administration done as much. Most put a better face on it than the bitter and petty dismissal of a momentous event than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who initially dismissed the accords as a “distraction.” But since there was no way to spin it as a negative event or to fit it into a narrative in which the president can be labeled as an irresponsible leader destroying the country and alienating the world, most of his opponents did their best to avoid having to discuss it.
That’s why the most pertinent question to ask is how a man whose detractors regard him as ignorant on foreign policy and the details of the region could have accomplished such an important feat.
The answer is simple. Trump and his foreign-policy team succeeded because they ignored the experts and the conventional wisdom the establishment has been peddling for decades.
The president was confronted by two myths at the heart of U.S. policy in the Middle East.
One was the belief that ending Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians was the key to solving the problems in the region and that a failure to satisfy their ambitions doomed the Jewish state to everlasting conflict with the Arab and Islamic world, while also complicating America’s relations with those states.
The other is the conviction that the only way to produce progress towards peace was to exert pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians. Part of that formulation was the notion that it was also necessary to turn a blind eye to the Palestinian Authority’s outrageous conduct, such as its corruption and financial support for terrorism.
All of Trump’s predecessors accepted both of these positions as correct with the Obama administration being the most single-minded about putting the screws to the Israelis as part of its opinion that more “daylight” was needed between the United States and the Jewish state.
Trump rejected both of these ideas. But that was only made possible by his decision to assign the job of promoting Middle East peace to people with zero experience in diplomacy.
After Trump took office in 2017, few of his appointments were regarded with as much scorn as his decision to appoint Jared Kushner as his senior adviser and to have him lead the administration’s Mideast peace efforts. But no matter what else he does in his life, Kushner should be remembered for helping to essentially end the Palestinian veto on the Arab world’s making peace with the Jewish state.
Giving the Middle East portfolio to a wealthy former real estate magnate and part-time publisher struck the country’s foreign-policy wise men as a joke. Kushner’s primary qualification was his status as the husband of the president’s daughter, Ivanka. All of the smartest foreign-policy hands of the last 50 years tried and failed to succeed in the region. Giving his son-in-law the job of realizing Trump’s ambition to be a peacekeeper was treated as the stuff of satire.
The contempt wasn’t limited to Kushner. Rather than provide him with veteran backup, the rest of his peacemaking team—chief negotiator Jason Greenblatt, Kushner’s top aide Avi Berkowitz and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman—had no more diplomatic experience than he did.
All were also Jewish. While they weren’t the first Jews involved in American Middle East diplomacy, those who did so generally came to their jobs as critics of Israel’s government. None were outspoken supporters of Israel, as was the case with Kushner and his team.
Kushner persuaded Trump to work to hold the P.A. accountable for its support of terrorism. The Trump team also stood behind the president’s decisions to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and to ignore the expert’s warnings that doing so would set the Middle East on fire.
When Kushner eventually unveiled the “Peace to Prosperity” plan earlier this year, it still offered the Palestinians an independent state and economic aid. But faced with the same kind of Palestinian rejectionism that had stumped previous negotiators, he focused on accomplishing the possible rather than the impossible.
Unlike Obama, who rejected the concerns of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states about his efforts to appease Iran, Trump and Kushner listened to them. Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and implemented sanctions aimed at forcing Tehran to negotiate an end to its nuclear program and support of terrorism.
The Arab states had already established under-the-table ties with Israel, which they now view as a strategic ally against Iran. But by establishing a rapport with America’s allies in the Gulf, including controversial Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who could have thwarted moves by his neighbors, Kushner helped persuade them to take the next step and work towards full diplomatic and economic ties.
Only American officials who didn’t play by the rules embraced by the foreign-policy establishment would have done any of that. And only a president like Trump, who distrusts “experts,” would have agreed to go along with such a strategy. And it was only their choice to reject the tactics of the past that brought representatives of the UAE and Bahrain to the White House with the possibility that other Arab nations will do the same.
If Biden defeats Trump, can his team build on this success?
