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So here comes the failure by the Republicans to repeal and replace Obamacare. Fat repeal, skinny repeal, straight repeal, repeal and replace, replace but don’t repeal, whatever it is, up in flames, up in smoke, and wouldn’t you know, Reuters has gone out and surveyed people in New York and Boston and LA, wherever, and found people that think Congress should move on.
“A majority of Americans are ready to move on from healthcare reform at this point after the U.S. Senate’s effort to dismantle Obamacare failed on Friday, according to an exclusive Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Saturday. Nearly two-thirds of the country wants to either keep or modify the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, and a majority of Americans want Congress to turn its attention to other priorities, the survey found.”
Now, here’s the next paragraph in the Reuters story: “Republicans have vowed to dismantle the Affordable Care Act since Democratic President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2010, and it appeared they finally had their chance when Republican President Donald Trump took office in January. But the law, which helped 20 million people obtain health insurance, has steadily grown more popular.”
Like hell it has. But here we go. Obamacare more popular than ever, Republicans hated and despised. And that may be, but not for the reasons the Reuters implies here. Obamacare hasn’t helped 20 million people obtain health insurance. And here’s another thing about this CBO score. I have intended to mention this the past couple or three days and just never got around to it.
The CBO score. We gotta get rid of the CBO. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, is one of the primary obstacles to any legislation being passed, but particularly health care reform. You remember when the media and the Democrats were just breathlessly excited when they released the CBO numbers that repealing and replacing Obamacare would cause 22 million Americans to lose their health insurance? Do you know why that would happen? It was because repeal repealed the mandate that people had to buy it.
It wasn’t because the government was gonna come and take it away from you. It wasn’t because what you had was going to be canceled. It wasn’t because the insurance companies were then given permission to tell you to take a hike. It was simply the CBO statically, not dynamically, statically concluded that if you take away the mandate, the federal law requiring citizens to buy insurance, that 22 million people would lose their health insurance.
In other words, the CBO said that 22 million people would cancel their policy. Well, that’s not what they said. That’s the end result. That’s how it would have had to happen. Because nobody was gonna take anybody’s health insurance away, and nobody’s health insurance was gonna be canceled. And yet the CBO is out there screeching that 22 million people will lose their health insurance. “No, we can’t do that, that’s horrible, that’s inhumane, that’s no compassion.”
No, no. It was simply the CBO guessing that if people didn’t have to buy it, they wouldn’t. Which may make sense. How many people have bought this rigmarole simply because the law requires them to? How many people have actually engaged in this and gone and petered around inside one of these exchanges to come up with an Obamacare policy because they had to?
So the idea that removing the mandate requiring them to buy it is a good thing! It is a reinstallation, if you will, of the degree of liberty and freedom we had before Obamacare. Before Obamacare, you didn’t have to have it. Everybody wanted it, but you didn’t have to go buy it. No matter what it costs, you didn’t have to buy it. So the CBO says 22 million people will lose their health insurance. What a gross misstatement of what would actually happen. And of course with the absence of critical thinking being taught, nobody concluded the correct thing.
By the way, that’s a wild guess number. The CBO just assumed that people would lose — i.e., that’s the wrong word — CBO just assumed people would cancel their policies if they didn’t have to buy them. What does that tell you? Well, it tells me that somebody in Congress thinks a lot of people are buying health insurance that don’t want it, and the first chance they get they don’t have to buy it, they’ll get rid of it. Which is a good thing. And it ends up being portrayed as heartless and cruel and typically Republican, when in fact it was a good thing. And it didn’t have any relationship whatsoever to people’s health care or health insurance.
And yet that statistic, released the way it was, with the wording as it was, led to a lot of people not supporting it because they envisioned insurance companies canceling people, because, yes, that’s what insurance companies do. All companies would rather their customers get sick and die than have to cover them and pay for them. Big Tobacco wanted to kill the customer. Big Oil wants to destroy the planet. Big Pharmaceutical doesn’t want to cure disease. Big Coal, all they want to do is pollute the rivers. Big Box Retail, all they want to do is rip people off.
You take your pick. Whatever major industry we’re talking about, the Democrats have demonized ’em. And now the health insurance providers are such that if they don’t have to provide it, they won’t, when in fact it wasn’t about that at all. But back to the wording of this story. Obamacare did not and has not helped 20 million people obtain health insurance.
Now, Reuters writes this as though Obamacare provided a freebie. Obamacare provided an entitlement. Yes. Because people who couldn’t otherwise afford it because insurance companies are mean were given subsidies in order to be able to buy it because the law said they had to, but corporations are so mean that they price it out of people’s reach, and that means that Obama made it possible for people have it, which is a stack of coal.
You know how many people are on Obamacare right now? What is the number that you know? Pick a number. The number of Americans who are actually on Obamacare. I have a number here that is hard to believe. In fact, I ought not use this number because I don’t think it’s right, but it’s not far off. The number I have here is eight million people on Obamacare. That can’t be right.
But the point is, Obamacare is nowhere near covering everybody. It’s a giant myth that Obamacare came along and magically created health insurance opportunities for people that didn’t have it. And it’s also not true that the Republican repeal would take health care away from people who wanted it. So many lies and so many just straight distortions here. The majority of people who are on an Obamacare policy had insurance anyway before they signed up for Obamacare. And there are a few million more on Medicaid thanks to the Medicaid expansion. But the Medicaid expansion is not health insurance.
It’s also a lie that Obamacare has steadily become more popular. Nothing could be further from the truth. If that were true, more people would be signing up for Obamacare, but they aren’t.If that were true, the insurance companies would be lowering premiums because so many people would be signing up. If that were true, so many different state exchanges would have more than one provider.
If Obamacare were actually growing in popularity, we wouldn’t be reading stories that it’s about to implode — and it is — and is going to leave several people without even an exchange to go buy a policy. The enrollee number has been stuck at eight million since 2014. In fact, the number of people who have signed up is almost a third of what this CBO assured us would have signed up by now.
The CBO predicted 22 million people would sign up for Obamacare by this time, since 2010. The number here is eight million, fewer than eight million. What are we talking about? That’s another thing about Obamacare that was always crazy from the beginning. If it was really about providing insurance for those who didn’t have it — that number is anywhere from eight to 12, and at the top 30 (at the very top 25, 30) million who didn’t have it. Obamacare didn’t fix that, didn’t address that because that’s not what Obamacare was about.
Look, I don’t want to re-litigate all this like we did starting in 2010, 2009 when it was being debated. But I’m telling you: There is so much disinformation out there about this that the Republican Party itself has fallen prey to it. The idea it’s growing more popular, that Americans want Congress to move on from it? Both of those things are not true. Here’s a little cross-tab from the poll that I do not believe:
“Among Republicans, 75% said that they would like their party’s leaders to repeal and replace Obamacare at some point, though most listed other issues that would give a higher priority right now. When asked what they think Congress should do next, most Americans picked tax reform and then foreign relations and then infrastructure. Only 29% said they wanted the Republicans in Congress to continue working on a new health care bill.”Republicans. That’s what the poll says. I don’t believe it. But I could be wrong. And if it is true that only 29% want a new bill, it’s because their frustrated and don’t think the Republican Party can get it done anyway.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Yesterday… I don’t think I’ve got the audio on this. Doesn’t matter. Jake Tapper yesterday had Bernie Sanders on, and they were discussing single payer. It failed in Vermont. The governor of Vermont tried single payer. It failed, wouldn’t work, and didn’t have the money, and Jake Tapper was interrogating Crazy Bernie about this. “If Even ‘Cobalt-Blue States’ Can’t Make Single Payer Work,” then why in the world does anybody think it’ll work in Washington or anywhere else?
Crazy Bernie did not have an answer when asked why it didn’t work in Vermont. The governor there, Peter Shumlin, did declare the debate over after getting estimates of the projected costs of socialized medicine in California. In California, the state assembly declared that they were gonna go single payer. The California state budget every year is $180 billion. Single payer for California alone would cost $200 to $300 billion, in addition to everything else the state’s already spending. The state budget without it is $180 billion. Single payer: $200 billion, minimum. And you know how they said they were gonna finance it?
A 15% increase in the payroll tax!
Which wouldn’t even get close ’cause people are not gonna sit there and stand for that. Single payer may be the issue where everybody suddenly realizes Washington can’t do it. There isn’t the money for it! What is it we’re $20 trillion in debt? We really, theoretically… Folks, we don’t have the money to do anything with that kind of debt, and yet there doesn’t seem to be any limit on spending, except when something’s this outrageous. The states can’t print money, so there’s no way they can do it. So these states acting as little, miniature laboratories for these great national ideas? It’ll cost $200 billion when a state budget is already $180 billion.
Let me grab a call in before we wrap up the hour. I want to start with Anna in Phoenix. Welcome. It’s great to have you here. How are you?
CALLER: Oh, fine. How are you, Rush?
RUSH: Very good. Very good. Thank you.
CALLER: Okay. You said be brief; I’m gonna be brief. My husband and I were talking about what happened with President Trump saying that he’s thinking about pulling funding for the congressman and senators’ own health care. My husband said, “That probably will not make any dent at all with them. What they care about is getting reelected.” So he said, “What he should do is go out and rally in each of the states where these senators are holding him up and rally to recall them. Do a recall for them, because they’re not doing the job.” What do you think?
RUSH: Well, I don’t know specifically about recall. But I do know that people are seething, and that’s why this Reuters poll of people saying, “Move on! We’re tired of it. Move on to tax reform”? That’s a crock. Now, you say that your husband says that removing the funding for members of Congress and Obamacare would not bother them because all they care about is being reelected. I am here to tell you:
What they did in voting down the repeal and replace of Obamacare tells me they’re not afraid of the voters at all. The voters, of course, is how they get reelected. Now, McCain obviously is not gonna run again. Many of the senators just got elected, so they’re not gonna face voters for six years. A third of the Senate is up in 2018; another third’s up in 2020. But it’s clear — and I have, I think, succinctly and brilliantly made this point on prior broadcasts — that the senators are afraid of something.
But it’s not you. It’s not the voters. They’re certainly afraid of somebody — or else they despise somebody — but they’re not afraid. You know, Ted Cruz said the thing that he discovered that was the most… I mean, he knew it, but to see it in action every day? It blew his mind that the single, dominating thing in every day of a senator’s life is getting reelected, which means fundraising. That’s number one, first and foremost.
Okay, if that’s true, then how do you explain so many Republicans saying “no” on Obamacare? And the Democrats, too. There are a lot of Democrats coming up in ’18 that should be vulnerable because they come from states that went very strong for Trump. And I’m thinking they’re living under the illusion everybody hates Trump, and so they don’t need to worry about that anymore. But they’re not worried about reelection on this. Taking them off Obamacare? Believe me, they tried to except themselves from what they were doing.
That does matter to them.
It’s the craziest thing.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Investor’s Business Daily, an op-ed: “Murkowski and McCain Saved Obamacare Just Months After Promising Voters They Would Repeal It.” It may be standard-operating issue now, but I still don’t think people can hear this enough. “Whatever your views on Obamacare, the simple fact is that the GOP Senate voted to repeal Obamacare in December 2015, knowing full well that President Obama would veto the bill. That vote was [purposefully] conveniently timed to give Republican lawmakers the ability to go back to their states and proclaim that they had tried to repeal Obamacare, but were thwarted by a Democratic president. …
“Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, for example, wrote multiple op-eds for her hometown papers decrying what Obamacare had done to her state, and vowing to repeal it, in the run-up to her 2016 re-election. In one [op-ed,] she wrote that ‘the Affordable Care Act has unfortunately become one of the most ironically named pieces of legislation for Alaska in history.’” Lisa Murkowski was one of all these Republicans voted in December of 2015.
