My oldest son-in-law is a good photographer and he took this while they are vacationing in Sedona, Arizona.
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Is this Administration actually going to cut appropriations to The U.N? Is this sacred cow going to be milked? (See 1 and 1a below.)
Meanwhile:
Sec. Tillerson is soon to visit China and it is his responsibility to advise them that because they have failed to curb N. Korea, American foreign policy toward N.Korea now encompasses both a first strike initiative and a willingness to shoot down their missiles at the time of launch.
Eventually this will become the same policy towards Iran if we are consistent. (See 1b below.)
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It appears the Sniper Video I previously posted entitled:
Medal of Honor - Sniper Mission 2 - YouTube, is not real, it is a Video Game .
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Trump's strategy differs from Obama's when it comes to a future PLO- Israeli Peace Deal. More carrotts in the preparation salad? (See 2 below.)
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The illegal release of Trump's tax 2005 return shows he paid at a rate of about 25% which suggests he has good tax advisers and, being in the real estate business, is entitled to a lot of write-off's.
The continued effort to "get" Trump is wearing thin but hypocrisy is part of politics, those in power and most particularly part of the DNA of those on MSNBC. ( (See 3 below.)
I understand why Trump haters act as they do. He was voted in office by those who believe it is time to redirect the nation away from the policies that have changed our government, our life style and freedoms in ways most no longer recognize and/or like.
I also understand those in power hate to lose the perks of office and thus, resist. In fact, they will do just about anything to stay in power because it has brought them luxuries and rewards beyond their wildest dreams.
After decades of decadence change seemed to be in order and this is what we are now experiencing. Policies that have not worked, policies that have been wrong headed are now being super-ceded by new policies that, hopefully, will bring about needed and desired changes.
It will take time for these changes to be legislated and more time for them to have an impact. Those who believe Trump should have less than 50 days to accomplish ridding decades of rot are simply wrong and their complaints are based on prejudice rather than reason.
Just a little while ago a Federal Judge in Hawaii, an Obama appointee, basically wrote an opinion stating that because Trump campaigned in a racial manner he could not limit his interpretation to the words of a document that Constitutionally allows Trump to determine who comes into our country and who cannot.
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Dick
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1)
The White House Explores Cutting Funding To The United Nations, And – You Guessed It – The Left Is Freaking Out!
By Chris Queen
The Trump administration is preparing its budget proposal, and word is that State Department staffers have received warnings that the White House is looking at cutting up to 50 percent of the $10 billion a year in funding that the United States provides to the United Nations.
Just mentioning cutting UN funding get the Left to freaking out, as Colum Lynch over at Foreign Policy demonstrates. Read the breathlessness of some of his article on the cuts:
State Department staffers have been instructed to seek cuts in excess of 50 percent in U.S. funding for U.N. programs, signaling an unprecedented retreat by President Donald Trump’s administration from international operations that keep the peace, provide vaccines for children, monitor rogue nuclear weapons programs, and promote peace talks from Syria to Yemen, according to three sources.
The push for such draconian measures comes as the White House is scheduled on Thursday to release its 2018 budget proposal, which is expected to include cuts of up to 37 percent for spending on the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign assistance programs, including the U.N., in next year’s budget.
It remains unclear whether the full extent of the steeper U.N. cuts will be reflected in the 2018 budget, which will be prepared by the White House Office of Management and Budget, or whether, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has proposed, the cuts would be phased in over the coming three years. One official close to the Trump administration said Tillerson has been given flexibility to decide how the cuts would be distributed.
Lynch continues his sky-is-falling quoting experts who lament that such “strong and disproportionate cuts” will “create ‘chaos.'” Apparently high on the list of areas ripe for cutting are UN services that offer “family planning” (read: abortions) and pro-Palestinian organizations.
Lynch even quotes a Heritage Foundation analyst who admits that 50-percent cuts to UN funding would be difficult, but the vast majority of the article’s analysis comes from a left-leaning perspective, including a dire warning against cutting funding from – big surprise – a former Obama administration staffer.
