Truth and Lies about the Shutdown

There are a bunch of lies being told about the government shutdown.

1.  Federal employees are losing their paychecks right before Christmas.  -- This line is making the rounds on most of the mainstream media.  It's not true for two reasons:  first, federal employees are paid on every other week on Wednesday or Thursday.  They were just paid earlier this week.  That means that none of them are due another paycheck until the first week of January of next year.  Sure, if the shutdown lasts for two weeks, their paychecks could be delayed, but we've never had a shutdown last that long, and this one is unlike to go that long either.  So not a single federal employee will miss a single paycheck.  Second, if some employees don't have to go to work on Monday (Christmas Eve) or other days after Christmas, they will still be paid for those days once the funding is put in place.  That happens every time there's a shutdown and Congress already passed resolutions saying it would happen this time too.  Again, not a single federal employee will lose a cent.  Many will actually get additional paid vacation.

2.  Critical federal functions will be stopped due to the shutdown.  This is another bit of BS making the rounds.  Anyone who says this obviously never tried to deal with the government during the week of Christmas or New Years.  Nothing would be getting done.  This attack is just a lie.

3.  People will be left without benefits like social security, medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, etc. -- Totally untrue.  All benefits are either already funded or they will be continued during the shutdown.

4.  Soldiers will not get paid.  Also untrue.  All funding for the Department of Defense is in place for the year.  It is unaffected.  Indeed, funding for about 80% of the government is in place and that 80% is unaffected by this.

 

SCOTUS "Blocks" Asylum Rules

There's a big huzzah in the mainstream media today about how the Supreme Court "blocked" the new asylum rules put forth by the Trump administration.  That coverage shows that the reporters don't understand what happened.

First, the new rules were issued that state that the only place where one can ask for asylum is at a port of entry.  Those who enter illegally cannot then ask for asylum if they are caught.

Second, a group of illegals went to court and asked that the new rules be overturned as arbitrary and capricious and contrary to the requirements of the law.

Third, the district court judge granted an order temporarily blocking enforcement of the new rules until the case is fully presented and adjudicated.  In other words, the people bringing the suit and those similarly situated cannot be deported back to their countries until the case is decided.  If that order had not been issued, the case would have been moot because the plaintiffs would be in Central America. 

This decision is not surprising.  It is a finding that there is a real dispute here.  The plaintiffs have a good chance of winning according to the district court judge.

The case then went up through the system to the Supreme Court.  That court was asked to block the district court's ruling while the case is pending.  That would let the new rule go into effect while the case was pending.  The Supreme Court then denied that application.

So what does that mean?  It means that the Supreme Court did not think that the outcome was so clearly going to be in favor of the government that it would let the rule go into effect in the meantime.  To do that, it would take a finding that the plaintiffs had essentially no chance of winning.  It is not a final decision in favor of the plaintiffs.  It is one that is made on a basis that is heavily weighted in the favor of the illegals.  It's not a surprise that they won.  Indeed, it is more surprising that four justices dissented and would have ruled in the favor of the government.

When this case eventually gets back to SCOTUS on appeal, it is safe to say that there are already four votes in favor of allowing the new regulations to proceed.  The other five justices votes are less clear.  If I had to bet, though, I would think the court is more likely than not to allow the rule to go into effect.

In short, SCOTUS did not block the rules.  SCOTUS did what it is supposed to do to allow the case to proceed without becoming moot.  It's not the same thing.

PS == I know that yesterday I said I had posted for the last time in 2018, but hey I changed my mind.  I am really going to try not to post for the rest of the year, though. 

The Holidays Are Here

I don't usually do this, but I've decided this year to take a break from posting through the holidays.

I'll be back once we hit January (or earlier if I just have to say something.)

It has been such an active year on the political front, that I want to take some time away to make sure that I don't lose my perspective on events.

The Chaos Meme

The media is back at it.  They're telling us that the White House is in CHAOS!  It's a never-ending attack on President Trump.  Everything about Trump causes chaos, or so they tell us.

Truthfully, I'm tired of this nonsense from the media even though I acknowledge that it has worked with some people who don't pay attention or bring critical thinking to the issue.  Remember, the same media told us that the Trump campaign was in chaos during the primaries in 2016 (but Trump won.)  Then we were told that the Republican National Convention was going to be chaotic due to Trump (but it wasn't.)  Then Trump's campaign against Hillary was supposedly descending into chaos (but again Trump won.)  The transition was the height of chaos, or so the media told us.  (It wasn't.)  The Trump administration started and ever since then no matter what happens, the media tells us that it is due to chaos at the White House.  Today, there are even articles by supposed reporters for outlets like the AP that warn that with the departure of General Mattis from Defense, the last person preventing all out chaos at the White House is departing.  It was nonsense and Fake News in 2016.  It was again in 2017 and it still is in 2018.

The truth is that things are changing.  Indeed, Trump is changing things.

1.  Our relationship to China has changed.  For the first time in decades, the Chinese have been made to pay a price for cheating in trade deals and for stealing American intellectual property.  There has been a bit of uproar as tariffs and disputes have flown through the air.  The key thing, however, is that the Chinese have blinked.  They can't accept an all out trade war with the USA.  America would not be benefited in the short term by a trade war, but it would be a disaster for China.  So things are changing, and that change should benefit the American people.

2.  Our relationship with out NATO allies has changed.  With Obama in the White House, the USA didn't care if our allies met their promises in the NATO Treaty.  The USA paid for defense and most of the allies got a free ride.  Trump threw a monkey wrench into that arrangement.  He demanded that our allies meet their commitments.  The allies weren't all that happy about it, but suddenly a big batch have upped their defense spending to take on the burden of the common defense AS THEY HAD PROMISED TO DO.  This is a big change which also benefits America.  It's change, not chaos.

3.  America's economy has been shifted.  Taxes are lower.  Unnecessary and onerous regulations put in place by the Obamacrats have been wiped away.  That's beneficial change, not chaos.  For all the froth in the stock market, the economy is strong.

4.  American forces are leaving Syria.  With ISIS essentially defeated, the President doesn't want to commit US troops to keeping the peace in this middle-eastern excuse for a country.  That's not really a change in Trump's view.  Still, the people who think it would be beneficial for America to have an outpost in Syria are screaming.  I have to say that I agree with them, not with Trump.  Still, this is not chaos.  It is a foreign policy decision as to America's role in the world.  If the Secretary of Defense resigned because he disagrees, that also is not chaos.  It's a disagreement.

5.  Trump is sticking to his guns with regard to building a wall on the Mexican border.  No rational person could call that chaos.  Sure, the Democrats don't want to give Trump the money he seeks for the wall.  As a result, they are fighting over what can only be described as small change.  Trump, however, hasn't changed his mind.  He's been quite clear all along that he will build the wall.  Indeed, all that has happened is that the media decided that Trump had given up on the wall and spread that word across the country.  The problem, of course, is that Trump didn't say that; the media just decided that his spokesperson's statements about willingness to negotiate and looking to see if there were funds available elsewhere meant Trump had given up.  The current impasse is not a symptom of chaos, but rather of resolve.  If the Democrats actually cared about the will of the people, they would pass the bill with the money Trump wants.  After all, it was damn clear in 2016 that a major policy goal of Trump's was to build this wall, and the PEOPLE VOTED FOR TRUMP.  For the President to stick to his guns is not chaotic.

I understand that for those who don't pay close attention to Washington or for those who get taken in by the media nonsense, it's easy to get the perception that things in Washington are chaotic.  If you get nothing but constant statements about chaos from the media, after a while it just seeps into your consciousness.  But here's the problem:  if the media has told us for years and years that everything Trump does is chaotic and if the media has been wrong until now, isn't is a reasonable conclusion to decide that the media is just running a Fake News campaign?  So the next time you think that there really is chaos, take a step back and think to yourself just what that chaos truly is.  If you think about it, you will quickly realize just how idiotic this chaos meme actually is.

Reducing the US Footprint in Afghanistan

On top of the news of a US withdrawal of the few thousand troops we have in Syria come reports today that the President is also about to order a draw down in the size of American forces in Afghanistan.  Something like half of the 14,000 troops there would be pulled out.

Americans have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001.  The Taliban were ousted quickly in our first response to the 9-11 attacks.  After that, we had a small number of troops in Afghanistan fighting against the Taliban in an endless campaign.  When Obama took office, he announced that Iraq had been a "bad" war and that Afghanistan was the "good" war.  Obama rushed all American troops out of Iraq but sent over 100,000 troops to Afghanistan to finally win that fight.  The result of that deployment was that many of our armed forces were killed (about 1600) or wounded, but there was essentially no progress in achieving victory over the Taliban.  At the same time that he sent large numbers of troops to Afghanistan, Obama also announced that the deployment was temporary and would be ended in a few years.  All the Taliban had to do was wait for these forces to go.

When Trump took office, he had campaigned against foreign interventions by US forces.  For Afghanistan, however, he listened to the generals and put more troops back into that country.  Casualties have been low, but there are still troops getting wounded or killed there.  So far this year, the number of those killed is around 10.

