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Israel beefs up its northern defense as it prepares for war. (See 1 below.)
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Should war break out in The Middle East it would be another destablizing reason for the market to comprehend and discount.
The fact that interest rates are going up is already known. How high and fast is the unknown.
Inflation is going up as well and that too is baked into the market's psyche but, once again, how high and fast remains the unknown.
Finally, The Fed has a new chairman and no one knows what effect that will have.
Meanwhile, earnings are improving, the corporate tax cut has yet to have much impact and world economies seem to be in gear.
Next week could prove an interesting week as to whether the market has stabilized but then most every week is an interesting one these days market-wise. Stay tuned,
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Melanie Phillips. (See 2 below)
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Just as I wrote in a previous memo. (See 3 and 3a below.)
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I am unable to re-print articles from The New YorkTimes because I am not a subscriber but for those who want the other side I urge you read: "Trump Shows Us the Way" By Maureen Dowd, New York Times.
In her op ed piece she spells out all the reasons why we should despise Trump because of who is he is and what he brings to The Oval Office and presidency. Dowd is an excellent writer and possibly the equivalent of the Wall Street Journal's Noonan but with more of an edge.
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Dick
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1)
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| Israel has boosted its air defense in the northern part of the country following a significant confrontation between the Jewish State, Syria and Iran which led to the loss of an F-16 fighter jet. While the Israeli army refused to comment on the reports, witnesses reported seeing a convoy of missile defense batteries heading north near the Israeli-Arab city of Baqa el-Garbiyeh. Other witnesses posted photos of several trucks carrying the batteries on central highways in northern Israel. Israel’s air defenses currently include the Iron Dome, designed to shoot down short-range rockets; the Arrow system, which intercepts ballistic missiles outside of the Earth’s atmosphere; and the David’s Sling missile defense system, which is designed to intercept tactical ballistic missiles, medium-to-long-range rockets and cruise missiles fired at ranges between 40 to 300 km. Israel also has Patriot missile batteries stationed in the north of the country and have used them to intercept drones infiltrating into Israeli airspace from Syria. In September, an Iranian-built unmanned aerial vehicle breached the “Bravo line” that marks the Syrian demilitarized zone and was intercepted by an Israeli Patriot anti-ballistic missile launched from a station near the northern city of Safed. The first use of Arrow occurred in April, when the system was launched to intercept a three surface-to-air missiles Syrian regime air defense fired toward IAF jets. On Saturday, an Iranian drone, which took off from Syria’s T4 airbase in northern Homs province, flew through Jordanian territory before it infiltrated into Israel. It flew for about a minute and a half in the northern Jordan Valley before it was shot down by a helicopter flown by Lt. Col. "L.", commander of the 113 squadron. "The squadron was sent to protect the country's skies," L. said. "We identified the aircraft as an Iranian drone, and when it crossed the border, we shot it down into Israeli territory. The squadron is ready and prepared for any task it is given." IAF chief of air staff Brigadier General Tomer Bar, the second in command of Israel's Air Force, said the drone was an advanced model with a low signature that Israel had never intercepted before. It is currently being studied by the IDF. In retaliation for the incursion, eight Israeli jets took off to strike the drone’s launch site. During the operation, Syrian regime forces fired around 20 anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli jets. The pilots of one of the planes ejected themselves when they recognized that one of the missiles had locked onto their jet. According to the IDF, Iran and the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards have been operating at the T4 base “for a long time, backed by Syrian army forces and with the approval of the Syrian regime.” “Iran has been using the base in recent months for the purpose of transferring weaponry to be used against Israel,” read a statement by the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. "These actions by Iran at the base are ostensibly carried out under the guise of supporting the fighting against the global Islamic jihad forces, but the actions carried out in the past 24 hours prove that its real concern is direct violent action against Israel.” "In the Iranian action, all the Israeli warnings against Iranian consolidation in Syria were realized. The attack was initiated and Israel was forced to respond first to the threat in its territory and then to the hostile elements operating from the Syrian territory opposite it." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2)
Damned if you do . . . and Trump and Netanyahu are certainly doing By Melanie PhillipsRead more at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0218/phillips020918.php3#PZt0vBcVCOrr6Lec.99
Day in and day out, two men—two crucial world leaders—remain under a constant barrage of verbal attacks. They are subjected to an obsessional, unhinged and unprecedented stream of abuse, distortion, character assassination and malicious fantasies.
