David Plouffe, a low life, very high up in Hillary's campaign.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Iran seeking to circumvent Trump's sanctions by getting in bed with our, so called, allies? (See 1 blow.)
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Let's hear it for The U.N. How feckless can you get? (See 2 below.)
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As I suspected they would, Israelis silences rock attack locations etc. (See 3 below.)
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Will Clapper wind up in the "clapper" as he should for being an unmitigated liar? (See 4 below.)+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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An interesting and debatable premise. Demographics more reliable than economic predictions/forecasts. (See 5 below.)
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This from a dear friend and fellow memo reader regarding my previous posting comments: " Was Trump disqualified by his occasional but demonstrable character flaws and often rank vulgarity?
To believe that pliant, voters would have needed a standard by which to judge both past media coverage of The White House and the prior behaviour of presidents . Unfortunately, the sorts of disturbing things we now know about Trump we often did not know in the past about other presidents. By any fair measure, the sexual gymnastics in The White
House and West Wing of JFK and Bill Clinton, both successful presidents, were likely well beyond President Trump's randy habits.
You continue, Dick, to address the politically incorrect issues with a clarity and freshness. I thank you.
Con-cord-e,
S-----"
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Soon this will be happening in all of California and maybe in Starbucks. (See 6 below.)
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Dick
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1) Iran Plotting With U.S. Allies to Skirt Trump’s New Sanctions
Global showdown looming as Trump administration cracks down on Tehran
BY: Adam Kredo
Iranian officials are plotting with U.S. allies across the globe to develop a series a measures meant to counter new sanctions by the Trump administration following its abandonment of the landmark nuclear deal, setting up a global economic showdown between America and its allies over their future business dealings with the Islamic Republic.
Iranian leaders disclosed on Tuesday that they had recently held high-level meetings with European Union nations and leaders in India and Thailand to explore options for skirting new U.S. sanctions.
Iran's efforts and the warm reception it is receiving from many nations has roiled leaders on Capitol Hill, where some lawmakers are already moving to confront these countries and ensure they face harsh repercussions for any breach of U.S. sanction law.
The State Department also is scrambling to respond to Iran's efforts by building a counter-coalition aimed at isolating Tehran and any nation that works with Iran to skirt new U.S. sanctions, U.S. officials told the Washington Free Beacon.
Iranian Government Spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht disclosed on Tuesday that the nation's top leaders, including Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, have met with European leaders and others in the region to discuss skirting new U.S. sanctions, which have targeted virtually every portion of Iran's economy, including its contested nuclear and energy sectors.
Zarif recently concluded a trip to India and Thailand, where he is reported to have made much progress in convincing these nations to help Tehran "bypass" the new U.S. sanctions, which were fully reimposed by the Trump administration after its decision to walk away from the nuclear agreement.
"In addition to the E.U., we are improving relations with other countries, especially the neighbors," Nobakht was quoted as saying on Tuesday in Iran's state-controlled press.
Meetings with leaders in India are said to have gone particularly well for Iran, sparking outrage in the United States where these same Indian leaders have been pleading with the Trump administration to boost relations.
India and China have already vowed to continue purchasing Iranian crude oil, despite the Trump administration's crackdown.
"A major part of the oil is sold to India and China," Nobakht said. "We are also in talks with Europe to continue oil sales to them, and Iran's increased oil sales to them has even been under discussion with them to compensate any drop if some states decrease oil imports."
Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, in remarks following meetings with top Iranian leaders, vowed to ignore U.S. sanctions.
"India follows only [United Nations] sanctions and not unilateral sanctions by any country," Swaraj was quoted as saying, emphasizing that India remains "independent" and immune to "pressure."
A U.S. State Department official, speaking only on background, told the Free Beacon that under newly installed Secretary of State Pompeo's leadership, American diplomats are already developing relationships aimed at ensuring U.S. sanctions on Iran have a maximum impact.
"We are hard at work in our efforts to build our new effort to counter the totality of Iran's malign activity with our friends around the world. Secretary Pompeo speaks frequently with his counterparts from the UK, France, and Germany as well as our allies in the Middle East and Asia," the official said.
Teams of U.S. diplomats are being sent across the globe to galvanize support for the new U.S. sanctions, the official said.
"We will be sending out teams of diplomats and specialists to talk about specific concerns with the plan for re-imposition of U.S. nuclear-related sanctions and next steps with Iran," the official said. "We are fully engaged at all levels."
On Capitol Hill, opponents of the nuclear accord are working on parallel efforts to ensure that any foreign nation caught skirting new U.S. sanctions on Iran faces harsh repercussions, including massive economic penalties and a possible cutoff from the U.S. financial system.