If the story of the draw down of US forces is correct, it seems that President Trump is done listening to the advice of the generals who claim to be able to win the war.  He's going back to the position on which he campaigned which is to bring home our troops.

I don't know the correct move to make in Afghanistan.  The USA has no national interest in that country aside from it not being a breeding ground for terrorists or a place where opium is grown in mass quantities.  Still, we are already there so a departure could be looked at as a sign of weakness.

One thing is certain.  President Trump is not a prisoner of the old ways of thinking about US troop deployments.  Obama agonized about every move and then rarely took action without watering it down so that it had little, if any, effect.  Trump is willing to challenge the orthodoxy even if it is coming from his own Pentagon.  Maybe he's right; maybe he's not.  We will have to wait and see. 

Destroying Their Own

The news yesterday made a big deal out of comments from a short seller of Twitter that called the social media site a breeding ground for racism, misogyny and homophobia.  The stock was down 11% in yesterday's trading.  It's amazing to watch the left kill one of their own.

I am often on Twitter.  There's no question that there a lot of hatred there.  There's also no question that most of that hate is spewed towards President Trump, the GOP and conservatives.  Indeed, Twitter itself manifests a clear bias against conservative/Republican/Trump people.  Twitter has shadow banned many; that's a process by which Twitter restricts the tweets of these people to be visible only to those who are followers of the authors.  A search for a particular subject matter or key word will not show results from those who are shadow banned.  Twitter denies doing this, but there's too much proof of it to believe the denials.  Then there's Twitter's policy against abusive tweets.  Tweets that call on President Trump to kill himself are not disturbed.  Tweets that point out hypocrisy by some on the left are erased.  Tweets that attack conservatives flourish while those that attack liberals are erased.  More and more, Twitter has become a hostile place for any conservative.

It's funny that Twitter is now taking a major hit because a guy with a clear financial incentive to see the stock go down says that it foments racist, misogynist and homophobic comments.  It's the use of the left's catch phrases against itself, and it seems to have worked.

Look, don't get me wrong.  I would never invest in Twitter.  It's a social media platform without a recognizable method to monetize its daily existence.  Sure, there are ads on the platform, but they can't be very profitable.  One day, we had to see Twitter's stock price collapse.  Indeed, I doubt that Twitter can survive as currently structured.  Still, it's fun to see the usual charges of racism, etc. used against one of the main purveyors of that stuff.

Explain This

Tonight, the House passed a bill funding the government and including a little over 5 billion for border security.  To be clear, that's 5 billion out of more than 4 trillion that the government will spend this year.  It's about on tenth of one percent of all spending.  The Senate had passed a funding measure without the border security funds yesterday, but today, the President told the House leadership that he would not sign any funding bill without adequate border security funding.  As a result, the House passed a this funding measure by a large margin.

All of this seems pretty straightforward.  Nevertheless, Chuck Schumer, the Dem leader in the Senate says this is President Trump throwing a temper tantrum.  That's nonsense.  This is Trump insisting on provisions that would allow him to effectuate one of the main promises he made when he ran for office in 2016.

Nancy Pelosi, soon to be Speaker of the House again, said that the vote in the House was "shameful".  I guess to Pelosi, guarding the borders of this country is shameful.  It's not that she wants to have open borders; it's rather that she thinks that anyone who opposes open borders is immoral.  In other words, Pelosi has no idea what constitutes actual morality.

Hopefully, the Senate will pass some sort of funding bill that will include adequate border security.

Droning On in the UK

Gatwick airport is London's second largest air travel facility.  It was shut today, the second busiest travel day of the year, as a result of an attack by drones.  Someone sent drones to fly above the runways off and on all day.  The presence of the drones made it impossible for planes to take off or land safely.  As a result, roughly 150,000 travelers had their trips cancelled.  No one knows as of this moment who is responsible for the attack. 

It's hard to imagine that someone would risk the lives of planes filled with people just to fly these drones over the airfield.  The drones involved were large "industrial" drones which are not inexpensive.  That pretty much rules out most possible attackers.  It has to be a person or a group with the substantial financial resources required to gather sufficient drones for the attack.

Most likely, the British authorities will learn who is responsible in the near future.  When they do, let's hope that they throw the book at these fools.  Ten years in jail ought to dissuade others from trying the same routine.

Here We Go With The Recession Talk

The stock market is way down again today.  It's been terrible over the last few weeks.  So, like clockwork, the media is pulling out articles questioning whether or not this drop in stocks means a recession is coming.

The answer is that the stock market is a very poor indicator of impending recession.  One very famous quote on the subject from a well known economist is that the stock market predicted nine of the last five recessions.  The point is that sometimes a stock decline indicates a recession is coming and some times a decline in stock prices indicates nothing of the sort. 

So why is the market down now?  Is it because interest rates are rising or because the yield curve is inverted?  Is it because corporate profits growth is slowing?  Is it because there's fear of a government shutdown?  All of these have been used as reasons by the media lately for the decline.  Some of these reasons, like the fear of a government shutdown, are best described as laughable.  Others, like the slowdown in the growth of corporate profits are pointing to something that has been inevitable all year.  Profits in 2018 grew rapidly because of the major tax cuts for corporations.  There will be no such cut in 2019, so the growth of profits will necessarily slow.  Rising interest rates have been in the cards for the last few years as well.  The markets went up and now they are going down, and during all that time rising interest rates were the expectation and the reality.

The truth is that we don't know for certain why the markets are declining.  It reminds me of the people who appear on TV or on the radio a few minutes after the close of the markets for the day to "explain" why the market moved in a particular direction that day.  These "geniuses" know for certain at 4:15 why the market performed as it did on any given day.  During the day, however, they couldn't tell where the market was going.

In short, it doesn't seem likely that we are heading into a recession.  The actual figures that might indicate this just aren't in place.  But, as they say on those lottery comercials, "hey, you never know."

Syria -- Should We Be Leaving?

President Trump has announced that US forces are leaving Syria.  Is that the right move now?  The answer depends on what one sees as the proper US role in the Middle East.

There are two big reasons given by opponents of this move.  First, there remain a small remnant of the ISIS forces, and we shouldn't leave until they have been wiped out.  Second, an American exit from Syria leaves that country more open to Iranian and Russian influence.

ISIS -- There is no question that there are still ISIS forces in small pockets in eastern parts of Syria.  There doesn't seem to be much of an effort at the moment to destroy those remnants.  If an action is launched to attack those remnants, the biggest US participation would be the use of air power to attack them.  The withdrawal of US forces from Syria won't change that so long as US forces are in neighboring Iraq (from which the planes would have come anyway.)

Iran/Russia -- The US presence in Syria provided protection for various Syrian factions from attacks by the Assad regime, Hezbollah, Iran and Russia.  Our departure will remove that protection and it will also make it easier for Iran to send material overland to forces confronting Israel.  This move will strengthen Russia and Iran while weakening our local allies.  This is a simplistic view of a much more complicated situation, but it is, nevertheless, correct.

So the question boils down then to this:  should the USA have forces permanently in Syria for a geopolitical confrontation with Iran and Russia?  In his campaign, Trump made clear that he didn't think inserting US forces into conflicts around the world made sense.  He said that he would defeat ISIS, and that has been done.  He also made clear that he wouldn't embroil us in other fights.  This latest decision is in line with his campaign promises.

Despite being true to the campaign, the President, in my opinion, has made a strategic mistake.  I'm not worried about Russia having a foothold in Syria.  The Russians do not have the ability nor the stomach to make much of this.  It is the Iranians who worry me.  Syria is a Sunni Arab country (about 75%) with a tiny (12%) Shiite minority.  The Shiites have ruled for decades, though, under the Assads.  Iran is the main supporter of the current Assad, and they will use Syria as a base for more of their attempts to control the region.  Iran is aggressive and is not deterred by casualties suffered by its forces.  If we want to bring Iran to actually stop its nuclear program, we need to apply pressure to the Iranians across the board, not just with sanctions.  A US presence in Syria was one way to apply that pressure.  I do not think that it made sense to remove those forces.

No Doubt Some Judge Will Enjoin This

The rules for Food Stamps are going to be changed under a proposed regulation put forth by the Department of Agriculture.  Right now, there is a requirement that able bodied adults who are not at home caring for young children or sick relatives must work in order to qualify for Food Stamps once they have gotten the benefit for more than three months in a three year period.  Current regulations, however, allow individual states to waive that work requirement in areas where the unemployment rate is at least 20% higher than the national rate.  The change being proposed is to allow such waivers by a state for areas that have more than 7% unemployment.  If the regulatory change is adopted, it will force about 700,000 people to get work in order to keep getting Food Stamps.

The law already requires that these people work.  It also allows the Secretary of Agriculture (whose department handles Food Stamps) to provide for waivers in high unemployment areas.  The law does not specify the 20% figure currently being used.  That means that it is well within the government's discretion to pick a methodology for setting the waiver requirements.

There is already an outcry about this proposed change.  No doubt, some liberal judge will enjoin it at the request of one or another Democrat office holder or advocacy group.  The basis for the injunction will be that Congress was presented with, but did not pass a work requirement change in the latest reauthorization of the Farm bill.  That is not a valid legal grounds on which the court could act, but that never seems to stop these judges who think of themselves as part of the resistance.

