A picture of our granddaughter, Dagny - age 7, water skiing in the lake by her home. Blake, her brother, is also up on the skis.
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A video of the tragic fire in Paris:https://www.abc.net.au/news/
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More Progressive Democrat radical insanity. (See 1 below.)
And:
Mueller's summation:"While we recognize that the subject did not actually steal any horses, he is obviously guilty of trying to resist being hanged for it."
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St John's College, on whose board of visitors I served for 8 years and is the 3rd oldest college in America, numbers F.Scott Key among its graduates. He formed the school's alumni association.
https://www.youtube.com/
And:
They called him corny and a second grade actor because he was patriotic. Yet, he turned out to be a fine president and so can Trump, for different reasons, if given the opportunity.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/
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Trump continues to try solving the Gordian Knot and Bibi's political nemesis, Avigdor, continues to place ego about nation. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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My friend, Professor Morci discusses the healthcare issue and a myriad of solutions by other nations, (See 3 below.)
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This from my friend. I plan to be on the call scheduling permitting. (See 4 below.)
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Huawei: The Real Story (See 5 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++ When Bossie ad Lewandowski were here they made the observation that if Trump get's 4% more of the black vote it is tap city for the Democrats. (See 6 below.)
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What has kept civilization alive. (See 8 below.)
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Ross rants some more. (See 8 below.)
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The spectre of socialism in America (See 9 below.)
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Be careful what you wish for. Democrat's Equality Bill may eventually bite them in the behind:
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Why Americans with a brain have serious reservations about the mass media:
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Barr responds. (See 10below.)
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Dick+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)Pro-Israel group urges California Democrats to reject resolutions that ‘demonize’ Israel at upcoming convention
The Progressive Zionists of California, whose members have come under anti-Semitic verbal attacks, noted that six resolutions “demonize Israel” and are a distraction from the real issues affecting Californians.
BY SEAN SAVAGE
(May 30, 2019 / JNS) A group of pro-Israel activists from the Progressive Zionists of California is urging members of the California Democratic Party (CDP) to oppose several anti-Israel resolutions that were submitted to the party by anti-Israel activists ahead of the party’s convention this weekend in San Francisco.
In a statement to JNS, the group Progressive Zionists of California, who have come under anti-Semitic verbal assaults from far-left activists, noted that six resolutions “demonize Israel” and are a distraction from the real issues affecting Californians.
“The convention this weekend in San Francisco is a time for California Democrats to come together and focus on electing new leadership for our state party, and on the issues that affect the lives of Californians—affordable housing, guaranteed healthcare, immigration reform, climate change, police brutality, free public education, protecting women’s and LGBTQ rights, and much more,” the statement said.
“These six anti-Israel resolutions divide us rather than bring us together,” it continued. “They give no care for the human rights, self-determination, and safety of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland. As they all demonize Israel and hold Palestinian leadership completely harmless, one resolution even calls for the destruction of Israel as the Jewish state.”
Among the resolutions submitted to the CDP’s Resolutions Committee are ending Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank, Gaza, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights; calling for the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees; encouraging California Democrats to attend Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-Mich.) upcoming trip to the West Bank; and amending the CDP’s definition of anti-Semitism to exclude all criticism of Israel.
In one of the resolutions, it calls the October 2018 synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh that killed 11 congregants “the culmination of an alarming re-emergence of virulent antisemitism that is a core element of historical and currently resurgent white supremacism in the United States and around the world.” It also says that the “Israeli government, along with some of its U.S. backers,” the resolution continues, “welcomed support from Christian fundamentalist and ultra-right groups in the United States and abroad, dangerously ignoring their deeply rooted antisemitism while aligning with their virulent Islamophobia.”
The resolutions also condemn U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and ending Israel’s “blockade” of the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
The current CDP platform adopted in 2018 supports Israel as a “democratic Jewish state with recognized borders,” while also endorsing a two-state solution, and that Israelis and Palestinians “deserve security, recognition, and a normal life free from terror and incitement.”
It also calls for the “end the teaching and use of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in discourse throughout the Middle East and beyond, and oppose efforts to undermine the equal rights of Israel and Palestine.”
‘Some have felt bullied and intimidated’
Paul Kujawsky, a Los Angeles attorney, a former president of Democrats for Israel in L.A. and a member of the steering committee of Progressive Zionists of California, told JNS that a number of far-left activists within the Progressive Caucus and Arab-American Caucus are pressing the CDP against Israel.
“They push the ideas that you can’t be both progressive and pro-Israel; that Israel is a racist, colonialist apartheid state; and that ‘human rights’ demands the Palestinian ‘right of return’ and a single state (in which the Jews will be a minority),” he said.
While the anti-Israel resolutions submitted to the Resolutions Committee do not show any authors, according to a letter obtained by JNS, activists associated with the pro-BDS group Jewish Voice for Peace and the Sacramento Palestine Coalition are tied to them.
Additionally, Iyad Afalqa, chair of the Arab-American Caucus, is listed in the letter as one of the authors of the resolutions. Earlier this year, Afalqa called Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) a “shmuck,” a “traitor” and a member of a “fascist Israel lobby” on Facebook.
“This group is loud and aggressive, and some pro-Israel Democrats have felt bullied and intimidated,” said Kujawsky. “I myself have been called a white supremacist and supporter of genocide merely for being a Zionist.”
The concern comes amid a larger concerns within the Democratic Party over anti-Semitic and anti-Israel attacks spearheaded by Reps. Tlaib and Omar Ilhan (D-Minn.). Many within the Jewish and pro-Israel community, including Democrats, believe the party has not done enough to condemn anti-Semitism. Several Democratic presidential contenders are expected to attend the gathering in San Francisco, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
According to the Progressive Zionists of California, there has been a spate of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist slurs directed at Jewish and pro-Israel CDP members on social media.
Among them, the group said, include accusing individuals of supporting genocide, racism and comparing Zionism to Nazism and the Ku Klux Klan.
“In response, some of us came together to create Progressive Zionists of California—to push back against the growing anti-Zionism in the CDP and to show that Democrats can be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian by supporting ‘two states for two peoples,’ ” said Kujawsky.
