From Muddy Water To Drowning. Freer Markets, Freer People. Past Time, Screw World Opinion. Democrat Poster. Rob Gibson/Good Luck Dear/Talented Friend.

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                                                                                                        Democrat Poster?

  " The old believe everything; the middle aged suspect everything: the young
know everything. " - Oscar Wilde
"Only the dead are smart enough to know better." - Dick Berkowitz         
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A dear friend and fellow memo reader explains why Socialism is on the rise: "Dick- the reason Socialism is on the rise is because the have-nots now strongly believe that the ‘haves’ got theirs through privilege and not merit/effort/risk/sacrifice, and therefore the have-nots are legitimized in appropriating(stealing) others’ wealth. If you read Stanley and Denko’s “Millionaire Next Door,” only a very small fraction, maybe less than 10%, got there by inheritance, and they tend to lose it within five years. Most wealthy are first generation, hard working, self-made, and prodigious scrimp-and-savers. Take it from a guy who grew up in an 800 sq foot house in a blue coller suburb of Cleveland barely lower middle class, never got a dime for college, somehow made it through school and did well enough to get to The Landings. C----"

Politics of envy and entitlement.
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Muddy Waters was a singer/performer.  Maxine Waters is a transformer who likes to muddy the water and will drown the Democrat Party.  So be it!

Socialism versus capitalism - freer markets freer people.  No economic system is perfect.

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Way past time to punish Hamas and screw world opinion. (See 1 below.)
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Mexican Cartels also muddy the water. (See 2 below.)
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When we first moved to Savannah we were delighted to have the opportunity to meet and get to know Rob Gibson and to be able to enjoy the remarkable Savannah Musical Festival which he began .
Rob is a native Georgian and with Wynton Marsalis began Jazz at Lincoln Center, then he came here.

We will miss having him and it will be very difficult to replace someone with his world contacts and extraordinary talent and we wish him all the best.  Sad indeed. (See 3 below.)

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How illegal immigration in handled by other nations. (See 4 below.)
Dick
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1) The answer to Hamas terror kites - not proportional, but exponential!

If the Mossad can make off with a half-ton of top secret Iranian nuclear documents, it can plant major explosives in areas filled with Hamas kite flyers and set them off when the time is ripe.

By Gerald A. Honigman (Arutz 7)

The author is an educator who has done extensive doctoral studies in Mid-East Affairs and has conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth. He gives lectures and participates in debates around the U.S. Read his new book to be found at http://q4j-middle-east.com. More from the author ►

Imagine for one moment tens of thousands of acres of French, Russian, American, Egyptian, or whoever’s farmland, forests, nature preserves, property, and lives deliberately being destroyed or targeted by neighbors sworn to their destruction by any-and-all means possible.  Next, imagine that those neighbors, when not firing rockets, mortars, and missiles across the border, refuse to cease this new type of terror activity using often explosive, flaming terror kites as well. The only solution they will accept is your (and in Israel’s case, yet again) final solution.

Now, what might an acceptable response to such murderous intent be--especially when world bodies such as the United Nations basically ignore it (as happened again in the latest June13, 2018 UN condemnation of Israel for its defensive actions in Gaza) and wind up blaming the victim instead?

Predictably, taking cues from such hypocrisy, Hamas and its allies have next promised to launch thousands of additional incendiary kites into Israel as they attempt to storm the border to mark the end of Ramadan’s Eid al-Fitr’s celebration the following day--June 15th this year.

I wish it had not come to this, but the Hamas zebra does not change its stripes (and not that Fatah’s does).

If those thousands of kites are launched, and Israel’s border comes under attack, with Israeli civilians just yards away from getting their throats slit or the like, Israel must ignore duplicitous critics who would not drop leaflets of warning nor carefully use snipers to pick off the main actors hiding behind women and children human shields, as Israel has done. Instead, war would be waged against such a murderous, rejectionist enemy to protect life and property, as best as possible, with gloves removed and without one hand tied behind the back as Israel is routinely expected to do.

