The Stupidity of Europeans!
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Comparing Hilarious and Trump according to Newt (A repeat). (See 1 below.)
Did Brussel's just help Trump get nominated and possibly elected?
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These angry sentiments begin to hit home after Brussels!
I had lunch today with my favorite Minister and we talked about the nation's angrier and uglier mood.
(See 2 and 2a below.)
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I am not challenging anything Economist Blinder has said about Trump's knowledge but I do submit Trump, for better or worse, is not an ideologue. I believe he has demonstrated the ability to also listen, unlike Obama, and can change his mind when he sees his ideas are not working. That would prove to be a refreshing change. (See 3 below.)
After all, even Putin proved he too can change his mind. (See 3a below.)
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I had to post this because it is the other side. It was sent to me by someone I am not sure I know. (See 4 below.)
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Getting prepared for what's next. (See 5 below.)
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This from a good friend, tennis player and fellow memo reader who left America because of what he saw happening. I believe he left the pan and moved closer to the fire but I wish him well. (See 6 below and I apologize for the spacing which I could not correct.)
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Dick
========================================================================
1)Trump vs. Hillary: An Interesting Comparison
Understanding Donald Trump The Washington Times January 8, 2016 by Newt GingrichDonald Trump is a genuine phenomenon.
He may or may not become the Republican nominee for president.
He may or may not win the presidency even if he becomes the nominee.
Yet it is clear that he is a phenomenon and that any history of the 2016 presidential race will have to spend a good bit of time analyzing Trump and his impact.
From the time he announced on June 16, Trump has dominated social and mainstream media.
He dominates the conversation despite the lack of paid advertising.
Trump says outrageous things and his supporters shrug it off. At every turn, his poll numbers continue to rise.
As a step toward understanding this amazing performance, I spent part of the Christmas break reading his first bestseller, The Art of the Deal.
Written in 1987, this book is a classic among American business books and has influenced a generation of entrepreneurs.
Trump wrote The Art of the Deal when he was 41 years old and having a successful run. The book’s popularity contributed to Time Magazine’s decision to feature Donald Trump on its cover in January 1989.
The portrait that emerges from this easy-to-read and remarkably interesting book is of an aggressive, ambitious person who is constantly pushing, constantly learning, and always seeking the next challenge.
Reporters and analysts who are trying to understand Trump would be well served by slowing down and reading this nearly three-decade-old bestseller. They would discover that Donald Trump has developed a remarkable set of rules and principles that allow him to make decisions with incredible speed. Trump knows a lot, but what is amazing is how rapidly he figures out what he doesn’t know.
My favorite story is of the Wollman Skating Rink in New York’s Central Park. The Wollman Rink was a heavily used public skating rink which had fallen into disrepair in 1980. New York City tried for six years to fix it, spent $13 million, and the rink still was not ready to open.
In June of 1986 Trump, who could see the rink from his apartment, finally got tired of the embarrassment and offered to fix the rink at his own expense.
At first the city turned him down because its bureaucracy did not want to be embarrassed by someone fixing something they couldn’t fix. Trump kept pushing and finally out of embarrassment the city gave in.
The key part of the story is Trump’s reaction to being put in charge. He promptly recognized that he didn’t know anything about fixing a skating rink. He asked himself who built a lot of skating rinks. “Canadians!” he concluded. He found the best Canadian ice skating rink construction company. When the Canadians flew in to assess the situation, they were amazed at how bad the city had been at solving the problem. They assured Trump that this was an easy job.
Trump fixed the six year embarrassment two months ahead of schedule and nearly $800,000 under-budget. (The city did end up paying for the work, and Trump donated the profits to charity.)
After reading this chapter you begin to think that maybe Donald Trump really could build a wall along our southern border for a lot less than our current government estimates.
The Art of the Deal is filled with stories like this — stories of common sense stories of calculated risk taking, and stories of innovation and marketing.
Anyone who would like to better understand Donald Trump would be helped by reading this remarkable book.
Another is his pledges and I have no way of knowing if he will make good on all of them but I do agree with all of them.
Trump is the only candidate that is serious about building The Wall”. Two other important pledges Trump has made that no other candidate of either party has matched. First deportation of millions of illegals that are demanding and costing American taxpayers billions of dollars and second Closing 34 Muslim training Camps throughout our country.
