COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Friday, July 07, 2017

Donald Trump - Defender of The Faith

27 comments:

  1. TRUMP IN POLAND: “OUR CIVILIZATION WILL TRIUMPH”
    A far cry from Obama’s avowal that Islamic civilization will triumph.
    July 7, 2017 Robert Spencer

    Interrupted repeatedly by chants of “Donald Trump! Donald Trump! Donald Trump!” as he was speaking in Poland on Thursday, President Trump delivered a ringing affirmation that he would defend Western civilization: “Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken. Our values will prevail, our people will thrive, and our civilization will triumph.”

    Now, we’re used Presidents affirming that civilization will triumph. Barack Obama did it, too. Trump’s remarkable innovation here, and sharp departure from the example his predecessor set, is in declaring that Western civilization would triumph. Barack Hussein Obama, by contrast, was famous for declaring the triumph of Islamic civilization, most notably when he told the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2012: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

    If the future is not to belong to those who are perceived as slandering the prophet of Islam, Sharia blasphemy laws criminalizing criticism of Islam will have to have been imposed; people aren’t likely to give up criticizing Muhammad voluntarily, especially as jihad terror attacks incited by his teachings become an ever more common feature of life in the West. Thus if the future doesn’t belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam, it will be because the freedom of speech has been extinguished and Islamic values have prevailed: Islamic civilization will have triumphed.

    If that was not what Barack Obama wanted, he never gave any indication of it during eight years in the White House. The Democrats constantly pointed to his killings of bin Laden and al-Awlaki as indication that he was tough on terrorism, but amid foreign and domestic policies indefatigably supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and its auxiliaries in the United States, unstinting opposition to the freedom of speech regarding criticism of Islam, and an appalling deal that gave aid and comfort to the Islamic Republic of Iran, those killings only made clear that while Obama evidently opposed violent jihad, he had no serious objection to other methods of Sharia imposition and Islamization.

    In Warsaw Thursday, Trump offered a radically different vision. “We are fighting hard against radical Islamic terrorism,” he declared. “And we will prevail. We cannot accept those who reject our values and who use hatred to justify violence against the innocent.”

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    1. “We cannot accept those who reject our values.” After eight years of Obama acting as if the freedom of speech and the right to bear arms were burdens to be cast off rather than rights to be defended, this is an extraordinary statement. It is also one of the reasons why Trump’s notorious “travel ban” contains a little-noted directive that is clearly designed to preserve American values. The March 6 executive order states:


      To be more transparent with the American people and to implement more effectively policies and practices that serve the national interest, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall, consistent with applicable law and national security, collect and make publicly available the following information:…information regarding the number and types of acts of gender-based violence against women, including so-called "honor killings," in the United States by foreign nationals.

      Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (Reliance of the Traveller o1.1-2). In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law. In this case the victim was the murderer’s daughter, a victim to the culture of violence and intimidation that such laws help create.

      The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.’” And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.”

      Until the encouragement Islamic law gives to honor killing is acknowledged and confronted, more women will suffer. President Trump is trying to keep women from suffering in this way in the United States.

      That element of the executive order is the kind of thing that is involved in ensuring that “our civilization will triumph”: stopping the encroachment of Sharia values in the United States. Trump in Warsaw wasn’t just paying lip service to unattainable ideals, any more than Obama was when he said that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Obama worked very hard to make sure that would be true, and now his successor is working very hard to ensure that Judeo-Christian civilization survives instead. Americans can be grateful that we do not, for the moment, have (as Trump as said) a President of the world, but a President of the United States.

      https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267209/trump-poland-our-civilization-will-triumph-robert-spencer

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  2. Disagree with a Democrat these days and you're either deplorable, or nuts -

    THE DEMOCRATS’ SOVIET INSANE ASYLUM FOR TRUMP
    The Left’s faithful devotion to socialist-style “psychiatric” disposal of political dissidents.
    July 7, 2017 Jamie Glazov

    The former Soviet Union possessed many imaginative mechanisms to deal with the problem of enemies of the people who obstructed the path to socialist utopia -- now known as “social justice.” One of those mechanisms was the practice of confining individuals who were thinking the wrong thoughts to insane asylums. Indeed, if you caused any trouble for the commissars, a good inoculation of neuroleptics (powerful drugs used to “quiet” the symptoms of schizophrenia), forcibly administered through a tube in the nose, could do wonders in bringing your politically incorrect behavior to a halt.

    Dissidents such as Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Pyotr Grigorenko, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Esenin-Volpin and Joseph Brodsky were all among the brave freedom-fighters who bore the brunt of the Soviet practice of institutionalizing dissidents in mental hospitals and force-feeding them mind-shattering drugs. Gorbanevskaya was committed to a psychiatric hospital for attending the 1968 Red Square demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Grigorenko suffered the same fate for criticizing the Khrushchev regime. Bukovsky was confined to a psychiatric hospital for “anti-Soviet agitation.” Brodksy was sent to mental hospitals for not writing the right kind of poetry; his treatments involved "tranquilizing" injections, sleep deprivation and forced freezing baths. Esenin-Volpin was institutionalized in the Leningrad Special Psychiatric Hospital for his anti-Soviet thoughts.