If the planned Hamas Eid al-Fitr acts of war are carried out, Israel must launch repeated air assaults against large concentrations of Hamas fighters (especially targeting top brass)--not just fields or empty buildings--as would be found in physically-occupied training camps, rallies, demonstrations, parades brandishing weapons, and so forth. If the Mossad can make off with a half-ton of top secret Iranian nuclear documents, then it can plant major explosives in areas frequented by such Hamas kite producers and set them off when the time is ripe.

The attempted murder and massive destruction of Israeli farms, forests, buildings, individuals, schools, etc. must henceforth come at a very costly price to pay. And with each new terror attack, the cost must seriously go up...seriously.

If it does not agree to be a perpetual victim living in constant fear (the very point of terrorism), then Israel needs to deal with such a rejectionist enemy the way any other nation would have done. And I wish they had done it hundreds of dead and wounded loved ones earlier. 

There's something to the saying, "actions speak louder than words." Israeli spokesmen need to ponder that bit more than they have. So far, Hamas has actually paid a very low price compared to what it should have for its constant assault, since Passover last April, against Israel’s Gaza border in an attempt to slaughter Jews just on the other side of it.

What's needed now is a dose of that old time Israeli pizzazz…a hint of which took place in Iran and against multiple Iranian targets in Syria just a bit earlier. Again, think erasing much of the Hamas top brass almost simultaneously, for example. There's nothing to lose here. Will the United Nations, the Arabs, and so forth be upset and enraged?

So, what else is new?

As for America--perhaps the most important player in all of this--I believe the new administration in Washington, unlike its predecessor peas in the Obama pod, truly understands what the real story is. Imagine having Obama’s UN reps, Samantha Power or Susan Rice, facing Israel’s one-sided attackers in that world body instead of Nikki Haley.

To better see that this more effective message is received, besides cutting off the heads of the snake, Israel needs to eliminate would-be, Jew-killing, Hamas foot soldiers to the point that there is a shortage of virgins awaiting them in Paradise. Or find a way to deter them.

As for possible civilians who might be inadvertently hurt, if hundreds of Jewish civilians, recently and in the past, could be deliberately and wantonly targeted and slaughtered, then what's wrong with payback for their actual and wannabe murderers? Years ago, President George W. Bush warned America's enemies that those who harbor and collaborate with terrorists will share their fate. Why is this proper for America but not for the tiny nation which has been the most victimized by such barbarity? 

Many, if not most, Arabs, along with many other Muslims, have said that they would reject any Israel, regardless of size. Even the latter-day Arafatians in suits of Abbas’s "moderates" have called the Oslo Peace Accords, other "peace negotiations," and so forth nothing more than "Trojan Horses." At least the Hamasniks have been honest... Thus, a 22nd second state for Arabs--most conquered and forcibly Arabized from other non-Arab, pre-Arab, native peoples--is justice.

One minuscule, resurrected nation of the Jews, where they have thousands of years of continuous history, however, is not. Such is the Arab mindset--the same one that calls the potential birth of a state for some 40 million truly stateless folks--the Kurds--"another Israel.”

If Israel truly wants its message to sink in, it must consider the numbers game much more. Putting it bluntly, the Israeli response must be exponential…yet again, carefully targeting combatants as best as possible--unlike the Arabs’ own preferred victims, Jewish civilians, for shock value.

Nice guys finish last in this region where the strong horse is the only one respected...especially when your real and potential enemies vastly outnumber you. 

In the past, Israel gained no acceptance by trying to do this the "right" and "moral" way.

While dropping leaflets warning non-combatants to get out of the way (thus telegraphing its punch and losing the element of surprise), going house-to-house, deliberately putting its sons in greater harm’s way going after the rats in their dens, it was accused of massacres and such anyway. It even got taken to court for building a barrier designed to protect its kids from Arab decapitators and disembowelers.

