The great divider speaks.
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HAPPY Valentine Day to all my girl friends!!!
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A new rant. (See 1 below.)
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Government statistics provide insight suggesting Obama did not know what he was doing when it came to business. (See 2 below)
Nor, for that matter, anything else.
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Is Pelosi dragging her feet? (See 3 below.)
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Government can play a role with respect to the rancor and anti-Semitism on College Campuses. (See 4 below.)
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Today my dear friend, Don Kole, gave me a personal tour of his life's ambition, to assemble a collection of African Artifacts. The Kole Museum is now open Wed. thru Saturday, 11am - 5 PM. I am in the process of discussing with Don a tour of The Kole, on Friday at 1 PM, March 1.
The Museum house some 900 plus amazing objects on three floors. If you are interested in touring this marvelous new Savannah museum please let me know and I will inform you what I am able to arrange. I urge you to join me.
If you cannot do so, then go on your own and tell them you are there at my suggestion. You will not regret .
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The new Governor in California has suspended the continued building of the "Green" super train from San Fran to Los Angeles. It was de-railed by red ink.
The cost to Californian tax payers only came to $11 billion and American taxpayers $3.5 billion but Pelosi , who is from California, cannot find money to protect our nation's borders.
Perhaps Trump can sue California for breach of contract and apply any recovery on building his wall. The problem is, should he bring a suit, Trump always loses in California Federal Courts, because the judges are liberal,and totally opposed to the president's policies.
When the rubber hits the road, much of what "Green" Democrats have proposed will prove economically impossible and impractical. It is mostly a campaign ploy to capture the vote of the emotional crowd who are turned on by a "cause celebre." The announced candidates who embrace AOC's inanities feel compelled to do so because the radicals have captured their party and they fear if they do not paint the world green, no matter the cost and logic, their candidacy will be rejected.
Actually, China is the world's largest polluter but everyone is afraid of telling them to get their act together because they are a closed society. Instead they want America to bear the cost because that would cripple our ability to compete, dis-employ people and bring our nation to it's economic knees all under the guise of radical progressiveness. What a neat ploy.
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Dick
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1) For years we have heard it could be a disaster if China sold their US Treasury holdings. Reality. They once held 14% of all US Treasury debt, now they hold only 7%. The market absorbed the sales and a lot more debt was issued which is now held by US individuals or institutions. Nothing happened in the market when China did sell some of their holdings. It is not a real threat if they sell more. Bond defaults are at a record high now in China. Not at all a crisis level, but indicative of the slow economy.
Crypto currency has pretty much gone off the radar, which is very good. The price crashed and many
lost money playing at this. Many of the crypto offerings went out of business and some crypto
currencies were hacked, or the currency was stolen. It seems that craze has mostly ended and regulators
prevented a potential problem. It was mostly all just a scheme, but at some point it will come back in
some legit form. Blockchain technology, on the other hand, is a real technology which will be used by
banks and many others in the near future.
Today 17% of consumers never use cash and 30% of young people never do. It is now a swipe method
of payment, and in a few years that will be much more widespread. Will be a big problem for
tradesmen and others who take cash and do not report it. Billing and banking are moving to mostly
online, which is why BB&T and Sun Trust are merging. Tech rules banking now. To compete banks
need to have up to date tech for online transactions or they will fade away. It is the edge big banks have
which allows them to take over more and more of the market. It is why there will be a lot more mergers
and acquisitions of smaller banks now. Banking is becoming much more like a utility with several
very large banks. Community banks will have to join networks of some sort to compete. It also means
the big banks need to have big capital cushions to get through the next crash. For now that seems to
not be an issue as they do have far larger capital cushions, and this time it is real capital, not make
believe as in 2007.
It is very unclear where the China trade talks stand. We should know more by the weekend, but the just
announced likely delay in the deadline suggests progress is happening-maybe. China might be playing
along hoping to do a simple deal and not commit to the real changes regarding IP and enforcement.
Maybe they hope Trump will not get reelected and they can hold out. This would be a very bad
scenario for all. Maybe they saw what happened on the shutdown and they think they can play the
same game as Pelosi. This is why when the left and Pelosi play politics with these issues like border
security, the rest of the world is watching and there are bad ramifications. When foreign leaders read
the US press, and hear the vitriol against Trump in Congress and from Dem candidates, they likely
figure Trump will be gone, and maybe another weak left wing patsy like Obama will be president, and
it is best to just wait it out instead of conceding to Trump on major issues. That is a real risk in dealing
with China and Putin. We will know a lot more in a week or two how China is or is not agreeing to
what is needed. If things cannot get resolved, and if tariffs are implemented as stated, then there will be
a bad time in the stock market and issues in the economy. Xi is likely counting on that as a threat. This
is the ultimate game of chicken.
