Last week a Wall Street Journal editorial revealed the incorrigible hypocrisy with which conservatives have long suffered. Conservatives, of course, have long suffered this malady with respect to domestic policy given their ardent devotion to Social Security, Medicare, foreign aid, and other welfare-state programs even while decrying the left’s devotion to socialism.
But this particular WSJ editorial revealed the incorrigible conservative hypocrisy with respect to foreign policy.
“Vladimir Putin has made a career of intervening abroad and seeing if the world lets him get away with it.”
Why is that sentence funny?
Because it also describes ever single U.S. president for the last 100 years!
Every president from Woodrow Wilson through today has made a career of intervening abroad and seeing if the world lets him get away with it. Indeed, the central feature of the U.S. government for the last 100 years has been and continues to be empire and foreign interventionism.
Clearly, conservatives do not see anything wrong with foreign interventionism as long as the interventionists are wearing an American flag on their sleeves and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. They obviously consider foreign interventionism to be bad only when those pesky Russkies (of Russia-Trump conspiracy fame) do it.
Another humorous aspect to the editorial is the verbiage that the Journal’s editorial writer uses to condemn Putin’s interventionism. The editorial condemns Putin for extending his interventionism in Syria to Venezuela.
Why is that point humorous?
Because the U.S. government, with the full support of conservatives, has also been intervening in both Syria and Venezuela! Thus, the Journal could just as easily have stated that “Putin pulls a U.S. in Syria and Venezuela,” except, well, for one thing: The regimes in both countries invited Russia into their countries. The U.S. government, on the other hand, is intervening in both countries illegally with the intent of ousting both regimes from power and installing pro-U.S. regimes in their stead.
The Journal pointed out Russia’s intervention in Crimea and Ukraine. Not surprisingly, the Journalfailed to point out that after the end of the Cold War, NATO, that old Cold War-era dinosaur controlled by the U.S., proceeded to absorb former members of the Warsaw Pact and was threatening to absorb Ukraine, which would then have put U.S. forces on Russia’s border. In the eyes of conservatives, that sort of interventionism just doesn’t count because it’s U.S. interventionism.
In fact, notice that conservatives, while lamenting Russian and Chinese support of Latin American countries hardly ever lament U.S. government support of European, Eastern European, and Asian countries. That’s hypocrisy in its purest and most incorrigible form.
Venezuela is an independent country. As such, it has the right to seek and receive help from anyone it wants, including Russia, China, North Korea, or any other regime, Red or not. Conservative calls to put a stop to this process are a throwback to the old Cold War mindset that the Reds were coming to get us as part of the supposed worldwide communist conspiracy that was supposedly based in Moscow. That’s what gave rise, of course, to the conversion of our federal government from a limited-government republic to a national-security state and to an even bigger expansion of an interventionist foreign policy.
That’s in fact why the CIA, the Pentagon, and the NSA embarked on a decades-long policy of assassinations of foreign leaders, invasions, occupations, coups, partnerships with dictatorial regimes, torture, indefinite detention, sanctions, embargoes, regime-change operations, secret surveillance, and other dark-side practices. The national-security triumvirate said that all this dark-side activity was necessary to protect us and keep us safe from the Russians (i.e. Soviets), Chinese, North Koreans, North Vietnamese, Cubans, and other Reds. In other words, we had to become like the Reds in order to prevent them from taking control of the United States and teaching communism in America’s public (i.e., government-owned) schools.
Which raises the important question: Simply because Russia, China, North Korea, or other foreign regimes engage in foreign interventionism, assassination, torture, secret surveillance, indefinite detention, or other dark-side practices, does that mean that the U.S. government must do the same as a defensive or protective measure?
The answer is no. The U.S. government should never have gone down the road to empire and foreign interventionism regardless of what the Reds were doing, and it should never have become a national-security state, which is a type of dark-side governmental structure that is inherent to totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.