"India is going out of its way to alienate members of Congress, including many who have been sympathetic and trying to help them," said one senior congressional official who works on the issue and has discussed the matter with the administration.
"They're almost certainly violating the sanctions against Russia that overwhelmingly passed Congress last summer," said the source, who would only speak on background about these efforts. "Now they're bragging about violating Iran sanctions too. They keep telling us they want a new relationship with America but then they act in these destructive ways. It's very troubling."
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2)
Assad’s Disarmament Chair
Syria now leads a U.N.-related body opposed to chemical weapons.
Anyone who still thinks that world peace and order can be enforced from something called the United Nations might want to consider that Syria this week assumed the rotating presidency of the U.N.-backed Conference on Disarmament. That’s Syria as in Bashar Assad, as in sarin gas, as in barrel bombs dropped on innocent civilians.
The Conference is a multinational body based in Geneva that was established in 1979 to promote reductions in armaments, especially weapons of mass destruction. Though independent from the U.N., it reports annually to Turtle Bay, and the director-general of the U.N. office in Geneva is secretary-general of the Conference. Syria is now leading the group because it follows Switzerland in the alphabetical list of member nations.
The appointment is best understood in light of the Conference’s proudest achievement: The 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction. Apparently no one at the Conference sees any contradiction with having at its helm a regime that has used such weapons on its own people.
In 2012 Barack Obama declared the use of chemical weapons by Syria a “red line” that would trigger U.S. intervention. Assad used sarin gas anyway. In 2017 Syria used gas again, and President Trump responded with a missile strike on a Syrian airbase. Assad used chemical bombs again in April, which provoked another U.S. strike on Syria joined by Britain and France. On Friday U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said Assad has used chemical weapons at least 50 times.
Over the seven years of Syria’s civil war, more than 400,000 Syrians have been killed. The war might have been mitigated if Russia hadn’t used its veto at the U.N. to protect the Assad regime. At the U.N. they like to call what they do “collective security,” an oxymoron on the order of Syrian disarmament.
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3)
Defense official: Mortar fire on Israel stopped by extensive IDF strikes
By ANNA AHRONHEIM
The rocket and mortar fire from Gaza has ceased because of significant strikes that the IDF carried out overnight in Gaza, a senior source in the Israeli defense establishment said Wednesday.
“The IDF launched a significant strike overnight in Gaza and we have acted responsibly, and since the morning the fire has stopped. Israel has delivered a message that if the fire resumes, the attacks on Hamas and the other groups will intensify,” he said.
“In recent months, Israel has acted with force and determination against any attempt to violate its sovereignty and/or harm the security of the residents of the south and it will continue to act with force against any attempt to violate the peace,” he said.
Palestinian media quoted Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhom as saying a “consensus was reached to return to the ceasefire understandings” in the Gaza Strip after “many hours” of meditation.
Israel’s Reshet Bet reported that over 180 rockets and mortars were launched towards Israeli civilian areas, and earlier on Wednesday the IDF released an infographic of 65 airstrikes carried against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip in response to the over 24 hours of fire launched from the enclave.
“The IDF launched a significant strike overnight in Gaza and we have acted responsibly, and since the morning the fire has stopped. Israel has delivered a message that if the fire resumes, the attacks on Hamas and the other groups will intensify,” he said.
“In recent months, Israel has acted with force and determination against any attempt to violate its sovereignty and/or harm the security of the residents of the south and it will continue to act with force against any attempt to violate the peace,” he said.
Palestinian media quoted Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhom as saying a “consensus was reached to return to the ceasefire understandings” in the Gaza Strip after “many hours” of meditation.
Israel’s Reshet Bet reported that over 180 rockets and mortars were launched towards Israeli civilian areas, and earlier on Wednesday the IDF released an infographic of 65 airstrikes carried against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip in response to the over 24 hours of fire launched from the enclave.
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4) Clapper Disinformation Campaign
Why does a former intelligence chief make claims he can’t back up?
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
James Clapper, President Obama’s director of national intelligence, gained a reputation among liberals as a liar for covering up the existence of secret data-collection programs.
Since becoming a private citizen, he has claimed that President Trump is a Russian “asset” and that Vladimir Putin is his “case officer,” then when pressed said he was speaking “figuratively.”
His latest assertion, in a book and interviews, that Mr. Putin elected Mr. Trump is based on non-reasoning that effectively puts defenders of U.S. democracy in a position of having to prove a negative. “It just exceeds logic and credulity that they didn’t affect the election,” he told PBS.
Mr. Clapper not only exaggerates Russia’s efforts, he crucially overlooks the fact that it’s the net effect that matters. Allegations and insinuations of Russian meddling clearly cost Mr. Trump some sizeable number of votes. Hillary Clinton made good use of this mallet, as would be clearer now if she had also made good use of her other assets to contest those states where the election would actually be decided.
