They really left a mark:
"Age, power still intertwined in Washington" by Jess Bidgood and Liz Goodwin Globe Staff November 24, 2018
WASHINGTON — The graying Capitol got a jolt of youth earlier this month when a new class of House lawmakers, smartphones in hand, descended upon Washington for their freshman orientation, but this ambitious class of younger members has entered a Washington where age and power seem more intertwined than ever before. Make that old age and power.
Donald Trump is the oldest man ever elected to the presidency. Ruling the Senate is Mitch McConnell, 76, along with key committee chairs including Richard Shelby, 84, and Chuck Grassley, 85, and, perhaps most jarring to these freshmen, three Democrats in their late 70s are running unopposed in elections this week for the top leadership spots in the House, 12 years after they first led the House together.
Nancy Pelosi, 78, and her two top deputies, Steny Hoyer, 79, of Maryland and Jim Clyburn, 78, of South Carolina, would make up the oldest leadership trio for Democrats since at least the beginning of the last century, with a combined age of 235.
That was back when Democrats were virulent segregationists, btw.
The freshman Democrats, by contrast, are the youngest group of newly elected members since at least 2002. Their average age is 45, which is a drop of eight years from the freshman Democrats of 2016, according to Casey Burgat of the nonpartisan R Street Institute, a nonpartisan organization that promotes free markets.
The septuagenarian lock on power on the Democratic side of the House has rankled young progressives and helped to fuel the restlessness behind the attempt by a small group of “Never Nancy” rebels to block Pelosi from becoming speaker, even though no one is running against her.
At least our democracy is intact, 'eh?
“The party is being taken over by younger people, and my generation can do this the easy way or the hard way,” said Howard Dean, 70, the former Vermont governor and former Democratic National Committee chairman, who said he supports Pelosi’s bid for speaker but believes deputy leadership should be younger. “Old institutional leadership always resists change, but it’s important we have that change.”
Or at least the illusion of it.
Seth Moulton, 40, the Massachusetts Democrat who is leading the anti-Pelosi contingent, said, “The American people voted for change. If we respond as a party by just reinstalling the same status quo leadership we’ve had since 2006, I think we’ve let down the American people.”
You can say that again.
Still, even some of the freshmen who took on longtime lawmakers to win their own seats — like Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts’ Ayanna Pressley — are considered likely to back Pelosi, who has been flipping members opposed to her and seems increasingly in line to reclaim the top spot.
Pelosi is running on her longtime experience making deals in Washington, arguing that no one else could get the job done as well. “Rookies need not apply,” Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, tweeted in support of Pelosi Tuesday, and some critics have painted the effort to unseat her as ageist or sexist.
The Mossad mole in both the Clinton and Obama White House, and look at the mess the city he has run is, and that's the great thing about identity politics. You can wave a card whenever someone stands in your way.
Washington has long run on seniority, and that has been especially true of the House, where hopeful members can hang on for decades to gain a chance at a coveted committee chairmanship. That long, patient wait for clout is about to pay off for some in the New England delegation. The longer a member of Congress serves, the more time that member has had to build support he or she can draw on during leadership elections, meaning that power begets more power.
In AmeriKa?
Surely you jest!
That only happens in bad, evil dictatorships that are enemies.
Whatever happened to the term limit debate anyway?
“Members of the House and the Senate, they don’t care how old their leaders are; they want to know what their leaders are going to do for them,” said Jeffrey Berry, a professor of political science at Tufts University.
Republicans have taken steps to break the hold of seniority, including creating a six-year term limit for committee chairmanships. The House GOP leaders — outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan, 48, and Kevin McCarthy of California and Steve Scalise of Louisiana, both 53 — are a historically young team.
Oh, great!
Here the Republicans were actually making some changes and were going younger with more dynamism.
Now we can take a step back and go back to some old fogy Democrats still stuck in the swamp.
That generational shift in the rival party makes it all the more frustrating for ambitious Democrats like those swept into office this month, who may well find they have scant opportunities to move up. In the past, talented younger House Democrats like Beto O’Rourke of Texas left to run for higher office rather than wait around for a couple of decades to gain any real power in the House.
Oooooooh!
Their great star was going to spend the next 20 years as a nobody, Wu-who (got the Globe's endorsement anyway).
“The House Democratic leadership has horribly mishandled the situation vis-a-vis new leadership over the years,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic political strategist. “This has been festering for years and should have been addressed at least a couple of election cycles ago.”
Just like the superdelegate scandal that stole the nomination from Sanders, but you know. It worked for Clinton so it's all good.
The brief House career of Patrick Murphy, a former congressman from Florida, offers a case in point. He was elected in 2012 at the age of 29, but he quickly realized there would be no way for him to move up the ranks anytime soon, and ran unsuccessfully in 2016 for Senate, instead of standing for reelection that year.
“It was like, ‘Well wait a minute, what are we doing here?’ ” Murphy said. “The Democrats unfortunately are going to be looked at as this old-guard party with no new faces, and that’s because the only place we have leadership is the House and they’re not necessarily fresh faces.”
Could this be the Democratic high point in the age of Trump?
If what he says is true, that House majority is going to disappear in 2020 -- especially if all they do is investigate and impeach.
In 2016, facing growing criticism, Pelosi mollified younger members by creating new leadership positions for them, but she has suggested it is not her job to find a replacement for herself.
“Do members want somebody anointed? I don’t think they do. The person has to emerge,” she said, according to The New York Times.
So all you fresh whippersnappers mollified now?
And many Democrats say Pelosi has been rightly rewarded by her party for her decades of legislative experience and canny political instincts.
“I have loads of respect for the piss and vinegar that young fresh blood brings into elected office,” said Larry Rasky, a longtime Massachusetts lobbyist. “But you definitely need to take a deep breath and say, What am I really trying to do? And why am I better equipped to do this than Nancy Pelosi, who all she did was get the Affordable Care Act through?”
Of which she famously said we will know what's in the bill when we pass it (after the healthcare conglomerates and pharmaceutical companies wrote the thing).
Many in Massachusetts’ delegation have long hewed to the rules of seniority — and they are about to reap the benefits, and Eddie Bernice Johnson, the Texas congresswoman who will be the oldest Democrat in the House next session, according to The Washington Post, said age and experience are crucial to a successful Congress.
“I look forward to having the young, enthusiastic minds,” Johnson said. “I look forward to seeing them mature.”
How long is she planning to stay around on taxpayer dime?
Johnson, who was elected in 1992, is expected to ascend to the helm of the Science, Space and Technology Committee in the new Congress. It will be her first time chairing a full committee, at the age of 83.....
Back where we started!
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Related:
"Their previous jobs have taken them to the Oval Office, the Situation Room and the Senate floor. One met with a Saudi king and plotted strategy to fight the Islamic State. Another cracked down on human rights abuses in North Korea. Their Rolodexes are flush with former cabinet members and current Pentagon officials who are happy to take their calls. Nearly a dozen members of the House’s incoming class are far from being gawky freshmen, stumbling wide-eyed through the strange corridors of Capitol Hill, but are instead experienced policymakers who have worked in previous presidential administrations — seven of them for former President Barack Obama. Their return to Washington is, in part, a way to undo what they see as the unspooling of the values and legacy of the nation’s 44th president. “We have just won a very fragile foothold in one institution in Washington at a time when all the institutions and norms are under attack,” said Tom Malinowski, who served Mr. Obama as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. “This election is not about changing the country. It’s about saving the country,” but in a freshman class where confrontation, not cooperation, could be most prized, it is not clear whether the Washington veterans will assume leadership roles or take a back seat to younger, brasher freshmen like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
Actually, it is clear. Old guard is leadership.
You know, one of the rules to good propaganda is being consistent.
Otherwise, it's just garbage.
The group brings not only experience, “but a philosophy of government,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s former senior adviser, adding: “They’re progressive but they’re pragmatic. They’re results-oriented. They measure success more by what they do than whether they can score a win for the blue team.” House Democrats have promised real progress on an agenda that includes lowering prescription drug prices, expanding health insurance coverage and increasing infrastructure investment, as well as investigating President Trump, and these freshmen — who include a cabinet secretary to President Bill Clinton and former key policy players at the White House and Pentagon — provide significant heft. “This is a group that has really seen it all,” said Eric Lesser, a former Obama White House aide who is now a state senator in Massachusetts. “They’re just not going to be intimidated.” A pair of them, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mr. Malinowski of New Jersey, have previously tussled with Congress.
That is where the print ended, and they are all Deep State Democrats!
Ms. Slotkin, a former C.I.A. officer who served three tours of duty in Iraq and informed the nation’s strategy against the Islamic State, appeared before the Senate for her confirmation hearing as a nominee for assistant secretary of defense to Mr. Obama. (She also served under George W. Bush.)