Arabs dealing with their own “headaches” blasted masses from afar…no snipers carefully selecting individual targets or aiming at non-lethal body parts as the Jews have done. That’s why--despite the scores of thousands of civilians and organization members Hamas has thrown at Israel’s border with the intent to invade and kill--less than two hundred attackers have been killed so far. For comparison purposes, Assad Sr. killed some 20-30 thousand Sunni Arab “problems” in just one month in his famous Hama Solution several decades ago, and Assad Jr. is current proof that the acorn does not fall far from the tree.

The Geneva Conventions specifically state that combatants cannot use their civilian populations as human shields...something Arabs do all the time. Notice the Arab mothers with babes in arms bussed to the Gaza border with Hamas fighters interspersed among them. And those Conventions also state that the presence of civilians does not eliminate going after legitimate military targets. Any “innocents” killed have their own heroes to blame.

So, Israel must do what it must do--and in high gear, full speed ahead.

After dishing out a few rounds like this, again--where each Arab assault is followed by using an exponential Israeli version of America's own "Powell Doctrine'' (i.e., unleashing overwhelming force upon the enemy) --then Israel can step back and let the dust settle—and later up the ante further as need be. 

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2)With Cartels In Control, There Are No Easy Answers To The Border Crisis

Much of Mexico and Central America is ruled by cartels, and until we come to terms with the role they play in migrant smuggling, the crisis will worsen.
By John Daniel Davidson

In the debate over President Trump’s zero tolerance” policy on illegal immigration, pundits and politicians from across the political spectrum are offering simplistic solutions to the problems along our southern border.

On the Left, outrage over family separation has morphed into outrage over family detention with Trump’s announcement last week that families would be kept together but still prosecuted for illegal entry. Although they won’t come right out and say it, most liberals would like to return to a policy of catch and release, in which families caught crossing illegally are assigned a court date and released into the country.

On the Right, many seem to think it’s possible to solve illegal immigration simply by building a wall, or carrying out mass extrajudicial deportations, or separating parents and children as a deterrent.

Libertarians, too, are grasping for simple solutions. Over at Reason, J.D. Tuccille suggests that “better smugglers” are the best way to fight Trump’s draconian border policy. “Immigrants and their supporters should give some thought, and effort, to improved smuggling channels that treat migrants better than the existing criminal networks, and offer them a better chance of success,” writes Tuccille. He doesn’t mention the possibility that these new smugglers might find themselves at odds with the old smugglers, whose profits are at stake, or that jumping into Mexico’s migrant smuggling trade as a freelancer carries the risk of, say, being beheaded by one of the cartels.

Tuccille’s facile take is emblematic of the way the media has more or less ignored the role that “criminal networks” are playing in all of this—a role that makes easy solutions impossible. Throughout the border crisis, the media’s attention has been focused on the plight of Central American families and the chaos created by Trump’s zero-tolerance policy. Sure, the president likes to exaggerate how many MS-13 gang members are crossing the border, but neither Trump nor his detractors are thinking seriously about the escalating violence and accelerating social collapse now underway in Mexico and Central America, and how crime syndicates are playing into illegal immigration along the southern border.

Violence In Mexico Is Out Of Control—And Getting Worse

National elections in Mexico are set for July 1, and so far 121 political candidates, most of them running for local office, have been assassinated, along with dozens of their family members. Hundreds more have been attacked. On Thursday, a mayoral candidate in Ocampo, in the western state of Michoacan, was killed outside his residence—the third politician to be killed in Michoacan in just over a week. Federal police responded by arresting the entire town’s 27-officer police force on suspicion of involvement with the murder, another reminder that across Mexico drug cartels have infiltrated local and state police forces, political machines, and major industries. Candidates who speak out against corruption and vow to stand up to the cartels are especially in danger.