Perhaps, though the problem is that anyone who would be picked by Biden is almost certainly a believer in establishment conventional wisdom. The next administration is likely to return to efforts to create a rapprochement with Iran and to resume futile efforts to pressure Israel to persuade the Palestinians to make a peace that they have no interest in establishing.
If next January marks the end of the era of foreign-policy amateurs running things in the White House, the experts and their fans in the media will breathe a sigh of relief. But it is precisely because Trump and his team were amateurs not educated to treat establishment myths as revealed truth that the celebration at the White House was made possible.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS—Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.org and a contributor to the National Review, the New York Post, Newsweek, The Federalist and Haaretz.
Trump’s peace deal shows that moving US Embassy to Jerusalem was game-changer
Watching the historic agreement normalizing relations between Israel and two Arab states at the White House — an event neither I nor anyone else who has watched the Middle East closely for the past half-century ever really thought would happen — I had to acknowledge to myself how wrong I had been.
Back in 2018, when Team Trump announced it was going to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, I didn’t think it was all that big a deal — even though I was and remain a resolute and unconditional supporter of the Jewish state.
I thought it was a nice gesture that acknowledged an undeniable reality, which is that Israel’s capital is Jerusalem. Moreover, the move was fully in keeping with the 1995 law that mandated the embassy move by 1999 — a law the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations had “suspended” every six months since 1999 on the largely spurious grounds that doing so would pose a danger to our security.
But the move didn’t mean much beyond that, I thought.
Oh, I was wrong — though I’m happy to say I was right in dismissing the doom-and-gloom warnings of the foreign-policy establishment about how destabilizing and dangerous it would be for the United States to make the move.
The idea that the Middle East would turn against Washington and erupt in horrendous street violence was based, I thought, on a dated understanding of the relationship between the Arab world and the Palestinians. Where once the Palestinian cause was a binding glue of pan-Arab nationalism, time and politics had marched on and left the sclerotic, unchanging, uncreative and disempowered Palestinians behind.
Israel’s working relationships behind the scenes with once-key benefactors of the Palestinians — the Saudis in particular — made me think there would be no sponsorship of those street riots by regional powers. That proved to be correct.
Where I was wrong, and where I think many people are wrong even among those who are giving the Trump administration proper credit for its diplomatic triumph, is in failing to grasp the world-historic significance of the embassy move in 2018.
When the world’s most powerful country recognized Israel’s sovereign control over Jerusalem, it finally and formally moved past the now-fanciful notion, dating back to 1947, that the city ought to be governed by some transnational entity.
The international status of Jerusalem was part of the original UN design of the partition of the British Mandate intended to create homelands for the Jews and for Palestinian Arabs. The Jews said yes. The Arabs said no and launched a war to destroy the Jews.
Great plan, no?
Anyway, because of the particular circumstances governing Israel’s inception as a nation, its enemies have comforted themselves with the idea that it had been externally imposed on the region and was, therefore, essentially temporary.
What had been given to the Jews by the United Nations could be taken away. Israel hadn’t been there before. It could go away again.
The idea of Israel’s potential impermanence is why Palestinians still cling to the notion that they will somehow be able to push the Jews into the sea and control the entire area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. It is why Iranian leaders, from ex-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to head mullah Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, love to trumpet the idea that Israel will “disappear.”
And it is why the blanket resistance in the Arab world to the idea that Israel had dominion over Jerusalem — first in the western part of the city and then, after its victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, the entirety of it — was so total.
For Jerusalem is, unquestionably, permanent. It is as permanent as — may one dare say it — the Jewish people ourselves. Its continuous existence from time immemorial is the signature fact of the Middle East.
To accept Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem is therefore to accept Israel’s permanence. And this was something even the United States, Israel’s best (and, at times, only) friend in the world, wasn’t willing to do formally.
And if it wasn’t willing, how could Arab states take the final step to recognize Israel’s existence? If America didn’t fully embrace Israel’s permanence, how could they?
The embassy move was therefore a huge change in what you might call “geopolitical psychology.”