As a result, the Progressive Zionists of California have proposed their own resolution that calls on the California Democratic Party to condemn hate speech in all its forms against ethnic and religious groups, including all forms of anti-Semitic hate speech; including anti-Semitic anti-Zionism, both within and without the California Democratic Party, when used against any individual; or to slur the aspirations of Jews or those who support Jews.”
Kujawsky said that from the messages he has received from the Resolutions Committee and the Legislation Committee, he is optimistic that no anti-Israel resolutions will be approved at the convention this weekend.
“Our hope,” he emphasized, “is that this convention will show that the anti-Zionists in the CDP are a loud, but small, and now-ineffective minority.”
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2)
US says Mideast conference in Bahrain to go ahead despite Israeli election
With Trump advisers in region to rally support for next month’s summit, official clarifies that separate rollout of plan’s political elements will take place when timing’s right
WASHINGTON — A US-led conference on economic aspects of a Middle East peace plan will go ahead next month in Bahrain despite Israel’s snap elections, the State Department said Thursday.
“We are not anticipating any changes. It’s set for June 25 and 26,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told reporters.
Another US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that a separate rollout of the political elements of the plan would take place “when the timing is right.”
Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, had been preparing for months to unveil the peace plan but had said he was waiting for Israel’s elections in April as well as the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Israel, however, on Thursday set new elections for September 17 after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a coalition.
The Bahrain conference is expected to look at economic opportunities for the Palestinians, through funding from Washington’s Gulf Arab allies that are united with Israel and the United States in opposing Iran.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II (center) meets White House adviser Jared Kushner (4th from left) and US special envoy Jason Greenblatt, (3rd from left) in Amman on May 29, 2019. (Petra News)
Kushner has hinted that the United States in turn will not push for the creation of a Palestinian state, a key goal of decades of US-led diplomacy, and Netanyahu during his last campaign vowed to apply Israeli sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority has already said it will boycott the Bahrain conference, not seeing Trump as an honest broker after his landmark recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Kushner and Trump’s Middle East adviser Jason Greenblatt were in the Middle East this week, making stops in Morocco and Jordan in order to rally support for the Bahrain conference before arriving in Israel on Wednesday evening. Neither Amman nor Rabat have stated whether they will attend the conference,
The Saudis, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, along with host Bahrain, have accepted invitations to attend. This has fueled Palestinian jitters that they will come under heavy pressure to accept large sums of money in exchange for freezing or abandoning aspirations for an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.
In accepting the invitation to the Bahrain conference, Gulf countries have been careful to express solidarity with the Palestinians but have also signaled flexibility.
2a) Trump’s Deal On Mideast May ‘Trump’ Politics
By BENNY AVNI, Special to the Sun
As Israel gears up to a surprise election, the American-led peace plan touted as the “Deal of the Century” seemed to suffer a major blow. But don’t write off the deal yet.
Wait, election? Didn’t we just do this, like, five minutes ago? Yes, Israel had an election back in April. But 50 days later, Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose right-wing bloc won, failed to assemble a ruling coalition — so he opted for a redo instead.
Quibbling with would-be partners over compulsory national service for the traditionally-exempt ultra-Orthodox, Mr. Netanyahu needed to contend with religious zealotry, political egos, and his own vulnerability after being charged with corruption.
On Wednesday, just before his 50-day deadline to announce a coalition expired at midnight, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, voted itself out, and a new election was set for Sept. 17.
It’ll cost the state far beyond $100 million and, if instant public opinion polls are correct, the outcome will change little. Yet, movement of even one Knesset seat could resolve some issues and Israel will, at last, get a new government.
Also Wednesday, two American guests, Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner, arrived in Israel, still trying to push President Trump’s long-advertised blueprint for Israeli-Arab peace. Their arrival just as the political drama ensued seemed oh-so-ill-timed.
The peace plan, kept under wraps for two years, was widely expected to be unveiled at the end of Ramadan next week. But Israel’s unprecedented and all-consuming political turmoil is likely to postpone it yet again, for the fall at the earliest.
Messrs. Kushner and Greenblatt, in fact, came to Israel at the end of a quick Mideast swing, trying to talk Morocco’s king, Mohammed VI, and Jordan’s king, Abdullah II, into coming to Bahrain next month.
The June 26 workshop in the tiny Gulf state is an opportunity for Arab statesmen to attempt to alleviate Palestinian economic hardships. The Saudis, Emiratis, Egyptians, Qataris, and others will be there — but not the Palestinian Authority, which has been fighting the Greenblatt-Kushner plan tooth and nail — even before seeing one paragraph of it.
The Palestinians, widely dependent on donations, prove that, yes, beggars can and will be choosers; The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and Mr. Abbas only, will decide who gets the privilege to hand cash over to him.
Despite the American visit, Jordan’s Abdullah has yet to decide on representation in Bahrain. The king is sensitive to political whims of his Palestinian constituents, which is a majority in the country. Jordan’s absence may put a dent in the Bahrain proceedings, which is why the two American envoys flew to Amman, where they applied extra pressure on the king.
Meanwhile, traditional Washington peace processors, who have long predicted failure for Messrs. Kushner and Greenblatt, are already portraying the Bahrain summit as a disaster. Even if the powwow is successful, they say, it’d be worthless without the Palestinians.
Maybe. But, regardless of whether it would improve the Palestinian economy, the gathering points to a new, sensible approach to Israeli-Arab peace making. In the past, Washington diplomacy was premised on the notion that Arab states won’t cut deals with Israel, at least publicly, until the Palestinian issue is resolved.
Yet the interests of Israel and Arab rulers increasingly coincide (this week Arab leaders gathered in Saudi Arabia to forge a coherent Iran policy); Israel hatred is waning; and many in the region have wearied of endless Palestinian quibbling.
A successful peacemaking approach, then, could well turn the old paradigm on its head: Get Arab states and Israel to improve relations first, and then they will pressure the Palestinians to come along. This outside-in approach is new, and Mr. Trump’s team has long indicated a preference for it.
Another signal is emerging from Washington official statements and acts such as recognizing Jerusalem as capital: Past administrations, especially President Obama’s, saw Israeli policies — the occupation, the settlements, etc. — as the main, if not only, stumbling block to peace. Mr. Trump and his envoys put the onus on the Arab side.
