NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

8 Times Barack Obama Abused His Power To Appease His Base By Matt Margoli

Posted By on April 30th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/8-times-barack-obama-abused-his-power-to-appease-his-base/

Joe Biden, now all in for 2020, has his sights set on Donald Trump. With daily attacks, he’s lobbing any accusation he can against Trump in the hopes that such attacks will get traction. His latest attack is to claim that President Trump has abused his powers. “There’s only one thing that stands in our way. It’s our broken political system that’s deliberately being undermined by our president to continue to abuse the power of the office,” Biden claimed, calling Trump “the only president who has decided not to represent the whole country. He has his base. We need a president who works for all Americans.”

Has Creepy Uncle forgotten that thanks to Trump, African-American unemployment is at an all-time low? So is Hispanic unemployment. Last I checked, African Americans and Hispanic vote overwhelmingly Democrat. Women also vote more Democrat, but are thriving in the Trump economy. Looks to me as though Trump has been working for all Americans—even those not in his base.

But what really got me about Biden’s comments was the part about Trump allegedly abusing power. President Trump has spent much of the past two years trying to undo Obama’s abuses of power—which Obama did, not in the best interests of the whole country, but for the benefit of his base. Has Biden forgotten Obama’s presidency or is he just a bad liar? Many of these abuses should have resulted in Obama’s impeachment. Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress didn’t have the guts to impeach him, but they tried everything could to reign in on his pseudo-dictatorship. Two pieces of legislation were drafted in order to stop his abuses and force him to follow the law. Obama threatened to veto both bills rather than risk any limits on his ever-expanding legislative authority.

Below are 8 examples of Obama doing exactly what Joe Biden just accused Donald Trump of doing.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Peculiar Progressive-Islamist Alliance By Philip Carl Salzman

Posted By on April 30th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/the-peculiar-progressive-islamist-alliance/

After Congresswomen Ilham Omar’s and Rashida Tlaib’s incendiary anti-Semitic rants directed at Jewish Americans and American ally Israel, the Democrat House “progressive caucus,” led by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, rallied around to protect and support them. The progressive media chimed in, supporting the Islamist congresswomen. Even after Rep. Omar dismissed the 9/11 attacks as “someone did something,” Democrat progressives defended her, accusing the president of religious bigotry when he objected.

Not to be outdone, the ever more progressive and pro-Islamist New York Times published a political cartoon that even they admit is anti-Semitic, as well as an article claiming that Jesus was a Palestinian, which was applauded by Ilhan Omar! The anti-Semitic congresswomen and media were right in tune with the powerful “Women’s March” leaders, who allied with notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, calling him “The greatest of all times.”

Progressive leftists, who wish to bring socialism to America, and Islamists, who wish to bring Sharia law to America, are strange bedfellows indeed. Despite opposite political philosophies, they have found common cause in anti-Semitism.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

In defense of a booming economy. This is no ‘sugar high.’

Posted By on April 30th, 2019

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-economy-trump-gdp-growth-unemployment-20190428-story.html

The U.S. economy is growing at such a fast clip and the unemployment rate is so low that … there must be something terribly wrong. Does that make sense? No, but the healthy state of the country seems to be too much for some economists, talking heads and others in the chattering class. They struggle to find something nice to say about 3.2 percent growth accompanied by 3.8 percent unemployment.

We’re puzzling over the negativism because we’re certain everyone will miss the good times when they inevitably fade. The debate we’d like to see is how to extend this era of prosperity — and delay the next recession — as long as possible. Instead, there’s skepticism in the air, which is potentially damaging because part of what drives economic growth is confidence. If business owners and consumers turn skittish, they’ll invest and spend less. Fear of recession could hasten one.

Here’s what we’re talking about: The Bloomberg consensus estimate for first-quarter annualized GDP growth was just 2.3 percent, meaning the experts had undershot the actual result by nearly a full percentage point. That happens, given that forecasting is an inexact science. But when Friday’s numbers were released, a scramble ensued to downplay the results to justify previous pessimism. That 3.2 percent growth figure? It was illusory, due to a host of one-time factors, such as companies boosting inventories as a precaution against escalating trade friction with China. This fast growth can’t last, said the experts. “The first-quarter number is overstating the strength of the economy,” Ben Herzon of Macroeconomic Advisers told The Washington Post.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Chinese Tortoise and the American Hare By David P. Goldman

Posted By on April 30th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/the-chinese-tortoise-and-the-american-hare/

Historian Andrew Roberts reports that Winston Churchill said just after Pearl Harbor that “in the event of war, the Japanese would ‘fold up like the Italians,’ because they were ‘the wops of the Far East.’” The West chronically underestimates Asians, as the Russians found out at Port Arthur, the Americans at Pearl Harbor and the Yalu River, the British at Singapore, and so forth.