It meant Israel was here to stay forever, and the time had come for Arab nations that want to move forward into the 21st century to accept its existence.
Never have I been happier to be wrong.
+++
Meanwhile Trump sends a message to China we too know how to stick it to you. Thrilled to see Yankee Toughness re-emerge.
U.S. Set to Sell Taiwan $7 Billion in Arms
Deal includes drones and cruise missiles, increasing pressure on Beijing
The Trump administration is poised to make a $7 billion arms deal with Taiwan, part of an effort to draw closer to Taipei as the administration ratchets up the political and military pressure against China.
The complement of American weaponry to be sold to Taiwan includes cruise missiles, mines and other hardware, two officials said, in one of the largest arms deals to the island country. The sale also includes $400 million worth of MQ-9B Reaper drones along with related sensors, logistics, ground control stations, training and other equipment, they said.
The Trump administration has inched closer to Taipei than previous administrations, the officials said. The $7 billion deal would be on top of the roughly $15 billion in arms sold to the country during the Trump administration, according to the officials. Arms sales to Taiwan totaled roughly $14 billion over the course of the Obama administration’s eight years in office, they said.
Earlier sales to Taiwan, including tanks, reflected Taipei’s requests but were seen as largely symbolic, since the island nation isn’t likely to engage in a land war with China. But drones and cruise missiles are viewed by experts as much more relevant to a U.S. effort to apply more pressure on Beijing, which considers Taiwan a rebel territory and hasn’t ruled out military efforts to bring it under its control.
Administration officials declined to comment. The proposed weaponry sales were first reported by Reuters.
The U.S. is Taiwan’s biggest weapons supplier and a major ally.
Arms sales to Taiwan are part of a broader strategy the Trump administration is taking against China. The U.S. on Monday imposed sanctions against a Chinese firm helping to construct a Chinese military base in Cambodia in an attempt to blunt Beijing’s effort to project military power more globally.
This summer, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced formally that the U.S. rejected Beijing’s claims to islands in the South China Sea. Mr. Trump is also considering banning the popular social-media app TikTok, a Chinese owned firm, unless it sells off its American operations.
The sale of arms to Taiwan also comes amid a trade war and Mr. Trump’s almost daily criticisms of the way Beijing handled the coronavirus.
In August, Taiwan finalized the purchase of 66 F-16s over a 10-year period for $62 billion, marking one of the biggest military purchases between the two countries. That same month, the cabinet of President Tsai Ing-wen proposed a $1.4 billion increase to the annual defense budget, bringing it to roughly $15.5 billion.
The decision to buy smaller, more agile weapons systems is the logical next acquisition goal in Taiwan’s ongoing push to modernize its military, said Ian Easton, senior director for Project 2049 Institute, a U.S.-based nonprofit research organization that focuses on the Indo-Pacific region.
Since the Trump administration has sold Taiwan larger weapon systems, like jet fighters and tanks, Taipei may have felt more confident to ask for smaller systems, observers said. And Taiwan may feel the window could close quickly on America’s willingness to sell so many types of weapons.
The Trump administration is poised to make a $7 billion arms deal with Taiwan, part of an effort to draw closer to Taipei as the administration ratchets up the political and military pressure against China.
The complement of American weaponry to be sold to Taiwan includes cruise missiles, mines and other hardware, two officials said, in one of the largest arms deals to the island country. The sale also includes $400 million worth of MQ-9B Reaper drones along with related sensors, logistics, ground control stations, training and other equipment, they said.
The Trump administration has inched closer to Taipei than previous administrations, the officials said. The $7 billion deal would be on top of the roughly $15 billion in arms sold to the country during the Trump administration, according to the officials. Arms sales to Taiwan totaled roughly $14 billion over the course of the Obama administration’s eight years in office, they said.