I WOULD LIKE TRUMP OR ANY OTHER CANDIDATES PLEDGE TO REINSTATE ANY AND ALL MILITARY OFFICERS DISCHARGED BECAUSE THEY DISAGREED WITH OBAMA OR HIS POLICIES.
Here is another that kind of wraps up my feelings about Trump.
Raccoon's in your basement. An interesting analogy
You've been on vacation for two weeks, you come home, and your basement is infested with raccoon's. Hundreds of rabid, messy, mean raccoon's have overtaken your basement. You want them gone immediately so you hire a guy. A pro. You don't care if the guy smells, you need those raccoon's gone pronto and he's the guy to do it. You don't care if the guy swears, you don't care if he's an alcoholic, you don't care how many times he's been married, you don't care if he voted for Obama, you don't care if he has plumber's crack...you simply want those raccoon's gone. You want your problem fixed! He's the guy. He's the best. Period.
That's why Trump. Yes he's a bit of an ass, yes he's an egomaniac, but you don't care.
The country is a mess because politicians suck, the Republican Party is two-faced & gutless, illegal's are everywhere. You want it all fixed! You don't care that Trump is crude, you don't care that he insults people, you don't care that he had been friendly with Hillary, you don't care that he has changed positions, you don't care that he's been married 3 times, you don't care that he fights with Megyn Kelly and Rosie O'Donnell, you don't care that he doesn't know the name of some Muslin terrorist,...this country is weak, bankrupt, our enemies are making fun of us, we are being invaded by illegal's, we are becoming a nation of victims where every Tom, Ricardo and Hamad is a special interest group with special rights to a point where we don't even recognize the country we were born and raised in;
“AND WE JUST WANT IT FIXED” and Trump is the only guy who seems to understand what the people want. You're sick of politicians, sick of the Democratic Party, Republican Party, and sick of illegal's.
You just want this thing fixed. Trump may not be a saint, but doesn't have any lobbyist money influencing him, he doesn't have political correctness restraining him, all you know is that he has been very successful, a good negotiator, he has built a lot of things, and he's also not a politician, so he's not a cowardly politician.
And he says he'll fix it. You don't care if the guy has bad hair. You just want those raccoon's gone. Out of your house!
This one is more about why we don’t want Hillary. I think this sums it up good.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are in a bar. Donald leans over, and with a smile on his face, says,
"The media are really tearing you apart for That Scandal."
Hillary: "You mean my lying about Benghazi?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "You mean the massive voter fraud?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "You mean the military not getting their votes counted?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Using my secret private server with classified material to Hide my Activities?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "The NSA monitoring our phone calls, emails and everything Else?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Using the Clinton Foundation as a cover for tax evasion, hiring cronies, and taking bribes from foreign countries?
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "You mean the drones being operated in our own country without The Benefit of the law?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Giving 123 Technologies $300 Million, and right afterward it Declared Bankruptcy and was sold to the Chinese?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "You mean arming the Muslim Brotherhood and hiring them in the White House?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Whitewater, Watergate committee, Vince Foster, commodity Deals?"
Trump: "No the other one:"
Hillary: "The IRS targeting conservatives?"
Trump: "No the other one:"
Hillary: "Turning Libya into chaos?"
Trump: "No the other one:"
Hillary: "Trashing Mubarak, one of our few Muslim friends?"
Trump: "No the other one:"
Hillary: "Turning our backs on Israel?"
Trump: "No the other one:"
Hillary: "The joke Iran Nuke deal? "
Trump: "No the other one:"
Hillary: "Leaving Iraq in chaos? "
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "The DOJ spying on the press?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "You mean HHS Secretary Sibelius shaking down health insurance Executives?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Giving our cronies in SOLYNDRA $500 MILLION DOLLARS and 3 Months Later they declared bankruptcy and then the Chinese bought it?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "The NSA monitoring citizens' ?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "The State Department interfering with an Inspector General Investigation on departmental sexual misconduct?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Me, The IRS, Clapper and Holder all lying to Congress?"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: "Threats to all of Bill's former mistresses to keep them quiet"
Trump: "No, the other one."
Hillary: “You means taking the $145,000,000.00 from Putin for the Uranium Bribe ? “
Trump : “ No the other one .”
Hillary: "I give up! ... Oh wait, I think I've got it! When I stole the White House furniture, silverware and China when Bill left Office?"
Trump: "THAT'S IT! I almost forgot about that one".