If you haven't guessed, they are Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald J Trump. The campaign against them signifies a cultural disorder in the West that borders on the pathological.
Netanyahu certainly has his faults. One might list arrogance, moral cowardice and his tendency to be a control freak. He doesn't take criticism well. He has failed to organize his government to deal with the psy-ops war waged so devastatingly against Israel in the court of Western public opinion. And maybe, who knows, some of the multiple corruption charges against him will stick.
Yet his achievements are formidable. Netanyahu enabled Israel to survive the sustained attempts to weaken it by President Barack Obama, arguably the most hostile American president to date regarding Israel. Netanyahu has led the Jewish state to become a dynamo in the fields of technology and R&D in large measure because of his liberalization of the Israeli economy. He has opened up new alliances through the pivot to Asia. He has held the line against the Palestinian /European axis of attrition. And he is riding the wave of a new regional order involving alliances with Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
In Israel and among the Western intelligentsia, however, it's hard to overestimate the loathing he provokes. His achievements are ignored or blatantly dismissed. Instead, he is blamed (ludicrously) for preventing a solution to the Middle East impasse. No less risibly, he was held responsible for Obama's hostility for eight years running. He is said to be an incipient dictator, a racist ethno-nationalist and an "alt-Zionist." These are not criticisms; these are ravings.
Over in the United States, Trump certainly has his faults. One might list his zero concentration span, his disregard for detail, his carelessness with accuracy, his reckless and compulsive tweeting, his coarse and bombastic talk, and his failure to take criticism.
Yet his achievements after only one year in office are formidable. He presides over a booming economy with huge job growth; he is restoring the rule of law to immigration; he's rolling back regulation; he's made stellar appointments to the judiciary; he's forcing Saudi Arabia to reform; and is confronting Iran, the United Nations and the Palestinians.
It's impossible, however, to overestimate the contempt and horror with which he is viewed. He is accused of being racist and anti-Semitic, of undermining the rule of law, of behaving like Mussolini. While not a shred of evidence supports the claims against him of colluding with Russia, there is mounting evidence that elements of the FBI and justice department under the Obama administration have acted illegally against him.
The Democrats are talking wildly of impeaching him. They'll decide on the nature of his crime later. This is not opposition; this is derangement.
So why are both men being treated like this? In Israel, it's easier to blame Netanyahu than face up to the terrifying complexities of the existential war being waged against it and the difficult choices that need to be made.
In America, Trump provokes such a frenzied reaction because he operates outside all conventions. He challenges unchallengeable liberal orthodoxies on immigration, national identity and victim culture, and he exposes the frailties on his own Republican side.
Where both he and Netanyahu succeed is in speaking for the great middling center of their electorates—the ordinary people who observe with silent astonishment and fury how the cultural and political establishment not only ignores their concerns, but deems them illegitimate.
Middle Israel understands that the difficult and dangerous status quo with the Palestinians is nevertheless inevitable given their persistent rejectionism. Middle America understands that under Obama, the rule of law was eroded through illegal immigration, the weaponization of the IRS against conservative groups and the support of black-power activists against the police.
That's why they voted for Netanyahu and Trump. And that's why the liberal establishment responsible for this onslaught on the culture not only damns Netanyahu and Trump, but also the public who voted for them.
In an article in Tablet, writer Paul Berman wrings his hands over Trump's election. He runs through some explanations offered by fellow hand-wringer Thomas B. Edsall, who in a column in The New York Times points to the "material grievances of the white working class," and "racist animosities toward the blacks and the latest immigrants, together with a surly hatred of the bicoastal snobs."
Berman, however, thinks the real reason for Trump's election was nothing less than a "broad cultural collapse." He writes: "It is a collapse, at minimum, of civic knowledge—a collapse in the ability to identify political reality, a collapse in the ability to recall the nature of democracy and the American ideal. An intellectual collapse, ultimately. And the sign of this collapse is an inability to recognize that Donald Trump has the look of a foreign object within the American presidential tradition."
You really do have to rub your eyes at this. For eight years, America had in Barack Obama a president who subverted the constitution at home and weakened his country abroad by helping empower those who wished the country ill (consider the Iranian regime or the Muslim Brotherhood).
In Trump, America now has a president who is restoring respect for the constitution and the rule of law, and is standing up for American interests at home and abroad. And who is also currently being targeted by what looks very much like an attempted establishment coup against his presidency.
Berman has it backwards. Trump's election was not evidence of cultural collapse; it was a reaction against cultural collapse.
