RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272492/triumph-will-lloyd-billingsley

“In one of contemporary history’s intriguing caroms, European politics just now is a story of how one decision by a pastor’s dutiful daughter has made life miserable for a vicar’s dutiful daughter. Two of the world’s most important conservative parties are involved in an unintended tutorial on a cardinal tenet of conservatism, the law of unintended consequences, which is that the unintended consequences of decisions in complex social situations are often larger than, and contrary to, those intended.”

That’s the elephantine lead of George Will’s recent column, headlined “Today’s Germany is the best Germany the world has seen.” The real story comes way down in paragraph six, where Will explains: “No European nation was as enchanted as Germany was by Barack Obama’s studied elegance and none is more repelled by Donald Trump’s visceral vulgarity.”

So it’s really all about Trump, which should be no surprise for George Will. He was hailed as the “best writer, any subject,” by the Washington Journalism Review and the “dean of conservative journalists” by Andrew Ferguson in an October 2017 Weekly Standard piece titled “The Greatness of George Will.”

“If Trump is Nominated, the GOP must keep him out of the White House,” ran the headline on Will’s April 29, 2016 column, in which he decried “Republican quislings” who were “slinking into support of the most anti-conservative presidential aspirant in their party’s history.” The quislings would “render themselves ineligible to participate in the party’s reconstruction.”

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2019/01/10/repeal_the_law_that_is_sinking_us_maritime_industry_110980.html

For nearly 100 years the Jones Act has been restricting the U.S. shipping and fishing industry. It recently made news with the end of a long-fought battle to allow a brand-new fishing vessel, America’s Finest, to be freed from its moors to work. The reason for its detainment? It was made of over 7 percent foreign steel (coming from the Netherlands), which exceeds the 1.5 percent limit stipulated by this restrictive and outdated law.

The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, commonly referred to as the Jones Act, is legislation that aims to promote and maintain the American merchant-marine fleet for commercial and defense purposes. It requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports must be carried by U.S. owned, crewed, and flagged ships (thus protecting them from foreign competition). Arguments in favor of the Jones Act center on national security, the need to be prepared for global conflict, and the need to respond to crises.

But time and time again, the effects of the Jones Act — just like other protectionist boondoggles — fail to satisfy the intended goals. This losing record is more than adequate to justify the act’s repeal.

The domestic build and crew requirements of the Jones Act eliminate all foreign competition for U.S. coastal transport services. This stifled competition creates an artificial market for American-built cargo ships that cost as much as five times greater to build than similar ships built in China or Korea. Not surprisingly, the cost of operating an American flagged and crewed vessel is double that of foreign ones. Making matters even worse, this high cost and lack of competition means that the U.S. shipping industry has fallen behind in terms of innovation: Companies hang on to older, less efficient, and more dangerous ships rather than updating or retiring them.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/09/the-steele-dossier

Two years ago today, the “dossier” was officially introduced to the American public.

Although its author and his handlers had been circulating the document within Washington, D.C. circles for nearly six months, a scoop orchestrated by then-FBI Director James Comey and then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper allowed CNN to air its award-winning segment, “Intel Chiefs Presented Trump With Claims of Russian Efforts to Compromise Him” on January 10, 2017.

The reporters disclosed that President Obama and President-elect Trump had been briefed a few days earlier on classified documents that suggested Russian officials possessed compromising information about the incoming president. Reporter Jim Sciutto cited “multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge of the briefings” who told the network that a brief summary of the damaging material had been attached to the in intelligence community’s official report on the Russian government’s plan to disrupt the 2016 presidential election.

“The allegations were part of a two-page synopsis,” Sciutto explained. “These were based on memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative whose past work U.S. intelligence officials consider credible.”

Later in the segment, author Carl Bernstein confirmed the information was sourced by a “former British MI6 intelligence agent who was hired by a political research opposition firm in Washington who was doing work about Donald Trump for both Republicans and Democratic candidates opposed to Trump.”

Buzzfeed published the entire series of memos online a few hours later, conferring a more official term—”dossier”—onto the document. (Perhaps the term was chosen because it sounded much better than “political dirt from a shady foreign operative and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.”)

“The documents have circulated for months and acquired a kind of legendary status among journalists, lawmakers, and intelligence officials,” Buzzfeed admitted. “[It] includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians.”

The news rocked the political world and sent the incoming administration into panic mode: “The consequences [of the dossier] have been incalculable and will play out long past Inauguration Day,” warned a follow-up story in the New York Times on January 11, 2017.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bye-bye-trump-walks-out-of-waste-of-time-meeting-with-schumer-pelosi?utm_source=WEX_Breaking%20News%20Alert_01/09/2019&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WEX_Breaking%20News

President Trump on Wednesday walked out of a White House meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., after the Democrats said they wouldn’t agree to fund a border wall, suggesting talks to end the government shutdown may have blown up catastrophically.

