++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I warned this would be one of the nastiest elections and we are there with months to go.
Any white anger that has surfaced is largely due to a president who has displayed a great deal of animus not only towards whites but also against America in general. He has played the race wedge card, divided the races, attacked police and lied consistently. His policies have made the world more unsafe and now he wants to load our nation with illegals, in order to create more voting blocs for Democrats, that will change the face and character of our nation. We have had it with this man, not because he is black but because he is disastrous failure and dangerously sinister. (I am now on page 86 of Strassel's book and Obama's message to the IRS to investigate Conservative organizations in order to deprive them of their right to speak freely is chilling.)
Now, Hillary is trying to pin the hate tag on Trump who has called Hillary a bigot because he claims she sees blacks as simply votes and cares not a fig about them or their welfare..
All to often liberals eventually resort to tying conservatives to white supremacists. I do not believe Hillary or Trump are bigots, but I do believe liberal policies have been horrendous for minorities living in inner cities which are mostly controlled by long time Democrat politicians. That is a fact and that Trump has the guts to point this out strikes a nerve in liberals whose policies have been disastrous, not only for minorities, but for America as a whole.
By weaning minorities off public dole so they begin to think for themselves is a direct threat to liberal power. Add to this the fact that Hillary has a host of snake like issues to deal with from pay to play to constantly lying to Congress and no wonder she resorts to false charges accusing Trump of being a racist. I am surprised she has not accused him of sleeping on Klan bed sheets.
As for Hillary has she imposed a gag rule on herself because she is fearful she might break into a coughing fit? How is she going to handle the debate?
I submit,Trumps close relationship with Dr. Carson, belies Hillary's ludicrous attacks and her outrageous claim threatens Liberals where they have little defense because they are vulnerable, ie. opposition to charter schools, black poverty, black unemployment, break up of the lack family,black unwed mothers etc. all directly attributable to liberal policies encouraging and sponsoring dependency under the guise of caring and compassion. (See 1 and 1a below.)
+++
Is this the future? (See 2 below.)
===
The anti-Trump crowd, who comprise the intellectual part of the Republican Party, in other words The Establishment, and have a history of losing elections, not standing up and fighting and are why The Tea Party came into being and why Trump is now the Party's Nominee, are now attacking him because he has shifted his position on immigration.
Trump is a man of few hard and fast beliefs. He is more a pragmatist and should he become president he will evolve as he confronts issues he never dreamed even existed. However, I believe he will work through them in a practical manner because he is intelligent, cares about what is right and best for America. This might drive political ideologues, in The Republican Party, crazy because they will not always be able to count on him for orthodoxy but I suspect he will be a better president than all the naysayers want you to believe.
He made whatever fortune he has being a negotiating businessman and, as such, leaves himself plenty of options so he does not get driven into a corner. Having never done business with him, I suspect he is a man of his word and honors his commitments but is always seeking advantages and being, a scrappy New Yorker, is a pusher type and tough person to have on the other end of the table.
I view Trump's shift on immigration as reflecting: a) He actually is a compassionate person though he uses hard nosed words, frequently speaks without thinking of the implications of his words and often to his detriment. b) When he was confronted with the illogic of his comment about sending 11 million illegals back to their country of origin he finally was convinced how impractical it was so he is changing his approach but still insists he will do so within some legal strictures which he has yet to define because he really does not know what they will be and c) I have no doubt he will do what he can to send back the criminal element.
Trump reminds me of what being a Yankee used to mean and who defined us as what it meant to be an American, ie. a pragmatist with a heart, a person with abounding optimism and energy and someone who was unwilling to be pushed around, ie Fifty Four Forty Or Fight, Don't Tread on Me!. As America thrived and became a dominant world power we became soft, we lost some of our toughness and allowed ourselves to become enmeshed in and strangled by political correct nonsense and madness.
We have embraced new standards of behaviour and far too many have become more interested in not offending and protecting sensibilities than being practical and human because being human means having foibles. We are so sensitive to feelings we have become offending wimps. If we continue this pattern we truly will lose our freedoms because we will no longer find anything we once possessed and stood for worth defending. This is what Alinsky and Soros are betting on and long to see. They hope for the collapse of our nation because those who believe in the chaos theory benefit.
===
Iran is attempting to accomplish what the Communists tried,, ie. the penetration of South America, our soft underbelly. (See 3 below.)
+++
Bernie Sanders never was able to plumb the depth of Hillary's scandals and thus, connect the dots . (See 4 below.)
===
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1) Media Anti-Trump Frenzy Will Backfire
The Democrat will to power is only possible if conservatives are scapegoated as sub-human compared to the wonderfulness of liberals. First they demonize fellow Americans. Then they announce they are morally compelled to suppress us. Trump is our answer.
