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Ruth King

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The Hong Kong Crackdown Has Begun Beijing hasn’t sent tanks into the streets. It’s trying to do the job with criminal gangs and technology. By Jillian Kay Melchior

By on October 16th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hong-kong-crackdown-has-begun-11571180182

Hong Kong

The Chinese crackdown here is under way. Tanks haven’t rolled into Hong Kong à la Tiananmen Square in 1989. But Beijing is carrying out a subtler, though often still violent, effort to suppress dissent, hoping the world won’t notice. Ask Stanley Ho Wai-hong of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions.

The 35-year-old pro-democracy labor activist planned a community event Sept. 29 in Sai Kung, a fishing village in Hong Kong’s New Territories. But that afternoon, tens of thousands were rallying in the city against China’s human-rights abuses, so Mr. Ho canceled his event at the last minute. He was driving away when a stranger called him and asked him to come back so villagers could give him a gift. “It was a trap for murder,” he told me at the hospital earlier this month.

When he arrived back in Sai Kung, he says, three men ambushed him and bludgeoned him with metal rods. Mr. Ho fell to the ground and tried to cover his skull with his hands. It took only half a minute for bystanders to rescue him, but “30 seconds is a long time.” The attack left Mr. Ho with seven gashes in his head and five bruises on his back. His right thumb and three other fingers were broken, the left index finger so severely that he needed surgery.

Other pro-democracy figures have been the targets of criminal violence, including lawmakers Lam Cheuk-ting and Kwong Chun-yu; an unnamed reporter for the Apple Daily news paper; Davin Wong, a student activist who was acting president of the Hong Kong University Students’ Union; and Jimmy Sham, convenor of the Civil Human Rights Front, which organized several protests with a million or more participants in Hong Kong this summer. The home of Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai was firebombed in September, and posters hung up in the metro system recently advertised his personal phone number as well as those of his children. Plainclothes thugs have also beaten up protesters, most famously in Yuen Long district in July, where some 45 were injured. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Paul Craig Roberts: Oligarchs Will Crash US Financial System To Boot Trump Out Of Office

By on October 16th, 2019

https://usawatchdog.com/

There is only one restraint that’s keeping the oligarchs from crashing the US economy right now. Paul Craig Roberts explains…

Economic expert and award winning journalist Dr. Paul Craig Roberts predicts that the oligarchs of the New World Order (NWO) will do anything to boot President Trump out of office. Dr. Roberts, who has a PhD in Economics and is a former Assistant Treasury Secretary in the Reagan Administration, predicts the NWO will take down the financial system as a last resort if all else fails. Dr. Roberts explains, “Now, if they can’t get Trump out, they will crash it. There will be a big crash before the election, and people will blame Trump. That’s about how smart Americans are. Now, there is one constraint for the Fed doing that because the Fed is a tool of the New York banks. If they crash the economy, they are going to crash those New York banks. That’s the only restraint on the elites. That’s their ultimate nuke. If they can’t get him out, they will say, okay, we are going to bring down the economy and too bad for the New York Banks, or they will find some special way to bail them out while everything else goes: the pension funds, the hedge funds, the mutual funds. They will wipe us out in order to get rid of Trump.”

Dr. Roberts says forget about the Left/Right Democrat and Republican paradigm. Dr. Roberts explains, “This isn’t a Democrat vs. Republican thing. This is the elite, the establishment, the oligarchs and the people who rule the country. They are defending their power. Trump was elected by the people. Remember, Hillary called people who voted for Trump ‘deplorables.’ So, the people who go against the elite candidate are ‘deplorable.’ The voters are ‘deplorable.’ That’s what this is about. They have to get him out for that reason. They also know if they get him out for that reason, every other person that would step forward and actually try to lead the country rather than serve the ruling class, that person will know that he hasn’t a chance. Even if he gets into office, he’s going to be excoriated, framed up, lied about and driven out. Nobody will want that grief.”

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Elite M.B.A. Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications Harvard, Stanford, MIT see declines; international students find more options in Europe, Canada and Asia By Chip Cutter

By on October 16th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elite-m-b-a-programs-report-steep-drop-in-applications-11571130001?mod=trending_now_1

Applications to some of America’s most elite business schools fell at a steeper rate this year, as universities struggled to attract international students amid changes to immigration policies and political tensions between the U.S. and China.

The declines affected some of the nation’s top-rated programs, with Harvard University, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among others, all reporting larger year-over-year drops in business-school applications. Some, such as Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, posted double-digit percentage declines.