The violence is bad enough that the U.S. State Department has issued “do not travel” advisories for five Mexican states—Colima, Guerrero, Michoacan, Sinaloa, and Tamaulipas, whose northern boundary runs along the U.S. border from Brownsville to Laredo, Texas. These are the same travel advisories in place for countries like Libya, Syria, and North Korea. For much of the rest of Mexico, including nearly the entire U.S.-Mexico border, the State Department advises Americans to “reconsider travel.”

Tamaulipas is so dangerous right now that the interim governor of Nuevo Laredo, which sits directly across the Rio Grande from Laredo, has warned his citizens not to try to travel to the United States through Tamaulipas, and especially not through the town of Reynosa, across the river from McAllen, Texas. The official warning came a day after gunmen believed to be associated with the Gulf Cartel ambushed marines with the Mexican Navy three times in Nuevo Laredo, killing one and injuring 12 others. According to Mexican officials, the gunmen wore marine uniforms and drove vehicles with government markings. The ambushes only stopped when the marines called in a helicopter gunship for support.

Part of what’s driving the violence in northern Mexico is the breakdown of the Gulf and Los Zetas cartels. The most recent wave of violence began last April when Mexican authorities in Reynosa killed Juan Manuel Loisa Salinas, the leader of the Gulf Cartel. His death created a power vacuum, and various factions are now competing for a piece of the cross-border drug trade and other criminal enterprises.

Signs of the grisly cartel violence that was associated with Juárez back in 2010—severed heads, bodies hanging from highway overpasses—are now cropping up in border towns further east along the Rio Grande. In March, cartel gunmen dumped bags filled with dismembered body parts outside a gas station in Reynosa, where more than 500 people have been killed in the past 12 months.

Cartel violence is getting worse all over Mexico, not just along the border. Last year brought a record 28,710 homicidesnationwide, and this year is on track to surpass 30,000. May was the deadliest month ever recorded in Mexico since the government began releasing homicide data in 1998—2,890 people were killed, an average of four people per hour. By comparison, only Syria is more violent.

The Migrant Crisis Benefits The Cartels

Into this maelstrom have come a relentless stream of refugees and migrants from Central America, driven by worsening gang violence and poverty in the “Northern Triangle” of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Most of those crossing Mexico’s southern border are headed for safety and better prospects in the United States, which puts them at the mercy of Mexican cartels that have developed diverse income streams, from child organ trafficking to migrant smuggling.

In an interview with the Daily Beast last year, Eric Olson, deputy director for Latin America at the Wilson Center, explained that “Over the last several years more sophisticated criminal organizations have begun to take control of the migratory schemes,” citing growing competition among cartels “for control of routes and people coming through.”

Migrant smuggling has become a lucrative business for the cartels, which charge migrants anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 a head for passage over the Rio Grande. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told a Senate Committee last month that human smuggling brings Mexican cartels more than $500 million a year, but that figure is almost certainly too low. The fact is, the cartels began to professionalize human smuggling around 2010, when large numbers of Central American migrants began coming through what had long been drug smuggling routes. In response, the cartels created a system of fees for migrants and dedicated personnel to police the routes.

The effect of tougher immigration enforcement like Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy is that the coyotes, as the smugglers are called, increase their fees while often misleading migrants about what they can expect once they cross into the United States, promising them visas or some form of amnesty. The coyotes are notorious for abandoning migrants on either side of the Rio Grande once they get paid, or, for those who run out of money, raping or kidnapping helpless customers, some of whom are sold into human trafficking near the border.

Because migrants must often pay for each leg of their journey up from Central America, including bribes for various law enforcement officials along the way, by the time they reach the U.S.-Mexico border they’re often out of money and completely at smugglers’ mercy. Migrants who can’t pay are sometimes forced to carry large packs of drugs over as payment for their fare.

