The Front Page Cover
The Events of the Week -- Featruring:
White House looks for deep cuts to U.N. funding
by Karen DeYoung
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Slush Holidays at Taxpayer Expense
By Mark Alexander: Yesterday afternoon I received a call from one of our contributing authors after he left work and was driving north on I-95 just south of Washington, DC. He found it humorous that there was not a single vehicle in the southbound lanes — normally a parking lot of rush-hour traffic. Today, Weather.com and other "weather news" outlets are doing their best to excuse all the hype they stirred up over the great March blizzard. But the Daily Mail called winter storm Stella "The Blizzard that WASN'T," while the New York Post declared "NYC Blizzard is a Dud."
Fortunately, the DC media posted a "Snow Survival Guide" ahead of the two inches of slush that besieged the nation's capital yesterday, so all food market shelves were denuded of milk and bread.
Of course the 24-hour weather prognosticators face the same constraints as the rest of the 24-hour news recycling talkingheads — they are motivated, first and foremost, by market share and advertising revenues. In other words, they are driven by financial incentive, which is why they incessantly hype news — everything is a crisis, stay tuned 24/7! Of course there is rarely national news that rises to the level of the media's hyperbolic "ALERT" bulletins. But in all fairness, the weather prognosticators have the task of trying to predict something, while the rest of the MSM are constantly rehashing news about something past — ad nauseam. ~The Patriot Post
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Rex Tillerson Not Ready to Rule
Out Military Action Against North Korea
by Andrew West
by Andrew West
{constitution.com} ~ North Korea and its despotic dictator Kim Jong Un have been pushing all of the wrong buttons in recent weeks with their illegal ballistic missile tests... This, of course, is on top of constant threats by the bizarre regime that included the possible detonation of a nuclear weapon on Donald Trump’s inauguration day. Spoiler alert: Didn’t happen. Now, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has had enough of the tyrannical leader’s nonsense, and is sending an extremely strong message to North Korea and to U.S. allies in the region. “’Nothing has been taken off the table,’ he said, when asked whether he would rule out nuclearization of the peninsula, during the interview with Fox News... http://constitution.com/rex-tillerson-not-ready-rule-military-action-north-korea/
How The Federal Reserve Is Setting Up
Trump For A Recession...
by Michael Snyder
by Michael Snyder
{thesleuthjournal.com} ~ Most Americans do not understand this, but the truth is that the Federal Reserve has far more power over the U.S. economy than anyone else does, and that includes Donald Trump... Politicians tend to get the credit or the blame for how the economy is performing, but in reality it is an unelected, unaccountable panel of central bankers that is running the show, and until something is done about the Fed our long-term economic problems will never be fixed. For an extended analysis of this point, please see this article below. In this piece, I am going to explain why the Federal Reserve is currently setting the stage for a recession, a new housing crisis and a stock market crash, and if those things happen unfortunately it will be Donald Trump that will primarily get the blame. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve is expected to hike interest rates, and there is even the possibility that they will call for an acceleration of future rate hikes… http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/why-donald-trump-must-shut-down-the-federal-reserve-and-start-issuing-debt-free-money
. What’s Going On With The Secret Service?
by Steve Berman
by Steve Berman
{theresurgent.com} ~ This is what happens when the Secret Service invites people to try by not doing their job. Two embarrassing near back-to-back lapses have plagued the normally square-jawed U.S. Secret Service since President Trump took office... A laptop containing highly sensitive data including floor plans of Trump Tower and files on the pope was stolen from an agent’s vehicle in New York City. And it was revealed that last week, a man spent nearly 17 minutes roaming the White House grounds after jumping the fence before he was apprehended. This adds to the last embarrassment when the agent-in-charge of the agency’s Denver district wrote that she would endure “jail time” rather than “taking a bullet” for Trump–a clear violation of the Hatch Act. The Secret Service is not bullet-proof, of course. During the liar-nObama administration, agents were caught with their pants down, figuratively, soliciting both male and female prostitutes in places like Columbia and Puerto Rico...