If this wasn't so serious, it would be comical to see some of our most stellar intellects holding their heads in their hands and wondering aloud what could possibly have caused their country to fall into an abyss. The answer is simple: them.
Trump and Netanyahu lead the West on a new and more hopeful path. For sure, they aren't perfect and much remains unaddressed. But this is the first time that the demoralization of the West has been tackled since the end of World War II.
Countries hostile to this leadership, including Britain and much of Western Europe, are now fumbling the civilizational ball. The only things they will be left holding are their noses.
______________________________________________3) LIBERAL MEDIA FAWNS OVER KIM JONG UN’S SISTER
I’ll say this for Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong — she’s considerably better looking than the goon who runs North Korea. This may be faint praise, but there’s nothing faint about the praise being heaped on the dictator’s sister by America’s mainstream media.
According to CNN, to take perhaps the worst example, “if ‘diplomatic dance’ were an event at the Winter Olympics, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister would be favored to win gold.” CNN gushes that “with a smile, a handshake and a warm message in South Korea’s presidential guest book, Kim Yo Jong has struck a chord with the public just one day into the PyeongChang Games.”
CNN goes on to call Kim Jong Un’s sister “North Korea’s Ivanka Trump,” a label also used by the Washington Post in its frivolous, fawning story. CNN then quotes some professor’s view that Kim Yo Jong’s presence at the Olympics “is a signal that North Korea is not this crazy, weird former Cold War state — but it too has young women that are capable and are the future leadership.”
Say what?
The young woman in question is one of Kim Jong Un’s closest advisers — “a powerful member of Kim Jong Un’s kitchen cabinet,” as CNN puts it. And the regime she faithfully serves is beyond weird. It starves its own people, operates Nazi-style prison camps, represses political opposition, and executes senior officers and even members of the dictator’s (and his sister’s) own family members in an effort to maintain dictatorial control.
Even the most ardent feminist shouldn’t take any pleasure from the fact that a young North Korean women serves this murderous regime capably and may be its future leader. And it is obscene to compare the influential servant of what may well be the world’s most brutal regime to Ivanka Trump.
What American mainstream media outlets like best of the dictator’s sister, I suspect, is that she enables them to claim that Vice President Pence, who is also in South Korea for the Olympics, has been upstaged. That’s the take of ABC News, for example. Our media’s hatred of President Trump, and of conservatives like Pence, runs so deep that it will shower praise on anyone who can be used as a foil, even a top associate of a murderous tyrant.
There is a genuine story to be told in connection Kim Yo Jong’s appearance at the Olympics, but that story isn’t mainly about the woman. South Koreans live under the threat of something approaching annihilation at the hands of the dictator of North Korea. At the same time, they feel a bond with their former countrymen in the north.
It’s natural, then, for some South Koreans to glimpse the hope of reconciliation in the visit of an unimposing, smiling representative of North Korea. That some South Koreans do glimpse this — what percentage, we don’t know — doesn’t mean the dictator’s sister is “winning a diplomatic dance” or that Pence’s visit hasn’t gone well, and it certainly doesn’t mean that South Korea is about to be Finlandized.
What it means, I think, is that when a population is under the gun, some of its citizens will indulge in wishing thinking on special occasions. When the Olympics are over and little sister goes back north, normal service likely will be resumed.
Except that Kim Jong Un and his team, by some accounts, pay considerable attention to how the U.S. perceives them. If the dictator believes his sister’s press clippings from CNN and the Washington Post — if he thinks his sister has won a gold medal for “diplomatic dance” and that she has added to the distance between South Korea and the U.S. — it could make him more reckless.
There would be no gold medal in that for anyone.
3a) The Ruling Class Hates You
I thought love trumps hate. That’s what I’ve been led to believe by an effusion of
t-shirts, bumper stickers, and social media postings from the self-styled anti-
nothing like the intoxication of moral superiority.
The syrupy slogans promulgated by the ruling class, ruling class wannabes, and
fellow travelers on the Left aren’t fooling anyone, not even, I would guess, the
people who say, wear, and post them. Truth is, they really don’t like the rest of
us. No problem, we have our own lives and families. But it’s only not a problem
until such disdain is combined with a sense of political entitlement and the
coercive power of government.
Which brings us to the political and cultural union of the Democratic Party and
the permanent political class called the deep state, that forms the unelected,
unaccountable fourth branch of government that wields so much power up to
and including the police power of the FBI.
