We are the drain the swamp people

• “In the past the Church stood strong against communism!”
• That was then
• . . . and the Popes were not communists themselves    DLH
  

This Wikipedia item provides links to substantiate the long held anathema  (prior to this Pope anyway) of the Roman Catholic Church toward atheistic communism. It was to the extent of automatic excommunication (separation from full communion with the Church). We doubt Pope Francis’ predecessors would be fooled by any prospective church leader’s personal equivocation between pledged support and loyalty for a regime, its legitimacy in all matters vs loyalty to God and Church as defined by the “magisterium” (accumulated wisdom of the Church)

Deal With the Devil? Vatican Caves to China’s Demands on Bishop Appointments  
In a cowardly move, Francis bows to Beijing.

In the past, the Catholic Church stood strong against communism. As The American Spectator‘s Paul Kengor has noted in multiple books,

Pope John Paul II bravely opposed the Soviet Union. In a particularly powerful moment in 1979, thousands of Poles chanted “We want God,” defying their overlords in Moscow. A decade later, Poland’s transition to democracy became one of the final death blows to the Soviet Union. . . .

This week, Bishop Antonio Yao Shun was installed as Bishop of Jining in northern China. There are thousands of Catholic bishops, but Shun’s installment was a groundbreaking event. Bishop Shun was approved by both the Vatican and the Chinese government. In the past, the millions of Chinese Catholics have been divided between the state-sanctioned “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association” and the underground and persecuted Catholic Church, which is loyal to the Vatican. Shun is the first bishop to be appointed since a deal was made in September of last year, which gave both the CCP and the Vatican a say in appointments. While the deal is said to be a compromise, it is submission from the Church to the whims of Xi Jinping. Last year, two faithful Catholic bishops who were critical of China’s regime were asked to step down by the Vatican to help with negotiations. The Catholic Church in China will become an institution completely dependent on the approval of a regime that is virulently hostile to people of faith.

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• Sun not only “rises” it explains
• But even the suggestion that ol’ sol peaking over the yardarm might be the controlling factor MUST be stomped out
• Here we are having a little fun at the expense of the climate scare mongers

NASA admits that climate change occurs because of changes in Earth’s solar orbit, and NOT because of SUVs and fossil fuels
Friday, August 30, 2019 by: Ethan Huff

This rather sensational story appeared in a website called “Natural News” *.
As the headline loudly illustrates, the article , once and for all, seems to completely blow the current “climate change” theories out of the water…so to speak.

Now the “Natural Science” blog does not exactly enjoy the respect, credibility, and confidence of most of the science world or the popular press.

But then, NASA and many of the “climate scientists”, ‘even’ Al Gore and Pope Francis, who have been scaring the daylights out of the children and gullible liberals for decades about the imminent demise of Earth if mankind doesn’t immediately return to the ‘Stone Age” and cede all money and power to the Leftist State because of the use of fossil fuels, don’t deserve much respect or credibility themselves.

Few, if any of that crowd’s near term predictions have proven accurate and their ability to predict temperatures in all parts of our planet 50 to a hundred years out more than borders on the laughable.

Actually, based on the long term history of Earth, the theory advanced by “Natural Science” (NS) seems to make as much or more sense than the ‘terrifying’ atmospheric carbon alarm NASA and the UN and assorted other sources have been issuing, along with their proven fraudulent data!

But…what can we do? If we don’t go along with this gang warning of our planet’s imminent doom and we don’t destroy all of our air conditioners and transportation structure…well, you know.

When “Doctor” Bernie and “Sister”AOC get wind of NS’s theory, they might like it even more than their current scam. And the United Nations? They’ll be ecstatic!
from “Natural Science”:

*”It was the year 1958, to be precise, when NASA first observed that changes in the solar orbit of the earth, along with alterations to the earth’s axial tilt, are both responsible for what climate scientists today have dubbed as “warming” (or “cooling,” depending on their agenda). In no way, shape, or form are humans warming or cooling the planet… .

“But NASA has thus far failed to set the record straight, and has instead chosen to sit silently back and watch as liberals freak out about the world supposedly ending in 12 years because of too much livestock, or too many plastic straws.

“In the year 2000, NASA did publish information on its Earth Observatory website about the Milankovitch Climate Theory, revealing that the planet is, in fact, changing due to extraneous factors that have absolutely nothing to do with human activity. But, again, this information has yet to go mainstream, some 19 years later, which is why deranged, climate-obsessed leftists have now begun to claim that we really only have 18 months left before the planet dies from an excess of carbon dioxide (CO2).

“The truth, however, is much more along the lines of what Serbian astrophysicist Milutin Milankovitch, after whom the Milankovitch Climate Theory is named, proposed about how the seasonal and latitudinal variations of solar radiation that hit the earth in different ways, and at different times, have the greatest impact on earth’s changing climate patterns.”

