Tuesday AM ~ TheFrontPageCover

TheFrontPageCover
~ Featuring ~
The Seduction of Socialism 
by Cal Thomas
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It’s Time ‘to Wrap Up’ Mueller Probe, Portman Says 
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{ lifezette.com } ~ It is time for special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into collusion allegations between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia “to be brought to an end,”... Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “I think the Mueller investigation ought to be brought to an end also,” Portman told NBC News host Chuck Todd. “I mean, we need to have the facts lead to the right conclusion, so I support the investigation, I have from the start. But we do need to wrap it up.” Portman is a key senator: He is chairman of the investigations subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and a moderate Republican who has been a consistent supporter of letting the Mueller probe run its course. Mueller entered his second year of helming the probe in May. Portman, also a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, emphasized that while he still supports the investigation and believes it is “important for us to get to the bottom of it,” he urged Mueller to “do it expeditiously.” Portman also said the Trump administration’s “very tough” policies concerning Russia are “tougher, frankly, than those of the previous administration,” including imposing the “toughest sanctions since the Cold War.”...    https://www.lifezette.com/2018/07/its-time-to-wrap-up-mueller-probe-portman-says/?utm_medium=email
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Parents Fault Medical Research Study
for Putting Preemies in Harm’s Way
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{ dailysignal.com } ~ In May 2007, Carrie and Shawn Pratt agreed to sign up their severely premature daughter, Dagen, for a government-funded study being conducted at Duke University Hospital... The Pratts say they were told that researchers simply were gathering information to help other children. “We never understood the study to be based on manipulating her oxygen level to meet researchers’ needs,” Carrie Pratt says. At issue is an experiment in which researchers at two dozen academic institutions randomly manipulated the oxygen levels of 1,316 extremely premature infants without providing their parents the full details of the methods and risks. Confronted with the reality, which the Pratts discovered just last year, the West Virginia couple remain shell-shocked...
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Is a storm brewing in the Taiwan Strait?
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{ aei.org } ~ On June 24, in her first interview with Western media in well over a year... Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen called on the international community to “work together to reaffirm our values of democracy and freedom in order to constrain China and also minimize the expansion of their hegemonic influence.” These are remarkably strong words for a president of the Republic of China (Taiwan)—even for Tsai, a member of the notionally independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Since Tsai was elected in 2016, she has remained committed to the status quo in cross-strait relations, despite what she called in her interview “immense pressure” from Beijing. This means maintaining de facto rather than de jure independence for Taiwan, conducting cross-strait affairs in accordance with the ROC constitution and extant legislation, and respecting previously negotiated cross-strait agreements. Beijing, on the other hand, has intensified its efforts to unify Taiwan and mainland China under Beijing’s “one China” principle. In response to the 2016 election in Taiwan—in which the DPP gained simultaneous control of the executive and legislative branches for the first time—Chinese President Xi Jinping immediately launched a pressure campaign on the island, beginning even while the relatively China-friendly Ma Ying-jeou government was still in office. In the 35 months since Tsai’s victory, Beijing has cut off official communications across the strait, stolen Taipei’s diplomatic allies, used economic leverage to punish Taiwan, ensured Taiwan’s exclusion from international forums, and increased the pace and scope of military exercises in the waters surrounding the island. Xi shows no signs of letting up anytime soon...   http://www.aei.org/publication/is-a-storm-brewing-in-the-taiwan-strait/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWVRFNE1XRmhOakExTXprdyIsInQiOiJPNmRUTnkzWkxlTENKNFpzQVJ6XC9UeFVYQXUzbHROVWtTbEEwSnk2N24zcm5vVDA2OWh2N0RnQlRxeGViXC9OUmlCZnJzUjhPT1hLS3VDQnFNUTN0d0pmR2N4Y05CdGx1dERiK2ZrUENKbmVJUXB2MFRBc1dtb1wvd0pqQmhZb0VcLzAifQ%3D%3D
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Michael Cohen Already Exonerated President Trump
by Brian Joondeph

