~ Featuring ~
Communist Chinese Gov't
Fears a Free Hong Kong
Louis DeBroux
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Friday Top News Executive SummaryMedia Editors: Above the Fold
AUGUST JOBS REPORTS: “Job growth continued at a tepid pace in August, with nonfarm payrolls increasing by just 130,000,” CNBC reports. The headline unemployment rate remains at 3.7%. However, “Wage growth remained solid, with average hourly earnings increasing by 0.4% for the month and 3.2% over the year; both numbers were one-tenth of a percentage point better than expected.” Furthermore, the labor-force participation rate is at a six-year high of 63.2%. Economic growth may not be as strong as what President Donald Trump promised, but much of that is because of near-full employment and also because he’s using a strong economy to coerce China into a fairer trade agreement. The initial result is internal bleeding, but the final outcome may be worth the preliminary price.
HOUSING REFORM: “The Trump administration released a sweeping plan Thursday that could remake the U.S. housing market, starting with ending more than a decade of government control of two massive companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that back half of the nation’s mortgages,” according to The Washington Post. Recall that these entities were considered “too big to fail” and were bailed out by the federal government during the Democrat-caused housing meltdown. And even this plan incorporates a taxpayer contingency plan. “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would pay taxpayers a fee in return for a government guarantee in case they fall into financial trouble again,” the Post adds, meaning a “too big to fail” mindset remains.
Gun Control
DOJ PROPOSITIONS: “The Department of Justice has sent a package of legislative proposals on gun violence to the White House, a person familiar with the matter told Fox News, as the debate rages over how lawmakers and the president should respond to a recent spate of deadly mass shootings. The White House has had the proposals for two weeks, according to the source, but has not yet sent anything along to Capitol Hill. It was not immediately clear what proposals are included in the DOJ package.” (Fox News)
ANTI-OPEN-CARRY BANDWAGON: The Daily Wire reveals that “Wegmans, Walgreens, and CVS all banned open carry in their stores on Thursday, following the same gun policy change from Walmart and Kroger the day before. Unlike the other retailers that only called for a ban on open carry, CVS advised all customers except for authorized law enforcement officers to totally refrain from carrying at all in their stores.” On a related note, according to The Washington Free Beacon, “Walmart clarified its new policy on ammunition sales a day after its CEO announced the retailer would stop selling certain ammunition but didn’t specify exactly which ammunition. … Walmart senior director of communications Delia Garcia … said Walmart would only sell ammunition capable of being used in the remaining firearms they sell.” Tangentially, Tucker Carlson & Neil Patel observe: “Notice that Walmart still plans to sell the remainder of its AR-15 ammunition. This couldn’t really be about saving lives, obviously. It’s about the money.”
TEXAS UPDATES: National Review reports, “Authorities believe the gun used in the drive-by shooting in Midland and Odessa, Texas this past weekend was illegally manufactured and sold by a Lubbock, Texas man… The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is currently investigating a man who they believe illegally manufactured and sold the AR-15-style rifle that [the assailant] used to kill seven people and injure 22 more on Saturday, before he was shot and killed by police.” In related news, National Review also reveals, “Texas governor Greg Abbott on Thursday issued eight executive orders aimed at preventing mass shootings after two massacres last month left the Lone Star State shaken.”
Government & Politics
TOWN-HALL LETDOWN: Via The Hill: “CNN’s 7-hour town hall on climate change with 2020 White House contenders finished last among the three cable news networks in terms of average total viewers, according to early numbers from Nielsen Media Research. CNN averaged 1.1 million viewers from 5 p.m. to midnight, the hours devoted to back-to-back town halls by 10 Democratic contenders. MSNBC finished second with 1.7 million total viewers during the time period, with Fox News winning the time period with an average of 2.5 million.” The Hill also notes that “the average 1.4 million tuning in to CNN for the event was well above its average in primetime in 2019.” Yet it still couldn’t match MSNBC or Fox News. For an issue that’s supposedly an “existential crisis,” viewers don’t seem particularly interested in hearing about it.