The fact of the matter is, drastic cuts to our United Nations funding face a tough road ahead in Congress – and even Lynch takes a breath long enough to admit it. Even if the cuts make it into the finished budget and Tillerson has the latitude to determine how the administration implements them, they’ll likely be more gradual than the worst fears. But that won’t stop the Left from freaking out over them, that’s for sure.
1a) What America Really Needs To Do About the UN
This week brings fresh reports that the Trump White House wants to slash funding to the United Nations, possibly by as much as 50%.
1b)
1a) What America Really Needs To Do About the UN
Author: CLAUDIA ROSETT
This week brings fresh reports that the Trump White House wants to slash funding to the United Nations, possibly by as much as 50%.
That would be a wise move, and if that's what actually happens, it would be a good start and a welcome signal — the first from an American president in many years — that it is time for the UN to stop treating Washington as a moronic sugar-daddy.
It is way past time for the UN (and Washington itself) to stop treating U.S. tax dollars as a multi-billion-dollar annual entitlement for the bigots and thug governments that so amply populate Turtle Bay.
It is time for the U.S. to stop shelling out roughly $10 billion per year for the benefit of a UN in which, for instance, the member states have just elected — I'm not kidding — the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, as head of the largest voting caucus at the UN assemblies in Vienna.
But behind any move to slash UN funding loom a number of questions. What, precisely, might America hope to achieve? Where can this go? If the aim is to reform the UN, is that even possible?
These are among the questions I address in a Broadside pamphlet published this week by Encounter Books, on “What To Do About the UN.” The usual defense of the UN is that it may be “imperfect,” but “it's all we've got” — a refrain that tends to be accompanied by prescriptions for reforms that either won't stick, or won't work at all.
My argument is, if the UN is all we've got, then it is way past time to come up with something else. And while it happens fairly often that columnists here and there (myself included) will call for defunding the UN, replacing the UN, supplanting the UN, and so forth, there is very little in the public domain that actually explores, in serious ways, in detail, with the benefit of real expertise, exactly how America might divorce itself from the UN, and avail itself of arrangements more appropriate to the 21st century.
In the elite circles of Washington and New York, there has long been an implicit taboo on any serious call for the U.S. to shrug off the UN. It's time to end that taboo. It is time for a real debate. It is time for some of those with the know-how, resources, and genuine goodwill toward future generations, to take a serious, in-depth look at the opportunity cost to America of cleaving to the UN. What possibilities are we passing up, in order to maintain this multilateral morass? Is the UN really the best we can do? Could we please start asking these questions not as a rhetorical flourish, but as serious questions?
Some background, in case you are not already acquainted with Encounter's Broadsides. Mine is the 50th in a series that over the past seven years or so has included essays by such figures as former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Ambassador John Bolton, and PJMedia columnists Andrew McCarthy and Victor Davis Hanson. These Broadsides are a project of Encounter Books, which is run by my PJ Media colleague Roger Kimball, who in a 2010 post on PJ Media called these publications “a wakeup call. An alarm bell. A blueprint,” and further described them thus:
…they are modestly priced, handsomely printed essays of some 5000-7000 words — long enough to elaborate a case, short enough to be composed quickly by a seasoned writer and to be read in a sitting.
In my Broadside on “What to Do About the UN,” I argue that the UN, for all the high-minded aims of its charter, is basically configured to fail, and is doing so in ways increasingly dangerous to the U.S.
In my Broadside on “What to Do About the UN,” I argue that the UN, for all the high-minded aims of its charter, is basically configured to fail, and is doing so in ways increasingly dangerous to the U.S.
