Haiku?
Representative Omar
who may have married her brother
responded to the rally with a Maya Angelou quote
No silly, syllables are wrong
Satire? You Decide
Sanctions Bite Hard on Iran
Trump’s policy is working. The policy has no effect on the United States. U.S. allies are defending their own shipping. Iran is being financially choked, and the constriction hurts.
Leila Gharagozlou:
-
- Tehran faces rising food prices and food shortages.
- Iran’s government is running out of options to help stem the costs.
- A local cook estimates prices have increased by 50% to 100% in the last year.
- The cost of beef has gone from 380,000 rials a kilo three months ago to nearly 1.2 million rials per kilo, pricing out many families.
It has been over a year since President Donald Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear accord designed to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, leaving Germany, France and the United Kingdom to attempt to uphold the agreement with Iran…
…Unable to realize the economic benefits of the nuclear deal, Iran is facing high inflation, a devalued currency and an economy that the International Monetary Fund predicts will shrink by 6% this year. The Iranian government has found its hands tied as prices on foods climb higher, pricing out the population, whose average monthly salary of 32 million rials equals only $220…”
Here is the tell that the policy is working:
Iran seizes foreign tanker with 12 crew accused of smuggling oil
Inspection of the Lunar Module During Trans Lunar Coast
Neil took this picture of Buzz during their initial inspection of the Lunar Module at about 057:03. Buzz is wearing his intravehicular suit, a specially made set of garments designed to be as flame retardant as the rest of the ship, and made from the same fabric as the outer layer of the spacesuits. Buzz’s watch reads 5:35 (Houston time), which is 57:03 GET (Ground Elapsed Time)
Buzz Aldrin’s station during the trans lunar inspection of the Lunar Module Eagle
My Favorite Headline Today
Prince Charles at it again: Issues new 18-month climate tipping point after previous ‘100 month’ deadline expires
You can’t make this stuff up!
As he piles up successes (and gaffes), the Democrats implode
Conrad Black:
“…They are failing to make the distinction between Trump’s policies and his mannerisms. No serious person can dispute the president’s economic successes (especially the virtual elimination of unemployment and energy imports), his revival of a viable policy of nuclear nonproliferation, taking serious measures to stop mass illegal immigration, moving decisively to address dangerous disadvantages in some trading relationships, and shaping up the Western alliance from an association of freeloading beneficiaries of an American military guaranty. He is the first businessman to be president, and he engaged in a policy form of zero-based budgeting. The underlying premise for climate policy is unproved and almost certainly largely false; he scrapped it. The notion that the U.S. performed a service for international development and world harmonization by allowing the Mexicans, Chinese, and others to pick America’s pockets and export unemployment to the United States was false. He is scrapping that. The idea, cherished by Democratic politicians and Republican employers of low-skilled workers, that masses of people could swarm into the country undocumented, be exploited in the labor market, and not be counted anywhere, but still vote (Democratic) and use the welfare and education systems is an outrage. Trump is scrapping that, too. The country is tired of spending billions more every year on education to destroy freedom of expression in the university and produce ever-less-well-educated students in the unionized state school systems. He is attacking those problems, too.
