- Barack Obama's net worth as of the 2000
- election: $8 million
- Barack Obama's net worth as of the 2012
- election: $24 million.
- Barack Obama's net worth as of December 2015
- : $46 million...
- Not bad... considering his salary as president for
- 8 years was a paltry $400,000 a year!
- The Clinton's net worth in 1992 was between
- $500,000 and $1 million.
- Bill & Hillary Clinton's net worth stood at more
- than $240 million as of Oct 26, 2017, according
- to a FORBES analysis of 15 years of their tax
- returns. Not bad for working in government for 25 years.
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Just back from Detroit and my visit to be with some family members celebrating the first birthday of our first granddaughter. Pictures will follow
Meanwhile I want to write a little piece entitled: Blue Highways Versus Blue Skies:
Lynn and I prefer to drive and take the blue highways if we have the time and the distance is around 750 miles. Why. Well it is cheaper than flying, it is more fun, because we see part of our beautiful country, and make an interesting trip out of it because we stop at antique stores, eat where the natives eat and explore some of the various attractions, college campuses , museums and historical sites. A normal two day trip means: motel around 250, food around 250 and gas around 75.
We also love coast to coast trips and hope to see most every state before we no longer can do so.
Flying means wasting several hours getting to the airport before flight time, then getting off the plane after it lands, enduring the reduced seat size and the cabin is a germ factory, particularly this time of the year. My flight to Detroit entailed stopping in Atlanta, because few direct flights anywhere from Savannah. Delta's service has improved markedly but when you enter their large planes and squeeze into your seat after trying to stuff your hand carried luggage Delta's cordiality fades. Then you can be subject to a companion passenger who spills over into your own space. (As Americans become more obese, airline seats shrink - go figure. Even stewardesses no longer can walk down the aisles. Most are older and broader themselves)
The Atlanta Airport is a human zoo and when you squeeze passengers into the new "uge" planes you now have been caged. For me it is still those blue highways.
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Yes, Obama did what he could to defeat Netanyahu. (See 1 below)
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Sen. Flaked went overboard. (See 2 below.)
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It is now time for Trump and the Republicans to start informing the nation that they may have the majority in the Senate and The House but they cannot pass much as long as the Democrats want to stiff Trump in order to win The House in 2018 so they can impeach him.Trump needs to drive this point home.
There is not doubt his personality, his tweeting and coarse language are a turn off but he has also proven he wants to get things done for the betterment of our nation but cannot because Schumer and Pelosi are not willing to meet him half way and seem not to care a fig about what is best for our nation.
Republicans are not monolithic and this creates problems while Democrats march in lockstep and that creates other problems.
Nothing I write or say will change the minds of those who believe Trump is the problem because he is jello according to Schumer and Dick Durbin, who, in my opinion, are snake oil salesmen. (See 3, 3a and 3b below.)
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Probably the first time ever an agency head said he did not need new money. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1) NEW SCANDAL IN OBAMA'S WAR AGAINST NETANYAHU 'Gave U.S. taxpayer dollars to a terrorist... by E. Pluribus Unum
NEW SCANDAL IN OBAMA'S WAR AGAINST NETANYAHU 'Gave U.S. taxpayer dollars to a terrorist-affiliated organization']
Democrats in Washington have expressed outrage over still-unproved allegations the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to defeat their candidate, Hillary Clinton.
But Democrats and their media allies have been virtually silent regarding evidence of interference by Democrat Barack Obama in Israel’s elections.
Last October, WND CEO Joseph Farah pointed out the Obama administration sent money in 2015 to a non-profit U.S. group that sought to prevent Benjamin Netanyahu from forming a coalition government to remain as prime minister.
“When a Jew Rules the World: What the Bible Really Says About Israel in the Plan of God” – a chance for Christians to rediscover their true identity as fellow heirs of promise with the House of Israel. Get your copy of this important book today at the WND Superstore!