For those of you in Rio Linda, it means the next month is 2016, which is an election year. They wanted to be on record as close to an election year as possible that they had sent a vote to repeal Obamacare up to Obama. Damn it, they repealed it. But that’s what you get with a Democrat in the White House. You give us a Republican in the White House and we’ll repeal it. She tells everybody how it’s not affordable. It’s not this and that. It’s not anything it purports to be, and she lays claim to no doubt that she opposes it.
“In a floor speech in May 2016, she claimed that ‘I have consistently supported full repeal of [Obamacare] and have voted to do so on several occasions. I have recognized that it is going to be difficult, if not impossible, to do so with [the Obama] administration.’ She voted for the repeal bill in 2015.” She voted for the repeal bill in 2015 — which, again, was timed purposely to give these people an example to say in their election, “I just voted! I just voted to repeal it. You give us the presidency, and it’s over with.”
Folks, this betrayal ranks right up there with every betrayal that we’ve had. This is in the top five all time political betrayals, the Republicans in the Senate on this. “But this week, Murkowski voted against every single version of Obamacare repeal.” She voted against repeal and replace. She voted against straight up-and-down repeal. She voted against “skinny” repeal. She would have voted against fat repeal if somebody would have come up with that. Yes, she did! She voted against skinny repeal that would have only ditched the individual and employer mandates and suspended the tax on medical devices.
She couldn’t even vote for that. The CBO gave her cover, don’t you know? She said, “I did not come here to inflict pain on people.”What’s that, inflicting people on people? “Well, the CBO said that 22 million lovable Americans will lose their health insurance if…” No. No. Yeah, they said it, but that’s a great big misdirection. The truth is 22 million people may not all lose their health insurance. It was simply the way the CBO chose to portray what they thought would happen if the mandate were done away with.
It’s interesting to me that (chuckles) the Congressional Budget Office thinks if the mandate were taken away, everybody who bought Obamacare would cancel it. What does that say about it? But they chose to portray it as the government’s gonna take it away from you, or your insurance companies are not gonna ensure you. Lisa Murkowski knew better. She knew what it meant. She knew that simply repealing the personal mandate, the employer mandates — simply removing the requirement that you have insurance — doesn’t mean people lose it.
It means they have their freedom back! That’s right. “She even voted against a ‘skinny’ repeal that would have only ditched the law’s individual and employer mandates and suspended the tax on medical devices [like dildos] — a tax that is so harmful to that industry that even uber-liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants it repealed.” (interruption) What, you didn’t think that’s a medical device? (scoffs) , you go… (interruption) You go talk to… (interruption) Well, it certainly is. (interruption) In the right hands?
“Murkowski was joined by Sen. John McCain, who ended up being the decisive vote killing the skinny repeal bill…” By the way, you don’t think that was accidental, do you? You don’t think they waited and gave McCain the last vote accidentally, do you? “Just a year before saving Obamacare, however, McCain was vigorously attacking the law to win a tough reelection campaign. As Politico put it in a June 2016 article: ‘In fight of his political life, McCain hammers Obamacare[.]’
“One of his 2016 campaign ads said ‘Obamacare is failing Arizonans’ and that ‘John McCain is leading the fight to stop Obamacare.’Last February McCain introduced a bill to ‘fully’ repeal Obamacare and replace it with a ‘free-market approach that strengthens the quality and accessibility of care.’” But McCain was running for reelection then, and so he was having to say things that he knew his constituents wanted to hear. He wasn’t saying things he actually intended to do, obviously. Just like all the Republicans of his ilk.
Once elected, he sang a completely different tune. There’s a YouTube of McCain’s promises. He explains why Obamacare must be repealed and replaced. It was during the 2016 campaign. McCain said in a YouTube video: “For the first time in history a major entitlement reform was rammed through the Congress without a single vote from the other side. I fought for weeks and weeks and weeks against Obamacare. They would not allow us an amendment. There was not a single amendment allowed. No input from the minority party.
“We were the minority party. Now Congresswoman Kirkpatrick” his opponent “wants to sit down and work together. Well, here’s how we work together: We repeal and we replace it.”That’s McCain in a YouTube video last year. “McCain went on to argue that the majority of the American people have ‘resoundingly rejected Obamacare.’ One of the debate moderators asked McCain if it was possible for Congress to try to improve Obamacare rather than to try to repeal it. McCain rejected the idea that it could be fixed and that the only solution is to repeal Obamacare.” This is last year!
This is the very same McCain that happily gave a thumbs down last week. Folks, it is sad to have to observe, but John McCain just proved that everything his harsh critics have ever said about him is likely true, and we know why. We know exactly why. Some people might even claim they understand it. Trump, in one of his early statements after having announced his intention to seek the Republican presidential nomination, when asked about Senator McCain, said he didn’t have a whole life respect for him ’cause he got captured.
Trump says he has more respect for military people that don’t get captured. (sigh) Well, think what you will of that. But you cannot think what you will of that without recognizing the importance of that story to McCain’s political biography. It is crucial to McCain’s biography. Everybody knows it — that’s how crucial it’s been — that McCain was captured after being shot down, that when the Vietcong found out who he was (i.e., the son of a famous Navy admiral), they offered him release and how McCain said no.
He was not going to take early release unless his fellow prisoners would be released — and of course, they weren’t; so McCain wasn’t. That story has been part of McCain’s political biography. Here came Trump inside of two sentences blowing it smithereens. McCain, I just know — as I say, I’m sure many of you can even understand, maybe even agree — has been waiting for the right moment to stick it back to Trump and chose to do it last Thursday as the last vote, thumbs down, killing Obamacare repeal.
So let’s not hear about all this statesmanship stuff. Let’s not hear about all that. That’s maybe applicable to some. Even John Fund at National Review: “Mr. McCain Goes to Washington.” Just let me give some pull quotes from this piece. “McCain’s vote against advancing Obamacare reform represents a complete reversal of the position he won his Senate election with last year. John Merline of Investor’s Business Daily notes that ‘In the private sector, promising one thing and delivering the other could be referred to as “deceptive trade practice.”
“‘For some members of Congress, it’s just another day at the office.’ … Journalists [i.e. the media] rushed to gush over [McCain’s] vote, cast only a few days after a surgery to remove a dangerous brain tumor. The New Yorker’s take was typical: ‘Throughout his political life, John McCain has for many reasons enjoyed bipartisan respect and even reverence: his independence of mind (usually), his candor (usually), his decency, his love of country,’” and all of this is said of John McCain because he regularly betrays his own party.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) fought tooth and nail to repeal Obamacare, but sadly, his hard work was all for naught. In the wake of the Senate failure to repeal the terrible healthcare law Cruz spoke with the media and said what every conservative in America was already thinking…
The GOP had betrayed the American people.
Of course, speaking that truth was the easy part. Now, the GOP has to figure out how to move forward and get voters to still believe their promises.
Here’s what Cruz had to say and you’ll notice that when given the chance to take a shot at his old foe, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Cruz demurs and says that the voters will have to deal with him as they see fit.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX): The losers tonight are the millions of Americans who’ve been hurt under Obamacare. The millions of Americans that have lost their jobs, who have been forced into part-time work, forced into working 28 to 29 hours a week. Millions of Americans have had their health care coverage canceled, who have lost their doctors, who’ve seen their premiums skyrocket.
The 6.5 million Americans each year who are fined by the IRS because they don’t make enough money to afford health insurance. So not only do they get health insurance, but they get a fine from the IRS and 80% of them are earning $50,000 a year or less. Nearly half are earning $25,000 or less. It’s the single moms, the truck drivers, it’s the steel workers, it’s the working men and women who are left behind tonight. That’s unfortunate.
And there are going to be a great many Americans who tonight feel a sense of betrayal. Feel a sense of betrayal that politicians stood up and made a promise.
I tell you this, if you stand up and campaign and say, we’re going to repeal Obamacare and you vote for Obamacare, those are not consistent. And the American people are entirely justified in saying, any politician who told me that and voted the other way, didn’t tell me the truth. They lied to me.
But I will say also the democratic process is a long process. In the next 24 hours, in the next week, Democrats will crow exaltedly. They’ll claim total victory for a collapsing and failing law that is Obamacare.
And the media will write story after story about how Obamacare will remain, even though it is failing and hurting millions of Americans. But after all of the chest-beating, after all of the proud victory laps of the left, I believe this Congress will come back and in time, we will honor our promises.
You know, Senators are going to go home the next few weeks. They’re going to go home to their states. And they’re going to face their constituents. They’re going to have hard questions of people who look them in the eyes and say, ‘Why did you lie to me?’
And by the way, it’s not just the Senators who voted no. The Senators who voted yes are going to be asked, ‘Why did you lie to me?’ Because the voters are not going to distinguish. They will say, you guys promised to do this and you failed.
I understand the frustration and anger of the American people. And I think the frustration and anger will be heard by members of the Senate.
I believe we’ll come back after all of the victory laps by the Democrats, all of the media exultations, I believe we will come back and we will honor our promise.
[…]
And by the way, when your premiums go up next year, the Democrats are happy for you to pay more year, after year, after year when you are struggling to provide for your family. That’s not right. The five years I have served in the Senate, there is no issue I have fought harder on and devoted more time to then stopping the disaster that is Obamacare.
Mark my words, I am committed to this fight.
As long as there is breath in my body, I will be fighting for the working men and women of this country that have been hurt by Obamacare, and I believe it will be repealed. No party can remain in power by lying to the American people. And I hope and pray that our party doesn’t try to do that…
Reporter: Senator, did John McCain lie to the American people when he campaigned on repealing Obamacare last year and then took this vote today. (Editor’s note: McCain voted against the ‘skinny’ repeal late Thursday night/Friday morning)
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX): You know, that is a judgment the voters of every state will have to make. For each and every individual politician. I think what we should do is do what we said we would do. If you are a Democrat, and you campaigned on keeping Obamacare, okay fine. Then the voters can expect you to do that. But if you campaigned on repealing it, then the voters should expect that you will keep your word.
I think Republicans should keep our word, and I think we can. Despite unfortunate nights, I believe we can and will honor our promise to repeal Obamacare. Tonight, I’m filled with optimism. Despite a setback, truth matters. The truth is, Obamacare isn’t working. It is hurting millions of Americans, and the people who are getting hurt by Obamacare, it is the biggest job killer, it’s hurting small businesses, it’s hurting working men and women.
The people are hurt by Obamacare, you are being heard, and I believe we will in time honor our promise. And I give my word I will devote every waking moment I have to urge my colleagues let’s tell the truth and let’s simply do what we did — lower premiums and make health insurance more affordable for everyone. Recognize that Obamacare is a dismal failure that is hurting millions of Americans.
Funny thing, McCain gets more respect from the media and from his colleagues than Cruz does… but Cruz hasn’t ever made a promise to his constituents and then done the exact opposite when it came time to vote on the issue.
For all of the negative press Cruz gets for his hard-line stance, at least we know how he’s going to vote and we can trust him when he says he’ll vote a certain way.
Onan is the Editor-in-Chief at Romulus Marketing. He’s also the managing editor at Eaglerising.com, Constitution.com and the managing partner at iPatriot.com. Onan is a graduate of Liberty University (2003) and earned his M.Ed. at Western Governors University in 2012. Onan lives in Atlanta with his wife and their three wonderful children. You can find his writing all over the web.
