Tag Archives: Americanism vs. Socialism

Apr 9 2019

Secretary of State Pompeo Announces Iranian Revolutionary Guard Officially Declared “Foreign Terrorist Organization”…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 8, 2019 by 

Put this into the geopolitical file labeled: “Things that make other things make sense”…  You only need to watch the first minute and fifteen-seconds of this announcement to see the bigger BIG picture.  WATCH:

[Transcript Snippet] … “This is the first time that the United States has designated a part of another government as an FTO. We’re doing because the Iranian regime’s use of terrorism as a tool of statecraft makes it fundamentally different from any other government. This historic step will deprive the world’s leading state sponsor of terror the financial means to spread misery and death around the world.”

“Businesses and banks around the world now have a clear duty to ensure that companies with which they conduct financial transactions are not connected to the IRGC in any material way. It also gives the U.S. Government additional tools to counter Iranian-backed terrorism.”  (read full transcript)

The move to label members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as official terrorist designees’ now permits the world financial community to impose sanctions and freeze assets of any IRG members and leaders.

Of course, it would help the geopolitical effort if a U.S. official was, say, President of the World Bank or something…  Wait, wha.. huh?

Funny how that happens….

This now forces a situation where financial proxies (China, Russia) will have to be created for Iran to exploit access to capital.  Of course anyone caught acting as a proxy for the Iranian regime to escape sanctions and/or frozen assets, will run the risk of being caught by the U.S. and subsequently suffer financial (think trade outcome) consequences.

World Bank President David Malpass would hold the key to any loans needed by ancillary economies… which means countries who rely on the World Bank would be apprehensive to engage in any financial connection to Iran…. which means China and Russia would have to find a way to fill the financial gap…. which bleeds China/Russia, and impedes any advanced interest in geopolitical expansion.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled OrangeManBad crisis.

Carry on.

.

Apr 9 2019

Smart Fella – Rep. Doug Collins Demands Impeachment Hearings, or Call Mueller to Testify…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 8, 2019 by 

House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins writes a letter to Chairman Jerry Nadler smartly using transparency to call his bluff.  First the letter:

(Link to Letter)

 

Indeed, the way to diffuse the politicization and weaponization of innuendo within the Mueller report is to specifically get Robert Mueller in front of the committee and ask him questions directly.

This is exactly the correct approach to preempt a summer of nonsense.

If Mueller is in front of the committee first, all of the downstream manipulations by those who are part of the Mueller assignment become worthless.  It is good to see Representative Doug Collins smartly deconstruct the plans and schemes of Pelosi, Schiff, Cummings and Nadler… by giving them what they say they want, but actually don’t.

Another Captain Obvious approach being generally overlooked, is the conspicuous absence of the soft-coup team in media.

Where is Lisa Page? …Peter Strzok? ….James Baker?  ….Nellie Ohr? …Etc.

Why don’t the media have them appearing for interviews to highlight just how horrible President Trump’s grand scheme was?

Why are panel discussions from high-brow Washington DC think tanks not petitioning Page, Strzok, Baker, Ohr, or any other member of the network to appear and discuss the ramifications of having to investigate Trump’s Russia conspiracy/collusion matters?

The Russian election interference efforts were horrible right?  How come we are not hearing from the front-line soldiers who were dispatched to defend our interests?

Why are the satellite trucks missing from in front of the witnesses houses?  These are key people who would be able to outline how terrible Trump plotted to usurp the election.  Why doesn’t the media have a desire to track them down for comment on the Mueller report as a precursor to the report release?

There was a grand Trump-Russia conspiracy right? ….right? …So where’s the media interest in advancing that narrative through the use of those who would have been closest to the work?

The Mueller investigation begun in May 2017 and was an extension of the DOJ and FBI team’s work that begun in July 2016 right?  …So why are we not hearing from the people who were directly on the front-lines of that investigation?  They are no longer in government; they are free to talk…

So where’s the lengthy investigative reporting on 60 Minutes with those people who are no longer inside government and completely free to tell their story of how hard they worked to protect the country from a possible Trump-Russia conspiracy?