A probe by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that the Obama State Department gave $349,276 in U.S. taxpayer-funded grants to a political group in Israel called OneVoice to build a campaign operation that, subsequently, was used to try to persuade Israelis to vote against Netanyahu.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Now there’s new information, according to the American Center for Law and Justice, that the Obama administration’s intervention was even worse.
2) How Not to Defend the Free Press
Playing the ‘Stalin’ card against Trump while ignoring pervasive media bias does nothing to defend the First Amendment.
Following the November 2016 election, many of those deeply shocked by Donald Trump’s victory engaged in hysterical commentary about the imminent end of American freedom. This theme was frequently repeated prior to his taking office and helped generate a massive turnout at the women’s march that served as a counter-inaugural event. But even as Trump managed to fuel outrage from the “resistance” with controversial remarks and tweets in the months that followed, the talk about the collapse of democracy or parallels to Weimar Germany that had been so prevalent soon faded. While many Americans were angered by Trump, and his favorability ratings sunk to record lows for a first-year president, not even the most rabid Trump hater on the left or diehard Never Trump advocate on the right could really pretend that their liberties were in danger from an administration that — the presidential Twitter account notwithstanding — was governing in the same manner one would have expected from any conservative Republican.
Yet despite the clear gap between the post-election hysteria and reality, this week the totalitarian analogies for Trump are making a comeback. In a much-discussed Senate speech by Senator Jeff Flake and a Washington Post op-ed by Senator John McCain, the theme of Trump as a threat to the free press was given new life. In particular, Flake took a page out of the resistance playbook by directly comparing the president’s attacks on his media critics to the rhetoric used by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
While both are right that press freedom is under attack around the world, they’re wrong to link that dangerous trend to Trump, let alone to use his name in the same sentence with that of a mass murderer. While Trump’s comments about the media are often wrongheaded, no one has been silenced, let alone been jailed for speaking or writing ill of the president. To the contrary, the last twelve months have illustrated the robust nature of press freedom in the United States, as much of the media has spent his first year engaging in non-stop attacks on all things Trump and has been rewarded with higher ratings and applause from its audience.
The president’s attempts to push back at his critics may sometimes be ill-considered, unfair, or not factual. But to interpret his anger as a threat to the First Amendment is to deliberately misunderstand not only his intent but also why his remarks resonate with so many Americans. If, as polls continue to show, most Americans don’t trust much of what they read, hear, or view in the media, it’s not because Donald Trump is demonizing the press; it’s because news consumers across the political spectrum have come to distrust journalists and see virtually everything that is published or broadcast as biased to one extent or another. To conflate, as do Flake, McCain, and many of those journalists who are enthusiastically applauding their comments, distrust of the media and anger about perceived bias with a desire to squelch the free press represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the media are viewed. It also does little to promote concern about genuine threats to press freedom elsewhere.
The context of the attacks on Trump by Flake and McCain was the aftermath of the firestorm provoked by Trump’s reported comments referring to immigrants from “sh**hole” countries. But it was part of an ongoing debate about Trump’s willingness to attack the press and to label coverage he didn’t like as “fake news.”
As both senators pointed out, Trump’s analysis of the media was rooted in his own bias. Trump’s extremely thin skin — even by presidential standards — when it comes to criticism is no secret. Nor is his well-known appetite for flattery, no matter where it might be coming from. But while his eagerness to attack media critics via his Twitter account is as unprecedented as many other aspects of this administration, the notion that bitter antagonism between the White House and journalists who don’t applaud the president’s every move is unique to Trump is absurd. Virtually all of Trump’s predecessors have been furious about the press, even if he is the first one to use social media to express that anger.