“Just left a meeting with Chuck and Nancy, a total waste of time,” Trump tweeted. “I asked what is going to happen in 30 days if I quickly open things up, are you going to approve Border Security which includes a Wall or Steel Barrier? Nancy said, NO. I said bye-bye, nothing else works!”
The meeting, which lasted only 15 minutes, was the latest attempt by Trump, Pelosi, and Schumer to reach an agreement to fund the government. The government has been partially shut down for nearly three weeks because they can’t agree on funding the border wall that Trump wants to build on the southern U.S. border.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Schumer called Trump’s departure “somewhat unbecoming of a presidency.” Trump had become furious, according to Schumer.

“He sort of slammed the table, and when Leader Pelosi said she didn’t agree with the wall, he just walked out and said, ‘We have nothing to discuss,'” Schumer said.

Republicans disputed Schumer’s characterization of Trump’s conduct. “I don’t recall him ever raising his voice or slamming his hand,” Vice President Mike Pence told reporters later, saying Trump had walked into the session handing out candy.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/exposing_the_risks_of_americas_dependence_on_china_for_medicine.html

Concern over China’s territorial, military, and economic aggressiveness has been building over the past decade as the country is increasingly perceived as a threat to the United States, U.S. Asian allies, and the West. In China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine (Prometheus Books, 2018), authors Rosemary Gibson and Janardan Prasad Singh explore yet another peril: China as the largest global supplier of ingredients for many prescription drugs, over-the-counter products, and vitamins.

In their alarming book, the authors report how China has become the largest supplier of the active ingredient in aspirin and acetaminophen, present in more than 600 over-the-counter and prescription medicines. China is also the dominant global supplier for the essential ingredients to make penicillin and for vitamin C, used in vitamin supplements, cereals, soda, and hamburger buns. It is also the largest exporter of medical devices, with close to 20,000 products for sale.

They argue that because of this, China represents a grave threat to the U.S. and its strategic position in the world. American jobs, businesses, and national security and the general health and welfare of its citizens are compromised as the U.S. increasingly loses control of the supply of critical medicines, drug ingredients, and even medical devices. The loss of manufacturing capability and U.S. dependence on a single source could result in manipulative shortages as critical drugs are withheld for a political or economic quid pro quo. American consumers could become the victims of price manipulations and compromises in product efficacy and quality.

Gibson and Singh begin their book explaining that drug manufacturing has changed dramatically in the past two to three decades, with China achieving primary global supplier status. Part of that rise, according to the authors, occurred after Chinese companies dumped penicillin ingredients on the global market in 2004, forcing Western countries, who couldn’t compete on price, out of business. Eventually, China instituted a major price increase on these vital ingredients

In 2005, Chinese firms allegedly created an artificial shortage of vitamin C in the U.S. by restricting production and exports. A class action suit, with overwhelming evidence of collusion presented at trial, resulted in an eight-year battle that found Chinese companies guilty of conspiring to fix prices. China was ordered to pay $162 million in damages to U.S. firms. The Chinese government, which has investigated U.S.-based companies for antitrust violations in the sale of drugs in China, appealed the decision under the pretext that the U.S. was interfering with China’s sovereignty and its laws that set minimum export prices and production targets.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272497/trump-rallies-nation-border-wall-matthew-vadum

President Trump took rhetorical aim at his enemies as he delivered his first-ever prime time address from the Oval Office last night in a bold attempt to rally the country in favor of building a wall on the porous U.S.-Mexico border, his signature campaign promise.

In a live address Trump made a succinct case for a border wall on national security, economic, law and order, and humanitarian grounds.

The wall is needed “because there is a growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border,” Trump said at the beginning of his oration.

“Every day, Customs and Border Patrol agents encounter thousands of illegal immigrants trying to enter our country. We are out of space to hold them, and we have no way to promptly return them back home to their country.”

“In the last two years, ICE officers made 266,000 arrests of aliens with criminal records – including those charged or convicted of 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes and 4,000 violent killings,” the president said.

“Over the years, thousands of Americans have been brutally killed by those who illegally entered our country, and thousands more lives will be lost if we don’t act right now.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) immediately hailed the speech and attacked wall opponents.

“This is the most presidential I’ve seen President Trump,” Graham said on Fox News Channel. “It was compelling and everything he said was true.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/ruth-bader-ginsburg-missing-from-scotus-bench-for-second-straight-day/

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg missed a second day in a row on the Supreme Court bench Tuesday after missing oral arguments for the first time in her over 25 years on the court Monday.

Justice Ginsburg, 85, will participate in the court’s decisions from home but is “unable to be present,” said Chief Justice John Roberts as the court convened for its second day in 2019. She is recovering from surgery on December 21 that removed two cancerous spots in her left lung, discovered during tests after a November fall that broke three of her ribs. Physicians said the surgery had been a success, as she appeared to be cancer-free.

Ginsburg’s health troubles have worried liberals already smarting at the composition of the Court, where conservatives gained a majority after President Trump appointed Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. If she is forced to step down, her replacement will be Trump’s third appointment to the court. However, she has weathered colon cancer and pancreatic cancer in the past and said last summer that she aims to serve “at least five more years” on the court.

This term the court will consider Trump’s plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and his ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, among other hot-button issues.