https://www.americanthinker.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Trump is being squeezed by the Khashoggi dismemberment He is trying to thread the needle in order to satisfy those who want us to walk away from The Saudis and our need to retain the relationship while sending a message they must alter their behaviour. Not an easy thing to do. (See 1 and 1a below.)
Gelernter spells out the real reason why Trump is hated. A very insightful article. (See 1b below.)
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Several months ago I discussed that a guaranteed government income was on its way. In anticipation of the loss of many jobs through technological innovation, compassionate progressives are thinking of ways to offset this potential event. A guaranteed wage is being floated about and the concept will begin to attract more advocates among the "bleeding hearts."
I discussed this and posted several articles and here is another. This will become another weapon to be used against conservatives who have no heart and willingness to embrace stupidity. (See 2 below.)
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Finally, the question regarding China, in my opinion, is not whether we can work with the current regime, because I believe Trump cannot. China has a current leader whose mind set will not allow China to bend in order to be an acceptable member of the world order. The question for me is can China ever reach that point in view of their desire to dominate the world and supplant America's historical position.
Therefore, I believe, with Bolton in the mix, Trump will try to leverage our economic strength and test China's current economic weakness/leverage to see if we can best China at it's own game. This is just another reason why it is crucial Republicans continue to control The House. Otherwise another missed opportunity and serious set back for America as Democrats will embroil Trump in defending his own status etc..
How do we do this? To begin with we start seeking other nations to do what our companies are doing in China and either transfer manufacturing to them and/or bring some back home. Second, we begin to reinforce current alliances in order to make life more transaction-ally difficult for China.
When we allowed/invited China to enter The WTO it was implicit the invitation was in hope of their own betterment. They, obviously, abused this privilege. It is now pay back time and we need to realize we can extract a price for China's intransigence. Trump thinks and operates this way. This approach is foreign to Obama's way of thinking and ability. Obama was a patsy. Trump has a hard nose. Obama was/is "nostrily speaking" a softee.
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Where do you think you would locate Ms Ford? A Man's Guide to Women
And then:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Finally:
Is this Stacey Abram's Georgia?
Georgia's Democrat Candidate for Governor Burned the Flag
The candidate's staff have organized protests against a candidate for being white and she wants to tear down monuments. Read in browser »++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
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1) America and the Saudis
Saving the alliance will require telling the truth about Khashoggi.
The Editorial Board
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has hurt itself badly with the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and its serial explanations are compounding the damage. President Trump will lose control of the Saudi-U.S. relationship if he doesn’t speak truth to these Saudi abuses and to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 33-year-old power in front of the throne.
The most complete Saudi statement, issued late Friday night, at least admits that Khashoggi was killed in its Istanbul consulate at the hands of Saudi agents. But the story that Khashoggi was killed in a “fight and a quarrel” isn’t credible on its face. “The brawl aggravated to lead to his death and their attempt to conceal and cover what happened,” said the Saudi statement. That must have been some lopsided “brawl” with a 59-year-old journalist confronting multiple security agents, as if he were Liam Neeson in “Taken.”
The story is contradicted by information leaked by Turkish officials who say Khashoggi was killed quickly and dismembered on the scene. The Saudis still haven’t produced Khashoggi’s body, or provided more details of precisely how or when he died.
The “fight” story also conveniently lays blame on lower-ranking officials while effectively absolving members of the royal family, especially the Crown Prince known as MBS. The Saudis say they’ve arrested 18 officials and sacked five others. Several are part of MBS’s inner circle, and it’s unlikely they would have acted without at least the tacit assent of the Crown Prince. Khashoggi, who had a wide following in the Middle East, had criticized the Crown Prince for his authoritarian tactics in trying to reform the Kingdom.
On Sunday Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir called it a “rogue operation” that neither MBS nor “the senior leadership of our intelligence service” was aware of. This would be more believable if the Saudis hadn’t taken 18 days to say it. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is promising to reveal Turkey’s account of what happened on Tuesday, and that could further undermine Saudi credibility.
The Trump Administration’s response to all this hasn’t exactly been a model of moral or strategic clarity. Mr. Trump has rambled from promising “severe” consequences to extolling U.S. arms sales to threatening sanctions to a seeming apologia for MBS as an “incredible ally.” On Saturday he finally got closer to the truth when he told the Washington Post that he doubted the Saudi explanation. “Obviously there’s been deception, and there’s been lies,” Mr. Trump said.