The media can land a few punches, but they will not win this fight on their terms, because the media itself has become a central part of the problem. Their attacks are not on Trump, they are on all of us. That is why they will backfire very, very quickly. Glenn Reynolds in USA Today:
The husband of an old friend learned that I support Trump by reading my AT column on the destructiveness of Democrat race baiting. My column came out the week before the murder of cops began. Instead of congratulations for speaking out for blacks, for having my AT column linked in Realclearpolitics or for receiving enough hits to fill a football stadium, I received an email attacking me as myopic, misguided, for supporting a fascist, indeed Hitlerian, candidate associated with white supremists, calling me ignorant, stupid, a braggart, paternalistic, a bigot, and astoundingly attacking me with the old anti-Semitic canard of double loyal -- that is, that my support of Israel would lead me to support the dangerous Trump, although at the same time he called Trump and his supporters anti-semitic. Trump and I – both fascist monsters.
In short, it was a typical liberal performance. It is what Democrats do to enforce loyalty – toe the PC line or you too will lose friendships, your job, stunt your career, lose your reputation and your election. Tarring Republicans (and Christians) as racist, evil morons is highly popular with their voters. Dems love the moral superiority it gives them. It is the only thing that unites all their voting blocks. Not one Democrat journalist protests these despicable tactics and the avoidance of debate on the issues. Democrats are content that the mainstream media, now bolstered by Yahoo and Google news, are openly a propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.
The media helped demonize the honest President Bush with the phony mantra that he lied about Iraq, they destroyed the super-compassionate and kind Romney by portraying him as a heartless plutocrat, and they are doubling down on the pragmatic and common sense Trump, pretending he is an evil madman.
Look at the media accusation, turn it 180 degrees to the opposite, and there is a fair description of the Republican candidate.
Trump’s proposals are eminently sensible and very popular. Let’s enforce our immigration laws – racist! Let’s defeat Isis without nation building in the Middle East – a nuclear madman! Let’s support the police, who fight crime in black neighborhoods – he hates blacks! Let’s help American workers – dark!
Democrats have compared Republican Presidents and presidential candidates to Hitler for seventy-five years. It started with FDR attacking Wendell Wilkie in 1940. It is a Democrat perennial – one they passionately believe.
Democrats are instituting a government that will force political opponents to obey their rules on what we may think and say and do. The liberal media are enforcers who parrot the party line and punish transgressors. Trump is the first GOP candidate who threatens their PC diktat directly and includes the press. That is why he is dark and scary to them.
The media’s hysterical attacks on Trump worked in the last month, if you give credence to the polls. But Trump is not a Romney to cringe before a Candy Crowley. Media attacks make him mad, not scared. Media name calling works? Trump has retooled with a more media savvy campaign team and come back stronger and smarter, making direct, positive appeals to black and Hispanic voters and giving the lie to their racist libels. (If you haven’t read or listened to his wonderfulspeeches, a pleasure awaits you.)
Trump’s supporters are not weaklings either. So the more the media attacks Trump as the second coming of Hitler, the more his supporters become determined to elect him and the more independents join our side.
The media is over-reaching. The label of fascist bully is springing right back at them.
The very real difference between Republicans and Democrats is not Hitler versus the Allies. Our main area of disagreement is the size of government, and it conservatives who want smaller government that controls less of our lives and is less intertwined with business. Republicans want to live and let live, mind our own business, and let others mind theirs. We’re for free enterprise and against crony capitalism. We want a strong military to ensure global stability and rule of law, not military adventurism. We love America because it is the land of the free, of self-reliance and equal opportunity. This is the opposite of fascism.
The progressive utopian endeavor -- the ever-growing, intrusive government that attempts to solve all individual and social problems -- has already meant a tragic loss of freedom and prosperity and justice. We don’t think Democrat low information voters are evil; we recognize young people’s utopian impulses are well meaning. Nonetheless the outcome of the Democrat agenda is a dystopia – not in the future, but all around us.
Americans have never tolerated thought police before, but regular Democrat voters are now entirely willing to sell their American freedoms defeat the evil enemy, their fellow Americans. We see the success of Democrat scapegoating on college campuses, Hollywood, mainstream journalism, and indeed, in every area of life where liberals dominate - accomplished by blacklisting, threats of mob violence by ‘protesters’, and personal attacks. The result? Freedom of thought, religion and speech are missing in Democrat domains.
The media has promoted the Democrat onslaught on America. The liberal media is all out on the side of government power, propaganda and oppression. They are the thought police.
What the media fails to understand is that their tactics against Trump are precisely what we conservatives are fighting against with all our heart and soul.
1a)The Nine Lives of Donald J. Trump
Whatever his faults, a Trump victory is preferable for the Republic.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2)
… the thoughts of a 22-year-old Trump supporter … a prosperous post-collegian in the San Francisco Bay area — someone who should be backing Bernie, or Hillary, or maybe Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. But instead he’s backing Trump, and so is his Asian fiancée. And the reason he gives is political correctness.
