Thursday, November 30, 2017

STUDY: Satellites Show No Acceleration In Global Warming For 23 Years

dailycaller.com ^ | 2:24 PM 11/29/2017 | Michael Bastasch 

Global warming has not accelerated temperature rise in the bulk atmosphere in more than two decades, according to a new study funded by the Department of Energy.
University of Alabama-Huntsville climate scientists John Christy and Richard McNider found that by removing the climate effects of volcanic eruptions early on in the satellite temperature record it showed virtually no change in the rate of warming since the early 1990s.
“We indicated 23 years ago — in our 1994 Nature article — that climate models had the atmosphere’s sensitivity to CO2 much too high,” Christy said in a statement. “This recent paper bolsters that conclusion.”
Christy and McNider found the rate of warming has been 0.096 degrees Celsius per decade after “the removal of volcanic cooling in the early part of the record,” which “is essentially the same value we determined in 1994 … using only 15 years of data.”
The study is sure to be contentious. Christy has argued for years that climate models exaggerate global warming in the bulk atmosphere, which satellites have monitored since the late 1970s.
Christy, a noted skeptic of catastrophic man-made global warming, said his results reinforce his claim that climate models predict too much warming in the troposphere, the lowest five miles of the atmosphere. Models are too sensitive to increases in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, he said.
“From our observations we calculated that value as 1.1 C (almost 2° Fahrenheit), while climate models estimate that value as 2.3 C (about 4.1° F),” Christy said.
While many scientists have acknowledged the mismatch between model predictions and actual temperature observations, few have really challenged the validity of the models themselves.
A recent study led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory climate scientist Ben Santer found that while the models ran hot, the “overestimation” was “partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations.”
Christy’s removal of volcanic-driven cooling from satellite temperature data could also draw scrutiny. The study also removed El Nino and La Nina cycles, which are particularly pronounced in satellite records, but those cycles largely canceled each other out, the co-authors said.
Christy said his works shows the “climate models need to be retooled to better reflect conditions in the actual climate, while policies based on previous climate model output and predictions might need to be reconsidered.”
Two major volcanoes — El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991 — caused global average temperature to dip as a result of volcanic ash, soot and debris reflecting sunlight back into space.
Those eruptions meant there was more subsequent warming in the following years, making the rate of warming appear to be rising as a result of man-made emissions or other factors, Christy said.
“Those eruptions happened relatively early in our study period, which pushed down temperatures in the first part of the dataset, which caused the overall record to show an exaggerated warming trend,” Christy said.
“While volcanic eruptions are natural events, it was the timing of these that had such a noticeable effect on the trend. If the same eruptions had happened near the more recent end of the dataset, they could have pushed the overall trend into negative numbers, or a long-term cooling,” Christy said.

How the F-16 fighter jet put Fort Worth on the aerospace map

Star-Telegram ^ | NOVEMBER 24, 2017 | MAX B. BAKER 

FORT WORTH -Bobby Tamplin was 26 years old in 1977, when he went to work as a parts fabricator on the F-16 fighter jet. At the time, he was told his job would last “maybe five years.”

Forty years later, the 66-year-old recently stood on a windy, cold flight line at Lockheed Martin — just a few weeks before his retirement — to bid goodbye to the last F-16 to be built in Fort Worth. It is a bittersweet moment for Tamplin, who grew up working on the assembly line, to remember a time when the plant built almost one fighter a day.
“It was an aerospace milestone to see that many planes come and go every day,” Tamplin said. “But it was exciting.”
Later, when thinking about all the places the F-16 flies, he also said he felt a great responsibility. “You are producing an aircraft that is not only going to change Fort Worth, but it’s going to change air forces all over the world.”
But it’s the end of the line for Tamplin and the Fort Worth F-16 production line. To make way for growing production of the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter, Lockheed is moving the F-16’s assembly line to Greenville, South Carolina. While engineering, design and modernization activities will remain in Fort Worth, the last Cowtown jet flew out of town Nov. 14.
Over the life of the program, Lockheed has delivered 4,588 F-16s, including 3,620 built in Fort Worth. Along the way the F-16 program created tens of thousands of well-paying manufacturing jobs that helped countless middle-class families buy cars, build houses and send their kids to college.
“It is a remarkable success story from every perspective,” said Richard Aboulafia, a defense analyst with the Teal Group. “Decade over decade, nothing rivals the
(Excerpt) Read more at star-telegram.com ...