The enemies of the status quo that Trump was attacking in 2016 were barely numerous enough to put him in the White House, but the number of those who are starting to appreciate the progress that is being achieved in critical policy areas is growing. Last week I wrote that the Democrats, who had been counting on the fatuity of treasonous Trump–Russia collusion, were now reduced to snobbery and myth-making, since they had no substantive arguments to make. That is true, but not the whole truth. Tens of millions of people in both parties loved the OBushinton declinism, both the randomly militaristic version of George W. Bush and the feckless cult of national self-doubt of Obama. It worked for them, and since it was a bipartisan arrangement, they had no idea how vulnerable it was. The Trump victory and his success in office have profoundly shaken those dependent on the sluggish, state-dependent ethos that gradually took hold between the Reagan and Trump presidencies, and have won Trump a creeping rise in the polls. The confidence that he could be evicted from office, if not in midterm, at least after one term, is evaporating; the fear and hostility of his enemies (and most of them are enemies, not merely opponents) is genuine, if not creditable, and it drives them to their own extremes of hyperbole…
…What is astonishing and unprecedented is that instead of fudging their differences with the president where he has clearly succeeded (as Landon, Willkie, and Dewey did with Roosevelt), almost all the Democrats have retreated into a more extreme dissent from the administration in every area and have amplified their personal attacks on him to a level unheard since Watergate, and apart from that, since the Civil War. The Democratic party has now pretty well locked itself into an inescapable confinement of commitments to open borders, free health care for everyone including those who enter illegally in their millions; a green terror that will disemploy millions and achieve nothing useful; open-ended reparations for about 80 million African Americans and Native Americans; a doubling of upper-level personal income taxes; and a definition of “reproductive rights” that extends to the killing of live, born, and separated children. There is no chance that the voters could possibly support any of this; it makes George McGovern seem like Boss Tweed, and Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda in the 1960s like George and Martha Washington…”
Satire? You Decide
Thomas Friedman: Trump’s Going to Get Re-elected, Isn’t He?
Hard to tell? The left feels the pressure.
Satire? You Decide
Does Donald Trump’s habit of tweaking the commentariat mean he must be impeached?
Roger Kimball:
“…there was nothing racist about the President’s tweets inviting creeps like Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar to leave the United States if she doesn’t like it here…
…I wish people would give the phrase “people of color” a rest. Everyone is a color…
…the fact that someone is dark-skinned imparts to him no special virtue, just as the fact that someone is Caucasian saddles him with no special liability.
Except, alas, that it does. At least in the racist court of identity politics…
…I am also struck by how divided the world of the chattering class is about the President’s recent tweets. It all started a couple of days ago with this fusillade:
We will never be a Socialist or Communist Country. IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY HERE, YOU CAN LEAVE! It is your choice, and your choice alone. This is about love for America. Certain people HATE our Country…They are anti-Israel, pro Al-Qaeda, and comment on the 9/11 attack, “some people did something.” Radical Left Democrats want Open Borders, which means drugs, crime, human trafficking, and much more.
Several friends wrote to ask what I thought. “I like it,” I said, or words to that effect. So did they, and they, by the way, were a diversegroup (that’s good, right? Diversity is good?). We all agreed that the President’s follow-up today was also the stuff to give them:
Our Country is Free, Beautiful and Very Successful. If you hate our Country, or if you are not happy here, you can leave!
…I don’t worry about his “character” or his Tabasco tweets. I rather enjoy them, to tell the truth, not least because they challenge the pieties of political correctness…”
Ocasio-Cortez gets new 2020 challenger: a Republican immigrant from Jamaica
Alex Pappas:
“…Scherie Murray, a New York businesswoman who immigrated from Jamaica as a child and is active in state Republican politics, is launching a campaign Wednesday for the congressional seat held by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Fox News has learned.
In a phone interview, Murray, 38, confirmed her intention to run for the New York congressional seat as a Republican.
“There is a crisis in Queens, and it’s called AOC,” Murray told Fox News. “And instead of focusing on us, she’s focusing on being famous. Mainly rolling back progress and authoring the job-killing Green New Deal and killing the Amazon New York deal.”
Murray, who was born in Jamaica and moved to the United States when she was 9, is officially launching her campaign Wednesday with an introductory video that takes sharp jabs at the 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez…”
July 16, 1969
https://youtu.be/mmJfQLUTcKg
Liz Cheney
Lift off, we have lift off, at 32 minutes past the hour, lift off on Apollo 11
Since when is the Supreme Court in the business of going beyond constitutionality to mind-reading as to why bureaucrats devise policies that are constitutional?
This was my impression the moment I heard of the decision and that the Chief Justice was the tie-breaker. I am inclined to think the Chief Justice may be infected with TDS.