In 2016, 41% of all federal criminal defendants were non-citizens. 30% were Mexican, and another
5% were central American. 58% of all federal arrests were along the border in 5 states. But the Dems
think a wall is immoral and ineffective, and we don’t need one. If we had an effective wall, the savings
in costs of apprehensions, shelters for those apprehended and processing them, and the massive savings
in entitlements and other welfare and police costs saved with much less crime, the wall would pay for
itself in one or two years. The return on investment would be one of the best ever. Now the Dems
wanted less beds for detainees so they get released into the community. They want miniscule money
for a barrier. They are playing to the extreme left and creating a situation where the cost to take care of
tens of thousands of illegals with border patrol, admin costs, entitlements when they get released, etc
is in the tens of billions and growing, but they won’t spend a couple of billion for a barrier and beds to
prevent this waste of money. This is lunacy. This time the Dems are going to get the blame by
demanding less beds for ICE to lock up illegal criminals. Who are a bunch of bozo Democrats in DC to
make decisions on how many beds ICE needs, and how much barrier to build at what cost. Border Patrol
the experts, and did all the analysis which they presented to the group of negotiators, but now the Dems
are listening to the kid from the Bronx instead, and trying to limit ICE. At times like this I think I must
be living in Hollywood. You can’t make up this idiotic stuff. More of this and Trump wins reelection.
His favorable ratings just hit 50% as a result of the idiocy from the left.
Amazon may go elsewhere than Queens. Do not blame them. It will be a major setback for NYC, and
especially Long Island City. The kid from Queens/ Bronx is thrilled she may have killed the deal, but for
the people and small businesses in the area and investors, and the city, it is a very bad thing if they leave.
She and her left wing buddies will end up paying a very big price if Amazon does leave, and all those
good paying jobs go elsewhere, and local businesses and real estate owners lose out big. The Amazon
presence with all those jobs and support services needed, and boosts to local businesses, and the city,
will be very good, but if they go away it will mean many other tech companies will follow them to
wherever, and NY loses really big. The kid from the Bronx is an idiot.
The Green Plan is the stupidest, most ill conceived set of policies I have ever heard. It would destroy the
US economy, and make life unbearable. Tens of millions would be unemployed. Few could afford to
reconfigure their heating systems. Utilities would go broke, and the grid would fail. Many products
would have to be completely redesigned and some new invention would be required just to replace
lubricants which are mainly oil based. Commerce would grind to a halt. With many of the major Dem
candidates signing on, it shows what idiots they all are, and what could happen if they were elected.
Only Bloomberg and Schultz have the brains and guts to say it is unrealistic to even discuss. Booker
sounded like a fool this week saying this was like the going to the moon project. He either has no clue,
or he will just say anything he perceived will win the primaries no matter how absurd. Harris seems even
worse on her claimed policies, and endorsement of the Green Plan. (Where is the press on calling her
out for getting ahead purely by sleeping with Willie Brown who at the time was one of the most
powerful politicians in CA and 30 years older. The Me Too movement will never acknowledge this one).
the same topic. Elizabeth Warren got her job at Penn Law because they wanted to hire her husband who
is a renowned legal historian, and he required they also hire her. She went to Rutgers law, which is a
secondary quality school at best, and she was never hired on brains or talent. Harvard hired her as a
diversity move because she claimed to be Indian. This is what the left thinks is a qualified candidate.
There are more people on Facebook than there are Christians in the world. Just so you get the impact it
has. Nobody elected Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sanders, but they strongly influence the minds of
hundreds of millions, and maybe a billion or more. Their algorithms allow all sorts of biased and false
information to get directed to people who are easily influenced. The algorithms are written by people, and
those people have whatever biases, so those biases get built into the algorithms which control what
people see and read. Alexa hears and records what you say. Nest and Ring have been hacked. Yet
nobody is held accountable for all this potentially dangerous tech. The issue is not the Russians and
elections, it is Facebook. Instagram, and Google. I am not on Facebook or Instagram because I never
trusted them. These couple of Silicon Valley lefties have direct control over what the majority of people
see and hear. That ought to scare you. Their data banks have more information about you than you can
ever recall in your own brain, and they sell access to all of that, and they use it all to direct you to what
they think you should be looking at.