The last production F-16 in Fort Worth takes off from the Lockheed Martin plant on Tuesday, Nov. 14. The plane was sold to the Iraqi government. Angel DelCueto Lockheed Martin 

Immigration attorney pleads guilty to filing more than 250 false visa applications

Foxnews ^ | Alex Pappas 


An immigration attorney in Indianapolis pleaded guilty Thursday to a fraud scheme in which he filed more than 250 false visa applications on behalf of clients, the Department of Justice said.



Joel Paul, 45, an immigration attorney from Fishers, Indiana, entered a guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Jane E. Magnus-Stinson of the Southern District of Indiana. Paul was charged with mail fraud, immigration document fraud and aggravated identity theft.

“Individuals who commit immigration fraud undermine and abuse our generous immigration system—a system that lawfully admits more immigrants than any other country in the world—and put our public safety and national security at risk,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement about the case.


Prosecutors said Paul orchestrated a scheme to submit fraudulent applications for U-visas, reaping about $750,000 in fraudulent fees. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, U-Visas provide temporary immigration benefits to foreign nationals who are victims of crimes.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...

Breaking: Trump’s FBI Director & Solicitor General Preparing Indictments Of The 'Untouchables'

CP ^ | November 29, 2017 | AM 

Very soon the names Christopher Wray and Noel Francisco will be the stars of 24/7-cable news programming. Both are Trump appointees who have compiled enough evidence to begin the prosecution of the Clintons and those in the highest offices of the FBI who protected them. And, neither man can be bought.

Politics will determine whether their investigations will be allowed to make the case for prosecuting Obama’s cabinet members who made the call to squash the evidence in multiple incriminating cases and who violated FISA court rules of evidence to obtain warrants in order to spy on the man who threatens to expose their criminally treasonous syndicate, President Trump.

Wray was Trump’s choice to replace Comey to lead the FBI after Trump became aware of how severely Comey, and his predecessor Robert Mueller, had corrupted the agency and its mission when it chose to protect the Clintons.

Wray is highly respected lawman and passed Senate confirmation by a 92-5 vote.

The vote to confirm Francisco as Solicitor General was 50-47, along party lines. That should come as no surprise because as the Solicitor General of the United States, Francisco would be responsible for conducting and supervising the government’s litigation at the Supreme Court.

In other words, Francisco will be prosecuting the case against those who corrupted the FBI and his reputation says that he will do it thoroughly and professionally to the best of his considerable legal abilities.

The Solicitor General is the last firewall the American people have against the government corruption of the past administration.

Francisco has built a reputation for his steadfast commitment to the rule of law and his staunch defense of the Constitution. To say Francisco’s appointment has Democrats worried cannot be overstated.

And now FBI Director Christopher Wray has seen enough evidence against those who are attempting to remove our duly elected president on trumped up charges that he’s preparing to clean house at the FBI and to present the case for prosecution to Francisco.

In the next six months expect indictments against former FBI directors Robert Mueller and James Comey along with current Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former U.S. attorney and current Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein.

Whether Wray and Francisco’s investigation will ensnare former AGs Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch will be a political call that would then signal Wray and Francisco’s willingness to go after the big fish, ex-President Obama and other members of his cabinet including former National Security Advisor Susan Rice.

One of the triggers for Wray’s decision to move forward is reported to be the ironclad proof that Deputy Director Andrew McCabe essentially accepted a $500,000 bribe from the Clintons’ in the form of a campaign donation to his wife who was convinced to run for the Virginia Senate by Clinton bagman Terry McAuliffe.

The fact that McCabe was deeply involved in what amounted to covering up Hillary’s email “scandal” has left Wray with no choice but to remove McCabe by whatever means necessary if he is to restore the FBI’s integrity.