{ americanthinker.com } ~ Scores of dummycrats-Democrat activists disguised as journalists have had their hair on fire since Donald Trump won the election... Every week brings another outrage, from the travel ban to separated illegal immigrant families. From Stormy Daniels to Robert Mueller. From President Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-un or Vladimir Putin to his slap-down of the EU. Each manufactured outrage is another potential way to damage Trump, to chip away at his base of support, lame attempts to separate Trump from his supporters. If his tweets, demeanor, or personal life decades ago were enough to turn voters away, he would be polling in the teens and his rallies wouldn’t fill a high school gymnasium. Instead his support is quite the opposite. Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen is the latest Willy Wonka golden ticket for the cable news magpies to salivate over. They finally got Trump. Fire up the impeachment panels, prepare the gallows. The Hill provides a glimpse into the wishful thinking that Michael Cohen is their winning lottery ticket with this headline, “If Cohen is telling us the truth, Trump may end up like Flynn.” I’m not sure who reads The Hill other than the Washington DC branch of NeverTrump Club. Good luck with that premise. The reality is that it’s Cohen who might end up like Flynn...
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Price Transparency in Healthcare Will Save Trillions
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{ economics21.org } ~ Last year, healthcare spending grew to around 18% of the American economy, further impeding the competitiveness of businesses and driving up costs for patients... Today, the average worker pays approximately $5,700 a year towards their coverage, while the average family pays $7,900. Unfortunately, this growth in spending does not correlate to improvement in outcomes, as nearly 30% of what is spent on healthcare has no impact whatsoever. Some blame this waste and inefficiency on America’s “private healthcare system,” and argue that the solution to these problems is to increase government control of healthcare. This couldn’t be further from the truth: the blame should be laid on both the private and public players in America’s hybrid healthcare system, who realized long ago how to profit excessively off the misaligned incentives of central planning. Government directly accounts for 45% of total spending on healthcare, while government tax policy shapes and distorts the 20% spent by private businesses. While care is largely delivered by private insurers, hospitals, and physicians, each of those groups is influenced by price controls and regulations that stymie their entrepreneurial spirit. Too often, consumers experience “the system” as unresponsive behemoths. What’s more, health insurance obscures the true cost of care from patients, removing any incentive to shop for value, and allowing insurance companies and other middlemen to turn a profit by raising prices. Let’s be clear: there’s no real market in American healthcare. That’s the real problem. Enabling price transparency is an important step towards injecting market incentives into healthcare, and restoring the economic discipline of a truly competitive market...
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The Seduction of Socialism 
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by Cal Thomas

{ townhall.com } ~ For the current generation, sometimes referred to as millennials, it appears one thing is more seductive than sex -- and that's socialism.

Sen. commie-Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and 28-year-old commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, winner of a New York dummycrats-Democratic primary, are the old and new faces of socialist America.

Their platforms, it appears, hinge on the concept of shared wealth, in other words, handing out free stuff to just about everyone. How far we've come from JFK's admonition not to ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Today, for many, it's all about what you should expect from your country with little or no reciprocity.

It is undeniable that capitalism has raised more boats than socialism has sunk. Yet, socialism's appeal continues, despite historical and contemporary evidence that it delivers a bad deal for those who embrace it.

In an article for Reason magazine last May, Steve Chapman, a columnist and editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune, referenced a University of Chicago GenForward Survey of Americans, ages 18 to 34. The survey found that "62 percent believe we need a strong government to handle today's complex economic problems." Only 35 percent said "the free market can handle these problems without government being involved."

The survey, noted Chapman, found that "Overall, 49 percent hold a favorable view of capitalism -- and 45 percent have a positive view of socialism," with socialism scoring higher approval among African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans. Sixty-one percent of Democrats have a positive view of socialism, which is not surprising, while 25 percent of Republicans favor it, which is a surprise.

I have at least three takeaways from this. The first is that it's likely most of those who favor socialism have never lived in a country where it is practiced. A few months in Venezuela might be the perfect cure. Second, people who claim to prefer socialism to capitalism are probably reaping capitalism's benefits. This group of misinformed comrades includes parents who gave their pampered millennials a lifestyle they likely would never have enjoyed under a socialist regime.

The third takeaway is that those who favor socialism over capitalism and socialist countries over America are spoiled rotten. They are part of a generation that has never had to serve in the military and, I would venture to guess, do not know anyone who is serving or has served, other than maybe a grandparent, whose values many seem to have rejected.

People seduced by socialism have likely not had to sacrifice much for their country. They seem to take it for granted that the freedoms they enjoy, even the freedom to believe in a political and economic system that is anti-freedom, dropped from the sky and were not achieved by the hard work, blood, sweat and tears which they think is the name of an old rock group of others.

Socialism stifles incentive and makes people dependent on government, not themselves, which appears to be the liberal ideal. Some would rather get a check than earn one. Look at the TV ads advertising toll-free numbers, free shipping and other free incentives, which are not free at all. Their cost is simply added to the product you purchase.

Socialism is little more than mutually shared poverty, a version of "spreading the wealth around" with government taking from the productive and giving to the nonproductive. It is an economic philosophy closely associated with communism.

Do dummycrats-Democrats really want to embrace socialism heading into the next two elections? If so, they can expect the same defeats they have suffered in the past -- think George McGovern and Walter Mondale. Each thought the American people were taxed too little and that big government was the answer.

It isn't, and it never will be.
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