Convert The U.N. Into Trump Condos? Economic and Market Thoughts. Goodbye Sowell. Don Kole Collects!

Not Politically correct…who cares

Th


















This from one of my daughters:"Israel is an easy target that allows cowards

to feel they are doing something righteous. 

I really hope Trump de-funds the whole

Enterprise. He could turn the real estate 

into something good. Maybe housing

For artists. Or true peacemakers. Or a place

Where immigrants who want to be Americans

learn English and study the constitution."

My response: "It would free up a lot of  N.Y parking spaces.  Worthless. amoral organization that has brought no peace to the world and spent a lot of money on canapes and booze.  Me" (See 1 below.)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Peter is a friend and some time memo reader. 
His comments are well worth reading and insightful.  I am in full agreement.

While on the economy my market thoughts are as follows:

Historically, the DOW does well in the first quarter, assuming the fourth quarter earnings were acceptable.  Certainly the market has had a nice run and is somewhat extended.

I still favor the following sectors: financial, health care and technology and still favor BMY, MFC, CSCO and a new addition, QCOM.  Speculatively speaking, I continue to believe there is upside in OPKO but the stock has advanced beyond where I would purchase this speculative bio-tech. (See 2 below.)

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This was sent to me by a dear friend and fellow memo reader.  It was written by another friend and memo reader, Allen West.  I would not have expected anything else from him.  Sadly his wife's father passed away during the holidays - RIP. 

It remains my hope that Allen will be given a meaningful role in The Trump Administration. I know he has met with some key members of The Transition Team.(See 3 and 3a  below.)
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Damn The U,N, (See 4 below.)
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I was fortunate to meet Don Kole when I we first moved to Savannah because I was told he had an interest in art. We met and have become truly wonderful friends .  Don allowed me to get The State Museum (GMOA), on whose board I serve, to host the first public exhibit of Don's masterful collection in Athens as part of the opening of our new wing several years ago. The brochure that was published as part of the exhibit was entitled "From Savanna to Savannah. 

He also has always been exceedingly gracious allowing me to bring tens of friends to view his collection which is now housed in a building he purchased across the street from his office.  Don gave Lynn and I a beautiful object from his collection and we display it proudly on the buffet counter of our dining room.

Don was interviewed recently and now you will be able to experience a part of his collection.

Art Talks Art Matters Final 5.wmv

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The world is smaller now that Sowell is retiring from writing his column. (See 5 below.)

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Today Obama looked in the mirror and heard that he could have run for a third term and won.  The man has no

bounds when it comes to his ego.  What a peacock.  Instead of a leather chair in the Oval Office he should have sat on a throne.

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Dick

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1)  

Charles Krauthammer RIPS The UN – Trump Should ‘Turn It Into Condos’

Krauthammer claimed that the U.N. spends “more than half its time and energy and resources and bureaucracy trying to attack the only Jewish state on the planet, a tiny little spec, while genocide, mayhem, murder and terrorism is going on all over the world.”

“It’s an obsession that, to an outside observer, appears to be insane,” he continued. “Why are we doing this?”

The columnist argued the U.N. spends the other half of its resources “undermining the United States and democracy and our allies around the world.”

“It is an organization that exacerbates tensions, it does not assuage them.”

Though “it was born in hope, at the end of the Second World War,” Krauthammer argued “it turned out to be a disaster.”

Finally, he noted that if the U.N. “headquarters were in Zimbabwe, the amount of weight and coverage it would get would be zero.”

“I think that’s good real estate in downtown New York City,” he joked. “And Trump ought to find a way to put his name on it and turn it into condos.”

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2) Washington Times

The Measure of Trump's Presidency

Restoring Growth Is Center Stage, and So Is China

By Peter Morici                                        

Donald Trump must scale huge barriers to accomplish 3 to 4 percent economic growth. Sweeping measures must be implemented, and that will prove no mean task.

George W. Bush slashed personal income taxes without fundamentally altering corporate incentives to create tax dodges and offshore production. Barack Obama expanded entitlements - partially financed with higher taxes on Americans who invest and create jobs. Both relied on big deficits and accomplished only anemic growth.