LIGHTBULB DEREGULATION: “The Department of Energy announced this week that it’s withdrawing the scumbag/liar-nObama administration’s energy-rationing mandate for certain lightbulbs. Opponents criticized the rule change, arguing that the move would be bad for consumers and the climate. The reality, however, is that families and businesses will be better off, and the change will have a negligible impact on the environment.” (The Daily Signal)
Other Notables
MSU FINED: “The U.S. Department of Education has levied a $4.5 million fine against Michigan State University for its ‘systemic failure’ to address the sexual abuse committed by Larry Nassar, the MSU and USA Gymnastics doctor who admitted to sexually assaulting his patients for decades.” (NPR)
GOOD RIDDANCE TO A THUG: “Robert Mugabe, the controversial president of Zimbabwe who was forced to resign in 2017 after decades in power, has died at age 95. … Mugabe took power in Zimbabwe after white minority rule ended in 1980. He blamed Zimbabwe’s economic problems on international sanctions and once said he wanted to rule for life. … Despite Zimbabwe’s decline during his rule, Mugabe remained defiant, railing against the West for what he called its neo-colonialist attitude and urging Africans to take control of their resources.” (Fox News)
Closing Arguments
POLICY: Why the right to bear arms is an individual right (The Daily Signal)
POLICY: Five surprising scientific facts about Earth’s climate (Foundation for Economic Education)
HUMOR: Trump holds up map suggesting hurricane may hit coast of Middle Earth (The Babylon Bee)
~The Patriot Post https://patriotpost.us/articles/65310?mailing_id=4515&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4515&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body .
NeverTrump Nitwits Should Just Go Away
By Brian C. Joondeph
{ americanthinker.com } ~ Instead of admitting they were wrong about President Donald Trump, the #NeverTrump nitwit brigade is doubling down on stupid... Is it simply that they are too stubborn to acknowledge that despite their misgivings during campaign season, Trump is turning out to be the president they have been writing, lecturing, and think-tanking about for their entire careers? Or are they bitter because they are now on the outside looking in, relegated to interviews with journalistic lightweights like Brian Stelter at CNN or Chris Hayes at MSNBC rather than appearing on Fox News opinion shows with much higher ratings and appeal? Many of the names are familiar to longtime conservatives. What’s new in the past few years is the vitriol directed at Trump and his supporters Max Boot said, “Donald Trump is the worst person ever to be president.” George Will called Trump, “A sad, embarrassing wreck of a man.” Steve Schmidt, who ran rino-McCain’s losing presidential campaign said, “I left the Republican Party. Now I want Democrats to take over.” These former “conservatives” -- actually in name only -- would have happily campaigned for a rino-Jeb Bush or rino-Mitt Romney, even gladly serving in those administrations if invited. Yet along comes someone whom they never interviewed for their now failing newsletters or magazines, a guy not from their world, with his own ideas, formed without the assistance of the slick tongues and the policy institutes of the #NeverTrumpers. And here he is, a president instituting as conservative an agenda as any Republican has done since Reagan. A strong military to keeping America out of foreign entanglements. Tax cuts and reduced regulations to promoting America and creating more job opportunities than there are people to even fill those jobs. From conservative judicial selections to a strong pro-life stance, Trump is doing what the #NeverTrumpers have been wishing for during their entire careers...
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The ‘Simple’ Homeless Solution
by STEVEN GREENHUT
{ spectator.org } ~ This California Watch column ought to be renamed Crisis Watch, given the number of public-policy crises that have engulfed the Golden State. There’s a common thread in all of them... They all are the result of government agencies or policies. There’s the housing crisis, caused by state regulations and environmental rules that keep developers from building the number of homes needed to keep up with population growth. There’s a transportation crisis, caused by a state government that doesn’t prioritize road building — and by unions that have driven up road-building costs far beyond the cost in other states. Let’s not forget about the education crisis, which is the result of a public-school monopoly and teachers’ union-enforced tenure rules. Then there’s the pension crisis, which is the result of promising hundreds of billions of dollars in benefits beyond the pension funds’ ability to pay for them. Now, officials are consumed by the homelessness crisis. This crisis is rooted in complicated factors, but the fruits of it can be seen in virtually every big and small city across the state. San Francisco remains a beautiful place, but sections of its downtown look like a cross between Road Warrior and Burning Man. The city employs a crew of $184,000-a-year poop scoopers. This being San Francisco, there’s even an app to tell visitors how to avoid large piles of defecation as they meander their way around the city’s streets. The problem is everywhere. Underpasses and vacant lots are filled with makeshift tent cities. In a historic small town where I own a building, it’s a constant battle to keep homeless people who congregate in a nearby park from sleeping, pooping, and using drugs in the backyard. The police can’t do much, and many of the homeless are downright brazen. I was fixing a fence on the property, and a few feet away a homeless person was making a mess. I told him he could stay for a while if he cleaned up his litter, but soon enough he got out the crack pipe. I looked at buying one property, but vagrants had broken into the basement and used it as a public restroom. No thanks to that one. Some cities have tried to clear away tent cities from their public parks, but a federal court decision has limited their ability to do so. City officials can’t shoo them away unless the city has a place for them to go. That sounds reasonable enough, until one considers the results of this limitation. Public parks have become foreboding places and de facto campgrounds, where rats and diseases including bubonic plague now fester. Do we really have to abandon our public spaces this way?...
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Are They Sending Their Best?