Ben Weingarten:
It’s Constitutional, But We Don’t Care
“…The fight over whether the simple question, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” could appear on the 2020 U.S. census already implicated major issues of public policy, including immigration, national sovereignty, and voting rights. But the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the matter has now transcended these issues to challenge the rule of law itself, once again raising the question: Who is really “violating norms,” “undermining institutions” and creating “constitutional crises”—President Trump, or his Resisters?
The majority opinion in Department of Commerce v. New York, delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts, reads like former FBI director James Comey’s infamous statement regarding former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s email server. It presents a methodical, compelling case that should result in a just decision, only to undo the case on the most baseless of grounds…”
Satire? You Decide
This piece includes a good video summary of the craziness expressed at various times by individual members of the “Squad.” Worth clicking over just to remind yourself of who these women are.
Matt Vespa:
“…This crew was throwing punches at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but President Trump decided to insert himself into the intra-Democratic Party conflict, telling the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of the party that they can leave if they’re unhappy with America. That set off a meltdown across the liberal media establishment. The accusations of racism and xenophobia were hurled once again. After hours of simmering, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) said they weren’t going to take Trump’s bait, but then decided to chomp down hook, line, and sinker, with Omar wholeheartedly endorsing the impeachment of Donald trump solely on the basis that he beat Hillary Clinton and didn’t like what he said about them on Twitter. Yes, they peddled the same trash liberal talking points, but impeachment seems to be their main unveiling, which isn’t a shocker, while reaffirming the progressive left that they’re still feisty…”
Omar Holding Secret Fundraisers With Islamic Groups Tied to Terror
This story is from March. But I think it highlights part of the reason that the President has focused attention on the “Squad.” Democrats and the MSM are in a position of defending this congresswoman now—and shouting their usual outrage at the President. They have already determined that Trump is racist, xenophobic, criminal, colluder, etc. So now they repeat the same claims in a louder shriller voice. Trump plays them like a fiddle. Having said that, I urge the President to tone it down.
Adam Kredo:
“…Democratic freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) has been holding a series of secret fundraisers with groups that have been tied to the support of terrorism, appearances that have been closed to the press and hidden from public view.
The content of these speeches, given to predominately Muslim audiences, remains unknown, prompting some of Omar’s critics to express concern about the type of rhetoric she is using before these paying audiences, particularly in light of the lawmaker’s repeated use of anti-Semitic tropes in public.
Omar recently spoke in Florida at a private event hosted by Islamic Relief, a charity organization long said to have deep ties to groups that advocate terrorism against Israel. Over the weekend, she will appear at another private event in California that is hosted by CAIR-CA PAC, a political action committee affiliated with the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR a group that was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a massive terror-funding incident.
Omar’s appearance at these closed-door forums is raising eyebrows in the pro-Israel world due to her repeated and unapologetic public use of anti-Semitic stereotypes accusing Jewish people of controlling foreign policy and politics. With Omar’s popularity skyrocketing on the anti-Israel left, it appears her rhetoric is translating into fundraising prowess…”
Boosted by Trump Judges, 9th Circuit Gives Pro-Lifers a Win
Tony Perkins:
“…There’s a reason Planned Parenthood likes to challenge pro-life laws on the West Coast. It knows the cases will eventually bubble up to the most liberal bench in the country—the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
There’s just one problem. After almost three years of President Donald Trump, their favorite appeals court isn’t exactly liberal anymore. And that’s throwing a major wrench into the abortion industry’s plans.
Elections have consequences, and they’ve been big ones for the makeup of America’s courts. Just last week, Trump added another originalist to the 9th Circuit bench, Daniel Bress—bringing the administration’s total for the much-maligned court to seven.
For the first time in decades, the 9th Circuit, which Trump has accused of being “out of control” with “a horrible reputation,” is on the verge of ideological balance. And for liberals, who rely on the courts to do what legislatures will not, the prospect of losing their grip is daunting…”