Mr. Clapper misleads you (and possibly himself) by appealing to the hindsight fallacy: Because Mr. Trump’s victory was unexpected, Russia must have caused it. But why does he want you to believe that he believes what he can’t possibly know?
There’s been much talk about origins. Let’s understand how all this really began. James Comey knew it was unrealistic that Mrs. Clinton would be prosecuted for email mishandling but also knew it was the Obama Justice Department’s decision to make, own and defend. Why did he insert himself?
The first answer is that he expected Mrs. Clinton to win—and likely believed it was necessary that she win. Secondly he had a pretext for violating the normal and proper protocol for criminal investigations. He did so by turning it into a counterintelligence matter, seizing on a Democratic email supposedly in Russian hands that dubiously referred to a compromising conversation of Attorney General Loretta Lynch regarding the Hillary investigation.
Put aside whether this information really necessitated his intervention. (It didn’t. This is the great non sequitur of the Comey story.) Now adopted, Russia became the rationale for actions that should trouble Americans simply on account of their foolishness.
Think about it: The FBI’s original intervention in the Hillary matter was premised on apparent false information from the Russians. Its actions against the Trump campaign flowed from an implausible, unsupported document attributed to Russian sources and paid for by Mr. Trump’s political opponents.
In surveilling Carter Page, the FBI had every reason to know it was surveilling an inconsequential non-spy, and did so based on a warrant that falsely characterized a Yahoo news article. Its suspicions of George Papadopoulos were based on drunken gossip about Hillary’s emails when the whole world was gossiping about Hillary’s emails.
The FBI’s most consequential intervention of all, its last-minute reopening of the Clinton investigation, arose from “new” evidence that turned out to be a nothingburger.
There is a term for how all this looks in retrospect: colossally stupid. Democrats now have a strong if unprovable case that Mr. Comey changed the election outcome. Mr. Trump has a strong case his presidency has been hobbled by unwarranted accusations. Americans harbor new and serious doubts about the integrity of the FBI.
As an extra kick in the head, its partners in so much idiocy, and perhaps the real fomenters of it, in the Obama intelligence agencies have so far gotten a pass.
If a private informant was enlisted to feel out the Russian connections of a couple of Trump nonentities, this was at least a sensitive and discreet approach to a legitimate question when so many FBI actions were neither.
It was after the election, with the outpouring of criminal leaks and planted disinformation (see Clapper), that a Rubicon was crossed. Consider just one anomaly: Any “intelligence community” worth the name would get to the bottom of foreigner Christopher Steele’s singular intervention in a U.S. presidential election, based as it was on the anonymous whisperings of Russian intelligence officials. Not ours. Our intelligence community is highly motivated not to know these answers because any finding that discredited the Steele dossier would also discredit the FBI’s actions in the 2016 campaign.
It practically goes without saying that all involved now have a stake in keeping the focus on the louche Mr. Trump and threatening him with investigations no matter how far afield from Russia collusion.
You can be a nonfan of Mr. Trump; you can believe he’s peddling a conspiracy theory about FBI and CIA actions during the campaign. But every president has a duty to fight to protect himself and his power. And notice that his conspiracy theory is but the mirror image of the conspiracy theory that his political, institutional, and media enemies have been prosecuting against him since Election Day 2016.
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5) Can America Grow Like It Used To?
There are reasons to think not, chief among them the aging population.
We agreed on the normative proposition that the U.S. would benefit from faster economic growth. More upward mobility expands the American dream and reduces competition over scarce opportunities. Growth increases government revenue, taking the edge off tough choices between guns and butter, and between the present and the future.
We also agreed on the basic framework for analyzing growth. If economic production is determined by the number of hours worked times output per hour, then we can increase long-run growth through a larger labor force, higher productivity, or both.
And finally, we agreed that there was room to raise the aggregate level of work in our society. Consider the basic facts. This April, the official employment rate was 3.9%—the same level as in April 2000. But this apparent similarity masks a consequential change. Over those 18 years, labor-force participation among Americans of prime working age (25 to 64 years) dropped by 2.5 percentage points. In the same period, labor-force participation for U.S. women 25 to 64 fell from eighth to 26th among nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. For men, the ranking dropped from eighth to 29th. American men experienced the largest decline of any OECD country, and American women were the only female cohort in the entire OECD whose workforce participation fell.
