Trump sanctions on Iranian foreign minister
could expose the real face of the
country's 'charmer-in-chief'
By Russ Read Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters this week that the administration plans to target Zarif as part of a new round of sanctions on Iranian leadership. The announcement followed President Trump's executive order Monday sanctioning Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his associates. "The actions by the United States over the past few weeks have been confrontational, provocative," Zarif told CNN afterwards. "Particularly the imposition of sanctions on Iranian leadership has been an additional insult by the United States against the entire Iranian nation." Zarif is widely considered one of the moderates in Iran's government, along with President Hassan Rouhani. While many of Iran's officials are elected, they are ultimately subordinate to Khamenei, and no one can run for office in the country without his approval. Some experts claim a rift exists between Khamenei's hardliners and Rouhani's moderates, though Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of research for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Examiner new sanctions against Zarif could put that theory in doubt. "When we impose sanctions on individuals or companies, or even sectors of a given economy, there is an accompanying explanatory note that Treasury releases," said Schanzer, a former Treasury Department analyst. "And those statements, unbeknownst to most people, are derived from declassified intelligence." That declassified intelligence could give the world its first glimpse into Zarif's financial connections in Iran, including any ties to hard-line elements within the government...
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/trump-sanctions-on-iranian-foreign-minister-could-expose-the-real-face-of-the-countrys-charmer-in-chief?utm_source=WEX_News%20Brief_06/28/2019&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WEX_News%20Brief&rid=5261 Under dinky-Warren's Medicare for All Plan,
Many Hospitals Would Be Forced to Close—Especially in Poor, Rural Areas
By Peter Suderman is that politicians "just won't fight for it." More often than not, when a politician declares that the only thing preventing some particular plan from going into place is political will, it's a sign that there are uncomfortable practical questions they would like to paper over. So it was when dinky-Warren explained her support for a single-payer health care in which the government takes over nearly all of the country's health care financing. The discussion began when the entire stage was asked who, by a show of hands, would eliminate private insurance. dinky-Warren was one of just two candidates, along with New York Mayor scumbag-Bill de Blasio, to raise her hand. She then went on to defend her position, saying "I'm with commie-Bernie on Medicare for All." One of the top reasons for bankruptcy, she said, was medical bills. And insurers, she argued, have an incentive to keep as much money as possible rather than pay for better care. "That leaves families with rising premiums, rising copays, and fighting with insurance companies to try to get the health care that their doctors say that they and their children need. Medicare for All solves that problem. And I understand. There are a lot of politicians who say, oh, it's just not possible, we just can't do it, have a lot of political reasons for this. What they're really telling you is they just won't fight for it." The core problem, in dinky-Warren's view, is politicians who won't fight for ordinary people. Everything else is just politics. That's a convenient and politically easy response, but it's not a particularly good one. dinky-Warren's blithe dismissal of the challenges of uprooting the nation's health care system and starting over with an entirely new system of government financing allows her to portray herself as a populist champion while ignoring the practical problems that single-payer poses. Like, for example, how hospitals will be paid in a one-size-fits-all system that pays Medicare rates for every service...
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rino-Mitt Romney, On Track to Being Worse
For GOP Than rino-John McCain
By Warner Todd Huston and Jeff dunetz In his last few terms, before he died, Sen. rino-John McCain became a net negative for the country. Or to put it more plainly he was anti-conservative and an a-hole. Besides going back on his promise to push for a border wall, rino-McCain became divisive and attacked his fellow Republicans more than the opposition party. Instead of trying to work with a people’s movement rino-McCain especially hated the Tea Party or anyone associated with the Tea Party, like Sens Rand Paul and Ted Cruz for example. Despite the fact Sarah Palin sacrificed her career and worked her butt off to get him elected President, rino-McCain stabbed her in the back on his deathbed. He lamented that he shouldn’t have picked her as his V.P. By his own admission, rino-McCain was FBI’s source for the anti-Trump dossier and when planning out his funeral demanded that the president stay away from his funeral. And as one of his last acts in the U.S. Senate rino-McCain screwed both his party and his country with his last-minute decision to vote no on the plan to repeal and replace scumbag/liar-nObamacare. But thus far, Utah Sen. rino-Mitt Romney in on track to be worse than rino-McCain as he clearly seeks to be the “new” Senate GOP designated anti-conservative a-hole. Five short months in the U.S. Senate, rino-Romney has already racked up a record as traitorous to the conservative cause as rino-McCain and reminded conservatives why they voted GOP while holding their noses in both 2008 and 2012. For instance, rino-Romney’s latest calumny is to side with the one man in Congress that literally, nobody is backing: lunatic Trump hater Justin Amash. Amash, a “Republican” from Michigan, looks like is on his last term in Congress as his polling numbers back home have cratered due to his absurd anti-Trump pronouncements. Amash is about the only elected Republican in the country that is agitating for a Trump impeachment. He’s not just in favor of it, he is nearly as wild-eyed and rabid about it as the worst Democrat in the House. And then there is our pal, rino-Mitt Romney, cozying up to this loser, calling him “courageous,” and refusing to support Trump’s 2020 reelection. Why would rino-Romney do such an idiotic thing?...
https://lidblog.com/mitt-romney-anti-conservative/.
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Hawley’s Attack on Section 230 Hurts Conservatives
By Jeffrey Westling
{ rstreet.org } ~ A few weeks ago, YouTube demonetized conservative comedian Steven Crowder for repeatedly making derogatory comments about a homosexual Vox reporter... Unsurprisingly, this outcome made no one happy. Many on the left argued that YouTube should have removed Crowder from the platform entirely. For conservatives, the decision became just another data point indicating, anecdotally, that platforms display a political bias by removing conservative content while letting liberal content remain unfettered. In response to this and other incidents of alleged conservative bias, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced a bill this week to require large internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter to apply to the Federal Trade Commission for certification that their moderation practices do not favor one political party. Without such certification, the platforms would not be able to assert Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230) as a defense in litigation against them for defamatory or otherwise illegal user content. In other words, unless the platforms are certified, they would be liable for the content their users post. Not only would this legislation drastically hurt free speech and competition in the online ecosystem, it would mean more conservative content, not less, will be removed from these websites. CDA 230 solves what is known as the moderator’s dilemma. Under law, platforms cannot be held liable for the content that users post on those platforms unless they knew or should have known about the content. However, by engaging in good-faith moderation efforts to limit harmful content and tailor users’ experience, platforms are construed to have knowledge of any content that they have not removed. This led to a dilemma: Platforms must either moderate users’ posts and risk being held liable for their content, or refuse to moderate at all in order to avoid liability. Congress passed CDA 230 to resolve this dilemma by stating that platforms are not publishers of user-generated content, even if they take steps to moderate the content. Sen. Hawley’s proposal effectively recreates this dilemma. Under his bill, to refuse certification, the FTC need not show that the platform actively engaged in moderation practices designed to hurt a viewpoint, but rather that its practices “disproportionately restrict or promote access to, or the availability of, information from a political party, political candidate, or political viewpoint.” This means that, if a platform wants to moderate user content, it will have to take a rigid stance against all content so as to ensure that the FTC decides, by clear and convincing evidence, that the platform did not moderate it in a politically biased manner. In other words, legitimate speech — conservative and liberal alike — will suffer because platforms will worry that failing to remove questionable content may appear to disproportionately affect a viewpoint...
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California Will Endure Prearranged Power OutagesArnold Ahlert: In California’s last two fire seasons, more than 135 people died, and tens of thousands of homes and businesses were obliterated. This ongoing dynamic has been precipitated by two overriding factors: first, the power lines, conductors, and other equipment of the state’s largest power company, Pacific Gas and Electric, as well as those of other state utility companies, are largely antiquated. Second, years of environmental activism have enabled the largely uncontrolled growth of thousands of acres of dense underbrush and vegetation that can be easily ignited during periods of dry weather or severe winds.
California’s approach to fixing the problem? On May 30, the California Public Utilities Commission gave the green light to PG&E and the other utility companies to cut off electricity — to possibly hundreds of thousands of customers — whenever they deem the fire risk is extremely high.
The reasoning behind this decision was detailed last February, when California’s utility companies filed contingency plans with state regulators in advance of the 2019 wildfire season that began this month. Those plans were submitted after PG&E filed for bankruptcy protection, precipitated by ten of billions of dollars in liability claims from those who bore the brunt of the wildfire devastation. PG&E insisted development in remote areas and climate change were major contributors to wildfires’ severity, but critics asserted the company has not done enough to reduce the risk posed by its equipment. And while the utility stated it will spend as much as $2.3 billion this year to mitigate that risk, the company ultimately admitted that “preventing wildfires outright is likely impossible.”
Thus, PG&E has developed a formula that determines when people will be left without power. As PG&E senior public safety specialist David Hodgkiss explains, “elevated (Tier 2) or extreme (Tier 3)” risk triggering a Red Flag warning will be engendered by humidity below 20%, sustained winds over 25 mph, and winds gusts over 40 mph. Those conditions will be verified by 1,300 weather stations the company plans to install across its customer-service area in central and northern California that serves approximately 40% of the state’s population.
Last October, the utility company implemented what amounts to a trial run of this policy in several small communities in the North Bay and Sierra Foothills. Power was deliberately cut off to nearly 60,000 customers for two days.
Yet as Hodgkiss warns, keeping the power off for only 48 hours may be an optimistic prediction going forward. “Each and every foot of line and piece of conductor needs to be inspected” before restoring it to make sure downed trees or other hazards aren’t impacting power lines, and that some of those inspections take time “especially in a mountainous area,” he explains. “The inspect and patrol is a huge undertaking, but they’ve gotten a lot better at it than last fall. The goal is to complete it within 48 hours and have everything up and running, but that will depend on the event.”
PG&E spokeswoman Alison Talbott was somewhat tone deaf in explaining the company’s position. “Go ahead and be mad at PG&E,” she stated, “but use this as an opportunity to prepare yourself; because an emergency can happen at any time that isn’t fire-related.”
Mad? Fifty-six year old Kallithea Miller isn’t mad. “I could die in my sleep,” said a woman who relies on her refrigerator to keep her insulin cool, as well as a CPAP machine to maintain her breathing during the night. “It’s scaring the hell out of me.”
It should. As Hodgkiss noted, PG&E will “ideally” begin alerting public-safety agencies 48 hours in advance of a blackout, and then begin getting warnings out to the public via social media and news outlets 24 hours prior to an outage.
Ideally? California’s track record of “ideal” (read: wholly inadequate) solutions for real-world problems is the stuff of legend.
Nonetheless, the epicenter of progressive ideology and radical environmentalism must get its act together. After years of neglect, the U.S. Forest Service and the state’s Cal Fire agency are thinning forests, clearing brush, and setting controlled burns on more acres than they have in quite some time. Unsurprisingly, the effort required Gov. Gavin Newsom to exempt such projects from environmental review. The U.S. Forest Service has also announced a plan to “streamline” federal regulations.
Unfortunately, the current effort only marginally addresses the problem. State officials estimate approximately 15 million acres of wilderness need to be overhauled, yet the U.S. Forest Service plans to treat only 220,000 acres, and Cal Fire can only handle 45,000 acres. “We’re not going to solve the problem (right away),” said Scott Stephens, a professor of fire science at UC Berkeley. “But there’s hope of making a difference in the next two decades.”
Two decades? “Power outrages are characteristic of Third World countries,” Victor Davis Hanson writes. “Here in California we are advised to brace for lots of them, given that our antiquated grid apparently contributes to brush fires on hot days. As a native, I do not remember a single instance of our 20th-century state utilities shutting down service in the manner that they now routinely promise.”
Those promises come with a steep price attached. Calistoga is one of the towns that went dark last October. When it did, city officials claim communications with PG&E broke down, leaving them hard-pressed to get vulnerable residents in three mobile-home parks medical attention. In addition, schools closed and hospitals postponed surgeries. At the 18-room Calistoga Inn, power went out in the middle of the dinner rush, and owner Michael Dunsford estimated the lost revenue, combined with cleaning out his refrigerators and issuing refunds to hotel customers, cost him about $15,000.
Yet as columnists Russell Gold and Katherine Blunt reveal, it gets worse. “PG&E said it generally wouldn’t cover losses due to intentional blackouts — regulations don’t require it to — though it would consider claims case-by-case,” they explain. “It declined to say whether it has ever compensated anyone for such claims.”
In short, Californians are on their own. Even the San Francisco Chronicle acknowledges as much. They advise Californians to buy portable generators, solar roof-top panels, or a $6,700 Tesla Powerwall battery — as if ordinary people in the state with the highest income-tax rates in the nation have such disposable income — after they’re finished paying the sixth highest electric bills. State Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) has also proposed a bill to fix the problem on the wrong of the equation, with a plan to secure backup systems for those who need power for medical reasons. “The last thing we want to do is have a situation like that hurting people,” Dodd said. “This is all new to everybody.”
This is not new. California has had rolling blackouts for more than two decades. What is new? “No U.S. utility has ever blacked out so many people on purpose,” Gold and Blunt state.
Until now — and for the foreseeable future. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/63908?mailing_id=4367&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4367&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
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