“For me personally, it's resistance against what San Francisco has been, and what I see the country becoming, in the form of ultra-PC culture. That’s where it's almost impossible to have polite or constructive political discussion. Disagreement gets you labeled fascist, racist, bigoted, etc. It can provoke a reaction so intense that you’re suddenly an unperson to an acquaintance or friend. ... If Trump wins, we will have a president that overwhelmingly rejects PC rhetoric. Even better, we will show that more than half the country rejects this insane PC regime.”It is not just Trump who has experienced the vitriol of liberals. We all have. We are fighting for our personal liberty, each and every one of us, and we know it.
Political correctness is not, as some might claim, just an effort to encourage niceness. …it’s an effort to control people. Like the Newspeak in George Orwell’s 1984, the goal is to make it impossible for people to speak, or even think, unapproved thoughts.
The husband of an old friend learned that I support Trump by reading my AT column on the destructiveness of Democrat race baiting. My column came out the week before the murder of cops began. Instead of congratulations for speaking out for blacks, for having my AT column linked in Realclearpolitics or for receiving enough hits to fill a football stadium, I received an email attacking me as myopic, misguided, for supporting a fascist, indeed Hitlerian, candidate associated with white supremists, calling me ignorant, stupid, a braggart, paternalistic, a bigot, and astoundingly attacking me with the old anti-Semitic canard of double loyal -- that is, that my support of Israel would lead me to support the dangerous Trump, although at the same time he called Trump and his supporters anti-semitic. Trump and I – both fascist monsters.
In short, it was a typical liberal performance. It is what Democrats do to enforce loyalty – toe the PC line or you too will lose friendships, your job, stunt your career, lose your reputation and your election. Tarring Republicans (and Christians) as racist, evil morons is highly popular with their voters. Dems love the moral superiority it gives them. It is the only thing that unites all their voting blocks. Not one Democrat journalist protests these despicable tactics and the avoidance of debate on the issues. Democrats are content that the mainstream media, now bolstered by Yahoo and Google news, are openly a propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.
The media helped demonize the honest President Bush with the phony mantra that he lied about Iraq, they destroyed the super-compassionate and kind Romney by portraying him as a heartless plutocrat, and they are doubling down on the pragmatic and common sense Trump, pretending he is an evil madman.
Look at the media accusation, turn it 180 degrees to the opposite, and there is a fair description of the Republican candidate.
Trump’s proposals are eminently sensible and very popular. Let’s enforce our immigration laws – racist! Let’s defeat Isis without nation building in the Middle East – a nuclear madman! Let’s support the police, who fight crime in black neighborhoods – he hates blacks! Let’s help American workers – dark!
Democrats have compared Republican Presidents and presidential candidates to Hitler for seventy-five years. It started with FDR attacking Wendell Wilkie in 1940. It is a Democrat perennial – one they passionately believe.
To most people, Nazi analogies summon up images of the Holocaust and a ruthless dictatorship. To the left however, any populist reaction against their rule is Nazism. In their world, there is a battle between progressive and reactionary forces. Any movement that dares to run for office by challenging progressive policies is reactionary, fascist and the second coming of the Third Reich. …
Optimists thought that the Democrats had reached “Peak Hitler” under Bush. But for the left there is no Peak Hitler.…Goldwater was Hitler. Nixon was Hitler. Reagan was Hitler. Bush was Hitler. None of the latter three men declared the Fourth Reich, made themselves dictators for life and ran concentration camps.Why is the liberal press declaring Trump, not just the standard racist-fascist-selfish-Hitler Republican, but actually a danger to America and the world? This is actually a deep question.
Democrats are instituting a government that will force political opponents to obey their rules on what we may think and say and do. The liberal media are enforcers who parrot the party line and punish transgressors. Trump is the first GOP candidate who threatens their PC diktat directly and includes the press. That is why he is dark and scary to them.
The media’s hysterical attacks on Trump worked in the last month, if you give credence to the polls. But Trump is not a Romney to cringe before a Candy Crowley. Media attacks make him mad, not scared. Media name calling works? Trump has retooled with a more media savvy campaign team and come back stronger and smarter, making direct, positive appeals to black and Hispanic voters and giving the lie to their racist libels. (If you haven’t read or listened to his wonderfulspeeches, a pleasure awaits you.)
Trump’s supporters are not weaklings either. So the more the media attacks Trump as the second coming of Hitler, the more his supporters become determined to elect him and the more independents join our side.
The media is over-reaching. The label of fascist bully is springing right back at them.
The very real difference between Republicans and Democrats is not Hitler versus the Allies. Our main area of disagreement is the size of government, and it conservatives who want smaller government that controls less of our lives and is less intertwined with business. Republicans want to live and let live, mind our own business, and let others mind theirs. We’re for free enterprise and against crony capitalism. We want a strong military to ensure global stability and rule of law, not military adventurism. We love America because it is the land of the free, of self-reliance and equal opportunity. This is the opposite of fascism.