HOW SOON WILL IT BE , IF THIS THEORY GETS ANY WIDESPREAD PUBLICITY, BEFORE WE SEE THE ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S 2020 ‘STABLE’ OF PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES CALL FOR THE IMMEDIATE CONSTRUCTION OF A SUPER GIGANTIC MACHINE TO HALT THE ‘CHANGES IN THE EARTH’S SOLAR ORBIT’?

The UN will go ‘B– S–t Crazy’ demanding that the “wealthy” nations of the world give it 500 billion trillion dollars to build the ‘MACHINE’. Of course, the UN, the Vatican, and the Democratic Party will demand 499 billion trillion dollars of the total from the United States and the rest in IOU’s from the remaining nations of the world. And, of course the construction and ongoing operation of “THE MACHINE” will be under the direction and authority of the United Nations and a “Czar”, appointed by the incoming Democrat presidential administration!

Rejoice America…the Planet is saved!      DLH

*without getting into the particulars at this writing we did look into the substance of the claim (not the quotes) and see that NASA has indeed published suggestions of the strong if not controlling influence of solar cycles on earth weather. The articles are or have links to   NASA publications.

Solar Variability and Terrestrial Climate

Amidst Global Warming Hysteria, NASA Expects Global Cooling 

Climate Change Religion And Related Cover-Ups: What’s NASA Hiding? 

Of course many of the publications listed in our link list at right have long raised the matter of solar orbital effects and sun-spot activity on earth climate.

————————–

So Forbes Mag doesn’t liker Natural News (as if Forbes hasn’t published some BS from “contributors”)

Dec 23, 2016,
#NaturalNonsense: Science Supporters Condemn Natural News Founder Mike Adams
Kavin Senapathy  — Contributor  —

If you don’t know who Mike “Health Ranger” Adams is, he may be a steadfast presence in your social media newsfeed without your knowledge. Awarded the top slot on Real Clear Science’s “Worst Websites for Science in 2016” list, and with its founder touted by Dr. Oz as “the Renegade Health Ranger,” Natural News is a thorn in the sides of all who hold legitimate science dear. But bad science isn’t Adams’ only offense. Natural News is a fake news fixture, with articles on Obama birtherism, HIV/AIDS denialism, and the Sandy Hook tragedy as an elaborate hoax by FEMA to promote gun control. With the current uproar about fake news, the website and its founder should top lists of spurious sources.

Despite its outlandish stances, Natural News has been a staple since 2003. Attracting millions of unique visitors per month, you probably know at least a couple people who follow the website (just go to Facebook and see how manyof your friends “like” the page).

Now, dozens of science supporters (including me) have launched a grassroots New Year’s resolution campaign against both Adams and his website, tagged with #NaturalNonsense. The message went out via a graphic simultaneously posted on Facebook by a host of public pages, from the popular Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast to the Refutations to Anti-Vaccine Memesorganization, at 8:10 am eastern time on Thursday:

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Whole lotta ‘mind jostlin’ goin’ on with the ‘Sleepy One’

Why Is Everybody Picking on “Uncle Joe” (Biden)? (He’s Our Choice For the Democratic Party’s Presidential Candidate in 2020!)

An excerpt from Powerline blog, posted by John Hinderaker is typical:

BIDEN HAS NO CHANCE

The Democratic Party has a serious problem: their front-runner for the presidential nomination is a dope. (Our comment: That’s one of the qualities of Joe’s that moves us to fervently hope he will get the Dems’ nomination) You have read about Joe Biden’s “gaffes”: he can’t remember Barack Obama’s name, he tells a story about military heroism that is wrong in every detail, he can’t remember that by 2018, when the Parkland shooting happened, he was long gone from the vice presidency, and so on. Biden can’t get through a day without a blunder that makes headlines.

But there is a difference. The classic Washington definition of a “gaffe” is when someone says what he really thinks. With Biden, headline-making blunders reveal significant cognitive difficulties. Biden has been slow for his whole life–of average intelligence at best–and his mental faculties have not improved as he has aged. At 76 years old, he is no longer competent, assuming he ever was.
——

And here’s one from our “favorite”conservative, the NY Times’ David (recall Obama tickled his trouser leg) Brooks:

Brooks: Biden Might ‘Embellish’ for ‘Dramatic Effect’ – ‘But He’s Not Mendacious’

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks . . .   began by saying that Biden’s statements shouldn’t be compared to President Trump’s in any way. (Our comment: No danger of that!)

