Apparently the intransigence of former DOJ lawyer, and special counsel to Deputy FBI Director McCabe, Lisa Page has quite a history.
Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte, says the former FBI lawyer has been in complete defiance of cooperation with the House, rejects Page’s excuse that she hasn’t had enough time to prepare:
Updated Statement from Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte below:
Washington, D.C. – Lisa Page, legal counsel to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, defied a congressional subpoena issued by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). She is a key witness in the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees’ investigation into decisions made by the Justice Department in 2016. Her attorney provided a litany of excuses for Ms. Page’s failure to appear today, but none of the excuses hold water.
Excuse: Lisa Page was not provided sufficient notice to prepare for the deposition.
Reality: On December 19, 2017, Chairmen Goodlatte and Gowdy sent a letter to the Justice Department requesting to interview Lisa Page. That’s seven months ago. Another letter was sent in April 2018. Committee staff have been in direct contact with Ms. Page’s attorney since June 2018 and she and her attorney refused to commit to a date for an interview. Consequently, Chairman Goodlatte subpoenaed Lisa Page.
Excuse: The Committees would be asking Lisa Page about materials she has not yet reviewed.
Reality: Many of the documents Lisa Page would be asked about are documents and communications that she created. Additionally, these very same materials were provided to Ms. Page during her interview with the Inspector General. Despite being aware of the Committees’ request for a transcribed interview for seven months, Ms. Page and her attorney waited until yesterday afternoon to go to the FBI to review documents, just hours before her scheduled deposition. In fact, it is the Committee’s understanding that Ms. Page never requested access to view the documents until the FBI reached out to her.
Excuse: The scope of the interview was too broad for Lisa Page, and should have been narrowed.
Reality: The scope covers Ms. Page’s involvement in the matters pertaining to the Committees’ investigation into decisions made by the Justice Department and the FBI in 2016, and her role related to those decisions. That was clearly communicated to Ms. Page. Ms. Page was involved in both the Mid-Year Exam and Russia investigations, and is a key fact witness for the Committee. (read more)
Following a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Trump meets with Emmanuel from France. {transcript will follow later}
“I think its going to be very successful,” President Trump said, noting that the two have a tremendous relationship. Additionally, President Trump remarked the two leaders are discussing “trade, NATO, and a lot of different things, and hopefully in the end, it’ll all work out.”
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[Transcript 4:23 P.M. CEST] PRESIDENT TRUMP: (In progress) — the President of France, who’s doing a terrific job being President of France. He’s changing a lot of things around. And I guess that had to happen. And I think it’s going to be very successful. We have a tremendous relationship. We’re discussing trade. We’re discussing NATO. We’re discussing a lot of different things. And hopefully, in the end, it will all work out. And so it’s great to be with you.
PRESIDENT MACRON: (Speaks French.) (No translation provided.) “Merci beaucoup.Trs heureux de retrouver le prsident Donald Trump. Il a presque un an maintenant il tait Paris et il nous avait fait lhonneur dassister notre fte nationale et nous navons pas cessdepuis dchanger de manire rgulire et nous allons continuer aujourdhui sur videment les sujets commerciaux et lOTAN mais galement la Syrie et les sujets gopolitiques sur lesquels nous avons beaucoup faireensemble”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: It sounded beautifully. (Laughter.) I have no idea — it sounded great.
PRESIDENT MACRON: I told them exactly the same — (laughter) — but in French, for French journalists. (Inaudible.)
I just reminded everybody that almost one year ago you were present with your wife in Paris for Bastille Day.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Beautiful.
PRESIDENT MACRON: (Inaudible) 14th of July. And we’ve worked together for 12 months now.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: True.
PRESIDENT MACRON: And took some great decisions.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We’ve made some good decisions.
PRESIDENT MACRON: And we’ll continue to work together (inaudible).
PRESIDENT TRUMP: That’s right. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Q President Macron, do you agree that Angela Merkel is beholden to the Russians?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, I believe they asked you that. (Laughter.)
Thank you. Thank you very much.
PRESIDENT MACRON: No, I think —
Q No?
PRESIDENT MACRON: We just discussed the nature of that. We work together.
Earlier this morning President Trump stunned NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg with the atomic sledgehammer of truth. Stoltenberg never recovered. The issue was/is NATO asking the U.S. for defense against Russia while the NATO member nations, driven by the construct of Germany, finance Russia through energy purchases.
Then comes the Angela Merkel bi-lateral meeting.