The UN, for all its flowery promises, was designed with appalling flaws from the start. The UN operates with no real accountability, no functional moral compass, and no mechanism for acquiring any such vital features. The problems that lead almost inevitably to the UN's bigotry, waste and abuse of its lavish funding and ever-expanding mandates are written into its tyrant-friendly, diplomatically immune collectively irresponsible DNA. The incentives suggest, and the record goes far to confirm, that for America the effort to genuinely reform the UN is a project about as promising as investing in the golden future of the workhorse, Boxer, in George Orwell's “Animal Farm.”
Unwinding the U.S. from the UN might seem a daunting project. But surely it is worth asking whether the toll of sticking with the UN might turn out to be even worse. If I may quote from the closing lines of my Broadside on the UN (yes, I am hoping you might be interested to read it in full):
The UN is swift to tout its own achievements, real or imagined. But there is plenty in the record to suggest that the more we understand about the real workings of the U.N., the stronger the case for consigning it to the heap of failed collectivist experiments of the 20th century and for designing better alternatives. Either this task gets done in the not-so-distant future because men of vision and good will put their minds to finding ways to do it. Or it waits upon the aftermath of some cataclysm, toward which the U.N., as now configured, increasingly impels us.
1b)
The US Prepares To ‘incapacitate’ Kim Jong-Un As Super Carrier USS Carl Vinson (Fully Loaded) Arrives In South Korea
A growing US presence off the Korean Peninsula is reportedly part of a plan aimed at ‘incapacitating’ Kim Jong-Un’s despotic regime in Pyongyang should conflict break out.
A nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier arrived in South Korea on Wednesday for joint military exercises in the latest show of force against the North.
The USS Carl Vinson arrived at the southern port of Busan as US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson began a tour of the region, where tensions have escalated in recent weeks with missile launches from the nuclear-armed North and the assassination of Kim Jong-Un’s estranged half-brother in Malaysia.
More than 80 aircraft, including the fighter aircraft F/A-18F Super Hornet, the E-2C Hawkeye and the carrier-based EA-18G Growler are on board the super carrier.
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency claims the heightened military presence is part of a plan to decapitate North Korean leadership.
The Daily Mail reports,
Washington insist they are purely defensive in nature.They claim a military official, who wished to remain anonymous, told them: ‘A bigger number of and more diverse U.S. special operation forces will take part in this year’s Foal Eagle and Key Resolve exercises to practice missions to infiltrate into the North, remove the North’s war command and demolition of its key military facilities.’The aircraft carrier and a US destroyer will conduct naval drills including an anti-submarine manoeuvre with South Koreans in waters off the Korean peninsula as part of the annual Foal Eagle exercise.
Rear Admiral James Kilby, commander of USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group 1, said: ‘The importance of the exercise is to continue to build our alliance and our relationship and strengthen that working relationship between our ships.’
Yonhap news agency said the navy drills will begin next week.
The US has also started to deploy ‘Gray Eagle’ attack drones to South Korea, a military spokesman revealed on Monday.
South Korean and U.S. troops began the large-scale joint drills on March 1.
The exercise last year involved about 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans. This year’s exercise is expected to be of a similar scale.
The spike in tensions has concerned Beijing, with China’s Foreign Ministry calling on all sides to end ‘a vicious cycle that could spiral out of control.’
North Korea, which has alarmed its neighbours with two nuclear tests and a string of missile launches since last year, said the arrival of the US strike group was part of a ‘reckless scheme’ to attack it.
The North Korea’s state KCNA news agency said: ‘If they infringe on the DPRK’s sovereignty and dignity even a bit, its army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater.
‘On March 11 alone, many enemy carrier-based aircraft flew along a course near territorial air and waters of the DPRK to stage drills of dropping bombs and making surprise attacks on the ground targets of its army,’ KCNA said.
Last week, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan in response to annual U.S.-South Korea military drills, which the North sees as preparation for war.
The murder in Malaysia last month of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother has added to the sense of urgency to efforts to get a grip on North Korea.
Visiting the headquarters of an army unit early this month, Kim praised his troops for their ‘vigilance against the US and South Korean enemy forces that are making frantic efforts for invasion’, according to the North’s official KCNA news agency.