A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched from the Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska during Flight Test THAAD (FTT)-18 in Kodiak, Alaska, U.S., July 11, 2017. During the test, the THAAD weapon system successfully intercepted an air-launched intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) target. Leah Garton/Missile Defense Agency/Handout via REUTERS
The Department of Defense has released video footage of Sunday’s test of a U.S. missile defense system.
The U.S. military conducted a test of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system Sunday. A THAAD battery located at the Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska in Kodiak, Alaska, detected, tracked, and intercepted a medium-range ballistic missile air-launched from a U.S. Air Force C-17 over the Pacific Ocean. Sunday’s test was the second successful test of the THAAD anti-missile system this month.
The U.S. began deploying THAAD in South Korea in March after North Korea launched a salvo of Scud missiles into the East Sea/Sea of Japan. The new South Korean government, after a period of initial hesitation and concern, is requesting additional THAAD batteries as the threat from its nuclear neighbor grows.
The THAAD system in South Korea is operational and has achieved initial intercept capability.
WATCH:
THAAD is not designed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles, like the one North Korea tested for the second time Friday, but it is an excellent defensive tool when it comes to short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. In recent months, the North has successfully tested a precision Scud, the Pukguksong-2 (KN-15) MRBM, and the Hwasong-12 IRBM, all of which are new weapons systems rolled out this year. North Korea can use these missiles against its neighbors, specifically South Korea and Japan.
Japan has also expressed an interest in the THAAD anti-missile system, which has a perfect test record but has never been tested in actual combat.
“Everyone says after an attack how we can’t change our behaviour or “they win”. Well, we HAVE changed our behaviour, in extreme ways (when it comes to security), so guess what, idiots, THEY HAVE WON. Congratulations.”
A.F. Branco Cartoon Featured in the Book “The Big Lie”
I’m very honored that Dinesh D’Souza ask me to draw a cartoon to be featured in his new book titled “The Big Lie”. A book that exposes the Nazi roots of the American left.
President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Republicans that if they did not pass healthcare reform soon, he could end the employer contribution for their healthcare coverage.
He went further to suggest the end result would be an end to insurance bailouts as well as “bailouts for Congress” come election day.
“After seven years of ‘talking’ Repeal & Replace, the people of our great country are still being forced to live with imploding ObamaCare!” Trump tweeted. “If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!”
The latest attempt by senators collapsed when they failed to reach a threshold to pass a “skinny” repeal bill early Friday morning that would have ended the individual mandate requiring Americans to purchase insurance or pay a fine. It would also have suspended through 2026 the requirement that businesses provide insurance for their workers.
Earlier in the week another bill met with defeat in the Senate that would have repealed the healthcare law.
Republican lawmakers have been conflicted over how exactly to change the nation’s healthcare system after many of them were elected to office on the platform of repealing and replacing Obamacare. Democratic lawmakers have been steadfast in opposition to changing any of the legislation enacted under former President Barack Obama.
Regardless of the stance of congressional lawmakers, the healthcare law has frayed edges as some Americans are forced to pay exorbitant rates in order to have health insurance, while the burden of funding has not diminished to subsidize those who qualify. Some are left without a choice or only one choice at all and CNBC predicts health insurers will likely pull out completely from 49 counties in the nation in 2018.
The New York Times on Saturday explained the effect the president is already exerting on Obamacare, and maintained his primary options for impacting the healthcare system fell into three main arenas. While opponents could cheer the fact that Trump is making cracks to break the healthcare law apart, supporters decry any chinks into the Obamacare armor.
Trump is undermining Obamacare with weakened enforcement of the individual mandate, the Times argued, saying, “the Internal Revenue Service has said it will continue accepting tax returns that do not say whether a filer has been uninsured.”
This could pave the way for more exceptions by the White House in the future, as well as signaling “publicly that it does not care about the mandate, which may cause people to be less likely to sign up, even if they later get hit with a tax penalty.”
A second effect the Trump administration could have would be to impose work requirement for Medicaid recipients. While the president cannot prevent states from expanding Medicaid, the article explained he could “allow states that apply to impose work requirements or charge premiums for more Medicaid beneficiaries, through a process that lets the government waive the normal Medicaid rules.”
To do so could cause many poor Americans to not have access to the system due to its cost. GOP lawmakers have worked to rein in federal spending on Medicaid expansion — attempts which may have caused many states to end it entirely.
The Trump administration has backed off outreach promoting Obamacare unlike Obama’s White House. Without promotion, citizens may not be aware of healthcare coverage options, The Times maintained.
Once Trump was inaugurated, the White House within days pulled ads and outreach that encouraged people’s participation. If the result has been lower numbers signing up for Obamacare, prices for insurance will like rise.
Trump met the latest GOP failure to pass a bill aimed at solving the growing issues and burdens of paying for Obamacare by chiding lawmakers, saying on Friday he would “let Obamacare implode“because of their failure to find a solution to the issue that has garnered passion by those who want government to control the healthcare system and those who want to abolish government health insurance control.
Well, at least you will know who to blame when your premiums, deductibles, and co-pays keep climbing to outer space faster than an Elon Musk rocket: Sen. John McCain. Early Friday morning, Sen. McCain singlehandedly extinguished the last flickering hope of repealing the monstrosity that is ObamaCare by casting the deciding vote against the final repeal proposal, the so-called “skinny repeal.”As Politico put it, McCain went from being repeal’s savior to its executioner in a matter of days.
The words that should come to every American’s lips every time they read another story about the catastrophe of ObamaCare are these: “Thank you, John McCain.”
I have never been a fan of term limits – limiting terms is what elections are for – but Sen. McCain may have just changed my mind. He’s virtually a one-man argument for strict term limits.
I predicted at the beginning of this whole farce that at the end of the day we were going to be stuck with ObamaCare with all its colossal bloat and misbegotten mandates for one simple reason: too many Republican lawmakers have virtually no conservative convictions or principles. And if they do have them, they are well-hidden and the first thing thrown overboard when the New York Times starts yammering at them.
The only path back to sanity on health care is through the free market.ObamaCare needs to be repealed root and branch because it is an exercise in government-run, government-controlled health care, which is just a form of fascism.Literally. Fascism is, by definition, a system in which you are allowed to own your own business but the government tells you how to run it. We went to war in 1941 to stop that kind of foolishness from turning Europe into the dark continent.
The alternative to fascism, or socialism, or communism, or whatever you want to call it, is giving health insurers the freedom to develop any kind of insurance plans they think the American people want to buy, and giving the American people the freedom to choose the ones they want. There is no need for government to be involved in those decisions in any fashion. For our government to make these choices for us is an insult to the American people, and is a way of treating its own citizens as infants who are incapable of thinking and choosing for themselves.
The only proper role for government in health insurance is to enforce the sanctity of the contract. A health insurance policy is a contract between the insurer and the insured. If an insurer fails to fulfill his end of the contract by providing the services promised in the contract, the insurer can and should be sued in the interests of justice, and civil government should hold them strictly accountable. But that’s it. In fact, enforcing contracts should be the only role of government anywhere in a free economy.
If ObamaCare were to be repealed tomorrow, as it should be, and wasn’t replaced by anything, virtually overnight health insurance companies, because they want to stay in business and make money, would be competing with each other in a mad dash to offer a veritable cornucopia of health plans. You can make bank that these plans would include low-premium, high-deductible, catastrophic policies which would provide inexpensive and entirely affordable protection for ordinary Americans against the cost of major medical events. The Cruz amendment would have created this kind of market, but alas it was strangled in the cradle by Republicans and dumped in the Swamp.
Under a free-market plan, employers could make these plans available to their employees at a fraction of the current cost of health insurance. The employers would then be able to take what they save in premiums and contribute it to health savings accounts owned by their employees, which would rapidly enable their employees to accumulate enough to satisfy the deductible and to take care of ordinary medical expenses along the way.
The competition across state lines would be fierce, as insurance companies, without the promise of gargantuan, taxpayer-funded bailouts, would compete with each other for your insurance dollar. Health insurance companies would have to step up their game to earn business, rather than counting on the heavy hand of government to drive business into their nets by ordering every citizen to buy their product.
But thanks to John McCain, the opportunity to create that kind of marketplace is gone, perhaps for good, until our entire health care system collapses in on itself like a burning building.
Perhaps showing his true colors, before the final vote was called McCain literally walked across the aisle and engaged in a hug-fest with Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein and a gaggle of Democrats. In fact, McCain told his best buddies on the left that he wanted to stick a fork in the whole repeal effort: “Let’s get this over with,”he told them, before walking theatrically to the well of the Senate and delivering a dramatic thumbs-down, a gesture worthy of any Roman emperor in the Coliseum.
Democrat Senator Chris Coons of Delaware said, “I was trying not to jump up and down and smile.”Video showed Sen. Schumer exuberantly pumping his fist in celebration, just what we hoped to see when we gave Republicans the House, the Senate, and the Oval Office.
The choice last night for John McCain was between government and the American people. Sen. McCain chose poorly. And it is the American people who will suffer.
This evening Circa has a HUGE breaking story that could have a huge impact on the ongoing work of several investigations.
It seems that the Justice Department may be zeroing in on FBI General Counsel James Baker for allegedly leaking classified national security information to the media.
Multiple government officials have confirmed the story with Circa, though all have done so on the condition of anonymity.
Baker is a confidante and close friend of the recently fired FBI Director James Comey, and is thought to have been quietly advising Comey on his dealings with President Trump.
FBI spokeswoman Carol Cratty said the bureau would not comment on Baker and would not confirm or deny any investigation.
This comes as Department of Justice Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he would soon be making an announcement regarding the progress of leak investigations.
A DOJ official declined to comment on Circa’s inquiry into Baker but did say, the planned announcement by Sessions is part of the overall “stepped up efforts on leak investigations.”
Three sources, with knowledge of the investigation, told Circa that Baker is the top suspect in an ongoing leak investigation, but Circa has not been able to confirm the details of what national security information or material was allegedly leaked.
A federal law enforcement official with knowledge of ongoing internal investigations in the bureau told Circa, “the bureau is scouring for leakers and there’s been a lot of investigations.”
The revelation comes as the Trump administration has ramped up efforts to contain leaks both within the White House and within its own national security apparatus.
Baker was named to his current job by his buddy Comey, but he has had a long and distinguished career working with our intelligence agencies so it’s sad to see his career likely coming to such an ignominious end.
(Though it’s hard to feel bad for anyone who was helping Comey undermine President Trump.)
Journalist Sara Carter explained what it all means on Fox News Thursday evening:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Onan Coca
Onan is the Editor-in-Chief at Romulus Marketing. He’s also the managing editor at Eaglerising.com, Constitution.com and the managing partner at iPatriot.com. Onan is a graduate of Liberty University (2003) and earned his M.Ed. at Western Governors University in 2012. Onan lives in Atlanta with his wife and their three wonderful children. You can find his writing all over the web.
House Republicans want a new special counsel to investigate members of the Obama administration.
The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein calling for the appointment of a second special counsel to investigate former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former FBI Director James Comey, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Heavy reports.
“We are writing to you to request assistance in restoring public confidence in our nation’s justice system and its investigators, specifically the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),” the letter says. “We need to enable these agencies to perform their necessary and important law enforcement and intelligence functions fully unhindered by politics.”
Republicans expressed that they are not confident that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the full scope of matters related to the 2016 election, especially those pertaining to interference in the election conducted by members of the Obama administration.