Everything above is true. Yet she still gets the Democratic votes. Could there be that many stupid people in this country? Does anyone understand this? I think we're doomed.
==============================================================
2) Patriot,
Outrage over the importation of terrorist-infiltrated Syrian refugees onto U.S. soil is growing louder across America as GOP presidential candidates call this disastrous issue to voters' attention. What's more, a growing number of state and county officials are alarmed at having potential jihadis dropped into their laps without warning or without federal funding.
Of course, Barack Hussein Obama doesn't care. In fact, our Islamist-in-chief is stealthily pushing for an INCREASE in Syrian refugees through his traitorous, federally-funded“jihadi pipeline!”
That's right: the planned infiltration by sworn enemies of the United States is going to get even worse in the months ahead of this fall's General Election. That's especially true with Canada announcing it already has settled 25,000 unvettedSyrian refugees to provide a conduit for Islamic terrorists to sneak into America along our northern border!
Canada's Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship John McCallum proudly stated, “Many countries … are making it more difficult for refugees to come in. We’re among the few countries saying, ‘No, come on in.’”
Not only that, but don't forget the 2017 goal of our U.S. State Department, which, in cahoots with the United Nations, seeks to resettle more than 100,000 Islamic refugees in cities and towns across America by the end of next year!
Despite all this, there's nothing anyone can do until the dust clears in November, right?
WRONG!
We believe that “We the People” must take it upon ourselves and act to ensure that "refugee" status is not granted to jihadis seeking to infiltrate the United States to carry out their Islam-motivated attacks.
WRONG!
We believe that “We the People” must take it upon ourselves and act to ensure that "refugee" status is not granted to jihadis seeking to infiltrate the United States to carry out their Islam-motivated attacks.
2a) The U.S. Senate Takes On Iran
Republicans move to sanction Tehran for its ballistic-missile tests.
The Iranian nuclear deal is barely six months old and already Tehran has repeatedly tested ballistic missiles capable of delivering atomic warheads. So it’s encouraging to see that U.S. Senate Republicans have introduced legislation designed to confront Iran on its belligerent behavior.
The Iran Ballistic Missile Sanctions Act of 2016 would impose new sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic-missile developers. The Senate bill, introduced late last week by New Hampshire Republican Kelly Ayotte, targets firms that help Tehran acquire dual-use technologies or otherwise support its missile program.
As the Foundation for Defense of Democracies notes in a recent report, Tehran’s ballistic-missile program is deeply intertwined with Iran’s legitimate economy, including the automotive, energy, construction and mining industries. Countering the missiles, the FDD says, requires “economic sanctions against all sectors involved in their development.”
Ms. Ayotte’s unilateral U.S. sanctions are a good start, since the path to international sanctions is closed for now. Iranian negotiators succeeded in excluding limits on ballistic missiles from the nuclear deal itself, but United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 “calls upon” Tehran not to build or test missiles for eight years.
Iran has used that weak language as a legal loophole, and Russia has made it clear that it takes Tehran’s side. Russia has a veto on the Council, and all the Obama Administration has done so far is to sanction a handful of people and entities in response to an earlier round of Iranian missile tests.
A parallel bill sponsored by Sen. Mark Kirk and 15 other Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, targets Iran’s destabilizing actions in the region and human-rights violations at home. The bill would impose U.S. sanctions on any business in which the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps holds a 25% or larger stake, as well as the directors of such firms. The bill specifically targets Mahan Air, an Iranian passenger airline that provides logistical assistance to the Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah in Syria, according to the U.S. Treasury.
Mr. Obama will likely oppose the measures. Maryland’s Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Committee Chairman Bob Corker of Tennessee said in a joint statement on Friday that they’re working on bipartisan sanctions. The Ayotte-Kirk measures should be the starting point. Unilateral U.S. sanctions are a weak substitute for binding international sanctions. But the effort sends a message that not everyone is as forgiving of the Iranians as Mr. Obama.
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3)
Trumpism, the Economic Wrecking Ball
Exploding deficits, high tariffs and the deportation of millions of workers would spark a global depression.
By
To be frank, the most horrifying aspects of Trumpism are not his economic policies. The worst he could do there would be to precipitate a global depression. It’s far scarier to contemplate an erratic, blustering demagogue taking command of the most powerful military force on earth. Or the foreign-policy calamities that might befall us.
But I’m an economist, so I’ll stick with economics.