The recent revelation that neither Comey nor McCabe saw fit to notify the vast majority of the 500-plus U.S. officials that Russian hackers had targeted their personal Gmail accounts was also indefensible in Wray’s view. Wray found trying to defend the agency’s lack of action in this matter to be embarrassing. Wray now wants to know who, inside our government, they were protecting by their silence besides the Russian hackers.

In addition to the embarrassment involved, Wray sees it as one more example of the FBI conspiring with the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton to hide their collusion to advance Russian interests.

Under Mueller, the FBI buried overwhelming evidence of Russian bribery, extortion, kickbacks and money laundering as the nuclear power sought to gain control of the world’s uranium supply.

Mueller also saw no reason to investigate when Hillary, with the approval of then president Obama, helped Russia make a major technological leap after they authorized sharing information technologies to help build the Russian equivalent of Silicon Valley in Skolkovo.

Wray also has enough evidence to convict his predecessor, Jim Comey, on conspiracy charges for his involvement in refusing to prosecute Hillary, Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, and a number of her other associates on violations of the Espionage Act. Wray has likely determined that those 33,000 deleted emails weren’t just mishandled accidently – alone that is a violation of the act – but were deliberately exposed to foreign agents and contained at least 2,100 highly secret transmissions.

All of this has left Wray with little choice in this matter. While every president, and every president’s administration, makes decisions that can be deemed questionable and even illegal by future administrations, they have always left town after their term’s were completed and left the field clear for the new president to carve their trail. Not so with Obama and Clinton.

Obama and Clinton committed to running a resistance in exile relying on their administration’s holdovers scattered everywhere throughout the federal bureaucracy, their judicial appointments, the Washington political establishment that they corrupted long ago, and their control over the mainstream media to destroy their successor.

The depths of their criminality and their treasonous actions apparently left Obama and Clinton with little choice but to try to destroy President Trump. Now, in the interest of defending our American republic Christopher Wray has no choice but to take them all down.

When the indictments come they will likely encompass everyone who served at a high level in the Obama administration. There is no other way. As Jim Malone asked famed FBI agent Eliot Ness:

"What are you prepared to do? If you open ball on these people Mr. Ness, you must be prepared to go all the way because they won’t give up the fight till one of you is dead."

Trump's Big Tax Plan Will Fuel Economy for a Decade

newsmax ^ | November 29, 2017 | Christopher Ruddy 

I am backing President Trump’s efforts for a major tax reduction and reform plan because I think it will create one of the greatest economic booms in history.
Despite serious concerns about some provisions, buried in the Senate and House tax bills is a golden nugget.
The final tax plan won’t be hammered out until the House and Senate each pass their respective bills and send them to the conference committee where the president can truly weigh in.
So far everybody has been talking about the individual and business tax rates, but the true “gift” of the Trump tax plan will be in the proposed special rate for businesses that repatriate money from abroad.
Today, close to $3 trillion in profits sit in the coffers of U.S. company subsidiaries all across the globe. These companies have refused to repatriate these funds because tax rates here are confiscatory — among the highest in the developed world.
Lowering the repatriation tax rate to just 10 percent, as proposed by the Senate plan, will yield tremendous results. Assuming $2.5 trillion is brought back into the U.S. economy, it will serve as the greatest stimulus ever.
Consider that Obama’s stimulus of 2009 amounted to more than $850 billion. This will be almost three times that amount!
This one part of the tax plan will drive the economy for the next 10 years.
Everyone will benefit. And President Trump will see an open path for re-election in 2020. This will happen despite the protestations of CNN, MSNBC, and the elite class.
But there are also poison pills in the tax plans floating through Congress.
Former Bush Ambassador Earle Mack has written in The Hill about the inequities of the individual tax cuts versus the business cuts. For example, the individual tax cuts sunset after 2025.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...

SUICIDE?

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FAULT?

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DANGER!

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fossils

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Now You Know

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"GERONIMO"

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A great country

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NOW!

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Dead Weapon

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Banning Guns

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Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Media Lapdogs – The Great Enablers of Sexual Abuse on Capitol Hill

DB Daily Update ^ | 11/29/17 | David Blackmon 

BOOM! As I’m writing this morning’s Update, Down Goes Lauer! Down Goes Lauer! Down Goes Lauer! More on this tomorrow.