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[Transcript 3:45 P.M. CEST] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: We’re having a great meeting. We’re discussing military expenditure. We’re talking about trade. We have a very, very good relationship with the Chancellor. We have a tremendous relationship with Germany. They’ve made tremendous — you’ve had tremendous success and I congratulate you. Tremendous success. And I believe that our trade will increase and lots of other things will increase. But we’ll see what happens over the next period of a few months.
CHANCELLOR MERKEL: (As interpreted.) Well, let me say that I am very pleased, indeed, to have this opportunity here for this exchange of views. And, indeed, we had an opportunity to have an exchange about economic developments, on issues such as migration, and also the future of our trade relations.
We also briefly touched upon the upcoming trips of the President. And let me say that I’m very much looking forward to further extending our exchanges in the future and enhancing them. I think they’re very important to have those exchanges together. Because after all, we are partners, we are good partners, and we wish to continue to cooperate in the future.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Okay, thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.
Q Did you discuss the gas pipeline?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes.
Q (Inaudible.)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We discussed that. Thank you very much.
…”Germany is totally controlled by Russia, because they will be getting from 60 to 70 percent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline. And you tell me if that’s appropriate, because I think it’s not, and I think it’s a very bad thing for NATO and I don’t think it should have happened.”.. ~President Trump
Chancellor Merkel was ‘triggered‘… President Trump was not supposed to point out the truth about the financial relationship between Russia and Germany. Germany funds Russia and simultaneously asks the U.S. to spend money protecting them from Russia.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has turned off nuclear energy development, banned fracking, and has almost no wind/solar development. The primary way Germany keep the lights on, and manufacturing continuing, is Russian gas. Simultaneously Germany gives subsidies for the industrial use of electricity.
Germany buys Russian gas from Putin, subsidizes their auto-manufacturing, ships cars to the US, imposes tariffs on U.S. automakers, and questions President Trump’s relationship with Putin and commitment to NATO? Nuts.
Oh snap. Brilliant, simply brilliant. President Trump keeps the cameras rolling during a breakfast with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg; and absolutely crushes the NATO position on needing money to defend against Russia when NATO -specifically Germany- is funding Russian expansion financially through energy development, and simultaneously asking the U.S. for money to defend against Russia.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo looks like he is half going to break out laughing, and half saying to himself: oh, it’s on..
Stoltenberg: […] I think that two World Wars and the Cold War taught us that we are stronger together than apart.
Trump: But how can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the person you want protection against or from the group that you want protection?
Stoltenberg: Because we understand that when we stand together, also in dealing with Russia, we are stronger. I think what we have seen is that —
Trump: No, you’re just making Russia richer. You’re not dealing with Russia. You’re making Russia richer.
This is a MUST WATCH:
Transcript – AT BILATERAL BREAKFAST – Chief of Mission Residence – Brussels, Belgium – 9:13 A.M. CEST – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Good morning, everybody. Good morning to the media — the legitimate media and the fake-news media. Good morning to them. A lot of good people here. Surprising.
Q Mr. President, which countries did you want to spend more on NATO in particular?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Just look at the chart. Take a look at the chart. It’s public. And many countries are not paying what they should. And, frankly, many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back, where they’re delinquent, as far as I’m concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them. So if you go back 10 or 20 years, you’ll just add it all up. It’s massive amounts of money is owed. The United States has paid and stepped up like nobody. This has gone on for decades, by the way. This has gone on for many Presidents. But no other President brought it up like I bring it up. So something has to be done, and the Secretary General has been working on it very hard.
This year, since our last meeting, commitments have been made for over $40 billion more money spent by other countries. So that’s a step, but it’s a very small step. It sounds like a lot of money, and it is. But it’s a very small amount of money relative to what they owe and to what they should be paying. And it’s an unfair burden on the United States.
So we’re here to talk about that, and I’m sure it will be resolved. I have great confidence in the Secretary General. He’s worked very, very hard on this, and he knows it’s a fact. But I have great confidence in him and his representatives.
You going to say something?
SECRETARY GENERAL STOLTENBERG: First of all, it’s great to see you again, Mr. President. And good to have you here for a summit. And we are going to discuss many important issues at the summit. Among them is defense spending. And we all agree that we have to do more. I agree with you that we have to do make sure that our allies are investing more. The good news is that allies have started to invest more in defense.
After years of cutting defense budgets, they have started to add billions to their defense budgets. And last year was the biggest increase in defense spending across Europe and Canada in that generation.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Why was that last year?
SECRETARY GENERAL STOLTENBERG: It’s also because of your leadership, because of your carried message. And —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: They won’t write that, but that’s okay.