After an appeal the regulation will go into effect.  Since the court proceeding will likely be brought in California or Hawaii, the 9th Circuit will affirm the lower court and then be reverse by the Supreme Court.  Of course, once Trump leaves office, the next Democrat will likely undo this change.

Was it Racism?

There's a video making the rounds of the internet showing a 14 year old girl beating up another 14 year old girl in the restroom at a local high school.  The attacker wanted to vape in a stall in the bathroom that was occupied by the girl who was attacked.  She told the attacker that vaping in the bathroom wasn't allowed.  At that point, the attack ensued.

Of course, the key detail is that the girl who was attacked is a refugee from Syria.  The local chapter of CAIR (council of American Islamic Relations) has denounced this as a hate crime.  The idea of two teens fighting in a bathroom automatically being a hate crime seems silly to me.  Anyone who went to high school knows that things like this happen more frequently than we would like. 

Don't get me wrong.  The girl who attacked should be disciplined for what she did.  We should not ascribe racist motivations to her though without some strong evidence to support that.  She may be a hooligan, but that doesn't make her a racist.

Strange News of the Day

Yesterday was filled with events that I can only describe as bizarre.  Here are a few examples:

1.  General Michael Flynn was set to be sentenced for lying to the FBI about what he had said to the Russian ambassador.  The prosecutors had recommended no jail time due to Flynn's cooperation with them.  The judge, however, decided to use the hearing to blast Flynn for "being a foreign agent while working as National Security Adviser" and lying to the FBI while holding that position.  He even asked the prosecutor if what Flynn had done by being a foreign agent could constitute treason.  That's bizarre, and I truly mean bizarre.  Flynn had done some lobbying work for the Turkish government and had failed to register under the FARA laws.  That's not unusual in Washington.  For example, Tony Podesta and the Podesta Group acted as agents for Ukraine at the suggestion of Paul Manafort but failed to register as required.  Somehow Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton's campaign manager has not been indicted or investigated, but Flynn has.  Of course, the prosecutors didn't even choose to indict Flynn for this.  More important, Flynn has ended his relationship with the Turks long before he became National Security Adviser.  That means that what Judge Sullivan said from the bench was factually wrong.  Flynn had not been a foreign agent while working as the NSA.  And legally, there's no way that failing to register as the agent of an ally of the USA constitutes treason.  The judge was completely off the wall.

The judge must have realized how wrong he was.  He took a recess and came back and announced that no one should pay attention to his questions and comments.  Then he postponed the sentencing of General Flynn for three months.

I've seen a lot a strange things done by judges over the years.  This one takes the grand prize.

2.  The government announced that it had pledged about ten billion dollars in economic aid to Mexico and some Central American countries that have been the source of the caravans.  No one seemed to pay much attention to this.  Congress won't appropriate five billion for border security, but ten billion to be given away to the countries that are the source of most of the illegals crossing that border is fine.  How does that make sense.

3.  At the UN, eight members of the EU issued a statement that the American peace plan for the Arab-Israeli mess had to bring the parties back to the 1967 lines.  That's strange.  The whole point of the new US plan is that it will supposedly be different from the ones that have failed to carry the day in the past.  All of those plans basically used the 1967 lines.  Each time, the Israelis accepted those plans but the Palestinians refused.  The Palestinians have already said that they won't accept such a plan now.  The Israelis are also seeming to move away from accepting such an outcome.  Nevertheless, countries like the UK, France and Germany announced that these lines have to be the basis for the plan.  Why didn't they just announce that they want any plan to be dead on arrival?

4.  According to news reports in the Wall Street Journal, the USA is making plans to remove its forces from Syria.  That's bizarre.  There are still remnants of ISIS left in eastern Syria although these ISIS forces control no cities.  Other reports yesterday say that in the last two months these same ISIS forces had executed 5000 prisoners.  Why would the US remove its forces if ISIS has not been totally finished off?  It sounds like an Obama move, not a Trump move.  I can't believe that the news is correct.

Senator McSally

Arizona governor Doug Ducey has appointed Martha McSally to fill the senate seat left vacant with the resignation of John Kyl.  Kyl, of course, was appointed to fill the seat last summer when John McCain passed away.  As required by the Arizona constitution, the new senator is from the same party as McCain and Kyl.

I think this is a terrible appointment.  Just six weeks ago, Arizona voters chose a new senator (for the other seat).  In an election between McSally and Kristen Sinema, they opted for Sinema, the Democrat.  If Arizona just rejected McSally, it seems wrong to name to her to fill the seat now.  Worse still, if Arizona voters chose a bizarre candidate like Sinema, they truly rejected McSally.

I wish McSally well, but her appointment is still a slap in the face for the voters of Arizona.

Sophistry For Simpletons

I laughed out loud this morning when I read the statement made by a former Lebanese cabinet minister named Mitri about why the tunnels dug by Iran and Hezbollah under the Israel/Lebanon border and the storage of weapons in those tunnels was perfectly legal.  In order to understand just how silly the statement is, you need to understand that under the UN resolution that ended the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in 2006, it was agreed that there would be no weapons in Lebanon south of the Litani river other than those in the possession of the UN forces or the Lebanese army.  Hezbollah was to have no weapons in that region which includes at least ten miles of Lebanese territory from the border.

Here's what the Lebanese official had to say:

Mitri said that, "the article in the resolution that defines there would be no weapons south of the Litani River, with the exception of the Lebanon army and UNIFIL, does not directly address this matter. If there is nothing visible over ground, and if this weapon is underground, then it is not visible and therefore it does not exist."

It's hysterical.  Weapons that are hidden underground don't exist.  By that logic, tanks kept inside garages (which would also be hidden from sight) don't exist.  Howitzers under camouflage netting also don't exist if you can't see them. 

What a jerk.

The Aim Is Clear -- Propaganda Only

There's an article by someone named Margaret Sullivan in the Washington Post in which she advocates that the "responsible" media ban Kellyanne Conway from the airwaves.  Why, you may ask.  The reason is that Kellyanne consistently presents things that the Trump White House says as facts when they are obvious lies.  Indeed, Sullivan goes even further.  She argues that not only should someone like Kellyanne be barred from appearing on news shows, but also the news media should get over its "addiction" to "both-sidesism".  In other words, Sullivan wants the media to stop presenting the view of the White House and stick only to the views of those who attack the White House.

Since the 2008 election, there have been people arguing that journalism was dead.  In 2008, journalists sung the praises of Barack Obama, no matter what he said or did.  That treatment of Obama continued throughout his presidency.  Obama could consistently get away with "learning about" one scandal or another in his administration "from reading news reports."  For the media, it was fine that he was pretending to be the most oblivious president in the history of our country.  Obama could switch positions on an issue and just say he "evolved" with little resulting criticism.  After all, he was Barack Obama, and for the media he could do no wrong.  Often, most of the media did not even cover bombshell events that painted the president and his people in a bad light.  It was propaganda, not news that they presented.  Pravda would have been proud.

In 2016, the media switched methodologies twice.  During the Republican primaries, many in the media latched onto Donald Trump and pushed him non-stop.  Coverage of Trump drowned out any mention of the other GOP candidates.  Trump got tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in free media.  Then he clinched the nomination.  Over the next few months, the coverage switched.  When it was discovered that Hillary Clinton and the DNC had rigged the primary process against Bernie Sanders, the media covered it, but it focused more on how the story came out than on what the documents disclosed.  As Wikileaks disclosed the emails of John Podesta that showed the corruption at the heart of the Clinton campaign, the media downplayed it.  Meanwhile, they went into full attack mode on Trump.

Since the election, the media has been unrelenting in its attacks on Trump.  No president in modern history has ever gotten such a uniformly negative coverage by most of the media.  Sullivan laughably wants the media to stop "both-sidesism".  The media, however, did that long ago.  Normal coverage is to present an attack and then to mock the White House response as either a lie or silly.  The media, however, still pretends that it is impartial and objective.  It is neither.

Sullivan deserves credit for being upfront in her desire for the media to present only their "truth".  She wants a full use of the media for propaganda only.  Sadly, the media went that way long ago.  Indeed, it only presents the White House view in order to maintain the fiction that it is engaged in journalism.

Give Me A Break

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee has announced this morning that he will not run for re-election in 2020.  Alexander, a Republican, will be 80 at that time.  It's not a very surprising move.  What is surprising, however, is the rash of commentary after the announcement stating that Alexander made this decision because he didn't want to run with President Trump at the top of the ticket in 2020.

It's amazing that pundits and reporters would even say such a silly thing.  Alexander has been regularly re-elected in Tennessee with more than 60% of the vote.  Alexander was first governor and then senator, and he's never lost a statewide election.  On top of that, Trump is extremely popular in Tennessee which is a very Republican state.  But that doesn't seem to matter to the know-nothing pundits.  A guy who will be 80 says he's retiring, attributes the decision to giving someone new a chance to represent Tennessee, and the pundits tell us that the real reason is something else, something that is just  a fantasy of their warped minds.