Brooks added, “Biden may be aging, and maybe that’s an issue. I think it’s a legitimate issue for voters to think about. But he’s not mendacious. He’s not irresponsible. He may embellish a story to improve its dramatic effect. And he may be forgetting things. Our memories are just much more fallible than we think. Every memory expert will tell you that. And when you’re on the campaign trail doing thousands of events, traveling everywhere, things get jostled in your mind. So, it could be just the normal jostling of [the] campaign.”

He continued, “And for some reason, we’ve gotten into a pattern where a Biden gaffe is the story. So, he’ll do eight good things in the campaign, tells one mistake, and that’s the story. Because that’s the story we associate with Joe Biden right now. But it’s something for voters to monitor. I don’t think embellishing that kind of story is like something that’s necessarily a sign that he’s over the hill.”He continued, “And for some reason, we’ve gotten into a pattern where a Biden gaffe is the story. So, he’ll do eight good things in the campaign, tells one mistake, and that’s the story. Because that’s the story we associate with Joe Biden right now. But it’s something for voters to monitor. I don’t think embellishing that kind of story is like something that’s necessarily a sign that he’s over the hill.”

MAYBE BROOKS IS ON TO SOMETHING…MAYBE BIDEN’S MEMORY IS JUST GETTING “JOSTLED” IN HIS MIND
If so, that should make for an interesting debate when Trump “jostles” the “Sleepy One’s” mind(?)      DLH

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Here is the issue:

Democrats want to shift toward taxing wealth, instead of just  salaries and the income assets generate

– And you thought Democrats didn’t have a plan for paying for all that free stuff they promise

– Believe us! They’ve got a plan…Socialists and Communists always have a Plan…but their people always suffer greatly from it

– It’s a Simple Plan: Let’s say you’ve been a thrifty person and over the course of years of work and saving, you’ve accumulated a nice collection of ‘investments’, or “assets”..stocks, some real property (maybe a ‘vacation cabin’), perhaps even a ‘collectible’ or two that increased in rather significant value over the years (As an example, maybe a few pieces of jewelry that’s been in your family for generations, handed down from one to the next…that you have insured…that’ll help the taxman).

– Every one of the Democratic Presidential candidates has their own “unique” version of “the plan”.

– To take just one, though, “Liz” Warren’s version is one of our favorites; you know ‘Liz’ (maybe better by her Indian name); She has a ‘plan’ for everything!

– With Liz’s plan, unlike some of those of her fellow candidates, someone in your circumstances (as outlined), it wouldn’t matter whether those “assets” of yours continue to grow or shrink! You would pay a tax on the value of those assets every year.

– Let’s say for the sake of illustration, that you’ve worked hard at a job, say, in the skilled trades, for 30 years or so. You’ve saved and spent wisely, planned for a comfortable and happy retirement. As a result you’ve accumulated savings, modest investments that have done well, and enjoy a a nice asset base.

– When it’s all totaled up, you gaze proudly on assets of $500,000, including a ‘lump sum’ pension payment from your employer, and your Social Security.

– But remember, Liz has a lot of free stuff she’s giving out that she must find a way to pay for. Lotta kids going to college, lot of migrants are needing health care and shelter and education, and so on. There’s where you come in.

– President Liz’ll check out your “wealth” and, in her ‘compassion’, knowing that if you didn’t, at least a lot of your friends and neighbors did vote for her, and she’ll know that you must want to share some of that “wealth” with those ‘less fortunate than you’.

– So, in her first year in office, she’ll take 2% of that ‘nest egg’…$10,000… you built up (or DID you ‘build it?)

and put it toward paying for the ‘free stuff’ she promised.

BUT WAIT! FORGIVE ME. I’M WRONG. LIZ’S “PLAN” APPLIES THAT “WEALTH TAX” ONLY TO THE “SUPER-RICH”…2% FOR THOSE WITH ASSETS ABOVE $50 MILLION, 3% FOR ASSETS ABOVE $1 BILLION

– So, “phew!” that ‘s a relief!

– Come on America. Let’s be real, here. Anybody really believe, once a “wealth tax” is implemented that, over time (and not a ‘long time’),  the amount of wealth to which it’s applied will not be lowered and the percent of tax will not be increased?

That’s the ‘great’ thing about socialism/communism. It needs more and more of ‘other’ peoples’ money to keep buying votes…until, eventually…they no longer want or have ‘free elections’!    DLH

Byron York provides a closer, more sobering look at ‘Liz’  Warren’s ingenious “policy proposals”:

“Despite what the media would have you believe, Warren is not a serious policy candidate. She’s merely promising to solve every problem by having the federal government spend more money and perpetuating the fiction that all of it could be paid for by simply asking a small number of ultra-rich Americans to contribute a little bit more.”   ______________________________________________________

By Richard Rubin from the Wall street Journal, Wednesday, 8/28/19:

The ultra-rich woul lived modestly, saved your money, chose wisely in buying  pay whether they make money or not, whether they sell assets or not and whether their assets are growing or shrinking.