Earlier sales to Taiwan, including tanks, reflected Taipei’s requests but were seen as largely symbolic, since the island nation isn’t likely to engage in a land war with China. But drones and cruise missiles are viewed by experts as much more relevant to a U.S. effort to apply more pressure on Beijing, which considers Taiwan a rebel territory and hasn’t ruled out military efforts to bring it under its control.
Administration officials declined to comment. The proposed weaponry sales were first reported by Reuters.
The U.S. is Taiwan’s biggest weapons supplier and a major ally.
Arms sales to Taiwan are part of a broader strategy the Trump administration is taking against China. The U.S. on Monday imposed sanctions against a Chinese firm helping to construct a Chinese military base in Cambodia in an attempt to blunt Beijing’s effort to project military power more globally.
This summer, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced formally that the U.S. rejected Beijing’s claims to islands in the South China Sea. Mr. Trump is also considering banning the popular social-media app TikTok, a Chinese owned firm, unless it sells off its American operations.
The sale of arms to Taiwan also comes amid a trade war and Mr. Trump’s almost daily criticisms of the way Beijing handled the coronavirus.
In August, Taiwan finalized the purchase of 66 F-16s over a 10-year period for $62 billion, marking one of the biggest military purchases between the two countries. That same month, the cabinet of President Tsai Ing-wen proposed a $1.4 billion increase to the annual defense budget, bringing it to roughly $15.5 billion.
The decision to buy smaller, more agile weapons systems is the logical next acquisition goal in Taiwan’s ongoing push to modernize its military, said Ian Easton, senior director for Project 2049 Institute, a U.S.-based nonprofit research organization that focuses on the Indo-Pacific region.
Since the Trump administration has sold Taiwan larger weapon systems, like jet fighters and tanks, Taipei may have felt more confident to ask for smaller systems, observers said. And Taiwan may feel the window could close quickly on America’s willingness to sell so many types of weapons.
“They went for the most difficult systems, and they got them. Now they are going for the easier stuff,” Mr. Easton said. “The stars really aligned for Taiwan. But it may be only for a short while. There is no guarantee that whoever wins the next U.S. election will keep selling so many strategically valuable weapons systems in the face of pressure from the Chinese Communist Party.”
Congress, which must approve the sales, is likely to get nervous about the drones and related hardware included in the sale, some military experts say.
“These things are incredibly controversial,” said one expert familiar with the sale. “There are no arms sales more closely held than those to Taiwan.” He said lawmakers would most likely focus on the drones because that technology is one of the most sensitive.
The expert said a policy was instituted years ago to bundle such arms sales, as opposed to announcing the sale of each platform individually. The bundled sales, such as this one, send a strong signal to China, he said.
Past U.S. administrations often conducted backdoor talks and made generally smaller weapons sales to Taiwan, seeking to avoid antagonizing China. The Trump administration has upended that approach, publicly criticizing China on trade, its military posture and its handling of coronavirus.
As China seeks to boost its role in the western Pacific and takes steps to undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy, the Trump administration has sought to underscore its support for Taiwan without significantly breaking with Washington’s longtime policy of limiting its official relationship with the island nation.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar visited Taiwan in August, drawing criticism from Beijing. On Wednesday the State Department said Keith Krach, the undersecretary for economic growth, energy and the environment, would be traveling to Taiwan to attend the memorial service on Saturday of former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui.
Some analysts have called on U.S. officials to state explicitly that Washington would seek to defend Taiwan in a conflict with the mainland, ending a policy known as “strategic ambiguity.”
“This administration has taken seriously its commitment to provide Taiwan with the tools that it needs for its own security,” Mr. Pompeo said in July at the Economic Club of New York.
A Taiwanese official said Taipei has no issues with the level of U.S. defense cooperation and that Taiwan is mainly seeking cost-effective arms with a high deterrent effect.
—William Mauldin contributed to this article.
Write to Gordon Lubold at Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com and Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Barr means business and not a second too late. Radicals who control the Democrat Party want to denigrate Barr to the status of police so they can weaken fedral enforcement as well.
