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McCabe draws blank on Democrats’
funding Trump dossier, new subpoenas planned
by James Rosen
{foxnews.com} ~ Congressional investigators tell Fox News that Tuesday’s seven-hour interrogation of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe contained... numerous conflicts with the testimony of previous witnesses, prompting the Republican majority staff of the House Intelligence Committee to decide to issue fresh subpoenas next week on Justice Department and FBI personnel. While HPSCI staff would not confirm who will be summoned for testimony, all indications point to demoted DOJ official Bruce G. Ohr and FBI General Counsel James A. Baker, who accompanied McCabe, along with other lawyers, to Tuesday’s HPSCI session. The issuance of a subpoena against the Justice Department’s top lawyer could provoke a new constitutional clash between the two branches, even worse than the months-long tug of war over documents and witnesses that has already led House Speaker Paul Ryan to accuse DOJ and FBI of “stonewalling” and HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., to threaten contempt-of-Congress citations against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray... http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/20/mccabe-draws-blank-on-democrats-funding-trump-dossier-new-subpoenas-planned.html.
On North Korea, China is no partner
by MATHEW HA AND DAVID ADESNIK
{thehill.com} ~ China is a “rival power,” said President Trump in Monday’s speech introducing his official National Security Strategy... Yet conflict is not inevitable, he said, so we will attempt to build a “great partnership” with our rivals, “in a manner that always protects our national interests.” Trump is absolutely right to label China as a rival; what remains doubtful is whether there is any potential for partnership with Beijing when it comes to dealing with the exceptionally dangerous threat posed by North Korea. While professing its interest in a denuclearized North Korea, China has played a critical role in aiding and abetting the growth of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. When North Korea launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in July, it transported the missile on a Chinese truck. Chinese firms sell advanced machine tools to North Korea while Chinese universities train North Korean students from institutions that educate nuclear scientists. Meanwhile, Chinese individuals, banks, and front companies process billions of dollars of transactions on behalf of North Korea, enabling it to evade sanctions... http://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/365602-on-north-korea-china-is-no-partner.
Lawmakers Seek Investigation
After Whistleblower Exposes Federal Thugs
by Alex Newman
{thenewamerican.com} ~ Outraged by new whistleblower revelations of horrifying wrongdoing by federal officials in the Bundy case... one official kept a “kill list,” others withheld evidence from the defense — prominent lawmakers in Western states are asking Congress and the Trump administration to investigate. The government's case, which gained national attention after a 2014 armed standoff in Nevada between the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Bundy family and its supporters, appears to be crumbling. But even as it appears increasingly likely that the defendants will soon walk free, officials say the alleged crimes perpetrated by government officials must not be allowed to go unpunished. As The New American reported on December 19, a memo by whistleblower Larry “Clint” Wooten, who served as the lead BLM investigator on the case, revealed an incredible array of misconduct by heavily armed bureaucrats... https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/27618-lawmakers-seek-justice-after-whistleblower-exposes-federal-thugs.
House Republicans Introduce
Massive Disaster-relief Bill
by Michael Tennant
{thenewamerican.com} ~ House Republicans, contrary to their pledges of fiscal responsibility and constitutional fidelity, unveiled a proposed $81 billion disaster-relief bill Monday night... According to Politico, it is “the largest single funding request for natural calamities in U.S. history.” Of the funding, $28.6 billion would go to the Homeland Security Department, which would reimburse 90 percent of state wildfire costs. The Transportation and Housing and Urban Development departments would get $27.8 billion, with most of that going to the Community Development Block Grant Program. The bill has $1.3 billion in funds to repair federal highways. There is also money for crop losses, flood mitigation, education, small-business loans, and government-building repairs. And there’s this: “Buried in the text of the bill is a provision increasing farm subsidies for cotton producers.”... https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/congress/item/27619-house-republicans-introduce-massive-disaster-relief-bill.