If any of you want to run for president, it is clear from the Dem field it takes no brains, common sense,
nor real world experience. Harris just admitted on radio that she was a pot smoker years ago-maybe she
still is, and then she lied about whose music she listened to in college. Neither artist had released any
albums before she graduated-a little detail. Since I know who many of you are, there is no question all of
you are more qualified than any of them, other than Bloomberg and Schultz.
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2) Core Competency
These numbers help explain why these last eight years were
disastrous for the USA. I read the last item and then looked at Trump's Cabinet.
No wonder Washington, DC is in a turmoil. Trump's picks are bosses
who expect their employees to work. These are Eye Opening Numbers.
This is what bothers a lot of people about Trump. He won't accept a
can't do attitude, or inexperienced, incompetent performance. He will
get results; it just might not be smooth or pretty.
Here are some amazing stats: Make sure you read to the bottom. An
eye opener!
1. These 10 States now have more people on welfare than they do
employed!
California
New Mexico
Mississippi
Alabama
Kentucky
Ohio
New York
Maine, and
South Carolina
2. Last month, the Senate Budget Committee reports that in fiscal
year 2012, between food stamps, housing support, child care,
Medicaid and other benefits, the average U.S. Household below the
poverty line received $168.00 a day in government support.
What's the problem with that much support? Well the average
household income in America is just over $50,000, which averages
out to $137.13 a day.
To put it another way, being on welfare now pays the equivalent of
$30.00 an hour for 40 hour week, while the average job pays $24.00
an hour.
3. Check the last set of statistics!!
The percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in
the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet.
You know what the private business sector is: A real-life business not
a government job.
Here are the percentages:
38% T. Roosevelt
40% Taft
52% Wilson
49% Harding
48% Coolidge
42% Hoover
50% F. D. Roosevelt
50% Truman
57% Eisenhower
30% Kennedy
47% Johnson
53% Nixon
42% Ford
32% Carter
56% Reagan
51% GH Bush
39% Clinton
55% GW Bush
8% Obama
90% Trump
This helps explain the bias, if not the incompetence, of the last
administration: ONLY 8% of them have ever worked in private
business!
That's right! Only eight percent - the least, by far of the last 19
presidents! And these people tried to tell our corporations how to run
their businesses?
How could Obama, president of a major nation and society, the one
with the most successful economic system in world history, stand and
talk about business when he's never worked for one? Or about jobs
when he has never really had one? And, when it's the same for 92%
of his senior staff and closest advisers? They spent most of their time
in academia, government, and/or non-profit jobs or as "community
organizers."
Probably a good idea to pass this on, because we'll NEVER see these
facts in the main stream media, or from the alphabet networks.
So where is Nancy Pelosi's 'speedy' teen-molestation investigation of Rep. Tony Cardenas?
Democrats have always spoken with forked tongues on assorted #MeToo cases, calling for swift judgment on accused (and innocent) conservatives such as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, while dragging their feet on allegations involving their own. John Conyers, Keith Ellison, Al Franken, Bob Menendez - they all have had their #MeToo issues, as does the Virginia clown show crew, yet somehow Democrats aren't quite treated the way Republicans are.
And it's really obvious in the case of California Rep. Tony Cardenas, who's been credibly accused of drugging and molesting a teenage girl in his care and now is being sued for it in a California court. Here's what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to promise last May after news of the disturbing case broke:
“As Members of Congress, we each have a responsibility to uphold the integrity of the House of Representatives, and any type of alleged misconduct must be investigated by the Ethics Committee,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Congressman Cárdenas said he will fully cooperate with an Ethics investigation.”She said that Cárdenas has “appropriately asked us to withhold judgment until there is a full investigation of the facts.”
What has she done since that call for a 'prompt' and 'speedy' investigation? Actually, nothing.
No 'ethics' investigation and no yanked committee assignments. The whole thing has been swept under the rug. Compare and contrast to Republicans who've been charged in legal matters, such as Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, who faces campaign finance violation charges for taking a trip to Italy, or Rep. Steve King of Iowa, who lost his committee assignments based on his blundering language about white supremacy. Cardenas is credibly accused of drugging and molesting a little girl.