SECRETARY GENERAL STOLTENBERG: No, I have said it before, but the thing is that it really has. And your message is having an impact, and we are going to build on that to make sure that we have further increases. You initiated last year that all allies are going to develop national plans on how to spend more on defense. And based on these national plans, we now estimate that European allies and Canada will add 266 extra U.S. dollars for defense from now until — billion U.S. dollars — until 2024.
So this is really adding some extra momentum. It helps and we are moving in the right direction. But we still have to do more, and that is what we’re going to address after the summit later on today.
Let me also add that a strong NATO is good for Europe and it’s also good for the United States. The U.S. (inaudible) presence in Europe helps to protect Europe, but it also helps the United States project power to the Middle East, to Africa. And I think also that clout — the military clout of Europe, economic clout, the political clout — also is helpful dealing with Russia. And we look forward to the meeting you’re going to have with President Putin. And I think that leaders are also looking forward to your thoughts about the meeting with President Putin later on.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I have to say, I think it’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia, where you’re supposed to be guarding against Russia, and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia. So we’re protecting Germany. We’re protecting France. We’re protecting all of these countries. And then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia, where they’re paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia.
So we’re protect you against Russia, but they’re paying billions of dollars to Russia, and I think that’s very inappropriate. And the former Chancellor of Germany is the head of the pipeline company that’s supplying the gas. Ultimately, Germany will have almost 70 percent of their country controlled by Russia with natural gas.
So you tell me, is that appropriate? I mean, I’ve been complaining about this from the time I got in. It should have never been allowed to have happened. But Germany is totally controlled by Russia, because they will be getting from 60 to 70 percent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline. And you tell me if that’s appropriate, because I think it’s not, and I think it’s a very bad thing for NATO and I dont think it should have happened. And I think we have to talk to Germany about it.
On top of that, Germany is just paying a little bit over 1 percent, whereas the United States, in actual numbers, is paying 4.2 percent of a much larger GDP. So I think that’s inappropriate also. You know, we’re protecting Germany, we’re protecting France. We’re protecting everybody. And yet we’re paying a lot of money to protect.
Now, this has been going on for decades. This has been brought up by other presidents. But other presidents never did anything about it because I dont think they understood it or they just didnt want to get involved.
But I have to bring it up, because I think it’s very unfair to our country. It’s very unfair to our taxpayer. And I think that these countries have to step it up not over a 10-year period; they have to step it up immediately. Germany is a rich country. They talk about they’re going to increase it a tiny bit by 2030. Well, they could increase it immediately tomorrow and have no problem. I dont think it’s fair to the United States.
So we’re going to have to do something because we’re not going to put up with it. We can’t put up with it. And it’s inappropriate.
So we have to talk about the billions and billions of dollars that’s being paid to the country that we’re supposed to be protecting you against. You know, everybody is talking about it all over the world. They’ll say, well, wait a minute, we’re supposed to be protecting you from Russia, but why are you paying billions of dollars to Russia for energy? Why are countries in NATO, namely Germany, having a large percentage of their energy needs paid to Russia and taken care of by Russia?
Now, if you look at it, Germany is a captive of Russia because they supply. They got rid of their coal plants. They got rid of their nuclear. They’re getting so much of the oil and gas from Russia. I think it’s something that NATO has to look at. I think it’s very inappropriate. You and I agree that it’s inappropriate. I dont know what you can do about it now, but it certainly doesnt seem to make sense that they paid billions of dollars to Russia and now we have to defend them against Russia.
SECRETARY GENERAL STOLTENBERG: You know, NATO is an alliance of 29 nations, and there are sometimes differences and different views, and also some disagreements. And the gas pipeline from Russia to Germany is one issue where allies disagree. But the strength of NATO is that despite these differences, we have always been able to unite around our core task, to protect and defend each other, because we understand that we are stronger together than apart.
I think that two World Wars and the Cold War taught us that we are stronger together than apart.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: But how can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the person you want protection against or from the group that you want protection?
SECRETARY GENERAL STOLTENBERG: Because we understand that when we stand together, also in dealing with Russia, we are stronger. I think what we have seen is that —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, you’re just making Russia richer. You’re not dealing with Russia. You’re making Russia richer.
SECRETARY GENERAL STOLTENBERG: Well, I think that even during the Cold War, NATO Allies were trading with Russia, and then there have been disagreements about what kind of trade arrangements we should (inaudible).