Let’s start on familiar terrain: large tax cuts for the rich. Some variant of that theme has been a staple of Republican economic policy since Ronald Reagan. The evidence that “trickle down” doesn’t work began as a trickle but is now a flood. Never mind, the donor class wants it. So Mr. Trump has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with other Republican candidates in advocating tax cuts for the non-needy.
But Mr. Trump’s proposed tax cuts, naturally, have to be bigger. According to the Tax Policy Center, the 10-year net revenue loss from Mr. Trump’s proposals would be an astonishing $9.5 trillion—and that’s after netting out some $2 trillion in loophole-closers and other tax hikes that probably would never happen. The corresponding net revenue loss in Ted Cruz’s tax plan is $8.6 trillion. In case you can’t wrap your mind around numbers that large, $9.5 trillion is about 20% of all federal revenue projected for that decade.
Huge tax cuts would balloon the federal budget deficit, just as they did after the Reagan and Bush tax cuts. Yet Republicans decry even today’s comparatively small deficit. How does candidate Trump propose to square the circle? Well, we got an inkling in the March 3debate, when he proposed to squeeze “hundreds of billions of dollars in waste” from a Medicare drug budget of $78 billion.
Next come Mr. Trump’s anti-immigration promises. First the candidate boasted that he could build a wall on the Mexican border for $8 billion; he has since upped it to $10 billionand cut the length of the wall in half. Did someone say “cost overruns?” Who cares? Mexico will pay, right? Wrong.
Second, has anyone told Mr. Trump that more Mexicans are going home than are coming here these days? So do we—does he—want to wall them in?
The wall is not the worst Trump immigration idea. Try to imagine the economic disruption and gigantic cost (not to mention the human tragedies) from rounding up 3% of the U.S. population (the undocumented) and deporting them. Who, by the way, will do the work when they’re gone?
But I have saved the worst for last: international trade. In TrumpWorld, America “loses” whenever we run a trade deficit. Really? Don’t Americans get goods and services at lower cost while our trading partners get pieces of paper like Treasury bills (our IOUs)? No one forces Americans to buy all those imports. Don’t voluntary exchanges benefit both parties to a transaction? Billionaires wouldn’t notice the higher prices at Wal-Mart, Costco and elsewhere, but middle-class Americans would.
If a trade deficit “costs American jobs,” how did the U.S. manage to have 4% unemployment in 2000 when the trade deficit was 3.7% of GDP—larger than today’s?
And remember, all the trade deficits and surpluses in the world must add up to zero. So if all trade deficits must disappear, so must all trade surpluses—which, in practice, would mean that international trade shrivels. We tried that approach in 1930 with the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. It didn’t work out too well.
Finally, let’s not forget that America is signatory to numerous international treaties. Mr. Trump says he’ll “break” the North American Free Trade Agreement if he can’t renegotiate it. Has he asked Canada or Mexico? Mr. Trump has also advocated 45% tariffs on Chinese imports. Has he heard of the World Trade Organization agreement? It goes on. And the costs of abrogating treaties transcend economics. What country wants to deal with a serial treaty breaker?
Let’s tote up the score. Mr. Trump’s tax plan is doable, if Congress is sufficiently pliant. But it would exacerbate income inequality and explode the federal deficit. Mr. Trump’s immigration plans are heartless, hugely expensive and incredibly disruptive to the U.S. economy. His positions on international trade display abysmal ignorance, are economically harmful and threaten America’s standing in the world.
And remember: These are the best parts of what Mr. Trump has to offer.
Mr. Blinder, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, is an informal policy adviser to the Hillary Clinton campaign.
3a) Learning From Vladimir
American strategists might learn a thing or two from Russia’s in-and-out Syrian war.
Vladimir Putin’s splendid little war in Syria did not go off without a hitch. There was the set-to with Turkey; the downed Sukhoi jet. There was international condemnation for bombing civilian targets while sparing ISIS. There were personal frictions betweenBashar Assad and Mr. Putin, which might explain the abruptness with which Mr. Putin announced Russia’s departure.
Yet it took Mr. Putin just six months to show the world that modest military inputs can decisively tilt the balance of power, and that not every Mideast intervention descends into quagmire. Too bad it was in the service of propping up two dictatorships—Russia’s as well as Syria’s.