“The unbalanced, uncertain, and seemingly unlimited focus of the special counsel’s investigation has led many of our constituents to see a dual standard of justice that benefits only the powerful and politically well-connected,”the letter states.
Among the evidence of untoward behavior by the Obama administration Republicans cited was Mr. Comey’s sworn testimony before Congress that Loretta Lynch instructed him to refer to the FBI’s criminal probe into Hillary Clinton as a “matter” rather than an “investigation.” Additional reports of Comey’s closed-door testimony before Congress go further than the public record, suggesting that Lynch told Comey to get out of her office after he confronted her privately with evidence that suggested she had agreed “to put the kibosh on any prosecution of Clinton.”
Comey’s own decision to close the investigation into Secretary Clinton shortly after that meeting has also caused suspicion of misconduct.
Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin has previously called for former FBI Director Comey to be investigated. Earlier this month, The Hill reported that over half of Comey’s private memos on conversations he had with President Trump contained classified information. If that report is true, Comey had the same disregard for classified information as Hillary Clinton, whom he was criminally investigating for before declaring that he would not indict Clinton.
“It’s absolutely contemptible,”Levin said of Comey’s behavior, declaring that Comey “must be subjected to an investigation.”
This letter by House Republicans is just the first step in what must be a comprehensive investigation of the Obama administration’s actions during the 2016 election.
Chris Pandolfo is a staff writer and type-shouter for Conservative Review. He holds a B.A. in politics and economics from Hillsdale College. His interests are conservative political philosophy, the American founding, and progressive rock. Follow him on Twitter for doom-saying and great album recommendations @ChrisCPandolfo.
For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. Galatians 5:17
A Native American elder told his grandson about two wolves who live in every heart. One is Evil—anger, jealousy, pride—and the other is Good—joy, love, peace, humility. The grandson asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?” The elder replied, “The one you feed.”
While not exactly a biblical illustration, it makes an important point: There is a battle raging in the heart of the Christian. As the apostle Paul put it, the flesh wars against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. Becoming a Christian does not mean the flesh—our sinful human nature—is eradicated. Instead, we have been given power by the Spirit to overcome the flesh and conquer it. But the battle will not cease until we have been glorified in the presence of Christ in our new, resurrection body. The more we feed the Spirit by faith in Christ—by obedience, prayer, Bible study, worship, and holy living—the weaker the flesh becomes.
Don’t be discouraged if you cannot escape the struggle within. Instead, feed the Spirit! Give the Spirit complete access and lordship over your life.
The flesh ever seeks to be glorified before it is crucified. Martin Luther
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Faith and high stakes gambling
July 28
…Your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
-I CORINTHIANS 2:5
I’m for gambling! If that offends you, please keep reading. I believe that risk-taking is part of the fabric of life, and that God has built into each one of us a desire to venture beyond what we can see. But there is gambling…and there is gambling. There is the kind of high stakes gamble of a God who would wager His only Son for a lost, dying world….and there is what I call “foot of the cross” gambling: the simple, petty gaming of the men who cast lots for the robe of the crucified Christ. Martin Luther, meditating on the mighty grace of God said, “If you are going to sin, sin big.” I would say if you are going to gamble, risk it all. I know that to call faith in Christ a gamble will offend some.
The Gospel itself was, is, and always will be scandalous. It offends the self-righteous man the most. It is true that placing our faith in Christ is “gambling” on a sure thing—that is, the power of God to save us…but it is a power we cannot be completely sure of until we have put our full weight down on it. The philosopher Pascal proposed a skeptic’s wager that went something like this: If God is the true God, and able to save us, why not place our faith in Him to do so? If we are right, we have gained everything. If we are wrong, we have lost nothing! What kind of gambler are you? Have you wagered everything on the power of God to save you by placing your faith in His Son Jesus Christ? Or are you holding your cards “close to the vest,” carefully watching and speculating and waiting for a more opportune time to risk it all? Don’t waste time on the small-time, “foot of the cross” gambling that goes on everywhere, every day. Step into the big time, and say “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and I am placing my faith in Him and never looking back.” Is it a risk worth taking? You bet!
For pro-life news updated throughout the day, visit LifeNews.com.
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Much to the consternation of LGBT advocates and the liberal media, President Donald Trump did away with a rather progressive rule regarding transgenderism imposed on the militaryby former President Barack Obama, and Trump did it, of course, via Twitter. In the Twitter post,Trump announced that, henceforth, transgender individuals would no longer be permitted to serve in the U.S. military “in any capacity,” which of course sparked massive outrage among his ideological opponents.
But theIndependent Journal Reviewfigured that, since this ban on transgender people in the military will pretty much only affect the military, maybe we should see what actual members of the military think about it instead of asking political advocates and talking heads in the liberal media. It was an eye-opening move.
“Only two things matter: Survivability and lethality,”stated Army Sgt. Darian Browning, who served in the 82nd Airborne. “Anything other than that is a distraction. We have budget problems, also, already.
“The stated purpose of the Army is to ‘fight and win the Nation’s land wars,’” added Browning. “Any decisions or budget fixes should be centered around that and that alone.”
“The military is a machine that doesn’t breakdown for politics,”said Marine Sgt. Sean Conner, Iraq veteran andMARSOC Raider. “I can assure you that the reasoning for this decision is for the benefit of the whole system.”
“Considering less than 1 percent identify as transgender in the military, it would be a major burden, and the cost benefit analysis would be in the favor of not allowing this policy to go through,”Conner continued. “The amount of change, cost and redirection would not outweigh the very small pros, if any.”
“The military had it right before with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, or else things get complicated real quick,” he added. “The rules were there before Trump came around and for good reason. I empathize if they want to serve, but just do it without having to announce your sexual orientation — it’s pretty simple.”
Connor also noted that service members undergoing hormone therapy or sex-change operations are not permitted to work full duty or be deployed, sometimes up to two years, essentially rendering them a waste of time, training, resources and taxpayer money.
Marine Staff Sgt. Josh Ghering, a veteran of both Afghanistan and Iraq and a former drill instructor, seemed to agree with that last bit pointed out by Conner about transitioning troops being removed from the routine all others must endure.
“We need to be focused on how to improve our warfighting ability, period,”he said.
“If transgendered individuals are being taken out for these procedures and treatments, they are not being trained properly,”he continued. “Before we go to war, we train for over a year on ranges and with regimen after regimen. So then we take these individuals out of training to get their surgery. But what good are they if we are over in a war zone and they aren’t able to contribute to the fight because they’re going through therapy or recovering from said surgery?”
He added that “the military is not a social experiment. Its objective is to fight wars. That’s where its sole focus should be.”
“I believe that the infantry and combat arms should stay male. (male: being born with male genitalia),”stated wounded Iraq veteran and Army Sgt. Jay Strobino. “In the military, your roles, positions and tasks are very clear and outlined. And I have nothing against transgendered people or homosexuals, but it’ll start confusing those roles.”
“It’s not the ability so much of the individual, because yes there are plenty of females that can out lift me, out run me and so on,”explained Strobino. “But it’s a lower average as a whole, just due to body limitations. And you can’t have two sets of standards for the same group. It just won’t work.”
Strobino asserted that lowering standards to accommodate those with lesser abilities would be worse than having two sets of standards.
“If you’re under the standard then you either train and improve, or you’re not in combat arms,”he said. “There’s no middle ground.”
However, while most of those questioned by the Independent Journal Review supported the policy change in principle, there was at least one who disagreed with it and another who generally supported the idea, but questioned the manner in which it was rolled out.
“I don’t like that he just ran with it. He should have had a policy ready to go and Mattis should have rolled it out,”stated Army sniper Gregory Diacogiannis, an Iraq War veteran.
“The military is here to destroy the enemy. It’s not a social experiment. We shouldn’t be using the military as a petri dish to push progressive ideas,”he continued. “They are a killing machine. People are denied service for all kinds of reasons. Why should we treat people with gender dysphoria differently?”
Diacogiannis maintained that such individuals are in need of help and the military is not the place for them to receive such help, nor would it help the military, and noted that treating people differently or having differing sets of standards would be detrimental to overall morale.
“You will ‘other’ them because they will become a protected class. In combat everyone is equal, it doesn’t matter if you are black, white, gay, straight, man, or woman,”he explained. “But if you let other people live by a different standard you crush morale. Also, we are talking about 0.1 percent of the population not being able to serve.”
Finally, the lone voice of disagreement found by IJR was Afghanistan veteran and Army Ranger Zac Oja, who stated, “I’m curious to see how this will be implemented. Will the openly transgendered individuals currently serving be forced out of the military? Will they be forced to ‘identify’ with what their birth certificate says for gender?
“This, in my opinion, is going to do nothing markedly positive but will open the flood gate to the left for open dissent against this new policy,”he added.
Oja suggested that more time should have been given for further study of the costs/benefits of transgender service members openly serving in the military, in order to gain a better overall understanding of the matter.
“I will say that I have heard nothing but good things from dear friends that have served with openly transgender soldiers,”added Oja.
The media most likely want nothing more than a division’s worth of soldiers vehemently castigating the president and calling this latest policy shift nothing short of horrible, but that is not what they are going to find, at least not with this batch of troops.
To be sure, there will be a handful like Oja who may disagree with the premise, or others, like Diacogiannis who disliked the manner in which it was introduced, but by and large, most members of the military are sure to be at least quietly supportive of the change. They know that the military is not the realm for progressive social engineering and tinkering, but instead is supposed to be a finely tuned killing machine that wastes no time or energy on anything else.
As soon as the story broke about the Somali cop fatally shooting the pretty white Australian girl in Minneapolis, one of my Muslim fans emailed me a story:
“Re: Hunting in Kuwait as explanation why this Noor guy shot through the car
“I remember being in Kuwait with the president of the investment bank I worked for. We were invited by one of our directors to hunt turtle doves. There were five of us in all and each had a 12-gauge shotgun.
“Instructions were: Only shoot straight and up; shotgun point in air resting on shoulders when not being used. That’s it. I was on the far left, and the fellow on the other end was a Syrian.
“Well, we were out there and no straggling turtle doves were migrating. A half-hour later, not one shot was fired. Then, two birds from a tree ahead darted out, between me and the houses on my left.
“We all looked, but the Syrian turned toward us and began shooting over our heads at the birds. The rest of us hit the ground. Even though our host took his gun away, I gave them mine and went back because, if there is a way to overreact, the Syrian would think it is natural and can’t even consider the consequences.
“You cannot place these people in a position of authority (for example with a gun in their hands). They will always shoot as a default reaction to anything that is instant. Neither training nor thinking can change their natures.
“And that is why he shot. He had a gun.”
Since then, we’ve found out that this is exactly why Officer Mohamed Noor shot the gentle yoga instructor walking toward the police car. He heard a loud noise — or as Powerline blog is calling it, “The Loud Noise Heard ‘Round the World.”
Noor shot from the passenger seat, killing Justine Damond, according to his partner, sitting at the wheel, who is presumably now deaf. Damond had called 911 to report what sounded like a rape in the alley behind her house, and was approaching the responding police car when she was shot.
As usually happens when Muslims attack, the press is consumed with worry about their mental state and well-being.
Sample Headlines:
Somalis on edge after Minneapolis cop named in fatal shooting — The Daily Herald (Everett, Washington), July 18, 2017
Somalis in Minneapolis on defensive after police shooting — St. Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota), July 21, 2017
Minneapolis shooting brings unwelcome attention to Somalis — Associated Press, July 22, 2017
There are nearly 2 billion Muslims in the world, amounting to a quarter of the world’s population, controlling 50 countries. The English-speaking world is about a fifth that size and constitutes a dwindling majority in about a half-dozen countries. But, somehow, no matter how the story is written, Muslims always get to play the victim, and Anglo-Saxons are cast as the aggressors.