The only people railing against this approach are those who have long tried to make peace and failed. Meanwhile, if Trump & Co. continue to work on the Arab side of the equation, a little political meshuggahs in Jerusalem may not be such a huge problem after all.
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3)Washington Times
I'm writing from Israel, where I am joining a group of senior AIPAC staff members for a week of meetings, briefings and firsthand experiences across the country.
It is an important time to be in Israel, and I am eager to share what I learn with you in the coming days and weeks.
We will hear from Israeli journalists, analysts and politicians as Israelis prepare for an unprecedented second straight election in September.
We will tour Israeli communities in the north and see the Hezbollah terror tunnels discovered by the IDF (the most advanced of which was sealed off this week). Our visit will include in-depth briefings in the Golan Heights from the Israeli security establishment about the threats posed by Iranian proxies in Lebanonand Syria.
We will meet with Israeli, Palestinian and American officials to hear their various perspectives on the peace process, including the latest regarding the Bahrain economic summit initiated by the United States and scheduled for next month.
We will interact with Israelis of all backgrounds and perspectives across the Jewish state, and see the impact of our work together to keep them safe.
At AIPAC, we often say that the best way to understand Israel is to experience Israel. And as I write this, there are several other groups on the ground with AIPAC's charitable organization, AIEF, gaining that critical experience -- including a group of non-Jewish political campus leaders and 17 congressional chiefs of staff.
I look forward to sharing stories and highlights from Israel soon.
All the best,
Mark
3)Washington Times
When Health Care Is More Important than the Economy
Trump Must Run Against Bernie Care and the GOP in 2020
By Peter Morici
President Trump is the victim of his own success. Voters now rank health care above the economy as the top issue for Washington to address, and the president must run against his own party to win in 2020.
American discontent stems from affordability. We pay 75 percent more for health care through taxes, premiums and out of pocket than do Canadians and Europeans, and face an unconscionable morass to access services.
Market-rigging local cartels are common among hospitals and insurers and physician-specialist groups. Drug manufacturers block competing new drugs and rig prices for generics. And prices for hospitals, drugs and other services are opaque and vary arbitrarily among purchasers. Filling prescriptions and scheduling procedures can require hours of hassle for patients and physicians with benefits managers and insurers.
Sen. Bernie Sanders promises to sweep that all away with a single-payer system similar to the Canadian and British approaches, but that would require about $3 trillion in new taxes annually, likely including a payroll tax with exemptions for families below the poverty line.
His proposal is mighty slim on how to get doctors to accept Medicare reimbursements, which would hardly be enough to keep them in business, or drug companies to stop charging Canadians and Europeans cheap rates and soaking Americans, but the promise of free stuff is a proven winner for Democrats. Especially with so many young voters enamored with socialism and a rising Hispanic population with recent heritages from nations where governments are expected to ensure greater fairness and justice within the context of market economies.
Conservatives' warnings about single-payer systems have data problems, too.
Canadians and Europeans run two types of systems - most relevant for Americans are the Canadian, British, German and Netherlands systems that provide universal coverage. The former two have single-payer frameworks. Whereas the latter have more comprehensive variants of ObamaCare with mandatory enrollment in private or non-profit insurance that feature less bureaucracy, price controls with teeth and insurers that follow national health care policies rather than rationing without much democratic accountability.
Conservatives are fond to tell tales of inadequate access and poor quality north of the 49th parallel and imposed on our British brethren. According to data published by the Fraser Institute, when it comes to prompt access to specialists or elective surgery, Germany is best and Canada worst, but the Netherlands and U.K. are about on par between them.
On quality of care, on 11 measures such as in-patient hospital mortality and obstetric trauma with vaginal delivery, the Netherlands is best followed by Canada, then Germany and the U.K. finishing last. Germany and the U.K. are not the places to get cancer - they have the lowest overall five-year survival for breast, cervical, colon and rectal malignancies.
As comprehensive measures - years of healthy life expectancy and life expectancy and deaths adjusted for conditions that are amenable to health care - Canada and the Netherlands were tops followed by the U.K. and then Germany.
The bottom line is neither a single payer nor an insurance based approach, which offer consumers many choices, appears superior. All four systems are much less expensive to run than the U.S. system, because national governments set prices and establish frameworks for rationing. In the bargain, patients and doctors suffer much less bureaucracy.
Republicans with their quaint fondness for health care spending accounts, devolving Medicaid to the states with block grants and free markets simply have not embraced ideas that address what makes the U.S. system the worst on a value basis - price fixing.
As Americans are so divided - especially between red and blue states - and no single approach appears superior, give the states what the federal government now spends - not just federal allotments for Medicaid. Let them set up "Bernie Care" or reform the present system to their tastes. However, the federal government - read the Trump administration - must take the leadership to curb Big Pharma, benefit managers and insurance company anticompetitive practices in national markets. And empower - and require as a condition for access to federal funds - states attorneys general to crackdown on regional hospital and physician cartels.
Without those, eventually frustrated voters will deliver to socialists control of the White House and a working majority in Congress, who will impose a single-payer system that works with the ambience and efficiency of the U.S. Postal Service.
Peter Morici is an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland, and a national columnist.
Peter Morici
Professor
Robert H. Smith School of Business
University of Maryland
New Cell: 703 350 9701
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4) Dear Richard,
I'm writing from Israel, where I am joining a group of senior AIPAC staff members for a week of meetings, briefings and firsthand experiences across the country.
It is an important time to be in Israel, and I am eager to share what I learn with you in the coming days and weeks.
We will hear from Israeli journalists, analysts and politicians as Israelis prepare for an unprecedented second straight election in September.
We will tour Israeli communities in the north and see the Hezbollah terror tunnels discovered by the IDF (the most advanced of which was sealed off this week). Our visit will include in-depth briefings in the Golan Heights from the Israeli security establishment about the threats posed by Iranian proxies in Lebanonand Syria.
We will meet with Israeli, Palestinian and American officials to hear their various perspectives on the peace process, including the latest regarding the Bahrain economic summit initiated by the United States and scheduled for next month.