International Shift:U.S. business schools saw a steeper decline in applications from international students than any other country in the world this year.Change in applications from international students from previous year Source: Graduate Management Admission Council

Overall, applications to American M.B.A. programs fell for the fifth straight year, according to new data from the nonprofit Graduate Management Admission Council, an association of business schools that administers the GMAT admissions test. In the latest academic cycle ended this spring, U.S. business schools received 135,096 applications for programs including the traditional master of business administration degree, down 9.1% from the prior year, according to an annual survey. Last year applications for U.S. business programs were down 7%.

The M.B.A. was once considered de rigueur for anyone wanting to join the management ranks of U.S. companies, especially for international students, offering a pathway to leadership and a bigger payday. But education experts say shifts in U.S. immigration policy, trade and political tensions with China, as well as the growing attractiveness of technology-industry jobs that don’t require M.B.A. degrees, have recently dampened foreign students’ enthusiasm for business school.

Meanwhile, a hot domestic job market has cooled the interest of many Americans in the traditional two-year M.B.A. path. Millennials, many of whom are saddled with debt loads from their undergraduate degrees, have proved more reluctant than previous generations to pursue the pricey degree.

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Kim Jong Un, Astride a Pale Horse, Urges Self Reliance in Face of U.S. Sanctions North Korean leader blames his country’s hardships on ‘ceaseless sanctions’ and pressure from U.S.-led forces By Timothy W. Martin and Dasl Yoon

By on October 16th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/kim-jong-un-astride-a-pale-horse-urges-self-reliance-in-face-of-u-s-sanctions-11571209808?cx_testId=30&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s

SEOUL—North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, riding a white horse, galloped to the top of the country’s tallest mountain and delivered a blunt message aimed at the U.S.: his people’s pain has “turned into their anger.”

Mr. Kim blamed his country’s hardships on “ceaseless sanctions” and pressure from U.S.-led forces hostile against the North, according to a Wednesday report in state media. The North Korean leader has been calling for the country to be more self reliant while sanctions batter the cash-strapped regime’s economy.

“We should neither want help from anyone nor lend an ear to any temptation,” Mr. Kim was quoted as saying. “We should choose the prosperity based on our own efforts.”

Mr. Kim’s comments suggest Pyongyang’s hardened stance on nuclear talks with Washington isn’t softening. Working-level negotiations broke off earlier this month in Sweden. The Kim regime has since threatened to end diplomacy unless Washington takes a substantial step toward Pyongyang’s position before the end of the year.

The State Department offered a different account of the Oct. 5 meeting held by Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative on North Korea, and the chief North Korean negotiator, Kim Myong Gil. The U.S. said it had brought “creative ideas” and hoped talks would pick back up within two weeks.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Warren and Sanders, Policy Mates Their differences are mainly about rhetorical labeling.

By on October 16th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/warren-and-sanders-policy-mates-11571181041

Bernie Sanders wants voters to know that he—not Elizabeth Warren —is the bona fide socialist running for President in 2020. “There are differences between Elizabeth and myself,” Mr. Sanders said Sunday on ABC. “Elizabeth I think, as you know, has said that she is a capitalist through her bones. I’m not.”

As he falls in the polls, Mr. Sanders has to do something to reignite that 2016 fire. But the Vermont Senator’s problem is that Ms. Warren has co-opted more or less all of his important policy proposals. True-blue socialists might thus conclude that in Ms. Warren they can get nearly all of Bernie’s agenda from a younger (barely, at age 70) candidate without the socialist label.

Consider the policy list. She and Mr. Sanders both want Medicare for All, including the end of private health insurance. The main difference is that Mr. Sanders admits he’d raise taxes on the middle class, while Ms. Warren ducks the question. They both vilify “the top 0.1%” and promise to make wealthy Americans “pay their fair share.” Her wealth tax would hit the net worth of “ultra-millionaires” at rates up to 3% a year. His would drain “extreme wealth” with a top rate of 8% a year.

It’s almost a vaudeville joke for policy wonks. What’s the difference between a socialist and a capitalist? Five percentage points, apparently. This punch line also holds regarding their respective proposals on “accountable capitalism” (Ms. Warren) and “corporate accountability” (Mr. Sanders). She wants to make big companies give 40% of their board seats to workers. He wants 45%.

They both would force these companies to get a new federal charter requiring them to consider “stakeholders” rather than shareholders in their business decisions. They both want to reimpose the old Glass-Steagall fence between commercial banking and investment banking. “The business model of Wall Street is fraud,” Mr. Sanders likes to say. Ms. Warren also thinks bankers are crooks: “Wall Street is looting the economy.” They agree the U.S. Postal Service should become a bank that offers government checking accounts and would compete with private banks.