Melanie Sloan, a former top communications aide to 88 year-old Democrat Congressman John Conyers, told an interviewer on Tuesday of an instance in which Conyers called her to his office when he was in his underwear. “I was pretty taken aback to see my boss half-dressed,” she told The Washington Post. “I turned on my heel and I left.” Alrighty, then. Ms. Sloan has leveled sexual harassment allegations at Conyers that date back to 1997, 20 years ago.
The unfortunately named Bob Weiner (no word if he hails from the Anthony Weiner clan), who served as Conyers’ communications director from 1994 to 2000, told a group of reporters assembled outside Conyers’ congressional office that, “Something else that people need to know: his closet is in his office right here. He changes clothes in his office.” So that makes it all ok, then. Right?
(Excerpt) Read more at dbdailyupdate.com ...

A Trump Theory About Lauer and Other Fired Leftists

FreeRepublic ^ | Today | Self 

Okay, so I read on FreeRepublic this AM that Matt Lauer has been terminated for sexual harassment. And out of all these firings and charges they are almost all leftists. Nearly everyone single one of them. Weinstein. Spacey. Etc. etc.

There is a federal regulation that covers sexual harassment in the workplace. It applies to any company that has more than 15 employees.

It is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Section initiates Title VII litigation in two ways. Pursuant to Section 707 of Title VII, the Attorney General has authority to bring suit against a state or local government employer where there is reason to believe that a “pattern or practice” of discrimination exists. Generally, these are factually and legally complex cases that seek injunctive relief to alter unlawful employment policies and practices – such as recruitment, hiring, assignment and promotion – which have the purpose or the effect of denying employment or promotional opportunities to a class of individuals. Under its “pattern or practice” authority, the Section also obtains relief, generally in the form of offers of employment, retroactive seniority and back pay, for individuals who have been the victims of unlawful employment policies and practices.

The Attorney General can basically file suit against any company that they believe is violating this act. Now who is the Attorney General? And why was this never used against leftist organizations before? Did Trump instruct Sessions to take all claims of sexual harassment seriously? In the Lauer case has the accuser already gone to the DOJ and gotten assurances that it's actionable?
I imagine that as a business owner Trump has had to take this seriously. Dot every I and cross every T or else. And as President maybe he's seen charge after charge after charge about leftists organizations with the DOJ never doing anything about it.
Maybe this is another way Trump is draining the swamp. Any thoughts?

When...

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QUIT!

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This CREEP!

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Don't Forget

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What?

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Grabbing Seats

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PAIN

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When I got older...

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Looking into it

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Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Navajo Code Talker Breaks Silence – DESTROYS #FakeIndian Elizabeth Warren With Epic One-Liner

Gateway Pundit ^ | 11/28/17 | Cristina Laila 

As previously reported, fake Indian Elizabeth Warren got super triggered after President Trump slammed her Monday calling her Pocahontas while honoring Native American code talkers.


President Trump to Native American code talkers: “You were here long before any of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”
Liberals came unhinged!
Fake Indian Elizabeth Warren and the liberal liars in the media accused President Trump of being offensive by throwing out a ‘racial slur’ during the ceremony.
One of the Navajo code talkers, Thomas Begay broke his silence and destroyed Warren with an epic one-liner.

“The Marines made us yell ‘Geronimo’ when we jumped out of planes and that didn’t offend me either.”
BOOM!


Fact Check: Claim That GOP Tax Reform Would 'Raise Taxes on the Middle Class'