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think trade is wonderful. I think energy is a whole different story. I think energy is a much different story than normal trade. And you have a country like Poland that won’t accept the gas. You take a look at some of the countries — they won’t accept it, because they don’t want to be captive to Russia. But Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is captive to Russia, because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia. So we’re supposed to protect Germany, but they’re getting their energy from Russia. Explain that. And it can’t be explained — you know that.
Thank you.
Q What are the consequences if they don’t spend more, Mr. President?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: They will spend more. I have great confidence that they’ll spend more. I have great confidence.
Q Mr. President, does something have to change on trade for you to keep your troop levels in Europe?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I have great confidence that they will be spending more money, as they should be.
Q Mr. President, why is it (inaudible) spend 10 times more than Russia for defense? Why is it necessary to spend 10 times more money on defense (inaudible)? You are a businessman.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: It’s a shame they made that deal. Too bad. It’s too bad. Thank you.
Nicaragua is in crisis and keeps spiraling toward a much more profound bloodier conflict and revolution. President Daniel Ortega is fighting intensely against the rising civil unrest and has lost control of the streets. We are witnessing how “confidence” is the most critical factor in holding governments in power. Once the people lose that confidence in the management of the government both socially and economically, we see the inevitable rise of civil unrest which can evolve into revolution. José Daniel Ortega Saavedra (born November 11, 1945) has been serving as President since 2007. Previously, he was the leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, and he was first the Coordinator of the Junta of National Reconstruction (1979–1985) and then became President (1985–1990). As the leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front, Ortega’s policies in government were Marxist reforms across Nicaragua.
Hundreds of people have died, including a one-year-old baby, and thousands have been injured since anti-government protests began six weeks ago. The government simply opened fire on a Mother’s Day march led by the mothers of victims last week. This demonstrates that far too often the military will kill their own people and never think twice. Officials are blaming “criminal gangs” but that is rejected by the people who argue the violence is one-sided. The police and paramilitary gangs have been using live ammunition against peaceful demonstrators. The victims included a journalist shot as he live-streamed protest events.
For those unfamiliar with the background of Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega first came to power as a Marxist guerrilla when the Sandinistas overthrew the president Anastasio Somoza (1925-1980) back in 1979. Somoza was a Nicaraguan politician and officially the 73rd and 76th President of Nicaragua from 1967 to 1972 and then again from 1974 to July 17th, 1979. He was the last member of the Somoza family to be President, ending a dynasty that had been in power since 1936. After being overthrown, Somoza fled Nicaragua but they eventually assassinated him while in exile in Paraguay.
Ortega’s relationship with the United States post-revolution Nicaragua was reasonable so they provided the country with tens of millions of dollars in economic aid. Relations eventually broke down when Ortega began supplying weapons to leftist El Salvadoran rebels. The USA then funded the Contras in a vicious civil war during the Reagan administration. The USA sponsored a peace agreement back in July 1987, which won Costa Rican President Óscar Arias the Nobel Peace Prize for that event. It was this civil war that led to free elections in Nicaragua when Ortega was defeated by Violeta Chamorro in the 1990 presidential election. Nevertheless, Ortega had acquired a taste of power and remained as the opposition leader in politics. It seems once someone has a taste of power, they are always drawn back into it in one way or another just to be relevant again. As the economy did better, Ortega was compelled to gradually moderate his Marxist beliefs to try to gain power again. He publicly created the image of abandoning his Marxism–Leninism philosophy and embracing democratic socialism.
Ortega was an unsuccessful candidate for president in 1996 and 2001. After some 16 years, Ortega won power once again after forging new relationships with the Catholic church and backing a total ban on abortion in addition to soliciting business leaders offering tax exemptions from a Marxist. He took power in 2007 following the 2006 presidential election. But the collapse of the economy in Nicaragua’s key ally Venezuela based upon Marxism combined with the economic crash from 2007 has helped to reveal the brittleness of Ortega’s rule and created the appearance that he does not intend to relinquish power again. Ortega, faced with a collapsing economy, instituted the policy of social security changes requiring more payments and offering lower payouts. This was the beginning of protesters reappearing for once again it was a tax increase to support socialism.
There has been a clear trend toward corruption and authoritarianism that seems to be the hallmark of Marxist regimes. Their economic philosophies do not work so they always turn to authoritarianism to force their dream of Marxist/socialist utopia. Ortega seized control of institutions and eliminated term limits for what was becoming a pretended democratic government. The elections since 2008 were plagued by irregularities that made it appear the election was rigged. The opposition was reduced and rivals were suppressed. Protesters began to openly shout that “Ortega and Somoza are the same thing.”