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Democrats using impeachment to consolidate power By Taylor Day

By on October 16th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/democrats_using_impeachment_to_consolidate_power.html

Rudy Giuliani told House Democrats via a letter from his lawyer that he will not be complying with their subpoenas related to their impeachment inquiry.  Last week, Rick Perry was also summoned and hints that he will also resist the Resistance Party’s subpoenas.

The letter obtained by The Hill from Giuliani’s attorney, Jon Sale, states that the subpoena is “overbroad, unduly burdensome, and seeks documents beyond the scope of legitimate inquiry.”

What should be added to that list is that they’re not really subpoenas anyway.  They are nothing more than sternly worded letters with a request calling themselves “subpoenas.”  The House must vote first to authorize a committee investigation if its members want the judicial authority to enforce these letters.  The kangaroo court that Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi are running has yet to do so.  And so, because they’re not really subpoenas in any legal sense, there is zero penalty for not complying with them.  Giuliani having his lawyer send a response is already beyond what he had to do.

The Democrats are clearly planning something with the illegitimate and ever changing impeachment operation.  While they may think they’re clever and strategic, their modus operandi has never been more obvious.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Last night’s Democrat debate: A cluster of tyrannical fantasists By Patricia McCarthy

By on October 16th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/last_nights_democrat_debate_a_cluster_of_tyrannical_fantasists.html

For conservatives who watched the Democrat debate, it was like visiting Earth-2, as Drunkblogger Stephen Green so cleverly put it.  Conservatives probably could not endure these debates without Stephen Green’s infusion of both facts and humor.

Each of those candidates on the stage seemed oblivious to the reality of the last three years — the fabulous economy, lowest unemployment in decades, international trade renegotiated to our benefit, millions no longer on food stamps.  Our military, eviscerated by Obama, is being repaired.  Manufacturing has been revitalized, and the border, despite the intransigence of the Democrats, is slowly being better controlled.  The wall is being built.  Everything Trump has done since being elected has been effective; he has tried to keep his campaign promises despite the Democrats’ vow to see him impeached from day one.  And no matter how vicious the Left is, those candidates on stage last night continue to opt for mindless delusion that he can be removed from office in order to prevent his re-election.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are grateful for a president willing to fight back against both parties, who have nothing but contempt for Trump-supporters, for the man who means to drain the swamp.  We must be thankful for the distinguished few in the House (the Republicans in the Senate are abject cowards) who have the courage to defend the president.  The swamp was certainly on display throughout the debate.

The Democrats are losing.  Trump and his supporters are winning — on every issue, even Turkey and Syria.  As others have observed, the Left plays checkers while Trump plays 4-D chess.  He is way ahead of his opponents on every level, every issue.  Most Americans like having jobs and like their friends and family members having jobs.  They don’t mind the fact that some people are fabulously wealthy.  Those are the people who fund the countless attractions we take for granted: museums, medical research, hospitals that specialize, university buildings, public television, and a host of other things the rest of us enjoy and take for granted.  Where would we be without the largesse of all the American billionaires and millionaires who have funded so many projects that have enriched us all?  However they attained their wealth is of no interest, nor is how they live their lives.  They have contributed to the public good beyond what any of us can adequately appreciate.

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An Afternoon with Anne Marie Waters Stuart Lindsay

By on October 15th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/10/an-afternoon-with-anne-marie-waters/

“The charge against the For Britain founder is that she is ‘a racist’. The evidence for this, according to those on the Left who seek to gag her, is a relentlessly articulated and witheringly explicit analysis of the harm Islam has done to every aspect of British life.”

I wanted the restaurant to be English in character but I discovered that in Spitalfield that meant spare and pricey and not oak and hearty so I settled on Dilchad, in Widegate Street. It was Bengali so there would be plenty of vegetarian (even if it, too, would be halal-certified) and when I went in at eleven o’clock to look over the wine list and book the table in the window corner, the young fellow in charge was polite and it looked safe and so I wandered back down Bishopsgate to St Botolph’s, the church where Keats had been baptised, the one the IRA had bombed in 1993, and sat in the pews and thought about what I would say to her and whether it would be awkward and, if it were, whether I could manage that kind of situation satisfactorily. She had, after all, been very generous in the way she had answered an unsolicited request from a retired Australian judge to meet her.

A wise woman buildeth up her own house.
—Proverbs 14:1

It was a Friday and Anne Marie had asked that we meet near Liverpool Street station. I had never been to that part of the East End but after arriving from Australia on the Wednesday it was already clear to me that since my last visit in 2011 London’s decline had been in free-fall and this part of it was no different. As I walked about that district and watched the sub-continental fellaheen shambling down the streets and through the monuments and relics of this most ancient ward of the capital, the expletive-laden chatter of young Threadneedle Street bankers managed to make itself heard over the din of the buses and the mini-cabs. I remembered that the City had been—it still was—the Remainers’ redoubt. I also remembered that London wasn’t all that Britain was.

But, still, this wasn’t good. Pubs were harder to find. I found out why. I talked to the owners who have kept theirs open and also to the odd brave patron. They had signs on the door and at the bar telling people not to proselytise their customers about drinking alcohol. The signs are not directed at the Salvation Army, let me tell you.

Back in Australia, I had thought that the chaos and indignity of Mrs May’s premiership might be enough for the British people to refuse to cop it sweet from their elites any longer. After such national humiliation, politics surely could not merely remain “downstream” from culture (as everybody says some deceased young media tycoon once said). Cultural imperatives would assert their former primacy in political life. They had to, I thought. If they didn’t, Britain would not survive. These things concern me deeply because I am British and because I love my country as much as I do the nation it founded on the other side of the earth.

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Schiff Just Banned A GOP Lawmaker From Attending Key Ukrainegate Deposition By Sean Davis

By on October 15th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/14/democracy-dies-in-darkness-adam-schiff-just-banned-a-gop-lawmaker-from-attending-key-ukrainegate-deposition/

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., just banned a key Republican lawmaker from the deposition of a former anti-Trump national security official believed to be at the center of ongoing Ukraine proceedings, sources tell The Federalist. Schiff tossed Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., out of the deposition.

Although the U.S. House of Representatives has not approved a resolution authorizing a formal impeachment investigation, House Democrats have nonetheless insisted that they have full authority to subpoena all documents and testimony they desire, even if specific committees lack the jurisdiction to demand particular information. Schiff, whom Pelosi tapped to lead her party’s anti-Trump impeachment efforts, chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), which only has jurisdiction over the federal government’s intelligence agencies and related components.

According to the Congressional Research Service, formal impeachment proceedings are typically referred to the House Judiciary Committee. Gaetz sits on that committee; Schiff does not. The House has yet to approve a resolution granting broad impeachment investigative authority to any of its committees.

Several officials told The Federalist that they believe Fiona Hill, who was subpoenaed last week to share her knowledge of allegations of wrongdoing against Trump regarding a phone conversation he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, is one of the unnamed sources for the anti-Trump whistleblower whose August 12 complaint fanned congressional impeachment fires. Hill was reportedly planning to testify about her knowledge of the ouster of Marie Yovanovitch, a controversial figure who was removed from her post as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in May.

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Schiff’s Democrats plot a secret impeachment, with leaks By Monica Showalter

By on October 15th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/schiffs_democrats_plot_a_secret_impeachment_with_just_a_few_leaks.html

The ejection of Rep. Matt Gaetz from House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff’s witness testimony hearings for the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, as J.R. Dunn noted here, was pretty outrageous, given the right Gaetz had to be there as a member of the House Judiciary Committee and do nothing but listen.  He wasn’t some Code Pinko type disrupting the closed-door affair by yelling obscenities and hurling bags of urine.  He was ejected because he was a Republican.

It kind of tells you about the “fairness” of this entire inquiry.

Now the Washington Post is reporting that having done that, Democrats have now gotten into a huddle, whispering together behind closed doors like Renaissance plotters, the better to accelerate the impeachment of President Trump.  Presumably, they want to get it out of the way before the next election, which of course would be to serve their own political purposes.  Those, of course, are what this whole lunacy is really about — removing Trump and not having to face the wrath of the American voters.

It’s why impeachment for them needs to be done so secretly.  And the whole thing is being done in secret now, meaning it’s not just Republicans being shut out; the entire electorate isn’t allowed to be in on it, either.  Schiff and his fellow plotters, who apparently ran an intelligence operation of their own against the White House earlier to set the whole thing up, are now setting up a trial with a predetermined outcome, making themselves spy, cop, judge, jury, and executioner, with a pliant mainstream media to give exclusively their cherry-picked propaganda output from it as news.

And they know it’s a winner of sorts — now some polls show a public that favors impeachment and removal.  Keeping it all secret and releasing just their version of events, despite the president’s transparency about the matter, seems to be the plan in action.  They’re convinced it’s working.

It’s possible it’s working, given the disturbing content of at least a few polls.  But a lot of things say it isn’t.  There was the brutal Louisiana wipeout of the Democrats just this weekend.  There also was a bad-news focus group for Democrats cited by center-left Axios, noted by J.R. Dunn here, about how Ohio swing voters aren’t happy.  Their reaction to impeachment-obsessed Democrats matches what former governor John Kasich (who’s not a Trump fan), said earlier that “nobody is talking about this” in Ohio.  Axios also had warnings from political experts a few days ago that the whole thing was bad news for Democrats no matter what.  I wrote about that here. 

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