Tuesday ~ TheFrontPageCover

The Front Page Cover
 2016             The truth will set you free 
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Featuring:
Going Back to Move Forward
by Susan Stamper Brown
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 Puerto Rico, Underwater in Debt, Is a Lesson for Us All  Once upon a time, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico was a significant manufacturing hotbed and a place bondholders liked to invest because returns were tax-free. But the favorable tax laws companies took advantage of went away a decade ago, and the island has since lost both capital and population. Aside from a small decrease in West Virginia, Puerto Rico is the only U.S. territory to lose residents since 2010. Nearly 10% of its population has fled the island to seek better economic opportunity on the mainland.
          The result has been this territory of less than four million people, just about the population of Connecticut, racked up a debt of $72 billion with little hope of ever repaying it. If Puerto Rico were a state, an idea that has bounced around from time to time, it would be by far America's poorest — but it would also have the option of addressing its financial situation through Chapter 9 bankruptcy. One proposal to deal with this financial crisis would involve Congress changing the law to allow the island to pursue Chapter 9. Pursuing bankruptcy, though, would be to render the investments of thousands of bondholders nearly worthless.
          House Republicans seem more set on providing for an oversight committee similar to one that guided Washington, D.C., through its financial crisis 20 years ago, an arrangement that would allow Puerto Rico to restructure its debt yet again and keep creditors at bay. It would also have the ability to approve the island's budget, a technique often used by states when municipalities run into financial crises. Otherwise, creditors have little to do but take Puerto Rico to court when the territory misses required payments, as it will again in July.
          The issue with the GOP approach, according to Salim Furth and Rachel Grezler of The Heritage Foundation, is the proposed stay on litigation from creditors. As they write, "The stay would set a dangerous precedent that future insolvent governments (say, Illinois or California) would find highly attractive. The last thing taxpayers need to give Puerto Rico — or any financially feckless government — is a get-out-of-jail-free card."
          Yet while the commonwealth's debt is being addressed by Congress, some of the root causes of its financial crunch will remain untouched. For example, several other territories controlled by the United States, such as American Samoa, are exempt from minimum wage requirements because their local economies, employment markets, and employee skill levels are not sufficient to support such a wage — but the similar economy of Puerto Rico is not. There has also been an argument made for repealing the Jones Act, a near century-old restriction allowing only domestic-flagged ships to move goods between the mainland and the island, which drives up islanders' cost of living.
          Grinding poverty is nothing new to the islands dotting the Caribbean, a sad irony given that investors have made handsome rewards by opening tropical paradises catering to the well-to-do of the industrialized world. Just a short distance from these playgrounds of the rich and famous are some of the world's most notorious slums.
          Short of staging a series of military takeovers, there's nothing we can do about how those island nations conduct their affairs. But we can assist Puerto Rico, perhaps through the tough love of letting it learn a financial lesson. Bailing the island out without addressing the underlying problems would not only bring us back full circle in just a few decades. It would also embolden spendthrift state governments to open spending spigots knowing Uncle Sam will be their backstop.
          Lesson number one: Don't make financial promises you can't keep. As Puerto Rico goes, so shall we follow at some future date without reforms of our own.   -The Patriot Post
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 OPINION IN BRIEF 
Jonah Goldberg: "From the earliest days of this [email] scandal — and it is a scandal — liar-Clinton has lied. Unlike Donald liar-Trump’s lies, which he usually vomits up spontaneously like a vesuvian geyser, liar-Clinton’s were carefully prepared, typed up and repeated for all the world to hear over and over again. I would think this is an important distinction. Neither of the candidates is worthy of the office in my eyes, but voters might discount many of liar-Trump’s deceits as symptoms of his glandular personality. Much like Vice President Joe loose lips-Biden, who always gets a pass for launching errant fake-fact missiles from the offline silo that is his mouth, liar-Trump is often seen as entertainingly spontaneous. Meanwhile, liar-Clinton — who lives many time zones away from the word 'entertaining' — is marketing herself as the mature and upstanding grown-up. She does nothing spontaneously. And that means all of her lies are premeditated."   -The Patriot Post
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The real danger of political correctness
by Thomas Donnelly