In private texts recently made public, FBI “super-agent” Peter Strozk and his
mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, were quite candid. Their open disdain for a wide
variety for groups including Italians, Russians, Romanians, gypsies, Virginians,
Texans, and pro-lifers should surprise no one. The leaders of their party have
been saying the same thing in public for years.
Here is one telling exchange between the star-crossed lovers:
“Guccifer. Sleazy Romanian…,” Strzok wrote.
“They ALL are,” Page responded.
“Funny to watch and think of [redacted]. No wonder he’s a brusque as he is…
and those Romanians aren’t even the gypsies…” Strzok shot back.
“Seriously, I kind of hate them. (I’m sure [redacted] fine). But they have the
crookedness of the Russianswith the entitledness of the Italians. Yuck,” Page answered.
In a separate exchange, Page goes after Russians—all of them—again: “…hate
them. l think they’re probably the worst. Very little I find redeeming about this. Even in
history. Couple of good writers and artists I guess.”
“Probably the worst?” Even worse than those entitled Italians and sleazy
Romanians? I guess that means no Tchaikovsky or Rimsky-Korsakov on her
playlist.
But it’s not just foreigners. It turns out, they’re not terribly fond of Americans
either. Virginians and Texans come in for particular scorn because, well, you
know, it’s always open season on rural America and the South. Virginia and
Texas must seem like a twofer.
When Jill McCabe (D-Va.), wife of former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew
McCabe, lost a race for the Virginia state senate after taking nearly $700,000
from the Clintons and their allies, Strzok let loose on his neighbors and
countrymen.“Disappointing, but look at the district map,” he texted.“Loudon is
being gentrified, but it’s still largely ignorant hillbillys (sic). Good for her for
running, but curious if she’s energized or never again.”
I’d guess that the “ignorant” voters of Loudon County probably realize that the
slur he was reaching for is spelled “hillbillies” and not “hillbillys.” Strzok can
remember it in the future because it’s the same construction used in other words,
like “adulteries” and “felonies.”
He had a few words for the Lone Star State too. “And while i (sic) hate Trump,
part of me thought (redacted) would not/may not get into (redacted) because
they’re white and not from buttf*ck Texas…”
How about the hundreds of thousands of people from all parts of the country
and all walks of life attending the annual March for Life? Page isn’t a fan of them
either: “I truly hate these people. No support for the woman who actually has to spend the rest of her life rearing this child, but we are about ‘life.’ Assholes.”
In Page’s world, “life” comes with scare quotes and consists of adultery with a
co-worker, leaking classified information to the press, using federal police power
to rig presidential elections, and spewing venom at virtually everyone outside of
her social and professional circle. What a life.
Maybe Page and Strzok are outliers. Maybe they were just venting private f
rustrations with a lover. Maybe. But the public statements of the leaders of their own party, the people they admire, who Page called the “very impressive” (the Obamas) and the woman
who deserves to win “100,000,000-0” (Clinton) are even worse.
The Strzoks and Pages, the Clintons and Obamas have all made it abundantly
clear that they don’t like the America they see around them. They don’t like
where it came from or the people who live here. The ruling class makes no
secret of it: they hate you.
In 2008, Barack Obama derided people from rural America: “You go into some
of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the
Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced
them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush
Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these
communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising
then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who
aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to
explain their frustrations.”
Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief, John Podesta was part of a thread of anti-
Catholic emails with activist Sanford Newman: “There needs to be a Catholic
Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages
dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender
equality in the Catholic church.”
And, of course, there was Hillary’s open contempt for the Deplorables.
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s
supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” Clinton said. “The
racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And
unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
If that’s not enough, compare the slogans of the Left to their candid public and
private statements.
The Rhetoric
Love trumps hate.Hope and change.“Hate is not a family value.”Tolerance.DiversityCoexist
The Reality
SleazyEntitled“Buttf*** Texas”HillbilliesBitter clingersDeplorablesIrredeemable
dangerous. Early in the Obama Administration, it led to weaponizing the IRS
against political rivals. That manifest wrong was never punished and it
emboldened ruling class Democrats in the FBI to lie to the FISA court so they
could spy on the Trump campaign for the benefit of Hillary Clinton.
The unfolding political corruption is just the public manifestation of a deeper
social and political crisis that strikes at the heart of our ability to maintain a
system of constitutional self-government. George Washington addressed his
countrymen as “friends and citizens” in his Farewell Address. The ruling class
doesn’t want that. They don’t want citizens, much less friends. They want subjects.
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