Ms. Warren, who draws cheers at campaign events when she mentions the tax, would impose a 2% tax each year on individuals’ assets above $50 million and a further 1% on assets above $1 billion. Fellow candidate Beto O’Rourke has also backed a wealth tax, and it is one of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders ’ options for financing Medicare-for-All.

Ms. Warren’s plan appeals to some Democrats because it would raise a lot of money from a tiny number of people. According to economists working with her campaign, it would generate $2.75 trillion over a decade from 75,000 households. That would be roughly a 6% boost in federal revenue from under 0.1% of households.

For Democrats, the Warren plan has advantages: Money would come only from the very wealthiest. The IRS could focus enforcement on very few people. Revenue would come quickly.

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I G Report: Comey Violated FBI Policies, Leaked Information To The Media, Hid Memos in His Home w/o Notifying the Bureau;

But, That’s OK…Nuthin’ Much to See Here

– Guess this clears the way for Comey to sue, claiming misfiring was “illegal”, like similar suits by McCabe and Strzok*

Last week we wrote in Veritaspac that: “You’ll be close to understanding… (the Left’s disappointment when their “Russian Hoax Scandal” blew up in their face)… if the coming DOJ Inspector General’s report and the “Barr Investigation”, after all the breathlessly reported leaks, rumors, and “preliminary reports”… fail to deliver. A vast number of the American people were so sure that, at last, “justice will be saved, and, the ‘good guys’ were going to win a ‘big one ‘for “the Gipper”. (IG Report: “The revelations may be damning – but nothing will be done about it”

At the time we wrote that “Those same powerful forces who attempted this unprecedented overthrow of the government of the United States of America are still in existence, still maintain a presence in key areas of our federal government and justice system, the nation’s media, education system, and all of our major cultural and religious institutions.
“In every area, the perpetrators, their accomplices, supporters, and abettors are active in preventing the exposure of the full picture of the massive corruption which nearly destroyed our great nation and remains today, and will for the foreseeable future, a palpable threat.”

It now appears, however, that even those few we thought were on the side of justice and the rule of law, and had the skill and courage to seek and impose it are, in the final analysis, just some more of the ‘deep state’ (DS) apparatus.

We had already determined, in our view, that Trump-appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray was part of the DS operation. He had amply demonstrated, by his stonewalling, redacting, and ‘foot dragging’ on any request for information about apparent wrongdoing in the Bureau, DOJ, or the corrupt Obama administration, that he was a “Charter DS member” in good standing.

Michael Horowitz, the DOJ Inspector General, though, was considered, by the “keen observer/experts” in Washington to be “the squeaky clean one”.

That started to show signs of another “misdirection” by the “experts” when Horowitz released his report on the Hillary “investigation”…detailing all the corruption that went on with that, but then, determined, “wasn’t any ‘political bias’ there”. Oh sure, Strzok and Page wrote a few ‘ill-chosen’ emails, but, so what?

But then, at last the guys in the “white hats” arrived, AG William Barr and U S Attorney, John Durham…at last!

So, here we are:

WASHINGTON (AP) — IG Report: Former FBI Director James Comey violated FBI policies in his handling of memos documenting private conversations with President Donald Trump, the Justice Department’s inspector general said Thursday.

The watchdog office said Comey broke bureau rules by giving one memo containing unclassified information to a friend with instructions to share the contents with a reporter. Comey also failed to notify the FBI after he was dismissed in May 2017 that he had retained some of the memos in a safe at home, the report said.

“By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees_and the many thousands more former FBI employees_who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information,” the report says.

– “What was not permitted was the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome,”

– “But the report denied Trump and his supporters, who have repeatedly accused Comey of leaking classified information, total vindication. It found that none of the information shared by him or his attorneys with anyone in the media was classified, and the Justice Department has declined to prosecute Comey.”

– “Comey said he considered his memos to be personal rather than government documents, and it never would’ve occurred to him to give them back to the FBI after he was fired. The inspector general’s office disagreed, citing policy that FBI employees must give up all documents with FBI information once they leave the bureau.”

– “A spokesman for Horowitz declined to comment Thursday. But Comey noted on Twitter that the inspector general found no evidence he or his lawyers ever shared classified information with reporters.”

(Our comment: We’re guessing that if Comey and his lawyers DID share classified information with reporters, IG Horowitz would find there was no “intent” on the former FBI Director’s part to illegally do anything.)

As we wrote last week, “If, as some believe with some justification, that a truly full exposition would jeopardize the future, and personal freedom of the highest level government officials, current and former, would disclosure even be permitted…?”