Give me a break.

A Simple Question

When Obamacare was passed years ago, it included all sorts of things.  One of them is the 3.8% surtax on investment income for those in the top brackets.  It's a tax that affects few people, and they are all very wealthy.  Still, for one of those people who have investment income of $5 million this year, this tax alone would cost the taxpayer nearly $200,000.  That raises a simple question:  now that Obamacare has been declared unconstitutional in total, must anyone still pay this tax?

This is not a meaningless question.  The Net Investment Income Tax (the formal name for this tax) brings in many tens of billions of dollars each year to the Treasury.  Of course, if Obamacare falls, then the billions spent on subsidies will also fall, so the lost revenues will be offset by lower expenses.

Right now, the law still stands because the court ruling is not effective to bring down Obamacare yet.  If the Supreme Court ultimately affirms this ruling, however, it seems right that anyone who has paid this tax would be able to file an amended return to seek it back from the government.  There is no way that a court would allow the government to collect and keep an unconstitutional tax.

Amy Klobuchar Has NO Idea

I happened to hear a bit of CBS' Sunday interview show, Face the Nation today.  I don't like the Sunday shows of this sort, and Face The Nation is the worst of the bunch.  Even so, I listened for about two minutes to hear senator Klobuchar of Minnesota interviewed about the decision by a federal court holding that Obamacare is unconstitutional.  It was instructive, not about Obamacare, but rather about Amy Klobuchar.

Senator Klobuchar denounced Republicans because the Texas judge ruled Obamacare unconstitutional.  That seemed a bit bizarre since the decision was based upon the requirements of the Constitution, but that's just the usual political BS.  What got me was Klobuchar's response when asked what would happen next with Obamacare.  She replied that the Democrats were going to stay the court's order and fight it out on appeal.  Now, if Klobuchar read the decision, she would know that the judge in Texas already issued his decision in a way that carries with it a stay during appeal.  Remember, Klobuchar is a lawyer, so she would understand this if she read the decision.  She told America that the Democrats would fight for a stay that is already there.

How can this be?  Did Klobuchar go on TV to discuss the court's ruling without even bothering to read it?  It's not that long; she could have read and digested it in less than five minutes.  Does she care so little about the truth that she would just discuss something she hadn't even read?  The alternative is that Klobuchar did read the decision but decided to ignore what it actually says in order to lie to make herself and the Democrats look better.  Maybe she thinks that by announcing that the Democrats would fight for a stay, that they could then try to take credit for the stay the court already put in place.  Neither alternative is a very good one for Klobuchar.

Tunnel Four

The Israelis have announced that they have found and neutralized a fourth tunnel built by Iran and Hezbollah under the border between Lebanon and Israel.  These tunnels are the subject of a major ongoing Israeli operation to take them out.  We don't know yet just how many of them exist.

Consider the purpose of these tunnels.  Iran and Hezbollah wanted a way to send Hezbollah fighters into Israel while evading the Israeli troops who guard the border.  Infiltrating a few hundred fighters behind the Israeli troops would not let Hezbollah defeat the Israelis.  The infiltrators couldn't bring the sorts of weapons needed for any possibility of success in a fight with the Israeli army.  No, the only use of the troops infiltrated through the tunnels would have been to attack Israeli civilians in nearby towns, farms and villages in the hopes of spread death and chaos in terror attacks.  The tunnels are weapons of terror, not war.

By finding the tunnels and destroying them, Israel is taking from Iran and Hezbollah a major and costly weapon.  There is no doubt that Iran spent tens of millions of dollars to finance the secret construction of these underground structures which are up to 1.5 miles in length and have lights and ventilation systems.  All that effort has now turned into nothing more than another failure.

The main concern right now is whether or not the Israelis can find and destroy all the other tunnels that may be out there.  At first, there was also concern that once the first tunnel was found, the Iranians would send the Hezbollah fighters into attack mode so as not to lose all the benefit from the other tunnels that were still there.  Clearly, the Iranians and/or Hezbollah did not have the stomach to launch another battle now.  Hezbollah has already lost about 25% of its fighters in battles in the Syrian civil war.  Starting a major confrontation with Israel was likely something the Hezbollah leadership felt might lead to the destruction of their terror gang.

 

Can't They Wait Until 2019 At Least?

The Des Moines Register just took its first poll of likely Democrat caucus goers in 2020 to see who they prefer as the Dem nominee for president.  It's a joke to poll at this point.  Basically, it's a poll of name recognition.  Here are the results which prove what I'm saying:

Biden                          32%
Sanders                       19%
O'Rourke                    11%
Warren                         8%
Harris                           5%

There were others mentioned, but they all got less than 5%.

Biden and Sanders are the only ones with national name recognition.  Biden was VP, so he gets a third of the vote.  Sanders was a failed candidate in 2016, so he gets a fifth of the vote.  O'Rourke just went through an election where he got more coverage than any other senate candidate across the country.  Of course he lost, but it was still enough for him to pick up a tenth of the vote.  I guess Warren gets votes from fake native Americans.

The thing to remember is that Joe Biden has run in the Iowa caucuses twice previously.  He's never gotten even 2% of the vote.  In Iowa for Joe Biden, to know him is to not vote for him.  By the 2020 caucus (if he even runs), Biden will no doubt work his magic and make his support vanish.

One last note:  14 months before the 2016 caucuses, Donald Trump had minimal support in Iowa.  14 months before the 2008 caucuses, Barack Obama had minimal support in Iowa as well.  The same was true in 1992 with Clinton.  George W. Bush did have support in Iowa 14 months before the 2000 caucuses, but that was mainly because of his name and his family.

Who knows, maybe next week the Des Moines Register will poll Iowa voters as to the likely winner of the Super Bowl in 2025.

A Tyranny Surplus?

Writing in the American Conservative, James Pinkerton posits that the only way for the European Union to survive long term against the uprisings like France's yellow jackets is with a mailed fist.  There is inadequate democracy within the EU since bureaucrats in Brussels run so much.  The so called "democracy deficit" is the subject of all the populist protests across the continent.  Pinkerton predicts a tyranny surplus, and he notes it has happened many times in the past in Europe.

Obamacare's Successor

What would the Democrats do if presented with a simple bill that requires community ratings to be used in the sale of health insurance?  Such a law would mean that no one could be denied insurance because of his or her poor health.  It would mean that sick and well people pay the same price for insurance.  It would end all the shouting about "preexisting conditions" that are back in the news now that Obamacare has been ruled unconstitutional.

So I say again, if a simple bill were present to Congress that did nothing but require coverage of preexisting conditions, what would the Democrats do?  For that matter, what would the Republicans do?

A law of this sort would clearly be constitutional.  Congress can easily use the power to regulate commerce to set rules for the issuance of health insurance policies.  No one would be required to buy the policies.  This would just set limits on the items that an insurance company could consider in selling its products.

My prediction is that the GOP would readily adopt this bill.  They wouldn't want to oppose a simple measure like this.  The Democrats, however, are a different matter.  They might decide to claim that the bill would end the likelihood of other insurance measures passing and therefore refuse to vote in favor.  They would argue that they were voting no so that they could get approval of other measures.  I do wonder, however, how many voters would accept such nonsense.  More likely, the Democrats would be forced to vote in favor of such a bill.

Once this was passed, other items on which there could be agreement could be put forward, debated and passed (if there were a majority).  We already saw what happens with a 2500 page bill with 10,000 pages of regulations that no one reads or understands.  (It doesn't work.)  Why not try a simple bill instead that deals with basics first.

The Dems Reaction to the Ruling That Obamacare is Now Unconstitutional

I just saw the tweet from Democrat senator Chris Murphy about the Texas decision by a federal judge holding Obamacare unconstitutional.  Murphy commented that President Trump is happy that 20 million people will lose coverage and 130 million people will see their rates rise due to having preexisting conditions.  That tweet tells you all you really need to know about senator Murphy and the other Democrats who echoed those sentiments.

1.  Twenty million people won't lose coverage.  Murphy knows this but says they will anyway.  There are only 11 million people who have coverage from the Obamacare exchanges.  They are the only ones who could conceivably lose coverage.  Of these 11 million, most had coverage before Obamacare.  There's no reason to think they will lose coverage.

2.  130 million people don't have preexisting conditions.  They also don't have policies that will be affected by preexisting conditions.  For example, someone who gets his or her healthcare from his employer (which is nearly everyone in the country) won't see any change.  For example, let's use four examples:  a.  an autoworker who is employed in an assembly plant by Ford; b.  a caseworker who is employed by the welfare agency of the city of New York; c.  a manager who works in the marketing department of a large internet retailer; and d. a sales clerk who works in a Macy's department store.  The Ford employee gets his coverage through union benefits which are fixed and not going to change whether or not Obamacare exists.  The government employee also gets fixed benefits that won't change with or without Obamacare.  The woman in the marketing department is one of 3000 people in her group covered at her employer.  The premiums are set for the group, not for preexisting conditions.  She will see no change.  The guy working at Macy's also gets benefits in accordance with the union contract or in a group that will be unaffected by an Obamacare change.