Townhall.com ^ | Nov 28, 2017 | Guy Benson 

We've written several pieces debunking unfair and inaccurate attacks on Congressional Republicans' reform package of tax cuts and simplification -- from confronting bogus claims about healthcare, to swatting down supposed sweetheart tax breaks for private jet owners, to exposing scare-mongering about fictional middle class tax hikes. In addition to dispelling false information, we've also tried to highlight bona fide selling points of the proposal, showcasing independent analyses projecting that reform would boost US economic growth and create close to a million new full-time jobs. Another crucial point is that the fact that those taxpayers who currently take the standard deduction (~70 percent of all filers, a number that will grow substantially) stand to be immediate winners under the bill, as that deduction would approximately double. Mitch McConnell addressed that element of the plan in a Monday floor speech, which set the stage for a highly-anticipated upper chamber vote in the coming days:
Video Here
"Our plan doubles the child tax credit, preserves the adoption tax credit, and roughly doubles the standard deduction to reduce how much income is taxed in the first place. Put it all together, and a typical middle-class family of four making the median family income could see a tax break of around $2,200. As families sit around the table to balance their budgets and plan for their future, this money will make a significant impact."
It's worth pausing to acknowledge that it would be wrong for Republicans to adopt the Democrats' approach to Obamacare by lying to the American people about the impacts of their legislation. The Left mendaciously pretended that there would be no losers under their scheme, which was thoroughly refuted by reality in short order. It's true that a small percentage of households and taxpayers -- disproportionately high-income itemizers living in high-tax blue states -- will face higher bills under the GOP plan. But the overwhelming majority will see a tax cut, with multiple nonpartisan reviews determining that on average, every income group would see their tax burden decrease under the House-passed bill. So what to make of Democrats' go-to line about the Republican plan raising taxes on millions of middle class families in a few years? This claim (repeated by the press, of course) relies on analyses of the Senate bill, under which the new, flatter, lower individual rates would expire after 2025. Thus -- on paper, at least -- a large "tax increase" would be scheduled, barring additional Congressional action.
But it's essential to point out that the only way this potential "tax increase" would actually occur is if Democrats force it to. Republicans would be on board to renew the tax cuts, especially since they're geared toward middle-income households (millionaires' Obama-era marginal tax rate of nearly 40 percent remains untouched under the GOP proposal). Democrats would therefore be the only ones standing in the way of ensuring that those expiration-caused hikes never see the light of day. If they chose to block the renewal, they would be consigning millions of working families to the sort of tax increases they swear up-and-down that they oppose. Because of those exact same dynamics, more than 80 percent of the Bush tax cuts were made permanent under President Obama. That's a highly relevant historical data point in this debate.
Remember, the whole reason the Senate bill includes a tax cut sunset clause is to comply with "reconciliation" rules, as required to pass budget-related legislation with a simple majority. If Democrats truly wanted to give middle-income families permanent stability and certainty on tax rates, they could play ball and not filibuster tax reform. They could provide the votes to make the new middle class tax cuts permanent, vitiating the need for Republicans to play around with budget windows on procedural grounds. Instead, they're digging in their heels to oppose the entire Trump agenda (even opposing pro-competitiveness corporate tax cuts they once supported) -- then exploiting the limitations imposed by their own tactics to launch misleading attacks about the Republican bill "raising taxes" after 2025. That may be cynical (yes, this obviously isn't the broader tax bill they'd prefer, but they've lost a lot of elections), but it's also how politics works. It's up to the other side to challenge quick, scary soundbytes with facts and context. I'll leave you with an excerpt from a letter written to the Treasury Secretary by a group of respected economists and academics, which is quoted in a pro-reform Wall Street Journal editorial:
The present debate over tax reforms proposed by President Trump’s administration and embodied in bills that have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate Finance Committee has raised the basic question of whether the bills are “pro-growth”: Would the proposals raise current and future economic activity and generate federal tax revenue that would reduce the “static cost” of the reforms? This letter explains why we believe that the answer to these questions is “yes.”...You have consistently stressed that the objective of tax reform should be to enhance prospects for increased economic growth and household incomes. We agree with this objective, which is consistent with the traditional norms of public finance going back to Adam Smith. We believe that the reforms embodied in the House and Senate Finance bills would achieve this objective. The increased growth, in turn, would lead to greater taxable income and federal tax revenues, which would reduce the static cost of lost federal tax revenue from the reform. And here's John Thune, a member of the Senate GOP leadership team, predicting on Fox News Sunday that the Senate bill will pass:
Video Here
It's crunch time.