We don’t think so. DLH

———–
*McCabe was dismissed in March 2018 for inappropriately leaking classified information to the media. He sued , claiming his termination—for failing to disclose conversations with a reporter about pending investigations—was illegal, reported Bloomberg News. A day prior, Peter Strzok filed a separate lawsuit for the same reasons, although he and McCabe are not represented by the same law firms.

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• Seems like we predicted that little would come from the Justice Dept. “getting the facts”

https://www.teaparty.org/joe-digenova-ig-horowitz-has-concluded-all-four-fisa-warrants-to-spy-on-trump-campaign-and-administration-were-illegal-audio-407317/

BREAKING!! DOJ Inspector General Releases James Comey Report!! — Conclusion: Comey Violated Department and FBI Policies Pertaining to the Retention, Handling, and Dissemination of FBI Records and Information 

Some readers there share our cynicism:

RuckusTom
Bingo. They’ll need to update their policies and procedures and take a training course or two on the proper way to handle classified docs. And that’ll be it.

BeenJammin1984
Horowitz recommended him for prosecution and Barr declined. Horowitz did his job; the question is, why didn’t

Bluto
It was reported some time ago that this report was coming and that the DOJ was declining prosecution on these particular issues in this report. DOJ said this does not protect him from indictment on any future reports coming out.


cletus       Translation: not going to be prosecuted.



Realitychick20
Wake me when he’s been arrested….

Dan
He is not going down for this. He is going down on lying on the three FISA referrals he signed knowing full well he was lying under oath to a federal judge. He signed these knowing the information as bull!

Buster Briggs
IG’s summary in a nutshell ….
Former Director Comey failed to live up to this responsibility. By not
safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI
employment
…………
We have previously faulted Comey for acting unilaterally and inconsistent
with Department policy.103 Comey’s unauthorized disclosure of sensitive law
enforcement information about the Flynn investigation merits similar criticism”
Nothing but a little criticism and a mild scolding! What a lameass report!

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For some time now it has been a frustration that whichever is culpable — our platform (WordPress) our Web hoster (GoDaddy) or various search engines do not make accessible  our latest posts on a timely as in instantaneous basis as has previously been the case.  A post toggled for immediate public viewing sometimes is available instantly but intermittently does not appear for hours, many hours on occasion. This situation has been verified numerous times by your editors and managing editor-publisher.  It is frustrating because we want to be as timely as possible and we often beat some of the big boys to the punch with various commentaries or observations.

There does not seem to be a pattern but there does seem to be a workaround. As a ritual if you will, upon entering this site do not presume the post showing is the latest, instead go to the archive area at right of screen and and toggle the current month. The latest post seems to promptly be present. Click on the top post and you will have the latest.

Refreshing your browser does not help. If any of our readers have another solution please let us know.  We have tried to address this problem with two of the sources mentioned above, to no avail at this point. Please let us know of any anomalies or quirks (other than your editors),  clerical matters,  bad links, need for links, credits, factual errors, etc. And please comment through the comment section in order to keep this site vibrant. Get published as a feature here as well by your clever or erudite commentaries or referrals!

We have a 99% record of posting something new every day, sometimes two and three a day.  We try to have the newest posts in the morning but that is only a 60% or so performance record.

By the way, toggling the archives is also an avenue for recapping our postings chronologically but the WordPress search engine of our archives is also effective by topic. Pick any likely key word   – “immigration” for example or “Comey”  and the full panoply of our postings, which are over 4300 at this writing, with that word will appear.

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• Corn Growers association should stop its whining, Japan (and others) will make up a lot of the ag market thanks to Trump policies. Trump is winning for America. China will need to come to the table or lose out on market contract prices in the future.

Read this lament from the Iowa Corn Growers Association about Trump economic policies then consider our questions and comments and the articles set forth from the folks at Americans for Limited Government.

From The Hill:

Iowa corn farmers to Trump: The government put us in “one hell of a bad situation” 

The Iowa Corn Growers Association (ICGA) blasted the Trump administration on Tuesday, saying the government has put it in “one hell of a bad situation.”

The trade association hammered President Trump for approving what it called 31 “unjustified” refinery waivers tied to ethanol, along with his year-plus trade war with China. Those two issues, combined with the effects of climate change, are forcing the value of Iowa corn to drop ahead of harvest season, the group said.

“Agriculture is in one hell of a bad situation right now. The government put us in this situation, and they need to help us get out of it,” Vic Miller, a corn farmer from Fayette County, said in a statement. “It’s time for President Trump to make rural America and the [Renewable Fuel Standard] great again. He made promises to American farmers and now it’s time for him to keep them.”

Trump has sought to cast himself as a staunch supporter of American farmers, a group that was part of his core supporters in the 2016 presidential race. But the U.S. agricultural community has been disproportionately harmed by the prolonged trade war between the world’s two largest economies, as China targets farm products in an apparent attempt to hit some of Trump’s main backers.