AT&T Announces They’re Giving US Employees $1K Bonus Because Of Tax Plan.
Politico Reporter Defends Bombshell Report That liar-nObama Admin Stonewalled Hezbollah Probe.
Dershowitz: The White House Has Mueller Where They Want Him.
January 16 International Meeting Announced To Take Stand Against North Korea .
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Socialist Venezuela Starves Kids, Capitalist America Feeds Them
by Lewis Morris: The Left loves to portray socialism as the answer to all our problems. Our last president and last year’s Democrat presidential nominee embraced a number of policies that took or would have taken America in that direction, putting more power in the hands of the state and hamstringing the free market to pick winners and losers to cater to its whims. To see the true outcome of these policies, one need look no farther than Venezuela. That nation has suffered a collapse so complete that its economy is in a death spiral, soldiers are posted in the streets to prevent food riots, and children are suffering severe malnutrition in record numbers while thousands of them have died of starvation.
The New York Times ran a story recently that explored, in heart-wrenching detail, the epidemic of starvation laying waste to an entire generation of children in that socialist nation.
The piece is the result of five months of reporting, with Times correspondents crisscrossing the country, talking with doctors and parents and tracking hospitals. One thing the article does not do, however, is explore the root cause of this human tragedy — the socialist policies of its dictatorial government.
President Nicolas Maduro is quick to blame other countries for his country’s suffering. Notably, he points the finger at Donald Trump (doesn’t everybody?), even though the seeds of Venezuela’s destruction were sown long before Trump took office.
The corruption and mismanagement of Venezuela’s government have led to costly mistakes in the running of its oil industry, once the country’s economic crown jewel. Venezuela possesses some of the richest oil deposits in the world, and it was once one of the largest producers of crude. But the oil sits in the ground, untouched. Refineries are quiet, with no one to manage them or without the proper equipment needed to keep them functioning. Ships sit empty in the harbors, awaiting oil cargo that will never arrive.
Maduro, and his predecessor Hugo Chavez, presided over a socialist government that sought to wring all the wealth it could out of the nation’s oil sector. Seizing private firms and putting everything under the control of the state led to reduced oil drilling and refinery capacity. As has always been the case in socialist nations, when people are not allowed to reap the fruits of their labor, they lose the incentive to work to the best of their abilities.
Venezuela put all its economic energies into its oil industry, and when that sunk the country’s economy sunk with it. Rampant inflation followed, along with a collapse of public services and infrastructure. Desperate people raided grocery stores, many of which have been empty for months. Those that still carry any items have soldiers posted at their doors.
The collapse of the country’s currency and the corrupt government’s inability to solve the problem has led to a major humanitarian crisis. Of course, the government refuses to share the magnitude of the problem, and reports have been buried. This made the Times article all the more important, as it shed light on the scope of malnutrition and starvation, even if it stopped short of detailing the cause.
The useful idiots of the American Left have revered Venezuela as a socialist paradise, yet they cannot seem to make the connection between socialism and the collapse of that nation. They are quick to blame capitalism for America’s economic difficulties, but they turn a blind eye to the role socialism has played in Venezuela, a nation that sits on a sea of oil yet has turned to the U.S. and Russia to buy 4.2 million barrels to keep the country running.
It’s worth noting that while the poor in Venezuela starve, the poor in America seem to be suffering the opposite problem. The obesity epidemic in this country has been an issue for years. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine notes that a majority of children in America today could be obese by the time they reach age 35.
Currently, about 20% of children ages six and up are obese. Sedentary lifestyles, lack of exercise and poor diet are to blame. These factors are often found among the nation’s poor. Ironically, some physicians blame public school lunch programs and bad nutrition information from the government for the sharp rise in obesity.
The lesson in all of this may be that trusting the well being of your family to the government never leads to good outcomes. It may seem tempting in the short run to put faith in an entity that promises to provide for you, but over the long term, that entity will only take everything you have and make you a slave to its whims. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53054
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