Fri/Med AM ~ thefrontpagecover

TheFrontPageCover
~ Featuring ~  
 Tariffs Cost Both Sides, but China 
Is Taking the Biggest Hit
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Louis DeBroux 
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Friday Top News Executive Summary
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Media Editors:  Above the Fold


THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM: “Hurricane Dorian hurtled toward the United States and was on track to become a major hurricane Friday before its expected landfall Monday into Tuesday along Florida’s east coast, forecasters say. The storm was slowly turning west on Friday as it makes it way back toward land and is expected to strengthen in the coming days, the National Hurricane Center said. Dorian is then forecast slam the southeastern United States as a possible Category 4 storm.” (USA Today)

GREAT AGAIN: “President Trump revived the U.S. Space Command in a formal White House ceremony Thursday, putting the commander-in-chief a step closer to launching a military branch focused on the final frontier. … Thursday’s action does not establish a separate ‘Space Force,’ which must be approved by Congress. … Reviving the Space Command was an easier lift for the Pentagon. The command existed decades ago, though it was dissolved into the Strategic Command as part of a military reorganization following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.” (The Washington Times)

Government & Politics


NOT SO FAST: A few weeks ago, a quintet of Senate Democrats gave the Supreme Court a Second Amendment ultimatum by way of a brief, wherein they bellowed, “Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.’” The GOP is now firing back. “Senate Republicans sent a letter to the Supreme Court on Thursday saying it ‘must not be cowed by the threats’ from Democrats who urged the justices not to take up a gun case next term and warned that the court could be restructured to reduce the influence of politics in its decisions,” NBC News reports. The letter states, “It’s one thing for politicians to peddle these ideas in Tweets or on the stump. But the Democrats’ amicus brief demonstrates that their court-packing plans are more than mere pandering. They are a direct, immediate threat to the independence of the judiciary and the rights of all Americans.”

RACE BAIT: “[Racism is] a white man’s problem,” loose lips liar-Joe Biden declared earlier this week. “White men are responsible for it — not black men.” This is loose lips liar-Biden’s effort to get back in the game — his false war stories notwithstanding — and possibly get Sen. lowlife-Kamala Harris on the phone.

PURGING THE LEAKERS: “President Trump’s personal assistant, Madeleine Westerhout … resigned on Thursday, two people familiar with her exit said. Ms. Westerhout’s abrupt and unexpected departure came after Mr. Trump learned on Thursday that she had indiscreetly shared details about his family and the Oval Office operations she was part of at a recent off-the-record dinner with reporters staying at hotels near Bedminster, N.J., during the president’s working vacation.” (The New York Times)

Science, Health, & Environment


SETTLED SCIENCE? “An ambitious new study — the largest ever to analyze the genetics of same-sex sexual behavior — found that genetics does play a role, responsible for perhaps a third of the influence on whether someone has same-sex sex. The influence comes not from one gene but many, each with a tiny effect — and the rest of the explanation includes social or environmental factors — making it impossible to use genes to predict someone’s sexuality.” (The New York Times)

THE WAR ON DRUGS: “The Department of Justice has broken up a drug ring allegedly responsible for conspiring to distribute 23 million opioid pills. Federal authorities announced on Wednesday that they had arrested 41 individuals after searching 15 pharmacies and six clinics. The case, which brought together multiple federal law enforcement agencies, highlights both how widespread prescription opioid trafficking still is, as well as the efforts of the government to crack down on it.” (The Washington Free Beacon)

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH: “Climate activists often warn that global warming is stoking forest fires, but it turns out the amount of land burned by wildfires worldwide has plummeted by 25% since 2003, according to NASA. NASA’s Earth Observatory found that the number of total square kilometers burned globally each year has decreased steadily from 2003-19, based on data collected by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS) on satellites.” (The Washington Times)

Other Notables


DEFIANCE: “A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a [Cook County, Illinois] ban on assault weapons and limits on magazine capacity,” Newsweek reports. “The three-judge panel rendered a unanimous opinion for the court, including the assent of Trump appointee Judge Amy Joan St. Eve.” The appellate courts clearly have no interest in submitting to the Supreme Court on this issue.