House leaders are working on corporate tax reform that will close loopholes, lower rates to internationally competitive levels and shift part of the tax burden onto imports. It has a decent chance of winning enough bipartisan support in the Senate but much more needs to be done.

Trade deficits with China and on oil directly subtract $500 billion annually from the demand for American made goods and services, kill millions of jobs and stifle R&D.

Confronting China on trade with a 45 percent tariff, alone, won't get Beijing to stop undervaluing its currency, subsidizing exports and cease blocking market access for American-made goods and services. It can push back by harassing U.S. companies with operations in China and imposing new barriers on U.S. products, and more broadly by squeezing Taiwan, upping the ante on militarization of the South China Sea and further enabling North Korea.

Mr. Trump must gird for a broad crisis with China, deploy the full range of America's geopolitical and economic assets and compel Beijing to reckon with the fact that their shaky economy cannot withstand an all front confrontation with the United States without risking the Communist Party's grip on power.

Energy and Interior Departments committed to opening up drilling in the eastern Gulf and off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts - and ending the endless federal harassment of shale producers - could make America energy independent. However, as with many other issues, the lack of 60 Republican votes in the Senate will require guerrilla warfare to accomplish the results American voters deserve for awarding Trump the presidency.

On the supply side, it's a lot more expensive to start a business and make things in America than in the 1980s and '90s, because of the growth of the regulatory state. Just compliance with labor market, health care, financial, environmental regulations and the like require hundreds of thousands of employees and cost businesses billions of dollars.

Imposing an efficacy test on regulations - requiring just what is absolutely needed to accomplish legitimate goals for protecting workers, the environment, consumers and financial stability, and then jettisoning the rest - should be the overarching objective as Mr. Trump's Cabinet goes to work at Labor, EPA, Treasury and elsewhere in the far flung federal regulatory apparatus.

A good deal of what President Obama imposed was by fiat - executive orders that can now be repealed. However, he also imposed overly aggressive and burdensome regulations established under statutes, and those are more difficult and time consuming to nix.

Just as the law required the Obama administration to publish and take public comment on proposed regulations before imposing new rules - and then endure legal challenges from businesses and Republican state officials - the Trump administration will have to repeat those steps and face litigation from environmental groups, labor unions and Democratic governors.

All can be axed or reshaped by congress but the Trump administration can expect a pitched battle from progressive Senate Democrats dedicated to remaking the American economy in the low-growth, high unemployment model of continental Europe.

After losing the presidential election, muffing the opportunity to capture the Senate and managing to hold only 18 state governorships - not to mention their minority standing in the House and most state legislatures - we likely won't be hearing Mr. Obama pontificating on the sidelines that elections have consequences. Instead, we can expect the only remaining consequential Democrats - those who can filibuster against the popular will in the Senate - to rely on the 60-vote rule to try to run out the clock until the 2020 presidential elections.

In the end, Republicans in congress may have to resort to a grand budget reconciliation bill to push through a panoply of reforms, and Trump will have to marshal public support for radical measures to overcome a barrage of criticism and protests from liberal politicians and the media.

Bigger than his vision and knack for picking competent executives will be his salesmanship.

America's first deal maker is not a man inclined to small deeds, and these will be the measure of his presidency.

Peter Morici is an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland, and a national columnist.
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3) The FINAL insult…

By Allen West

...The bottom line I surmised from it all? Outgoing President Barack Hussein Obama is an angry man who is now on a scorched earth campaign. There are several anecdotal instances that lend to that assertion and conclusion.

First of all, Obama did sign the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). He did so reluctantly and the White House did offer a statement of disagreement.

The NDAA did block Obama from unilaterally shutting down GITMO — albeit he’s taken every action to transfer out detainees from the facility. I think we can all agree at this point that GITMO has nothing to do with Islamic jihadist incitement and recruitment.