From my perspective, we have had it too good, too safe until 9/11. Those who have immigrated and experienced radical anarchism and socialist dictators understand the dangers that can brew silently within a society that let's it's guard down.
"We have a republic if we can keep it."
+++
Barr Tells Prosecutors to Consider Charging Violent Protesters With Sedition
To bring a sedition case, prosecutors would have to prove there was a conspiracy to attack government agents or officials that posed an imminent danger
Attorney General William Barr told the nation’s federal prosecutors to be aggressive when charging violent demonstrators with crimes, including potentially prosecuting them for plotting to overthrow the U.S. government, people familiar with the conversation said.
In a conference call with U.S. attorneys across the country last week, Mr. Barr warned that sometimes violent demonstrations across the U.S. could worsen as the November presidential election approaches. He encouraged the prosecutors to seek a number federal charges, including under a rarely used sedition law, even when state charges could apply, the people said.
The call underscores the priority Mr. Barr has given to prosecuting crimes connected to violence during months of protests against racial injustice, leading to major property damage, as President Trump has made a broader crackdown on the violence and property destruction a key campaign issue. U.S. attorneys have broad discretion in what charges they bring.
Federal prosecutors have charged more than 200 people with violent crimes related to the protests, most of whom face counts of arson, assaulting federal officers, or gun crimes. FBI officials earlier this year described the perpetrators as largely opportunistic individuals taking advantage of the protests.
In more recent months, police officials say they are alarmed by the presence of armed fringe groups from both sides of the political spectrum. Mr. Barr has blamed much of the violence on leftist extremists including antifa, a loose network of groups and people that describe themselves as opposing fascism and which Mr. Barr has described as a movement advocating revolution.
In the call last week, Mr. Barr urged prosecutors to seek federal charges whenever possible, two of the people said. He listed a number of additional statutes they could potentially use, including one addressing conspiracies or plots to overthrow the government. Legal experts say the rarely used statute could be difficult to prove in court.
To bring a sedition case, prosecutors would have to prove there was a conspiracy to attack government agents or officials that posed an imminent danger, legal experts said. They added that there is a fine line between the expression of antigovernment sentiment, which could be protected speech under the First Amendment even if it included discussions of violence, and a plot that presented an imminent danger and could justify a charge of sedition.
Officials have also discussed using a statute that allows prosecutors to bring a federal case against someone who impedes or obstructs a law-enforcement officer responding to unrest, which experts said is also infrequently applied. That could potentially allow them to bring charges before an act of violence occurs, but hasn’t been tested much in the courts, leaving gray areas as to what behavior could be characterized as obstruction.
Federal prosecutors in June brought that charge against three people accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at New York City police vehicles during protests. They have pleaded not guilty.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
“There’s all these different statutes the government can use if they are worried about things like property damage,” said Jenny Carroll, a University of Alabama law professor. She said that turning to statutes like sedition would mark an escalation in the government’s effort to quell the violence. “If you start charging those people, even if you don’t get a conviction, it may make people think twice before going out to exercise their right to free speech.”
The U.S. Attorney in Detroit at the time of that prosecution, Barbara McQuade, said prosecutors have long-grappled with how to approach ideologically-motivated violent plots. “You can’t penalize people for First Amendment activity, but it leaves fewer tools when you have a group plotting an attack of some sort,” Ms. McQuade, who now teaches at the University of Michigan, said.
“There’s all these different statutes the government can use if they are worried about things like property damage,” said Jenny Carroll, a University of Alabama law professor. She said that turning to statutes like sedition would mark an escalation in the government’s effort to quell the violence. “If you start charging those people, even if you don’t get a conviction, it may make people think twice before going out to exercise their right to free speech.”
The U.S. Attorney in Detroit at the time of that prosecution, Barbara McQuade, said prosecutors have long-grappled with how to approach ideologically-motivated violent plots. “You can’t penalize people for First Amendment activity, but it leaves fewer tools when you have a group plotting an attack of some sort,” Ms. McQuade, who now teaches at the University of Michigan, said.