Mr. Malinowski, who helped levy sanctions against North Korean officials for human rights abuses, was confirmed as assistant secretary of state after receiving lavish praise from Senator John McCain. Another incoming member, Haley Stevens of Michigan, was once in charge of Mr. Obama’s Senate confirmations and cabinet designations.
Joining them is a former Clinton health and human services secretary, Donna Shalala of Florida, who dealt with the rising cost of health care long before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and Lauren Underwood of Illinois, a former senior adviser on health issues under Mr. Obama. Andy Kim of New Jersey served on Mr. Obama’s National Security Council.
Incoming members are already leveraging one of the perks of their veteran status: an easy familiarity with prominent movers and shakers. Ms. Slotkin was in the green room at MSNBC, waiting to be interviewed, when she bumped into a lawyer she knew from her days working on Mr. Bush’s National Security Council, John B. Bellinger III.
“I sort of said, Hey, I just want to reintroduce myself, I was a young staffer when you were the senior lawyer at State,” she said. “He couldn’t have been more lovely, and we were reconnecting on people we knew in common.”
Mr. Malinowski said he intended to reach out to Republican senators with whom he has worked, and Ms. Slotkin’s stack of congratulatory notes looks like a who’s who of Washington.
“A lot of my national security community from both sides of the aisle have been reaching out and saying, ‘Anything we can do,’” she said in an interview.
On the other side of the aisle, Michael Waltz, Republican of Florida, is a former Green Beret officer who served as Vice President Dick Cheney’s counterterrorism adviser and as the Pentagon’s director for Afghanistan policy.
In significant ways, the Washington that the Obama alumni are returning to is a different place, ruled by people who rose to power by explicitly repudiating Mr. Obama.
In many cases, that compelled them to run. Ms. Underwood, a nurse and former Obama health adviser, was spurred on by Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, backed by the incumbent she ultimately defeated. “I got mad,” she said.
It's okay for Democrats to get angry.
Many who ran viewed their campaigns as an answer to the call to action that Mr. Obama issued in his farewell address delivered in Chicago, where he implored his supporters to take up the mantle of his legacy.
What legacy is that?
Using the IRS to harass political opponents?
The infiltration and surveillance of an opposition presidential campaign gained through a political document created by foreign influencers so that a judge could grant a warrant that would allow the national security institutions of this country too get involved?
The six-inch layer of tar at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico?
The three wars (Syria, Libya, Yemen) that he began and the coup in Ukraine (the attempt in Turkey failed)?
The Snowden revelations (remember them? Obama spied on world leaders who were allies!)?
The parties and porn viewing throughout the alphabet agencies under his watch?
The yawning inequality gap?
Just what legacy are they talking about?
“Who better to offer that accountability than people who have seen an administration from the inside and understand how to hold it accountable?” asked Julián Castro, a secretary of housing and urban development under Mr. Obama.
Colin Allred of Texas, a former White House fellow and special assistant to the general counsel of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Mr. Castro, has expertise that will be in high demand: congressional oversight. One of his tasks at HUD was fielding oversight requests from Capitol Hill.
HUD is a notorious pipeline to the CIA. That's why all the funds go missing and no one knows where they went.
Mr. Allred, a former N.F.L. linebacker and civil rights lawyer who ousted a veteran Texas Republican, said Democrats must strike a careful balance between oversight and legislation.
“I ran for Congress, and now I am planning to go there to get things done,” he said. “I think there are certainly times when we need to be a check on this president, but there are also things that we can work with him on.”
For some alumni who heeded Mr. Obama’s call to service, the rewards were rich. Funded personally by Mr. Obama, an infrastructure emerged to help former administration officials capture office.
Officials, like Eric H. Holder Jr., the former attorney general, Samantha Power, the former United Nations ambassador, and Valerie Jarrett, the former senior White House adviser, headlined fund-raisers in seven major cities across the nation — in one instance tickets started at $44 and went up to $10,000. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the former vice president, campaigned for Ms. Underwood, and when Mr. Obama headlined a rally in his home state of Illinois, she was there.
SIGH!
I'm glad they mentioned them and their donor model, and I'm glad they brought up Holder and Power. Power (and Susan Rice) were the ones who leaked the transition team maskings of Flynn and others, and Holder is famous for saying certain banks are too big to jail -- before he jailed and spied on reporters, remember? Was also behind the Fast and Furious arming of Mexican drug cartels.
Jim Hagedorn, a newly elected Republican from Minnesota and former Treasury Department official, and Mr. Waltz did not have all that at their disposal, but they did market their experience. Mr. Waltz featured a snapshot of himself in Mr. Cheney’s office shaking the vice president’s hand.
Mr. Waltz said he saw room to work with the Obama alumni, noting their shared experiences in national security and overseas service.
“On the ship, in the foxhole, no one cares about your political affiliation. It’s about mission. It’s about getting results,” he said in an interview. “I pray we keep that ethos.”
Forget it:
"Across South, Democrats risk speaking boldly and alienating rural whites" by Jonathan Martin New York Times November 24, 2018
So?
See: How Democrats Stole the 2018 Midterms
I was told a week ago “that there is in fact a new American majority of people of color and progressive white voters,” and they do not need the white suburban and Rust Belt voters anymore.
So WTF, NYT?
JACKSON, Miss. — A conundrum that Democrats face across the South — from Mississippi and Alabama, which have been hostile to the party for years, to states such as Florida and Georgia that are more hospitable in cities but still challenging in many predominantly white areas. Even as they made gains in the 2018 elections in the suburbs that were once Republican pillars, Democrats are seeing their already weak standing in rural America erode further.
One wonders how they f***ing won then!
Now, as Democrats mount a last-minute and decidedly against-the-odds campaign to snatch a Senate seat in this most unlikely of states, they are facing the same problem that undermined some of their most-heralded candidates earlier this month.
They going to steal Mississippi and there is nothing Trump can do about it.
See:
"Major League Baseball is requesting the return of its $5,000 donation to Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s campaign, in the latest blow to the Mississippi Republican ahead of Tuesday’s runoff....."
The narrative has been provided for a historic loss (or victory).
The campaigns of Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Andrew Gillum in Florida, and Beto O’Rourke in Texas may have electrified black and progressive white voters, but they had an equal and opposite effect as well: In rural county after rural county, this trio of next-generation Democrats performed worse than President Obama did in 2012.
Uneffinging real!!
They did worse than a guy who helped destroy the Democratic Party.
More ominous for Democrats was that the deep losses this year among rural and some exurban whites were not just confined to Southern states where they nominated unabashed progressives with hopes of transforming the midterm electorate. They lost four Senate seats, as well as governor’s races in Iowa and Ohio, with more conventional candidates whose strength in cities and upper-income suburbs was not enough to overcome their deficits in less densely populated areas.
OMG, the election really was a TOTAL RIG JOB with pre$$ narrative provided beforehand! The infamous blue wave!
As Democrats look toward the 2020 presidential election, this demographic chasm is alarming party strategists who fear it could cement the GOP’s grip on the Senate and make it difficult to defeat President Trump.
HA!
See: Turning Towards 2020
“There’s a baseline percent of the white vote you have to get to win and you can’t get to it just through young and progressive excitement,” said Steve Schale, a Florida-based Democratic strategist who worked on Obama’s campaigns there and wrote a memo urging his party to grapple with why they got close but lost some key races this year. “The path from 48 to 50 is like climbing Mount Everest without oxygen.”
Which is why you get all the all the vote mishandling and problems in Democratic strongholds like Broward and Palm Beach. They tried to steal them but the math isn't there, and it also tells you that Trump likely won in a landslide and that Hillary didn't get more votes (unless you count all the illegals in the sanctuary cities).
While Obama is remembered for galvanizing an ascendant bloc of voters of color, millennials, and unmarried women, Schale said, “the piece of the Obama coalition that people forget is that he did not sustain these kinds of losses in rural and exurban areas.”
Yeah, he won, but all the Democrats under him lost after Obama pioneered online campaigning, remember? That's how ascendant they are. Also clues you into to the fact that he stole it from Romney, who was not helped by his own deplorables remark.
Look, the guy won legitimately in 2008 because this nation was so tired of Bush; however, all he and the Democrats gave us was a crappy corporate health law, three more wars, and a coup in the Ukraine to put us on the edge of WWIII while providing a telegenic face for eight years of corruption and neglect.
Obama invested resources and manpower in some of these communities, but also had the benefit of campaigning when the electorate was marginally less polarized. Yet as Democrats consider how to win again in Florida, and how aggressively to contest Georgia in 2020, it remains unclear if they can reverse their downward trajectory in the most heavily white parts of each state.
He is the one who contributed to the polarization because it was politically advantageous for him to do so, duh!