Could the next U.S. president learn something from this case study in the use of power? Let’s stipulate that no future president is likely to order aircraft to drop unguided munitions on village marketplaces, as Mr. Putin did in Idlib and Aleppo. Gratuitous cruelty is not the American way of making war in the 21st century, whatever Donald Trump may think. Still, there are some lessons here for future interveners. Like:
1) Take a side. “A prince,” wrote Machiavelli, “is also respected when he is either a true friend or a downright enemy”—an approach, the Florentine added, that “will always be more advantageous than standing neutral.” In Syria, Mr. Putin took the side of the regime. In previous interventions in Ukraine and Georgia, he took the side of local Russian minorities.
That’s an improvement over the Obama Method, which is to take the side of “history” while casting feckless and irritating aspersions on everyone. It’s an improvement, too, over the Bush Method, which was to go to war for the sake of a concept, like democracy, and then cross fingers that it would find a competent local champion.
2) Use proxies. The point of proxies is to avoid doing all the fighting yourself. And to have someone who will be beholden to you after you leave. But a proxy is pointless if you aren’t willing to support him properly, whether out of moral squeamishness or indifference to the outcome of the war.
In the Balkan wars, we used the Croatian army as a proxy to help blunt Serb power in Bosnia. In Afghanistan we had a proxy in the Northern Alliance, which explains why the Taliban were deposed so swiftly. In Iraq, we made insufficient use of one proxy, the Kurdish Peshmerga, and disbanded what could have been the other, the standing Iraqi army. We had to do everything ourselves. If we’re not prepared to accept that our proxies may not perfectly represent our values, perhaps it’s best not to intervene at all.
3) Define a realistic objective. Mr. Obama’s constant assessment of Russia’s intervention in Syria was that it was destined to become a replay of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, with hundreds of thousands of ground troops taking ever-greater casualties from wily mujahedeen fighters.
Yet again, Mr. Obama didn’t know what he didn’t know. Mr. Putin couldn’t afford a long intervention in Syria. But he knew that a small but dynamic deployment of aircraft could destroy the Assad regime’s relatively weak moderate opposition, turning the Syrian war into a referendum—both domestically and internationally—between the regime and ISIS. Whose side are we on, now?
4) Remember the Earl Butz rule. It’s named after the former secretary of agriculture, who remarked, in reference to a papal edict regarding contraception, “You no play-a da game, you no make-a da rules.” One of the purposes of military intervention is to shape the diplomatic outcome, which is why Mr. Kerry is so strikingly irrelevant in negotiating an end to the Syrian war.
5) Preserve your options. Russia has withdrawn from Syria—except where it hasn’t. It will maintain an upgraded naval facility in the port of Tartus, along with an air base. Mr. Putin has made it clear he’s prepared to return forces to Syria at will, and the success of the operation means any return will have popular backing. That was an option the U.S. could have exercised in Iraq, or Libya, by maintaining a military presence sufficient to suppress insurgents, deter Iranians, and balance competing sectarian interests. We didn’t, and the results are well known.
So what should the U.S. do in Syria? Here’s a thought: Give up on a unitary Syrian state, which guarantees a zero-sum struggle for power instead of a division of territorial spoils. Support Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria, backed by a tripwire U.S. force to deter Turkish intervention, and an Alawite state around Latakia, backed by Russia, with the proviso that the Assads must go. Destroy ISIS and other Sunni jihadist groups by combining massive U.S. air power and a coalition of Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian troops.
Problem fixed? Not quite. But it shrinks the Syrian tumor. The point of intervention isn’t to solve everything. And as Vladimir has reminded the world again, trying to solve everything solves nothing.
========================================================================4)Trump might get rid of the raccoons, but in the process he'll destroy all the electrical and flood the basement, charge you a ton of money, and tell you how great he is and how much every body loves him.
Hillary is not saint. but by the way DOJ, NSA didn't work for her when she was at State Dept. So that's irrelevant. She's the lesser of two evils. If you want a politician with zero corruption background,
you should probably vote for Sanders. Forget about doggin Obama...he's done.
Just because Trump is a good real estate developer (which by the way his dad gave him $200M to start with, he's not self made), doesn't not qualify him to lead the worlds most powerful country. He qualifies the marketing value of his name at $3B and counts that as part of his net worth...and brags constantly about his net worth.
I don't vote along party lines. I vote for the person and I've voted for both Parties. So I am not party loyal. There are idiots on both sides.