The people who would be affected by changes regarding preexisting conditions would be people buying individual rather than group policies.  It would be limited to states that don't have limitations regarding preexisting conditions.  In NY, for example, insurance had to be sold by "community ratings" since long before Obamacare.  That meant preexisting conditions could not be considered.  Other states have similar laws or regulations.  It would be easy enough for states that want such a rule to follow suit. 

Put all this together and there may be a few hundred thousand who see their rates rise due to preexisting conditions.  Murphy and the Dems say 130 million; that's a lie.

And one more thing:  millions of people will see their premiums fall due to the death of Obamacare (once it actually happens.)  Imagine that policies will no longer have to include pediatric dental coverage for people without children.  Maternity coverage won't be required for those who will never use it (like gay couples).  Other mandated items will also be dropped from coverage.   Policies will also be allowed to be sold with reasonable annual maximums.  That means that you could buy coverage for the first $250,000 of expenses.  Colleges used to offer such plans to their students at very low costs.  Those policies could make a come back.  The point is that all the nonsense parts of the coverages and limitations won't raise the cost of coverage as they do now under Obamacare.

Finally, Obamacare isn't dead yet.  The judge's order stays its effect pending appeals.  We'll have to see what the 5th Circuit and the Supreme Court has to say first.  Congress (and that includes Murphy) can pass a new law to handle any problems that arise.  You can be certain, however, that Murphy will oppose anything proposed to do just that.  As his tweet makes clear, all he wants is to spread fear and false information in the hopes of using it to get votes in 2020.

Obamacare Unconstitutional

A federal judge in Texas has ruled Obamacare unconstitutional.  It's not a surprising ruling.  Simply put, in 2012, the Supreme Court found that the Obamacare requirement that people buy health insurance could not be supported by Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce.  SCOTUS said at the time that the power to regulate commerce did not include the power to compel people to engage in commerce.  The Supreme Court then said, however, that the penalty for failing to buy insurance was a "tax" and that Congress could enact Obamacare under its taxing power.  When the tax reform legislation was passed last December, the penalty for failing to buy insurance was repealed.  That means Obamacare no longer falls under the taxing power of the federal government.  The judge in Texas has now held that as a result of removing the "tax", Obamacare is now unconstitutional. 

One additional important part of the new ruling is a finding that because the individual mandate is such an important an integral part of Obamacare, striking it down as unconstitutional results in the entire law falling as unconstitutional.

Obamacare is going to stay in place while this decision is appealed to the 5th Circuit and then likely to the Supreme Court.  In view of what the Supreme Court held in 2012, it seems likely that the 5th Circuit will affirm this decision.  After all, the Supreme Court said that but for the taxing power, Obamacare would be unconstitutional. 

It's less clear what will happen in the Supreme Court.  I doubt that the Court will revise its view that absent a "tax" for failing to meet the individual mandate that portion of Obamacare is unconstitutional.  What SCOTUS might do, however, is decide that even though the mandate falls, the remainder of the law stays.  There remain five justices on the Court who previously bent over backwards to find a way to keep Obamacare in place.  They may do that again.

Congress could easily pass legislation to remedy the problems with Obamacare.  I doubt that will happen.  The Democrats in the House are unlikely to vote for any plan that would be acceptable to the GOP and the President.  We will probably just see a lot of screaming but no real efforts to remedy the problem.

Mexico Closes The Border

According to news reports, Mexico has closed its border, not the one with the USA, but the southern border between Guatemala and Mexico.  The new Mexican president has ordered the Mexican forces to make certain that there are no further illegal entries across the Guatemala border.  Think of that.  No additional illegal entries there means there will be no one from Central America to try to sneak across the US/Mexican border.

This is a direct result of the caravans and chaos they inflicted on many Mexican towns and villages.  In the last three weeks, Mexican authorities have deported about 100 caravan members each day on average for their behavior inside Mexico.

We will have to see if this actually continues, but if it does, it is a big win for the USA and for President Trump.

Some Really Important News From Robert Mueller

In the last hour, the special counsel's office filed its response to the sentencing memo for General Michael Flynn.  Flynn's lawyers had argued that the unusual nature of the FBI "interview" of him should mitigate towards his having a reduced sentence.  For example, the FBI did not follow its standard practice of warning the person being interviewed that lying to the FBI was a federal crime.  The FBI also told Flynn that he need not have an attorney present.  Once the judge saw this memo for Flynn, he ordered the special counsel to file all documents about the interview and also to respond in detail.

In this response, the special counsel argues that Flynn had lied to others like the media and members of the incoming administration about his meeting with the Russian ambassador, so Flynn had "chosen" to lie.  This is a silly point.  It's not a crime to lie to the media.  Mueller well knows that.  It can't be that Flynn's sentence for lying to an FBI agent would be affected by his perfectly legal conduct with others.

The special counsel also argues that Flynn knew that lying to the FBI is a crime.  After all, Flynn had been the head of the DIA a few years earlier.  Again, this misses the point.  Flynn may have known that lying to the FBI was a crime.  On the other hand, it appears that he did not know that this was a formal interview by the FBI for which he was required to be truthful.  It was treated in a very casual way.  Indeed, just yesterday, Jim Comey admitted that he had pulled a fast one by treating this interview in this way.

Despite all this, the key in the special counsel memo is in these few sentences contained in Andy McCabe's memo about setting up the interview:

" LTG Flynn then explained that he had been trying to 'build relationships' with the Russians, and that he had calls in which he 'exchanged condolences.'  He then stated that I probably knew what was said [section redacted]."

Remember, Flynn had run the Defense Intelligence Agency for a number of years.  He well knew that the phone calls of the Russian Ambassador would have been intercepted by US intelligence.  In other words, he knew that his phone conversation with the Russian ambassador had been recorded.  He almost certainly so stated to McCabe in that final sentence of the quote above.

Think about that.  Flynn knew he had been recorded.  He also knew that the FBI had that recording.  The FBI couldn't have been focused on what was said in the conversation; they already had every word of it.  Even so, Mueller is accusing Flynn of having lied about what was said in that conversation.  Really?  Flynn is not a dummy.  He wouldn't have intentionally lied about what was in a recording that the FBI already had.

I think this is a bombshell report.  It shows that Mueller created a bogus crime just so that he could "get" Flynn.  It's a disgusting and unacceptable tactic from the special counsel.

If I were the judge, I would call in the special counsel to testify under oath exactly how all this came about.  Absent some really good explanation, I would then toss the guilty plea and the conviction and dismiss the charges against Flynn.

The Key Words From Michael Cohen

Felon-lawyer Michael Cohen has been interviewed by George Stefanopoulos on ABC and used the occasion to slam President Trump.  According to Cohen, Trump directed him in 2015 to make the payments to two women (including Stormy Daniels) in order to keep them quiet even though Trump knew that making those payments was wrong.  It was Cohen's way of sticking it to Trump.  Of course, Cohen wasn't asked if he told Trump the payments were illegal.  Nor was he asked what Trump said that indicated he knew that the payments were illegal.  Indeed, Cohen didn't even say that the payments were illegal, just that they were wrong.  There's a big difference between those two words.  Nor did Cohen get asked if Trump directed him (or was even involved with determining) how to make the payments.  Remember, if Trump just used his own money to pay off these women, it is all perfectly legal.  Put all this together and despite the big headlines about the interview, it really doesn't provide any basis for implicating Trump in any criminal behavior.

Cohen's statements normally would lead one to wonder about Trump.  But then Cohen got asked about Russia.  When Cohen was asked if he thinks the President is telling the truth about the Russia probe, Cohen replied simply, “No.”  Those are the key words in the interview.

Think about it.  We know now that there was no collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign.  At least, after two plus years of looking, there's no evidence of any such collusion.  That's basically what Trump has to say about Russia.  For Cohen to say he doesn't believe Trump means that Cohen thinks there was collusion.  He can't honestly believe that, however.  He offered not even a tiny bit of evidence to show that collusion even though he was asked.  It shows that he just cannot be trusted.  He lied in the past on his tax returns, on bank loan applications, and to the FBI.  There's no reason to think that he's stopped lying now.  In fact, he's proving that he's still lying.

How Much More Misleading Could It Be?

Here's a headline from today's NY Post:

7-Year-Old Girl Dies In Customs and Border Protection Custody.

Oh no, it's going to be another story of how the USA cruelly deals with children just seeking a better life in America, right?  That's the clear implication of the headline.  But that's not the story.  The child was picked up by the border patrol in rural New Mexico (basically in the middle of the desert) after going for many days without food or water.  Things were so bad that a whole group of people (including the girls father) sought out and surrendered to a border patrol unit as it passed near them.  The girl was taken to a shelter and her father left her to go to speak to a consular official from Guatemala.  Shortly thereafter, the girl started having a seizure due to dehydration.  She was rushed to a hospital, but they were unable to save her.  In other words, she died because her father took her through the desert without food or water, not because of anything the border patrol did.

Could the headline be any more misleading?  I don't think so.

The Inaugural Committee -- What A Joke!