Think about it….

Why the conspicuous absence of media?

For some funny reason they don’t seem to be interested in the story behind the DOJ and FBI’s effort to save our nation from Donald Trump…. why is that?

Why doesn’t the media embrace the available sunlight?

Apr 9 2019

Chinese Woman Had Additional Spy Tech During Security Breach at Mar-a-lago


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 8, 2019 by 

During a bond hearing today prosecutors say the FBI is still investigating whether a 32-year-old Yujing Zhang, the Chinese woman accused of lying to illegally enter President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, is a spy.

After a search warrant, additional spy tech was found in her hotel room including: $7,500 in one hundred dollar bills; a signal detector device to find hidden cameras; nine USB drives, five SIM cards and an additional cell phone.  Sketchy… all of it.

(Via CBS) A federal prosecutor says a Chinese woman who was arrested for illegally entering President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club had a device to detect hidden cameras in her hotel room when Secret Service agents searched it.

Speaking at Yujing Zhang’s bail hearing Monday in West Palm Beach, Florida, prosecutor Rolando Garcia said agents also found U.S. and Chinese currency in her room, along with nine USB drives and five USB cards. She’s charged with lying to a federal agent and illegal entering.

Secret Service agents arrested the 32-year-old woman on March 30 after they say she gained admission by falsely telling a checkpoint she was a member.

Inside, they say she told a front-desk clerk she was there for a nonexistent Chinese American event. She was arrested after agents say they found her carrying four cellphones, an external hard drive and a thumb drive with computer malware installed.

The purpose of the hearing Monday is to determine if Zhang should be released on bond. Federal prosecutors believe she’s a flight risk.  (read more)

Embedded video

Curtis Houck

✔@CurtisHouck

Video: This is bonkers. @CNN‘s @ShimonPro updating on what was found in the hotel of the Chinese woman who just wanted to use the pool or whatever at Mar-A-Lago -> Over $7,500 in $100 bills, nine USB drives, five sim cards, and a signal detector used to find hidden cameras

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Apr 9 2019

President Trump Removes Secret Service Director….


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 8, 2019 by 

A little backstory…  Long-time CTH readers will note we have been recommending since candidate Trump first announced, when Donald Trump won the presidency one of the priorities should be to put the Secret Service back into the U.S. Treasury Department.

The reasoning for our recommendations beginning in 2015 was simple: the scale of opposition to an outsider as President would be off-the-charts.  DHS is a multi-layered matrix of conflicting political interests and career bureaucrats with internal agendas.

The recently visible political bias within the FBI is an example of the same issues likely to exist within another massive bureaucracy of the DHS.  Removing the U.S. Secret Service, and putting them back into Treasury, would give them operational independence and renewed clarity of purpose.  Current structures are just too sketchy.  That said, here’s the latest…

(CNN) United States Secret Service director Randolph “Tex” Alles is being removed from his position, multiple administration officials tell CNN.

President Donald Trump instructed his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to fire Alles. Alles remains in his position as of now but has been asked to leave.

The USSS director was told two weeks ago there would be a transition in leadership and he was asked to stay on until there was a replacement, according to a source close to the director.

Secret Service officials have been caught by surprise with the news and are only finding out through CNN, according to the source.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said later Monday that Trump has picked James M. Murray, a career USSS official, to replace Alles. (read more)

 

Statement from White House:

(link)

There has been something more opaque happening in the background recently…. This story is likely connected to several other elements yet to fully surface.  President Trump has excellent instincts.