The U.S. goal should be to preserve the U.S.-Saudi alliance while making clear that murdering journalists is unacceptable and that MBS’s erratic judgment and willful use of power are problems for the bilateral relationship. The U.S. can’t dictate to King Salman who should run his government, but MBS also can’t be allowed to conclude that America thinks this is no big deal. Otherwise he’ll keep creating trouble for his own country and the U.S.
Sanctions of individual Saudis under the Magnitsky Act are inevitable and warranted. Sanctioning MBS would depend on whether evidence implicates him in the killing. A moratorium on arms sales is probably counterproductive since MBS could turn to Russia and China. But the U.S. could work with the Saudis to reduce their bombing in Yemen, which is killing civilians, in return for U.S. interdiction of Iranian arms deliveries to Saudi enemies in Yemen.
U.S. officials above all can’t appear to be complicit in a whitewash of the murder or public embrace of MBS as if nothing happened. Americans understand that the U.S. has interests in the Middle East that often require working with rulers and countries that can be brutal. But that shouldn’t extend to denying actions that offend our values when they occur.
Mr. Trump needs to lead here or Congress will take charge with uncertain and perhaps damaging effect. Saudi Arabia lacks the deep emotional support that Israel has among the U.S. public, and a significant lobby on the left prefers an entente with Iran instead of the Saudis. Mr. Trump saw on Russia sanctions how bipartisan majorities can roll over his policy if he ignores foreign offenses against U.S. values and interests. He shouldn’t make the same mistake on Saudi Arabia.
1a)Why Is Khashoggi's Murder Dominating the News?
https://patriotpost.us/articlhe-news?mailing_id=3810&utm_me
gn=digest&utm_content=body
Nate Jackson
Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead, the Saudis finally
acknowledged after 18 days. After numerous iterations, the "official" story
now is that he was inadvertently killed during a fight that broke out in the
Saudi consulate in Turkey, and a handful of "rogue" officials have been
fired for bearing sole responsibility for Khashoggi's death. Crown Prince
Mohammad bin Salman is totally innocent, you see.
Few, if any, actually believe the Saudis story, of course. A 59-year-old
journalist spontaneously took on 15 Saudi security agents? Sure thing. Quite
the contrary, reports are that he wasn't just killed but dismembered on the
scene. His body has never been produced. Furthermore, as the editors of
National Review put it
https://www.nationalreview.co
-lies/, "Very little happens in Saudi Arabia without bin Salman's
foreknowledge and approval, so the notion that he would be so unaware of his
inner circle's activities regarding one of the regime's highest-profile
international critics is laughable."
Beyond that quick recap of the story, here are a few things to bear in mind:
First of all, this is what authoritarian regimes do, be they Islamic or
otherwise. A free press is anathema to totalitarians. But with Khashoggi,
there may be more than meets the eye
https://patriotpost.us/opinio
tm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.
y> . He joined the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1970s. He wasn't an advocate of
western-style democracy, instead favoring an Arab Spring-style political
Islamic regime. That isn't to minimize his death; it's to see clearly who he
was.
The American Leftmedia - led by The Washington Post - is running
wall-to-wall coverage of his murder primarily because Khashoggi is one of
theirs. He's a journalist, an untouchable saint, and his death thus rattles
them to their core.
But have most Americans heard of the the Gwinnett County Georgia police
officer killed in the line of duty Saturday? Officer Antwan Toney had just
turned 30, and he was an outstanding human being and police officer. Yet
this black cop was murdered by two black assailants in the Atlanta area; one
killer is in custody. Toney was one of ours - an American citizen serving
his country and community honorably. Both of these men's lives matter, but
only one is getting nonstop media coverage.
The strategic reason for that is the media's hope to pin Khashoggi's murder
- or at least the aftermath - on President Donald Trump. Anything to create
the appearance of scandal before the midterms.
Which brings us to our parting thought: In 2012, four Americans, including
an ambassador, were killed in a terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in
Benghazi. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton lied about it for weeks
https://patriotpost.us/alexan
ailing_id=3810&utm_medium=emai
&utm_content=body> solely to preserve Obama's reelection campaign. The
Leftmedia aided them in this deception. So while Trump certainly should have
been far stronger in his public condemnation of the Saudis, we suspect he's
using this incident for leverage behind the scenes. Don't be surprised to
see a subtle shift in America's relationship with the Saudis that will
benefit the U.S., all while Trump gives them breathing room publicly.
Distasteful? Sure. But sometimes that describes American foreign policy
https://patriotpost.us/articl
another-enemy?mailing_id=3810&
campaign=digest&utm_content=bo
Every big U.S. election is interesting, but the coming midterms are fascinating for a reason most commentators forget to mention: The Democrats have no issues. The economy is booming and America’s international position is strong. In foreign affairs, the U.S. has remembered in the nick of time what Machiavelli advised princes five centuries ago: Don’t seek to be loved, seek to be feared.