President Obama, whose cool temperament is often cited as a laudable example of presidential behavior that contrasts with that of Trump, was just as livid about his critics as his successor. Though his handlers wisely didn’t allow him to express himself on social media, Obama took every possible opportunity to excoriate news outlets that harped on his shortcomings or reported on his administration’s scandals. He didn’t use the term “fake news,” but he did his best to demonize Fox News’s coverage and to treat its viewers as victims of its bias, though most of what he seemed to be complaining about was not so much the opinions expressed by hosts like Sean Hannity but the channel’s reporting on topics such as administration spying on journalists and the IRS scandal. Indeed, he has continued to do so even after leaving the presidency, as he once again attacked Fox in a recent interview with David Letterman. Though Obama’s many fans, including those journalists who were reliable members of the “echo chamber” whom his staff relied on to promote favorable coverage of his policies, think he is a model of presidential behavior, the difference between those attacks and Trump’s tweets is merely one of tone, not substance. Both men treated hostile media as inherently illegitimate.
While unfortunate, their attitudes actually reflect those of most Americans.
As the latest Gallup poll indicates, most Americans simply don’t trust most of the media. Two-thirds say that journalists don’t separate facts from opinions and that coverage is tainted by ideological bias. Nor is this view limited to conservatives, who have complained about the liberal tilt of the mainstream media for decades. A clear majority of respondents to the poll said they could not name a single objective news source. This view is particularly prevalent among those under 50, whose memory of the media doesn’t necessarily stretch back to the pre–cable news and pre-Internet era, when mainstream icons such as Walter Cronkite were, fairly or unfairly, viewed as above politics.
Democrats, as opposed to Republicans and independents, are slightly more likely to think there are objective news sources. Yet that may reflect the conceit of some liberal outlets such as CNN that take the position that their blatant and consistent bias doesn’t matter, while the open tilt of a conservative network such as Fox News is disqualifying.
While Trump articulates his anger about the press in words that are often outrageous, what he is doing is merely an expression of the same sentiment of skepticism about the press that most voters, liberal or conservative, share. Far from being outrageous partisanship, recent examples of bias — such as the refusal of the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, or MSNBC to devote any coverage to the revelations in Politico’s recent report about the Obama administration’s shelving attempts to stop Hezbollah drug-running in order to appease Iran — illustrate why the attitudes expressed by Trump are mainstream rather than confined to the margins.
Flake is right that Trump shouldn’t use phrases such as “enemy of the people” about journalists. But to compare his self-interested complaints to Stalin’s use of the phrase is every bit as irresponsible as anything the president does.
Trump may ruminate publicly on his desire to put the press in its place and even to alter libel laws, which, in contrast to those in many other democracies, give journalists protection against lawsuits from those they attack. But he has not put those views into action, and there is no sign, nor any likelihood, that he will or even could, especially with respect to a change in the law that is not within his power. To make any analogy between that and the repression of freedom by Stalin or other foreign despots is the sort of hyperbole we expect from Trump, not someone like Flake, posing as a sober defender of freedom and moderation.
Nor is it fair to link Trump’s pushback against his critics to actions taken by contemporary despots. While Trump should be more careful about his rhetoric, dictators around the world need no instruction from him about how to suppress dissent.
It is particularly tone-deaf of Flake and McCain to use language that treats all attacks on journalists as opposition to the First Amendment. Journalists have a duty to hold politicians accountable. But in a democracy, they, too, must be called to account when they demonstrate bias, which, as most Americans rightly insist, is the rule rather than the exception.
The worst thing those who care about press freedom can do is ignore the public’s justified concerns about polarized and politicized media that are either singing the president’s praises or demonizing him. To interpret complaints about bias as an indicator that the First Amendment is in danger is the sort of hysteria that discredits Trump’s critics. Threats to press freedom abroad are no joke, but the notion that Trump’s tweets are in any way analogous to that problem tells us more about the hyper-partisan spirit of our times than it does about the president’s character flaws.
— Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.org and a contributor to National Review Online.
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3) Charles Is in Charge
By The Editorial Board
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3) Charles Is in Charge
Schumer previews life for Trump if Democrats retake Congress.
By The Editorial Board
Donald Trump spent 90 minutes talking to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at the White House on Friday trying to avoid a government shutdown, and after he left Mr. Schumer vouchsafed that “we made some progress.” But not enough to stop him and his fellow Democrats from filibustering a government funding bill and shutting down the government on Saturday. This is what Mr. Trump’s life will be like, times about 10, if Democrats retake the House and Senate in November. They’re going to torture him like a dancing bear.