The United States should restore its founding principles of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy regardless of what foreign regimes are doing. The U.S. should be leading the world to freedom by example, not by copying the Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, or Vietnamese.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2OEeQeF Tyler Durden
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says that two accustions of inappropriate molesation levied against former Vice President Joe Biden do “not at all” disqualify him from seeking the presidency in 2020.
“I don’t think that this disqualifies him from being president. Not at all,” Pelosi told reporters on Monday, adding on Tuesday that Biden should join the “straight-arm club” and pretend to be a germophobe in order to avoid looking like a predator.
Pelosi on Tuesday told Politico Playbook that Biden’s intention should be the determining factor.
JAKE SHERMAN: You’ve known Joe Biden for thirty-something years, right? What is your reaction to these allegations? Now there’s two people who have said he made them feel uncomfortable. Is it disqualifying and what is your reaction to that?
NANCY PELOSI:I don’t think it’s disqualifying because I think disqualifying is what your intention is. I do think this about communication, in general, beyond this. I’m a member of the straight-arm club. I’m a straight arm-er. I just pretend you have a cold and I have a cold. But, I think that it’s important for the vice president and others to understand is it isn’t what you intended, it’s how it was received
Pelosi added that her grandchildren “love Joe Biden,” adding “He’s an affectionate person to children, to senior citizens, to everyone. That’s just the way he is.”
Pelosi said she does not think the recent allegations women have made against Joe Biden are disqualifying for a 2020 run, but added “it’s important for the vice president and others to understand it isn’t what you intended, it was how it was received.” pic.twitter.com/m2yRHlTuDw
Controversy erupted last week after Democrat Lucy Flores accused Biden of grabbing her, sniffing her hair, and then planting a kiss on her unwashed head.
The day of the 2014 rally, speakers gathered and took photos before going on stage. Flores (right) is pictured with Longoria and Biden before the uncomfortable encounter.
A second accuser emerged on Monday – a former congressional aide to Rep. Jim Hines (D-CT), Amy Lappos, who told The Hartford Courantthat Biden grabbed her by the head.
“He put his hand around my neck and pulled me in to rub noses with me. When he was pulling me in, I thought he was going to kiss me on the mouth.“
“I never filed a complaint, to be honest, because he was the vice president. I was a nobody,” said Lappos. “There’s absolutely a line of decency. There’s a line of respect. Crossing that line is not grandfatherly. It’s not cultural. It’s not affection. It’s sexism or misogyny.”
Flores appeared Sunday on CNN’s The Lead where she suggested that Biden’s behavior of women was “disqualifying” for a presidential candidate.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2UhC6VX Tyler Durden
Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats thoroughly outplayed Donald Trump in January’s legislative battle over funding for his border wall; he didn’t get an additional dime. So when Trump sent up his annual proposed budget asking for still more, Democrats scoffed.
“This ridiculous request,” said Representative Nita Lowey, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, “is not worth the paper it is written on.”
But Trump isn’t aiming for a budget victory; his purpose is to keep the fight going in order to make illegal immigration a wedge issue in his 2020 reelection campaign.
The Democrats’ insistence on compassion for the undocumented gives them the moral high ground in this debate. Trump’s proposed wall is not popular, and most Americans do not like his separation of immigrant children from their parents or his deportation of the many undocumented people who have worked and paid taxes here for years. And they sympathize with the students and others who fall under the Obama-era protections of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), whom Trump also threatens to deport.
But a majority of Americans – in numbers well beyond Trump’s base – also want immigration laws to be strictly enforced and the border sealed against illegal crossings. A 2018 Harvard/Harris poll reported that 70 percent of voters support more restrictive laws, with 64 percent – including 53 percent of Latinos – in favor of sending back people who cross the border without papers. And although most blamed Trump for the government shutdown, when that skirmish was over, his favorability ratings rose by three points.
Trump is betting that he can again use anxieties about immigration to stoke enough class anger to win the Midwestern battleground states that he needs for reelection.