That’s why a Somali cop’s fatal shooting of a pajama-clad Good Samaritan has gone directly into the “Be Nice to Muslims!” file, rather than the “Why Are All These Somalis Here?”file. (Answer: Because of an earlier mistake with excessive Scandinavian immigration.)
I can’t help noticing that it was precisely the “Be Nice to Muslims!”dictate that put this Somali nincompoop on the police force in the first place.
Among Noor’s evident errors the night he killed Justine:
1) Shooting from the passenger seat, the bullet whizzing inches past his partner’s face, through the driver’s side window;
2) Not turning his bodycam on when responding to a 911 call;
3) Shooting to kill because he heard a loud noise;
4) Believing that white women in America pose a threat to a policeman.
A few of the Weather Underground ladies were accomplices to cop-killings, 40 years ago, but even they weren’t lone white women cop-killers.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, women of any race committed about 10 percent of all murders from 1980 to 2008, and black people committed a majority of all murders. Other than a small child, it’s difficult to think of a demographic that poses less of a threat to a policeman in America than a 40-year-old white woman.
Noor’s African-American neighbor, Chris Miller, said he was shocked when he heard about Damond’s shooting — until he found out it was Noor. Miller told The Daily Telegraph (Australia) that his Somali neighbor was quick to anger and was always going off on women and children. “He is extremely nervous,”Miller said, “a little jumpy … he doesn’t really respect women, the least thing you say to him can set him off.”
Sounds perfect for a police officer!
May we see Officer Noor’s cadet exam? His training reports? Does anyone believe there is the slightest possibility that Noor was not rushed through the Police Academy so that the nice people of Minneapolis could feel good about themselves for having a real Somali on the police force?
Minnesota’s importation of these stone-age people is a completely self-inflicted wound. It’s as if the state decided to inject itself with Hepatitis C. Hey, you know what? We’re too white and pure. Everyone tie a vein off and give yourself a shot of hep C. We could learn from that!
With Somalis, you get all the social pathologies of Muslims and the American underclass rolled into one package. There’s the terrorism and pederasty — but also the criminality and joblessness!
At least with taxpayer-draining Mexican illegals, you can say, yes, but they provide the rich with such cheap labor! Someone, somewhere in America, gets a benefit. There is absolutely no benefit to the more than 100,000 Somalis brought in by Minnesota, except to feed the Scandinavian ethnomasochism, expressed as arrogant self-regard.
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House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) has been discharged from the hospital and started rehabilitation a month and a half after he was critically injured in a mass shooting at a congressional baseball practice in Virginia, MedStar Washington Hospital Center said in a statement Wednesday.
The hospital said Scalise has made “excellent progress in his recovery from a life-threatening gunshot wound six weeks ago,” adding that he was discharged Tuesday and has begun intensive inpatient rehabilitation.
“He is in good spirits and is looking forward to his return to work once he completes rehabilitation,”the statement said. “He and his family are grateful for the care he received from the trauma team as well as the other doctors, nurses, and staff of MedStar Washington Hospital Center. The family also appreciates the outpouring of prayers and support during this time.”
Scalise, the No. 3 Republican in House leadership and the party’s top vote-counter, nearly lost his life on June 14, whena gunman opened fireon Republican lawmakers, aides and lobbyists practicing in Alexandria for the annual charity Congressional Baseball Game.
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Scalise, 51, was shot in the hip, suffering broken bones, damage to his internal organs and major blood loss. During the next several weeks, Scalise was in and out of the intensive-care unit, battling infections as he recovered.
The others shot in the melee were congressional aide Zack Barth, lobbyist Matt Mika and Capitol Police special agent Crystal Griner, a member of Scalise’s security detail.
The shooter, James Hodgkinson, was fatally wounded during the 10-minute shootout in the usually quiet Alexandria neighborhood of Del Rey, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.
In recent days, there were signs that Scalise was making significant progress. On Monday, Scalise called into his weekly whip meeting to thank his team for their hard work and to let them know he was ready to return to the Capitol soon.
SpeakerPaul Ryan(R-Wisc.) tweeted his support after the hospital’s news.
Scalise’s top ally, Chief Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.),has been filling infor the Louisiana Republican during his absence.
Trump has ‘rocked the casbah’ of Liberal idealism.
Making an announcement Wednesday, President Trump has said the United States will not “accept or allow”transgender people in our military. He said American forces “must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory” and that the trans community would be a burden to our armed forces.
In a typical Trump move, he made this major policy announcement on his Twitter account in a series of posts. He says he made the decision after discussing the issue with generals and military experts, which he left anonymous.
“After consultation with my generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military,”Mr. Trump wrote. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
The sweeping policy decision reverses the gradual transformation of the military under President Barack Obama, whose administration announced last year that transgender people could serve openly in the military. Mr. Obama’s defense secretary, Ashton B. Carter, also opened all combat roles to women and appointed the first openly gay Army secretary.
It was not clear what prompted Mr. Trump’s announcement on Wednesday. In June, the administration delayed a decision on whether to allow transgender recruits to join the military. At the time, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said an extra six months would give military leaders a chance to review its potential impact.
The president’s announcement came amid a debate on Capitol Hill over the Obama-era practice of requiring the Pentagon to pay for medical treatment related to gender transition. The dispute has unfolded as Congress considers a nearly $700 billion spending bill to fund the Pentagon. Representative Vicky Hartzler, Republican of Missouri, has proposed an amendment that would bar the Pentagon from spending money on transition surgery or related hormone therapy.
The same measure narrowly failed this month in the House, with some Republicans joining Democrats to reject it. But some conservative Republicans have said they would not support the military spending measure without the language banning money for gender transition.
According to a study by the RAND Corporation there are around 2,450 (this number has varied) transgender active-duty members of the military, which is a small number considering the total of active members is about 1.3 million.
Of that small portion though, imagine how many extra millions of dollars would need to be spent to accommodate their ‘lifestyle’. Trump is right, it would be a huge burden for our military and we are so glad he came to this decision.
Bill and Hillary Clinton | USMC Lance Cpl. Cristian L. Ricardo | WikimediaCommons
The attorney for a prominent Democratic congressional employee at the center of a major criminal investigation has deep ties to the Clinton machine in Washington.
Attorney Chris Gowen is serving as the lawyer for Imran Awan, a Pakistani-American IT professional who was apprehended at Dulles Airport this week as he reportedly attempted to leave the country for Pakistan.
Awan has been chargedwith bank fraud (which the Daily Caller reports as a potential “placeholder” charge for much more serious coming charges), and the FBI has been deeply involved in the process, leading some to suspect that there may be a foreign espionage component to the investigation. As an IT staffer, Awan secured highly sensitive information from several members of Congress, including representatives in the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees. Imran Awan is just one of the individuals in a criminal probe. Other suspects in the investigation reportedly fled to Pakistan.
After Awan’s arrest, Gowen immediately jumped into the fray, alleging that Awan was a victim of Islamophobia.He labeled Awan’s arrest as part of “a right-wing media-driven prosecution by a United States Attorney’s Office that wants to prosecute people for working while Muslim.”
His statement displays a remarkably similar tone to the one often promulgated by his former boss, Hillary Clinton, who often spoke of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” to undermine her family and her leftist ideals.
Gowen’s past includes several stints in the Clinton machine’s orbit. He began his legal life as a public defender but left that job for the Bill Clinton White House. At the time, he also worked for then-Senator Hillary Clinton. Years later, he jumped on board Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, directing advance operations there, according to his biography from his law firm, Gowen Rhoades Winograd & Silva, PLLC. In another bio page, Gowen states he has consulted with former Democratic presidential contenders John Kerry and John Edwards.
Another biography, from American University, says Gowen worked with several controversial Clinton projects, including The Clinton Global Initiative, The Clinton Foundation, and The Clinton Health Access Initiative.
In 2012, Gowen went to bat for Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, whose family is deeply connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. After GOP reps explored Abedin’s nefarious ties, Gowen pledged to “stand with Huma.”
Along with his private practice, the longtime Clinton aide is also an adjunct professor at American University Washington College of Law, where he teaches courses in legal ethics and law practice management.
Gowen’s Clinton connections are intriguing on another level, given that Awan’s employer in the House, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, remains a close Clinton confidant. The former Democratic National Committee chair resigned from her position after emails surfaced alleging she attempted to tip the scales of the Democratic primary in Clinton’s favor. Wasserman Schultz was also the 2008 campaign co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s first failed run for president.
It remains unclear at this time how Imran Awan managed to link up with Gowen and retain his services.
A preliminary hearing for Mr. Awan is scheduled for August 21.
Just in the past day a lot has happened with the ongoing scandal of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s (DWS) IT staffer Imran Awan and the politician herself.
Awan and his family operated an IT service company, to which some of his clients were from the House Democratic caucus; about 25. During that time, they raked in about $4 million by House Dems. Yesterday Imran was charged with bank fraud, while being arrested at the airport trying to flee the country to Pakistan. Reportedly he wired nearly $300, 000 to himself in that country.
Awan’s current home in the states is being leased out to a military couple, to which they found what looked like ‘government issued’ hard drives that were smashed. Authorities have investigated him and his wife for stealing equipment from some House members; with suspicions Imran placed information on the cloud from said equipment, according to Politico.
Many of Awan’s political clients fired him a long time ago, however the former Democratic National Committee head DWS left him on her payroll until yesterday, when he got arrested. DWS even tried to stop police from looking at her smashed laptop. According to reports, Awan apparently had it in his possession.
Democrats are trying to blame the investigation into Awan and his family on the fact that he is a Muslim from Pakistan.
Given the above sequence of events, this all raises serious questions, to which Ben Shapiro brilliantly lines out:
1. Why Was Awan Being Paid So Much Money For So Long? According to The Daily Caller, Awan wasn’t doing a good job — in fact, he and his team weren’t on mandatory phone calls:
Fellow IT staffers TheDCNF interviewed said the Awans were often absent from weekly meetings and email exchanges. One of the fellow staffers said some of the computers the Awans managed were being used to transfer data to an off-site server.
2. What Information Did Awan Transfer?The Daily Caller, which has been all over this story, reports that Awan had “access to all emails and files of dozens of members of Congress, as well as the password to the iPad that Wasserman Schultz used for Democratic National Committee business before she resigned as its head in July 2016.”
3. What Is Wasserman Schultz Trying To Hide? Not only did Wasserman Schultz keep paying Awan, she reportedly “threatened the chief of the US Capitol police with ‘consequences’ for holding equipment that she says belongs to her.”Again, here’s The Daily Caller:
When TheDCNF asked Wasserman Schultz Monday if it could inquire about her strong desire for the laptop, she said “No, you may not.” After TheDCNF asked why she wouldn’t want the Capitol Police to have any evidence they may need to find and punish any hackers of government information, she abruptly turned around in the middle of a stairwell and retreated back to the office from which she had come.
4. Why Aren’t The Media Reporting This Story? Thus far, only Politico among the mainstream media news outlets has covered the Awan story. Nothing from ABC News. Nothing from NBCNews.com. Nothing from CNN. Nothing from The New York Times. That’s pretty stunning, considering the potential scope of the story. One suspicion: are mainstream outlets concerned that perhaps Awan might be in some way connected to DNC leaks that damaged Democrats, or that will do so in the future?