There’s no connection between an Islamic jihadist running over folks with a truck at a Christmas bazaar in Germany and GITMO. This has all been a false assumption, politically motivated, and yet it only served as a means by which we conveyed weakness to the enemy. Also, the Fiscal Year 2017 NDAA began the reversal of Obama’s decimation of our military. I found it interesting that Obama would accuse the NDAA for not doing enough to reign in Pentagon spending. This authorization document is vital for the restoration of our military under Donald Trump’s administration.

The second indication that Obama wants to scorch our nation before departing was the offshore oil drilling ban and more regulations against the coal industry. Now of course, these are executive actions taken so they can be reversed, but Obama’s flying monkeys are doing everything they can, burning the midnight oil, searching for legal means by which it can tie up the Trump administration.

What manner of person is this who vacations off in Hawaii and still directs his minions and acolytes to impart as much damage as possible? When the Trump administration states they’re going to reboot our oil, natural gas, and coal industries in order to restore that sector and reclaim good American energy jobs lost, one would think the outgoing administration would assist — nah, not ol’ Barry Soetoro.

His angst is immense and he’s determined not to enable a smooth transition, but seek to salvage the far left progressive socialist agenda that was repudiated. It’s funny that the person who was so quick to tell us about how he won, and that elections have consequences, refuses to grasp the consequences of his own doing.

Next, part of the post 9-11 actions was to implement a registry of individuals coming into the United States for tracking. Remember the 9-11 conspirators were issued student visas, but did not attend schools, and this has been a recurring issue.

As a matter of fact, better tracking and due diligence would have precluded Tashfeen Malik from entering the United States on a fiancee visa. That mistake led to the deaths of 14 Americans, along with 21 other wounded at a Christmas party in San Bernardino. And now we have the leftists all up in arms over tracking and having a means to know who is entering our nation. Perhaps if they had something similar in Germany, there would be folks still alive, and not run down by a truck at a Christmas festival.

But, it’s obviously the goal of the left, and their favored son Obama, to have those open borders and just allow anyone wanton entry into America. After all, we know there are several far leftist mayors more willing to protect criminal illegal aliens than American citizens. So, here we have another lesson: don’t blame Donald Trump about a registry; it was something enacted after the biggest Islamic terror attack on our soil. And now we have Barack Obama too busy scorching our nation and placing our citizens at risk, all because he didn’t get his way.

Lastly, what a cowardly move by Obama, and his designated henchperson, Samantha Power, at the United Nations, to abstain from the vote on the anti-Israel resolution in the UN Security Council. This comes after the Trump transition team worked with Egypt to have the resolution withdrawn. That only stymied the efforts of Obama for a short while, as they found someone else, non-permanent members, to reintroduce the resolution…and then Obama sent word to abstain from the vote.

A single US no vote would have ended this resolution. And let’s have the honest conversation here. First of all, these are not “settlements,” they’re neighborhoods being built in the land of the rightful owners, the Jewish people of Israel. What an incredible double cross — but then again, what would you expect from the same Barack Obama who dispatched campaign operatives to Israel to undermine the reelection of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? Funny, you don’t hear the left complaining about Obama’s interference into a foreign nation’s election. And once again, Obama lost, so not only does he have a scorched earth policy for America, but also Israel.

You know, I read that the left went apoplectic about the RNC Christmas message which talked about a “new king.” And this is coming from the folks who portrayed Obama as a messianic figure — some even referred to him as a savior. Well, that he ain’t. He’s a very mortal man, but such a lesser man, petulant, self-centered, and delusional. This is the guy who says he’ll be a “talent scout” for the Democrat Party? Like I said, when your opposition is digging a hole, just supply them with more shovels.

Barack Obama had no intention of assisting the transition of Donald J. Trump into the White House. It will be far worse that when the Clintons left and they took out every single “W” from keyboards on computers in the White House, you know, George W. Bush was the new president. The Clintons also stole the White House china sets — they were dead broke ya know. Those childish antics of the Clintons pale in comparison to what Obama will do in his final days before departing 1600 Pennsylvania. Obama will instill damage to our nation in order to thwart the efforts of the incoming presidential administration.