Roland Martin, an African-American commentator, said Democrats should not forsake heavily white communities entirely; but ultimately, he said, the party’s fate in the South would swing on turnout among minority voters.
“Because there are still more white voters, what it means is that people of color are going to have to have higher turnout rates,” Martin said. “Andrew Gillum cannot win Florida if Miami-Dade turnout is below 60 percent, period.”
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Sorry, I'm no longer enchanted with Democrats, no matter who they are.
Also see:
"President Donald Trump congratulated himself for falling oil prices. He chided the Federal Reserve over interest rates. He claimed Central American countries are trying to dump “certain people” into the United States. Trump’s Florida holiday stay came to an end Sunday with a visit to his golf club for the fifth day in a row, but his tweeting took no break. The president patted himself on the back for a dip in petroleum prices, writing, “thank you President T.” He also admonished the U.S. central bank over the cost of borrowing money. In a separate tweet, he called on Mexico to stop caravans of Central American migrants from trying to reach the U.S. border......"
Will be a job for the new leader:
"After more than 15 years of campaigning as a leftist firebrand, the new president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, must swiftly decide: Will he stand up to Trump and defend the migrants’ pleas to be allowed into the United States, even if many of their asylum requests will ultimately be rejected? Or will he acquiesce to Trump’s demands and the economic imperative of good relations with the United States? López Obrador, who has promised jobs and visas to migrants traveling north, has to square his lofty campaign promises with some nettlesome international realities — as the world watches. The question is: Which version of López Obrador will be facing off against Trump? Unpredictable. Temperamental. Beloved by his base and loathed by his detractors. López Obrador has been compared to Trump, and as is often the case with the US president, even his closest aides say they are not sure which López Obrador will emerge: the avuncular leader who preaches love and morality, the leftist firebrand who skewers opponents, the pragmatist aiming for a broader development deal for the region — or the impetuous politician who seems to make it up as he goes along. The fracas at the border underscored the fragility of the situation. Top officials in López Obrador’s new government fear that images of migrants trying to force their way into the United States will heighten the anti-immigrant sentiment that Trump has channeled so effectively in the US. That could make it even harder to strike a resolution that involves compromise, and while López Obrador has promised humane treatment for migrants passing through or staying in Mexico, it is unclear what his country will get for housing tens of thousands of migrants as they await asylum decisions from backlogged US courts....."
They finally let him win an election because there could be no denying it with vote fraud.
Related:
"Migrants rush U.S. border in Tijuana, but fall back in face of tear gas" by Maya Averbuch New York Times November 26, 2018
There they go waving kids at us again in this above-the-fold, front-page feature.
TIJUANA, Mexico — A peaceful march by Central American migrants waiting at the southwestern US border veered out of control on Sunday afternoon, as hundreds of people tried to evade a Mexican police blockade and run toward a giant border crossing that leads into San Diego.
I saw the video and it was far from peaceful, and mostly young men!
In response, the US Customs and Border Protection agency shut the border crossing in both directions and fired tear gas to push back migrants from the border fence. The border was reopened later Sunday evening.
Soon after the migrants began their midmorning march to the border in Tijuana, they were met by Mexican federal police officers at a bridge that leads to the San Ysidro border crossing, through which millions of people pass each year. At that point, many of the marchers bypassed the police by running across a dry riverbed.
That's where they were sleeping.
Police, carrying anti-riot shields, formed a new line and appeared to contain the rush of migrants 100 yards or more from the crossing. They erected metal barriers on the roads and sidewalks leading to the main border crossing for cars and trucks.
A smaller group of migrants then tried to reach a train border crossing.....
That's when I hopped off.
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Don't worry; the buses and trains are coming to get them.
Related: Obama agents pepper-sprayed migrants
Gee, the ma$$ media never squawked about that!
Reading this shit is enough to make you sick:
"Trump administration’s plea to health care industry surprises experts" by Robert Pear New York Times November 24, 2018
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has labored zealously to cut federal regulations, but its latest move has still astonished some experts on health care: It has asked for recommendations to relax rules that prohibit kickbacks and other payments intended to influence care for people on Medicare or Medicaid.
The goal is to open pathways for doctors and hospitals to work together to improve care and save money. The challenge will be to accomplish that without also increasing the risk of fraud.
With its request for advice, the administration has touched off a lobbying frenzy.....
That's when everything flatlined.
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"Massachusetts doctors going the startup route" by Jonathan Saltzman Globe Staff November 26, 2018
One graduated from Harvard Medical School but never practiced medicine, deciding at age 26 to develop a device to fight obesity.
Another graduated from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and promptly joined the drug industry, recently helping to engineer the sale of a Cambridge startup in a deal worth up to $775 million.
A third treats patients at Massachusetts General Hospital but works mostly at the biotech she created as a first-year resident.
Plenty of CEOs at life sciences companies began their careers as doctors, but most practiced medicine for years before landing their jobs. More and more, however, executives in Massachusetts’ red-hot biotech cluster are taking a different route. After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on elite medical schools, they decide they don’t want to wear a white coat — at least not most of the time. They believe they can do more to improve health care by being entrepreneurs.....
They are Dr. Samuel Levy, one is Dr. Ailis Tweed-Kent, and then there’s 39-year-old Dr. Adam Friedman.
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Related: Extraordinary tactics, perverse incentives: Makers of top-selling drugs hike prices in lockstep, and patients bear the cost
If you need any consoling you can talk to the rabbi over at Walmart.
All of a sudden, the deficit and debt are an issue!
"Trump undermines his own order to trim deficit" by Josh Dawsey and Damian Paletta Washington Post November 26, 2018
WASHINGTON — President Trump is demanding that his top advisers craft a plan to reduce the country’s ballooning budget deficits, but he has flummoxed his own aides by repeatedly seeking new spending while ruling out measures needed to address the country’s unbalanced budget.
Trump’s deficit-reduction directive came last month, after the White House reported a large increase in the deficit for the previous 12 months. The announcement unnerved Republicans and investors, helping fuel a big sell-off in the stock market.
Oh, they are going to blame the debt and deficit as well. Whatever.
Look for massive social service cuts, even with a Democrat House (and that will be the end of that).
All after the tax cuts that won't be rescinded and which led to 28% corporate profit growth this year.
This account of Trump’s deficit stance is based on conversations with 10 current and former officials in the White House and Congress. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations or private conversations. The White House has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
Must be them who sent the letter to the NYT, huh?
Enjoy the fake news, folks!
Administration officials have, for now, crafted a sparse plan that would recycle past proposals and call on Congress to trim federal spending on a variety of programs, two White House officials said, but even as he has demanded deficit reduction, Trump has handcuffed his advisers with limits on what measures could be taken, and almost immediately after demanding the cuts from his Cabinet secretaries, Trump suggested that some areas — particularly the military — would be largely spared.
The president has said no changes can be made to Medicare and Social Security, two of the government’s most expensive entitlements, as he has promised that the popular programs will remain untouched.
He touches them and he won't win reelection.
When staffers sought to include an attack on Democrats’ Medicare-for-all proposals in Trump’s campaign speeches this fall, he initially blanched, two administration aides said. Medicare is popular, he said, and voters want it. Eventually, he agreed to the attack if he could say Democrats were going to take the entitlement away.
Just want to remind the WaPoo that those benefits are NOT ENTITLEMENTS!
Taxpayers PAID INTO THE PROGRAMS!
He has suggested that military spending could be curtailed slightly, from $716 billion this year to $700 billion in his next proposal, a smaller reduction than other agencies would face.
How about ending some wars rather than starting new ones?
The plan is not expected to include large-scale tax increases, which would be a nonstarter with congressional Republicans.
In total, government debt has risen roughly $2 trillion since Trump took office, and the federal government now owes $21.7 trillion, according to the Treasury Department.
How much did it rise under Obama, and why was no one in the media worried then?
The president’s agenda has contributed to that increase and is projected to continue to do so, both through the GOP tax cut and with bipartisan spending increases, and Trump’s recent interest in the issue is at odds with his longstanding previous indifference, according to current and former aides.
Three former senior administration officials said the deficit issue was rarely brought up in Trump’s presence because he had no interest in discussing it.
When former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn’s staffers prepared a presentation for Trump about deficits, Cohn told them no. It wouldn’t be necessary, he said, because the president did not care about deficits, according to current and former officials.
Trump also repeatedly told Cohn to print more money, according to three White House officials familiar with his comments.
‘‘He’d just say, run the presses, run the presses,’’ one former senior administration official said, describing the president’s Oval Office orders. ‘‘Sometimes it seemed like he was joking, and sometimes it didn’t.’’
What that statement there tells you is TRUMP is WOKE, and it explains the virulent ma$$ media campaign against him as well.
Cohn is gone now, but he's the only one who hasn't been tarnished working at the Trump White House.