Why the mainstream media is simply ignoring this story is beyond our comprehension, but this is clearly a major story and a very strange one at that. This has potential to blow up in the Democrats face, depending on the information stored on the smashed hard drives. Share this story so Americans are in the know!
It’s astounding to observe the lengths to which secularism will go to silence Jesus-followers. Last year, two street preachers in England were convicted of public order offenses after prosecutors claimed parts of the King James Version of the Bible were “abusive and…criminal.” On university campuses, Christian students and professors are berated and bullied. In the world of politics and the media, Christians are accused of bigotry and ignorance. In the entertainment industry, to be a biblical Christian is to be blacklisted. Just ask the Benham brothers, David and Jason, whose television show on HGTV was cancelled because of their biblical views on the sanctity of life and marriage. David Benham said, “This is the first time in our generation and in our parents’ generation that it’s actually going to cost us something to truly live out our biblical faith.”
But, of course, we are not people easily silenced, for we are committed to the example of Simon Peter, who, when told to be quiet, said, “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).
Speak the Word of God with boldness!
We don’t fight for victory, we fight from victory! Jesus has already won the victory at the cross and it’s our lives for Him that are going to transform the culture. David Benham
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We may think the hurt we suffered was too deep to ever forget and forgive, but Jesus can give us His eyes—magic eyes—with which to see our enemies.
Forgiving those who’ve hurt you
July 26
But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
-I JOHN 1:2
A fable tells of Ralph and Hilda, a baker and his wife. Ralph was tall and lean, and he was an unusually righteous man. He spoke in moral platitudes, and always did right. Hilda was soft and round—and as fun-loving and joyful as Ralph was cold and aloof. One night Ralph came home late from the bakery and found Hilda in the arms of another man. The whole town expected him to throw her out, but he didn’t. He vowed to forgive her “like the Good Book says.” But as time went on, it became clear that he had not. Heaven did not smile on Ralph’s cheap brand of forgiveness, and soon sent an angel to place a small pebble in Ralph’s heart with every look of scorn or belittling jab he gave to Hilda.
In time, his heart was so heavy he could hardly stand up straight. When he cried out in his pain for someone to help, the angel offered to cure his heavy, hurting heart. “How?” Ralph asked. “I will give you the gift of magic eyes,” the angel replied. “What is that?” Ralph wanted to know. “With magic eyes,” said the angel, “you will see Hilda not as someone who has betrayed you, but as a lonely woman who is trying her best to love you.” Ralph wasn’t sure he wanted magic eyes, because he had come to enjoy his hatred. But eventually, he said yes, and discovered that every time he looked at Hilda with his new magic eyes, a pebble was removed from his heart. Soon he began to feel good again, and he invited Hilda back into his heart. All of us have been hurt. We may think the hurt we suffered was too deep to ever forget and forgive, but Jesus can give us His eyes—magic eyes—with which to see our enemies.
For pro-life news updated throughout the day, visit LifeNews.com.
Top Stories
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• Charlie Gard’s Parents: Hospital Making It Difficult to Take Him Home
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More Pro-Life News • Charlie Gard’s Parents Will Ask Court to Allow Him to Come Home to Die • Media Covers Baby Orca’s Death More Than Fight to Save Charlie Gard’s Life • CLOSED: Planned Parenthood Stops Doing Abortions at Indiana Clinic Because It Can’t Protect Women’s Health • Abortion Activist Amanda Marcotte Claims Pro-Lifers are “Exploiting Charlie Gard” for “Propaganda” • Head of Planned Parenthood Clinic Aborting Babies for 17 Years is “Incredibly Proud” of His Work
• Planned Parenthood Headquarters Injures Two More Women in Botched Abortions
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• Abortionist Caught With Bloody Surgical Instruments Covered in Human Tissue Faces Trial
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• Doctor Told Mom She Was “Selfish” for Not Killing Her Disabled Daughter in an Assisted Suicide
• New York Times Cheers WNBA for Embracing Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz
Planned Parenthood Claims Genitals Do Not Determine Someone’s Gender In its latest updated guidelines about how to talk to preschool-aged children about their bodies, Planned Parenthood denies science by suggesting parents teach their children that genitals do not determine someone’s gender.
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
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Looks like Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s should have pulled a Hillary and used ‘Bleach-Bit’ instead of smashing her hard drives.
The FBI has seized them from DWS’s IT administrator, according to The Daily Caller.
Imran Awan — whom is the IT administrator and a Muslim Pakistani national — along with his two brothers, Abid and Jamal, were responsible for managing several IT services for Democrat representatives. Some of those clients included members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
This family of IT specialists are currently under criminal investigation for “serious violation on the House IT network.” Awan and three of his relatives, due to their IT roles, had access to the emails of more than two dozen House Democrats.
When the news broke in February that the criminal investigation was under way Imran Awan “abruptly moved out of his longtime home”, eventually renting his home to a military couple (a Marine Corps veteran man married to a Navy officer woman).
The tenants said that Awan and his family “left in a huge hurry.”
“[I found] wireless routers, hard drives that look like they tried to destroy, laptops, [and] a lot of brand new expensive toner,”said the Marine. “It looks like government-issued equipment. We turned that stuff over [to the authorities].”
The Marine said Imran wanted the hard drives back so desperately that he threatened to sue the renter for stealing them.
“It was unbelievable. I don’t know where they get off thinking they’re going to sue us for items we have no obligation to hold onto,”he said.
Imran came to the house for the items “three to four times,” but the Marine wouldn’t let him enter.
“Their lawyer contacted us today via email and said we owed $350 in late charges and the items he left in the house,”the Marine said.
The Marine heard about the House investigation on the radio, and by that time, he had noticed other bizarre signs of desperation from his landlord.
“When we first moved in, a mailman came with certified mail from the House of Representatives. We were trying to be nice and signed for it. They lost their shit, saying ‘why did you sign for it, this is illegal!’ It was certified from the [Chief Administrative Officer of the House],” he said.
“The postman came a second time with a certified letter and I called Imran on the spot, asking ‘what do you want me to do.’ He said ‘just send him away, I’m homeless.’ They refused to forward their mail.”
Imran’s brother Abid has also been evasive about his location, failing to provide an accurate address for delivery of court materials in a lawsuit in which he is accused of defrauding the brothers’ stepmother. Imran’s wife, Hina, has traveled to Pakistan since the probe was revealed, according to neighbors.
According to the Daily Wire: The Marine said Imran wanted the hard drives back so desperately that he threatened to sue the renter for stealing them.
The Awan family is also being investigated for fraud, allegedly placing “ghost employees” on a congressional payroll. They have been paid over $4 million in salary between 2009 and 2017.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), who employed Awan with his congressional staff budget, suggested the Awan family may be falsely targeted by Capitol Police because of they are Muslims.
“I wanted to be sure individuals are not being singled out because of their nationalities or their religion,”he said.
As of today, there have been no arrests made involving this case.
Wasserman-Schultz still employs the Awans as IT administrators with her congressional staff budget. In May, she indirectly threatened Capitol Police Chief Matthew Verderosa with “consequences” for keeping a laptop belonging to Awan as evidence in an ongoing criminal investigation.
The Awan family and their actions certainly have ‘guilty’ written all over them. The fact that DWS is still employing them at this point is highly suspicious too.
Hopefully Capitol Police will be able to close this case soon. If they are indeed doing anything illegal, it needs to be shut down.
The latest analysis of the CBO’s scoring of the GOP’s repeal efforts is shocking, but it really shouldn’t be. The media is constantly telling us that the Congressional Budget Office is an unbiased, and nonpartisan entity that does their very best to accurately score the legislation coming out of Congress. Here’s the problem with that math… it’s wrong. The CBO has proven time and again to be biased towards big government initiatives and they are hardly ever “accurate” on their estimates. Now, one of the foremost healthcare experts and economic genius, Avik Roy, is unmasking the CBO for what they truly are – a hack organization that doesn’t care about accuracy or truth.
Roy is a right-leaning economist and thinker but he recently decided to dig into the CBO projections because he noticed something startling about the projections of every GOP healthcare plan – they all showed expectations of more than 20 million people “losing” their healthcare. It didn’t matter how conservative or how moderate the plan, no matter what the GOP suggested, the CBO kept saying that more than 20 million people would lose their healthcare. Roy wondered how this was possible give the wildly different plans being suggested by various legislators. So, Roy dug into the numbers and realized almost immediately that the CBO was playing a corrupt and very misleading game with their projections:
In the national debate over the GOP health reform proposals, one data point has stood out above all others: the estimate, from the Congressional Budget Office, that more than 20 million people would “lose” coverage as a result. And there’s been an odd consistency to the CBO’s projections. Do you want to repeal every word of Obamacare and replace it with nothing? The CBO says 22 million fewer people would have health insurance. Do you prefer replacing Obamacare with a system of flat tax credits, in which you get the same amount of assistance regardless of your financial need? The CBO says 23 million fewer people would have health insurance. Do you prefer replacing Obamacare with means-tested tax credits, like the Senate bill does, in which the majority of the assistance is directed to those near or below the poverty line? The CBO says 22 million fewer people would have health insurance. 22 million, 23 million, 22 million — these numbers are remarkably similar even though the three policies I describe above are significantly different. Why is that?
A congressional staffer kindly leaked the CBO’s scoring process to Roy, and what he learned was that nearly 75% of the difference in coverage between Obamacare and any of the GOP bills has to do with the repeal of the “individual mandate.”Yes, 3/4 of the difference is just because the GOP would stop forcing people to buy healthcare, and the people would CHOOSE to stop getting healthcare insurance.
It gets worse, almost all of the rest of the difference between the GOP’s suggested bills and Obamacare only exist because the CBO is using faulty numbers.
Based on those estimates, of the 22 million fewer people who will have health insurance in 2026 under the Senate bill, 16 million will voluntarily drop out of the market because they will no longer face a financial penalty for doing so: 73 percent of the total. As you can see in the above chart, two factors—repealing Obamacare’s individual mandate and the CBO’s outdated March 2016 baseline—explain nearly all of the CBO-scored coverage difference between GOP bills and Obamacare.
Below is the chart that Roy is talking about:
The GOP keeps suggesting new plans with hopes that the CBO will give them a better score, but as Roy’s explanation proves, there is no plan that the GOP could propose that would give them a fair scoring. The CBO score has been the primary reason that GOP moderates have given to explain why they continue to fight against repeal, but again, Roy’s breakdown proves that their excuse is spurious. The moderates have to choose, will they continue to be cowed by the fake numbers from the CBO? Will they continue to break the very promises they made to get elected? Or will they finally stand up and do what they promised – repeal Obamacare?
In a follow up piece over at Forbes, Roy suggests a simple solution for the GOP to prove that the CBO’s projections are all washed up:
There’s a simple way for Republicans to highlight the CBO’s mandate mania: have CBO score one version of the bill with an individual mandate, and one version without. It’ll make as plain as day what those of us who follow this stuff see up close: that the mandate is the secret sauce driving the CBO’s faulty coverage predictions.
By the way, the media continues to report that repeal is unpopular, but you shouldn’t believe that nonsense. The most recent CNN poll proved that talking point was a lie and revealed that most Americans want Obamacare repealed.
The GOP has some work to do, and they better get started now.
For pro-life news updated throughout the day, visit LifeNews.com.
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Charlie Gard’s Mother: “We’re So Sorry We Couldn’t Save You Charlie” Speaking out in court today for the first time since they released a statement saying they would no longer legally fight to save their son Charlie Gard, Charlie’s parents say it is unfortunately time to let him go to heaven.