AFGHAN CONTINGENCY: “President Trump said Thursday that the U.S. would leave 8,600 troops stationed in Afghanistan even if it secures a peace agreement with the Taliban. ‘We’re going down to 8,600 [from the current 14,000], and then we’ll make a determination from there as to what happens,’ Trump said on Fox News radio. "Oh yeah, you have to keep a presence. We’re going to keep a presence there. We’re reducing that presence very substantially, and we’re going to always have a presence. We’re going to have high intelligence.‘” (National Review)

Closing Arguments


POLICY: Trump’s fight against progressive agenda at the G-7 will pay off (The Daily Signal)

POLICY: The ugly side of the pursuit for “sustainability” (Issues & Insights)

HUMOR: As summer ends, journalists look forward to new season of hysterical lying (The Daily Wire)  

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/65169?mailing_id=4501&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4501&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body     
O’Donnell Retracts Loan Claim on Trump, 
Admits He Didn’t Bother to Verify It
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by R. Cort Kirkwood
thenewamerican.com } ~ MSNBC talker Lawrence O’Donnell has retracted his claim that “Russian  oligarchs” guaranteed loans for President Donald Trump... O’Donnell based his claim on a single source he did not name, and he confessed that he did not attempt to verify the source’s claims, a mortal sin for a journalist, particularly one of O’Donnell’s repute and fame. The left-wing host confessed his negligence in a tweet and on his program last night. On Tuesday O’Donnell claimed that a “single source close to Deutsche Bank,” which loaned money to Trump, told him the German financial giant obtained the president’s tax returns. They showed, O’Donnell averred, that “the president pays very little income tax.” But that won’t be “surprising to people” or “especially politically damaging,” he said, given that Trump has always admitted he pays as little income tax as possible, like most Americans with any sense. But what would matter is this: “This single source close to Deutsche Bank has told me that Donald Trump’s loan documents there show that he has co-signers. That’s how he was able to obtain those loans. And that the co-signers are Russian oligarchs.” “That would explain, it seems to me,” he continued, “every kind word Donald Trump has ever said about Russia and Vladimir Putin, if true — and I stress the ‘if true’ part of this.” Remarkably, an MSNBC producer admitted the network had no documents to prove the reckless, single-source claim, a fact that O’Donnell finally admitted after Trump’s lawyers explained that he might wish to reconsider his claim. Charles Harder, the man who crushed the legal effort to destroy the president by Stormy Daniels and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, issued the warning. “These statements are false and defamatory, and extremely damaging,” he wrote. “The only borrowers under these loans are Trump entities, and Mr. Trump is the only guarantor. Numerous documents for each of these loans are also recorded, publicly available and searchable online.” Then came the threat for which O’Donnell and the leftists at MSNBC weren’t prepared...
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Trump Goes After Another scumbag/
liar-nObama-Era Reg As EPA Plans To Ease 
Rules Affecting Oil Companies
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by CHRIS WHITE
dailycaller.com } ~ The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday a plan to loosen federal rules governing methane emissions... a move that could be a boon for some energy providers and setback for environmentalists, the agency said in a statement. The move will reverse standards set under President Barack scumbag/liar-nObama that require oil companies to install instruments on their pipelines and well heads that curb the release of methane, an emission researchers believe contributes to global warming. President Donald Trump spent his first two years eliminating scores of his predecessor’s environmental legacy. Trump officials believe the fossil fuel industry has an incentive to limit methane because capturing it allows companies to sell more gas, officials told WaPo on the condition of anonymity. Such changes will save the industry between $17 million and $19 million a year, the EPA noted. “EPA’s proposal delivers on President Trump’s executive order and removes unnecessary and duplicative regulatory burdens from the oil and gas industry,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. “The Trump Administration recognizes that methane is valuable, and the industry has an incentive to minimize leaks and maximize its use. Since 1990, natural gas production in the United States has almost doubled while methane emissions across the natural gas industry have fallen by nearly 15%. Some of the largest oil companies in the U.S. are not on board with the move. “We believe sound environmental policies are foundational to the vital role natural gas can play in the energy transition and have made clear our support of 2016 law to regulate methane from new and modified onshore sources,” Shell President Gretchen Watkins said in a statement Thursday before the announcement...  https://dailycaller.com/2019/08/29/methane-trump-obama-epa-oil/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=9871  
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The Images and Maps behind Iran's 'Land Bridge'
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by Seth Frantzman