Outrage

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Deplorable

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MASKS

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Party name

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Sunday, November 26, 2017

Women get chance to 'one-up' the men in mixed infantry units

AP via ABC News ^ | Nov 26, 2017, 8:20 AM ET | Lolita C. Baldor 

The young Army infantry recruits lined up in full combat gear, guns at the ready. At the signal, a soldier in front kicked in the door and they burst into the room, swiveling to check around the walls for threats. “You’re dead!” one would-be enemy yelled out from a dark corner, the voice slightly higher than the others echoing through the building. It was 18-year-old Kirsten, training to become one of the Army’s first women serving as infantry soldiers.

“I want to be one of the females to prove to everybody else that just because you’re a female, doesn’t mean you can’t do the same things as a male,” she said, describing her brother — an infantry soldier — as motivation. “I also wanted to one-up him.”

Kirsten is among more than 80 women who have gone to recruit training at Fort Benning, Georgia, since a ban on them serving in combat jobs was lifted. Twenty-two have graduated. More than 30 were still in training late last month, working toward graduation. […]

The Army’s introduction of women into the infantry has moved steadily but cautiously this year. As home to the previously all-male infantry and armor schools, Fort Benning had to make $35 million in renovations, including female dorm rooms, security cameras, and monitoring stations. …
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...

Saturday, November 25, 2017

The Tea Party settlement (Media downplays IRS' admission that its conduct was wrong)

American Thinker ^ | 11/25/2017 | David Zukerman 


Finally, after four and a half years, harassment of conservative groups by the Obama IRS is put to rest, with the media downplaying the story.

A William McGurn column in the Wall Street Journal, November 21, stated that IRS-Tea Party litigation has been settled.  A New York Times story on October 27, 2017 reported that the government, in one lawsuit involving 428 groups, "agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement" and that, in a second lawsuit comprising 41 groups, damages will not be paid, "but the I.R.S. acknowledged its conduct was wrong." 


It is not clear why the matter dragged on four and a half years.  The original Times report on the front page, May 14, 2013, quoted President Obama stating that revelations "that the Internal Revenue Service has singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny" were "outrageous" and "completely contrary to our traditions."  It is fair to ask: If the former president was indeed so outraged by partisan performance at the IRS, why didn't he order an immediate end to the practice and compensation to the politically aggrieved?  But it is the Trump administration that settled the lawsuits.

The Consent Order Linchpins of Liberty v. United States, the lawsuit with 41 plaintiffs, includes a Declaratory Judgment:

49. The Court hereby declares that it is wrong to apply the United States tax laws, including any and all tax rules, regulations, policies, procedures, and standards of review, to any tax-exempt applicant or entity based solely on such entity's name, any lawful positions it espouses on any issues, or its associations or perceived associations with a particular political movement, position, or viewpoint.


(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...

Democrats Say Crazy Uncle Bernie Is Their Top Pick for 2020 …He Will be 80!

GATEWAY PUNDIT ^ | Nov 25, 2017 | Jim Hoft 

The Hill reported:
Advisers to the senator are telegraphing that Sanders is eying a 2020 run — and his network is already ready to go, with supporters convinced that he was the candidate who would have beaten President Trump in 2016.
“His people have never gone away,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. “And he has a loyal core following out there that will be with him come hell or high water.”
Also working in Sanders’s favor, Bannon said, is the leftward shift of the Democratic Party.
“The Sanders wing is becoming the dominant wing of the party,” he said.
Still, strategists note that Sanders would be 79 in 2020, which could work against him at a time when Democrats are hungry for change.
Bernie Sanders will be 80 years old in 2021.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...

Ryan Bundy's Opening Statement Is Something Every Red-Blooded American Should Hear