Apr 8 2019

America’s Public Schools are a National Disgrace Teachers Unions & Democrats Being the Main Culprit


Published on Apr 1, 2019

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Now more then ever we need your help keeping this channel producing REAL content for REAL people https://www.paypal.me/ConservativeRes… If Your Child’s School Is Failing, Thank The Unions As America’s public schools welcome back students from summer vacation, enrollment is projected to surpass 50 million students this year. But many of these students are falling behind. The United States ranks No. 35 in the world when it comes to mathematics — behind Russia and Vietnam. When it comes to science, the United States is pegged at No. 27 globally, trailing countries that most Americans couldn’t even identify on a map. Reading scores are the most disturbing: 64 percent of America’s eighth-graders read below their expected grade level. Among students from low-income backgrounds, roughly 80 percent of eighth-graders score below grade level in reading. Yet America is a global leader in education spending per student. The U.S. dishes out more than $12,500 per student on secondary education — roughly a third higher than other developed countries. From 1984 to 2014, annual federal outlays for elementary, secondary and vocational education skyrocketed from about $6.5 billion to more than $40 billion — a 176 percent increase after adjusting for inflation. So if money’s not the problem, then who’s to blame for America’s failing schools? Teachers unions. America’s largest teachers unions — the National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — are notorious for protecting underperforming teachers through generous tenure policies. According to one estimate, only 1 in 500 tenured teachers is ever fired for poor performance. That comes out to 0.2 percent. Lawyers and doctors with advanced degrees often suffer more from underperformance. In California, roughly 98 percent of teachers attain tenure — or “permanence” — after two years of employment. Yet research shows that, from 2004 to 2014, only 19 out of about 300,000 tenured California teachers were dismissed for poor performance. In states like Mississippi, it only takes a teacher one year to secure tenure. This leads to last-in, first-out firing procedures which disproportionately punish the youngest teachers who haven’t been tenured yet — no matter their qualifications or experience. And it indirectly punishes American students, who lose out on learning from up-and-coming teachers. But when education proponents propose tenure reform and merit-based pay — which would reward the best teachers while weeding out the worst — they are vilified by union bosses. AFT President Randi Weingarten recently claimed that supporters of such policies have “turn[ed] scapegoating into an art form.” “Tenure is not a job for life,” Weingarten often argues — despite the statistics showing otherwise. She’s not alone. NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia routinely urges union members to “[stand] up to the scapegoating of educators and [demand] more respect,” while claiming that critics of overly generous tenure policies are liars. Big Labor has committed to upholding the status quo, bankrolling politicians who oppose school choice and other fixes to our struggling schools. Meanwhile, the children of many dues-paying union families suffer as well. Higher-quality private schools are much less accessible to the family of a unionized store clerk than the local public school. The NEA and AFT’s Super PACs have spent more than $185 million on political activities and lobbying since 1990 — almost $23 million of it coming in 2016. This doesn’t even take into account millions more in non-PAC expenditures, which teachers unions use to fund the Democratic Party and an array of closely aligned special-interest groups. In 2015, AFT contributed nearly $1.5 million to the Democratic Governors Association and $400,000 to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, while the NEA dished out more than $725,000 to Catalist — a leading Democratic data firm. The NEA ranked as the top organization funding Super PACs during the 2014 election cycle — well ahead of conservative power players such as the Republican Governors Association (No. 18), Freedom Partners (No. 55), and American Crossroads (No. 66). (The AFT finished a respectable No. 13 on the list.) And the overwhelming majority of teacher union money going to Super PACs — 99 percent — props up the Democratic Party and liberal advocacy groups opposing education reform. The NEA contributed a grand total of $0 to Republicans and conservative causes in 2014. (Yet the most recent NEA survey of public school teachers found that 55 percent of teachers characterize themselves as “conservative” or “tend to be conservative.”) America’s students deserve more than politics as usual. Link to Article: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/… https://www.americanthinker.com/artic…
Apr 8 2019