meforum.org } ~ Airstrikes in Iraq between July 19 and August 20 are attempts to interdict Iran's "land bridge" that stretches across Iraq and Syria to Lebanon... This was the assessment published by ImageSat International on August 22. "The Iranian land bridge from Tehran to Syria and Lebanon is under attack in Iraq." The history of Iran's land bridge go back many years. Allegations that Iran is constructing a swath of influence from Iran to Lebanon to link up with its Hezbollah ally, grew as Iran consolidated its influence in Iraq and Syria in the last decades. This was particularly true after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS gave Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps an excuse to intervene in Iraq and Syria. Working closely with Shi'ite paramilitaries in Iraq, the Syrian regime and Hezbollah, Iran's influence grew. How to interpret that influence? One of the early reports to examine it as a "road to the sea" was Martin Chulov in October 2016. He argued that Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias in Iraq were using the war on ISIS to drive on of Iran's "most coveted projects, securing an arc of influence across Iraq and Syria." A map accompanying his article showed Iran's influence going through Baquba, Shirqat, Sinjar, Qamishli to Kobani and then Idlib, Homs and the sea. This was interesting because it showed areas under control of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), a group in Syria that was working with the US to fight Islamic State, as key to the route. In December 2016 an article at The Tower by Hanin Ghaddar called the bridge a part of Iran's attempt to control Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. In May 2017  Chulov wrote that Iran had changed the course of its road to the Mediterranean coast "to avoid US forces." The new route would go through Tel Afar near Mosul and then to Mayadin and Deir ez-Zor in Syria before crossing the desert to Damascus and continuing to Latakia. Iran's alleged project received an increasing spotlight in 2017 as the war on ISIS appeared to wind down. After Iraqi federal forces, backed by Shi'ite militias, retook Kirkuk and Sinjar from the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in October 2017, Iran seemed to gain more influence. An October 2017 article at Strategic Assessment by Franc Milburn analyzed possible routes of the land bridge. His report included a map showing three routes that Iran was using, one through Baghdad and then Syria's Tanf, another through Baghdad and Al-Qaim on the Syrian border and a third through Kirkuk and then northeast Syria...
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David Steinberg: Tying Up Loose 
Threads in the Curious Case
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by  SCOTT JOHNSON
{ powerlineblog.com } ~ In four intensely reported investigative columns — David Steinberg has explored the evidence suggesting that worthless-Ilhan Omar entered into a sham marriage with her brother in 2009... This is his fifth. He titles it “Meet Leila Elmi: The Missing Link Showing worthless-Ilhan Omar Married Her Brother.” Drawing on his research, interviews, and social media evidence he makes the case that worthless-Omar has engaged in a variety of fraudulent activities and willful misrepresentations related to her marital arrangements. He writes: On October 22, 2008, the U.S. State Department stopped accepting applications for the Priority 3/Refugee Family Reunification program — the process by which refugees can apply for asylum if one family member is already a legal U.S. resident. State halted the program because DNA testing — primarily of Somalis — had concluded that perhaps 87 percent of applicants were fraudulently claiming family relationships. Despite continuing war, Somalia of 2008 was not comparable to the open hell of the early 1990s, when an eight-year-old worthless-Ilhan and her family fled to Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps. She lived there from 1991 until 1995, aged eight to 12. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services then helped worthless-Ilhan, her sister Sahra, and their father Nur Said receive asylum in the United States along with thousands of other Somalis. The complicated moral question of fraud, let alone fault, among this 1990s wave of refugees escaping civil war will never be answered with accurate statistics. We will have to settle for adjectives like “widespread” and “rampant.” Yet the negative outcomes cannot be ignored. Even refugees with strong desire to assimilate with Western civic order are hampered by the possible discovery of conflicting documents. And compromising information becomes leverage in a community already difficult to police. Twelve-year-old worthless-Ilhan had no say on the manner in which she arrived in the United States. However, U.S. Congresswoman worthless-Ilhan Abdullahi Omar (D-MN) is now under scrutiny for acts she took beginning in 2009 — not 1995. In 2009, worthless-Omar was a 26-year-old U.S. citizen. She had been a U.S. citizen for nearly nine years. Additionally, the foreign national worthless-Omar apparently helped commit fraud was not fleeing hell in 2009, either. Ahmed Nur Said Elmi was a long-time citizen of the United Kingdom. He even possessed a high school diploma from the United States: Elmi attended a St. Paul, Minnesota high school for his senior year of 2002-2003, and graduated before returning to London. We look to 1995 not to incriminate a kid, but to answer questions about what worthless-Omar did 14 years later as an adult U.S. citizen. Please read the verified evidence below — and read it alongside the three years of verified evidence published by Scott Johnson, Preya Samsundar, and myself. The answers to those questions about 2009 appear to give probable cause to investigate worthless-Omar for eight instances of perjury, immigration fraud, marriage fraud, up to eight years of state and federal tax fraud, two years of federal student loan fraud, and even bigamy...  https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/07/david-steinberg-tying-up-loose-threads-in-the-curious-case.php    
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GOP Approves Resolution To Expel 
worthless-Omar from Congress!
It’s OVER For Her!
by thepatriotsource.com ~ Justin Wise from The Hill reports, Alabama’s Republican Party is urging the state’s congressional delegation to begin the process of expelling freshman Rep. worthless-Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from Congress.  https://thepatriotsource.com/2019/08/29/breaking-gop-approves-resolution-to-expel-omar-from-congress-its-over-for-her/  
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Tariffs Cost Both Sides, but China Is Taking the Biggest Hit
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Louis DeBroux:  President Donald Trump is playing a dangerous game with the global economy in order to do what should have been done decades ago; reign in the Communist Chinese government’s unfair trade practices.