The most important political fact of this latest shutdown melodrama is that Democrats feel they can get away with it. Democrats are essentially doing what GOP Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee tried in 2013 over repealing ObamaCare: Refuse to fund the government over an unrelated policy issue.
Democrats pilloried Republicans for that one, and Nancy Pelosi called them “legislative arsonists.” But now Mr. Schumer has rallied Democrats, or perhaps they’ve rallied him, to shut down the government over an immigration deadline that is still six weeks away and has nothing to do with funding the government. The audacity is impressive.
The House has passed its funding bill for 30 days along with some policy priorities Democrats profess to want, such as a six-year extension of the CHIP program for children’s health care. Mr. Trump says he’s waiting to sign it. But Mr. Schumer still wants to hold Mr. Trump and the government hostage to the minority’s political priority on immigration.
Democrats are insisting on their timetable for a deal to legalize the so-called Dreamers even though the two sides have only begun to negotiate in earnest and even though Mr. Trump has said he wants to work something out. Mr. Schumer is showing Mr. Trump who’s really in charge.
Democrats are pulling this shutdown stunt because they think they will pay no political price. They see Mr. Trump’s low approval rating. They saw the GOP rout in November in Virginia. They saw Democrats pick up the state Senate seat in Wisconsin this week that Republicans have held for 17 years. They have the press in their pocket. Above all, they figure that Mr. Trump is incapable of making a consistent, credible argument to the American people about the shutdown that might explain what Democrats are really doing.
And why not? Mr. Trump can give a speech saying one thing one day and issue a tweet contradicting himself the next. He nearly scuttled the House funding bill this week with a tweet that said CHIP funding shouldn't be part of any short-term spending bill. The other day he almost scuttled the renewal of Section 702 intelligence-gathering authority with another impulsive, ignorant tweet. Republicans on Capitol Hill could only roll their eyes and try to repair the damage.
Our guess is that this shutdown, if it happens over the weekend, will be short-lived as the sides work out some deal. But with another fight looming over a two-year budget, and another over raising the debt ceiling, the Schumer Democrats will be back at the same stand soon enough if they think it will play to their advantage. They want chaos in Washington because they think it will contribute to their emerging campaign theme that Mr. Trump is a dangerous man who can’t govern and must be checked by the opposing party.
This is the price Mr. Trump is paying for his reckless habit of tweeting before he thinks and squandering his credibility with false or uninformed statements. Even the 10 Democratic incumbents running in states Mr. Trump won in 2016 aren’t afraid of voting for a shutdown. Imagine how Democrats will treat him if the polls are right and Democrats run all of Congress next year. After a few months Mr. Trump may want to be impeached.
3a)
3a)
This Schumer Shutdown is absolutely ridiculous. It is totally irresponsible for the Democrats to use government funding as a bargaining chip.
Democrats have created a false deadline by trying to tie illegal immigration to government funding. As I’ve consistently said, these are two totally different issues and should be dealt with separately.
Ever since I was sworn into the United States Senate, I have been talking about the total collapse of the budgeting process. Only four times in the past 43 years has this budget process actually funded the federal government. These repeated failures have manifested into a pattern of short-term funding patches, continuing resolutions, that hamstring our military.
This short-term mentality in Washington has got to stop. When Congress fails to complete its budget, the best outcome is that six or eight people determine how to spend a trillion dollars of discretionary spending.
Clearly, Congress’ funding mechanism does not work and will never work. We are doomed to this cycle of fiscal irresponsibility until Congress reworks this budget process to successfully meet its Constitutional responsibility of funding the federal government.
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4)THIS OBAMA AND DEMOCRATIC LAW THAT IS SO POORLY CONCEIVED WITH NO OVER SIGHT THAT THE REPUBLICANS ARE CORRECTING. DRAIN THE SWAMP!