Trump...his own party does not endorse him. Look how few US leaders of any merit or intelligence won't endorse him. Republicans don't fear him because he can't be influenced by money and lobbyists and won't play the game (which he can as he LOVES money and power and he will cut backdoor deals) .
Rather the Republican Party knows he is a demagogue, autocrat, without diplomatic skills, no proven
leadership performance in government, lacks any proven skills in compromise or diplomacy and acts much more like a dictator (even mimics Mussolini), he's a polarizer, and leads by hate and prejudice.
He won't get anything done that you expect him to because his own party will rebel and the democrats will vote against everything he wants. He changes his position and "facts" constantly and says what ever is need to rile up his fan's fears and prejudices (he's changed his estimate on the cost of the WALL 4 times).
He is not suited or qualified to be a world leader and I would quit my commission as an officer (which I was) in the Air Force if he was my commander in chief as I would have zero respect for his judgment in the use of force. He's already causing tension with Russia and he's not even in office yet! Great..restart the cold war.
He dodged the draft and knows nothing about military strategy, diplomacy, or execution of military force. Sure he can hire advisors, but don't you want the guy making the decision to have some of diplomatic skills and saber rattle, flare up tensions, and freak out China, Russia, Iran, etc.At least Hillary lead Dept of State and had some diplomatic qualifications here.
But one good thing is, "he loves the bible more than anybody." I guess even the Pope. And oh, ya, everybody loves...just ask him.
If Trump wins, my prediction is the country will be even more polarized than it is now and gridlock will be severe,
his own party will rebel and he'll have little support from either house and be in total gridlock,we'll be at war with Iran within a year and have thousands of more Veterans coming back with no arms and legs, EPA will be abolished and we'll have more crap in our drinking water than we have now,
his own party will rebel and he'll have little support from either house and be in total gridlock,we'll be at war with Iran within a year and have thousands of more Veterans coming back with no arms and legs, EPA will be abolished and we'll have more crap in our drinking water than we have now,
Dept of Education will be abolished and we'll have worse education standards than we have now and rank even lower (bottom 20 now) on math skills amongst developed nations
We'll waste $30+ billion ($70B by CBO estimates for full lifecycle - maintenance, land, etc) on the stupid wall which Mexican will climb with ladders and ropes or build tunnels. He's changed
his cost estimate on the wall cost for $4B to $18B. I don't even want to think about what else.
If terrorists want to get in this country, they will. This asinine wall won't stop them. There are many other ways to get in. And yes Mexicans are here illegally, they incur costs in medical care and schools etc....true.
Right now we have a net outflow of immigrants to Mexico. But they also contribute 100s of billions $ to our economy and do all the shit jobs (like meat processing, dangerous construction strawberry picking) Americans won't do. I say, give them work VISAs, tax them, and make them legal with recurring applications. They'll go home, as long as they can come back.
Right now we have a net outflow of immigrants to Mexico. But they also contribute 100s of billions $ to our economy and do all the shit jobs (like meat processing, dangerous construction strawberry picking) Americans won't do. I say, give them work VISAs, tax them, and make them legal with recurring applications. They'll go home, as long as they can come back.
But my first hand experience they are some of the hardest working people I've ever met (I am not Mexican).
Lock up the criminal immigrants or they'll just get away with their crimes and come back. Focusing on the Mexican immigration is like focus in on a scrape on your arm while bleeding from your jugular. It's a problem but not a big problem. We have much bigger problems. Trump focuses on illegal immigration to whip up fear and resentment amongst the blue collar, disenfranchised working class who's jobs have been shipped overseas to China and India chasing cheap labor. Don't blame the Mexicans for that.
Lock up the criminal immigrants or they'll just get away with their crimes and come back. Focusing on the Mexican immigration is like focus in on a scrape on your arm while bleeding from your jugular. It's a problem but not a big problem. We have much bigger problems. Trump focuses on illegal immigration to whip up fear and resentment amongst the blue collar, disenfranchised working class who's jobs have been shipped overseas to China and India chasing cheap labor. Don't blame the Mexicans for that.
It concerns me that intelligent people are buying into Trumps charade and BS..... he's a rude, absurd, egomanical psychopath who is in love with himself and gaining power. Just my thoughts.
=======================================================================================
The world is changing around the alliance; here's what its leaders must do to keep up.