China has repeatedly refused to act in good faith, blocking or heavily restricting U.S. access to Chinese domestic markets. Beijing has further discouraged foreign imports through a series of tariffs, subsidies, and other barriers to free trade, like its history of currency manipulation, artificially devaluing the yuan in order to make Chinese goods cheaper in the U.S.

Arguably the most damaging tactic used by the Chinese government is industrial espionage and theft of intellectual property. In addition to corporate espionage, the Chinese government, as a precondition for gaining access to Chinese markets, forces foreign companies to hand over intellectual property (inventions, designs, and other “creations of the mind”), passing it along to Chinese companies, which then produce cheaper knock-offs that directly compete with the foreign company.

The U.S. Trade Representative has estimated that America loses as much as $600 billion per year due to intellectual property theft by China.

Enter President Trump, who made immigration enforcement and renegotiating fairer trade deals the centerpieces of his 2016 presidential campaign.

If the official numbers are to be believed, the Chinese economy ($13.4 trillion GDP) ranks second globally behind the U.S. ($20.5 trillion GDP). However, there are a couple of caveats.

One, the Chinese economy, at a third smaller than the U.S., is spread out over four times the population. That population is aging faster than the American population, which means in the coming years it will be less productive and more expensive to care for.

Second, a recent, in-depth analysis by five economists from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Chicago found the Chinese have been over-reporting economic growth by an average of 1.7% per year for at least a dozen years, meaning the Chinese economy is roughly 20% smaller than officially reported.

And you can be absolutely certain that President Trump is aware of this and much more in his negotiations with China, which have been chaotic and tumultuous of late.

One day President Trump is praising Chinese President Xi Jinping, the next calling him an “enemy.” Such hyperbolic and inflammatory rhetoric is part of the “whiplash” strategy that Trump says is his M.O., but it sends waves of panic through economic markets. Trump’s recent demand that U.S. companies pull out of China made for even more uncertainty.

Then, of course, we have escalating tariffs.

In early 2018, President Trump levied $9 billion in tariffs on imports such as solar products and large appliances, months later adding $25 billion in new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Then, in the last year, Mr. Trump targeted another $200 billion in imports from China for tariffs, with another $300 billion targeted by the end of 2019.

To state the obvious, tariffs are bad. They drag down economic growth by taxing American consumers, who are spending more in the form of higher-priced imports, reducing their purchasing power. The damage is compounded by increasing uncertainty in economic markets, which sidelines capital and reduces investment, and therefore job creation and economic growth. Retaliatory actions taken by China are another painful blow.

The U.S. trade deficit with China was roughly $420 billion in 2018, but trade deficits are not necessarily bad. Most of us have a “trade deficit” with Walmart and Amazon, but because their lower-priced goods allow us greater purchasing power, our lives are considerably better for the arrangement. With China, the issue is not so much the trade deficit as the unfair practices that drive it.

President Trump claims we are winning the trade war, but in a trade war even winning is painful. It is the economic equivalent of chemotherapy — painful and destructive, but the hope is you purge the disease (in this case, China’s unfair trade practices) while harming the patient as little possible.

The president is well aware of this, as evidenced by his recent admission of second thoughts about the trade war, and the acknowledgment it could lead to a short recession. The Congressional Budget Office predicts the average American family will pay an extra $580 for goods next year due to the trade war.

President Trump feels he has a very strong hand, touting a new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that is a net benefit for the U.S., and hinting that a new U.S.-Japan trade agreement will be announced soon. Plus the fact that the U.S. is far and away the world’s most powerful economy.

After Chinese Vice Premier Liu He was quoted as saying “an escalation of the trade war is against the interest of China, the U.S. and the entire world,” President Trump said we are “winning” the trade war. He appears confident China will be ready to make a deal soon, saying, “I don’t think they have a choice.” On Monday, he praised President Xi as “a great leader,” adding that “one of the reasons that China is a great country is they understand how life works.”

While even top Democrats agree this trade war with China is necessary to force China to act in good faith, it will be better for all when it is over. Previous tariff skirmishes under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack scumbag/liar-nObama resulted in higher prices for American consumers, lost jobs, and slower economic growth.

And that benefits no one unless the results of the fight recoup the cost.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/65100?mailing_id=4496&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4496&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

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