Mick Mulvaney’s Makeover
POTOMAC WATCH By Kimberley A. Strassel
4)THIS OBAMA AND DEMOCRATIC LAW THAT IS SO POORLY CONCEIVED WITH NO OVER SIGHT THAT THE REPUBLICANS ARE CORRECTING. DRAIN THE SWAMP!
‘This letter is to inform you that . . . the Bureau is requesting $0.’
POTOMAC WATCH By Kimberley A. Strassel
A year into the Trump presidency, one thing is predictable. The nation will daily be treated to an explosion of controversy over headlines that are as overwrought as they are fleeting. Say, the Great Trump Cholesterol Debate.
Meanwhile, the administration has spent the year engaging in the most systematic overhaul of government since Reagan, with consequences that could reverberate for a generation. Nowhere is the disconnect between short-term flimflam and long-term change more evident than in Mick Mulvaney’s refurbishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The overhaul is poignant because it strikes at the center of the Obama regulatory machine. Congress created the CFPB in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank law and envisioned it as a superregulator. Its director is imbued with unparalleled power to harass, fine and regulate financial-service companies. Congress can’t tell it no, because its funding doesn’t come from congressional appropriations. And under the statute, the director can’t be fired save for gross mismanagement, making it free of executive control. Government power, absolute, unchecked, and punitive—the stuff of Elizabeth Warren’s dreams.
This week finally offered a view of the Mulvaney renovation. The bureau kicked off Tuesday with the news it will reassess its infamous payday-lending rule. Congress failed to pass legislation regulating that industry, and Dodd-Frank doesn’t give the CFPB express payday rule-making powers. Mr. Cordray didn’t care, and in his run to get tough on a vilified industry, he made it harder for millions of struggling Americans to get credit. The payday turnaround reflects an uplifting new CFPB philosophy: It exists to help consumers, not to hurt business, and crackdowns for the sake of crackdowns do more harm than good.
The bureau followed this on Wednesday with a public “request for evidence,” seeking outside comment on all its activities—starting with its jaw-dropping power to issue “civil investigative demands.” The CFPB can require companies to turn over troves of information, even if it has no civil action pending against a firm. The bureau has been using them to launch fishing expeditions. The Mulvaney call for evidence is a first step to cataloging abuse of civil investigative demands and hopefully a new policy that directs a sober use of power, rather than a reign of terror.
Also on Wednesday, Mr. Mulvaney internally distributed a new organizational chart, which will for the first time pair a political appointee alongside each career staffer who runs a major department. Prior to Mr. Cordray’s exit, the only political appointee at the CFPB was Mr. Cordray. This structure is what exists at outfits such as the OMB. It’s designed to provide accountability to the public.
Thursday brought Mr. Mulvaney’s inspiring letter to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen : “This letter is to inform you that for Second Quarter of Fiscal Year 2018, the Bureau is requesting $0.” The CFPB can ask the Fed for all the money it wants, and Mr. Cordray both spent freely and built up a $177 million reserve. Mr. Mulvaney explained to Ms. Yellen that this was more than enough to cover the bureau’s second-quarter budget, and signed off by noting: “The men and women at the Bureau are proud to do their part to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.”
Thursday also brought the CFPB’s announcement that it is moving to dismiss a lawsuit against four California tribal lenders, and which wrongly asserted the CFPB had the authority to enforce state law. This suggests that a new and improved CFPB intends to review its sweeping docket, retreat from legally questionable cases, and stick to its knitting.
Critics will decry all this as “gutting” the bureau or selling out to big money—rather than the necessary and right adjustment it is. Every government entity should begin from the belief that it exists to help all Americans—in this case, consumers of financial services and companies looking for guidance on how to interact with them. Agencies should be conscientious with taxpayer money. They should approach power with humility and exercise it with caution. They should follow the law and be accountable to elected officials.
Americans have lost faith in government and regulation not because all government and regulation is bad, but because government is inept and abuses its powers. If the Trump cabinet has made a dent in that problem, it has been a year well spent.
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