The trade war has also exacerbated fears of a potential recession in 2020, which would hurt Trump’s reelection prospects. While the president said this month the trade war may cause some “short term” pain, he maintains that farmers will be the “big winners.”

Our Great Farmers know how important it is to win on Trade. They will be the big winners!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2019

The ICGA statement comes just days after both Washington and Beijing announced increases to their respective tariffs. Though Trump called Chinese President Xi Jinping an “enemy” last week, he said on Monday that China wants to “get back to the table.”

The National Farmers Union also hit Trump in a statement last week, saying his trade war is “making things worse.”

A few observations:*

. . . and you have your choice between mandated or super-mandated ethanol

The ICGA says “disproportionately harmed”  — what about “disproportionately benefited” from subsidies, mandates and bad trade deals that directly or indirectly provided for their well being at the expense of ignoring harm to others (other industries market growth and intellectual property) .

The ICGA says “make the renewable fuel standard great again” — to this day no bigger pork trough has been built than what many farmers draw from and their organization still insists on forcing refineries to engage their product at great expense to those refineries and ultimately consumers.

The ecological and economic “science”  behind ICGA members’ downstream product (mass quantities of ethanol from corn) is bad — leaving only the political “science” of logrolling and subsidies or mandates that never stop, behind it — essentially requiring uses that are not needed or good for the planet.

Corn-growers properly want a system of stable markets and perhaps most appreciate honest free markets but the ICGA spokes-holes makes some self-centered charges against Trump’s policies that realistic farmers should challenge them on. Trump is doing what he can (arguably more than he should) to help them but with a focus on the long-term — solving international trade issues impacting all Americans.

Years ago ICGA spokes-holes (we do not include or confuse all corn growers with that organization’s apparat) challenged Americans to be patriotic and support ethanol mandates to allegedly make America energy independent. Well we largely are now, no thanks to corn ethanol mandates. But about that patriotism, consider this articles from Americans for Limited Government:

China keeps 3 million in concentration camps, harvests prisoners’ organs, threatens Hong Kong and Taiwan daily and is arming North Korea. So why are we trading with them? 

And ICGA is just too whiny. Consider this article from Rich Manning of Americans for Limited Government:

Trump Isolates China by Making Deals with the Rest of the World 

China and the United States traded punches last week in the ongoing trade dispute, after China announced tariff increases on $75 billion of U.S. agricultural and other goods. The Trump administration responded by ending a delay in the imposition of U.S. tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese goods and by tacking on a five percent increase in overall tariffs to boot.

But President Trump landed a haymaker on Sunday at the previously scheduled G-7 meeting when he announced that the Japanese would replace China’s broken corn purchase promise with $7 billion of agricultural product purchases. The bilateral deal will also allow the U.S. increased access to Japan’s markets for other agricultural goods and some industrial items, and the U.S. will lower tariffs on an array of Japanese produced industrial items, excluding auto parts.

While the Japan agreement falls short of a comprehensive “free trade agreement,” the pact signals that major strides are being made toward a bilateral treaty with the Japanese that deals with currency manipulation and fits the specific needs of both nations, replacing the disastrous eleven nation one-size fits all Trans-Pacific Partnership of which Japan is a signatory.

The multiple billion dollar deal with one of the United States’ closest G-7 allies — Japan has the third largest economy in the world — signals that Trump’s strategy of isolating China to ratchet up the pressure is fully engaged.

However, the Japan trade announcement was likely just the tip of the iceberg from the meeting. With the China-U.S. trade war at the top of the minds of everyone (except host country France’s President Emmanuel Macron), it is safe to assume that conversations with newly minted UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson (fifth largest economy), EU heads of state including Angela Merkel (fourth largest economy) and even a side meeting with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (sixth largest economy) all focused upon bilateral trade with the U.S.

India Times quotes a U.S. government official commenting on the Modi meeting: “President Trump is very much looking forward to his meeting with Prime Minister Modi. They will discuss strategic partnership and how they can cooperate more closely on issues like defense, counterterrorism and trade.” The official added, “We expect the two leaders to build on the very productive discussions they had in Osaka at the G20 summit, as well as the phone call that they held earlier this week. They will look for solutions on the trade front. The U.S. is looking to India to reduce tariffs and open its markets.”

Great Britain’s Boris Johnson will be looking to Washington, D.C. for a quick free, fair, and reciprocal trade agreement as he leads his nation toward their breakup with the European Union, a trade partnership that President Trump has endorsed in the past.

Why does this matter and why has China signaled in the midst of the G-7 meetings a desire to “calm” the trade front?

Isolation.