2) Middle East Expert: In Dramatic Shift From Obama, Trump Appears to Be Adopting ‘Bottom-Up’ Approach to Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking
by Barney Breen-Portnoy
The Trump administration seems to be adopting a “bottom-up” approach to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking that represents a dramatic shift from that held by the Obama administration over the past eight years, a former State Department Middle East negotiator told The Algemeiner on Tuesday.
“I think it is too early to tell about the details, but if you look at the elements of what Trump is trying to do, they are fundamentally different from what Obama tried to do,” Aaron David Miller — a vice president at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, DC and a CNN global affairs analyst — said. “However, whether or not they end up in the same place is another matter.”
The Trump administration’s apparent goal, in Miller’s view, is not to reach a comprehensive peace deal now, but rather lay the groundwork for a potential future one — “by working with the Israelis on a set of confidence-builders on one hand, and trying to engage the Arabs states on the other, to get them to press the Palestinians and offer the Israelis incentives to go farther.”
One difference between the Trump and Obama administrations, Miller noted, is that “there is no effort [by the Trump administration] to box the Israelis in and create a public frame of reference on settlement activity…[Instead] they are trying to reach some sort of private agreement with the Israelis on where and what kind of settlement building is permitted.”
Furthermore, Miller said, the Trump administration “seems to be less solicitous of Palestinian needs and requirements.”
“Yet,” he continued, “clearly the president’s phone call with [Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud] Abbas on Friday and Jason Greenblatt’s efforts to engage the Palestinians today in Ramallah suggests to me that at least they realize that this isn’t one hand clapping and they’ve got to somehow deal with both sides.”
On Monday, Greenblatt — Trump’s special representative for international negotiations — met for more than five hours with Netanyahu in Jerusalem. According to a statement released by Netanyahu’s office, the two “reaffirmed the joint commitment of both Israel and the United States to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians that strengthens the security of Israel and enhances stability in the region.”
Netanyahu and Greenblatt, the statement said, also worked on reaching an understanding on settlement construction “that is consistent with the goal of advancing peace and security.”
At a joint White House press conference last month, Trump asked Netanyahu to “hold back on settlements for a little bit” — a request that surprised Israel.
On this matter, Miller said, the first questions are: “What is Mr. Netanyahu able to do on settlements that will pass the political test in Israel? And what is he going to get for it that he can use to make sure his coalition survives?”
“And the even bigger questions,” he went on to say, “are will it [an US-Israel settlement understanding] accomplish anything? In other words, will the Palestinians and the Arabs buy it and in turn pay something for it?”
“Whatever they agree on settlements has got to be, in my judgment, part of a broader package,” he stated. “If you want to achieve anything, it’s got to somehow be pre-layered. You remember what happened with the 10-month [settlement construction] freeze [in 2009-10]? Nothing.”
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3) Maddow’s illegal release of Trump’s tax return is media flop
By Tom Shattuck, Boston Herald
We’ve dodged two winter storms in a row. The first was the named Stella and the second looked to be called Rachel, as in Rachel Maddow.
Nature will take its course, but Maddow veered wildly off course last night when the pride of MSNBC announced via social media that she had Donald Trump’s tax returns and would release them at 9 p.m.
As the big moment approached, she clarified that it would be returns from just 2005 that we’d see.
Fine.
Then the moment of truth and …
Nothing.
Maddow had two pages of Trump’s 2005 tax return which showed him earning $150 million and paying $38 million in taxes.
No Russians. No shady deals. Nothing.
And with that, millions of people who dared to sample MSNBC, if just once, returned home to the comfort of Tucker Carlson on Fox News.
The left built the “fake news” template to explain away the 2016 presidential election and has repeatedly fit into it seamlessly.
They don’t even notice anymore. The National Enquirer must envy the flim flam accusations the media has thrown at Trump.
But they have nothing.
Last night was a perfect illustration
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