Two years ago, Russia annexed Crimea — and demonstrated why NATO still matters. This week, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin surprised the world again by calling most of his troops home from Syria, leaving us to wonder what his next move might be. Will he focus on Ukraine again, or will he get involved somewhere else in Europe’s south? No matter where he goes, the Alliance needs to make sure it has a credible response. Here are four things NATO needs to do when its leaders gather at their Warsaw Summit in July.
First, place two brigades on its Eastern flank. As it is postured today, NATO is unable to easily defend its most vulnerable allies. In a conflict, Russian anti-access and area-denial capabilities in Kaliningrad could block allied air support while Moscow pours superior forces through Poland’s Suwalki Gap to cut off the Baltics. This kind of large-scale land attack is a low-probability, but extremely high-impact scenario. And Russia means business, as it has shown with the annexation of Crimea, the war in Eastern Ukraine, and its intervention in Syria. So the Warsaw Summit must shift Alliance strategy from small, mobile reinforcement to a larger, more autonomous forward presence with key capabilities in air defense, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare. Considering the overwhelming Russian military force ratio in the region, rotating a force the size of an Allied brigade, one in the Baltics and one in Poland, would be a good start.
Second, develop a clear strategy toward the South. The Mediterranean and the Levant remain sources of durable chaos that affect the security of NATO allies – witness the terrorist attacks in Paris and Ankara. Even if Russia’s withdrawal persuades Assad to compromise during the Syrian peace negotiations, it’s not going to solve the broader meltdown of the state system in MENA [Middle East and North Africa], which will continue to be a source of angst for the Alliance in the years to come. In Warsaw, Allies can approve a number of steps to strengthen their posture in the region. First, improve warning, surveillance, and response against trafficking in the eastern and central Mediterranean by flying Global Hawk UAVs from Sicily’s Sigonella Naval Air Station. Next, create initiatives to deter threats to Turkey’s security and territorial integrity, including the Russian military presence in the region. Although Moscow is withdrawing most forces from Syria, it sustains a strong footprint in the Eastern Med through its naval base in Latakia and airfield in Tartus. Finally, increase political support and resources to NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, which can draw upon substantial — and often unrecognized — openness and willingness in the Arab region for greater cooperation with the Alliance.
Third, focus on hybrid threats. Today, Russia represents mainly a conventional threat, but it and others are wading further into cyber and info warfare. NATO cannot present a united front if certain allies feel inadequately protected in this domain. The Warsaw Summit can set the Alliance on the right path by increasing human capital and financial resources for NATO’s various civil and military intelligence units, by granting the Supreme Allied Commander Europe more powers to authorize some of the preparatory response procedures, and above all, by working more closely with the European Union, such as seeking a NATO-EU Memorandum of Understanding on hybrid warfare.
Fourth, update its nuclear policy. The doctrine and conditions for crisis management enshrined in the 2012 Deterrence and Defense Posture Review are no longer valid. Russia considers nuclear weapons to be an integral part of its military power and increasingly uses its nuclear posture for messaging. The settlement with Iran may have brought a compromise with Teheran, but the agreement further permits the enrichment of nuclear material and thereby keeps the option of clandestine weapons grade material open. As for North Korea, it is pursuing its nuclear weapons program despite international sanctions. At the Warsaw Summit, the allies should therefore agree on wording that highlights the need for nuclear deterrence against any threat to NATO territory. After the Summit, NATO should launch a more comprehensive debate on its nuclear forces, akin to the process that led to the 2012 Deterrence and Defense Posture Review.
This is an ambitious agenda, but small, incremental changes will not answer the new security landscape in which the Allies find themselves. And this list is just a beginning. For more thoughts, see our new report, “NATO in A World of Disorder: Making the Alliance Ready for Warsaw.”
Michał Baranowski is the director of the German Marshall Fund's Warsaw office, where he focuses on transatlantic relations, U.S. foreign policy, and the relations between the United States and Central and Eastern Europe.
Bruno Lété serves as a senior program officer for foreign and security policy in the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund, where he provides analysis and advice on trends in geopolitics and on international security and defense policy.
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6)
** {1} Once all villagers decided to pray for rain, on the day
** {2} When you throw a baby in the air, she laughs > because
** {3} Every night we go to bed, without any assurance of
** {4} We plan big things for tomorrow in spite of zero
** {6} On an old man's shirt was written a sentence 'I am not
That's ATTITUDE**
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