The contrast with the Obama years must be painful for any honest leftist. For future generations, the Kavanaugh fight will stand as a marker of the Democratic Party’s intellectual bankruptcy, the flashing red light on the dashboard that says “Empty.” The left is beaten.
This has happened before, in the 1980s and ’90s and early 2000s, but then the financial crisis arrived to save liberalism from certain destruction. Today leftists pray that Robert Mueller will put on his Superman outfit and save them again.
For now, though, the left’s only issue is “We hate Trump.” This is an instructive hatred, because what the left hates about Donald Trump is precisely what it hates about America. The implications are important, and painful.
Not that every leftist hates America. But the leftists I know do hate Mr. Trump’s vulgarity, his unwillingness to walk away from a fight, his bluntness, his certainty that America is exceptional, his mistrust of intellectuals, his love of simple ideas that work, and his refusal to believe that men and women are interchangeable. Worst of all, he has no ideology except getting the job done. His goals are to do the task before him, not be pushed around, and otherwise to enjoy life. In short, he is a typical American—except exaggerated, because he has no constraints to cramp his style except the ones he himself invents.
Mr. Trump lacks constraints because he is filthy rich and always has been and, unlike other rich men, he revels in wealth and feels no need to apologize—ever. He never learned to keep his real opinions to himself because he never had to. He never learned to be embarrassed that he is male, with ordinary male proclivities. Sometimes he has treated women disgracefully, for which Americans, left and right, are ashamed of him—as they are of JFK and Bill Clinton.
But my job as a voter is to choose the candidate who will do best for America. I am sorry about the coarseness of the unconstrained average American that Mr. Trump conveys. That coarseness is un-presidential and makes us look bad to other nations. On the other hand, many of his opponents worry too much about what other people think. I would love the esteem of France, Germany and Japan. But I don’t find myself losing sleep over it.
The difference between citizens who hate Mr. Trump and those who can live with him—whether they love or merely tolerate him—comes down to their views of the typical American: the farmer, factory hand, auto mechanic, machinist, teamster, shop owner, clerk, software engineer, infantryman, truck driver, housewife. The leftist intellectuals I know say they dislike such people insofar as they tend to be conservative Republicans.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama know their real sins. They know how appalling such people are, with their stupid guns and loathsome churches. They have no money or permanent grievances to make them interesting and no Twitter followers to speak of. They skip Davos every year and watch Fox News. Not even the very best has the dazzling brilliance of a Chuck Schumer, not to mention a Michelle Obama. In truth they are dumb as sheep.
Mr. Trump reminds us who the average American really is. Not the average male American, or the average white American. We know for sure that, come 2020, intellectuals will be dumbfounded at the number of women and blacks who will vote for Mr. Trump. He might be realigning the political map: plain average Americans of every type vs. fancy ones.
Many left-wing intellectuals are counting on technology to do away with the jobs that sustain all those old-fashioned truck-driver-type people, but they are laughably wide of the mark. It is impossible to transport food and clothing, or hug your wife or girl or child, or sit silently with your best friend, over the internet. Perhaps that’s obvious, but to be an intellectual means nothing is obvious. Mr. Trump is no genius, but if you have mastered the obvious and add common sense, you are nine-tenths of the way home. (Scholarship is fine, but the typical modern intellectual cheapens his learning with politics, and is proud to vary his teaching with broken-down left-wing junk.)
This all leads to an important question—one that will be dismissed indignantly today, but not by historians in the long run: Is it possible to hate Donald Trump but not the average American?
True, Mr. Trump is the unconstrained average citizen. Obviously you can hate some of his major characteristics—the infantile lack of self-control in his Twitter babble, his hitting back like a spiteful child bully—without hating the average American, who has no such tendencies. (Mr. Trump is improving in these two categories.) You might dislike the whole package. I wouldn’t choose him as a friend, nor would he choose me. But what I see on the left is often plain, unconditional hatred of which the hater—God forgive him—is proud. It’s discouraging, even disgusting. And it does mean, I believe, that the Trump-hater truly does hate the average American—male or female, black or white. Often he hates America, too.
Granted, Mr. Trump is a parody of the average American, not the thing itself. To turn away is fair. But to hate him from your heart is revealing. Many Americans were ashamed when Ronald Reagan was elected. A movie actor? But the new direction he chose for America was a big success on balance, and Reagan turned into a great president. Evidently this country was intended to be run by amateurs after all—by plain citizens, not only lawyers and bureaucrats.