The Washington Standard | 11-24-2017 | Tim Brown 

Sometimes, in the process of covering so many things and in the attempt to provide as much information and commentary as possible, we simply are not able to provide all that we wish to do so to the public.
However, that does not mean other stories and commentary are not important.  In fact, many things coming out of alternatives media today are vitally important for those coming off the government-controlled media.
One of those items that didn't hit the mainstream media, and sadly didn't hit much of the alternative media, was the opening statement of Cliven Bundy's son, Ryan, as the trial of the century began nearly two weeks ago.
In light of that, I've been meaning to post his opening statement because it is certainly on that Americans should familiarize themselves with and quite possibly, should a fair history book be written, may go down in a Patrick Henry-esque fashion.
So, without further ado, here's Ryan Bundy's opening statement (H/T Gary Hunt)that was delivered to the jury in the Bundy Ranch trials on November 15, 2017.  Read and remember.
Thanks to the jurors for being here. I told you a little about myself at voir dire, but I’d like to introduce myself a little more, and tell you about my heritage and how that affects my case. (Projects a picture of his family - AND leaves it up throughout his statement!) [Note: the picture shown above.]
This is my ID! Not my driver’s license. This is who I am, a man with a family and I’ll do whatever it takes to provide for them. I want you to picture in your minds…you’re out on the land… I’ll take you to our ranch, you can see all the beauty of the land, the fresh air, sunsets...

Denzel Washington Says Upbringing and Lack of Father Figures not the Justice System

Daily Mail (U.K.) ^ | November 24, 2017 

Denzel Washington says upbringing and a lack of father figures are to blame for many young men ending up in jail.

The Oscar winner, 62, was speaking at the premiere of his latest film, Roman J. Israel, Esq., in which he stars as an idealistic defense attorney whose life is upended when his partner, the firm's front man, dies.

Asked if the film made him feel more cynical about the justice system, the star replied: 'It starts at home.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...

George Soros’s $18 Billion Tax Shelter

Wall Street Journal ^ | November 23, 2017 | Stephen Moore 

Congress is still scrambling to find ways to pay for its tax cut, so perhaps it should pay closer attention to last month’s news that George Soros had transferred $18 billion of his fortune to a private charity that he controls. There it will be sheltered from the Internal Revenue Service forever. This may be the single biggest tax dodge in U.S. history, yet no one on the right or left seems to have raised an eyebrow.

True tax reform is predicated on the principle that all income should be taxed at a low rate once, and only once. But much of the wealth that Mr. Soros spent years moving into his Open Society Foundations will never be taxed. A gift of billions of dollars of appreciated stock escapes any capital gains tax, and the estate tax as well. So Mr. Soros can donate appreciated stock that Open Society Foundations can liquidate without the government ever taking a cut.
There’s more. When a person donates untaxed, appreciated assets to a private foundation, he may also deduct up to 20% of its market value on his personal return, carrying forward this deduction for five years. This double write-off may be the sweetest deal in the tax code.
The donors also can retain control of the money within the private foundation for years or even decades before it is disbursed. Since the foundation can employ family members at six-figure salaries for life to “administer” it, the umbilical cord to the donor never has to be cut.
Congress should stop ignoring this tax-avoidance scheme. The super rich have already poured hundreds of billions into private foundations, but the figure could soon be in the trillions.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...