We will interact with Israelis of all backgrounds and perspectives across the Jewish state, and see the impact of our work together to keep them safe.
At AIPAC, we often say that the best way to understand Israel is to experience Israel. And as I write this, there are several other groups on the ground with AIPAC's charitable organization, AIEF, gaining that critical experience -- including a group of non-Jewish political campus leaders and 17 congressional chiefs of staff.
I look forward to sharing stories and highlights from Israel soon.
All the best,
Mark
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5)Huawei: The Real Story
by Chet Nagle
Communist China’s huge telecom company makes headlines every day: Trump cracks down on Huawei, or, Commerce Department issues rule against Huawei, or, 5G network rollout delayed. Stock markets swoon with each dire report.
So what’s going on?
And, is it really important to our national security?
Understanding why the battle with Huawei involves U.S. national security requires a little history. It begins during the Cold War, and the need of western allies for the ability to read Soviet Russia’s electronic mail. Beginning with simple intercept radios, a complex system evolved that ultimately consisted of computers, satellites, cable networks, antenna arrays, towers and server farms that could read everyone’s mail. It was code-named Echelon, and the intelligence it gathered was ultimately shared by the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — an English-speaking group known as “5 Eyes.”
Today, electronic intelligence gathering has been further complicated by the Internet, by the astounding proliferation of cell phones, and by the simple fact that the United States is no longer the center of global communications. Nevertheless, organizations like the National Security Agency continue to monitor electronic communications and our tech companies have grown to be world leaders in innovation, from software to chips to cell phone systems. Recognizing the significance of that progress, China has been playing catch-up for decades. Enter Huawei.
Huawei, the tip of Beijing’s telecoms espionage spear, was founded in 1987 by a former member of the Peoples Liberation Army’s Information Technology Department. Ren Zhengfei’s online biography is carefully groomed to avoid mention of his military rank or affiliation with China’s Communist Party. He cheerfully insists Huawei is an “independent” company in a communist country, and that he would deny a request by the Chinese government for any intelligence Huawei may acquire from its international business. No one takes that statement seriously.
Huawei manufactures antenna towers, core switchgear, fiber optic cables, and everything else that computers and cell phones need to connect to the global Internet via the anticipated 5G network. That includes equipment at switching points where all information and data is routed to its destinations. That “core” equipment would have access to everything that goes through it, including traffic from the LTE/4G system we use today. Huawei’s plan is simple: sell everything needed for a 5G system at very attractive prices, including that essential core equipment –- which has “backdoors” that would allow Huawei to read everyone’s electronic mail.
Huawei’s goal is just as simple: have the world pay them to install and maintain a Chinese 5G spy system. But as we are now seeing in news reports, China’s simple strategy to dominate global communications has serious weak points.
First, when a few countries began to buy Huawei’s 5G equipment, the Trump administration woke up. Washington then made it clear that any country that installed Huawei core equipment, especially the 5 Eyes partners, would be immediately cut out of intelligence sharing with the United States. 5 Eyes got the message, and only the British decided to buy some safe non-core Huawei equipment.
Second, Huawei is not technologically self-sufficient and, like most of China’s hi-tech companies, it depends on importing key parts and services from Silicon Valley. Upending seven decades of putting business with China first and U.S. interests second, the Trump administration did two things to end Huawei’s global espionage threat.
On May 15th, President Trump signed an Executive Order prohibiting American firms from buying any telecoms products and services from “foreign adversaries” because they constitute “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security.” Though the foreign adversaries were not named, they are communist China and its telecoms giant, Huawei.
Immediately after the Executive Order was announced, the Commerce Department cleared up any doubt about who those “foreign adversaries” might be by issuing a rule prohibiting the sale of all American parts and services to Huawei and 68 of its affiliates and subsidiaries.
A similar rule came close to bankrupting ZTE, Huawei’s smaller Chinese cousin. It was issued because ZTE evaded U.S. sanctions by selling products to Iran that included software and hardware from Microsoft, HP, Oracle, Dell, Cisco, and Symantec. The ban was lifted in March 2017 after ZTE admitted guilt, paid a $1.2 billion fine, and agreed to being monitored by a compliance officer.
Such a settlement by Huawei would be a serious setback to China’s plan for global dominance, so there’s little chance of it happening. Yet. Meantime, the Chinese politburo is reassessing a strategy that has caused major disagreement amongst its members, a conflict that has put the U.S.-China trade deal in limbo. Politburo hardliners and softliners (yes, communist China has them too) are now arguing among themselves about whether they should outwait the Trump administration, hoping for Trump’s defeat in 2020, or make a deal that recognizes that China exports more than four times as many goods to America than we export to them, and that their staggering economy will not take the added strain of a prolonged trade war.
What happens next? At this early date, the outcome of the struggle is clouded by too many disparate factors to be labeled as certain.
Nevertheless, a list is a useful telescope to help us see and understand what President Trump and trade representative Lighthizer are now doing:
1. China outwaiting the Trump administration is a bad idea. Both parties in Congress and the media are united in their understanding of the existential threat that China poses to the United States, despite the efforts of the China Lobby. The American public is becoming aware of that threat too, and when Confucius Institute Centers begin to be disinvited by U.S. universities, Beijing will get the message that soft power has its limits.
· The Chinese economy is entering a recession, and the U.S. economy is vibrant. Both will be hurt by trade and tariff fights, but China will hurt much more. If Washington carries out planned tariff increases, the Chinese economy will be pushed even deeper into recession, or worse.
· The Chinese Communist Party is obsessed by only one thing: maintaining power. In an effort to avoid the fate of the communist party of Russia, the Beijing politburo made a detailed study of the fall of Soviet Russia. They concluded that to remain in power they must build a surveillance system that will record the biometric data of every one of China’s 1.4 billion citizens, and that will monitor their every movement. They believe that such a control system, based on a 5G network and artificial intelligence, will give them the power to avoid another Tiananmen Square uprising.
But Trump and Lighthizer know that the collapse of the Soviet empire was caused by the U.S. pushing a deteriorating Russian economy to the point of failure. In similar fashion, they intend to end the existential threat from a nascent Chinese communist empire by using the power of American productivity in hi-tech, space, agriculture, mining, and heavy industry.