Those who voted for Mr. Trump, and will vote for his candidates this November, worry about the nation, not its image. The president deserves our respect because Americans deserve it—not such fancy-pants extras as network commentators, socialist high-school teachers and eminent professors, but the basic human stuff that has made America great, and is making us greater all the time.
Mr. Gelernter is computer science professor at Yale and chief scientist at Dittach LLC. His most recent book is “Tides of Mind.”
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2) A Universally Bad Idea
By Andy Kessler
Silicon Valley titans push the Marxist-Leninist nonsense of a guaranteed income.
Bad ideas just won’t die. Ronald Reagan’s goal was to “leave Marxism and Leninism on the ash heap of history.” But they keep coming back, albeit in different forms. Of today’s bad ideas—from net neutrality to open curriculum and living wages—the most dangerous is the universal basic income.
For twisted reasons, Silicon Valley, the embodiment of meritocracy and incentives, thinks universal basic income will be the next great economic force. Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes is helping to fund a UBI pilot program in Stockton, Calif. He even wrote a book about the idea—something about 1%-ers paying money via tax credits—hardly original.
He’s not alone. Barack Obama has recently expressed interest in the idea. So have Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Marc Benioff and others in Silicon Valley. Why? I figure it’s their misplaced guilt about patriarchal dominance over workers displaced by automation. That’s a triple crown of bad excuses.
The enthusiasm seems infectious. In July, Chicago Alderman Ameya Pawar told the Intercept, “We need to start having a conversation about automation and a regulatory framework so that if jobs simply go away, what are we going to do with the workforce?” It wasn’t a long chat. This summer, Mr. Pawar introduced legislation for a pilot program that would give $500 a month to 1,000 families. Think of it as a new version of walking-around money. Never mind that Chicago can’t even afford to fund its public-employee pensions.
It sounds eerily similar to startup incubator Y Combinator’s Basic Income Project Proposal. It’s the harebrained idea of the organization’s president, Sam Altman. A thousand lucky folks would receive $1,000 a month for as long as five years. Another 2,000 would form a control group and might get $50 a month for their troubles.
What troubles? Well, University of Michigan researchers will be asking how they spend their time, if their political and social attitudes change, the effect on crime, and if their children do better on standardized tests. And there will be blood tests too: The study will “measure markers that serve as predictors of later disease as well as cortisol, an indicator of stress.” If $1,000 a month lowers your stress, shouldn’t everyone get $1,000 a month?Netflix and chill is cheaper.
Mr. Altman has almost sinister plans for UBI. Forget $1,000 a month. He told Spectacle “instead of getting a fixed fee, you get a percentage of the GDP every year.” Maybe everything should be owned by the state and divvied up? All he’s missing is five-year plans. Perhaps Mr. Altman dropped out of Stanford before taking economics—or history for that matter.
Not to be outdone, this summer the People’s Policy Project—Get it? Like the People’s Republic?—proposed an American Solidarity Fund. Every citizen over 17 would own a share of this sovereign-wealth fund. Slowly but surely, up to one-third of the assets of the U.S. economy would find their way into the fund. That’s $90 trillion for those keeping track at home. Then the investment returns from the fund would be paid out as, you guessed it, a universal basic dividend. This isn’t sliding a slippery slope toward socialism, it’s a trapdoor.
How would the fund get all those assets? Start with all government-owned land and buildings. Then add a 3% market-capitalization tax on public companies. Apple would owe $30 billion. Add a continuing 0.5% market-cap tax, a 5% levy on initial public offerings and 3% on mergers. Smells Marxian: “government owning the means of production.” So much for the ash heap. Then increase the death tax and get rid of every tax deduction. Heck, they better pay hefty universal basic lay-on-the-couch dividends because why would anyone ever go to work again? Companies would have minimal retained earnings to invest in the future, and workers wouldn’t keep much of their pay. The fund would shrink annually as the stock market imploded.
Progress is about incentives. The reason UBI will fail is the cycle of dependency built into it. It is a gateway drug to collectivism. Turning the U.S. into Venezuela is a universally bad idea.
Remember Mr. Pawar’s fear of automation? He’s in good company. At a February 1962 press conference, when President Kennedy was asked about a Labor Department estimate that 1.8 million jobs would be replaced by machines each year, he replied, “I regard it as the major domestic challenge, really, of the ’60s, to maintain full employment at a time when automation, of course, is replacing men.”
In February 1962 U.S. nonfarm payroll stood at 55.2 million. Fifty-six years and several major tax cuts later, jobs stand at 149.5 million. Call it basic and universal capitalism. Let’s stick with that, shall we?
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