Two current aides said they had not heard Trump make that comment in recent months, and he is changing his tune on the budget in public statements.
‘‘We’re going to start paying down debt,’’ Trump said during a White House event last month. ‘‘We have a lot of debt.’’
Trump often uses ‘‘debt’’ — the total amount the government owes — to refer to the deficit, the annual gap between what the government takes in and what it spends.
Trump also is often not versed in the particulars of the federal budget.
I'm tired of the hatchet job they do on this guy every single day, sorry.
Chief of Staff John Kelly has told others about watching television with Trump and asking the president how much the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff earns. Trump guessed $5 million, according to people who were told the story by Kelly, startling the chief of staff. Kelly responded that he made less than $200,000. The president suggested he get a large raise and noted the number of stars on his uniform.
Even as Trump has told aides he’s finally interested in taking steps to reduce deficits, he has floated several ideas that would further expand them. He has proposed a 10 percent tax cut for the middle class, a huge package of infrastructure spending, and billions of dollars for a wall along the US-Mexico border. He hasn’t specified how he would pay for any of those things.
How to pay for things is never a concern when it's a Democrat.
Trump repeatedly pushed staffers to spend more on the infrastructure bill this summer, envisioning large projects for many key states.
He thinks Democrats are going to bridge the divide?
I think they would rather see this country fall apart than do anything to help the American people.
Btw, that is where the print copy road ended.
‘‘Infrastructure Week’’ became a joke in the White House because it often happened during disastrous weeks that were waylaid by guilty pleas, errant tweets, or bombshell developments in the Russia probe. Many staffers thought the problem was that it was too expensive, but Trump thought the government was not spending enough, according to current and former officials, and he is looking to revive the pricey plan.
Because the government spends much more than it brings in through taxes, it must borrow money to cover the balance by issuing debt. The US Treasury projects it will issue $1.3 trillion in new debt this year, more than double its borrowing from one year ago.
Rising interest rates are projected to make the cost of borrowing money much more expensive. The United States will soon spend more money on interest payments than it does for the entire Medicaid program, more than $400 billion.
All going to bankers, rich investors, and foreign nations!
Now you know why they need to cut social services, too!
Trump’s internal contradictions on the budget mirror how conflicted the Republican Party has become on an issue that had been one of its tenets for decades. Speaker Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, who campaigned on reducing deficits, has rarely brought up the issue with the president in recent months.
Why would he? He is leaving!
‘‘Republicans have talked a good game about deficit spending, but in reality their record shows they haven’t stood up and stopped it,’’ said Marc Short, the president’s former director of legislative affairs.
It's the same with the Democraps!
As they prepared a tax bill in 2017, Republicans initially suggested their plan would offset the cuts with tax increases elsewhere, but they abandoned that commitment early in the process. Trump in December signed a law that nonpartisan analyses suggest will add $1.5 trillion to deficits over the next decade. That figure is projected to jump to more than $2 trillion if the law’s temporary cuts to income tax rates are made permanent.
Didn't Obama triple the damn thing?
Many Republicans have said the tax cuts will pay for themselves by producing a massive jump in economic growth — a claim rejected at the time by many economists across the political spectrum. Growth has increased moderately since the cuts took effect, but the increases have fallen well short of the level needed to prevent the cuts from adding to deficits.
Trump also signed a bipartisan $1.3 trillion budget bill in March that added new funding for the government’s domestic and military programs. The president criticized the bill at the time and said he would not sign another mass budget measure.
With Democrats set to take control of the House in January, a future deficit-reduction deal would have to be bipartisan, and Hill veterans see that as a stretch.
As of now, the central plank of the White House’s new deficit-reduction push would be a proposal to cut congressionally approved spending by about 5 percent. Some programs would see a much smaller proposed reduction; Trump has said publicly the reduction for the Pentagon could be about 2 percent, but any of these changes would have to be approved by House Democrats, who are likely to be resistant, especially as many campaigned on large-scale increases to the government.
That's the problem with $ociali$m now. We simply don't have the money to implement what they want.
‘‘Could there be a bipartisan deal on deficits?’’ asked Avik Roy, a former policy adviser to incoming Republican senator Mitt Romney of Utah, former Texas governor Rick Perry, and Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida. ‘‘You never know, but I don’t think that’s what the Democrats will be itching for in the House.’’
The White House is set to detail its new plans in a budget proposal early next year. Some White House officials have considered proposing a major overhaul of Medicaid, but two people briefed on the process said Trump is likely to offer the same changes that the White House has called for unsuccessfully in the past.
That's healthcare for poor people.
It is unusual for budget deficits to expand the way they have during the Trump administration because they typically contract during periods of economic growth. During President Obama’s last year in office, the deficit was $587 billion, a decrease from years when it had reached $1 trillion annually in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Government spending is largely broken into two categories. There are programs that are automatically funded, such as Medicare and Social Security, and programs that must be funded by Congress each year, such as the military, housing, intelligence, and transportation.
That category is known as discretionary spending, and that’s where Trump has told his Cabinet advisers to seek a 5 percent reduction, but cuts of that magnitude would probably reduce the deficit by about $70 billion, and it’s projected to reach $1 trillion next year, showing the magnitude of the tax cuts and other parts of the budget that have remained untouched.
Over a round of golf at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia last year, Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, encouraged the president to push for deficit-control measures and to force Republicans to cut spending.
Trump was dismissive of Corker’s request. ‘‘The people want their money,’’ the president said, according to two people familiar with the exchange. The conversation soon moved on.....
As I will.
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They should all be jailed, for lying at the very least.
Also see: Congress is taking new steps to stop robocall scammers
PFFFT!
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What next for Harvard’s affirmative action case?
Who cares?
‘I been in hell all my life’
He didn't get into Harvard.
[Flip to below fold for another sob story]
Hello friends, it’s been a while
It's a load of self-centered, self-absorbed crap with TDS (being forced to detach from so many things had an upside, too. Not being able to follow the horrors of the Trump administration minute-by-minute gave me a relative calm I hadn’t felt for a couple of years), and I missed her about as much as I missed Cullen -- who remarkably is back in his familiar perch.
Related: Loretta McLaughlin, groundbreaking reporter and former Globe editorial page editor, dies at 90
More self-serving, self-adulating, self-aggrandizing slop!
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Rain helps mostly douse California fire but slows searchers
Veterans find community, hard work in rare firefighting crew
One wonders if they will ever recover.
Catastrophic Northern California fire is finally contained
That's because we are all on to them!
Were there any trees left standing?
"A winter storm blanketed much of the central Midwest with snow on Sunday at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, bringing blizzard-like conditions that grounded hundreds of flights and forced the closure of major highways on one of the busiest travel days of the year....."
And the official start of winter is still more than three weeks away!
"A small amount of New England shrimp has been available in recent years, but that will not be the case this winter. The next few years of a shutdown of the New England shrimp industry will extend to a limited, research-based fishery that has helped provide a small amount of shrimp to retailers. Regulators recently decided to extend a moratorium on Northern shrimp fishing until 2021. In some previous years of the moratorium, New England shrimp trawlers and trappers could bring some of the seafood to market via the ‘‘research set aside.’’ The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has ruled that the population of shrimp is so low that even the research program can’t be continued. Canadian fishermen harvest the same species, but their product is difficult to find in the United States, rendering the shrimp essentially off the market for US consumers. The shrimp population has fallen as the Gulf of Maine has warmed. The fishery was first shut down in 2013. Fishermen from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine formerly harvested the shrimp."
Is that why they are pulling frozen solid turtles out of the ocean?
Can it be that climate change and the alleged virtue signaling that come with is nothing more than a cover for other decisions being made for other reasons?
If only the government could taking over land, huh?
"Fewer sightings doesn’t necessarily mean the iconic giants are dying off, or that they’re not still migrating to the islands, but the apparent disappearance of many whales from a historically predictable location is causing concern and some researchers believe there’s a link between warmer ocean temperatures in Alaska and the effect that has on the whales’ food chain....."
The lying is so over the top and jumping the shark it reeks of shrill madne$$ and desperation for their damn carbon plan!
Maybe they swam to New Zealand:
More than 140 pilot whales are dead after mass beaching in New Zealand
The sharks and dogs ate 'em.
Anybody test the carcasses for radioactivity?
"A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck western Iran near its border with Iraq on Sunday night, injuring more than 400 people and sending fearful residents running into the streets, authorities said. The temblor hit near Sarpol-e Zahab in Iran’s Kermanshah province, which was the epicenter of an earthquake last year that killed more than 600 people and where some still remain homeless. The quake struck just after 8 p.m. in Iran, meaning most were still awake at the time and able to quickly flee. The earthquake was felt as far away as the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, about 110 miles southwest. Iran is located on major seismic faults and experiences an earthquake per day on average. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake flattened the historic city of Bam in southern Iran, killing 26,000 people. Last year’s earthquake near Sarpol-e Zahab, a predominantly Kurdish town, had a magnitude of 7.3 and injured more than 9,000 people. The region, nestled in the Zagros Mountains, largely rebuilt in recent decades after Iran and Iraq’s ruinous 1980s war, saw many buildings collapse or sustain major damage in the 2017 quake....."