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
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An illegal immigrant has been arrested in Geneseo, New York for allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl, according to local news reports.
Fernando Alvarado-Perez, a 37-year-old male, allegedly had sex with the girl multiple times while she was between 12- and 13-years-old, Livingston County News reports.
Alvarado-Perez told officers that he came to the United States illegally about 10 years ago.
The Department of Homeland Security has reportedly issued an immigration detainer on Alvarado-Perez. He is being charged with, “rape, criminal sexual act, and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child,”WHEC.com reports.
Republican Lindsay Graham also recently made headlines for working on a news proposal to keep illegal immigrants in the country, saying that those who don’t support DREAMers shouldn’t vote for him.
This woman has the perfect response to encroaching Islam. Check it out…
We are constantly told that we need to be ‘tolerant’. We are constantly told that we don’t need to make sure that those coming to the U.S. assimilate into American culture. But we are a ‘melting pot’. Sure, bring your food and your music — even open up a restaurant! If it’s good, we’ll eat there. And then you’re living the American Dream.
But we don’t want you to bring your hatred, bigotry, misogyny, and barbaric practices with you. And we don’t want your religious laws.
Those are not American. And we don’t ever want them to be.
We see the ‘respect’ for women means covering them up, abuse, mutilation, and treating them as inferior. We see that the ‘holy’ Muhammed married a child when she was 6 and consummated the marriage when she was 9 or 10. We see what ‘Peace’ looks like when Muslim majority countries discuss our ally, Israel. We see what Islam has done, and it isn’t what we want here.
“”The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” The quote comes from a speech that President Obama delivered to the United Nations General Assembly on 25 September 2012 about the death of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three others in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.”
The long arm of government regulation has grown considerably shorter in the first months of the Trump administration. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said regulatory reform is intended to address “that slow cancer that can come from regulatory burdens that we put on our people.”
Federal agencies have withdrawn 469 regulations that had been proposed by the Obama administration last fall, according to information from the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. That total included 19 regulations with an economic impact of $100 million or more,the White House said.
The White House said 391 regulations have been delayed for further evaluation and consideration.
According to the White House, during the final five months of fiscal 2016, the Obama administration put in place rules that imposed $6.8 billion in annual costs on the economy. The White House said rules imposed in the Trump administration’s first five months have imposed no costs.
“It’s really the beginning of a kind of fundamental regulatory reform,”Neomi Rao, head of the office, said Wednesday.
Some Trump administration rules are devoted to killing other rules. For example, the Interior Department plans to reduce the paperwork burden for outdoorsmen, fish restoration programs and Native American tribes, while the Labor Department wants to change the approval process for new apprenticeship programs.
“There is a substantial withdrawal and rollback of proposed regulatory actions,”Rao said. “It is also important to note that what we are doing now is in some ways fulfilling a number of longstanding principles that other presidents have always talked about.”
Trump’s approach to regulations has been cheered by business.
“We just got through eight years of a regulatory onslaught, aimed at curtailing oil and gas production. So we are very supportive of the administration’s efforts to roll back regulation,”said Kathleen Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance, which represents oil and gas drillers in Western states.
Rao noted that while reducing regulations is a major goal of the Trump administration, it cannot be done instantly.
“Deregulation is going to take time,”she said. “It is not something you can just do at the snap of a finger.”
“Agencies want to move quickly to get things done, to fulfill their priorities,”she said, adding that her office would be working with agencies to be sure they follow the law and are “doing things the right way.”
Things have been changing in Turkey in the last year or so since the coup attempt. They’ve become less secular and more Islamistsince then.
Our supposed ‘NATO Ally’ isn’t quite the friend we thought they were.
Turkey’s state-owned media outlet has published the locations of U.S. military bases inside Syria,showing a stunningly betrayal to the national security of a supposed ally.
The report contained the locations of 10 American bases and outposts in Kurdish-held northern Syria, which is under the control of the YPG (Kurdish) militia. Turkish security sources confirmed the details of the story, which even included specific troop numbers and details of the capacity of some of the bases, according to Al-Monitor.
The report also revealed the locations of some French forces in the region.
Turkey has for some time been angry with America for its support of the Kurdish YPG forces. The YPG is the militia of the Kurdish regions of Syria and is a partner with the United States in the battle against the Islamic State terrorist group. However, they are also affiliated with the PKK, a Kurdish separatist militia and political party which fights for self-rule in the Kurdish areas of Turkey. Therefore Turkey regards the YPG as a terrorist group and as a national security threat.
The U.S. government is understandably angry about the leaks. — Clarion Project
There are other changes as well…
Turkey has been heading in a more radical direction for some time. Since March they have prevented humanitarian aid from being transported into Kurdish areas across the Turkish border. They accuse humanitarian organizations of secretly supplying the YPG.
Turkey has also made alarming changes domestically. The new school curriculum for the 2017-2018 school year will no longer teach evolution, but teaching the concept of jihadhas been added to the curriculum. Clarion Project
Evolution and Jihad? Culture can have whatever origin story they want, and still get along with the world just fine. (See Hindus or native religions for example.) But teaching Jihad? That’s a big deal.
Add to that, overtures from Russia (who still want a warm-water port) and a possible relationship with Iran, and you’ll see the regional balance of power tipping in a new direction.
What should we make of that? What about the political instability 10,000 immigrants a day are causing in Italy? Ranging in discussions of Austria’s army lining up on Italy’s border, to Czech calls for attacking Libya, the source of the immigrant influx and we have a destabilization of Europe.
There’s a discussion about why partnership with Iran is a big deal here.
After 6 months of burning bridges and doing everything he could to oppose Trump… suddenly California’s Governor needs Federal Help.
Gerry Brown didn’t mind running his mouth when Trump pulled out of the Paris Accord — even though Congress had never authorized it as an official Treaty.
He had no trouble thumbing his nose at Trump with respect to Immigration and Sanctuary cities.
But suddenly the regulations that Brown’s OWN party put in place are becoming burdensome…
The heavily polluted San Joaquin Valley in California is looking to President Trump for help as the city becomes engulfed in its own pollution and continues to drown in federal fines.
Although the city has already spent more than $40 billion in enforcing anti-pollution policies, their skies are still dirty and their governor, Jerry Brown, could not care less as he pushes forward in tightening air quality standards that the district cannot meet. –Sacramento Bee
Doesn’t that situation PERFECTLY describe the Paris agreement that Trump turfed? Punitive fines,
no results? After six months of actively resisting his Presidency… NOW he needs Trump’s help?How do you think this is going to end, Jerry?
This isn’t Obama he’s dealing with, here. Trump is a negotiator and Brown is in a classic ‘position of weakness’.
Let’s talk about ‘concessions’, Jerry.
You’re ‘coming around’ to the idea of deregulation.
You ‘like’ the idea of scrapping fines — or at least avoiding their consequences.
What’s this help WORTH to you?
Let’s talk about walls. And immigration.
Let’s talk about a world of possibilities, and JUST how much NOT feeling the weight of your own Party’s bureaucracy is worth to you.
You can discuss it over a nice meal. (Bon appetit!)
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An Islamic “charity” recently convicted of acting as a front group for the regime in Iran has financed and installed Iran-friendly professors and curriculums at 44 universities across North America – and 41 of those schools are located in the United States.
In late June, a New York jury ruled that the Alavi Foundation is directly linked to the Iranian regime, allowing the feds to seize the Manhattan building that provided revenue for the organization’s nationwide influence operations. Prosecutors called the conviction the “largest terrorism-related civil forfeiture in United States history.”
Alavi used a multi-pronged approach to embed itself into American society. From financing pro-Tehran Shiite cultural centers and mosques to donating heavilyto the infamous Clinton Foundation, the regime-connected outfit sought to win over hearts and minds in its clandestine efforts.
A primary focus of the foundation continues to be installing Iran-friendly professors and curriculums into American universities. Over the past few years, the Alavi Foundation has increased its college and university financing efforts by about 50 percent.
Alavi claims that its goal is simply to “offer courses on Persian language, Iranian studies and the Islamic culture with a focus on Shiite studies.”However, analysts continue to note that several programs connected to Alavi involve controversial pro-Tehran professors and a morally obtuse curriculum.
From 2013 to 2016, the Alavi foundation’s academic funding efforts exploded from 30 to 44 colleges and universities in North America. Over 90 percent of recipients are United States schools.
The following institutions receive grants from the Alavi Foundation, according to one of its 2016 fundraising appeals:
Bard College; Boston University; Brandeis University; Columbia University; Drew University; Eastern Mennonite University; George Mason University; Hartford Seminary; Harvard University; Harvard University Law School; Lake Forest University; Sacred Heart University; University of Chicago; Binghamton University; Cal State, Fullerton; Cal State, Los Angeles; Cal State, Northridge; Carleton University (Canada); City College of New York; Concordia University; Georgia State University; CUNY Hunter College; Kutztown University; McGill University (Canada); Ohio State University; Portland State University; Rutgers University; San Diego State University; Temple University; University of Alberta (Canada); University of Arizona; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Los Angeles; University of Florida; University of Maryland; University of Michigan; University of Southern California; University of Texas, Austin; University of Utah; University of Virginia; University of Wisconsin, Madison; University of Pennsylvania; Utah State University.
Alavi has entered into a cost-sharing agreement with many of these universities, facilitating deals that support the hiring of tenure-track professors. One such report found that these professors are “sympathetic to the Iranian dictatorship.”
It may not come as a shock — given what we now know about the extent of the pro-Tehran group — that many of the professors supported by Alavi-backed programming have pursued a radically pro-Tehran agenda.
Rutgers professor Hooshang Amirahmadi is the leader of the American Iranian Council, a group that has offered supportfor the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations, according to the New York Post.
University of Maryland research scholar Ebrahim Mohseni produced a much-disputed poll that showed wide support for Iran’s extremely anti-Semitic former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Over at Harvard University, visiting scholar Ali Akbar Alikhani penned a white paper calling for a world governed by the Quran. He also wrote a book review on “the Jewish threat”to other world religions.
Moreover, the foundation poured $100,000 into Columbia University’s coffers after the NYC school agreed to host former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
During the heated debate over whether the U.S. should sign on to a nuclear agreement with Iran, the National Iranian American Council(which has its own extensive links to the regime) published a pro-Iran-deal letter endorsed by 73“Middle East and International Relations Scholars.”Coincidentally or not, dozens of professors on the list came from institutions that received Alavi Foundation money.
These are but a handful of the “success” stories on college campuses funded by the Alavi Foundation’s academic grants. Given the group’s alleged connections to Iran’s sophisticated intelligence apparatus, it’s quite possible that its campaigns have had alarming, extensive success in winning over the hearts and minds of college students.
Now that Alavi has been ruled a front for the Iranian regime, it’s unclear what will become of its programming inside dozens of American universities. The seized Manhattan skyscraper acted as the major revenue stream for the foundation’s efforts throughout the nation, and it’s unclear whether the group can sustain its funding while going through serious legal proceedings.
For years, the Alavi Foundation funneled cash through a regime that hosts Friday prayers ending in “Death to America.”Now that Alavi has been exposed, only time will tell whether the 41 U.S. institutions will continue to act in a morally bankrupt manner and continue to accept dirty money from a front group forwarding the agenda of an enemy nation.
Schachtel is the national security correspondent for Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @JordanSchachtel.