According to the Wall Street Journal, prosecutors in New York are looking into the funds raised by the Inaugural Committee for President Trump to see if donors gave contributions in order to get better access to administration personnel and also to see if the money was all properly spent.  If the Russia investigation by the Special Counsel is a witch hunt, then this is a witch hunt on steroids.

Let's be clear.  The Inaugural Committee is a registered non-profit organization.  In 2016, there was one major registered non-profit that was clearly selling influence and access.  It was called the Clinton Foundation.  No one in New York seems to be investigating that outfit and the crooks who ran it.  Beyond that, let's also remember this:  people or companies who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars or even a million dollars certainly hoped that they would get better access in the Trump Administration.  It's the age old way that politics in the USA works.  But the point is that there's no reason to believe that anyone got better treatment in exchange for the contributions.  For example, the second biggest donor to the Inaugural was AT&T.  Despite the huge contribution, the Trump administration has fought AT&T tooth and nail to try to stop its purchase of Time Warner.  That battle is still continuing in the appellate courts.  The biggest donor was Sheldon Adelson who is the principal owner of Las Vegas Sands corporation.  There is no indication that Adelson got anything in return.  In fact, the WSJ is quick to point out that no donors are being accused or even suspected of doing anything wrong.

So think about it.  The donors to the Trump Inaugural haven't done anything wrong, but the committee is being investigated anyway.  Why.  The answer is because it involves President Trump.

Then there's the issue of how the money was spent.  We don't know how.  The committee filed all the public disclosure forms that were required, so we know the five largest vendors.  That's all.  There's no hint that the Inaugural Committee used any of the money raised for the Trumps' personal expenses.  Again, that's what the Clintons did with the Clinton Foundation.  Bill and Hillary charge the Clinton Foundation with over eight million dollars in travel expenses for just one year, and it's supposedly all for Foundation business.  Of course, Hillary was busy running for president at the time and Bill was helping in that effort.  There's no way in hell that those two spent eight million in travel for the foundation business, but again, no one seems to be investigating.

The reason for the investigation here, according to the WSJ is that when Michael Cohen's home was raided, the FBI found a recording of a conversation he had at some unknown point with the woman who was the head of the Inaugural Committee.  She was telling Cohen that she had concerns about some of the expenditures (although we don't know which ones.)  So there she is; she's checking with a lawyer about some expenditures that concerned her.  Isn't that what you would want her to do?  How does that lead to an investigation?

This is all such a joke.

The Kentucky Decision on Teachers' Pensions

It's funny to see the media cover today's ruling by the KY supreme court that struck down a law that reduced future pension benefits for teachers in that state.  The court had no problem with the content of the law, but it threw it out because it was added to another bill as an amendment rather than being separately proposed and read three times in the legislature as called for by the prescribed process in KY.  One has to wonder if that means that every measure added by amendment to any bill is now unconstitutional.

In any event, the ruling by the court is a silly one that elevates form over substance.  The passage of the bill was not close, and it would have passed whether or not it had been read an additional three times before the legislature.  Throwing it out was just a way to hand a victory to the teachers' unions who bitterly opposed the measure.  Most likely, the legislature will not reintroduce the law and read it the requisite number of times and then pass it again.

The law did not affect the pensions that the teachers already have.  A teacher who has worked in the system for 30 years has his or her pension for that time and nothing changes that.  What the law changes is that it changes the nature of future pension benefits for teachers so that they would be less costly for the state's taxpayers.  The costs of the old KY system were so high that it was starting to affect the state's credit ratings.  The court's nonsensical decision just brings back the problem on a technicality.  Sadly, it is a technicality that will cost the people of KY a minimum of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Promises That Won't Be Kept

It's amazing to watch the change in the Democrats who won congressional seats last November on the promise of voting against Nancy Pelosi for Speaker.  We were told that there were more than enough Dems who wouldn't support Pelosi that she could not be elected Speaker.  Well, as they say, not anymore!

We now have news that Pelosi has promised to be Speaker for at most four years in exchange for the votes needed to elect her.  In other words, all those new Dems threw away their big promise even before officially being sworn in.  It's a typical Washington move from corrupt career criminals...err...I mean politicians.  There is no way that getting an unenforceable promise for a four year term limit from Pelosi is the equivalent of bringing in new leadership.  No doubt, in four years, if the Dems still are in control of the House Pelosi will heed the groundswell of support for her leadership and reluctantly agree to stay as Speaker.  In other words, if the promises to oppose Pelosi got broken so quickly, the promise by Pelosi to leave in four years doesn't carry much weight.

I don't care whether or not Pelosi is Speaker.  Her position is not the point.  I only care that so many Democrats got elected by lying to the voters again and again.

The Chuck and Nancy Show at the White House -- an Update

Much of the coverage in the mainstream media of yesterday's meeting at the White House between President Trump and the Democrat congressional leaders focused on the President "error" of saying he would take credit for a government shutdown if it were required to get better funding for border security.  It's amazing to me how wrong that coverage is.  What the President did is not an error.

Trump knows that there isn't going to be a real government shutdown.  First of all, over 80% of the government is already fully funded for the year because the GOP Congress passed all sorts of appropriations bills in the normal way.  The biggest agency that is unfunded is the Department of Homeland Security.  It's not going to shut down even if Congress doesn't pass a funding bill.  The President gets to decide which government functions are "essential" and he can order funding for those to continue at current levels.  (By the way, funding at current levels is what Chuck and Nancy offered as their solution yesterday.)  Aside from hyperventilation by the media, the partial shutdown won't affect many people at all.  Even the optics will be different this time.  All those photo ops in the past of closed national parks also won't materialize since they're already funded.

More important, though, is the fact that America got to see Trump fighting for what he believes.  He didn't pretend to be bipartisan before the cameras only to fight behind closed doors.  He put the battle right out there for all to see.  He is fighting for border security.  That means that Chuck and Nancy are fighting against it.  That's a very good message for most Americans to see.

 

CNN Phony Polls Are Back

In the weeks before the election in November, the polls taken by most media outlets were attempts to come up with correct numbers rather than attempts to create stories and narratives.  That effort has ended.  We are back to phony polls from the media.  The latest culprit is CNN.

There are two polls of President Trump's job performance out today.  One from CNN and one from Rasmussen.  CNN has the public disapprove by a margin of 53 to 40.  Rasmussen has 49 percent approve and 49 percent disapprove.  The difference between a -13% margin and a tie is more than statistically significant.  There's no way that these can just be inadvertent polling variations.  Some people will argue that Rasmussen always polls better for Trump, and that certainly seems true.  Nevertheless, the last poll of likely voters had Trump at -3 and the last three of registered voters had Trump at -6%.  If we assume that Trump is actually at -6%, then CNN has their poll (which covers the same time period) with a 7% difference.  That difference is statistically significant too.  What is even more significant is that CNN polls over time have always averaged a substantially worse performance by the President than those of other organizations.

Fake News really rules at CNN.

The White House Meeting between the President and Pelosi and Schumer

There was a meeting at the White House today between President Trump and the Democrat congressional leadership of Pelosi and Schumer.  It was rather hysterical to see, although, as usual, the reporting about it is very much different than what actually happened.

The meeting was to be about getting a budget deal done and funding the government to avoid another of those "shutdowns" when funding runs out in ten days.  As usual, the President and the Democrat leaders got together and the media was brought in to see the usual pleasantries exchanged.  Normally, the media would then be ushered out and the real meeting would take place.  Pelosi used the few opening words to announce that once the Democrats took back control of the House in January, they would push for "transparency" rather than the secretive nature of the current Republican-controlled House.  President Trump then went right into discussing the budget and the need for adequate border security funding.  When Pelosi said that they should hold that discussion until after the media had left, the President said that he thought there should be total transparency so that there would be a discussion in front of the media.  Pelosi got that deer-in-the-headlights look and became befuddled.

After that opening, Schumer went into his prepared position in which he tried to blame Trump for the impending government shutdown.  (It's not really that much of a shutdown, however, since most of the government is fully funded.)  Trump then totally turned the tables on Schumer.  The President announced that if there were not adequate funding for border security, he was fine with a government shutdown.  He said that he wouldn't accept a deal that left the border without improvements that would reduce the numbers of people pouring over the border illegally.  Instead of running from responsibility for the shutdown, Trump made clear that he would take it if the Democrats blocked adequate border security funding.

Schumer seemed at this point to also get befuddled.  And all this played out in front of the cameras.

The media then left the meeting.  After it was over, Schumer claimed that the preliminary discussion had been a "temper tantrum" from the President, but those who saw it knew quite well that Schumer was not being truthful.  What had happened is that the President had placed the issue of border security in the lap of the Democrats.  They can fund it (which would be the right thing to do) or they can put themselves in the position of refusing to fund adequate border security.  If there is a government partial shutdown because the Dems won't fund border security, there's a pretty good chance that any blame from the American people will fall on the Dems.

 

The Triumph of Stupidity Continues

Remember Obamacare?  It's still out there and it's still causing idiotic situations for those who purchase individual health insurance policies.