“No issue better illustrates the divide between America’s working class and America’s political class,” he signaled bluntly in February’s State of the Union address. “Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders, while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards. Meanwhile, working-class Americans are left to pay the price for mass illegal immigration—reduced jobs, lower wages, overburdened schools, hospitals that are so crowded you can’t get in, increased crime, and a depleted social safety net.”
To hammer home that message, Trump already has an enormous war chest and an experienced and ruthless propaganda machine that includes Fox News, the most popular cable-news channel in the country.
The GOP has been honing its skills in the politics of fear and division for decades, from Ronald Reagan’s racist “welfare queen” trope in 1980, to George H.W. Bush’s 1988 campaign, which smeared Michael Dukakis by playing on racial fears involving the furlough of convicted black murderer Willie Horton, to the GOP’s fraudulent assault on the war record of John Kerry in its 2004 campaign to win a second term for Bush’s draft-dodger son.
The inflammatory ads attacking immigrants that appeared at the end of the 2018 midterm elections were a warm-up for what’s to come. TV and social media will be flooded with images of immigrants – doctored to make dozens look like thousands – throwing rocks at the Border Patrol or rushing to scale the fences, as well as police mug shots of immigrant Latino criminals. The US-bred, Salvadoran-based MS-13 gang might well become the Willie Horton of the 2020 election.
The goal will be to fix in voters’ minds not just that the Democrats are weak on crime (i.e., illegal immigration) but that they’re beholden to activists who champion “open borders.”
And many will be receptive to this claim: A 2018 Quinnipiac poll found that voters thought the Democrats exploited the immigration issue for political gain more than Trump, by 60 to 53 percent.
The Democrats are thus in a political bind. They need the Latino vote, so they have to defend immigrants against Trump’s inhumanity. But as they do, they risk losing credibility with voters who are not racist or xenophobic but who suspect that Democrats care more about protecting people who cross the border illegally than they do about securing it.
On the question of border security, Trump is loud and clear: Keep illegal immigrants out. As far as the 2020 campaign is concerned, whether he actually makes any progress in building his wall is irrelevant; it’s much more important as a symbol of his supposed commitment to law and order.
Many Democrats, on the other hand, are unclear where they stand. When pressed, they offer measures that could be described as “Trump Lite” – a little more money for the Border Patrol, a small fence rather than a big wall, and carefully modulated assurances that of course they favor border security. Outside the liberal enclaves, Democrats try to change the subject, as Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer did by focusing their budget fight with Trump on the government shutdown rather than immigration. “Don’t take the bait,” Pelosi warned in the closing days of last fall’s midterms, advising Democrats to talk about health care instead.
Until recently, Democrats might have counted on the issue going away by itself. Unauthorized border crossings fell substantially from their highs in the late 1990s and early 2000s, largely because of a drop-off in migrants from Mexico. But the numbers from Central America—especially Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador—have risen. Some 76,000 undocumented migrants crossed the border in February, an 11-year high. Forecasts are for another 180,000 by May.
The immigration system on our southern border is collapsing. Courts are swamped with a backlog of cases estimated at 850,000. Detention centers are overwhelmed and understaffed. Children are lost, women are abused, and busloads of confused migrants and refugees are dumped on the street and told to come back later for their hearings. Some show up, some don’t.
Regardless of whether the numbers rise or fall over the coming year, attempts at evasion or Trump Lite will not be an option in the face of the president’s fearmongering blitzkrieg. To meet it, Democrats need to gain clarity and credibility and go on the offensive.
First, Democratic candidates must make clear that they are committed to limiting immigration to what is legal (currently over 1 million people per year).
Second, they need to counterattack. Democrats should be using the rising numbers of illegal border crossings as evidence that Trump’s hard line has failed. They need to make clear that the irrational “catch and release” policy that he rants against stems from our failure to provide the judges and other legal infrastructure needed to process claims quickly.
Third, Democrats need a broader narrative to connect the dots between immigration and foreign policy. The current debate is US-centric, focused entirely on domestic policies: what to do about the undocumented once they arrive here. But there can be no enduring solution to the problem unless we also ask why they are coming from there.
Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador are de facto US colonies, places where oligarchs have long exploited their people in partnership with American capital. They are suffering the aftereffects of brutal civil wars stoked by Washington’s paranoia toward leftist political movements. The region has also become a major route for the shipment of drugs from South America to the United States. Attracted by the enormous profits, oligarchs have collaborated with narcotraffickers and other criminal gangs that terrorize citizens through robbery, extortion, rape, and murder.
Washington’s so-called War on Drugs reinforces the rich and powerful in these countries with money and military equipment, which is often used to suppress dissent rather than snare criminals. Thus, for example, in 2009 the Honduran military kidnapped the elected president—whose modest social programs providing food and education to the poor had enraged the upper class—and, after refueling at a US military base, shipped him out of the country. Protesters were beaten, jailed, or killed. The “compassionate” Obama administration endorsed this coup, and the “law-and-order” Trump administration continues to support the violent kleptocracy that has been in power ever since. Five years after the coup, the number of Honduran children illegally crossing into the United States jumped by more than 1,200 percent.
Progressive Democrats should demand that we stop supporting regimes that are driving immigrants to our doorstep. A policy of zero tolerance for corruption and oppression should apply to any aid, and the US national-security apparatus needs to cleanse itself of its unhealthy relationship with Central American militaries. Given that there is no conceivable military threat to the United States from the region and that none of these countries threaten their neighbors, we arguably do not need to have military bases or advisers there at all.
Conditioning foreign aid on wholesale political reforms and breaking up the cronyism between the US and Central American militaries would give democracy some political room to grow. And having helped to impoverish the people of these countries, we also need to rebuild their hopes for a better future. The newly elected president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (popularly known as AMLO), argues that investing in jobs is the real answer to the drug violence and out-migration that drains these economies of their hardest-working and most ambitious people. He has outlined a long-term social- and economic-development plan, a Mexican version of the Green New Deal proposed by progressive US Democrats (it’s worth noting that Franklin Roosevelt is one of AMLO’s heroes). But Mexico cannot change the region’s direction by itself. Despite his history as a critic of US meddling, AMLO has proposed a joint US-Mexican Marshall Plan for Central America. Given the United States’ history in the region, Mexican leadership in such a project would be essential.
Trump has signaled support for this idea in principle. But, as usual, it’s a trick: He promises that the private sector would put up the money, while his own 2020 budget cuts foreign aid to Central America by 25 percent.
Foreign aid is not popular, of course. But a generous US contribution to this effort would cost a lot less than Trump’s border wall. Its domestic purpose would be clearer to the average American voter than the abstract geopolitics used to rationalize most foreign-aid programs. A new narrative on immigration would also contribute to the search for a progressive foreign policy in the post-Trump era.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2WGs5hu Tyler Durden
The George Washington University student body voted Thursday to “remove and replace” its mascot, the George the Colonial.
According to the GWU Joint Elections Commission, 54 percent of students who voted in this spring’s Student Association elections supported the removal of the Colonial as the school’s mascot. It was not immediately clear what students plan to replace the Colonial mascot with or even if school administrators will act on the results of the referendum.
Campus Reform asked GWU to comment on the matter but did not hear back in time for publication.
The original push to change the mascot started last spring with an online petition, which garnered over 500 signatures. Ashley Le, who served as GW Student Association President at the time, encouraged university administrators to listen to students’ concerns on the matter. The total number of signatories that the petition has amounted to less than 2 percent of the GW student body.
Last spring, two-time GW alumnus Michael La Place published an op-ed in The GW Hatchet, titled, “GW must stand by Colonials nickname.” In his piece, he said that “being identified as a Colonial fills me with pride.” Earlier this school year, GW hired Jordan West as diversity coordinator. In an article about West’s hiring, Le told The Hatchet that West discussed the issue of changing the “colonials” moniker at their fall retreat.