These international comparisons strongly suggest that better policies could make a difference. We need to make it easier for formerly incarcerated men to rejoin the workforce, for women to balance the demands of work in the home and in the market, and for older Americans to continue working well past what previous generations considered retirement age. We need to attack substance abuse—especially opioids—which thwarts too many men and women on the threshold of the workforce. And where there is solid evidence that poorly designed social supports discourage work, we should restructure them.
Although these changes would make a difference, they can do nothing to alter the reality that America is aging rapidly. Two thousand was the last year in which the entire baby-boom generation was of prime working age, and 2019 will be the first year in which none of it is. During the last two decades of the 20th century, the U.S. workforce expanded at an annual rate of about 1.5%. During the next two decades, it will expand at an estimated 0.5% annually. By itself, this slowing growth of the workforce will be enough to knock a full percentage point off annual economic growth. Productivity improvements that once yielded 3% growth will now yield only 2%.
There is no sign of a new baby boom on the horizon. On the contrary, the birthrate reached an all-time low in 2017, continuing six decades of decline. So there is only one way to boost the growth rate of the workforce: expand dramatically the number of working-age immigrants admitted each year. If the U.S. prioritized working-age entrants the way most other advanced countries do, it would increase annual labor-force growth by up to 0.3% without increasing the aggregate level of immigration.
I’ve said little about the other key component of economic growth—productivity—because most economists regard it as unpredictable. Between 1950 and 1973, it grew at 2.4% annually before collapsing to just 0.7% from 1974-81. It accelerated to 1.7% between 1982 and 1990, and to 2% from 1991-2001. But then, just when analysts began to hail a new golden age of information technology, productivity growth fell to 1.4% in 2002-07, and to 0.9% during the past decade.
We understand the basics of productivity—investment in the workforce, plant and equipment, research and development, and infrastructure, plus an environment that encourages innovation. But the pace at which new technologies and processes are integrated into the workplace remains mysterious. If a new generation of robotics and artificial intelligence yields a productivity boom, we could return to the growth of the postwar years. But we don’t know enough to bet on it.
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6)People sleeping rough along canal Saint-Denis moved to shelters in clearance operation
A man leaving a makeshift camp along canal Saint-Denis in northern Paris. Photograph: Gerard Julien/AFP/Getty Images
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6)People sleeping rough along canal Saint-Denis moved to shelters in clearance operation
A man leaving a makeshift camp along canal Saint-Denis in northern Paris. Photograph: Gerard Julien/AFP/Getty Images
French riot police have cleared more than 1,000 migrants and refugees from one of the largest makeshift camps in Paris, where they had been sleeping rough for months in squalid conditions.
Hundreds of homeless people were taken by bus to temporary shelters on Wednesday. Among them were women, children and unaccompanied minors.
More than 2,000 migrants and refugees had been sleeping on pavements under bridges and canals in northern Paris, with scant access to running water, no showers and few temporary toilets, in what doctors and aid groups described as “catastrophic sanitary conditions”.
There has been a scathing political row as the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, accused Emmanuel Macron’s government of failing to provide state help for the large number of people sleeping rough in the capital.
At about 6am, riot police arrived at the largest of the camps, where more than 1,700 people have been sleeping under a motorway bridge along canal Saint-Denis.
Calmly, migrants and refugees boarded buses clutching small bags of belongings, before the tents were destroyed. The interior ministry said people would be housed in temporary shelter while their documents and administrative situation were checked.
French riot police inspect tents left behind at the camp. Photograph: Gerard Julien/AFP/Getty Images
Many who had been sleeping rough are from Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea, and had made perilous crossings of the Mediterranean after detention and ill-treatment in Libya.
Further camps along the canal and at Porte de la Chapelle, where hundreds more are sleeping on the streets, are expected to be cleared in coming days.
The local prefect’s office said 1,017 people were transferred to temporary shelters, including 64 vulnerable people such as women, children and unaccompanied minors.
Local authorities said the dawn operation was the 35th police eviction of camps in Paris in the past three years. There has been a cycle of tents being evacuated and destroyed. But homeless migrants and asylum seekers with no other solution often quickly set up camp elsewhere in the city in squalid locations that are becoming more and more remote.
Police escort rough sleepers from canal Saint-Denis. Photograph: Gerard Julien/AFP/Getty Images
Pierre Henry from the aid group France terre d’asile said: “This is an issue of dignity. Street camps should not exist in our country.”
Paris has long faced problems of migrants and asylum seekers sleeping rough, separate to issues around Calais, where a makeshift camp of up to 8,000 people was dismantled 18 months ago.
Macron’s proposed immigration law, currently being examined by the French senate, seeks to criminalise illegal border crossing, and speed up the processes for asylum requests and expelling people unable to claim asylum. Aid groups have argued the plan does not set out a long-term system to receive and provide shelter for those arriving in France.
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