A case in point is the present tariff war. The U.S. assumed that tariffs on Chinese imports would force China to make fundamental concessions to American trade demands. On January 6, President Donald Trump said, “China’s not doing very well now. It puts us in a very strong position. We are doing very well.” Since then China’s CSI 300 stock index has gained 37% during 2019 to date, double the gain in U.S. stock markets. China’s economic growth has accelerated while America’s has slowed. The tariff war may have hurt the U.S. economy more than China’s. With an internal market of 1.4 billion people, China can replace lost foreign business by increasing internal demand. Ten years ago exports made up 36% of China’s gross domestic product versus only 18% today. World trade is shrinking, but the impact on China is manageable.

I support President Trump. I applaud him for calling attention to China’s challenge to America’s strategic position. But I have warned from the outset that the tools he has employed won’t get the results he wants.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Poor Friendless Erdoğan by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on April 30th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14118/erdogan-friendless

In reality, with the exception of Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Venezuela’s troubled man, Nicolás Maduro, Erdoğan is increasingly friendless.

China’s ambassador to Ankara, Deng Li, diplomatically showed Turkey the most frightening stick. Deng told Reuters: “If you choose a non-constructive path, it will negatively affect mutual trust and understanding and will be reflected in commercial and economic relations.”

It was a shock to the Turkish president to wake up the other day and learn that the genocide suspect whom he embraced as “brother”, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, had been ousted by a coup d’état.

“World leaders hail Erdoğan on local vote win,” the news headline ran, referring to the outcome of Turkey’s local elections on March 31. They laboriously ignored that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist AKP party lost in all of Turkey’s three biggest cities — and for the first time in 25 years in Ankara and Istanbul. They were nevertheless able to find one element to hail regarding Turkey’s strongman. But, “world leaders?”

Here is the full list: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, tripartite Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Chairman Milorad Dodik, former Bosniak member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegovic, Guinean President Alpha Conde, and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Finland Cozies Up to Iran by Kenneth Sikorski

Posted By on April 30th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14162/finland-iran

Just a little more than ten years ago, Finland’s flagship telecommunications company, Nokia, was found to have sold to Tehran surveillance technology, which was used a year later to suppress dissident demonstrators’ use of social media.

“[T]here are two documented instances where [the Finnish company] Cargotec-tied cranes have been used for public executions.” — United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) press release.

How Finland behaves today is eerily reminiscent of its behavior with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. During that time, Finnish politicians, academics and journalists practiced self-censorship. They knew whom not to talk about, let alone criticize. Today it is criticism of Islam that is aggressively prosecuted under the guise of combating “hate-speech” or “disparaging of religious groups”. It is the same M.O., just a different place and time.

There is a special saying in Finland describing a person’s naïvety: it is called being “blue-eyed”. Unfortunately, there is not a saying that describes the same trait for an entire political class.

Successive Finnish governments could be accurately described as extremely “blue-eyed,” especially during the last decade or so in their relations with Iran.

Part of the problem seems to lie with Finnish politicians, who seem truly to believe that having a dialogue — any dialogue — regardless of who is on the opposite side of the table, is better than having no dialogue at all. So you can easily end up with the equivalent of a businessman trying to reach an agreement with Al Capone, while each holds completely different assumptions about the underlying terms of an agreement, including whether agreements are even meant to be kept.

MEDIA Comments turned off

What if the New York Times Cartoon had depicted a Muslim, a Lesbian, an African American or a Mexican as a Dog? by Alan M. Dershowitz

Posted By on April 30th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14165/what-if-the-new-york-times-cartoon-had-depicted

Only three quarters of a century after Der Stürmer incentivized the mass murder of Jews by dehumanizing them we see a revival of such bigoted caricatures.