The issue was brought up again this semester by Haley Margolis, a GW Student Association Senator. Margolis put on a panel titled “Is the GW Colonial Inclusive School Spirit” to discuss the history of the colonial earlier this semester. Before her event, she told the GW Hatchetthat the school is a “diverse institution” and that “school spirit is something that should be based on equality.”
Campus Reform correspondents went to the school and interviewed students to get their thoughts on the matter. Not many students were aware of the push to change the mascot at the time. One did call the colonial “a little white supremacisty [sic].”
Campus Reform campus correspondent and GW student Abigail Marone appeared on Fox & Friends in March to give her perspective.
“There’s a huge difference between a colonial, which is our mascot, and anyone who lived during colonial times, and colonialism, which is what students are saying this mascot is representative of, which is not the case at all,” Marone said during the interview.
Earlier this week, two conservative student groups pushed back against the resolution which was on the ballot this week. The GW College Republicans and the GW Young Americans for Freedom both issued statements against the referendum.
Kara Zupkus, campus correspondent and president of the Young Americans for Freedom Chapter at GWU told Campus Reform earlier this week that her group believed that “the Student Association should be focusing on more pertinent issues, such as food insecurity, rather than something superficial like this. The Student Association has proven time and time again that they have little power, which is mostly symbolic in nature.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2FTgAxI Tyler Durden
That there is no love lost between president Trump and Fed chair Powell is a well-established fact: having repeatedly bashed both the Federal Reserve and its Chairman for much of of 2018, when the president demanded that the Fed halt its rate hikes and end its balance sheet runoff, Trump was eventually proven to be correct as Powell admitted in late December when the S&P dropped as low as 2,300 and the Fed decided to end its sad attempt at rate normalization. So with Trump was proven right, was that enough for the President? The answer: a resounding no, because as the WSJ report, Trump is now blaming the Fed for holding back the economy and stock market even despite the central bank’s recent decision to do the two things he wanted.
According to the WSJ, the feud between the world’s two most powerful men continues with the president blasting the Fed and Chair Powell at three meetings in the past week alone, telling Republican senators and supporters that if it wasn’t for the central bank’s past rate increases, economic output and stocks would be higher and the U.S. budget deficit would be rising less.
“He was pretty rough,” said one person who was present at one of the meetings.
Trump also blamed Steven Mnuchin for recommending Powell for the top Fed job. “Mnuchin gave me this guy,” Trump said.
But the main highlight took place during a recent phone conversation between Trump and Powell, when according to a WSJ source Trump told the Fed Chair “I guess I’m stuck with you.” The Fed chief took a brief phone call from Trump on March 8, a Fed spokeswoman said when asked about the conversation, declining to elaborate further.
The phone conversation hasn’t been reported prior to the WSJ’s report.
That wasn’t the end of it: the president continued to gripe about Powell during a policy briefing with staffers on an unrelated matter at the White House on Monday. This WSJ source described Trump’s drumbeat of unprompted and critical Fed commentary as the latest point on a recurring list, or “greatest hits,” that Trump likes to raise.
The president’s irritation flared again two weeks ago, when Trump announced he would nominate Fed critic Stephen Moore to the central bank’s board of governors; Moore, who previously was uberhawkish, famously told the NYT in an interview that would cut rates by 50bps immediately if given the chance.
And the final indignity took place last week, when Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said that the president wanted the Fed to cut its benchmark rate by half a percentage point, effectively reversing rate increases from late last year that Trump had publicly opposed.
And while Kudlow said that the Fed is independent and that he is merely conveying Trump’s wants, not demands, the relentless criticism is complicating Powell’s job by fueling speculation among market participants that the Fed has been caving to political pressure, even though both Powell and other Fed officials uniformly claim this is not the case. In the most dramatic outcome, it could be a prelude to a historic court battle should Trump ever attempt to remove Powell.