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CBO Director – No Climate Change Funding –
It’s A Waste Of Your Money
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney held a press briefing in which he answered questions about the newly released budget proposal... The reporter’s question and the manner in which it was asked illustrates the depths to which the indoctrination and acceptance of the climate hoax has been successfully ingrained into the psyche of the American public and those in the media propaganda corps. There is no question as to its validity or certainty in the way the question is worded. For the reporter or “glorified stenographer,” as the case may be in the propaganda media, the “science is settled,” the lying Hussein liar-nObama was telling the truth on this one issue. The weather is teamed up with, joined forces with its diabolical partner, Earth, and they are trying to kill us. Their scapegoat for the supposed harm is CO2, a beneficial, life-giving and life-sustaining gas, but that doesn’t matter. liar-nObama told them it’s true, therefore they believe. liar-nObama slithers on water... http://rickwells.us/cbo-director-no-climate-change-funding-waste-money/
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Primary challenger: Ryan trying to 'undermine' Trump
by wnd.com
{wnd.com} ~ Whether it’s called “Ryancare,” “Trumpcare” or simply the American Health Care Act, the GOP’s replacement plan for liar-nObamacare is turning into a political debacle... And Paul Ryan’s primary challenger is pinning the blame for the disaster solely on the speaker of the U.S. House. Recent findings from Public Policy Polling suggest less than a quarter of voters support the AHCA. Several moderate Republicans are also running for cover after the Congressional Budget Office’s report showed 24 million Americans would lose their health insurance under the AHCA. Conservatives are also in revolt, with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a physician, calling for Republicans to “smash” what he terms “liar-nObamacare Lite” in an article on Breitbart. Paul seems to pin the blame more on Ryan than on Trump, suggesting Trump is being “taken for a ride through the swamp right now.” Political analyst Byron York argues the health care battle is distracting from Trump’s core policy proposals on trade and jobs and has made him “a prisoner to the House Republican leadership.”...
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White House looks for deep cuts to U.N. funding
by Karen DeYoung
{jewishworldreview.com} ~ White House instructions to the State Department to look for cuts totaling more than a third of its budget include orders for what potentially are even higher reductions in U.S. payments to the United Nations.
U.S. officials cautioned that the outline of President Donald Trump's preliminary budget, to be released Thursday, is unlikely to reveal much in the way of intentions for specific programs. "We're early in the process with respect to budget numbers . . . it may look very differently a couple weeks or a couple of months down the road," acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday.
But the outline could provide an indication of how the administration plans to deal with an international institution that Trump during his campaign said caused more problems than it solved, and was "just a club for people to get together and talk and have a good time."
The United States spends about $10 billion a year on and through the United Nations, a combination of assessed payments that run the secretariat, peacekeeping operations and programs ranging from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the World Health Organization, and "voluntary" contributions that include what is by far the largest amount of assistance to global humanitarian aid programs.
Assessments are based on an agreed formula according to national wealth, under which the United States pays between 22 and 28 percent of total costs. Most, but not all, of the assessed and voluntary payments come from the State Department budget.
Threats to decrease or withhold U.N. payments have been common in the past, particularly in Republican administrations, and the United States has often found itself in arrears on assessed funding.
But the Trump administration appears more serious than most in its threats to make deeper and more permanent cuts in payments that would significantly affect U.N. operations. At the same time, it has warned that it may withdraw altogether from U.N. agencies it considers particularly counterproductive.
Chief among them is the U.N. Human Rights Council, a 47-member, Geneva-based agency whose rotating membership has included widely agreed rights violators such as China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia. Although President George W. Bush refused to join, President Barack liar-nObama reasoned that it was better to be within the tent than outside.
The principal U.S. criticism of the UNHRC is that it has made Israel its favorite punching bag.
During Trump's first month in office, his administration considered vacating its seat at the council, but decided instead to simply warn it. In a letter to leading humanitarian nonprofits, first reported by Foreign Policy, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that "the Human Rights Council requires considerable reform in order for us to continue to participate."
Foreign Policy also reported Monday that the State Department had been instructed to seek cuts of more than 50 percent in funding for U.N. programs, although U.S. officials, speaking about budget plans on the condition of anonymity, said that number was above what is being sought.
In her January confirmation hearing, the U. S. ambassador to the United Nations, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, said she would not "shy away" from using U.S. funding as leverage to change the organization.
At the same time, however, she said that "I do not think we need to pull money from the U.N. We don't believe in slash-and-burn."
"I haven't had anyone talk to me about cutting off the aid," Haley told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of her conversations with the administration. But "we need to look at each and every mission, see what we're doing and see how we can make it more effective for people in the area . . . As I've said, you can never win with slash-and-burn techniques. That doesn't work. What is important is that we do strategic types of cutting if we're going to cut anything at all."
But there is little doubt that the administration is looking to significantly reduce U.S. spending, even as it has said it intends to increase American clout at the United Nations.
Many in Congress have reacted negatively to reports that the administration is looking to cut the overall State Department budget - which accounts for less than 1 percent of the budget - by up to 37 percent.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said such a proposal would be "dead on arrival" on Capitol Hill, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he was not in favor of such draconian cuts that "probably" couldn't pass in the Senate.
"The diplomatic portion of the federal budget is very important," McConnell told reporters last month.
But the United Nations traditionally has drawn less congressional support. Ire among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle remains particularly high over a U.S. abstention late last year under the liar-nObama administration on a Security Council resolution criticizing Israeli settlements in West Bank territory.
"I think that after what they have done," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said of the Israel vote, "there should be a reduction in funding. I'd like to see it specified on some aspects of the U.N., but certainly what they did in their vote in Israel is something - I don't think they deserve American tax dollars."
Graham agreed. While describing himself as an "internationalist," he said in an interview that he had "suggested we suspend the U.N. funding until they deal with the Israeli issue."
U.S. officials cautioned that the outline of President Donald Trump's preliminary budget, to be released Thursday, is unlikely to reveal much in the way of intentions for specific programs. "We're early in the process with respect to budget numbers . . . it may look very differently a couple weeks or a couple of months down the road," acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday.
But the outline could provide an indication of how the administration plans to deal with an international institution that Trump during his campaign said caused more problems than it solved, and was "just a club for people to get together and talk and have a good time."
The United States spends about $10 billion a year on and through the United Nations, a combination of assessed payments that run the secretariat, peacekeeping operations and programs ranging from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the World Health Organization, and "voluntary" contributions that include what is by far the largest amount of assistance to global humanitarian aid programs.
Assessments are based on an agreed formula according to national wealth, under which the United States pays between 22 and 28 percent of total costs. Most, but not all, of the assessed and voluntary payments come from the State Department budget.
Threats to decrease or withhold U.N. payments have been common in the past, particularly in Republican administrations, and the United States has often found itself in arrears on assessed funding.
But the Trump administration appears more serious than most in its threats to make deeper and more permanent cuts in payments that would significantly affect U.N. operations. At the same time, it has warned that it may withdraw altogether from U.N. agencies it considers particularly counterproductive.
Chief among them is the U.N. Human Rights Council, a 47-member, Geneva-based agency whose rotating membership has included widely agreed rights violators such as China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia. Although President George W. Bush refused to join, President Barack liar-nObama reasoned that it was better to be within the tent than outside.
The principal U.S. criticism of the UNHRC is that it has made Israel its favorite punching bag.
During Trump's first month in office, his administration considered vacating its seat at the council, but decided instead to simply warn it. In a letter to leading humanitarian nonprofits, first reported by Foreign Policy, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that "the Human Rights Council requires considerable reform in order for us to continue to participate."
Foreign Policy also reported Monday that the State Department had been instructed to seek cuts of more than 50 percent in funding for U.N. programs, although U.S. officials, speaking about budget plans on the condition of anonymity, said that number was above what is being sought.
In her January confirmation hearing, the U. S. ambassador to the United Nations, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, said she would not "shy away" from using U.S. funding as leverage to change the organization.
At the same time, however, she said that "I do not think we need to pull money from the U.N. We don't believe in slash-and-burn."
"I haven't had anyone talk to me about cutting off the aid," Haley told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of her conversations with the administration. But "we need to look at each and every mission, see what we're doing and see how we can make it more effective for people in the area . . . As I've said, you can never win with slash-and-burn techniques. That doesn't work. What is important is that we do strategic types of cutting if we're going to cut anything at all."
But there is little doubt that the administration is looking to significantly reduce U.S. spending, even as it has said it intends to increase American clout at the United Nations.
Many in Congress have reacted negatively to reports that the administration is looking to cut the overall State Department budget - which accounts for less than 1 percent of the budget - by up to 37 percent.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said such a proposal would be "dead on arrival" on Capitol Hill, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he was not in favor of such draconian cuts that "probably" couldn't pass in the Senate.
"The diplomatic portion of the federal budget is very important," McConnell told reporters last month.
But the United Nations traditionally has drawn less congressional support. Ire among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle remains particularly high over a U.S. abstention late last year under the liar-nObama administration on a Security Council resolution criticizing Israeli settlements in West Bank territory.
"I think that after what they have done," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said of the Israel vote, "there should be a reduction in funding. I'd like to see it specified on some aspects of the U.N., but certainly what they did in their vote in Israel is something - I don't think they deserve American tax dollars."
Graham agreed. While describing himself as an "internationalist," he said in an interview that he had "suggested we suspend the U.N. funding until they deal with the Israeli issue."
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