Here's an example:  in Colorado, a young single woman went to the exchange to purchase an insurance policy.  As is the case in most places, the insurance available is expensive, has extremely high deductibles (like $5000) and doesn't cover much until that deductible is satisfied.  As a result, it's health insurance but it doesn't provide actual healthcare except in catastrophic situations.  That's bad enough, but here's the kicker.  Most of the policies did not provide pediatric dental coverage.  Such coverage is required by Obamacare.  As a result, a person with no children must buy a separate pediatric dental plan in order to be able to purchase regular health insurance.  How stupid is that?

Time Picks "Killed and Imprisoned Journalists" as the Person of the Year

In a rather self-absorbed move, Time magazine picked killed and imprisoned journalists as the person of the year.  Really?  Other than Kashoggi, the Saudi guy who was killed in the embassy in Turkey, I doubt that most people could name any killed or imprisoned journalist from 2018.  Indeed, Kashoggi's name would likely not be known by even half of the people polled, and Kashoggi wasn't even a journalist.  In fact, Kashoggi was someone who wrote occasional opinion columns for the Washington Post, but that hardly transforms him from an activist/agent (which he was) into a journalist.  Indeed, Kashoggi was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a supporter of terrorism in the Middle East.  So who were the other killed and imprisoned journalists?  For the few people who still read Time, I'll let them get the names there.

The point of the selection by Time, however, is not actually to remember these people.  No, it is rather to take a shot at President Trump who has called the Fake News media the "enemy of the people."  Time is trying to say that by taking that position, Trump is contributing to the jailing or killing of supposed journalists around the world and here in the USA.

If you think about it, the Time move really could have no other purpose.  In 2015, most of the staff of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo was murdered in a terrorist attack which was the direct result of what the magazine had published.  Those were actual journalists who were killed for their work.  Time didn't even give them an honorable mention in that year.  In 2016, there were imprisoned journalists in large numbers in Turkey, Iran, China and other places.  Again, Time didn't even mention them.  The only difference this year is the Kashoggi case. 

 

The Need For Careful Consideration

Congress has a chance to pass the so called "prison reform" bill this week or next.  The bill would among other things change sentencing guidelines for many crimes and would provide for early release possibilities for many felons now in federal jails.  It has provisions that strangely would let those who sold child pornography across state lines get out of jail unless this is a second offense for the crime.  That's a bizarre change in my opinion.  I just use that as an example, however, of why there needs to be careful consideration of this bill, not a rush to passage because it is the latest cause.

Let's remember Obamacare.  It was sold as providing healthcare to millions.  As it turned out, it did no such thing.  Instead, it provided health insurance to many but it also forced millions to pay much higher premiums for plans that they did not want.  It forced people to lose the plans they like and the doctors they liked as well.  Worst of all, it left many people insured but with co-pays and deductibles so high that they still couldn't afford to get needed health care even with the insurance.  In short, it was sold on a false premise and it just didn't work.

There is no reason to rush through the prison reform bill.  It ought to be subjected to careful review and debate.  Items like the leniency for first time sellers of kiddie porn ought to be taken out of the bill.  That can't happen if it is rushed through Congress in the next week.  If prison reform is a valid goal for the government, the it ought to be proper reform and not just a bill that has questionable provisions in it that no one should support.  I wonder if, for example, there is someone in prison for selling kiddie porn who got one congressman or senator to lobby for the provision discussed above.  Items like that can't be snuck into a bill when there's a rush.

In short, Congress ought to defer action on this bill until next year when it will have more than adequate time to handle it properly.

Could the Protests Bring Down The French Government?

There were widespread protests across France yesterday, but they were centered again in Paris.  An estimated 200,000 people marched in the French capital, most wearing their yellow vests.  All sorts of tourist sites were closed.  There was damage across the capital.  There were about 1700 people arrested.  And remember, this huge protest went ahead even after the French government of President Macron completely threw in the towel and rescinded the tax increases on fuel that he started the protests.

The enduring nature of the protests leads to the question of whether or not they will actually bring down the Macron government.  That seemed unlikely, but the possibility of it happening is growing.  Recent polls in France show two - thirds of the French people support the protesters.  Meanwhile, Macron's job performance is rated acceptable or better by only 23% of poll respondents.  Macron no longer seems to have any base of support.

In France, the President is elected for a fixed term, so Macron can't be defeated by a vote in the legislature the way that such a thing could happen, for example, in the UK.  Macron can try to hang on through the crisis.  If the protests continue to have widespread public support and a strong outpouring on the streets, Macron may have no choice but to resign.  Should he do so, the President of the French Senate becomes Acting President and a new election is held.  Because of the nature of the protests, it seems possible that in a new election Marine LePen (who came in second in the last election) could possibly win election.  That would be more of an assault on the ruling elites than even the election of Donald Trump in the USA. 

It's hard to predict now what will happen.  The one thing we know:  all bets are off in France.

Things Worth Noting

There are events taking place that seem to get little coverage in the media but which deserve our attention. 

1.  There could be a major war brewing between Israel and the terrorist group Hezbollah supported by Iran.  For many years, Hezbollah was focused on supporting the Assad regime in Syria.  During that time, Hezbollah had forces in the Syrian fighting and supposedly suffered something like 30% casualties.  Now that the Syrian fighting is essentially over, Hezbollah has moved back to targeting Israel with the help of Iran.  This has led to two developments.  First, the Hezbollah forces have been constructing tunnels under the border between Israel and Lebanon (which is Hezbollah's home).  These are like the tunnels that Hamas constructed on Israel's border with Gaza and then used to sneak into Israel to conduct raids and kidnappings.  In the last week or so, Israel has been conducting operations on its own side of the border to find and destroy these tunnels.  So far, two have been found and destroyed.  There's no word yet on whether or not there are more.  Second, and much more important, Hezbollah has commenced an operation supported by Iran to put guidance systems on its thousands of missiles in Lebanon.  At the moment, Hezbollah has something like 130,000 missiles it could fire at Israel, but these are extremely inaccurate.  Were Hezbollah to fire at a particular target, the odds are overwhelming that it would miss.  Of course, were Hezbollah to fire thousands of missiles it would surely hit something.  Israel has its Iron Dome system which tracks missiles and shoots down those which are projected to hit populated areas or military targets.  It essentially neutralizes the threat of the Hezbollah missiles unless the terrorists were to launch thousands of missiles simultaneously.  Of course, were Hezbollah to have accurate missiles, it would take far fewer to overwhelm the Iron Dome system.  One hundred accurate missiles launched at the same time could not be shot down by the Iron Dome system; some would get through and inflict major casualties on the Israelis.  As a result Israel is moving ahead to try to stop Hezbollah from getting the capability of building these guidance systems.

All of this means that were are likely at a point at which either Hezbollah decides that it needs to use the tunnels that it built before they are destroyed by the Israelis, or Israel decides that it has to wipe out the Hezbollah facilities building the guidance systems by attacking them in Lebanon.  Either action could be the spark that starts a major war.

A war between Israel and Hezbollah would be a serious problem.  No doubt, all the people living near the border would be in jeopardy.  While the Israelis would not target the civilians, Hezbollah uses the same tactics as Hamas by keeping its missiles in schools, mosques, churches and even hospitals.  That makes such buildings inevitable targets as Hezbollah tries to launch attacks.  On the other hand, Hezbollah's main target would be Israeli civilians as it launches thousands of vaguely targeted missiles.  The Israelis might be forced to invade Lebanon to weed out the missiles.  If that happens, most likely Hamas will use the occasion to launch its own attacks from Gaza.  The Israelis will face a two front terrorist war.

In the old days a war between Israel and her neighbors led to the possibility of confrontation between the USA and the USSR.  These days, Russia is back in the Middle East, principally as an ally of the Assad regime in Syria.  Nevertheless, Russia is unlikely to get involved in fighting in Lebanon involving only Israel, Hezbollah and Iran.  That Iranian involvement, though, is something that is unpredictable.  Iran could use the war to launch its own missiles at Israel.  No doubt that would lead to some sort of Israeli retaliation against the Iranians, and the result could be a much wider war in the Middle East.  The point is that once a war began between Hezbollah and Israel, it has the possibility of growing much larger.

2.  The overall "order" in Europe seems to be crumbling.  The media, however, covers it as if it is not related.  That's wrong.

In the UK, a Brexit vote is likely to be postponed in Parliament.  No matter, it still seems that the vote will fail and that could lead to a quick departure for Prime Minister May.  If May goes, it's unclear who will follow her.  Elections could even lead to the victory of the Labour Party and its odious leader Jeremy Corbyn as the electorate expresses its revulsion for the failure of the Tories to govern effectively.

In France, the Macron government is in deep trouble.  The protests in Paris shows no signs of abating.  (By the way, notice have the mainstream media call these protests "riots" because they are being carried out by people who don't want to pay major tax increases to fight "climate change"?)  In fact, the protests seem to be expanding to cover additional subjects like the level of immigration into France.

In Germany, Angela Merkel is soon to end her time as chancellor.  Her Christian Democrat party as well as the Socialists with whom she governs in coalition seem to lose more and more voters to the people who oppose the extremely lax policies followed by Merkel on immigration.