“AOC” Dancing Socialism into the Hearts and Minds of Young People Everywhere


Published on Jan 5, 2019

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Now more then ever we need your help keeping this channel producing REAL content for REAL people https://www.paypal.me/ConservativeRes… Ocasio-Cortez Tax Plan Creates 82.7% Top Income Tax Rate for New Yorkers In an upcoming 60 Minutes interview, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) will call for federal income tax rates of up to 70 percent as part of a proposal to create vast new government spending programs. The current top federal income tax rate is 37 percent, so the Ocasio-Cortez plan will nearly double the tax rate for the top bracket. New York State has a top income tax rate of 8.82 percent while New York City has a top rate of 3.876 percent. So under this proposal, her constituents would pay a top combined income tax rate of 82.7 percent: Federal income tax rate: 70.0% NY state income tax rate: 8.82% NYC income tax rate: 3.876% TOTAL: 82.696% New Yorkers would not be the only ones suffering under the Ocasio-Cortez plan. California taxpayers would pay a top rate of 83.3 percent (70 percent plus the California rate of 13.30 percent). In addition to this high income tax rate, taxpayers would remain impacted by other taxes including payroll taxes, taxes on capital gains income and dividends, and the death tax. Further, while Ocasio-Cortez has not released details of any other tax hikes to pay for her plan, this would likely not be the only income tax increase if she had her way. For instance, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) proposed a $2 trillion 2.2 percent payroll tax on all families and a $10 trillion 6.2 percent payroll tax on all businesses as part of his socialized healthcare plan. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) have proposed numerous tax hikes including a new, 5 percent surtax on those making $500,000 per year and an increase in the Obamacare payroll tax from 0.9 percent to 4 percent. Regardless of the specific proposal, it is clear that Democrats want higher taxes on the American people as they made clear when they changed the House rules to make it easier to raise taxes. Just last night, Democrats rejected a proposal to make permanent the $2,000 child tax credit (up from 1,000) and the $24,000 standard deduction for families (up from $12,000). Based on their record this will not be the first of many cases where Democrats oppose middle class tax relief and advocate for higher taxes on the American people.
Apr 8 2019

*Update*: DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Has Resigned…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 7, 2019 by 

According to multiple media reports, with a growing crisis at the U.S-Mexico border, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has resigned and President Trump has just confirmed via tweet:

UPDATE: Resignation letter below

(Source Link)

Apr 8 2019

Sunday Talks: Larry Kudlow -vs- Margaret Brennan…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 7, 2019 by 

National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow appears on Face The Nation to discuss issues with the U.S-Mexico border and possible economic ramifications if the security issues are not addressed. Additionally, Kudlow discusses the USMCA trade deal and the status of current negotiations with China.

Apr 7 2019

The death of democracy? Why unintelligent protest may wreck society


Published on Apr 26, 2018

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Evolutionary biologist Heather Heying rose to prominence as a member of the Intellectual Dark Web after she and her husband, Professor Bret Weinstein, spoke out against a planned “Day of Absence” at Evergreen State College, where white students, staff and teachers would vacate campus and only minority students would remain. Their opposition to the event led to accusations of racism and a string of protests, threats, and violence, leading The Seattle Times to call the college a “national caricature of intolerant campus liberalism.” Democracy depends on protest, Heying asserts above, but a new strain of unintelligent protest on the Left may damage the very values liberals are trying to protect. “Increasingly we have groups who are claiming to be emerging from this age-old culture of protest who are actually tamping out dissent, who are saying there are things that cannot be said, there are things that cannot be thought, there are research programs that cannot be done,” she says. “… But they don’t tend to be armed in the way the extreme Right is, and so it’s easy for people to imagine that they’re not as dangerous—but shutting down dissent, shutting down the ability to discuss ideas, is actually the beginning of the death of democracy.” In this video, Heying looks at tribalism and dissent from an evolutionary perspective, and highlights how technology has hijacked our ancient brain to create a more polarized society than ever before. Follow Heather on twitter: @HeatherEHeying and on Medium and through her website, http://www.heatherheying.com.

 

 

Apr 7 2019

Psychology of Redemption in Christianity


Published on Jan 26, 2016

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SoundCloud Podcast Link: https://goo.gl/qQOg75 iTunes Podcast Link: https://goo.gl/9tgW21 This is a TVO Big Ideas Lecture from 2012, presented at INPM’s Conference on Personal Meaning. It discusses the idea of redemption in Christianity from a psychological perspective, comparing in part to ideas of transformation in psychotherapy.