The progressive utopian endeavor -- the ever-growing, intrusive government that attempts to solve all individual and social problems -- has already meant a tragic loss of freedom and prosperity and justice. We don’t think Democrat low information voters are evil; we recognize young people’s utopian impulses are well meaning. Nonetheless the outcome of the Democrat agenda is a dystopia – not in the future, but all around us.
Americans have never tolerated thought police before, but regular Democrat voters are now entirely willing to sell their American freedoms defeat the evil enemy, their fellow Americans. We see the success of Democrat scapegoating on college campuses, Hollywood, mainstream journalism, and indeed, in every area of life where liberals dominate - accomplished by blacklisting, threats of mob violence by ‘protesters’, and personal attacks. The result? Freedom of thought, religion and speech are missing in Democrat domains.
The media has promoted the Democrat onslaught on America. The liberal media is all out on the side of government power, propaganda and oppression. They are the thought police.
What the media fails to understand is that their tactics against Trump are precisely what we conservatives are fighting against with all our heart and soul.
1a)The Nine Lives of Donald J. Trump
Whatever his faults, a Trump victory is preferable for the Republic.
By Victor Davis Hanson
Seasoned Republican political handlers serially attack Donald Trump and his campaign as amateurish, incompetent, and incoherent. The media somehow outdid their propaganda work for Barack Obama and have signed on as unapologetic auxiliaries to the Hillary Clinton campaign — and openly brag that, in Trump’s case, the duty of a journalist is to be biased. We have devolved to the point that a Harvard Law professor teases about unethically releasing his old confidential notes of his lawyer/client relationship with Trump.
Conservative columnists and analysts are so turned off by Trump that they resort to sophisticated metaphors to express their distaste — like “abortion,” “ape,” “bastard,” “bitch,” “cancer,” “caudillo,” “dog crap,” “filth,” “idiot,” “ignoramus,” and “moron.” Some of them variously talk of putting a bullet through his head given that he resembles, or is worse than, Caesar, Hitler, Mussolini, or Stalin. Derangement Syndrome is a more apt clinical diagnosis for the Right’s hatred of Trump than it was for the Left’s loathing of Bush. Had such venom been directed at leftists or minorities, the commentators likely would have lost their venues.
Trump’s political obituary over the last 14 months has been rewritten about every three weeks. During the primaries, each time he won a state we were told that that victory was his last. Now, in the general-election campaign, his crude ego is supposedly driving the Republican ticket into oblivion.
The media have discovered that what gets Trump’s goat is not denouncing his coarseness, but lampooning his lack of cash and poor polling: broke and being a loser is supposedly far worse for Trump’s ego than being obnoxious and cruel. So far, he is behind in most of the polls most of the time.
But not so fast!
Mysteriously, each time he hits rock bottom, Trump — even before his recent “pivot” — begins a two-week chrysalis cycle of inching back in the polls to within 2 or 3 points of Clinton. Apparently Trump represents something well beyond Trump per se. He appears to be a vessel of, rather than a catalyst for, popular furor at “elites” — not so much the rich, but the media/political/academic/celeb
RELATED: Trump Triage
Given the surprise of Brexit and Trump’s unexpected dominance of the primaries, pollsters seem to fear that his populist support is underreported by 2 or 3 percentage points. Some voters who do not openly profess that they plan to vote for Trump might do just that in the privacy of the polling booth — even as they might later deny that fact to others.
His latest pivot may be too late, but it certainly hit the right notes by presenting his populist themes — unwise trade deals, defense cuts, inner-city violence, attacks against police, illegal immigration, the war on coal, big-government regulations, and boutique environmentalism — as symptomatic of elite neglect not just of the white working class but of minorities as well, upon whom liberal policy falls most heavily. By curbing his personal invective and focusing on Obama’s incompetence and Clinton’s corruption, Trump may succeed in allowing 4 or 5 percent of the missing Republicans and independents to return and vote for him without incurring social disdain.
The news cycle favors any outsider — certainly including Trump.
RELATED: Trump’s Unlikely Story
About every three weeks, terrorists butcher innocents in one or another Western country, usually screaming “Allahu Akbar” during their victims’ death throes. These terrorists have often been watched but otherwise left alone by intelligence agencies. Liberal pieties follow, along with warnings to the public about their prejudices, rather than admonitions to radical Islamists to stop their killing.
The ensuing public backlash does not mesh with the Obama–Clinton narrative that the killings were mere workplace violence, a generic form of “violent extremism,” or had “nothing to do with Islam.” Like Jimmy Carter, with his infamous inability to frame the Iranian hostage crisis, so too the latest manifestation of Hillary Clinton is simply unable to identify the origin, nature, and extent of the terrorist threat — much less offer a solution.