To paraphrase President Ronald Reagan, China will lose, and we will win.
In addition to being a personal friend, Chet Nagle is a Naval Academy graduate, a Georgetown Law School graduate, and a Cold War carrier pilot who flew in the Cuban Missile Crisis. After a stint as a research project officer in the Naval Oceanographic Office, he joined the Pentagon’s International Security Affairs section (ISA/ILN) and, as a senior civilian, was involved in defense and intelligence affairs with NATO and other allies.
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6)
Sanders Chooses Teachers Unions Over
Black Voters
The candidate calls for a moratorium on charter schools. It’s bad politics and even worse policy.
Black voters had little use for Bernie Sanders when he sought the presidency in 2016. In the South Carolina primary, exit polls showed him winning only 14% of the black vote, while 86% went to Hillary Clinton. The Vermont socialist knows he must up his game with this constituency to have any chance of winning the 2020 Democratic nomination, but his recent attack on school choice may wind up costing him minority support.
Mr. Sanders called Saturday for more regulations on existing charter schools and a moratorium on federal funding for new ones. “The proliferation of charter schools has disproportionately affected communities of color,” said the senator. That’s true, but the effect has been positive, which is why black support for more education options is so strong.
In a poll released earlier this month by Democrats for Education Reform, 58% of black Democratic primary voters expressed a favorable view of charter schools, while 31% opposed them. Among Hispanics, the breakdown was similar—52% to 30%. But among white Democratic primary voters, only 26% supported charters, while 62% viewed them unfavorably. A racial divide also surfaces when people are asked about school vouchers. “African American (56%) and Hispanic (62%) respondents are considerably more supportive of vouchers for low-income families than are whites (35%),” according to a recent Education Next survey.
In Florida’s closely contested governor’s race last year, the Democratic candidate, Andrew Gillum, campaigned on closing charters and ending a tax-credit program that allows underprivileged kids to attend private schools. He lost to Republican Ron DeSantis, who supported school choice. According to William Mattox of the James Madison Institute, a state think tank, it was the backing of tens of thousands of black school-choice supporters that helped put Mr. DeSantis over the top.
Donald Trump and Barack Obama don’t agree on much, but both men understand that traditional public schools aren’t cutting it for millions of low-income children. Both of Mr. Obama’s education secretaries, Arne Duncan and John King, were vocal proponents of charter schools. And Mr. Trump could not have tapped a stronger school-choice advocate than the current secretary of education, Betsy DeVos.
Mr. Sanders’s claim notwithstanding, it is the traditional public school system, not the alternatives, that disproportionately hurts minority students. Why should black parents be expected to pledge undying loyalty to an education model that has been failing their children for generations? Black and brown kids are assigned to the most violent schools with the least effective teachers and staff, while the unions and their political allies repeatedly call for—and receive—more funding and little accountability.
Mr. Sanders will find support for his attack on school choice from civil-rights groups who take money from teachers’ unions, but he shouldn’t mistake NAACP support for black support. Many black families are convinced that school choice is the solution, not the problem. Which is why there are tens of thousands of minority children languishing on charter school wait lists in cities across the country.
Repeated studies have demonstrated that charter schools are closing racial gaps in academic achievement. Whether the measure is test scores, graduation rates or college readiness, charter students consistently outperform their peers in traditional public schools. Charter high schools make up only 10% of the country’s 26,000 public high schools. But according to the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, charters comprise three of the top 10 public high schools in the country, and 23 of the top 100. Low-income charter-school graduates complete college at two to four times the national average for their peers.
This debate over K-12 education reform ought to inform the one over college admissions, and if Bernie Sanders and the other 387 Democrats running for president wanted to be really bold, they’d connect those dots for voters.
To the extent that successful elementary- and secondary-school models are permitted to expand, there is less reason for college administrators to use racial preferences or “adversity” ratings. Socioeconomic determinism is a dubious notion. Low-income black charter-school students in major cities outscore children from wealthy white suburbs on standardized tests. Economically disadvantaged Asian students outperform middle-class black kids. If family income matters so much in determining the education prospects of a child, why were fabulously wealthy families caught lying and cheating their way into the University of Southern California?
Race-based affirmative action in higher education has resulted in fewer black graduates and more racial tension than we would have had otherwise. Using “adversity” as a proxy for race is unlikely to improve the situation because holding people to lower standards for whatever reason doesn’t help them advance. The time is long overdue to end these policies, not tinker with them. Allowing successful charter schools to expand is a good first step.
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7) Our Modern ‘Satyricon’
Sometime around A.D. 60, in the age of Emperor Nero, a Roman court insider named Gaius Petronius wrote a satirical Latin novel, “The Satyricon,” about moral corruption in Imperial Rome. The novel’s general landscape was Rome’s transition from an agrarian republic to a globalized multicultural superpower.
The novel survives only in a series of extended fragments. But there are enough chapters for critics to agree that the high-living Petronius, nicknamed the “Judge of Elegance,” was a brilliant cynic. He often mocked the cultural consequences of the sudden and disruptive influx of money and strangers from elsewhere in the Mediterranean region into a once-traditional Roman society.
The novel plots the wandering odyssey of three lazy, overeducated and mostly underemployed single young Greeks: Encolpius, Ascyltos and Giton. They aimlessly mosey around southern Italy. They panhandle and mooch off the nouveau riche. They mock traditional Roman customs. The three and their friends live it up amid the culinary, cultural and sexual excesses in the age of Nero.
Certain themes in “The Satyricon” are timeless and still resonate today.
The abrupt transition from a society of rural homesteaders into metropolitan coastal hubs had created two Romes. One world was a sophisticated and cosmopolitan network of traders, schemers, investors, academics and deep-state imperial cronies. Their seaside corridors were not so much Roman as Mediterranean. And they saw themselves more as “citizens of the world” than as mere Roman citizens.
In the novel, vast, unprecedented wealth had produced license. On-the-make urbanites suck up and flatter the childless rich in hopes of being given estates rather than earning their own money.
The rich in turn exploit the young sexually and emotionally by offering them false hopes of landing an inheritance.
Petronius seems to mock the very world in which he indulged.