Will hopefully keep USrael away.
Local Christmas tree farmers expect a merry holiday
Only problem is suppliers have been hit particularly hard by a late frost this spring and this fall’s early snowstorms. Heavy snow up north has made it impossible for some suppliers to access their trees.
At least the renovations of the park are nearly complete, and the parade went on despite the gray skies.
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Weed is legal, Spot. Give us your badge.
That's a pile of NYT you-know-what.
The dog got so high it killed him.
Long lines greet cannabis customers on first Saturday of legal recreational sales
And the traffic was unbearable (thanks for dragging your feet with all the delays!).
Finally, you are at the front of the line:'
"Marijuana stores are open in Mass. Now what?" by Dan Adams Globe Staff November 26, 2018
After a two-year wait that tested the patience of marijuana consumers and business owners, recreational pot shops are finally open for business in Massachusetts.
Now what?
So far, just two cannabis retailers have opened their doors: In Boston, it will probably be months before the first shop opens.
Steve Hoffman, the state Cannabis Control Commission’s chairman, declined to put a firm date on the opening of the next wave of stores but said he’s hopeful more will open before the end of this year.
Uh-huh.
Hoffman and other commission officials have consistently defended the pace of the agency’s rollout of recreational sales, saying that they are committed to thoroughly applying the law’s long list of requirements and that they won’t rush noncompliant companies through the process.
They touted the successful launch of the state’s “seed-to-sale” inventory tracking system on Tuesday, which allows real-time monitoring of cannabis plants and products derived from them.
Really digging through the chaff, huh?
“From a regulatory standpoint . . . our inspectional process is really robust; from a compliance standpoint, our technology functions just as we expected it to,” Shawn Collins, the agency’s executive director, told reporters last week. “What I’m proud of is it is a completely regulated market, literally from seed to sale.”
I find that so interesting.
They must need to stink like weed to crawl up your a$$ like that.
Then I thought of regulation in other areas. Not only do we not have a "seed-to-sale" real time oversight process with GMOs, they don't even want you to know of what your food contains.
The irony. No wonder they pushing marijuana on the populace. Maybe you will believe all their hot air and bull$hit.
Customers shouldn’t expect the agency to suddenly approve scores of shops, insiders said, citing the commission’s consistent stance that it would rather move deliberately than rush and risk missing something.
Interesting viewpoint seeing as the Legislature budgeted $60 million from pot sales. They have received a mere pittance so far because of the delayed implementation, and how $mart is it to delay until after Chri$tma$?
Just shows how full of smoke they are as the Globe blows it in your face!
“They’re going to do their thorough diligence on every application,” said Valerio Romano, an attorney who represents numerous companies applying for licenses.
Another stalling tactic!
One wishes they had done their due diligence when it came to all the bank frauds and college loan swindles, 'eh?
In any case, Romano added, the slow pace of the recreational rollout and the siting of stores in far-flung corners of the state are largely attributable to municipal resistance, not commission foot-dragging.
Yeah, "in any case." The analogy is forget the bs I just shoveled your way and smoke this!
However, he said, that could soon change, with dozens of local moratoriums on pot companies set to expire on Jan. 1 — and as city and town officials watch their neighbors raking in revenue from taxes and fees on such firms.
Yuh-huh. $omehow, they were pu$hing away this pot of money.
Maybe it was the pharmaceutical lobbying loot.
“There’s something powerful about seeing those lines of people with money in their pockets,” Romano said.....
OMFG!
The $TENCH of GREED!
A David O’Brien, the executive director of the Massachusetts Cannabis Business Association, said he “hopes the Legislature will step up” and get the rollouts rolling.
COUGH, COUGH, COUGH!
They the one's who rewrote the referendum after giving themselves a pay raise before sitting around for six months smoking on the rewrite of the referendum!
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Related(?): Let’s talk about legalizing and regulating all drugs, not just marijuana
Turns out the alarmists were right after all!
It's a far out concept, man, and you would have to be smoking something to not see that for the total fraud it is. Computer special effects are great! Don't even have to provide phony photos like in the lunar landing and Oswald days!
Also see:
Working together, we can end the opioid epidemic in Massachusetts
Who want$ to end it?
From Canada, ideas on keeping people safe from ‘poisoned’ illicit drugs
They want to provide safe spaces for addicts so their addictions will be enabled.
Do that and you m ight as well legalize and prepare for the streets of Bo$ton to start filling up with feces and needles like in San Francisco.
Btw, these Canadians are the same people that just legalized pot nationwide, right?
Yeah, let's take their advice regarding addiction!
Good Christ!
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Do you smell something, readers?
I can't quite place it:
"Police acknowledge officer killed wrong man in wake of Alabama mall shooting" Associated Press November 24, 2018
HOOVER, Ala. (AP) — Protesters on Saturday marched through an Alabama shopping mall where police killed a black man they later acknowledged was not the triggerman in a Thanksgiving night shooting that wounded two people.
An officer shot and killed 21-year-old Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford, Jr. of Hueytown while responding to the Thursday mall shooting. Police said Bradford was fleeing the scene with a handgun.
Hoover police initially told reporters Bradford had shot a teen at the mall, but later retracted the statement.
‘‘We knew that was false,’’ said stepmother Cynthia Bradford when she heard police were blaming him for the shooting. She described her stepson, who went by E.J., as a respectful young man whose father worked at a jail for the Birmingham Police Department.
Hoover Police Captain Gregg Rector said investigators now believe that more than two people were involved in the initial fight ahead of the shooting, and that ‘‘at least one gunman’’ is still at large.....
Will the mind-bending psyop, Operation Gladio style events ever end?
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The me$$age there is stay out of the malls this Chri$tma$.
Related:
"The father of a black man killed by a police officer during a shooting at an Alabama mall said his son had a permit to carry a gun for self-defense, adding it was hurtful police initially portrayed his son as the shooter. Emantic ‘‘EJ’’ Bradford Jr., 21, was fatally shot by the officer responding to a Thanksgiving night shooting that wounded an 18-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl. Hoover police initially said they thought Bradford, who was carrying a handgun, was responsible but later retracted that statement. Bradford’s father, Emantic Bradford Sr., said the family wants to know if there is police body camera footage of the shooting. Police have not confirmed whether such footage exists. Police Captain Gregg Rector said investigators now believe more than two people were involved in a fight ahead of the shooting and that at least one gunman is still at large who could be responsible. Police said that while Bradford Jr. ‘‘may have been involved in some aspect of the altercation, he likely did not fire the rounds that wounded the 18-year-old victim.’’ Rector said police regret that their initial statement was not accurate.
How often do we NOT GET a LONE GUNMAN?
That was where the print copy ended.
About 200 demonstrators marched Saturday evening through the Riverchase Galleria mall in suburban Birmingham and held a moment of silence for Bradford at the spot where he was killed. The slain man’s stepmother, Cynthia Bradford, described her stepson, who went by E.J., as a respectful young man whose father worked at a jail for the Birmingham Police Department. She also said of the initial police account: ‘‘We knew that was false.’’ The unanswered questions have stirred emotions in the suburb of the majority-black city of Birmingham. Demonstrators on Saturday included several relatives, and they chanted ‘‘E.J’’ and ‘‘no justice, no peace’’ as they marched. Family members described their horror of finding out from social media that Bradford was dead. Video circulated of Bradford lying in a pool of blood on the mall floor. Bradford Sr. said his son had a permit to carry a weapon for self-defense. He said he doesn’t know exactly what happened at the mall but added: ‘‘They were so quick to rush to judgment. . . . I knew my son didn’t do that. People rushed to judgment. They shouldn’t have done that.’’ Carlos Chaverst, an activist in Birmingham who organized Saturday’s protest, said that when authorities acknowledged the person killed was not the actual shooter, ‘‘that sent us in an uproar.’’ He said more protests will be held to hold officials accountable. ‘‘When we found out about this incident, there were questions from the jump. People were upset because a man was shot and killed by police in our own backyard,’’ he said. The incident began Thanksgiving night with a fight and shooting at the Riverchase Galleria, a mall crowded with Black Friday bargain hunters, according to authorities. An 18-year-old man was shot twice and a 12-year-old female bystander was shot in the back. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency is investigating the incident since it is an officer-involved shooting. The Hoover Police Department is conducting its own internal investigation. The officer who shot Bradford was placed on administrative leave. The officer’s name was not released. The officer was not hurt. Video posted on social media by shoppers showed a chaotic scene as shoppers fled. A witness, Lexi Joiner, told Al.com she was shopping with her mother when the gunfire started. Joiner said she heard six or seven shots and was ordered, along with some other shoppers, into a supply closet for cover. ‘‘It was terrifying,’’ Joiner said."