You hear little or nothing of this from the liberal media, his accomplices. They’re primed to act, challenge, and attack a President Trump at every turn as he seeks to dismantle the harm done. In the end, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s actions through the south may pale in comparison to what Obama seeks to do. And just so you know, folks down South Georgia still don’t like the name of Sherman.

We don’t need history to judge Barack Hussein Obama, that happened on November 8th. It will only get worse as he evidences his true colors — and they aren’t red, white, and blue.


3a) Obama's malice, May's shame. Drain the UN swamp
By Melanie Phillips

President Obama’s refusal to veto the sickening UN Security Council resolution against Israel yesterday was an act of pure malice.

The resolution, demanding an immediate halt to all Israeli “settlement” construction, was proposed by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal after its original sponsor, Egypt, had withdrawn. No-one can be in any doubt, though, that the resolution’s real sponsor was Obama, acting behind the backs of the US Congress and the American people.

Clearly it makes a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians very much harder, since the Palestinians will now have no incentive to negotiate the boundaries of a future Palestine state.

Worse than that, it seeks to draw the border of Israel along the ceasefire lines established in 1949, when Israel fought off the Arab attempt to exterminate it at its rebirth. These ceasefire lines have been called the “Auschwitz borders” because they leave Israel militarily indefensible against its enemies. These include the Palestinians who remain committed to destroy Israel – and whose infernal cause the UN, manipulated by Obama, has now backed.

Worse even than that, the resolution is legally illiterate and perpetrates the Big Lie about Israel: that the “settlements” violate international law and that they are the major obstacle to peace.

They do not violate international law and no UN resolution can make them unlawful. Israel is legally entitled to build on this territory. This is principally because 1) it was never sovereign land belonging to any other state and 2) because it was land where the UN’s precursor body pledged that the Jews should be settled on account of their unique right to do so.

The idea that the settlements are the greatest obstacle to peace is ludicrous. There were no settlements before 1967, yet the Arab war of extermination against Israel had already gone on for decades.

There are two actual reasons for the Middle East impasse: first, that the Palestinians continuously incite their people to hatred of the Jews and mass murder of Israelis on the back of a narrative of lies which writes the Jews out of their own history in the land; and second, that America, Britain and Europe fund, sanitise and incentivise that genocidal Palestinian agenda.http://melaniephillips.com/obamas-malice-mays-shame-drain-un-swamp/

What this vote so clearly demonstrates is what has been clear for years: that the UN is no longer fit for purpose. Dominated by states implacably hostile to Israel and the Jewish people, the UN has long demonstrated through its egregious application of double standards against Israel alone that it has become nothing less than an instrument of extermination against a member state. Only the US restrained it; now Obama has allied America to this agenda of infamy.

The US Congress and new American president must now finally hold the UN to account. It is insupportable that the American people should be financing this rogue body which is not just motivated by ideological and religious malevolence against the Jewish people but actively damages world peace.

There is another country, however, whose behaviour over this resolution must be noted with grim dismay (we can forget New Zealand, a stupid country of no other significance). As one of the five permanent Security Council members, Britain could have vetoed the resolution. Instead it actually supported it.

Since she came to power last July the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, has gone out off her way to express her warm affection for the Jewish people and her strong support for the State of Israel.

Her words now stick in the throat. If Obama has committed a foul and final act of malice towards Israel, Mrs May has done something just as bad, if not worse: presented herself as the friend upon whom the Jewish people can rely while her government stuck the knife not into Israel’s back, as did Obama, but its front.

Two weeks ago, Mrs May told the Conservative Friends of Israel that the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which the British government committed itself to the re-establishment of the Jewish homeland in Palestine, was “one of the most important letters in history” and that next year’s anniversary of the Declaration was one that Britain would be “marking with pride”.

There is no reason to doubt that she is personally warmly disposed towards the Jews and Israel. But her understanding seems terribly limited. The reality, of which she seems to be genuinely unaware, is that for three decades after the Balfour Declaration the British did everything they could to undo it.