Today, the dominant view in Nicaragua is that Ortega will voluntarily step down and a revolution is brewing as we are witnessing in Venezuela. When we look at the currency, the dollar has been in a bull market for the past 13 years relentlessly. The next presidential election is due in 2021. Many are demanding it should be moved forward. Unfortunately, the army and police appear to be supporting Ortega and that leads only to bloodshed. Ortega only pretended to have surrendered his Marxist philosophies. Once in office, Ortega once again made alliances with fellow Latin American socialists, particularly Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Nicaragua also joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas which is a leftist organization with the view of a utopian society by force of arms. Up until June 2009, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas was a regional bloc, organized in 2004, with the goal for creating a socialist political and economic integration within Latin America and the Caribbean. This was conceived by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and was created jointly by Venezuela and Cuba as an alternative to the NAFTA Free Trade arangement. The member countries are Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela. As civil unrest has been rising in Venezuela and now in Nicaragua, the socialist agenda is being exposed as suppressing economy advancement in Latin America.
As of April 19, 2018, Amnesty International and the IACHR of the Organization of American States claim that Ortega has engaged in a violent oppression campaign against protesters. Of course, Ortega has replaced Somoza and as they say, the king is dead, long live the king reflects that revolutionaries typically become the very people they claim to be overthrowing. The Nicaraguan Government officials and Government-owned media have denied these claims. We are witnessing the collapse of socialism around the globe. Nevertheless, as I have stated many times, all violence seems to come from leftists who employ it when their dream of socialism is threatened by the business cycle and its anti-human approach to deny economic freedom.
A remarkable discovery has been made and reported by the BBC. A clay tablet recording the story of Odysseus after the fall of Troy by Homer who is the famous Greek poet who was born sometime between the 12th and 8th centuries BC. He is believed to have possibly been born somewhere on the coast of Asia Minor in Turkey rather than the mainland Greece. He is famous for the epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, which have had an enormous effect on Western culture, but very little is known about their author.
This latest discovery of a clay tablet was found near the ruined Temple of Zeus in the ancient city of Olympia, during an excavation which has taken three years. The tablet has been dated to Roman times generally and was engraved with 13 verses from the poem The Iliad and The Odyssey. It has been argued that Homer was simply a tale for children because it was handed down in an oral tradition for hundreds of years before the tablet was inscribed. Far too often ancient history is disregarded as myth.
Heinrich Schliemann (1822 – 1890) was a German businessman and a major pioneer of field archaeology. He believed in the historical accuracy of Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid and that they recorded stories that reflected actual historical events. Of course, all the academics pronounced Homer’s writing was a story for children. Schliemann was an amateur archaeological excavator. He took Homer at face value and believed it was history. To this day people still diminish his contributions because he dared to challenge the academics. Many hate his guts for proving them wrong since they pontificated Homer was a story for children without any proof because they never set foot out into the field to prove that statement was even correct.
This picture of Schliemann’s wife wearing the jewels discovered in Troy was accused of being fake by academics while Schliemann called it Priam’s Treasure. The treasure was smuggled out of Turkey and the official assigned to watch the excavation was sent to prison as a result. The Ottoman government revoked Schliemann’s permission to dig and sued him for its share of the gold. Schliemann thereafter went on to Mycenae where he discovered another part of the Homer epic.
Eventually, Schliemann traded some treasure to the government of the Ottoman Empire in exchange for permission to dig at Troy again. That is located in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The rest of his discovery was acquired in 1881 by the Royal Museum of Berlin where it remained until 1945 when it disappeared from a protective bunker beneath the Berlin Zoo. The Russians seized the Treasure yet denied they had it until September 1993 when the treasure turned up at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Germany’s request to return it was rejected as Russia asserted that was compensation for the war destruction by Germany. Whether this Treasure was Priam’s is doubtful for it appears to be actually a thousand years older than Homer’s King Priam of Troy.
Schliemann not merely discovered Troy, he discovered much of ancient Greece including the Lions Gate pictured here as the entrance to Mycenae. disagreed. He was not an archaeologist, just a history enthusiast with money. He discovered Troy and most of the Greek cities of the Heroic Age, including Mycenae with its Lion’s Gate, described by Homer, not to forget the gold death mask of Agamemnon where Homer said he was buried.