By Les Still
{ americanthinker.com } ~ Democrats and the press won’t let us forget what Trump said following his descent down the escalator at Trump tower, when he announced his candidacy for President of the United States... He was scorned for what he said. After all, only a racist could utter those unforgivable words. Democratic candidates have joined in the chorus and haven’t hesitated to remind us any chance they get. Those now infamous words are: When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, They’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” For the purpose of our discussion here, let’s focus on the part of his statement regarding drugs, crime, and rapists. Trump believes these are serious concerns that truly contribute to an unsafe environment for the most vulnerable among us. For this reason, Trump has spent a great deal of his political capital on stopping the flow of illegal traffic crossing our southern border and has encountered roadblocks from Democrats and the press throughout this entire process. Sen. scumbag-Cory Booker has said, “On day one, I will make sure that number one, we end the I.C.E. policies and the Customs and Border policies that are violating the human rights.” Sen. Elizabeth dinky-Warren said: "Offer a home to refugees. That is who we are. That's our values. That's part of what we do." Julian Castro said, “So instead of building a wall or closing the border, we should choose compassion instead of cruelty.” Sen. lowlife-Kamala Harris said: “We welcome refugees and bring people out of the shadows.” Clearly, these candidates do not consider immigration to be a security issue. Trump does, and let’s look at some of the reasons why...
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/09/are_they_sending_their_best.html .
In 2020 Trump Will Reduce
the Blue Wall to Rubble
by DAVID CATRON
{ spectator.org } ~ The biggest surprise of the 2016 election was, of course, Donald Trump’s breach of the “blue wall” upon which the Democrats depended to hold back the howling MAGA hordes... It was the fissures in that fabled fortification that brought tears to the eyes of all those scumbag/liar-Clinton supporters watching dumbfounded as the dreaded “deplorables” invaded their safe electoral spaces. The Democrats have attempted to repair the damaged wall, but it has only weakened further as the unemployed voters who took a chance on Trump have found jobs. They won’t desert him next year, which means the crumbling blue ramparts will completely collapse in 2020. These voters, many of whom found themselves out of work for the first time in their lives during the scumbag/liar-nObama years, see the resurgence of the job market since the last election as a promise kept by the president. In states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, unemployment has plummeted. In Pennsylvania, for example, scumbag/liar-nObama and his Democratic accomplices declared war on coal and drove unemployment to a peak of 8.8 percent. It was still 5.2 percent when President Trump took office. Unemployment is now 3.9 percent. In 2016, the President won Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes, less than 1 percent. He will win by a far larger margin next year. The story is much the same in Michigan. Trump’s predecessor and the Democrats spent years coddling foreign trade partners like China, allowing the state’s manufacturing jobs to evaporate. Unemployment peaked at an outrageous 14.6 percent, and it was still at 5 percent when President Trump took office and dropped as low as 3.9 percent last summer. It has hovered around 4 percent since. The voters who are now back at work are those “forgotten Americans” whom Trump courted in 2016, much to the amusement of the media. As in Pennsylvania, he won Michigan by well under 1 percent. The margin will not be nearly that small in 2020. Because Wisconsin had a Republican governor and legislature during the scumbag/liar-nObama era, it didn’t suffer as badly as Pennsylvania and Michigan. Nonetheless, Trump did motivate a lot of the state’s “forgotten Americans.” This allowed Trump to win in yet another squeaker. And, despite the Badger State’s relatively low unemployment rate, it has nonetheless declined from 3.6 percent to 3 percent. This isn’t likely to turn voters off. Indeed, a recent poll confirms that Trump is more popular in Wisconsin than when he won in the state in 2016. Dan Pfeiffer, a former adviser to erstwhile President scumbag/liar-nObama, has bad news for the Democrats...
https://spectator.org/in-2020-trump-will-reduce-the-blue-wall-to-rubble/?utm_source=American%20Spectator%20Emails&utm_campaign=973c8cc1ca-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_09_05_02_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_797a38d487-973c8cc1ca-104608113 .
China Is Winning the Race to the Deep Ocean
By Curt Newport
{ americanthinker.com } ~ While the United States rests on her 60-year-old laurels, China has mounted an aggressive and long-term assault on the deep ocean, or the region known as the Hadal Zone areas deeper than 6,000 meters 19,685 ft... Our country’s efforts to explore these depths effectively ended in 1960 at the conclusion of Project Nekton. That was when the U.S. Navy’s Trieste I Bathyscaphe reached the deepest known part of the ocean, the Challenger Deep, with Lt. Don Walsh and Swiss explorer Jacques Piccard inside a tiny steel sphere. China’s current efforts are being led by Professor Cui Weicheng of Shanghai Ocean University and more recently, the Rainbow Fish Ocean Technology Company. Their current plan is to deploy 11 km (6.8 mi)-capable submersibles in 2020 to explore the deepest sections of the Marianas Trench. According to the South China Morning Post, “Beijing has listed deep-sea scientific exploration as one of the key projects in their five-year plan to 2020. These programs involve the development of unmanned vehicles, benthic landers, gliders, and manned submersibles, as well as the infrastructure needed to maintain this technology. In addition, several research vessels have been constructed to support field operations, most of them purpose-built for specific systems. How have the Chinese created such capabilities? Their projects were initially made possible by purchasing non-ITAR controlled underwater sonars and vehicles from British, Norwegian, and Canadian companies. As has been the case before, Chinese engineers used this technology as an educational tool, so that they could copy and improve on existing designs...