Here's the must-read report from Susan Crabtree of RealClearPolitics:
Rep. Tony Cárdenas, a California Democrat who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s BOLD PAC, is being sued in court by a woman who claims he drugged and molested her when she was 16 and a rising golf star. Cardenas was a member of the Los Angeles City Council at the time of the alleged assault.Even though Harris and Gillibrand have called for Fairfax to resign, their offices did not respond to a RealClearPolitics inquiry about the allegations Cárdenas is facing and whether he should step down from BOLD PAC at least temporarily while the suit wends its way through court.
So where's that ethics investigation, Nance? And what about #MeToo, or is that just for Republicans? What of the Democrats, such as Pete Buttigieg, who are yelling that Republicans tolerate sexist assault in their ranks while this guy is still 'serving'?
Why are Democrat covering for Cardenas, who by objective standards, would be quite a political liability? And why hasn't Cardenas at least been removed from his committee assignments the way lesser accused miscreants have been removed?
Could it be that in California politics, Cardenas is rather powerful? Someone like Pelosi would know that he's a protege of James Acevedo, the San Fernando Valley machine pol dubbed "the godfather of Latino politics," whose background is in the far-left Chicano brown-beret movement of the 1960s. Acevedo's the one who engineered the blue takeover of California in the 1990s around the same time the floodgates of illegal immigrants into the state broke, and representatives from districts with huge illegal alien populations took all the power in California. The machine's influence spread from East L.A. and the Valley, to Sacramento, and with Cardenas' entry to Congress, extended to Washington.
So you can see he's important. Democrats aren't about to lose a guy like Cardenas, who's seen as critical to the SoCal political machine that does the ballot-harvestings and which has turned the state of California blue.
So now we have that weird silence from Pelosi, previously calling for a speedy investigation into a no-brainer issue of child molestation ... and delivering nothing.
Why the inaction, Nance? And why the silence from the press? Doesn't #MeToo mean anything?
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How the IRS Can Rein In Radical Islam and Anti-Israel Propaganda Courses at Universities
Georgetown University, home to the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, could take an estimated $486M financial hit if the IRS enforced current law regarding the tax-exempt status of universities.(Getty Images)
In its Fall 2018 catalogue, Tufts University’s Colonialism Studies and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies departments offered the course “Colonizing Palestine” which “will address crucial questions relating to this embattled nation, the Israeli state which illegally occupies Palestine, and the broader global forces that impinge on Palestinians and Israelis.” Several Jewish organizations, news outlets, and students quickly reacted to the course’s stated premise, characterizing it as “political propaganda masquerading as an academic class.”
One student wrote: “This language is not merely inflammatory -- it positions a one-sided narrative as truth from the outset of the semester.” A student group pointed out that the course violates the school’s presidential guidelines. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) responded, demanding that Tufts University “must ensure that classes examining the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict are not one sided platforms for propaganda that demonize Israel & empower anti-Israel activists.”
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) noted: “In addition to the title of the course suggesting a distorted account of the Palestinian-Israel conflict, the course professor, Thomas Abowd is an outspoken activist against Israel. He is on the advisory board for the Boston branch of Jewish Voice for Peace -- an extremist pro-BDS [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] organization that has hosted and honored the terrorist Rasmea Odeah.”
The Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) painted a broader picture: “[T]his class is a paramount example of what has been occurring in the field of Middle East Studies over the last quarter of a century, where the truth -- and a good solid education -- is being sacrificed on the altar of mere political propaganda.”
The concerns expressed had no impact on the school’s policy. Indeed, the Tufts administration merely responded: “We will not let these spurious attacks derail inquiry at our university.”
No one mentioned, and the university does not seem concerned, that this course and many courses like it put the university’s tax-exempt status in jeopardy.
Educational facilities such as Tufts and all other universities are required to adhere to specific tax-exempt status clauses embedded in the Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3) and Treasury Regulations 1.501(c)(3)-1(d)(3). Under the regulation, an organization may be educational even if it advocates a particular position or viewpoint, so long as it presents a sufficiently full and fair exposition of the pertinent facts as to permit an individual or the public to form an independent opinion or conclusion.
In 1986, the IRS developed the “methodology test” to supplement the regulation’s “full and fair exposition” standard -- Revenue Procedure 86-43. The test assists in determining whether the method used by an educational organization to communicate a particular viewpoint or position is educational. Under the test, a method is not educational if it fails to provide a “factual foundation” for the position or viewpoint or “a development from the relevant facts that would materially aid a listener or reader in a learning process.”
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