His novel’s accepted norms are pornography, gratuitous violence, sexual promiscuity, transgenderism, delayed marriage, childlessness, fear of aging, homelessness, social climbing, ostentatious materialism, prolonged adolescence, and scamming and conning in lieu of working.
The characters are fixated on expensive fashion, exotic foods and pretentious name-dropping. They are the lucky inheritors of a dynamic Roman infrastructure that had globalized three continents.
Rome had incorporated the shores of the Mediterranean under uniform law, science, institutions—all kept in check by Roman bureaucracy and the overwhelming power of the legions, many of them populated by non-Romans.
Never in the history of civilization had a generation become so wealthy and leisured, so eager to gratify every conceivable appetite—and yet so bored and unhappy.
But there was also a second Rome in the shadows. Occasionally the hipster antiheroes of the novel bump into old-fashioned rustics, shopkeepers and legionaries. They are what we might now call the ridiculed “deplorables” and “clingers.”
Even Petronius suggests that these rougher sorts built and maintained the vast Roman Empire. They are caricatured as bumpkins and yet admired as simple, sturdy folk without the pretensions and decadence of the novel’s urban drones.
Petronius is too skilled a satirist to paint a black-and-white picture of good old traditional Romans versus their corrupt urban successors.
His point is subtler.
Globalization had enriched and united non-Romans into a world culture. That was an admirable feat. But such homogenization also attenuated the very customs, traditions and values that had led to such astounding Roman success in the first place.
The multiculturalism, urbanism and cosmopolitanism of “The Satyricon” reflected an exciting Roman mishmash of diverse languages, habits and lifestyles drawn from northern and Western Europe, Asia and Africa.
But the new empire also diluted a noble and unique Roman agrarianism. It eroded nationalism and patriotism. The empire’s wealth, size and lack of cohesion ultimately diminished Roman unity, as well as traditional marriage, child-bearing and autonomy.
Education likewise was seen as ambiguous. In the novel, wide reading ensures erudition and sophistication, and helps science supplant superstition. But sometimes education is also ambiguous. Students become idle, pretentious loafers. Professors are no different from loud pedants. Writers are trite and boring. Elite pundits sound like gasbags.
Petronius seems to imply that whatever the Rome of his time was, it was likely not sustainable—but would at least be quite exciting in its splendid decline.
Petronius also argues that with too much rapid material progress comes moral regress. His final warning might be especially troubling for the current generation of Western Europeans and Americans.
Even as we brag of globalizing the world and enriching the West materially and culturally, we are losing our soul in the process.
Getting married, raising families, staying in one place, still working with our hands and postponing gratification may be seen as boring and out of date. But nearly 2,000 years later, all of that is what still keeps civilization alive.
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8) Ross Rant
9)The spectre of socialism in America
8) Ross Rant
By: Joel Ross, Citadel Realty
China tried to do what they always do - agree until they decide to retrade the deal just before closing in the hope you want the deal badly enough to concede key issues just to close.
That is what Obama did with the Iranians - he folded out of desperation. They played him like a little puppet.
It is what Kim thought he could do with Trump. Promises, promises, and hope the other guy blinks, which is how we got so badly in the hole over decades with China, N Korea and Iran. Kim keeps trying to make noise, but all he does is look weaker, because Trump will not give him anything.
The Chinese now know Trump is not Obama, and Pompeo is not Kerry. In the end there will most likely be a China deal, but first they need to decide to act properly, which is a total change of behavior for them.
Trump has many of the Dems with him now on this, and much of the farm belt.
The US economy is booming, but China is suffering, and is about to hurt a lot more when the next round of tariffs is in place.
Now the whole world knows this is not Obama anymore, and there are real consequences for playing games with the US now. It is likely a big shock.
This is also what happens when the Dems work to impeach Trump and “get” him with the support of the press. China, Kim and Iran probably misunderstand what is happening, and they think Trump is weak and may get impeached. The Dems and the press are making it far harder for the US to successfully conclude these deals with their irresponsible threats and false reporting. Clearly the Dems have their priorities wrong.
The economy does not get much better than this. The adjustment by BLS to GDP will drop it to 3.0% for Q1. Still very good. It was 1.7% in Q4 2016 and dropping. And now it will grow more, and faster, for 1-2 quarters, then slow, because there is not enough available labor to sustain this level of growth, unemployment will drop a little further, wages will rise faster, and the Fed might decide to raise by year end as a result. That will be a huge political issue going into 2020. Lower rates is off the table, and would be totally wrong right now, and Trump needs to stop talking about it. The lack of available skilled labor will intensify the shift to AI and other tech equipment to allow companies to sustain production and service, which means a lot more cap ex as the year goes on. Good for GDP growth and productivity.
The Fed, the stock market, and pundits had it all wrong in Q4. It is why I keep harping on make your own analysis, and invest in solid US equities, and hold for the long term, unless things go sideways for a specific company-like GE did.
Know when to raise and when to fold. Pay attention to your portfolio. Control your own destiny and liquidity.
Despite the Dems and some in the press saying Obama started the recovery, here are some numbers: GDP 2016-Q2 2.3, Q3 1.9, Q4 1.8, 2017 Q1 before Trump really was in place 1.8, 2017 Q2 3.0, all of 2018 3.1, 2019 Q1 3.2. You may note a trend line down in 2016, and up materially in 2017,18,19.
Wages did not grow after inflation under Obama.
Low income wages are now growing at 6%.
Black unemployment in 2016 was 9.6%, now it is 6.8%.
Joe and Barrack did nothing for average family income or for blacks. Remember when Obama said factory employment could not rise-“what does he have, a magic wand?”
Remember when Dem economists said 2% GDP was the new normal. And so what are the Dems and Biden going to claim they can do now. Raise wages- they did nothing for that in 8 years.
With the jobs numbers like they are, it is highly likely Q2 will be closer to 4% than 3%. Productivity was the best in over ten years, and that is key to higher wages and low inflation, especially at the low wage end. And that is key to keep interest rates low despite rising wages.
The Philips Curve* is dead. As lower end workers are trained to work with computers and AI driven machines, they can earn more through higher productivity, and have a more satisfying, less dangerous job.