They turned a blind eye to Arab pogroms against the Jews of Palestine. They tore up Britain’s internationally binding obligation to settle the Jews throughout that land, making Britain an accessory to the Holocaust by refusing Jewish refugees entry to Palestine during the Nazi period. And they offered the Arabs, as a response to their murderous violence against both the Jews and the British, part of the Jews’ own entitlement to the land.

Britain’s wholesale disregard of international law, its craven appeasement of the Arabs’ violence and its further punishment of their Jewish victims cemented permanent Arab aggression and rejectionism towards Israel. Yesterday at the UN, making common cause with ideologues, appeasers and tyrants, perfidious Albion continued its betrayal of the Jewish people.

The scene is now set for the US to tackle the reservoir of evil that the UN has become. Not before time. This is one swamp that most urgently needs to be drained.

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4)

Destroy the United Nations

By Josh Hammer  

Sometimes enough really is just enough.  And so it is here.

The United Nations, which emerged out of the ashes of the Second World War and the Shoah but which has come to embody that which it was initially formed to oppose, has long ceased serving any useful function.  Ironically founded in no small part to better secure the Jewish fate, the wretched hive of morally relativistic scum and Western values-loathing villainy has long succumbed to strongman sycophancy, noxious Arab supremacism, and perverse Islamist-Leftist dogma.  The grotesque body that once so pusillanimously slandered Zionism as “racism” has now doubled down on its obsessive Jew-hatred with Friday’s Security Council passage of Resolution 2334, a disgraceful screed that betrays Leftist attempts to legitimize the Yitzhak Rabin/Yasser Arafat-negotiated Oslo Acccords framework and seeks to unilaterally impose final settlement terms on the Israelis and the Palestinians that would enforce the (literally) indefensible “1967 borders” armistice line.

Notwithstanding that the “1967 borders,” decried by virtually the entire Israeli defense edifice and sardonically lambasted by many in the tiny Jewish state as “Auschwitz borders,” would shrink Israel to a mere nine miles wide at its narrowest point.  Notwithstanding that 2334 rewards the kleptocratic, jihadi martyr-subsidizing Palestinian Authority, which has turned down multiple generous Israeli offers of full-fledged statehood in this century alone, and of late has allied with Muslim Brotherhood offshoot Sunni sharia supremacist terror group Hamas in a “unity government,” for instigating a bloody “knife intifada” that consisted of stabbing as many Jerusalem Jews as the jihadists could find.  Notwithstanding that, under 2334, the two holiest sites in all of Judaism (the Temple Mount and the Western Wall) have their history scurrilously rewritten by Islamophilic revisionists so as to unfathomably render them part of “occupied Palestinian territory.”  Notwithstanding that, under 2334, the entire Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, where Jews have lived for literally millennia, is also deemed “occupied Palestinian territory” in its entirety.  Notwithstanding that, under 2334, Jesus (born as a Jew in Bethlehem) would have been considered an “illegal settler” in “occupied Palestinian territory.”  Notwithstanding that, as my friend Eugene Kontorovich aptly demonstrates, the actual underlying legal dispute with respect to Judea and Samaria is far from settled.

To say that this is reprehensibly ugly and shameful would be to put it mildly.  Such misanthropic anti-Judeo-Christian and pro-Arabist historical revisionism is, of course, par for the course for the feckless dolts at the supra-national, sovereignty-undermining institution that perverts Manhattan’s East River skyline.

But by not only formally abstaining at the vote but (by all accounts) also surreptitiously working behind the scenes to lobby passage of Resolution 2334, the unhinged Obama Administration and its sharia supremacism-abetting foot soldiers in Foggy Bottom have truly struck a dagger into the very essence of the American role at the U.N.  For decades, the U.S. could be counted upon to exercise its permanent Security Council veto to stop such misguided anti-Israel assaults in their tracks.  Indeed, many conservatives reluctantly acceded to U.S. funding and membership in the international body for something akin to precisely this reason.  Over my personal protestations, I have heard this express rationale from many conservative friends.