I do not believe in free speech for me, but not for thee. But I do believe in condemning those who hide behind the First Amendment to express anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, homophobic, sexist or racist views.

For years now, the New York Times op-ed pages have been one-sidedly anti-Israel. Its reporting has often been provably false, and all the errors tend to favor Israel’s enemies.

Most recently, the New York Times published an op-ed declaring, on Easter Sunday, that the crucified Jesus was probably a Palestinian. How absurd. How preposterous. How predictable.

Imagine if the New York Times cartoon that depicted Israel’s Prime Minister as a dog had, instead, depicted the leader of another ethnic or gender group in a similar manner? If you think that is hard to imagine that you are absolutely right. It would be inconceivable for a Times editor to have allowed the portrayal of a Muslim leader as a dog; or the leader of any other ethnic or gender group in so dehumanizing a manner.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Another Warning Of ‘Imminent’ Climate Catastrophe J. Frank Bullitt

Posted By on April 30th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/04/29/global-warming-

The Washington Post, apparently written and edited by the descendants of Henny Penny, is advising us to “start planning for the fact that climate change is” going to cause natural disasters to become more destructive.

“The Environmental Protection Agency published a 150-page document this past week with a straightforward message for coping with the fallout from natural disasters across the country,” the Post reported over the weekend. “The language, included in guidance on how to address the debris left in the wake of floods, hurricanes and wildfires.”

Apparently we are to be not only supposed to be frightened by the report, we should also exasperated because it “is at odds with the rhetoric of the EPA’s own leader, Andrew Wheeler.”

But then being “at odds” with previous predictions of human-caused weather catastrophes means being in accord with reality.

Think of the headlines we’ve read through the years: Why Global Warming Can Mean Harsher Winter Weather (2009), Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming (2011), Extreme Weather Expected To Worsen With Climate Change (2011), Extreme Weather Tied To Climate Change (2012), Hurricanes Likely To Get Stronger & More Frequent (2013), Cllmate Change To Spawn More Hurricanes (2013), and Climate Change Causing Extreme Weather (2015).

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why Are Clapper and Brennan Not in Jail? By Angelo Codevilla

Posted By on April 30th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/04/29/why-are-clapper-and-brennan-not-in-jail/

The clearest of all the laws concerning U.S. intelligence is Section 798, 18 U.S. Code—widely known in the Intelligence Community as “the Comint Statute,” or “the 10 and 10.” Unlike other laws, this is a “simple liability” law. Motivation, context, identity, matter not at all. You violate it, you are guilty and are punished accordingly.

Here it is:

(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, . . . any classified information—

(1) concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government; or

(2) concerning the design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of any device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned for use by the United States …or

(3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or

(4) obtained by the processes of communication intelligence . . .

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

On December 9 and 10, 2016, the New York Times and the Washington Post independently reported that anonymous senior intelligence officials had told them that, based on intercepted communications, the intelligence agencies agreed that Russia had hacked the Democratic National Committee to help Donald Trump win the election. Their evidence was the fact of their access to U.S communications intelligence. A flood of subsequent stories also cited allegations by “senior intelligence officials” that “intercepted communications” and “intercepted calls” showed that “members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.”

Incontrovertibly, the officials who gave these stories to the Times and Post violated the Comint Statute, and are subject to the “10 and 10” for each count. There is no clearer instance of what the governing law is, of how it was violated, and of the punishment that this incurs.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Real ‘Bombshells’ Are About to Hit Their Targets By Julie Kelly

Posted By on April 30th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/04/29/the-real-bombshells-are-about-to-hit-their-targets/

The next bombshell report to drop from the Justice Department likely will earn none of the breathless fanfare and media coverage that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report received, but it could be far more incriminating.

In the next several weeks, Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to issue his summation of the potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by top officials in the Obama Administration and holdovers in the early Trump Administration who were overseeing the investigation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

And the perpetrators of the so-called FISAgate scandal now are scrambling for cover as the bad news looms.

Horowitz announced last March that his office would examine the Justice Department’s conduct “in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) relating to a certain U.S. person.” That U.S. person is Trump campaign associate Carter Page. In October 2016, just two weeks before the presidential election, the Justice Department submitted an application to the FISC seeking authorization to wiretap Page. The court filing accused Page, a Naval Academy graduate and unpaid campaign advisor, of being an agent of Russia.