Technology is making a major difference now, and we are not losing jobs, we are gaining them. Technology is the key to productivity, and to allowing companies to employ fewer at higher wages, while the economy as a whole grows and reemploys those who lose their job to technology.
We are just in the baby stage of using AI to dramatically improve productivity, which bodes well for keeping growth going for longer than the economists think possible.
It will not be very long before driverless trucks deliver to an automated warehouse where robots unload the goods and stack it in shelves, then pick it for shipment to end users, and pack it and address it.
The warehouse is already highly automated, and getting more so by the year, now we just need the public infrastructure for the driverless trucks to safely go on the road. 5G is that key.
I happened to look at the results of some mutual funds run by a major bank. There were various funds covering everything from fixed income, to international equity, to emerging markets. None performed close to the market.
Things I note : The larger the fund the harder to even match the market-they just have so much money, they overwhelm a specific security. or they become the market. The funds have a lot of capital so it gets spread all over the place, in some funds over 15 countries and hundreds of securities of all sorts. They call this diversifying the risk. I call it stupid investing. I believe it increases risk because by throwing money all over, you end up with several bad choices of securities, and that increases the risk of some losses compared to a small, well selected portfolio of solid growing US corporations that pay dividends and have strong balance sheets and solid management.
I have spent years in Wall St, so I know how these games are played. They earn big fees the more money they manage, so the idea is to have a lot of money in a fund so the fees are large. Now they hire a lot of people to manage all that money- big expense. Comes out of your return. They believe spreading funds all over diversifies the risk so they need a lot of staff to make trades and administer it.
Reality, they rarely beat the market and instead measure against a benchmark of other stupidly invested funds.
Reports are against benchmark, not against the S&P, nor against index funds. If they were, you would see how badly they really do. This is why I never buy a mutual fund.
Smaller funds generally beat the larger ones for the reasons above. Hedge funds returns over 5 years have averaged 2.69%. The JPM Global, Bond Index had returns of 2.97%. S&P averaged 8.49% and annuities were around 5% at the top end and close to 3.5% for many.
Annuities are really an insurance policy wrapped in a pretty gift wrap that charges big fees, and then gives you back your own money with a meager return. They are illiquid, and have tax consequences in many cases if you need the cash back. So here you pay big fees to have someone have a big, expensive staff, to give you your own money back, if you live long enough, and a meager return.
Why would anyone do this? You want safety and a decent return, and no more fees, buy a BAA, or BBB rated corporate bond, or muni, or participating preferred, sleep peacefully, and have 100% liquidity, and no tax issues, other than tax on interest received, and you make more money.
We can only understand where are, if we know where we came from. That is key to the problem of the college graduates today. There are no history courses, so they have no idea where we had been to judge how far we have come.
They know little of segregation other than it is a word and was bad. They understand little of the civil war, how it came about, and why it was fought, the role of US Grant in reconstruction, and the racism which followed behind him with Andrew Johnson.
They have no clue what discrimination Jews had to endure even through my early adult years.
They know nothing about Japanese internment camps.
They have zero context of where world hunger and poverty was before modern times, and how capitalism and food technology, especially with rice yield, has lifted billions from abject hunger and poverty.
Now with mobile phones, and the internet coming to even remote villages in Africa and India and elsewhere, technology is changing the world economy and lifting people out of poverty by opening up the world to them.
The snowflakes in US and British universities only know the false indoctrination they are given in college, and through social media, and which Obama and Holder pushed on everyone.
Before Obama, it was widely considered that great progress was being made to increase all types of opportunity for minorities, and, while there was still discrimination, there was a lot being done to give minorities opportunities they never had before. If anything the pendulum has swung too far the other way to where now minorities get selected for college or jobs over whites who are more qualified.
Obama set back race relations and what is taught at colleges by 30 years. In my view the basis of much of the racial tension and screams of racism, no matter the real facts, is that nobody under 25 has a clue about history, nor current facts, so it makes it simple to convince them everyone is a racist, misogynist, etc.
If they were taught real history- facts not ideology- they would possibly understand how capitalism has created the cushy life and entitled life they lead, and how lucky they are to have the opportunity to get a real college education, which in many cases, their parents, and for sure, their grandparents, never had. Instead of real history, they are taught racism, gender politics, and all the other garbage courses which simply instill anger and misinformation, and are useless in the job market.
That to me is one of the key factors as to why college kids today feel they are victims and entitled, and why so many employers say now the college graduates are uneducated and difficult to manage .
I periodically listen to interviews with one or the other Dem running for president. I have concluded they must take a test on economics and IQ, and if they fail miserably, they get to run. Some of what they propose is so stupid and uninformed, it is hard to imagine they actually graduated college.
They just say stuff like, half of Americans don’t have $400 for an emergency. None ever tell who or how they came up with this completely unsubstantiated number.
They claim many are struggling, and not able to pay their bills. I guess they think you are supposed to believe these people were able to pay their bills under Obama and Biden when they were earning much less, and millions more were unemployed.
They have no follow on to say what they would do to increase wages other than everyone gets $1000 per month stipend from the government-ignoring from whence this money is coming.
Stacy Abrams and Gulliam need to get with Hilary and start a sore loser club. Abrams is now getting obnoxious with her claiming she really won.
Facts are there were far more black voters in GA this election than ever before. Registration rates for blacks since voter ID was required is up substantially, and the majority of blacks support voter ID. Any black who wanted to vote and who signed up properly, got to vote. 27% more blacks voted under vote ID than the prior election with no voter ID.
Pew research “All major minority groups saw historic increases in voter turnout”. There was no suppression.
Fact- the voter registration forms her group signed up were largely invalid, so got rejected under GA voter laws for lack of exact match to DMV records. So now she complains they should not have been rejected because they were all blacks.
Well, she was sloppy and screwed up the applications, and they did not comply with the regs. Now she says she may run for president. Is she kidding???? She has zero qualifications. The press even gives her a platform to say this nonsense. Abrams is being a liar and irresponsible with her false claims and inflammatory rhetoric.
DeBozo also says he may run. He is destroying NYC, but thinks he can run for president. Housing projects under DeBozo are third world and the subways are a mess. DeBozo is known in NYC by people who really know him well, to be one of the stupidest people on the planet. Talk about ego maniacs-he and Abrams.