When the president upgrades the ISIS threat from a jayvee classification to something analogous to a fall in the bathroom, the public is not reassured that his former secretary of state understands radical Islamic terrorism.
In the same vein, with 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S., almost daily we hear a news report of yet another illegal-alien felony, or a new sanctuary city, or an effort by the “undocumented” to get the vote out — none of which enhances open-borders Hillary.
Many of us have been saying for a year now that the last six months of the Obama administration will likely be the most dangerous interlude since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 or the Carter meltdown of 1980. Restive aggressors abroad have long concluded that Obama is conflicted about American morality, power, and responsibility. After his faux deadlines, redlines, and step-over lines, his apologies, his mythographical speeches, and his deer-in-the-headlights reactions to overseas challenges, he appears to foreign opportunists to be indifferent to the consequences of American laxity and lead-from-behind withdrawal.
Putin is now massing troops near Ukraine. Iran is absorbing Iraq and Syria. China has carved out a thalassocracy in the South China Sea. Tensions will only rise in these areas in the next 90 days, to the point of either outright war or more insidious and humiliating withdrawals from U.S. interests and allies. Either scenario favors Trump’s Jacksonian bluster.
RELATED: Revenge of the Rulebook
When a black police officer in Milwaukee fatally shoots a fleeing armed suspect — who had a lengthy arrest record and had turned to fire with his stolen automatic pistol — and anti-police riots follow, then it is hard to conceive under what conditions of legitimate police self defense that riots would not ensue. While there is plenty of public sympathy for refocusing on the general conditions in the inner city that may foster a high crime rate, there is none for focusing on their riotous manifestations.
After “hands up, don’t shoot” in Ferguson, the police acquittals in Baltimore, and now Milwaukee, the inevitable next riot will further hurt Hillary Clinton, who has mortgaged her campaign soul to Obama’s electoral calculus of 2008/2012. Meanwhile the daily carnage in Obama’s hometown of Chicago continues, out of sight and out of mind to the Democratic party.
Hillary Clinton has lied about her e-mails, her personal server, and the supposed firewall between her and the Clinton Foundation. She has lied about almost every detail of her tenure as secretary of state, from the killings in Benghazi to her knowledge of sending and receiving classified material. We are back to the cattle-future lying of 1979, when Hillary was said to have had a 31-trillion-to-one chance of telling the truth about her hundred-fold profit.
The problem with chronic lying is that finally the liar reaches a combustible state, one in which she cannot lie any more without contradicting a particular prior lie and yet cannot tell the truth without contradicting all prior lies. To keep them straight, one needs an amoral photographic memory. Hillary Clinton has the requisite shamelessness, but (unlike Bill) not the animal cunning to pull off such serial prevarication. In her latest fabrication that has begrudgingly come to light, Hillary had blamed Colin Powell (who never set up a private server as secretary of state) as the supposed felonious model that prompted her to break the law.
So expect more lies about hacked e-mail from the Clinton Foundation, Hillary’s deleted e-mail accounts, the DNC records, or some as yet unknown private communication about every 48 hours until November. If Trump’s fantasies are the bluster, narcissism, and adolescence of a real-estate and show-biz wheeler-dealer, Clinton’s lies are the steely-eyed and deliberate work of a long-time sociopathic prevaricator who destroys all those around her who weave the webs of her deceit.
Barack Obama is not necessarily a plus for Clinton. The president does well in the polls while he is off golfing with celebrities and sports stars, and is thus not heard or seen much in the world outside Martha’s Vineyard — the world in which coffins float about in flood-ravaged Louisiana, the Putin military build-up near Ukraine continues, or the Obamacare disaster grows. But whenever Obama reemerges to campaign for Hillary, he inevitably winds up in his characteristic condescending rambles and rants — the most recent his ridiculous lying about the Iranian ransom/“leverage” payment.
Clinton will win the election if she (and Trump’s own alter ego) can continue to convince the public that Trump is dangerous, repulsive, and unfit to a degree not seen before in politics — and thus every new day is devoted to Trump’s mouth and not Hillary’s high crimes and misdemeanors. But if Trump can pivot to focus on policy, about which he sometimes proves to be a skilled speaker and clever antagonist, then media attention will shift from Trump to the issues and the daily news. And all that fare is innately damaging to Hillary.
Trump has two enemies: money and Trump himself. In his peculiar way, Trump is able to work the teleprompter as effectively as Obama, and when disciplined is far better in unscripted repartee. All that explains why Trump has not yet quite killed Trump off, and why in any given ten-day recovery period he has the potential to creep within 2 or 3 points of Hillary, which this year may mean a dead-even race.
Yet Trump so far can get close to Clinton, but not 3 to 4 points ahead. To do that would require continued zeal, but also a complete end to his personal invective against irrelevant third parties — and an ability to raise a lot of money quickly and get his message out in a multimedia campaign.