As Steven Mosher, the author of Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to World Order, explained last Friday to this author and Breitbart’s Rebecca Mansour on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight, “The tariffs have hurt the export sector of economy tremendously in China, and remember, that’s the only sector of the economy that actually makes money, the rest of the economy loses money.”

The Trump trade policy is designed to reorder a world economic system that was built to consign America to the role of a constant donor state, with trade deficits transferring U.S. wealth and industry around the world. In its place, Trump is negotiating a series of reciprocal, bilateral arrangements built upon the foundation of intellectual property protections, lowered tariffs for U.S. exports, and the ending of currency manipulation. These changes will allow U.S. goods—and the jobs created in making them—to compete and win markets around the world.

And at its core, this reordering is about ending the intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, and currency manipulation that allows China to make their products cheaper than U.S.-made goods in their global and domestic competition against us.

By pursuing trade deals with Japan, Vietnam, and India, along with the just revamped South Korean Free Trade agreement, the 2004 Australian free trade deal, and the waiting-to-be-ratified U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) deal that upgrades and replaces NAFTA, President Trump is aggressively seeking bilateral arrangements with the nations that worry China most.

What’s more, a quick agreement with Great Britain, and potentially one with the European Union and Brazil, built upon the foundation of intellectual property protection and rejection of currency manipulation will create a freedom framework for trade that China will be forced to join or else risk losing access to the world’s largest economies for their exports.

China’s extraordinary dependence upon exporting goods puts the Middle Kingdom in an unfamiliar position of dependency on the rest of the world to purchase the Made in China label. Already the Nikkei Review reports that manufacturers operating in China, who now face uncertainty about the cost and long-term access to the U.S. market, are diversifying their wholesaler network to countries like Vietnam, India, and Mexico. And the U.S. trade in goods deficit with China is now down more than 10 percent since the beginning of 2019.

Is it any wonder why, in the wake of the Japan trade deal news and a flurry of other trade activity, China partially raised a white flag by calling for a “calm resolution” in the trade fight?

Of course, this is all in China’s hands, since all Beijing has to do is sign off on what their negotiators previously agreed to: protecting intellectual property, stopping forced technology transfers to gain access to their markets, and ending currency manipulation, along with some tariff reductions.

My bet is that China will attempt to extend a negotiating game through 2020 with the hope that President Trump will lose his re-election bid, and thus, allow them to return to their business-as-usual of hollowing out America and making America bow again.

But China’s vulnerability has been exposed. They need the world more than the world needs them, and business flight from China will have a lasting impact both on the Chinese economy and their ability to blackmail the world due to Made in China dependency.

From an American perspective, this is called winning.

A comment to Manning’s article summarized matters nicely:  (excerpt)

. . . the current tariffs are aimed at combating countries that impose tariffs against American goods, which also targets US business and citizens. As we have seen most of Trump’s tariff proposals have caused these other countries to back down producing a net benefit for Americans. As will China, as they are already indicating they will do.  . . .

*the graphic and lower caption not part of original

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At The Washington Examiner:

New species* of blood-sucking leech identified in swamps outside DC

Scientists said that the new species Macrobdella mimicus, has been around for a while, but appeared very similar to another species of the parasite. Smithsonian research zoologist Anna Phillips and her colleagues discovered the parasite in 2015, and after much research, released their findings this month in the Journal of Parasitology.

The creature is the first new species of leech discovered on the continent in more than 40 years. The bloodsucker is olive-green, has orange spots, is about as long as cigarette and as wide as two. It has three jaws, each containing 56 to 59 teeth that it uses to clasp onto its prey, slurping up to five times its body weight in blood.

And they’re Registered Democrats!

DLH

*(The scientific name for a tiger leech is Haemadipsa picta. The newly discovered species of blood sucking leech found in Washington D C has been given the scientific name “Schumerdipsa Pelosipicta”.)

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Bret Stephens — House Conservative at the NYT

The New York Times’ and Washington Post’s “good” conservatives are trotted out once a week or so to show “diversity,” just not so much on what counts to the publishers of course. Anyway we have no doubt the publishers have plaques on the wall from the NAACP  — Newspaper Association for the Advancement of Conservative Pretenders. This publisher’s little graphic attempt at derision simply uses the same meme/concept many Black civil rights activists use derisively against those they see as collaborators in subjugation. The graphics are a publisher imposition not the article’s author who is far more erudite. Also see excerpt about the WaPo’s own Jenifer Rubin below this article

NYT’s Bret Stephens: Trump ‘Either Mentally Unwell or Morally Unfit, Maybe Both’ 

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” New York Times columnist Bret Stephens said President Donald Trump was “either mentally unwell or morally unfit”... or both.
Stephens said, “The real issue for Republicans is simply to call out the fact that the president does not stand in any way for the traditional conservative economic principles that have defined the party for the better part of last 70 years.”