The Dems are so desperate for anyone, they first loved O Rourke because Vanity fair did a photo shoot, then the small town mayor because he makes them feel good to vote for a gay guy-(they felt great to vote for Obama, a black guy, and look what we got), then it was Biden because they know his name, then Bernie because he will give you everything for free. I think I will have my dog run, she is cute, so she has a shot.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++*The Phillips curve is an economic concept developed by A. W. Phillips stating that inflation and unemployment have a stable and inverse relationship. The theory claims that with economic growth comes inflation, which in turn should lead to more jobs and less unemployment. However, the original concept has been somewhat disproven empirically due to the occurrence of stagflation in the 1970s, when there were high levels of both inflation and unemployment.
9)The spectre of socialism in America
By Niall Ferguson
May 13, 2019
A spectre is haunting America — the spectre of socialism.
“I believe that all good things taken to an extreme can be self-destructive and that everything must evolve or die. This is now true for capitalism . . . The income/wealth/opportunity gap is leading to dangerous social and political divisions that threaten our cohesive fabric and capitalism itself.” If there is no reform, “we will have great conflict and some form of revolution …”
No, it was not Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, nor Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. It was Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, which has around $125 billion of assets under management. Dalio himself has an estimated net worth of $18 billion. In a recent essay published on LinkedIn, he tore into the system that has made him a billionaire.
You can see why the capitalists are nervous. Last week, Bernie and AOC joined forces to propose new legislation to “take on Wall Street greed” by capping credit card interest rates at 15 percent (the “Loan Shark Prevention Act”). Also last week, AOC endorsed Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to break up the big technology companies. And let’s not forget February’s “Green New Deal,” with its “10-year national mobilization” plan and its guarantee of “economic security” for people “unable or unwilling to work.”
It used to be a favorite question of the political scientists: Why was there no socialism in the United States? Werner Sombart asked it in 1906. He attributed it to the unpolitical character of the American trade unions; a national culture that revered capitalism and the Constitution; the stability of the two-party system; and the American worker’s relatively higher standards of living compared with his European counterpart. “On the reefs of roast beef and apple pie,” wrote Sombart, “socialistic Utopias of every sort are sent to their doom.”
Yet something is afoot on the American Left today. AOC is only the most famous member of Democratic Socialists of America to have been elected to the House last year; Rashida Tlaib is also a member. And there are now about 35 members in state legislatures. More striking is the polling data.
A Gallup poll last August revealed that only 47 percent of Democrats viewed capitalism positively, down from 56 percent in 2016; 57 percent viewed socialism positively.
The big story here is the growing enthusiasm for socialism among younger Americans. Whereas only 27 percent of over-65s have a positive view of socialism, according to an Axios poll conducted in January, 61 percent of those aged 18-29 do.
Of course, it all depends what you mean by “capitalism” and “socialism.” Ask Americans about “small business,” “entrepreneurs” or “free enterprise” and you get 79-92 percent approval, according to Gallup. By “capitalism” they seem to understand something closer to “big business.”
In its original sense, socialism (as the Oxford English Dictionary makes clear) is “a system of social organization based on state or collective ownership and regulation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange for the common benefit of all members of society.” But that is not what young Americans think it means. They appear to associate socialism with government-provided health care and university education. (An ingenuous few think that socialism just means being sociable.)
As AOC put it to Anderson Cooper in a recent interview, “What we have in mind and what my policies most closely resemble are what we see in the UK, in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden.”
But just how socialist is Sweden, a country often depicted as utopia by progressive types who have never actually been there? In fact, the country comes 10th in the World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness league table; 12th in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings; and 19th (out of 186) in the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Economic Freedom rankings.
Not only do American socialists not know what socialism is; they don’t know where it is either.
Socialism does still exist around the world in various forms. If you want to see state ownership in action, along with the corruption, inefficiency and poverty that invariably goes with it, I recommend Caracas, Pyongyang or—more picturesque—Havana. Don’t look for it in Europe, where even Social Democratic parties have been haemorrhaging voters since the 1990s.
But if you just want to have a debate about the degree of redistribution you want to do through the tax and benefits systems, don’t confuse yourself by talking about socialism. The democratic world is all capitalist now. Voters just choose how much they want to mitigate the inequalities inevitably produced by the market. At one end are the Chileans and Mexicans, who do very little redistribution; at the other are the Finns and the Irish, who do quite a lot. Everyone else is somewhere in between.
If Democrats are smart, they will zero in on health care, which their Republican opponents screwed up when they could not muster the votes to repeal and replace Obamacare.
If Democrats are not smart, they will allow themselves to be associated with socialism. AOC and her followers may like the sound of that word, but most Americans retain their ancestral allergy to it.
A new Monmouth University poll finds that 57 percent of all Americans think that socialism is simply not compatible with American values.
Yes, a spectre is haunting America — the spectre of socialism. That spectre could prove helpful to Donald Trump next year.
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10)
Bill Barr Was Asked About Concern Trolling Over His Reputation, His Response is Hilarious
By Katie Pavlich
Since the release of the Mueller report in April, Attorney General Bill Barr has been attacked by the deranged Left for refusing to fall in line with their Russian collusion narrative. They panicked when he used the term "spying" to describe the action taken against the Trump campaign in 2016. He's been accused of "protecting the president" and the salty language in Washington D.C. significantly ramped up after he announced an investigation into the origins of the Russia probe.
Lamenting his actions, Democrats and their allies in the media have been feigning concern by asking, "But what about Barr's reputation? His legacy?"
Here's one example:
During an interview with CBS News from Alaska this week, Barr responded.
"Everyone dies and I am not, you know, I don't believe in the Homeric idea that you know, immortality comes by, you know, having odes sung about you over the centuries, you know?" he said. "I am at the end of my career."
This is Barr's second time as Attorney General. He served in the same position under President George H.W. Bush. He was asked if he regrets taking up the job again. His answer was no.
"I love the Department of Justice, I love the FBI, I think it is important that we not, in this period of intense partisan feeling, destroy our institutions," he said.
When asked about President Trump's tweets, Barr said he isn't on Twitter, but "every once in awhile a tweet is brought to my attention."