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{aei.org} ~ The corrosive effects of “political correctness” in modern American society are unlikely to divide “traditionalists” from “accommodationists” among the ranks, but they are all but certain to widen the gap between soldiers and statesmen... And given the parlous state of nObama-era civil-military relations, that is indeed something to worry about. There is no doubt that Americans—pardon me, I mean American elites—have been pulling pretty hard on the PC nitrous oxide of late. College campuses, with their in-class “trigger warnings” and lecture-room “safe spaces” are, as is now to be expected, leading the retreat from reality, particularly any kind of historical reality. In the Age of Call-Me-Caitlyn and Rachel Dolezal, notions of human “identity” have become so fungible and fragile as to be almost meaningless. And if the Supreme Court can find a vaporous right to “dignity” in the Constitution, it suggests that the rot has gone pretty far...  http://www.aei.org/publication/the-real-danger-of-political-correctness/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITODAY&utm_campaign=053016
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It’s Not Enough That liar-Trump Lose,
His Supporters Must Lose Too
by Caleb Howe
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{redstate.com} ~ On Sunday, two related events occurred: the Libertarian Party chose their ticket for the 2016 campaign, and Bill Kristol made news by stating that another, independent, well-backed candidate will be emerging in the race... Three candidates vying for Republican/conservative/libertarian hearts and minds between now and November. One liar-Trump and two “I’m Not liar-Trump” candidates. And of course, if liar-Hilly is the nominee (and she is), “I’m not liar-Trump” will figure largely into her campaign as well. Running against Donald liar-Trump is all the rage, it seems. And why not? Donald liar-Trump is a terrible candidate and easily one of the two worst people ever to run on a major party ticket in this country. You can guess the other. liar-Trump is a routine liar, he has no core policy preferences, no discernible political principles, not even a platform, really. All of his campaign promises are nothing at all, by his own admission. He flies by the seat of his pants, always believing himself supremely, unquestionably correct. It makes him capricious and dangerous...  http://www.redstate.com/absentee/2016/05/30/enough-trump-lose-supporters-must-lose/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
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liar-Trump tax release: Not EZ but easy
by Washington Examiner
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{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced a bill in the Senate this week that would require presidential candidates to release at least three years of tax returns within 15 days of officially becoming their party's nominee... It would charge the Treasury with making the forms public if a candidate refused to do so. Wyden's obvious target is Donald liar-Trump, who will accept the Republican presidential nomination in July and says he will not release his returns before Election Day. Wyden's threat probably ensures that liar-Trump won't do what he should and produce his tax information for public scrutiny. The legislation is otherwise an empty threat, for it has no chance of passing or even getting a vote. It's a piece of partisan grandstanding...
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Veteran Memorials In
Three States Vandalized Ahead of Memorial Day
by Fuzzy Slippers
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{legalinsurrection.com} ~ As Americans across the nation begin Memorial Day weekend with thoughts and prayers honoring our nation’s fallen heroes, vandals defaced veteran memorials in California, Kentucky, and Virginia... ABC News reports: Memorials to veterans in a Los Angeles neighborhood and a town in Kentucky, as well as a Civil War veterans cemetery in Virginia, were damaged as the nation prepares to mark Memorial Day, officials said. A Vietnam War memorial in the Venice area of Los Angeles has been extensively defaced by graffiti. The vandalism occurred sometime during the past week, KCAL/KCBS-TV (http://cbsloc.al/1RAa3mg) reported. The homespun memorial painted on a block-long wall on Pacific Avenue lists the names of American service members missing in action or otherwise unaccounted for in Southeast Asia...  http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/05/veteran-memorials-in-three-states-vandalized-ahead-of-memorial-day/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LegalInsurrection+%28Le%C2%B7gal+In%C2%B7sur%C2%B7rec%C2%B7tion%29
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Flashback:
Iiar-Hilly’s First Email Scandal, Project X
by Fuzzy Slippers
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{legalinsurrection.com} ~ Here at LI, we’ve been covering the current liar-Hilly Clinton email scandal, but it seems this is not the first time she has engaged in hiding sensitive high level email communications... As First Lady, liar-Hilly was embroiled in an email controversy that was known as “Project X.”... The New York Post reports: As first lady, liar-Hilly was embroiled in another scheme to bury sensitive White House e-mails, known internally as “Project X.” In 1999, as investigators looked into Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate and other scandals involving the then-first lady, it was discovered that more than 1 million subpoenaed e-mails were mysteriously “lost” due to a “glitch” in a West Wing computer server...  http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/05/flashback-hillarys-first-email-scandal-project-x/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LegalInsurrection+%28Le%C2%B7gal+In%C2%B7sur%C2%B7rec%C2%B7tion%29
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Justice Dept. Tries to Prevent Deposition
of liar-Clinton in Email-Related Suit
by Brian Freeman