In places such as Portland, Ore., Kenosha, Wis., and elsewhere violent demonstrators have hijacked peaceful protests by starting fires, vandalizing buildings, attempting to pull down statues and monuments and attacking law enforcement.
Separately, Mr. Barr asked officials in the Justice Department’s civil rights division to see whether they could bring criminal charges against Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan for allowing residents to set up a police-free zone in that city this summer, a person familiar with the request said. The autonomous zone, the site of almost daily confrontations between officers and protesters, was the scene of several shootings.
A Justice Department spokeswoman denied late Wednesday that Mr. Barr sought legal action against Ms. Durkan, as first reported by the New York Times. Mr. Trump has clashed with the Democratic mayor over her handling of the protests. Ms. Durkan didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Trump has described the violence as a harbinger of what is to come if Democrats are elected. His Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden has also denounced the destruction and called for violent demonstrators to be prosecuted.
Mr. Barr in June formed a task force to counter what he described as antigovernment extremists who had “engaged in indefensible acts of violence designed to undermine public order.”
In one high-profile instance, local law enforcement on a federal task force earlier this month killed self-described antifa supporter Michael Reinoehl as they attempted to arrest him in connection with the fatal shooting in Portland, Ore., of a member of right-wing group Patriot Prayer.
In charging documents in multiple other cases, federal prosecutors have identified members of the “boogaloo” movement, whose adherents predict civil war and are affiliated with multiple, mainly far-right ideologies, as instigators of violence at protests this summer. The Justice Department has said its information on left-wing groups’ involvement in demonstrations comes from state and local law enforcement. Police officials say armed fringe groups from both sides of the political spectrum have been involved in the demonstrations.
Experts have said antifa has no central leadership structure or formal membership and is instead a dispersed network that coordinates antiracist activism on an ad hoc basis. But Mr. Barr has said he views it as more organized.
“No question, antifa is a movement,” Mr. Barr said in an NBC News interview this month. “They have websites. They are organized.…Anyone who has spent a moment at these things and heard their chants and what they’re calling for can see right away that they are, they say they are, revolutionaries, that this is a revolution.”
Write to Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com and Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Just a personal observation: When IPO's surge for a period of time and "hot stocks" begin to be mentioned on the first page, something ominous eventually lurks around the corner.
+++
Ross continues to rant:
The attached chart is the S&P over the past 30 years. You can see what I was referring to in the prior Rant as to performance of equities. However as you can see from the Nasdaq chart, it took ten years for the Nasdaq to recover from the Dotcom bubble burst in 2000. There is a major difference in the Nasdaq today vs 2000. Back then there were dozens of make believe companies, whereas today we have the world’s largest, most liquid companies, making up a big portion of the tech sector, and the top companies in the Nasdaq 100. There is no relationship between the Nasdaq of 2000 and today, so don’t make the mistake of comparing the two periods. All of the FANG stocks have enormous cash balances on their balance sheets to be able to ride out any economic downturn including as we just saw, the total shutdown of the world economy. They also have well proven products and giant customer bases. We are in a totally different world today from 2000, where today, the FANG stocks actually benefited from the shutdown. What the tech sector is experiencing right now is simply the normal pullback correction from extreme exuberance by day trader amateurs, and options games of August. Things will settle down in time, and if Trump wins, the R’s hold the Senate, and if GDP is over 30% in Q3, which is almost certain now, and if unemployment drops to around 7% -7.25% by end of Oct which is very possible now if you listened to Jay Powell, then we will see new highs by year end. If none of those happen, we saw the highs, and it will be a long wait to revisit them.
Hello Richard:
Up to now, the conventional liberal/media/Democratic story line has been that “most” of the protesters are peacefully objecting to racism and police practices. But it has become impossible not to see something else that falls between carrying signs and looting stores.behavior is a phenomenon worth thinking about.
We don’t have this info because the media suddenly did its job to try to help the country quell the ongoing riots. We only know it because it was entered as evidence in the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who would prefer not to spend the rest of his life in prison over George Floyd.