In an effort to reduce tensions, Steven Mnuchin, who famously called the Plunge Protection Team on December 23 igniting the biggest market rally since 1987, arranged for Powell and Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida to join him for dinner with Trump in the White House residence in early February. Fed and administration officials took steps to ensure the central bank could manage how the public learned about the dinner to minimize interpretations of political interference.
In an interview on 60 Minutes last month, Powell said he doesn’t believe the president has the authority to remove him over policy disagreements and that he would not resign his post if asked to do so by the White House.
So did Trump end up influencing the Fed? After all, Powell’s historic U-turn was so dramatic it shocked even the most sycophantic “Fed pets” amid the financial reporter crowd.
According to the WSJ, the answer is no, and instead what happened is that the market turmoil in December was a critical turning point. When officials met on Dec. 18 and 19, most projected between one and three rate increases in 2019. Yet just 16 days later, in Atlanta, Powell signaled that the Fed would pause rate increases and shift to a more flexible stance on the portfolio runoff, a position endorsed shortly after that by almost every other Fed official.
Trump’s wishes came even closer to being granted during the Fed’s March meeting when most Fed officials projected no rate increases at all this year even if the economy performed as they expected. At the same time, they announced they would slow the process of shrinking their $4 trillion asset portfolio starting in May and that they would end it by October.
So while Trump may not be influencing the Fed, “somehow” the former reality TV star is getting everything he “requested” from Powell. He may also get his rate cut (and QE4 shortly after). All Trump has to do is to push the US economy into recession.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2VfWzqf Tyler Durden
The most dangerous volcano in Mexico just erupted 200 times in a 24 hour period, but there has been an almost total blackout about this in the U.S. media. Authorities are saying that the odds of more volcanic activity at Mt. Popocatepetl are “immediate to high”, and if a full-blown Plinian eruption were to occur it would be the worst natural disaster in the modern history of North America. Approximately 26 million people live within 60 miles of Popocatepetl’s crater, and so we are talking about the potential for death and destruction on a scale that is difficult to imagine. In ancient times, Mt. Popocatepetl buried entire Aztec cities in super-heated mud, but then it went to sleep for about 1,000 years. Unfortunately for us, it started waking up again in the 1990s, and now this is the most active that we have seen it ever since the volcano originally reawakened.
What we have witnessed over the last several days has been nothing short of stunning. According to a British news source, a level three yellow alert was put into effect after “200 eruptions were recorded in just 24 hours”…
Popocatépetl volcano, just 35 miles from Mexico City and 20 miles from Puebla sent ash and plumes of smoke more than 1.5 miles high. Mexico’s National Centre for Disaster Prevention (CENAPRED) has warned people to keep away from Popocatépetl after 200 eruptions were recorded in just 24 hours. A level three yellow alert has been issued meaning the chance of volcanic activity is immediate to high.
At this point a 7.5 mile “security radius” has been established around the volcano, and if things continue to get worse authorities will be forced to begin large scale evacuations.
Hopefully there will be enough warning before a Plinian eruption occurs, because several towns could be completely buried by super-heated mud traveling at 60 miles per hour…
While not every Plinian-sized eruption is alike in ferocity, all the volcanologists I spoke with provided grave details about Popo’s sure devastation. First, you would see 1,000-degree lahars and pyroclastic flows speeding down at 60 mph. Those flows would reach most, if not all, of the towns in the High Risk area, which today include Santiago Xalitzintla (population: 2,196), and San Pedro Benito Juarez (3,153), and Buenavista (814).
No human on the entire planet can run that fast. If people are able to get to their vehicles in time they would have a chance, but in reality the highways would quickly become completely clogged as thousands of escaping vehicles all converged at the same time.