Trump will also have to show reluctant conservative big-money donors that he is serious about the presidency, perhaps with the dramatic gesture of selling off a building or two to infuse his campaign with millions of dollars of good-faith money. That signal might be the sort of financial sacrifice that would encourage traditional donors to give to a common effort and cease talk that Trump was never seriously in the race before being surprised by his unexpected resonance. If he can pick up an additional 4 to 5 percent of Republicans, or win a quarter of the Latino vote, or 10 percent of the black vote, he likely will win the election — big ifs, of course.
For now, openly siding with Trump is still not “done” in the New York–Washington corridor. But if Trump were to pull even and stay that way for a week, and curb his bombast, he might be able to assemble a team of advisors and possible cabinet members whom he could reference in the matter of possible Supreme Court picks, lending further legitimacy to his candidacy.
There is a herd-like mentality in Washington and New York, where the gospel is not professed politics, but unspoken allegiance to a perceived winner. Momentum is the deity. If Trump were to creep out ahead, one should not be surprised about the resulting silence in the Never Trump camp, or about those who would suddenly “be willing” to join a Team Trump. Epithets like “ape” and “Hitler” would mysteriously disappear. For those worried about a satanic President Trump, they should at least concede that Republican elites sign letters of dissent against their own nominee, whom the media seek to destroy at every turn; in contrast, there will be no Democratic establishment cries of outrage over Hillary Clinton’s past and future crimes and sins — and the media will abet, not censure, her excesses.
What is forgotten in the Trump pessimism is that even with less than three months until Election Day, the Republican nominee — after the worst imaginable self-inflicted wounds, and with a complete absence of serious fundraising, an ad campaign, or a ground game — still is within striking distance of winning the election. If he were to do so, for the first time in a generation, the Republican party would likely control both houses of Congress, the presidency, and the future of the Supreme Court — with a public on record in support of radical change and without need to pacify its old establishment. Certainly, an attorney general like Rudy Giuliani would be preferable to Loretta Lynch, just as a John Bolton at State would not run the department in the fashion that Clinton herself did during Obama’s first term.
Such is the unrelenting popular furor at political correctness, the political and media aristocracy, the Obama record, and the immorality of Hillary Clinton that a candidate with no political experience, little campaign cash, and serious character problems may overturn a century of conventional wisdom. The choice of winning or losing the election is now mostly Trump’s own.
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals.
2)
Into the future
By Udo Gollub at Messe Berlin, Germany
I just went to the Singularity University summit. Here are the key points I gathered.
Rise and Fall: In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they were bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years – and most people don’t see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again?
Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore’s law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became superior and mainstream in only a few short years. This will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, self-driving and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.
Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Welcome to the Exponential Age. Software and operating platforms will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.
Uber is just a software tool. They don’t own any cars, but they are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties.
Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don’t get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice, (so far for more or less basic stuff), within seconds. With 90% accuracy, compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you are studying law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer generalist lawyers in the future; only specialists will be needed.
‘Watson’ already helps nurses diagnose cancer, four times more accurately than doctors. Facebook now has pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. By 2030, computers will have become ‘more intelligent’ than humans.
Cars: In 2018 the first self driving cars will be offered to the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don’t want to own a car anymore. You will call a car on your phone; it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive whilst driving. Our kids will never get a driver’s licence and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars for our future needs. We can transform former parking spaces into parks. At present,1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 kms. With autonomous driving, that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.
Electric cars will become mainstream around and after 2020. Cities will be cleaner and much less noisy because all cars will run on electricity, which will become much cheaper.
Most traditional car companies may become bankrupt by tacking the evolutionary approach and just building better cars; while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will take the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi. They are terrified of Tesla.
Insurance companies will have massive trouble, because without accidents, the insurance will become 100 times cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.
Real estate values based on proximities to work-places, schools, etc. will change, because if you can work effectively from anywhere or be productive while you commute, people will move out of cities to live in a more rural surroundings.
Solar energy production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but only now is having a big impact. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that almost all coal mining companies will be out of business by 2025.
Water for all: With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don’t have scarce water in most places; we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if everyone can have as much clean water as they want, for virtually no cost.
Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year - a medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and your breath. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any diseases. It will be cheap, so in a few years, everyone on this planet will have access to world class, low cost, medicine.
3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from 18,000$ to 400$ within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started printing 3D shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D-printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to need in the past.
At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they have already 3D-printed a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3D-printed.
Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to enter, ask yourself: “in the future, do you think we will have that?” And if the answer is yes, then work on how you can make that happen sooner. If it doesn’t work via your phone, forget the idea. And any idea that was designed for success in the 20th century is probably doomed to fail in the 21st century.
Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear that there will be enough new jobs in such a short time.
Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their fields instead of working in them all day. Aeroponics will need much less water. The first veal produced in a petri dish is now available. It will be cheaper than cow- produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces are used for rearing cattle. Imagine if we don’t need that space anymore. There are several start-ups which will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labelled as “alternative protein source” (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).