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Communist Chinese Gov't Fears a Free Hong KongLouis DeBroux: In recent months, the world has anxiously watched the scenes of violence and oppression in Hong Kong at the hands of the communist Chinese government.
As a British colony for more than 150 years, on July 1, 1997, Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule under an agreement that promised to leave it as a largely autonomous region under a “one country, two systems” policy.
Yet soon after mainland China took control it began eroding Hong Kong’s autonomy, understandably causing concern and resentment for a people accustomed to the freedoms of a Western-style democratic government; a form of government that had made them wealthy and prosperous and the envy of much of the world. Of course, such freedom and prosperity was and is a cause for fear within the communist Chinese government, which relies on fear and force to maintain absolute control of its vast population.
Tensions between Hong Kong and the mainland government have escalated since June, when legislation was proposed by Carrie Lam, Beijing’s hand-picked puppet leader of Hong Kong, allowing extradition of its citizens to mainland China for trial under communist Chinese courts.
The backlash was enormous; nearly two million of Hong Kong’s 7.4 million citizens took to the streets to protest. With tensions rising, the communist Chinese government began cracking down on demonstrators in an effort to crush demands for more freedom before it spread beyond Hong Kong and into mainland China.
This weekend the government arrested more than a thousand protesters, including several members of the city’s Legislative Council who have been vocal critics of the Beijing government’s denial of Hong Kong’s promised autonomy.
With the crackdown by government forces, some protesters set up barricades around the Central Government Complex, blocking access to the buildings, resulting in a clash where dissidents were hit with tear gas and water cannons, and retaliated with Molotov cocktails.
In addition to the crackdown by police, the communist government sent in gangsters to physically attack protesters. One victim was Jimmy Sham, head of the pro-democracy Civil Human Rights Front, who was beaten with baseball bats by two thugs. CHRF was denied a permit for a peaceful demonstration. Anyone who participates in a non-permitted demonstrations faces up to five years in prison.
In another incident, Hong Kong police stormed a subway train and violently subdued citizens, some of whom had not even been demonstrating.
While not explicitly calling for a state of emergency, Lam stated that if protests continue, the government would consider declaring a state of emergency. Under Hong Kong law, under a state of emergency, the executive can “make any regulations whatsoever which he may consider desirable in the public interest,” including “censorship, and the control and suppression of publications,” arrests, seizure of property, and restricting movement.
Today we learn that Lam — certainly on orders from Beijing — is withdrawing the extradition bill.
The withdrawal is a sign that protests worked (or at least that Beijing wants to contain them by the appearance of backing down). That may include Lam’s protest. In a leaked tape of a meeting between Lam and Hong Kong business leaders, it appears Lam is a powerless puppet for Beijing, telling business leaders, “For a chief executive to have caused this huge havoc to Hong Kong is unforgivable… If I have a choice, the first thing is to quit, having made a deep apology.” Lam has since denied she ever discussed resigning with Beijing.
Remember, however, which government we’re talking about here. The Chinese government has made abundantly clear its willingness to use all means necessary to restore order and force protesters to comply with its dictates. In a warning issued Sunday through the state-controlled Xinhua News Agency, the communist government declared, “The end is coming for those attempting to disrupt Hong Kong and antagonize China… Anyone who dares to infringe upon these bottom lines and interfere in or damage the ‘one country, two systems’ principle will face nothing but failure… They should never misjudge the determination and ability of the central government … to safeguard the nation’s sovereignty, security, and core interests.”
Does anyone doubt that the government which fired on peaceful protesters and crushed them with tanks would not use deadly force again to secure its power?
In Hong Kong, protesters wave American flags, sing our national anthem, and plead with President Donald Trump to intervene in their behalf. It may be that whatever pressure he applied behind the scenes was successful, given that China backed down on the extradition bill.
Yet the communist Chinese government remains a threat not only to its own people but to all free people. A failure to confront China’s totalitarian brutality now will only lead to more brutality — within its borders and without. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/65232?mailing_id=4509&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4509&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
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