~United America News
And:
The Other Half of the Jacob Blake Conversation
Finally:
Did Kamala Harris Tell Jacob Blake She Was 'Proud of Him'?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FINALLY someone else certifies Democrats insane:
Democrat Madness
Political insanity can be defined as refusing to admit the reality of destructive violence.
For weeks, analysts have been pondering whether the “law and order” issue elevated by President Trump and the Republican convention could have a material effect on voting this fall. Generally, they have minimized the issue. But like the hurricanes rolling in from the Atlantic Ocean, the waves of urban violence have apparently become impossible to ignore.
A Monmouth poll out this week finds 65% of respondents say “maintaining law and order” is a big problem. The poll’s self-identified party affiliations are 28% Republican, 41% independent and 31% Democratic. Here’s the election’s ticking time-bomb: Among “non-Republican” blacks and other minorities, more than 60% agree that civil disorder has become a big issue, while just 46% of white non-Republicans see it as a problem. Looks like where one lives explains a lot about the Democratic worldview.
There’s more bad news at the wrong moment for Harris-Biden: Conclusive evidence has emerged that the American left is certifiably insane.
After the shooting this week of two cops in Compton, south of Los Angeles, a small contingent of antipolice protesters stood outside a hospital chanting, “We hope they die!” Mr. Biden tweeted criticism of both incidents as “unacceptable” and “entirely counterproductive.”
We don’t make the left-is-insane charge lightly.
Up to now, the conventional liberal/media/Democratic story line has been that “most” of the protesters are peacefully objecting to racism and police practices. But it has become impossible not to see something else that falls between carrying signs and looting stores.
It is common practice for these protesters, men and women, to stand inches from the faces of cops, especially black cops, screaming insults and personal obscenities with no letup. This behavior is a phenomenon worth thinking about.
It wasn’t long ago that everyone but the genuinely insane knew that if you did this to a cop, odds were you would be a) arrested and/or b) popped with a billy club.
But these protesters get up into the faces of the police, shrieking, because they know a) they will not be arrested, b) if they are arrested, they will be released quickly, and c) they will be released because the prosecutors in these cities probably won’t press charges. Instead, prosecutors are looking for reasons to cite the police for acts of violence.
This is new—a status quo in which there is no fear of the police by protesters or common street criminals. A line in the sand has been washed away.
This condition didn’t happen in the past 100 days. Democratic politics has been building toward precisely this redefinition of law and order for at least 20 years.
Embarrassed and perplexed by the decadeslong persistence of crime and incarceration in inner-city neighborhoods, progressive legal theorists proposed “decriminalization” as an alternative. They essentially redefined crime as something closer to a behavioral problem. And they blamed the police function for incarceration rates.
This argument appealed to many liberals (living in low-crime ZIP Codes) who have elected progressive prosecutors in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, San Antonio, Seattle, Orlando, Fla., St. Louis, the New York City borough of Queens and elsewhere.
An important political document in this evolution was released in July—the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force. Note that it appeared one month after the protests, looting and urban shootings began in May.
Under the Biden-Sanders heading “Protecting Communities by Reforming Our Criminal Justice System,” the words “felony,” “homicides” or “gangs” appear nowhere. It’s almost entirely about one thing—the police and reducing their role. “Shootings” appears once—in regard to “police shootings.”
Subsequent proposals on the official Biden campaign website overwhelmingly reflect these policies. The Democrats’ failure at their convention to mention the violence wasn’t just avoidance of an inconvenient reality. It was a conscious ideological choice. To restate a point made previously in this space: There will be no return to normal if Harris-Biden wins.
The result is an abrupt spike in urban crime and moblike political protesters exploiting official restraints on police. It’s a perfect, still-raging storm of progressive failure. Which now means Democratic failure.
So my argument: The Democratic left has turned certifiably insane, if one definition of irrational behavior is the refusal to recognize the damage being done, primarily to black and Hispanic neighborhoods, by catastrophic violence. Voters, it appears, have begun to notice.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment