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Ruth King

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Amy Klobuchar credits Obama, not Trump, for booming economy By Valerie Richardson

By on May 5th, 2019

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/may/5/amy-klobuchar-credits-obama-not-trump-booming-econ/

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, refused Sunday to credit President Trump for the booming economy, insisting that former President Barack Obama deserves a pat on the back after Friday’s jobs report showed the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years.

The Democratic presidential primary contender pointed to American workers, businesses and Mr. Obama when asked about the sunny economic figures, including rising wages, 260,000 new jobs, and a 3.6 percent unemployment rate, the lowest since 1969.

“You know what I’m thinking about, I’m thinking about when we were in that downturn, and President Obama came into office and he had to deal with that with the Congress to try to one, right the financial industry, and two, and get us on the road to recovery,” Ms. Klobuchar said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“I remember that the Republicans were giving him grief when he took any credit for that,” she added. “So I think that we have had policies in place starting with President Obama that have aided that recovery.”

Her response came after CNN host Jake Tapper asked, “Unemployment is the lowest it’s been since I was nine months old. You’re really not going to give President Trump any credit for that in terms of his tax cuts, his deregulation, or anything he’s done?”

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Netanyahu declares ‘special situation’ as IDF upgrades air strikes to target Gaza terrorists

By on May 5th, 2019

https://worldisraelnews.com/netanyahu-declares-special-situation-as-idf-upgrades-air-strikes-to-target-gaza-terrorists/
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has ordered more “massive attacks” on Gaza terrorist targets. IDF moves additional tanks to the Gazan border.

By David Jablinowitz, World Israel News

In response to the massive air attacks from the Gaza Strip, the IDF says that the Israel Air Force (IAF) has struck back by hitting terror targets in Gaza.

Terrorist targets include rocket launchers, terror tunnel shafts, weapons manufacturing factories belonging to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), as well as a PIJ training compound and command center located inside a mosque, and a Hamas weapons depot.

The IDF says that it attacked arms and ammunition warehouses located in the home of Hamas terrorists in Rafah and Khan Yunis and another warehouse in Gaza City in the home of a member involved with Hamas’ rocket infrastructure.

By midnight Saturday, the Israeli military said that it had carried out some 220 air strikes and that the attacks were continuing.

On Sunday, the IDF said that it was starting to attack arms and ammunition depots placed “purposely” by the terrorists in areas populated by civilians and was targeting terrorists themselves.

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Iran’s ‘Terror Factory’ Targeting Christians by Uzay Bulut

By on May 5th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14164/iran-targeting-christians

“In Iran, any practice that contradicts Islam is regarded as a national security threat, punished severely by the court system.” — International Christian Concern, 2019.

“Revolutionary courts were created to guard against all threats to Islam. These courts have evolved into a well-oiled machine of oppres­sion that operates with impunity under state protection. The courts are closely intertwined with the Intelligence Ministry. Judges have at their disposal Revolutionary Guards (secret police) and a network of prisons used to torture and interrogate Christians.” — International Christian Concern.

“If you recant and repent, you’ll go to jail. And if you don’t, you’ll be killed.” — Dr. Mike Ansari from Heart4Iran, an Iranian Christian minister, reported by International Christian Concern.

“Christians may be looking at large fines, detention, lengthy prison sentences, or even execution under Islamic Sharia law. The sentences of Christian converts are left up to the interpretation of the judge and may be founded on anything — the judge’s mood that day, what he had for breakfast, his interpretation of Sharia law, or his level of hatred toward Christianity.” — International Christian Concern.

The daughter of a former pastor in Iran — Dabrina Bet-Tamraz — recently described the persecution and suffering to which her family is being subjected after being sentenced to lengthy prison terms for “crimes” related to Christianity.

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Iran and a Tale of Two Losers by Amir Taheri

By on May 5th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14180/iran-two-losers

Forty years after the Islamic Revolution, the clergy-led ruling elite was still behaving like a sect rather than a state, thus preventing Iran from behaving like a normal nation with all its merits and defects.

The fifth and highest stage is that of “statehood,” which becomes possible when society is used to the rule of law regardless of the quality of the law in force, and respects the primacy of state institutions as representations of the public will and interest.

Ruling elites in the Islamic world, including even empire-builders such as the Ottomans and Safavids, progressed through the first four stages described above but never reached the fifth stage, that is to say, the creation of a proper “state” based on the rule of law.

Last November, Westminster University in London organized a seminar with an enticing theme: Is a Plan B for Iran possible?

In its simplest form, the main argument was that 40 years after the Islamic Revolution, the clergy-led ruling elite was still behaving like a sect rather than a state, thus preventing Iran from behaving like a normal nation with all its merits and defects.

In the paper that I presented, I drew on the teachings of several Iranian classical historians, most notably Abul-Fazl Beyhaqi (died in 1077 AD). Tracing the course through which the Ghaznavids, a Turkic warrior tribe, seized power in Iran and established a dynasty, Beyhaqi identifies five stages.

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Ticket prices plunge for Bill and Hillary Clinton’s speaking tour By Mary Kay Linge

By on May 5th, 2019

https://nypost.com/2019/05/04/ticket-prices-plunge-for-bill-and-hillary-clintons-speaking-tour/

Tickets to the latest stop on Bill and Hillary Clinton’s speaking tour were going for as little as $20 on the secondary market as their 13-city adventure continued to struggle to find an audience.

The best seats in the house at Seattle’s WaMu Theater on Friday could be had for $829, a steep 54% drop from the $1,785 that the former first couple fetched when the tour was announced in early November.

But organizers soon had to slash listed prices and even offer discount ducats through Groupon to boost sales.

The official prices for Friday’s appearance ranged from $66.50 to $519, the Seattle Times reported.

“I really believe that we are in a crisis, a constitutional crisis,” Hillary Clinton opined during the 90-minute performance, presented as an interview of her and her husband by actor Bradley Whitford. “This is a test for our country.”

“These people, they don’t believe the same set of rules apply to them that apply to everyone else,” Bill Clinton said of the Trump administration.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Solar Energy Racket By Norman Rogers

By on May 5th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/05/the_solar_energy_racket.html

If solar energy were not propped up by various government policies and subsidies, no utility would buy it. Not only does solar not work at night, but it does not work if it is cloudy or if a cloud passes in front of the sun.

Utility-scale solar requires a large solar farm consisting of photovoltaic panels. For $100 million, one can buy a solar farm capable of generating about 80 megawatts of electric power when the sun is squarely shining on the panels. Depending on the geographical location and the climate, the average power generated will be about 18 megawatts, more during the day and nothing at night. More in summer and less in winter. If the power can be sold for $50 a megawatt-hour, about the cost of wholesale electricity generated by natural gas, the annual revenue earned by the plant would be $7.8 million. But why would anyone want to pay $50 per megawatt-hour for electricity that does not work at night or when the weather is bad? Better to buy it from a natural gas plant that one can count on.

How much would a utility really be willing to pay for erratic electricity from a solar farm? The answer is $20 per megawatt-hour or less. The reason is as follows. No utility would ever incorporate a solar plant to reliably provide electricity. Solar electricity is unreliable. But solar electricity, if it is cheap enough, could be used as a supplement to save fuel in a utility’s main natural gas plants. When the solar was working, some of the utility’s gas plants could be throttled back to save fuel. The fuel to generate a megawatt-hour of electricity in a modern natural gas plant costs about $20.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Mueller Investigation Is the Fruit of a Poisonous Tree—There Must Be Pardons By Augustus P. Howard

By on May 5th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/02/the-mueller-investigation-is-the-fruit-of-a-poisonous-tree-there-must-be-pardons/

There is an important reason why courts do not admit evidence that stems from corrupt law enforcement or prosecutorial activity—evidence known in law as “the fruit of the poisonous tree.” If corrupt governmental activities lead to convictions, and the threat of such convictions is used to trample upon the rights of free citizens, then those citizens will not, in fact, be free. They will not be citizens at all, in the proper sense of the term. They will, instead, become subjects of tyranny, victims of a government which can work its will without regard to the due process protections provided both by the Constitution and the customs of our law.

These protections are the guarantors of our freedom, and central among them is the bedrock principle in the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment that “no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.” Criminal inquiries should never be rooted in insinuation and gossip, much less politically motivated malice.

Thanks to the reporting of John Solomon, Sara Carter, Julie Kelly, Gregg Jarrett and others, we know that the so-called Steele dossier formed much, if not all, of the basis of the “Trump-Russia collusion” probe. Written by a former British spy named Christopher Steele, the dossier is full of falsehoods about Trump and his alleged ties to Russia. It is nothing more than opposition research, produced at the behest of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and circulated by high-ranking officials in President Obama’s intelligence apparatus.

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WATCH: Gaza terror groups fire nearly 300 rockets into Israel VIDREO

By on May 5th, 2019

https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-gaza-terror-groups-fire-over-200-rockets-into-israel/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notification&utm_campaign=PushCrew_notification_1556997154&pushcrew_powered=1

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Justice Kavanaugh is Still Triggering the LeftBy Nicholas J. Kaster

By on May 4th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/05/justice_kavanaugh_is_still_triggering_the_left.html

Normally, one would expect that a university fortunate enough to get a sitting Supreme Court Justice to join its faculty would be receiving accolades from its students. But of course, these are not normal times. Thus, when George Mason University recently announced that Justice Brett Kavanaugh would co-teach (along with Professor Jennifer L. Mascott) a summer class at its Antonin Scalia Law School, the campus Left was seriously triggered.

Students immediately launched protests, a petition drive, and an ad campaign claiming that they would suffer harm due to the uncorroborated allegations of sexual assault made against Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings last fall.

Reason’s Robby Soave described the unhinged response:

‘The hiring of Kavanaugh threatens the mental well-being of all survivors on this campus,’ said one female student during the public comment period of GMU’s board meeting last week… Another student, a survivor of sexual violence, claimed that her mental health had already suffered as a result of the Antonin Scalia Law School’s decision to hire Kavanaugh. ‘It is affecting my mental health knowing that an abuser will be part of our faculty,’ she said. A third student said, ‘As someone who has survived sexual assault three times, I do not feel comfortable with someone who has sexual assault allegations walking on campus.’

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The First Jabs of 2020 There are signs that the dam of goodwill among Democratic presidential candidates is about to break. By David Catanese

By on May 4th, 2019

https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2019-05-03/2020-democrats-begin-to-joust-while-joe-biden-stays-focused-on-trump

The opening months of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary have largely been an amicable, well-mannered affair.

There are sudden signs that’s about to change.

This week, several candidates tossed brushback pitches against rivals, with most of the heat being directed at Joe Biden, whose newly minted front-running candidacy appeared to open the door to a more contentious phase of the campaign.

“The Democratic race began in earnest last week,” says Simon Rosenberg, founder of the New Democrat Network think tank. “And Biden’s surge is likely to cause other candidates to start going after him.”

Both Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts served up policy contrasts with the former vice president, pointing out past positions he took that they believe are out of sync with today’s Democratic Party.

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey swiped at Sanders for advocating for voting rights for the incarcerated. And Jay Inslee, the Washington governor who is making climate change the centerpiece of his longshot bid, took aim at Beto O’Rourke’s commitment to a plan to solve the problem.

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