He added, “What we saw over the last few days is a president who’s either mentally unwell or morally unfit. Maybe both. I don’t know. But it’s important to simply call these things as we see them. You have behavior that is unprecedented in any kind of presidential history in the United States or, frankly, elsewhere.”

Like Most of Trump’s Critics, Maybe it’s Mr. Stephens Who is “Unwell”

The staunch defender of “traditional conservative economic principles” and Pulitzer Prize winner, Bret Stephens must know “mentally unwell” when he sees it.

A “Never Trumper” from the start , Stephens didn’t spell out specifically which positions of President Trump make him ‘mentally unfit’, but maybe it’s because every other nation at the recently concluded “G-7” klatch disagreed with Trump’s view that the Iran Agreement was a very bad deal!

No, that couldn’t be it. Stephens himself has characterized Obama’s Iran Nuclear Deal as a “worse bargain than the 1938 Munich Agreement with Nazi Germany” (source, Wikipedia)

Probably Stephens’mental assessment of Trump is based on the president’s support of Israel.

Wait! That’s probably not it either.

Stephens, whose parents were “secular Jews” is a supporter of Israel himself. He has, in fact, been outspokenly critical of the “anti-semitism in the Arab world”.

So probably the strongest indicator for Stephens of Trump’s mental deficiency is his attitude toward “climate change” and its advocates.

But, no, that doesn’t seem to fit either. According to Wikipedia, Stephens is “known for his climate change contrarianism”. While he has been described as a “climate change denier”, he calls himself “agnostic” on the issue. Nevertheless he mocks climate change activism as “hysterical alarmism”. Stephens “accepts that human-caused global warming is occurring, he denies that the change “constitutes a threat”.

That seems to leave us with only a couple of things that must stand out for Mr. Stephens, as proof of Donald Trump’s mental deficiency.

Those are:

a) Stephens was a GW Bush supporter, particularly for use of military force in the Middle East. Bret was a “prominent voice” among media advocates for the start of the Iraq War. As is well known, Trump was opposed to the US intervention in Iraq.

b) Trump’s opposition to the ‘mainstream media’s ‘ “fake news” purveyance. Stephens really became revved up and part of the “Stop Trump” movement in the 2016 campaign. ‘Why?’ is not completely clear. But it could have been Stephens did not approve of what he perceived as the president’s moral failings, as indicated by his assessment that Trump is “morally unfit”. At any rate, after Trump was elected, Stephens launched his all out ‘Never Trumper” crusade with a speech at UCLA in 2017 in which he denounced Trump’s “attacks on the media”.

Finally, those ‘traditional conservative economic principles’. Maybe Bret believes a “traditional conservative” president (like G W Bush) would allow China to continue their intellectual property theft, their forced transfer of US companies’ technology their currency manipulation. Or maybe a “traditional conservative” president would continue to have the US bear the greatest share of the NATO burden, or maybe stand aside and allow the dangerous Obama “deals” to transfer US wealth to “climate change” redistributionists and fund Iran’s global terrorism and imminent nuclear weapon development to stand.

So that’s it! To us this doesn’t seem like an “if Trump has lost Bret Stephens, he’s lost the country” moment.

For Bret Stephens, I am not so sure that he is “mentally well”.     DLH

Now over at the WaPo Liberal Plantation . . .

Article at Townhall by Timothy Mead (excerpt), graphic not part of his article

Washington Post ‘Conservative’ Says GOP Needs To Burn To The Ground

Jennifer Rubin — House Conservative at the WaPo

The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin is a conservative in the same way I say I’m on a diet. We both mention it all the time, but it’s obvious we’re full of garbage. The latest evidence of this comes from her appearance with perhaps the dumbest woman on television, Joy Reid, on Sunday. Rubin told her MSNBC audience that after President Donald J. Trump leaves office, preferably by losing re-election, the Republican Party itself needs to be purged of any of his enablers. In fact, the so-called conservative says the whole darn GOP needs to be burnt to a crisp.

Newsbusters’ Brad Wilmouth documented the interaction:

At 11:04 a.m., host Joy Reid declared that “this is an extreme administration that is dangerous” and claimed that Hispanic Americans should carry their birth certificates to avoid being “scooped up and stolen” by ICE.

Rubin then repeated her call for “shunning” and “shaming” Trump administration members and complained that the University of Virginia had employed a former Trump staffer for a while. The disgruntled ex-Republican then aimed further vitriol at her former party:

It’s not only that Trump has to lose, but that all his enablers have to lose — we have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican party. We have to level them because if there are survivors — if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again — will take this as confirmation that, “Hey, it just pays to ride the wave — look at me, I’ve made it through.

Rubin also declared her hope that the Democratic Party would be victorious.    . . .

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