Mexico City would be out of range of the tsunami of super-heated mud, but the truth is that the volcanic ash would kill far more people. Even just breathing in the volcanic ash could potentially be a death sentence…
The real threat, of course, begins after the lava halts. If the wind blew in Mexico City’s direction, a city-sized cloud of ash 20 centimeters thick would descend upon the buildings, dismantling roadways, shutting down airports and the Metro line. Breathing it in could kill you. And that’s just the first day. After that, seeping ash would clog Mexico City’s drainage lines, poisoning its water supplies, and ceasing electricity transmission via short-circuiting. With food supplies cut off, and no electricity, the dense metropolis would probably resemble something like the World Trade Center the night of September 11th, except with three times as many people attempting to flee. All under the veil of an ash-blackened sky.
Ultimately, we are talking about an event that would mean the end of the modern nation of Mexico as we know it today, and this is the most active that Mt. Popocatepetl has been in any of our lifetimes.
Are you starting to understand why I get so frustrated with the mainstream media? What is happening to Mt. Popocatepetl should be front page news all over the county, and yet the mainstream media is almost completely ignoring it.
Meanwhile, a volcano in Washington state is starting to vent steam and gas.
I’ll bet you hadn’t heard about that either.
Mount Baker is 31 miles due east of Bellingham, Washington, and all throughout the month of March steam and gas have been pouring out of the volcano…
The state’s quartet of the potentially eruptive peaks are all part of the Cascade Mountain Range, and the northernmost is Mount Baker, which is located in Whatcom County, 31 miles east of Bellingham.
On March 4, the 10,781-foot-tall volcano began producing a number of steam plumes known as fumaroles. The expulsions have continued throughout the month since then and several have been highly visible from many miles away and widely captured in photographs and cell phone videos.
Mount Baker last erupted in 1843, but in several recent publications, the U.S. Geological Survey has maintained that Washington state’s third-highest peak continues to present a serious threat due to the frequency of its eruptive history and the volcano’s proximity to human population.
We are seeing a rise in seismic activity all along the Ring of Fire, and as I have frequently warned, North America will not be immune from what is taking place.
The entire west coast lies directly along the Ring of Fire, and seismologists assure us that it is just a matter of time before we witness absolutely massive natural disasters.
And with all of the shaking that is currently going on, the truth is that time may be running out a lot more quickly than many of us had been anticipating…
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2TNoXi8 Tyler Durden
A Chinese national with four cell phones,two passports, electronic devices and a thumb-drive containing malware was arrested at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club on Saturday after she was able to penetrate security, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
32-year-old Yujing Zhang approached a Secret Service agent outside the Palm Beach club early Saturday afternoon, claiming to be a member who wanted to use the pool according to court documents.
After showing her passports to try and prove she was a member who simply wanted to use the pool, agents determined that she wasn’t on the membership list – however admitted her anyway after some confusion over whether she was the daughter of a member, citing a “language barrier.”
Once she got inside, Zhang changed her story – telling a front desk receptionist that she was there to attend the United Nations Chinese American Association event scheduled for that evening. The only problem; the event did not exist, so agents were quickly summoned.
Agent Samuel Ivanovich wrote in court documents that Zhang told him that she was there for the Chinese American event and had come early to familiarize herself with the club and take photos, again contradicting what she had said at the checkpoint. She showed him an invitation in Chinese that he could not read.
He said Zhang was taken off the grounds and told she could not be there. Ivanovich said she became argumentative, so she was taken to the local Secret Service office for questioning.
There, he said, it became clear Zhang speaks and reads English well. He said Zhang said she had traveled from Shanghai to attend the non-existent Mar-a-Lago event on the invitation of an acquaintance named “Charles,” whom she only knew through a Chinese social media app. Ivanovich said she then denied telling the checkpoint agents she was a member wanting to swim. –Sun Sentinel
Zhang was carrying four cell phones, an external hard drive, a thumb drive containing malware and a laptop computer. She did not have a swimsuit.
She is charged with making false statements to federal agents and illegally entering a restricted area, according to the complaint, and remains in custody pending a hearing next week.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2FJIKKh Tyler Durden
A woman and her daughter were shopping at a mall in West Virginia when things took a terrible turn. And if the mother had not been armed and willing to use her firearm, there’s no telling how badly this story would have ended.