Apps: There is already an app called “moodies” which can tell the mood you are in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where we know whether the participants are telling the truth and when not!
Currencies: Many currencies will be abandoned. Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the future default reserve currency.
Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span was 79 years, now it is 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than a one-year increase per year. So we all might live for a long, long time, probably way beyond 100.
Education: The cheapest smartphones already sell at 10$ in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smartphone. That means everyone will have much the same access to world class education. Every child can use Khan Academy for everything he needs to learn at schools in First World countries. Further afield, the software has been launched in Indonesia and will be released it in Arabic, Swahili and Chinese this summer. The English app will be offered free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half a year.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++3)
Iran Expanding Terror Network in Latin America
Top Iranian official visits region, sparking concern about terror in U.S.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, is welcomed by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, in Havana, Cuba / AP
BY:
Iran is solidifying its foothold in Latin America, sparking concerns among U.S. officials that the Islamic Republic will enlist these regional allies in its push to launch terror attacks on U.S. soil, according to conversations with congressional sources.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has been on a diplomatic tour through key Latin American countries known for hostility towards the United States, including Cuba, Venezuela, and a host of other countries believed to be providing shelter to Iranian terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah.
As Iranian-ally Russia boosts its spy operation in the region, sources have raised concerns about the rogue nations working together to foster anti-U.S. unrest.
Zarif’s trip through the region has raised red flags among some senior congressional sources familiar with the region. For example, Zarif took aim at the United States and touted the regime’s desire to align with anti-American countries during his stay in Cuba.
One senior congressional source who works on the issue said to the Washington Free Beacon that Iran is seeking to recruit “potential terrorists who want to cause the U.S. harm.”
Increased ties between Iran and these Latin American nations are setting the stage for terrorists to penetrate close to U.S. soil with little detection.
These individuals “can travel easily to Venezuela, and once there, they can get to Nicaragua or Cuba without passports or visas, which poses a national security risk for our nation,” the source explained.
Iran has also reopened its embassy in Chile, a move that has only added fuel to speculation among U.S. officials that the Islamic Republic is making moves to position its global terror network on America’s doorstep.
“The threat to U.S. national security interests and our allies should be setting off alarm bells,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.), chair of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement about Zarif’s Latin American tour.
“The Obama administration has failed to prevent Russia and China from expanding in our Hemisphere, and now Iran is once again stepping up its efforts to gain a greater presence to carry out its nefarious activities,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “I urge the White House to stop downplaying the Iranian threat and take immediate action to prevent the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism from establishing a regional safe haven in the Americas.”
Asked to comment on Zarif’s trip and the potential repercussions on Monday, a State Department official said to the Free Beacon that the administration had no comment.
Ros-Lehtinen said the high-profile trip by Zarif should serve as a warning.
“The timing of Zarif’s trip is significant as Iran could use many of these rogue regimes to circumvent remaining sanctions, undermine U.S. interests, and expand the drug trafficking network that helps finance its illicit activities,” she said. “Tehran’s classic playbook is to use cultural centers, new embassies or consulates, or cooperative agreements on various areas to act as façades aimed at expanding Iran’s radical extremist network.”
The renewed concerns about Iran’s footprint in Latin America comes nearly two years after the State Department said Tehran’s influence in the region was “waning.”
“The timing of Zarif’s trip speaks volumes,” said the senior congressional aide who would discuss the issue only on background. It “is worrisome that as we just celebrated the 22nd year of the horrific terrorist attack against the AMIA Jewish community center in Argentina, Iran can now have personnel nearby in a new embassy in Chile.”
“Just recently, a Hezbollah member was picked up in Brazil, an explosive device was found near the Israeli embassy in Uruguay, and Hezbollah members are reportedly traveling on Venezuelan passports,” the source added. “It was not too long ago that Venezuela offered flights to Iran and Syria, and as of last week, Hezbollah cells were found in the West Bank where Venezuela lifted its visa requirements for Palestinians.”
Zarif slammed the United States on Monday during a speech in Havana.
“Iran and Cuba could prove to the U.S. that it cannot proceed with its policies through exerting pressure on other countries,” Zarif said, according to Iran’s state-controlled media.
“Now the time is ripe for realizing our common goals together and implement the resistance economy in Iran and materialize [Cuban dictator Fidel] Castro’s goals of reconstruction of the Cuban economy,” Zarif added.
Zarif went on to note that Iran “has age-old and strong relations with the American continent and the Latin American countries.”
Zarif is reported to have brought along at least 60 Iranian officials and executives working in the country’s state-controlled economic sector.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior Iran analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Free Beacon that Iran has boosted efforts to engage Latin America in the wake of last summer’s nuclear agreement.
“Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif is aggressively continuing Iran’s diplomatic outreach, a policy which began early in the Rouhani administration and was kicked into high gear in the aftermath of the JCPOA—last summer’s nuclear deal,” he said. “Zarif’s sojourn into the Western hemisphere follows on the heels of his May visit to the region. Zarif’s trip symbolically commences in Havana, Cuba, where the Iranian foreign minister harped on themes of steadfastness and resistance to American legal and economic pressure.”
The Iranian leader’s goal is to “build on this experience to help promote an anti-American and anti-capitalist world order,” he added. “What’s most clear however, is that in addition to seeking to solidify the anti-American political orientation of these states, Iran aims to capitalize on the increasingly detached stigma of doing business with it in the aftermath of the nuclear accord. Therefore, we can expect to see trade deals or memorandums of understanding inked. In short, Iran will be looking to deepen to its footprint in Latin America.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4)
Huma Abedin goes over notes with Hillary Clinton during a June 2011 visit to Lusaka, Zambia, while Clinton was secretary of state. (Susan Walsh/Pool/Reuters)
The bribery standard
Huma Abedin goes over notes with Hillary Clinton during a June 2011 visit to Lusaka, Zambia, while Clinton was secretary of state. (Susan Walsh/Pool/Reuters)
Bernie Sanders never understood the epic quality of the Clinton scandals. In his first debate, he famously dismissed the email issue, it being beneath the dignity of a great revolutionary to deal in things so tawdry and straightforward.
Sanders failed to understand that Clinton scandals are sprawling, multi-layered, complex things. They defy time and space. They grow and burrow.
The central problem with Hillary Clinton’s emails was not the classified material. It wasn’t the headline-making charge by the FBI director of her extreme carelessness in handling it.
That’s a serious offense, to be sure, and could very well have been grounds for indictment. And it did damage her politically, exposing her sense of above-the-law entitlement and — in her dodges and prevarications, her parsing and evasions — demonstrating her arm’s-length relationship with the truth.
But it was always something of a sideshow. The real question wasn’t classification but: Why did she have a private server in the first place? She obviously lied about the purpose. It wasn’t convenience. It was concealment. What exactly was she hiding?
Was this merely the prudent paranoia of someone who habitually walks the line of legality? After all, if she controls the server, she controls the evidence, and can destroy it — as she did 30,000 emails — at will.
But destroy what? Remember: She set up the system before even taking office. It’s clear what she wanted to protect from scrutiny: Clinton Foundation business.
The foundation is a massive family enterprise disguised as a charity, an opaque and elaborate mechanism for sucking money from the rich and the tyrannous to be channeled to Clinton Inc. Its purpose is to maintain the Clintons’ lifestyle (offices, travel, accommodations, etc.), secure profitable connections, produce favorable publicity and reliably employ a vast entourage of retainers, ready to serve today and at the coming Clinton Restoration.
Now we learn how the whole machine operated. Two weeks ago, emails began dribbling out showing foundation officials contacting State Department counterparts to ask favors for foundation “friends.” Say, a meeting with the State Department’s “substance person” on Lebanon for one particularly generous Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire.
Big deal, said the Clinton defenders. Low-level stuff. No involvement of the secretary herself. Until — drip, drip — the next batch revealed foundation requests for face time with the secretary herself. Such as one from the crown prince of Bahrain.
To be sure, Bahrain, home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, is an important Persian Gulf ally. Its crown prince shouldn’t have to go through a foundation — to which his government donated at least $50,000 — to get to the secretary. The fact that he did is telling.
Now, a further drip: The Associated Press found that more than half the private interests who were granted phone or personal contact with Secretary Clinton — 85 of 154 — were donors to the foundation. Total contributions? As much as $156 million.
Current Clinton response? There was no quid pro quo.
What a long way we’ve come. This is the very last line of defense. Yes, it’s obvious that access and influence were sold. But no one has demonstrated definitively that the donors received something tangible of value — a pipeline, a permit, a waiver, a favorable regulatory ruling — in exchange.
It’s hard to believe the Clinton folks would be stupid enough to commit something so blatant to writing. Nonetheless, there might be an email allusion to some such conversation. With thousands more emails to come, who knows what lies beneath.
On the face of it, it’s rather odd that a visible quid pro quo is the bright line for malfeasance. Anything short of that — the country is awash with political money that buys access — is deemed acceptable. As Donald Trump says of his own donation-giving days, “when I need something from them . . . I call them, they are there for me.” This is considered routine and unremarkable.
It’s not until a Rolex shows up on your wrist that you get indicted. Or you are found to have dangled a Senate appointment for cash. Then, like Rod Blagojevich, you go to jail. (He got 14 years.)
Yet we are hardly bothered by the routine practice of presidents rewarding big donors with cushy ambassadorships, appointments to portentous boards and invitations to state dinners.
The bright line seems to be outright bribery. Anything short of that is considered — not just for the Clintons, for everyone — acceptable corruption.
It’s a sorry standard. And right now it is Hillary Clinton’s saving grace.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment