The Front Page Cover
~ Featuring ~
Rhythms of Life
by Tom McLaughlin
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Pruitt Holds the Line Against the Left at the EPA
by Jordan Candler: The EPA is getting a refreshing makeover after Gina McCarthy spent years directing the agency to enact unconstitutional power grabs and enforcing other forms of corruption. For example, the Clean Power Plan — a carbon-capture scheme that was developed under Barack liar-nObama’s administration — was recently and mercifully flagged by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for elimination, saving the economy upwards of $73 billion annually. Now it’s ecofascists’ turn to feel the direct influence of new management. Under McCarthy, “green” interest groups basically viewed the EPA as the go-to agency for changes to climate-related rules and regulations. Not anymore. As Reuters reports, Pruitt “issued a directive to his agency on Monday seeking to end the practice of settling lawsuits with environmental groups behind closed doors, saying the groups have had too much influence on regulation.”
The report goes on to note, “The EPA under former President Barack liar-nObama quietly settled lawsuits from environmental groups with little input from regulated entities, such as power plants, and state governments.” How’s that for the most transparent administration in history? But according to Pruitt, “The days of regulation through litigation are over. We will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the agency.”
Reuters adds, “Daren Bakst, a research fellow in agricultural policy at the Heritage Foundation think tank, said sue and settle has led to ‘egregious antics’ that have ‘effectively handed over the setting of agency priorities to environmental pressure groups,’ and has led to rushed rule making by the agency.” Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) regurgitated this view: “The Environmental Protection Agency should not make regulations by settling lawsuits behind closed doors. Under the last administration, the EPA advanced its political agenda by abusing its authority and leaving states and Congress in the dark. The public deserves to know how its government is operating.”
There’s really no reason to oppose these changes — unless you’re an activist who can no longer deploy covert tactics to circumvent the Rule of Law. And, to no one’s surprise, green groups aren’t happy with Pruitt’s move. What became customary at liar-nObama’s EPA should never have become so. But it did, no doubt because McCarthy agreed with these lawsuits. liar-nObama’s EPA was not impartial, nor was it transparent or legally minded. Pruitt is doing a masterful job ensuring this injustice ends. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/51895
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Gowdy – Comey Will Be Back
to Testify, Explain His Contradictions of Facts
{rickwells.us} ~ It appears that James Comey is headed for some more Congressional testimony... although it may be an exercise in futility as long as Jeff Sessions is Attorney General and Christopher Wray the FBI Director. Bret Baier asks Rep Trey Gowdy about an email released by the FBI which confirms that then-Director James Comey began drafting his exoneration letter for liar-Hillary Clinton months before she was interviewed and before numerous other key individuals had been questioned. Gowdy listens to a replay of questioning of James Comey conducted by Rep John Ratcliffe (R-TX) in which Comey states unequivocally that he made the decision not to recommend prosecution after she was interviewed on July the second... https://rickwells.us/gowdy-comey-back-testify/.
Bombshell Report Proves Collusion
by Jeff Dunetz
{lidblog.com} ~ The Hill revealed a bombshell of a story Tuesday morning that connects Russian bribery, collusion, the liar-Clinton Foundation, Eric Holder, Uranium and tons of cash... In 2009 the year before Team liar-nObama approved the Uranium One deal giving Putin control of twenty percent of American uranium, the FBI had compiled significant evidence that Putin’s nuclear industry officials “were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews.” Rather than starting to arrest people, or inform Congress, Eric Holder’s Department of Justice kept investigating Putin’s Nuclear corruption in the U.S. for four more years, while liar-Hillary and the liar-nObama administration were conducting two nuclear deals with the Russian despot... http://lidblog.com/report-proves-russian-collusion/
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Europe's New Official
History Erases Christianity, Promotes Islam
by Giulio Meotti
{gatestoneinstitute.org} ~A few days ago, some of Europe's most important intellectuals -- including British philosopher Roger Scruton, former Polish Education Minister Ryszard Legutko, German scholar Robert Spaemann and Professor Rémi Brague from the Sorbonne in France -- issued "The Paris Statement"... In their ambitious statement, they rejected the "false Christendom of universal human rights" and the "utopian, pseudo-religious crusade for a borderless world". Instead, they called for a Europe based on "Christian roots", drawing inspiration from the "Classical tradition" and rejecting multiculturalism: "The patrons of the false Europe are bewitched by superstitions of inevitable progress. They believe that History is on their side, and this faith makes them haughty and disdainful, unable to acknowledge the defects in the post-national, post-cultural world they are constructing. Moreover, they are ignorant of the true sources of the humane decencies they themselves hold dear — as do we. They ignore, even repudiate the Christian roots of Europe. At the same time they take great care not to offend Muslims, who they imagine will cheerfully adopt their secular, multicultural outlook"... https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11188/europe-erases-christianity
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VIDEOS
Officer Brandon Tatum Blast NFL Players Who Took Knee During Cop’s Memorial.
U.S.-Backed Forces Reclaim Raqqa, ISIS Loses Its Capitol.
Tucker: Harvey Hypocrite Lisa Bloom Is A Feminist For Hire.
EPA Chief Pruitt: Obama Administration ‘Abused’ Rule Making Process.
Dr Gina Loudon On The Opioid Crisis.
FBI Warns Of New Virtual Kidnapping Scam.
16 Years in Afghanistan More distressing than the lack of tangible progress on the ground is the lack of congressional input into the decision-making process. The latest news emanates from the Senate, where the Republican-led chamber recently voted down a proposal from Senator Rand Paul to sunset the current authorizations for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Paul, an avowed critic of the U.S. operations in the Middle East, voiced the concerns of many Americans when he stated that the original authorizations no longer are applicable to the changing dynamics of the battlefield. He also railed against his colleagues for allowing “a perpetual war until the end of time.” His measure failed, 61-36, and was followed a couple of days later by the Senate’s 89-9 decision to fund a $700 billion dollar defense budget.
The peculiar decision-making in Washington, DC, hasn’t been relegated only to the halls of Congress. The Army Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, was quoted at last week’s AUSA Conference saying, “We are training, advising, and assisting indigenous armies all over the world, and I expect that will increase and not decrease.” His statement was surprising for many reasons, primarily because the U.S. government’s (primarily the Defense Department) record of building indigenous forces in Afghanistan has been undistinguished.
According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR) report, released in September, not only was the United States government unprepared to build an Afghan army and police force in the early 2000s but its efforts in the interim have “lacked a comprehensive approach to SSA [security sector assistance] and a coordinating body to successfully implement the whole-of-government programs necessary to develop a capable and self-sustaining ANDSF [Afghan National Defense Security Forces].”
And while it’s true that the Trump administration has underwritten a new set of rules of engagement(ROE) that allow U.S. forces to “employ air power without a requirement that the intended objects of attack be ‘proximate’ to U.S. forces or U.S. advised Afghan forces,” it isn’t clear how this new set of tactics will facilitate the American mission of building Afghan security forces capable of defending their country.
Since Trump took office, the pace of airstrikes against the Taliban and Islamic State in Afghanistan has reached a seven-year high. However, these strikes and new ROE also make it more likely that non-combatants will die and as a result create more fighters willing to engage U.S. advisers and Afghan forces on the ground. Quite simply, the tactics aren’t nested with a cogent national strategy and that means billions of dollars will be wasted in the future.
It is incumbent upon the president, his secretary of defense, and the rest of his national security team to be up front with the American people and explain what is at stake in Afghanistan and how we can emerge victorious, however that is to be defined. It’s important that success be achieved soon because our nation’s Armed Forces are going to be facing a critical manning issue in the very near future.
It was recently reported that the vast majority of American 17-24-year-olds (71%) can’t meet the minimum criteria for service in today’s Armed Forces. And, according to the Army Recruiting Command, while there 33.4 million Americans between the ages of 17-24, there only 136,000 who are interested in service and meet the basic requirements. Simply put, there aren’t going to be enough people to fight “forever wars.”
After 16 years, something needs to change, and soon. Republics weren’t meant to fight prolonged wars and if the United States wants to continue being the primary international power its leadership must either decide to go all in for the mission in Afghanistan or withdraw. Our country deserves better than to be involved in a stalemate and only time will tell if the executive branch and Congress are up to the task. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/51882
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Rhythms of Life
by Tom McLaughlin
{tommclaughlin.blogspot.com} ~ “I got rhythm, I got music,” goes the old Gershwin lyric, and I like both. I can’t dance well and I don’t play any musical instruments, but the rhythms of life? I’ve willingly subjected myself to them and I’m better off for it. I’m in bed before nine o’clock every night and asleep minutes after, then I’m up and at it by 5:00 am. That makes me a morning person, but I wasn’t always. During the first half of my adult life I was a night owl who hated to get up in the morning. As a child, however, my daily routine had been parentally imposed — bed at 8:30 pm and up at 6:00 am, so I’ve gotten back to an older, more natural routine.On that note, three Americans recently won a Nobel Prize for medicine because of their research into the benefits of what they call “circadian” rhythm. They claim bad things can result when we upset our daily sleep cycles, things like increased risk of cancer and “degenerative neurological conditions.”
Important as daily rhythms are, I think our annual rhythms are too and this year seems strange. As someone born and raised in New England I like my seasons, all four of them — even though up here in the mountains of Maine winter can be a bit too long. By March, nearly everyone wants it over and all of us long for signs of spring, even the tiniest manifestation, like a glimpse of bare ground between snow storms can be enough to sustain us for weeks, but we got none of those last spring. March was colder than January and April wasn’t springlike either. Summer was fine when it finally arrived, but now it has stretched into October. It feels unnatural.From Portland Press Herald
I’ve been living in rural Maine forty years and we always expected the first frost shortly after Labor Day. We’d would get out the winter jackets for Fryeburg Fair week — not every day, but one or two. This year it was shorts and tee-shirts for most of October’s first week. I like wearing shorts with those little socks under my sneakers from June through August, but then I’m ready to don long pants and taller socks come September. We’ve always gotten a few warm days in the fall and they’re nice, but not every day. I’ve had to put a fan on me to sleep in both September and October. That’s not supposed to happen and it’s throwing off my annual rhythm.
Autumn in New England has its own smells too and they’re comforting to me as my olfactory sense gets stronger as I get older, although maybe it only seems that way as both my eyesight and hearing get measurably weaker. There’s a certain very pleasant scent detectable when I first step outside on a crisp, clear fall morning. I get a burst of energy when the weather cools that I used to expend on things like splitting and stacking firewood. Cool air and autumn breezes would keep me from sweating too much and I liked smelling smoke from a woodstove while I worked. I also liked keeping at it until sunset, then going inside for dinner.In November, I look forward to the first snow. I can always smell it before it comes and it’s comforting as long as I’ve got all my autumn chores done. November can be cold enough to break out the flannel-lined pants and woolen socks which I’ll then wear right through most of March, or all if it as I did this year because it was often below zero. If the first snow doesn’t come in November it’ll surely come not too far into December.
By then our days will have shortened, but government upset that rhythm by imposing Daylight Savings Time, which ends at midnight, November 4th this year. I wonder what Mr. Hall and his Nobel laureate colleagues think of that. I’d like to ignore the mandated time changes, but then I’d be an hour out of step with the rest of America. 
by Todd Johnson: Last week marked the 16th anniversary of the United States’ military and political involvement in Afghanistan, and sadly, there is no end in sight. The counterinsurgency operation has been at best a draw, and considering the amount of blood and treasure that has been expended, a tremendous disappointment for a nation that spends on more on its military than the next 10 nations combined.
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