In a moment of true clarity, though, the unholy Leftist trinity of Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Samantha Power savagely betrayed Israel and disproved the alleged efficacy of such a long-term strategy.  So be it.  But now the global progressive Left, ever in love with its would-be transnational overlords at the U.N., must pay a steep price for that betrayal.

That price is simple.  Donald Trump and the Republican-led U.S. Congress should declare war on the United Nations.  No actual bullets need be fired, but it is now time to do everything in our power to destroy any remaining claimed credibility and legitimacy for the U.N.  Yes, destroy.

Fully defunding the God-forsaken multinationalist entity of any U.S. taxpayer dollars should be an immediate first step.  Next, the Trump Administration should take any and all necessary steps to get that blighted symbol of illiberal autocracy and Jew-hatred off Manhattan’s proud skyline.  Steve has some good ideas for how to accomplish that.  I’d only add (and, given the U.N.’s idiosyncratic legal status, I’m actually not positive how this might work) that, despite my usual firm opposition to eminent domain, I would be on board with the idea of using it to kick the U.N. out of New York.  Removing the Western democracy-bashing, terrorist-abetting “diplomats” from Turtle Bay might plausibly count as a “public use” in its own right, per the Fifth Amendment textual requirement.  But to solidify (if necessary, here?) Fifth Amendment requirements, just for good measure, and also to show what he really thinks of the amorphous, anti-Semitic “international community,” Trump should then install an elaborate missile defense system there in the building’s stead in eastern Manhattan.  Right in the rubble of the U.N. building.  And he should point the missile defense system directly at Tehran.

Next, after the repulsive body is defunded and kicked off our sovereign shores, and after soon-to-be U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley has spent a week or two enjoying herself by trolling the international body and making extensive use of her two middle fingers, the U.S. should formally and fully withdraw its membership status.  The Obama Administration has singularly destroyed the rationale underlying the only quasi-legitimate reason to retain membership status, which is to use the veto power to block irksome Security Council resolutions.  That (perhaps always) quixotic ideal died last Friday, with Samantha Power’s disgraceful abstention on Resolution 2334.  Since there is literally no other compelling reason for the U.S. to formally bless the legitimacy of a morally perverse body that praises Fidel Castro but says Jews have no ties to the Western Wall, we should rip the Band-Aid off in its entirety.  The U.N. already undermines our constitutional self-rule and hamstrings our foreign policy by submitting it to the capricious whims of autocrats and dictators.  Be gone already.

Finally, after congressional defunding, the building of a missile defense system in the literal ashes of the former U.N. edifice in Turtle Bay, and formal withdrawal, conservatives and U.N. skeptics must commence a systemic, profound assault in the public discourse to deprive the institution of any extant legitimacy.  President Trump should make an affirmative case for full withdrawal in his State of the Union Address, and he can supplement the formal case by (in true Trumpist fashion) adding the occasional mocking insult or two toward Ban Ki-moon and his illicit henchmen.  Trump can taunt their newfound inability to prevent the U.S. from taking whatever actions it wants to take vis a vis either the Sunni (e.g., Islamic State or Muslim Brotherhood) or Shi’ite (i.e., Iran) jihads.  Sitting conservative politicians should make a concerted effort to tout the benefits of our being constitutionally and geopolitically unshackled on the Sunday talk show circuit, and in other mainstream media more broadly.  Like-minded Western allies should be encouraged to follow us out the door and to not look back.  And if the mainstream Jewish establishment (represented by traditional, non-right-wing groups like AIPAC, AJC, and the Jewish Federations of North America) has any sense of pride and post-Obama era hardened realism as to the threats to Israel, it ought to enthusiastically join in this public relations effort.