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{newsmax.com} ~ The Justice Department has filed a court motion to prevent former Secretary of State liar-Hilly Clinton from being ordered to testify in a deposition in a case connected to her use of a private email server, The Hill reports... The nObama administration's move is in response to a deposition request from Judicial Watch, claiming the conservative legal watchdog is trying to expand the scope of the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit related to the preparation of talking points for officials to discuss the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya in which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed. Last week, Judicial Watch asked the court to interview liar-Clinton and five other current and former State Department officials about the server, after federal judges ruled in this suit and another one brought by Judicial Watch that some fact-finding is legitimate...
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UK Labour Party Inquiry: Deny, Divert, Cover Up
by Douglas Murray
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{gatestoneinstitute.org} ~ How would you push away a problem you did not want to deal with? The best way, as any addict could tell you, is to pretend that you have dealt with it. The drug-addict pretends to have given up drugs... The alcoholic pretends to have cut down on drink. And the British Labour party pretends to have dealt with its anti-Semitism problem. Since the start of this year, stories of routine anti-Semitism have emerged from the most junior levels of the Labour party the Oxford University Labour Club to the highest levels a member of Parliament and a member of the party's National Executive Committee. No one who had followed the career and hobby-horses of the current Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, could have been surprised by this. Anti-Semitism is a swamp he has spent his political life swimming in. But today, this has become not just a problem for him. In recent decades, Jeremy Corbyn's activities had been of interest only to the small number of people who had hoped to keep the Labour stable clean of anti-Semitism. Today, as the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, he has the opportunity either to tackle anti-Semitism or mainstream it into the UK body politic... http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8153/labour-party-inquiry
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Green cards to Mideast Muslims 'out of control'
by Leo Hohmann
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{wnd.com} ~ According to new data released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the government expanded its Muslim immigration program by nearly one-third in 2014... Green cards were given to 103,901 migrants from countries in the Middle East in fiscal 2014 – 32 percent more than the 78,917 it issued in 2013, and 56 percent more than the 66,415 than it issued in 2001. Although DHS has not yet published statistics for fiscal 2015, the 103,901 green cards issued in 2014 brings the total number issued to migrants from the Middle East from 2001 through 2014 to an astounding 1,114,453...  http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/green-cards-to-mideast-muslims-out-of-control/
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Migrants Committing Disproportionately
High Crime In Germany
by Raheem Kassam and Chris Tomlinson
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{meforum.org} ~ A massive migrant crime wave is surging across Germany, according to figures buried in a new report released by the country's interior ministry. The data reveals that without migrants considered, crime rates in Germany would have remained roughly static since 2014... But, in fact, the country recorded an extra 402,741 crimes committed by migrants. While much of this criminality concerned illegal border crossings, German authorities instead talked up a "record surge" in crimes by "right wing radicals." Concerning statistics from the 135-page report reveal that 70 percent of pickpocketing, one of the crime types on the rise, was committed by non-Germans. Of this figure, 34 percent was committed by recent asylum seekers, with the rest committed by "non-Germans."...  http://www.meforum.org/6031/migrants-high-crime-germany
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Iran has supported
the Taliban’s insurgency since late 2001
by Thomas Joscelyn
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{longwarjournal.org} ~ On May 21, an American drone strike ended Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour’s reign as the Taliban’s leader. As The Wall Street Journal first reported... US intelligence officials tracked Mansour to Iran, where he was visiting his family, and then targeted his car as he crossed back over the border into Pakistan. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Hossein Jaber Ansari, quickly denied this version of events, claiming that his country “welcomes any measure in line with bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan.” However, Zabihullah Mujahid the Taliban’s chief spokesman has conceded that Mansour was indeed inside Iran. Dawn quotes Mujahid as saying the Taliban chief crossed the border because of “ongoing battle obligations,” adding that Mansour made multiple “unofficial trips” to Iran. While many of the details concerning Mansour’s travels remain murky, his presence inside Iranian territory shortly before his death isn’t surprising. Iran has a long history of backing the Taliban’s insurgency against US and allied forces in Afghanistan. Indeed, the relationship between the two former foes is one of the most misunderstood and oft-overlooked aspects of the 9/11 wars...
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Going Back to Move Forward
by Susan Stamper Brown
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{townhall.com} ~ Ah, the "good old days," the ones that President nObama took a sarcastic swipe at during his recent commencement speech at Rutgers University when he said that America's "good old days weren't that great."