In Spain, the Vox party won seats for the first time in a regional legislature in Andalusia.  Vox is labeled "far right" in the European media, but its main focus is on reducing immigration into Spain.

These, and other, European moves are not unrelated.  There is a major wave across Europe that seeks to limit immigration into the continent.  It may well be that we will witness the doors slam shut on further waves of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East.  Indeed, some of those who are already in Europe may be deported.  That would be a major switch which could have world wide implications.

The Mainstream Media Never Stops

This morning when I went to Yahoo News, I was greeted with a screaming headline announcing that President Trump was going ahead with "another shakeup".  From the headline, I couldn't tell who was supposedly going out or coming in; I just understood that according to Yahoo News this was another instance of "chaos" in the Trump administration.  They've been pushing that story since before Trump even took office two years ago.  It hasn't been accurate for the most part, but Yahoo News and the other MSM push it nevertheless.  I decided to check out what this "shakeup" was going to be.  The article reported that the President is planning to announce the name of the next Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff at today's Army-Navy game.  Huh?  That's a "shakeup"?  Hardly!

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is a job that changes periodically.  That happens under every president.  The current holder of the post is scheduled to leave that post next year.  Naming his successor now is hardly a "shakeup".  Once again, Yahoo News was pushing Fake News.

When I got to the very end of the article, I came across this sentence in the Yahoo report:

"The expected change in leadership is part of a routine, periodic rotation of top military posts."

Even Yahoo felt compelled to bury the truth at the end of the article.  Meanwhile they push the phony point of chaos.

 

The Cohen Memoranda

The US Attorney for SDNY and the office of the special counsel have both filed memos with the court with regard to the sentencing for Michael Cohen.  These memoranda make a few things clear.

1.  If what they are saying is true, Michael Cohen is a slimeball.  He is guilty of tax evasion on a massive scale.  He also traded on his supposed influence in and knowledge of the Trump administration although he actually was not able to deliver anything to those he persuaded to buy such influence etc.

2.  Cohen lied to Congress about when the attempts to put together a project for a Trump Tower in Moscow ended.  Cohen said it was before January of 2016.  That seems weird to me since we know that the President's son, Donald Trump, Jr, testified to the same congressional committee that the attempts went on through the summer of 2016.  I'm not sure of the sequence, but I believe that Don, Jr. actually testified first, so it seems weird that Cohen thought it a good idea to lie.  As of yet, there are no allegations that Cohen lied at the behest of anyone in the White House or otherwise connected to President Trump.

3.  The Stormy Daniels payment was organized by Cohen.  He used his own funds to make the payment and then sought and received reimbursement from the Trump Organization (owned by the President).  The US Attorney says that the Trump Organization called the repayment "legal services" but it was actually for "disbursements".  That's hardly something incriminating.  I guarantee that all over the USA companies and organizations list payments to lawyers as legal services without separating out disbursements in their accounting statements.  For example, when the Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee paid the Perkins law firm some $13 million for the work of Fusion GPS in creating the phony Trump dossier, they accounted for those payments as "legal services" even though they were disbursements.

4.  If the memoranda are to be believed, Cohen clearly deserves jail time.  Nevertheless, there seems to be nothing here that ties the President in any way to wrongdoing.  Indeed, even the testimony of Cohen about an approach by a Russian to him trying to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin ends with Cohen doing and saying nothing about that and no such meeting ever taking place.

I guess we have to wait to see what, if anything, the special prosecutor's team puts in their report to see if they have anything at all that ties to the President.  As of now, there is still no evidence of collusion at all.

Could It Be 54-46 Soon?

The Senate has a GOP majority of 53 with the Dems and their allies holding 47 seats.  That could soon change.  Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia is scheduled to become the ranking member for the Dem minority of the Senate Energy Committee.  Manchin, whose state lives and dies with the coal industry, is a strong supporter of coal.  For the far left of the Democrat party (which is most of them) this position is both an affront to the religion of Climate Change and a direct threat to huge amounts of campaign contributions that come in via the global warming crowd.  There have been a series of public and private complaints made that Manchin should be blocked from this role on the committee.

If Schumer and the senate Dems take steps to deny Manchin this position, he may bolt the Dems and join the GOP.  Remember, West Virginia was the state with the biggest majority for Donald Trump in 2016.  Manchin just squeaked back into office in the 2016 election despite being, by far, the most popular Democrat in the state.  Manchin also was the only Democrat to vote for Justice Kavanaugh after the major smear attack launched by the Dems.  It would be quite easy for Manchin to switch parties.

I hope that this comes to pass.  I like watching the left fight against their own interests by attacking those who they deem insufficiently ideologically "pure".  It shows them for the fanatics that they truly are.

Why Do The Run Blatant Lies?

There's a number of reports in the far left media today "reporting" that according to the usual "unnamed sources", President Trump was miffed that the ceremonies for the funeral of George H W Bush were about the late president and not about Trump.  As anyone who paid the slightest attention to the funeral proceedings in Washington saw, President Trump and the First Lady were an integral part of the process.  They were always dignified, from the visit to the Capitol Rotunda where president Bush was lying in state to the service at the National Cathedral to the First Lady having Laura Bush to the White House to see the Christmas decorations (and to see many of the staff who are still there from the Bush years) to the Trump's private visit with the Bush family at the Blair House to the coordination of the resources of the government with the family to make the ceremonies run smoothly and properly.  Trump never tried to take the spotlight.  He was always "presidential" and gracious.  Even Jeb Bush (who has had his run ins with Trump) thanked President Trump as the Washington portion of the events were concluded.  In other words, these reports in the media are Fake News.  The "sources' mentioned just mean that the entire thing is a lie.

I truly don't care what the HuffPo or one of the lesser lefty sites says, but it is terrible to watch these liars demean and debase an important national ceremony like the Bush funeral so that they can make phony charges which they think will hurt President Trump.

William Barr -- Attorney General

President Trump announced today that he is appointing William Barr as Attorney General.  As usual, the Dems and the media are reacting with horror and demands.

Barr has already been Attorney General of the USA in the past.  He held that post as a very young man under president George Bush.  He's currently an attorney with a very large Washington DC firm and is a very establishment figure.  That makes it extremely hard for the media and the Democrats to try to attack him as a divisive, partisan, or out-of-the-mainstream figure.  Most likely, he will sail through the confirmation process with unanimous support from the Republicans and support from a bunch of less strident Democrats as well.

Of course, this doesn't matter to the crazies who have already gone off after the news.  For example, senator Blumenthal of Connecticut (who denounces everything the President does) is busy "demanding" that Barr "pledge" that he will not do anything to limit or guide the Mueller investigation in any way as a condition to Barr's confirmation.  Given that by law the Attorney General is supposed to supervise the work of the special prosecutor, it seems that Blumenthal is trying to influence the way in which the investigation of the special prosecutor takes place.  If he were a Republican, there would, no doubt, be charges flying that Blumenthal was obstructing justice.

The good thing is that Barr can (and should) ignore crazies like Blumenthal.  The GOP has 53 senators while the Dems have only 45.  He will be confirmed.  He should do a competent and appropriate job.  Mueller will finally have the supervision he is supposed to have. 

This is a good appointment by the President.

The Anti-Trump Hysteria of the Media is Bewildering Sometimes

There's a big article in The Atlantic today by its so-called economic policy editor under this headline:

Does Trump Even Understand How Tariffs Work?

It’s unclear what the president wants to accomplish with his trade war.

 

It's a rather bizarre headline given the substance of the article.  The editor goes on and on about how the President doesn't know what he is doing with China and particularly with tariffs.  Then, deep in the article, the editor lists the state aims of the White House with regard to trade policy with China, in particular tariffs.  So after charging at length that the President has not made clear what he wants to accomplish with the "trade war", the article lists exactly what the President has said he wants to accomplish.  It's a rather remarkable display of delusional thinking.

 

And as for the claim that the President doesn't understand how tariffs work, the editor just derides Trump for using a 19th century tool to attack a 21st century problem.  That's most likely a focus grouped attack that sounds ok but makes no sense.  Think of it this way.  The fires in California, we are told by the left, are a product of a 21st century problem:  global warming.  Forgetting for the moment if that is true (which it is not), the fire fighters used water from hoses and planes to douse the flames.  That's using a 19th and a 20th century set of tools to attack a 21st century problem.  They used those tools because they work.  Tariffs have been around a long time; that is true.  The problem is that the "experts" who deride tariffs as a 19th century tool, never state what the 21st century replacement would be.

 

Remember, we have signed a new agreement with Canada and Mexico which is a great improvement over NAFTA.  The threat of tariffs was a driving force to get Canada and Mexico to agree to the improved agreement.  China is negotiating a series of deals with the USA in exchange for our forbearance in increasing the tariffs from 10% to 25%.  In other words, the use of tariffs and threats of tariffs is working.

 

I understand that the left wing media hates the President in an hysterical fashion.  It's bewildering, though, that people who should understand what is happening are driven by that hysteria to make charges that they know to be untrue.