15 Things Far Too Many Americans Are Foolishly Taking For Granted

Townhall.com ^ | Nov 25, 2017 | John Hawkins 

“Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace. No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for those are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history.” — Will and Ariel Durant
“We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” – C.S. Lewis
Too many Americans have become like the spoiled trust fund kids running the family business. Grandpa built it and knew it top to bottom. Dad learned from him and kept it going. Now they’re taking over and unfortunately, they never really bothered to learn the ins and outs of how the company works. They just look at it as a place where they can have a fancy title and get money to finance their lifestyle.
Many Americans don’t know why this country is so successful, don’t understand the long-term ramifications of the things they advocate politically and don’t get how lucky we are.
Knowledgeable conservatives know better. We know that we are fortunate enough to live in what Reagan called a “shining city on a hill” and that eternal flame that sets us apart from other nations can easily dim. Americans should consider that many of the things they take for granted are not necessarily so.
You see, far too many of us take it for granted that….
1) ….We can not only refuse to teach patriotism to our kids, but teach our kids in schools that our country is a horrible place and it won’t produce people who are disloyal to our nation.
2) ….Black and Hispanic Americans can be incessantly encouraged to create and nurture racial grudges, white people can constantly be put down, degraded and seemingly discriminated against via programs like Affirmative Action.
3) …We can accuse a man of rape if the woman he has sex with has been drinking, weirdly demand verbal consent for every stage of a make-out session and accuse a man of sexual harassment if a woman claims he grabbed her butt 30 years ago, but it won’t have any ramifications for male/female relationships.
4)….We can hamstring our military with ridiculous rules of engagement, have soldiers on the battlefield call lawyers before they can shoot targets and have politicians make military decisions based on how it will play in the press; yet our troops will still win wars.
5)…We can smear the Christian church at every opportunity, tar every decent person as a secret hypocrite and write morality off as old timey, but the people in our country will continue to be good over the long haul.
6)…. Social Security and Medicare will always be available for the enormous number of Americans that depend on it even though we have no money set aside for either program and we have an unsustainable debt that we are adding to every year.
7) ….We can ignore lawbreaking by illegal aliens while playing political games with our justice system based on whether a Republican or Democrat is being targeted without ordinary Americans losing respect for the rule of law.
8) ….We can put men with poor character in office; yet they’ll still do the right thing for the country, instead of themselves, when they’re elected.
9) ….We can run up an astronomical debt that we never intend to fully pay off, large parts of which are held by nations hostile to us, but they will never choose to crash our economy by refusing to lend us more money that we may not pay back one day.
10) ….We can shut down speakers we disagree with on college campuses; the police can charge exorbitant fees to allow someone to publicly exercise his 2nd Amendment rights and social media giants can quiet anyone they want without consequence, but the rest of us will continue to have our right to free speech honored.
11) …We can trash the police at every opportunity and give the benefit of the doubt to the criminals they arrest instead of to them, while they’ll still be willing and able to effectively do their jobs.
12) …We can abandon the pure capitalism that made our country so rich, pile regulation on top of regulation and exorbitantly tax the most productive members of society without it slowing down the economic growth, jobs and opportunity for everyone.
13) ….We can coddle our best and brightest college students so much that they get “triggered” by hearing things they don’t like, expose them to professors that are Communists, bombers and radicals and then expect them to be tough, competent and capable enough to keep the country running one day.
14) …We can bring in enormous numbers of immigrants from non-Western, socialistic and often backward countries, immerse them in a culture that strongly discourages assimilation and they, or at least their kids will fare as well as anyone here.
15) …We have clean water, decent roads, full supermarkets, Internet access, non-corrupt cops, shoes, free speech and a hospital that will fix a broken leg whether you have money to pay or not. Compared to the MAJORITY of people on Earth, Americans live in a utopia. Yet, all we ever hear are complaints and endless kvetching about how horrible it is to live in such a rich, powerful country that has done so much for the world. Part of that is human nature. It’s easy to focus on what you lack instead of what you have…until you don’t have it any more.
More Americans need to start thinking about preserving this nation for our children. Of all the terrible things we could do as a people, the worst would be to squander the incredible opportunity we’ve had and to leave future generations of Americans with nothing but a shallow husk of what this country is today.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

President Trump Accomplishes the Impossible: Reduces Debt to GDP Ratio by 1% His First Year

The Gateway Pundit ^ | 11/20/2017 | Joe Hoft 

President Trump’s policies have decreased the Debt to GDP ratio by 1% while at the same time the Atlanta Fed announced yesterday that the 4th Quarter GDP estimates have increased by 0.2% to 3.4%.
Since his inauguration President Trump has focused his efforts on the security of the country and on the prosperity of its economy. The results of his actions are taking shape.

The US GDP has increased each quarter in 2017 with the 3rd Quarter GDP increasing to $19.496 trillion – the highest GDP for any country in world history.
On the other hand, the President has curtailed US spendingThe result is that the US Debt to GDP ratio has decreased year to date from 105% to 104%.

No President in more than 50 year years has decreased the Debt to GDP ratio in his first year in office by more than 1%. The last President to do so was Nixon in 1969. Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush decreased the Debt to GDP ratio in their first years in office but by less than 1%. President Obama increased the Debt to GDP ratio his first year in office by 15% and by 37% over his eight years in office.


In related news the Atlanta Fed announced that the 4th Quarter US GDP estimates have increased from 3.2% to 3.4%. This increase in GDP would make the GDP increase for the year near 3%, something that hasn’t occurred in more than 10 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...

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