With the body sinking deeper and deeper into self-parody, a concerted effort at shaming, delegitiziming, and (yes) fully withdrawing from the U.N. is long overdue.  The United Nations is a disgraceful black mark on our national conscience and, upon assuming office, Donald Trump and the Republican-led Congress should waste little time in stripping these retrograde anti-Semites of any and all American imprimaturs.  As far as I’m concerned, the Jew-hating scum who pathetically virtue signal when it comes to Assad’s butchery in Syria but instead choose to focus on anti-Semitic resolutions like Friday’s 2334 farce can all go to hell.  Yes, to hell.

What was once a well-intentioned attempt to prevent the excesses of European-style nationalism has long degenerated into a punch line.  And a bigoted Jew-hating punch line, at that.  It is long time to assure the same fate for this toothless body as was met by all the scores of groups who tried, but failed, over millennia in their own myriad ways to harm and ultimately eradicate the Jewish people.

Be gone already.  United Nations delenda est.

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5)MY FAREWELL COLUMN

Thomas Sowell looks back at quarter century of writing syndicated commentary

THOMAS SOWELL

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif. He is the author of 28 books, including "Dismantling America" and "Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy."

Even the best things come to an end.  After enjoying a quarter of a century of writing this column for Creators Syndicate, I have decided to stop. Age 86 is well past the usual retirement age, so the question is not why I am quitting, but why I kept at it so long.

It was very fulfilling to be able to share my thoughts on the events unfolding around us, and to receive feedback from readers across the country – even if it was impossible to answer them all.

Being old-fashioned, I liked to know what the facts were before writing. That required not only a lot of research, it also required keeping up with what was being said in the media.

During a stay in Yosemite National Park last May, taking photos with a couple of my buddies, there were four consecutive days without seeing a newspaper or a television news program – and it felt wonderful. With the political news being so awful this year, it felt especially wonderful.

This made me decide to spend less time following politics and more time on my photography, adding more pictures to my website (www.tsowell.com).

Looking back over the years, as old-timers are apt to do, I see huge changes, both for the better and for the worse.

In material things, there has been almost unbelievable progress. Most Americans did not have refrigerators back in 1930, when I was born. Television was little more than an experiment, and such things as air-conditioning or air travel were only for the very rich.

My own family did not have electricity or hot running water in my early childhood, which was not unusual for blacks in the South in those days.

It is hard to convey to today’s generation the fear that the paralyzing disease of polio inspired, until vaccines put an abrupt end to its long reign of terror in the 1950s.

Most people living in officially defined poverty in the 21st century have things like cable television, microwave ovens and air-conditioning. Most Americans did not have such things, as late as the 1980s. People whom the intelligentsia continue to call the “have-nots” today have things that the “haves” did not have, just a generation ago.

In some other ways, however, there have been some serious retrogressions over the years. Politics, and especially citizens’ trust in their government, has gone way downhill.

Back in 1962, President John F. Kennedy, a man narrowly elected just two years earlier, came on television to tell the nation that he was taking us to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, because the Soviets had secretly built bases for nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from America.

Most of us did not question what he did. He was president of the United States, and he knew things the rest of us couldn’t know – and that was good enough for us. Fortunately, the Soviets backed down. But could any president today do anything like that and have the American people behind him?

Years of lying presidents – Democrat Lyndon Johnson and Republican Richard Nixon, especially – destroyed not only their own credibility, but the credibility which the office itself once conferred. The loss of that credibility was a loss to the country, not just to the people holding that office in later years.

With all the advances of blacks over the years, nothing so brought home to me the social degeneration in black ghettos like a visit to a Harlem high school some years ago.

When I looked out the window at the park across the street, I mentioned that, as a child, I used to walk my dog in that park. Looks of horror came over the students’ faces, at the thought of a kid going into the hell hole that park had become in their time.

When I have mentioned sleeping out on a fire escape in Harlem during hot summer nights, before most people could afford air-conditioning, young people have looked at me like I was a man from Mars. But blacks and whites alike had been sleeping out on fire escapes in New York since the 19th century. They did not have to contend with gunshots flying around during the night.

We cannot return to the past, even if we wanted to, but let us hope that we can learn something from the past to make for a better present and future.
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Sometimes enough really is just enough.  And so it is here