This latest discovery of a clay tablet recording Homer’s tale is the oldest so far. This further demonstrates that the story was part of Greek history and not merely just a legend
Perhaps the most interesting observation of how Trump handles negotiations is that he approaches them as a businessman rather than a politician. He certainly does not play nicely or puts on the pretends that everything is wonderful in the land of politics. Indeed, NATO officials were on edge and nervously welcomed President Trump who arrived in Brussels on Tuesday night. They were afraid he would behave “badly” over the two-day meeting. Normally, NATO summits are fixed in advance and proceed in an orderly fashion to create the image that everyone is in solidarity. This summit began strikingly differently on a most divisive footing in NATO’s 69-year history.
From the opening bell, Trump’s first words signaled this meeting was not going to be boring or politically correct. Trump openly complained that Germany was totally controlled by Russia and that German politicians had been working for Russian energy companies after leaving politics and said this was inappropriate. As the head of NATO Mr. Stoltenberg immediately looked very uncomfortable, Trump continued his assault in a very unrelenting manner as you would in a business negotiation in a hostile takeover. Trump said: “I think it is very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia.” He continued saying that “we” are supposed to be guarding against Russia, and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia. “We are protecting Germany, we are protecting France, we are protecting all of these countries and then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they are paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia. I think that is very inappropriate.”
Trump kept up the aggressive negotiating stand. “It should never have been allowed to happen. Germany is totally controlled by Russia because they will be getting 60-70% of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline. … You tell me if that’s appropriate because I think it’s not. On top of that Germany is just paying just a little bit over 1% [of GDP on NATO defense contributions] whereas the United States is paying 4.2% of a much larger GDP. So I think that’s inappropriate also.”
For decades, American politicians complained about European tariffs against American products while the US was paying the bulk of the cost for both the United Nations and for NATO expanding the US national debt year after year. Trump was the first President to openly come out and say publicly: “I think it is unfair,” Trump said. No other American president had ever raised European defense spending as a major negotiating tactic linking it to trade. Trump openly came out and bluntly said: “We can’t put up with it!”
After things calmed down, Merkel herself, speaking through an interpreter, said that the meeting was an “opportunity to have an exchange about economic developments … and also the future of our trade relations.” Trump managed to convert the normally separate NATO boring meeting and linked it to trade. Of course, the American press will not report the real tactics going on. They are too busy trying to impeach him.
Stockton California, which was previously one of the bankrupt cities, will now become the first in the country to participate in a test of Universal Basic Income. Stockton will give 100 residents $500 a month for 18 months, with no strings attached. This idea is really braindead. You cannot pay people not to work which is really what they are doing. The whole idea has been pushed by the likes of Silicon Valley leaders, including Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Mark Zuckerberg. They clearly lack any historical understanding of welfare and how it has destroyed families and actually lowered the standard of living. They think it will possibly reduce poverty and provide a safeguard against the job disruption as the economy moves to replace workers with robots and automation.
This is by no means the first time innovation in technology has displaced workers. You do not pay people to simply do nothing. You encourage them to be retrained into fields that will provide employment. The Great Depression was all about the destruction of agricultural jobs as tractors replaced farm workers and electricity replace many manual jobs in manufacture. That is why unemployment rose to 25%. It was not the decline in business activity, it was the shift in the economic makeup of the economy thanks to innovation. Jobs in technology, as well as manual labor, are two areas still valid as is soldiering for now.
Instead of increasing taxes to try this redistribution of income, EXEMPT people from even local property taxes if their income is below a certain level. If you want to encourage retaining, then that would be productive. But to just pay people to not improve themselves is a very destructive process. Already, more than 25% of children are being raised by a single parent. Post-Depression, the rise of socialism has resulted in a rise in divorce and single parenting.
DOJ Attorney and Special Counsel to FBI Deputy Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, is now refusing to testify to congress over her involvement in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 DOJ and FBI operations to exonerate Hillary Clinton and stop candidate Donald Trump.
Washington, D.C. – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) issued the following statement after Lisa Page decided to defy the Committee’s subpoena:
“It appears that Lisa Page has something to hide. She plans to blatantly defy a congressional subpoena by refusing to appear for her deposition. She has known for months that the House Judiciary Committee has sought her testimony as part of our joint investigation with the Oversight Committee into decisions made by the Justice Department in 2016, and she has no excuse for her failure to appear. Lisa Page is a key witness, and it is critical that she come before our committees to answer questions as part of our investigation.
“We will use all tools at our disposal to obtain her testimony. Americans across the country are alarmed at the bias exhibited by top officials at the Justice Department and FBI, and it is imperative Congress conduct vigorous oversight to ensure that never happens again.” (link)
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Centinel2012 