Maybe it is time to put an end to the promotions and pre$$ pu$h to con$ume, 'eh?
Could $ave $ome live$ that way.
Also see:
"In a third statement Monday, police raised doubts about whether Bradford even had his gun out when officers encountered him. The Hoover Police Department’s shifting explanations are likely to increase suspicions that the 21-year-old former Army recruit was considered a threat because he is black....."
At least it isn't Utah.
Also see:
"A man and a woman were arrested for firearms possession and other charges following an early morning vehicle stop Sunday in Dorchester, Boston police said. Officers had stopped a vehicle on Blue Hill Avenue for a traffic infraction when another vehicle drove past at about 50 miles per hour through a 25-mile-per-hour zone around 2 a.m., police said in a statement. The vehicle was being driven through rainy conditions without using its headlights, police said, and the driver made no attempt to slow down or move over as it zoomed past the cruiser, which had its emergency blue lights on. Officers stopped the vehicle in the area of Blue Hill Avenue and American Legion Highway, and they removed the woman in the front passenger seat, Ana McGlashin-Lopez, 24, of Dorchester, and recovered a loaded .40 caliber Taurus handgun from underneath the seat, police said. McGlashin-Lopez and the driver, Jason Ayala, 37, of Lexington, were arrested without incident, police said. Officers recovered an open container of alcohol in the center console of the vehicle, police said. McGlashin-Lopez and Ayala will be arraigned in Dorchester District Court on charges including unlawful possession of a firearm, police said. Ayala also faces charges including drunk driving."
I sure as heck hope they are not unauthorized, undocumented illegals or migrants.
Same thing happened in Tyngsborough, but a man fatally struck so no big deal.
"Two people wanted by Boston police were arrested early Sunday morning after the pair exited a Brighton apartment, where officers later found a loaded handgun, police said in a statement. Members of the department’s Youth Violence Strike Force and officers assigned to District D-14 arrested Uhmari Bufford, 24, of Dorchester, and Jerome Barrows, 21, of Boston, as they left an apartment in the area of 41 Gordon St. at about 12:20 a.m., according to the statement. Officers entered the unoccupied apartment and recovered a loaded 9mm Springfield Armory USA Model XD9 handgun with an obliterated serial number and a “large-capacity feeding device,” the statement said. Bufford was wanted on an outstanding warrant on charges including assault with intent to murder, while Barrows had a warrant for charges of unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition, police said. Bufford and Barrows will be arraigned in Roxbury District Court, where the warrants were issued, police said."
At least the search wasn't tainted.
"A middle school teacher charged with secretly recording a 14-year-old student using the bathroom is heading to court. Prosecutors say 38-year-old Scott McDonald is scheduled to be arraigned Monday on charges that include photographing sexual or intimate parts of a child. McDonald is a teacher and baseball coach at Bellingham Memorial Middle School. Police say a 14-year-old boy told a school resource officer earlier this month that when McDonald told him he could use the faculty bathroom, the boy found a box with a hole and a cellphone recording inside. McDonald was placed on leave Nov. 9. Bellingham schools Superintendent Peter Marano said he was ‘‘absolutely appalled’’ by the allegations. There was no answer at a phone listing for McDonald (AP)."
The students are suing even though he didn't make a move.
Related(?):
Education officials prepare to revisit funding reform
Maybe they can break the code.
Two-and-a-half cheers for Howard Zinn
I used to like him and thought he made history come alive in his book; however, not so much anymore as it is more received history from the chosen few.
Students in Nazi salute photo won’t be punished, school says
Why should they be?
It was all a big misunderstanding, right?
Nevertheless, the distortion and lie somehow become the truth.
One doesn't need to wonder why anymore.
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I guess that gets us overseas:
"Polish national prosecutors said Sunday that they are dropping a criminal investigation into a reporter for a US-owned broadcaster on suspicions of propagating fascism for having gone undercover to film neo-Nazis. TVN, owned by Discovery, broadcast undercover footage in January that showed members of a Polish neo-Nazi group celebrating Adolf Hitler’s birthday in a forest in 2017....."
PFFFFT!
I see a bunch of Jews going out into the forest and BINGO, instant production!
"Spain to back Brexit deal after UK agrees to Gibraltar terms" by Raf Casert Associated Press November 24, 2018
BRUSSELS — The European Union removed the last major obstacle to sealing an agreement on Brexit after Spain said it had reached a deal Saturday with Britain over Gibraltar on the eve of an EU summit.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, who arrived in Brussels Saturday evening for preparatory talks with EU leaders, will then have the momentous task of selling the deal to a recalcitrant British Parliament and a nation still fundamentally split over whether the United Kingdom should leave the European Union on March 29 and under what conditions.
See: EU backs Brexit deal, but will Parliament?
Did they $ee the cost?
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced Saturday that Madrid would support the Brexit divorce deal after the United Kingdom and European Union agreed to give Spain a say in the future of the disputed British territory of Gibraltar, which is at the southern tip of the Mediterranean nation.
Spain wants the future of the tiny territory, which was ceded to Britain in 1713 but is still claimed by Spain, to be a bilateral issue between Madrid and London, not between Britain and the European Union.
In a letter obtained by the Associated Press, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk assured Sanchez that Spain’s ‘‘prior agreement’’ would be needed on matters concerning Gibraltar.
‘‘Europe and the United Kingdom have accepted the conditions imposed by Spain,’’ Sanchez said. ‘‘Therefore, as a consequence of this, Spain will lift its veto and tomorrow will vote in favor of Brexit.’’
May said Britain had conceded nothing on the sovereignty of Gibraltar.
‘‘I will always stand by Gibraltar,’’ May said after meeting with Juncker. ‘‘The UK position on the sovereignty of Gibraltar has not changed and will not change.’’
The move should allow EU leaders to speedily sign off on the Brexit agreement between Britain and a special summit Sunday morning.
Sanchez said the agreement reached would give Spain ‘‘absolute guarantees to resolve the conflict that has lasted for more than 300 years before Spain and the UK.’’
May was on her way to Brussels when the deal came through and hopes to leave EU headquarters on Sunday with a firm agreement on the withdrawal terms for Britain’s departure, as well as a comprehensive negotiating text on future relations following a trade agreement.
During the transition period, little would change as the United Kingdom and the European Union negotiate their future trade and security relationship — meaning citizens on both sides would continue to move freely without a visa.
Winning warm greetings from her 27 fellow leaders on Sunday might be much easier for May than getting such treatment from her colleagues in government and Parliament once she returns.....
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Ireland is being a problem for them, as always:
"Movement to restore birthright citizenship gains ground in Ireland" by Ed O’Loughlin New York Times November 24, 2018
DUBLIN — Ireland, which seems intent on bucking the illiberal tide in the West, is at it again: As other countries move to tighten restrictions on immigration, the Irish public is overwhelmingly in favor of a proposal to reinstate birthright citizenship.
A proposed law on the subject passed a preliminary vote in the Irish Senate on Wednesday, three days after a poll for the Irish edition of The Sunday Times of London showed that 71 percent of respondents favor birthright citizenship, while 19 percent were opposed and 10 percent undecided.
Should it be enacted, the proposed law would grant the right to citizenship to any person who is born in Ireland and subsequently lives in the country for three years, regardless of the parents’ citizenship or residency status. It would largely reverse the effect of a 2004 referendum in which 79 percent of voters supported the removal of a constitutional provision granting citizenship to anyone born in Ireland.
This remarkable swing in public opinion, at a time when President Trump has called for ending birthright citizenship in the United States, follows a high-profile case in which Eric Zhi Ying Xue, a 9-year-old boy who was born in Ireland, was threatened in October with deportation along with his Chinese mother.
Tell the migrants at the southern border that the ship sails for Ireland in the morning!
His teachers and classmates at St. Cronan’s School in County Wicklow rallied around him, and a petition asking the government not to deport Eric or his mother collected 50,000 signatures. The family was instead given three months to make a case to be given legal permission to remain in the country,.
As popular as it may be, the birthright citizenship proposal has one critical opponent: the Irish government, which says it will seek to defeat the bill.
Good for them.
The government’s opposition is based on the special relationship between Ireland and Northern Ireland, said a spokesman for the Department of Justice and Equality, which has responsibility for immigration matters.
Racism!
Although Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, its people are legally entitled to both British and Irish citizenship. The Irish government fears that people living illegally in Britain could move to Northern Ireland, give birth to a child there and obtain Irish citizenship for their child after living there for three years.