Ironically, the tougher immigration enforcement is on the U.S. side, the greater the potential profits from migrant smuggling—not just because coyotes charge more but also because migrants and recently deported illegal immigrants have no other way of getting into the United States, and are willing to take greater risks. The mainstream media doesn’t seem to grasp this connection, which is why the Washington Post can publish a lengthy feature on a couple trying to illegally cross the border and barely mention the role of smugglers or the connection they have to larger criminal syndicates.

All of this is to say that we can’t have a serious conversation about the border crisis without being clear-eyed about the role the cartels play in societies that are essentially collapsing. Pretending that illegal immigration isn’t really a problem, as liberals and libertarians tend to do, ignores the close connection between human smuggling, drug trafficking, and cartel violence on both sides of the border. Pretending that it’s an easily solvable problem, as conservatives tend to do, is like claiming there’s an easy way to defeat Islamic radicalism—as if the cartels will agree to stop smuggling and trafficking just because we put up some more border fencing or ramp up deportations.

But until we get real about the almost unimaginable levels of violence and corruption in Mexico and Central America, our immigration crisis will fester, and eventually the chaos south of the border will spill over onto our side—no matter how high Trump builds his wall.

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3)

Savannah Music Festival's Rob Gibson resigns after 16 years

SAVANNAH, Ga. - Savannah Music Festival announced on Thursday they have accepted the resignation of Rob Gibson, its Executive & Artistic Director for the past 16 years. Gibson led the organization’s transition and ascendance from a small, primarily local event to one of international prominence, drawing visitors, artists and favorable reviews from around the world to its multi-genre presentations.

According to a release from SMF, Gibson leaves to pursue other interests, "and SMF wishes him well in those endeavors."

Under Gibson’s leadership, SMF developed three landmark music education programs for which it expends nearly half a million dollars annually. The largest of these is Musical Explorers, a program developed in partnership with Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, which provides year-round music education to approximately 11,000 Savannah-area K-2 students. Other education programs formed under Rob Gibson’s leadership include Swing Central Jazz, a workshop and competition for the country’s leading high school jazz orchestras, and the Acoustic Music Seminar, a nationally recognized mentorship program for young string players. Gibson also fostered numerous artistic partnerships and commissioned works, and hosted ten seasons of the public radio show Savannah Music Festival LIVE.

SMF reports they will quickly--but thoughtfully--engage in a national and formal search for new leadership. In the interim, the organization’s operations will be under the direction of its board and staff.
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4)

1) IF YOU CROSS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER 

ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YEARS HARD LABOR. 


IF YOU CROSS THE IRANIAN BORDER 
ILLEGALLY YOU ARE DETAINED INDEFINITELY. 

IF YOU CROSS THE AFGHAN BORDER 
ILLEGALLY, YOU GET SHOT. 

IF YOU CROSS THE SAUDI ARABIAN BORDER 
ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE JAILED. 

IF YOU CROSS THE CHINESE BORDER 
ILLEGALLY YOU MAY NEVER BE HEARD FROM AGAIN. 

IF YOU CROSS THE VENEZUELAN BORDER 
ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE BRANDED A SPY AND YOUR FATE WILL BE SEALED. 

IF YOU CROSS THE CUBAN BORDER ILLEGALLY 
YOU WILL BE THROWN INTO POLITICAL PRISON TO ROT. 


IF YOU CROSS THE U.S. BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET !!! 
A JOB, A DRIVERS LICENSE,
SOCIAL SECURITY CARD, AND WELFARE,
FOOD STAMPS, CREDIT CARDS,
SUBSIDIZED RENT OR A LOAN TO BUY A HOUSE,
FREE EDUCATION, FREE HEALTH CARE,
A LOBBYIST IN WASHINGTON BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS PRINTED IN YOUR LANGUAGE
THE RIGHT TO CARRY YOUR COUNTRY'S FLAG WHILE YOU
PROTEST THAT YOU DON'T GET ENOUGH RESPECT
AND, IN MANY INSTANCES, YOU CAN VOTE. 

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