Here’s what happened.
Who would think that Old Navy would be a place that you need to be armed?
A mother from West Virginia just made a very good case for carrying everywhere, 24-7.
She was shopping at the Huntington Mall in Barboursville, a small town in West Virginia with a population of about 4000 people. Suddenly, a man grabbed her five-year-old daughter by the hair and began dragging her off.
According to the criminal complaint, a mother was shopping with her daughter in the Old Navy store a little after 6 p.m. when the suspect approached them.
The complaint says the suspect “grabbed the child by the hair and attempted to pull her away,” and then the little girl “dropped to the floor with the male still pulling her away.”
Police say the mother then pulled out a handgun and told the suspect to let go of the child. The mother told police the man then let go of the girl and ran out of the store into the mall. (source)
In the Huntington Mall case, the police were able to arrest the suspect. After the mother scared off the would-be kidnapper, she reported the incident to mall security and the local police. They found him walking near the food court.
The attacker is facing felony charges.
Mohamed Fathy Hussein Zayan, 54, of Alexandria, Egypt, was arraigned at the Cabell County Courthouse late Monday night…
…Barboursville police are investigating and believe this is an isolated incident, and no further danger to the public exists.
The suspect’s bond was set at $200,000.
The magistrate says he’ll have to surrender his passport and stay in West Virginia.
An Arabic-speaking interpreter was used on the phone at the arraignment.
The suspect’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for April 8. (source)
Don’t hold your breath about seeing this on CNN.
It always defies the narrative when innocent people protect others using a gun, which means that stories like these, which would encourage public opinion to support concealed carry, are unlikely to see the light of day on the mainstream news.
But we know that it takes a good guy (or gal) with a gun to defeat a bad guy when you are either physically unmatched or carrying a weapon of his own. Women, particularly, need to be armed and confident in using their weapon.
Previously, I wrote about women who used guns to defend themselves and others.
These brave women didn’t wait around to be victims. They took their personal security into their own hands. Each of them got a gun and learned how to use it. They didn’t hesitate when the time came and because of this, they and others remained unscathed.
Notice that none of the assailants threatened the women with a firearm. They tried to use their superior strength and size to intimidate their would-be victims. In each case, the gun served as an equalizer.
Biology defies the politically correct ideal that everyone is equal. If my daughters were to ever find themselves in a position where they had to fight to save their own lives, I would far rather they be armed with the handgun of their choice than any number of weekend self-defense classes. Nothing is going to empower them more than a firearm that they can use with comfort and accuracy. Nothing is going to be more likely to end a conflict before it erupts into violence than seeing that the person you thought was going to be your victim is willing to fight back with deadly force.
The idea that we all need to hand over our guns and then the world would be a safer place is nothing but a silly, rose-colored daydream with no basis in reality. If that offends you, then you need to sincerely think about the fact that under your guidelines, the smaller, weaker person will always be the victim.
We all have the natural right to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Why are some people so terrified of the idea of taking control of their own safety?
There is no way to guess how many times a firearm in the hands of a would-be victim deters a criminal and saves a life. The mere sight of a firearm doesn’t cause violence. It can prevent the violence that is brewing. (source)
And here’s yet another story that supports my claim.
Unfortunately, our right to bear arms is under threat. I’m glad we have brave sheriffs across the countrywho are creating Second Amendment sanctuaries.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2TSY7oG Tyler Durden
For all of President Donald Trump’s reputation of affection for Russian President Vladimir Putin, there is at least one point on which Washington and Moscow find themselves at odds: Venezuela, and specifically Russian deployment of about 100 military advisers, intelligence officers, and other officials in support of embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
A clear-eyed view of the situation in Venezuela demands recognition that the Maduro regime is condemnable—and that there is no wisdom in advocating U.S. intervention, especially when Russia is involved. To give the Venezuelan people their best shot at a more free, peaceful, and prosperous future, writes Bonnie Kristian, Washington’s main job is to leave well enough alone.