The parents could then use the child’s citizenship to obtain residency anywhere in Ireland or the United Kingdom, which, though separate countries, confer extensive mutual residency rights on each other’s citizens.
There are also concerns that British residents seeking to retain European rights to free movement after Britain leaves the European Union might use the same mechanism to obtain citizenship in the Republic of Ireland, which will remain in the bloc.
Under the current system, a person born in Ireland must have at least one Irish parent, or several years of legal residency in Ireland by a parent, to qualify for citizenship.
Senator Ivana Bacik, who introduced the birthright bill, said the current immigration system was too slow and too dependent on the opaque decisions of officials.
“Over the last few years, we’ve seen a number of cases of children born and raised in Ireland, yet who are threatened with deportation because their parents’ immigration cases have dragged on for years and years,” Bacik said.
Bacik said her bill had the support of the three main opposition parties, and she was confident it would pass all stages in the Senate, but its prospects in the more powerful lower house, the Dail, are less certain.
“I’m hopeful,” she said. “The government is more trenchant in its opposition than we expected. Their talk in the Senate about new waves of immigrants was almost Trumpian.’’
It's all agenda-pushing, all of the time, and they call it a newspaper.
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They are hoping to convert them all to Catholicism:
"Catholic nuns urge reporting of sex abuse to police" by Nicole Winfield Associated Press November 24, 2018
ROME — The Catholic Church’s global organization of nuns has denounced the ‘‘culture of silence and secrecy’’ surrounding sexual abuse in the church and is urging sisters who have been abused to report the crimes to police and their superiors.
The International Union of Superiors General, which represents more than 500,000 sisters worldwide, vowed to help nuns who have been abused to find the courage to report it, and pledged to help victims heal and seek justice.
Sadly, my first reaction was a sigh of relief that it wasn't altar boys.
The statement, issued on the eve of the UN-designated International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, was the first from the Rome-based group since the abuse scandal erupted anew this year and as the sexual abuse of adult nuns by clergymen has also come to light. The Associated Press reported earlier this year that the Vatican has known for decades about the problem of priests and bishops preying on nuns, but has done next to nothing to stop it.
Is any of this surprising?
Related: Thousands march to end violence against women
Did they call for an end to the wars?
In the statement Friday, the group didn’t specify clergy as the aggressors. While such abuse is well known in parts of Africa, and an Indian case of the alleged rape of a nun by a bishop is currently making headlines, there have also been cases of sexual abuse committed by women against other women within congregations.
WHAT?
‘‘We condemn those who support the culture of silence and secrecy, often under the guise of ‘protection’ of an institution’s reputation or naming it ‘part of one’s culture,’ ’’ the group said.
Just like the schools!
‘‘We advocate for transparent civil and criminal reporting of abuse whether within religious congregations, at the parish or diocesan levels, or in any public arena,’’ it said.
To mark the UN day calling for an end to violence against women, an AP investigation found that cases of priests abusing nuns have emerged in Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia, underscoring how sisters’ second class status in the church has contributed to a power imbalance where women can be mistreated by men with near impunity.
Why did Palestine just flash through my mind?
While some nuns are finding their voices, buoyed by the #MeToo movement, many victims remain reluctant to come forward. Experts said sisters have a well-founded fear they won’t be believed and will instead be painted as the seducer who corrupted the priest. Often the sister who denounces abuse by a priest is punished, including with expulsion from her congregation, while the priest’s vocation is preserved.
The Vatican has known for years about the problem in Africa after a series of major studies were commissioned in the 1990s. Religious sisters reported that African nuns were being particularly targeted by priests seeking to avoid HIV transmission from prostitutes or other women.....
Again, thank God they are heterosexual and of legal age!
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Better get back to England.
"Hungarian site shows how a free press can die" by Patrick Kingsley New York Times November 24, 2018
BUDAPEST — Hungary’s leading news website, Origo, had a juicy scoop: A top aide to the far-right prime minister, Viktor Orban, had used state money to pay for sizable but unexplained expenses during secret foreign trips. The story embarrassed Orban and was a reminder that his country still had an independent press, but that was in 2014. Today, Origo is one of the prime minister’s most dutiful media boosters, parroting his attacks on migrants and on George Soros, the Hungarian-American philanthropist demonized by the far right on both sides of the Atlantic, and if Origo once dug into Orban’s government, it now pounces on his political opponents.
If little known outside Hungary, Origo is now a cautionary tale for an age in which democratic norms and freedom of expression are being challenged globally — and President Trump and other leaders have intensified attacks on the free press.
Honestly, folks, I have reached the point where I am so fucking sick and tired of their never-ending whining.
Up until now they haven't given a damn about Assange, while obsessing about hack Jim Acosta and whether he gets his exclusive pre$$ pa$$.
In many ways, Hungary has foreshadowed the democratic backsliding now evident in different corners of the world. Since winning power in 2010, Orban has steadily eroded institutional checks and balances, especially the independent media. His government now oversees state-owned news outlets, while his allies control most of the country’s private media sources, creating a virtual echo chamber for Orban’s far right, anti-immigrant views.
He must be one of those "illiberal" governments.
Think what you want of Hungary, but bravo to them for telling the world to f*** off.
The story of Origo’s transformation from independent news source to government cheerleader offers a blueprint of how Orban and his allies pulled this off. Rather than a sudden and blatant power grab, the effort was subtle but determined, using a quiet pressure campaign.
Why don't you self-reflect on that, NYT?
At no other time in my lifetime has the New York Times been more a piece of drivel and sh**.
Origo’s editors were never imprisoned, and its reporters were never beaten up, but in secret meetings — including a pivotal one in Vienna — the website’s original owner, a German-owned telecommunications company, relented. The company, Magyar Telekom, first tried self-censorship. Then it sought a nonpartisan buyer, but, ultimately, Origo went to the family of Orban’s former finance minister.
In other words, they didn't do a Holder to 'em!
“When Orban came to power in 2010, his aim was to eliminate the media’s role as a check on government,” said Attila Mong, a former public radio anchor and a critic of Orban. “Orban wanted to introduce a regime which keeps the facade of democratic institutions but is not operated in a democratic manner — and a free press doesn’t fit into that picture.”
I didn't know they were one. They push the cover story crapola right along with them.
According to Freedom House’s press freedom index, Hungary’s media was judged the 87th freest in the world in 2017, down from joint 40th in 2010, when Orban entered office.
Just wondering where Freedom House gets its funding (it's Soros and the CIA!).
Those are the experts my pre$$ turned to for analysis?
The index now labels Hungarian media as only “partly free,” while Hungary’s wider political system, once classified as a “consolidated democracy,” has been downgraded to “semi-consolidated democracy,” and the fate of Origo, Mong said, is “very symbolic” of that transition.
The site had been created in the late 1990s by Magyar Telekom, the country’s leading telecoms company, to lure subscribers to its fledgling Internet service. Over time, though, Origo evolved into a journalistic force with its own identity, but as Origo thrived, its parent company faced challenges.
Since the start of the cellphone era, Magyar Telekom had been Hungary’s leading telecommunications company, but things changed with Orban’s election in 2010. He levied an “emergency” tax on the telecoms sector, in a bid to reduce government debt after the global financial crisis. The tax was also seen as part of a wider backlash against foreign firms that had bought up large sections of the Hungarian economy after the fall of communism.
Oh, now I see why Orban is in the crosshairs of my pre$$.
For Magyar Telekom, it meant an additional $100 million tax bill. Company executives feared more bad news in 2013, when Orban’s government was due to renew its frequency licenses. Before a September deadline, negotiations would determine how much of the market would be assigned to Telekom, and at what price.
The talks were not going well. Months before the deadline, René Obermann, Deutsche Telekom’s chief executive, became embroiled in a shouting match with Orban at a private meeting in Germany, two people briefed on the exchange said.
Throughout the year, Magyar Telekom executives met with Janos Lazar, Orban’s second-in-command, to negotiate the license renewal and a multimillion-dollar contract to install broadband Internet throughout rural Hungary. Initially, Origo was not a topic of discussion, but that changed in the early summer at a secret meeting in Vienna between Lazar and two senior company executives, according to three people with knowledge of the discussion.
There is your free pre$$ for all it is worth.
Lazar said that Origo’s journalists had historically struggled to grasp the government’s perspective on certain matters and proposed a remedy: a secret line of communication between Origo’s editors and the highest levels of government.
Lazar was careful not to frame the request as a quid pro quo for new licenses, or as a form of censorship, but the Magyar Telekom executives took it seriously.
By autumn, Origo had signed a contract with a media consultancy run by Attila Varhegyi, the former director of Orban’s party. As a consultant, Varhegyi had played a major role in turning Hungarian state media into a mouthpiece for Orban, and now his attention had pivoted to the private sector.