JERUSALEM — Three Palestinians were reported killed and over 200 were wounded in clashes with Israeli security forces in Jerusalem and the West Bank as Palestinian leaders urged a day of protest purportedly against Israel’s decision to put metal detectors at entrances to the Temple Mount.
Protest leaders, including top Palestinian officials, claim the metal detectors are part of an Israeli conspiracy to hamper Muslim worship at the Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and a site considered holy in Islam. The activists and Palestinian officials seemingly fail to note that Israel’s new security measures were put into place in direct response to the murderous Palestinian terrorist attack at the Mount last Friday in which three assailants somehow smuggled weapons onto the site. The metal detectors will protect all visitors to the Mount, including Muslim worshipers.
The activists protesting at the Temple Mount ignore that metal detectors have been in place for years for Jewish and Christian worshipers accessing the Western Wall. And Muslims on the Hajj pilgrimage pass through metal detectors at airports and border crossings.
A Palestinian uses a slingshot against Israeli soldiers during violent clashes in the West Bank city of Bethlehem (AP/Nasser Shiyoukhi)
On Friday, Israeli Police cited information that “extremist elements” where planning to “to cause violent disruptions to the public order, and thereby to threaten the public peace, including the [safety] of those coming to pray at the holy sites and other residents of the area.”
As a result, Israeli security forces erected checkpoints at main entrances to Jerusalem and are blocking several roads leading to the Temple Mount area. Some 3,000 police forces were deployed to Jerusalem’s Old City in addition to five Israel Defense Forces battalions that have been put on standby.
The Times of Israelreported on Friday’s ensuing deadly clashes:
The Palestinian Authority’s official Wafa news agency said a 17-year-old was killed in Ras al-Amud outside the Old City after being shot by a “settler,” though no shooter was identified; the term is often used by Palestinians to refer to any Israeli out of uniform. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the teen as Muhammad Mahmoud Sharaf from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.
A second person was reportedly shot in the A-Tur area of east Jerusalem and died of his wounds at Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem. The third death reportedly occurred in Abu Dis in the West Bank, near Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Over 200 people were reported injured in the clashes across Jerusalem and the West Bank on Friday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said, adding that the injuries were incurred from live bullets, rubber-coated bullets, burning and tear gas inhalation.
There were reports of other clashes between Israeli forces and rioters across eastern sections of Jerusalem and in several West Bank locations, including checkpoints.
Palestinian youths hurl stones towards Israeli police officers during clashes in Jerusalem. (AP/Mahmoud Illean)
Some of those arrested included officials from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party.
According to Palestinian reports, 10 residents were arrested in east Jerusalem, among them were Fatah officials.
Some 400 Muslims attended the prayer next to the Gate of the Tribes (Bab al-Asbat), the place that sparked the violence earlier this week. Before the prayer, the leader called on the attendees to be patient, and said that “the Jews, that are occupying Palestine, are on their way to hell.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent says 41 Palestinians were taken to hospitals or clinics with injures from live fire, rubber bullets and beatings. About 150 Palestinians were treated for tear gas inhalation.
Four Israeli police officers have been reportedly injured in the clashes after being struck with stones and flares.
The Palestinian charge that Israel is hampering Muslim access to the Temple Mount is contradicted by facts on the ground. Israel allows the Jordanian-controlled Waqf to serve as custodians of the Mount and grants Muslim worshipers access to the site 24 hours per day, seven days a week with the exception of rare instances of security threats.
Jewish and Christian visitors, however, are restricted by the Waqf from visiting the Mount except on small tours for about two hours per day. The Waqf does not allow non-Muslims to pray on the Mount or bring holy objects to the site; whereas Muslim prayer is unrestricted. Waqf representatives closely monitor non-Muslim visitors to the site and are known to boot those engaging in prayer.
Palestinians throw stones against Israeli soldiers during clashes in the West Bank city of Bethlehem (AP/Nasser Shiyoukhi)
Israel on Thursday partially blamed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for helping to fuel anti-Israel incitement regarding false threats to the Temple Mount.
“UNESCO is a full partner to the false incitement by Palestinians and radical Islam who claim that Al-Aksa [Temple Mount mosque] is in danger,”Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO in Paris Carmel Shama HaCohen said.
Last Friday’s Mount terrorist attack occurred less than two weeks after the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed an anti-Israel resolution declaring Jerusalem’s Old City and its ancient walls to be “occupied” sites and listed the areas as Palestinian heritage sites in “danger.”
The Temple Mount is located in Jerusalem’s Old City, and last Friday’s attack occurred near the Lions Gate, part of Jerusalem’s ancient walls singled out by UNESCO.
And the terrorist attack took place one week after UNESCO passed another anti-Israel resolution regarding the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron – considered the second holiest site in Judaism after the Temple Mount – claiming the tomb is a “Palestinian” world heritage site in danger.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him onTwitter @AaronKleinShow.Follow him onFacebook.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. President Donald Trump, unimpressed by the Afghanistan war options presented to him during a White House meeting with his full national security team Wednesday, suggested they may have to go back to the drawing board to craft a strategy that does not mirror the failed ones employed by his predecessors, said an administration official.
The meeting came as the Pentagon briefed lawmakers about plans to increase the U.S. military footprint in the country.
Contrary to mainstream media claims that the president has taken a completely hands-off approach to the 16-year-old conflict in Afghanistan, Trump presided over Wednesday’s meeting primarily aimed at discussing the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, a Trump administration official familiar with the deliberations told Breitbart News on condition of anonymity.
President Trump indicated that he is not satisfied with the strategy as it currently stands.
The Pentagon and White House National Security Council (NSC) declined to provide specifics about the developing plan.
President Trump demanded that his team go back to square one if necessary and create a realistic plan that ensures Afghanistan is ultimately able to stand on its own as a country, said the administration official, noting that the meeting served as a sort of wake up call for those involved in developing the strategy.
It appears that besides the Pentagon, the NSC has at least some authority in setting the strategy.
Asked about the meeting, the Pentagon did not confirm nor deny that the President asked officials to go back to the drawing board.
“We’re not going to discuss White House meetings or direction,”said Adam Stump, a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) spokesman, when Breitbart News asked whether or not it has been forced to start developing the Afghanistan war strategy from scratch and when it expects to present the plan to Trump.
The NSC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters last Friday a decision on the new plan would be unveiled around “mid-July” or “somewhere around there. We are driven by the maturity of the discussion, and where we’re at, we are not going to meet some timeline if we are not ready, but we are pretty close.”
Trump has granted the Pentagon the authority to decide how many additional troops to deploy to the war-ravaged country. Currently, Mattis may increase that number of troops by between 3,000 and 5,000, from the 8,400 already there. Mattis noted on Friday that the number of additional troops has not been “finalized yet,” adding that the Pentagon is waiting from input from the U.S. State Department.
Citing unnamed U.S. officials, CNN reports that as it currently stands, the strategy:
Encompasses a way ahead in Afghanistan, including the possibility of sending more troops, but also a look at new ideas for dealing with Pakistan, which the US believes is supporting or turning a blind eye to a number of terror groups operating inside the country.
The president made it clear he is not interested in any approach that resembles the strategies used by his predecessors and will not accept anything less than a dramatic overhaul, the official told Breitbart News.
Directly dealing with Pakistan’s support for terrorists fighting the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan would mark a significant departure from what America has done in the past.
Most of the 2,255 U.S. military fatalities and 20,245 injury incidents have taken place in provinces that border Pakistan.
The Pentagon spokesman defined what victory in Afghanistan means for the Trump administration, saying it ultimately involves a settlement with the Taliban and terrorists laying down their arms.
Stump told Breitbart News:
The U.S. strategy in Afghanistan remains centered on working with NATO allies, operational partners, and the international community to defeat the remnants of core al Qaeda and to defeat other violent extremist organizations and terrorist groups, such as ISIS-K [Islamic State], to ensure that Afghanistan does not again become a safe-haven for groups to plan and execute attacks against the United States, U.S. persons overseas, or allies and partners; and continuing efforts to provide financial and advisory support to the Afghan Government and to enable a well-trained, equipped, and sustainable ANDSF [Afghan National Defense and Security Force] that provides security in Afghanistan.
The U.S. and Afghan Governments agree that the best way to ensure lasting peace and security in Afghanistan is through reconciliation and a political settlement with the Taliban. The United States supports an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned reconciliation process and supports any process that includes violent extremist groups laying down their arms.
Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the Washington Post (WaPo)reports that the current U.S.-Afghan war is framed around a four-year plan to degrade the Taliban this is unlikely to “yield significant results until its later stages.”
In recently issued reports, the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon have accused Pakistan of willingly serving as a safe-haven for the Taliban and its affiliates, including the deadly Haqqani Network.
The Taliban affirmed its relationship with al-Qaeda in December 2016.
“Yes. They take obvious side for Islamists . Criticism about Islam is silenced. But critic and even threats to others are ok according to their standards. Rotten policy.”
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American Family Association
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American Family Association
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Commentary by Rush Limbaugh | 
In other words, the CBO said that 
You take your pick. Whatever major industry we’re talking about, 
But it’s not you. It’s not the voters. They’re certainly afraid of somebody — or else they despise somebody — but they’re not afraid. You know, Ted Cruz said the thing that he discovered that was the most… I mean, he knew it, but to see it in action every day? It blew his mind that the single, dominating thing in every day of a senator’s life is getting reelected, which means fundraising. That’s number one, first and foremost.
For those of you in Rio Linda, it means the next month is 2016, which is an election year. They wanted to be on record as close to an election year as possible that they had sent a vote to repeal Obamacare up to Obama. Damn it, they repealed it. But that’s what you get with a Democrat in the White House. You give us a Republican in the White House and we’ll repeal it. She tells everybody how it’s not affordable. It’s not this and that. It’s not anything it purports to be, and she lays claim to no doubt that she opposes it.
Trump says he has more respect for military people that don’t get captured. (sigh) Well, think what you will of that. But you cannot think what you will of that without recognizing the importance of that story to McCain’s political biography. It is crucial to McCain’s biography. Everybody knows it — that’s how crucial it’s been — that McCain was captured after being shot down, that when the Vietcong found out who he was (i.e., the son of a famous Navy admiral), they offered him release and how McCain said no.
Reported 
Reported by Ryan Pickrell | China/Asia Pacific Reporter | 4:56 PM 07/30/2017
Sunday’s test of a U.S. missile defense system.
the second time Friday, but it is an excellent defensive tool when it comes to short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. In recent months, the North has successfully tested a precision Scud, the Pukguksong-2 (KN-15) MRBM, and the Hwasong-12 IRBM, all of which are new weapons systems rolled out this year. North Korea can use these missiles against its neighbors, specifically South Korea and Japan.
Reported 
Reported by Bryan Fischer Host of “Focal Point” | Friday, July 28, 2017 @ 1:09 PM
Posted July 28, 2017 01:35 PM by Chris Pandolfo 
;
Reported 
Commentary by
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Posted by GirlsJustWannaHaveGuns.com | July 26, 2017
The dispute has unfolded as Congress considers a nearly $700 billion spending bill to fund the Pentagon. Representative Vicky Hartzler, Republican of Missouri, has proposed an amendment 
;
Posted by GirlsJustWannaHaveGuns.com | July 25, 2017
Reported 
The GOP keeps suggesting new plans with hopes that the CBO will give them a better score, 
The GOP has some work to do, and they better get started now.
;
Justin Caruso | Contributor | 1:27 PM 07/24/2017
Reported 
Published by ClashDaily.com | July 21, 2017
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Posted July 19, 2017 01:14 PM by Jordan Schachtel
Reported 
Reported 
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