Certainly he misread his teleprompter.

Sure, we've experienced enormous advances in things like technology and medicine, but the "good old days" aren't so bad, especially compared to what's happening today.

During the speech nObama said, "...by almost every measure, America is better and the world is better than it was 50 years ago, or 30 years ago, or even eight years ago."

Apparently, liar-Hilly Clinton missed the email.

Maybe she accidentally deleted it when she wiped her personal server clean. Before the Kentucky primary, liar-Hilly ran around the state telling voters she wanted to take America back to the good old days when philandering Bill was in the White House. She promised Energizer Bunny Bill would come out of retirement to revitalize nObama's impotent economy.

The economy's not the only issue on the brink.

Values matter, right? Certainly high schools back in the "good old days" didn't allow plays to be performed depicting female-on-female and male-on-male rape like the play recently performed at Houston's Carnegie Vanguard High School.

How about healthcare? Post-nObamacare, millions of Americans remain uninsured, premiums are higher and people can't keep their doctors as promised. Americans hate it.

What about the racial tension that's escalated over the last eight years? And the increased terrorist attacks on our homeland and the birth of ISIS? How about the ever-expanding debt and the contracting job market?

Obviously, perspective affects our worldview.

nObama and a large number of his advisors spent a good portion of their lives abroad. Both nObama and his senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, say their years living in Indonesia and Iran, respectively, helped shaped their worldviews. It's hard to be truly objective about a particular time in history unless we were there to experience it. That's the downside of nostalgia. And that's also the downside of President nObama's obviously skewed worldview which inspires him to believe America's "good old days weren't that great."

An awful lot of Americans disagree with him. According to a recent Real Clear Politics poll, 66 percent of those surveyed say they believe America's going in the wrong direction. A spirit of discouragement and cynicism has overwhelmingly saturated our society like a wet blanket on a cold winter's night. That's not progress.

"But I guess," Mr. nObama said, "it's part of human nature, especially in times of change and uncertainty, to want to look backwards and long for some imaginary past when everything worked, and the economy hummed, and all politicians were wise, and every kid was well-mannered, and America pretty much did whatever it wanted around the world."

It's a shame Mr. nObama believes Americans are so shallow.

There was a time, however, and it is in no way "imaginary," when America's economy did "hum," politicians had a conscience, families worshiped and prayed together, kids had moms and dads, children understood the meaning of respect, the Constitution was revered, people knew which bathroom to use, America was a superpower, and ISIS did not exist.

By no measure is America better today than eight years ago. Someone much wiser than our president, the prophet Jeremiah, had this to say about the good old days: "This is what the Lord says: 'Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.'"

According to Jeremiah, good ways and ancient paths lead us to the "good old days." We need to go back to move forward. Now that's the kind of positive change we can and should believe in.
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