They are one for Israel over here.
Under the deal, Varhegyi’s firm could call Origo’s editor with suggestions on coverage.
That's the good thing about propaganda outlets like the New York Times and Washington Poost. They have internalized the self-censorship, to the point of hollering conspiracy theorist at anyone who doesn't agree or exposes them.
That same month, the government extended its license agreements with the country’s three mobile telephone operators.
Magyar Telekom was awarded the biggest share.
Both Magyar Telekom and its parent company declined to comment on the Vienna meeting and Varhegy, but in a general statement, Magyar Telekom said: “Dialogue between the government in office and the management of Magyar Telekom is a matter of fact, but its aim has never been to limit publicity or the freedom of press.”
Varhegyi and Lazar turned down several interview requests and ignored requests for comment.
Outraged, Origo’s editor-in-chief resigned, refusing to participate in the deal, but his replacement, Gergo Saling, appeared undaunted.
By January 2014, Saling’s team had even begun an investigation into Lazar’s foreign travel expenses. Requests by Varhegyi’s firm to slow the project down were ignored, but Saling was living on borrowed time.
They killed him like they do reporters?
The investigation was embarrassing to Magyar Telekom: Lazar had overseen the company’s license renewal, and discussions were still underway over the contract to install broadband in the countryside.
By the start of summer, Saling’s superiors had run out of patience. Orban had won reelection in April. Saling was fired in early June 2014.
In protest, several of Origo’s best reporters resigned.
They weren't making that up, were they?
For Magyar Telekom, Origo had become a public relations liability and a political hindrance, and executives wanted to sell.
That is what the AmeriKan media has become, no matter how many elections they rig.
Throughout 2014, Magyar Telekom held talks with prospective buyers.
The winner was named in November 2015: a firm called New Wave Media.
Their bid was financed by funds controlled by two banks, one owned by Orban’s government, and another owned by Tamas Szemerey, a cousin of one of Orban’s former ministers. In addition, New Wave was part-owned by Szemerey’s longtime business partner, company records show.
Though nominally still private, Origo now became a vessel for the government. Bought in part with government money, Origo now published news that echoed the government’s stance.
Sort of like the bailout of GM (who made record profits this year).
At the time, the 2015 sale of Origo could have been considered an outlier. Then, Origo became one of just 31 outlets owned by Orban’s allies, according to research by Atlatszo, an investigative news website.
Yeah, hi.
Today, there are more than 500.....
--more--"
You know who the Globe blames?
Yup, even though they started it.
Now what is that old saying, the enemy of my enemy is..... can't we just be friends and not fooled again?
Related: Saudi-owned mansion searched for evidence in Khashoggi case
Way more attention than, you know.
Btw, why was there not the same level of outrage from the ma$$ media and pre$$ regarding the murder of Yaser Murtaja?
Oh, right, he was an enemy of Israel so my ma$$ media dropped it -- which calls into question their obsession with the rubout of their own agent and whether they set him up to advance the agenda.
Related:
"U.S. and British officials mourned the loss a Syrian anti-government activist who was shot dead along with his colleague by unidentified gunmen in a rebel-held area in the country's northwest. Dozens of Raed Fares and Hammoud al-Juneid's friends held a wake Saturday in their hometown of Kafranbel in Idlib province, while scattered protests in opposition-held areas condemned their killing and blamed radical Islamists, of whom Fares was a vocal critic....."
Why has the article been changed to the latest false flag gas attack by rebels?
Is that why my pre$$ is not really interested?
Regardless of what you think regarding previous alleged attacks, why in the world would Assad do such a thing when the war is over and they are mopping up?
CUI BONO?
Why not drop the migrants off in Central Asia?
"The world needs to quit using coal. Why is it so difficult?" by Somini Sengupta New York Times November 24, 2018
HANOI — Coal, the fuel that powered the industrial age, has led the planet to the brink of catastrophic climate change.
Scientists have repeatedly warned of its looming dangers, most recently Friday, when a major scientific report issued by 13 US government agencies concluded that the damage from climate change could knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the US economy by century’s end if significant steps aren’t taken to rein in warming.
I'm with Trump on this one.
This is all a big $cam.
Internationally, an October report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on global warming found that avoiding the worst devastation would require a radical transformation of the world economy in just a few years.
You want to start applying the brakes now, readers.
Central to that transformation: getting out of coal, and fast, and yet three years after the Paris Agreement, when world leaders promised action, coal shows no sign of disappearing. While coal use is certain to eventually wane worldwide, it is not on track to happen anywhere fast enough to avert the worst effects of climate change, according to the latest assessment by the International Energy Agency. Last year, in fact, global production and consumption increased after two years of decline.
That's what cost Hillary the Rust Belt and presidency.
Cheap, plentiful, and the most polluting of fossil fuels, coal remains the single largest source of energy to generate electricity worldwide. This, even as renewables like solar and wind power are rapidly becoming more affordable. Soon, coal could make no financial sense for its backers.
So, why is coal so hard to quit?
Because coal is a powerful incumbent. It’s there by the millions of tons under the ground. Powerful companies, backed by powerful governments, often in the form of subsidies, are in a rush to grow their markets before it is too late. Banks still profit from it. Big national electricity grids were designed for it. Coal plants can be a surefire way for politicians to deliver cheap electricity — and retain their own power. In some countries, it has been a glistening source of graft, and even while renewables are spreading fast, they still have limits: Wind and solar power flow when the breeze blows and the sun shines, and that requires traditional electricity grids to be retooled.
That's what the "conspiracists" have been saying for years!
“The main reason why coal sticks around is, we built it already,” said Rohit Chandra, who did his doctorate in energy policy at Harvard, specializing in coal in India.
The battle over the future of coal is being waged in Asia.
Yeah, blame the Asians!
Home to half the world’s population, Asia accounts for three-fourths of global coal consumption today. More important, it accounts for more than three-fourths of coal plants that are either under construction or in the planning stages —1,200 of them, according to Urgewald, a German advocacy group that tracks coal development.
Indonesia is digging more coal. Vietnam is clearing ground for new coal-fired power plants. Japan, reeling from 2011 nuclear plant disaster, has resurrected coal.
The world’s juggernaut, though, is China. The country consumes half the world’s coal. More than 4.3 million Chinese are employed in the country’s coal mines. China has added 40 percent of the world’s coal capacity since 2002, a huge increase for just 16 years. “I had to do the calculation three times,” said Carlos Fernández Alvarez, a senior energy analyst at the International Energy Agency. “I thought it was wrong. It’s crazy.”
Somehow, I knew the blame would get around to them, and maybe we should just go to war with those polluters (never mind that the US war machine is the biggest polluter on the planet and exempt from any climate regulation).
Spurred by public outcry over air pollution, China is now also the world leader in solar and wind power installation, and its central government has tried to slow down coal plant construction, but an analysis by Coal Swarm, a US-based team of researchers that advocates for coal alternatives, concluded that new plants continue to be built, and other proposed projects have simply been delayed rather than stopped. Chinese coal consumption grew in 2017, though at a far slower pace than before, and is on track to grow again in 2018, after declining in previous years.
Maybe they should build nukes like the Globe says.
China’s coal industry is now scrambling to find new markets, from Kenya to Pakistan. Chinese companies are building coal plants in 17 countries, according to Urgewald.
Its regional rival, Japan, is in the game, too: Nearly 60 percent of planned coal projects developed by Japanese companies are outside the country, mostly financed by Japanese banks.
That contest is particularly stark in Southeast Asia, one of the world’s last frontiers of coal expansion.
Today, most households in Vietnam, population 95 million, have electricity. Hanoi, the capital, is in a frenzy of construction, with soaring demand for cement and steel — both energy guzzlers. The economy is galloping, and, up and down the coast, 994 miles in length, foreign companies, mainly from Japan and China, are building coal plants.
--more--"
The smog must have blotted out these brief items:
"Taiwan’s ruling party was handed a major defeat in local elections Saturday that were seen as a referendum on the administration of the island’s independence-leaning president amid growing economic and political pressure from China. Soon after the results came in, President Tsai Ing-wen resigned as head of the Democratic Progressive Party. She will remain as president and her resignation will have no direct effect on the business of government, although the results bode ill for her re-election chances in two years......"
There they go, influencing elections again!
Yeah, can't have a rapprochement between China and Taiwan. Not only will the U.S. lose out on loads of weapons sales, but reason for war would be yanked out from under them
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Fall River parish to close Sunday with final Mass
The place is literally falling apart.
I think I'm going to skip the rest and just say goodbye, readers. Blogging about the endless swill and slop that spews forth from the Bo$ton Globe was a bad idea (that's about the only thing worth reading in the section, too).
It's time to lay this blog to rest:
"In 1963, the body of President John F. Kennedy was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery."
Was it even his?