    Today’s progressive Democrats are also faithfully journeying on an uplifting odyssey. Horrified by Trump’s opposition to Obama’s “fundamental transformations,” they have found their own neuroleptics in the form of the 25th Amendment and a bill seeking to impeach the president for being mentally unsound. Indeed, Trump has to be mentally deranged and unfit for office, because what other reason could possibly explain his frightening disagreement with the Left’s un-American creed of identity politics -- race and gender uber alles? What other factor could possibly be at play in his embrace of individual freedom and responsibility -- and in his rejection of group privileges and racial/gender hierarchies that, as David Horowitz has noted, can only be manifested after America’s Constitution is null and void?

    Confronted by Trump’s shocking blasphemy against their anointed plan, several Democrats, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), have now signed onto a bill that seeks to remove Trump by invoking 25th Amendment powers. The bill cites section 4 of the amendment, created in 1967 after JFK's assassination, that allows for an independent body to remove the president based on the determination that he has been mentally or physically incapacitated to carry out his duties. Raskin's initiative would activate a probe into whether Trump has been too far "incapacitated" to continue as president.

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    1. This effort is, actually, even sicker than the Soviet practice, since the amendment does not refer to psychiatric problems, but to actual incapacitation through assassination or stroke.

      Raskin claims he is concerned that "something is seriously wrong" with Trump, citing a "sustained pattern of behavior" and several "errant and seemingly deranged tweets," which he believes are damaging to U.S. interests. But to anyone who hasn’t drunk the progressive Kool-Aid, it is obvious that Trump’s sustained pattern of behavior is not damaging U.S. interests. Instead, it is unhinging his political enemies and damaging the progressive assault on America’s social contract. Trump’s tweets do not warn, for example, that the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam (an Obama meme) or that you can keep your doctor if you like him. They are singing the praises of America and calling out a corrupt media for its brazen lies and political partisanship.



      The only reasonable observation in Raskin’s statements is that (to people like him): "it certainly doesn't feel like the ship is on an even course right now."

      Consequently, the Democrats are now trying to steer the ship back into progressive waters. They are doing so by applying the lessons of the Soviet secret police -- in quashing those who disagree with them like Andrei Sakharov. Sakharov refused to toe the Soviet party line and be politically correct; therefore, like Trump, he was also obviously mentally ill. That’s why the Soviet authorities had to confine him in a closed ward of the Semashko Hospital in Gorky, where he was force-fed and given drugs to alter and enlighten his state of mind.

      And now enter the new self-appointed social redeemers of our time: the progressive Democrats who are consumed with ferocious rage as they watch the horror show of an American president strengthening America and abandoning the enlightened course on which Obama’s ship sailed. There is no secret about what the true yearnings of the Raskin Gang are, but absent a totalitarian state to back them up, they are bound to fail.

      https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267208/democrats-soviet-insane-asylum-trump-jamie-glazov

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  3. Indian PM “snubs” Palestinian leaders; pledges to fight jihad together with Israel

    JULY 6, 2017 6:17 PM BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

    The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, has now become the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel, and he won’t be meeting with Palestinian leaders, causing upset among them.

    The Coordinator of the National and Islamic Forces, Essam Abu Baker stated that “we in the Palestinian revolution and the PLO are keen on building special ties with India….this apparent shift in India’s position is huge and dangerous. We call on the Indian government to revise its policies.” Palestinian Deputy Foreign Minister Tasir Jaradat said that Modi should have visited both states “to spread the message of peace.” Modi, in fact, did signal a message of peace by “snubbing” the jihadist-ruled region, in which every major organization is governed by charters that declare their determination to obliterate the Zionist state of Israel.

    According to Haaretz, “Ben-Gurion himself made personal contact not only with central Indian political figures to seek their support, but even convinced Albert Einstein, a reluctant Zionist, to write to Jawaharlal Nehru, soon to be India’s first prime minister, in the summer of 1947 to push for a sympathetic hearing for Zionism.” Yet since then, India’s relationship with Israel has been elusive.

    Modi’s visit has now shifted the tide. India and Israel have pledged to combat terrorism, and this so-called “snub” of Palestinian leaders by Modi represents an honest first step. Modi and Netanyahu “referred to the suffering of both countries from terror.”



    “India and Israel pledge to combat terrorism”, BBC News, July 5, 2017:

    India Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu have signed agreements, including on agriculture and space.

    The two leaders, who made a joint statement in Jerusalem, also referred to the “suffering” of both countries from terror.

    Mr Modi said they would work together to combat growing radicalisation and terrorism, including in cyberspace.

    He is the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel.

    The visit is seen by some as a turning point in India’s position on Israel. The two countries established diplomatic relations only 25 years ago.

    Observers note he will not travel to Ramallah or meet Palestinian leaders, as visiting dignitaries often do.

    Both leaders made several references to terrorism, and talked about the “challenge” of dealing with forces that sought to undermine their countries, as well as “strategic threats to regional peace and stability”.

    Mr Modi also met an Israeli boy, Moshe Holtzberg, whose parents were killed when gunmen stormed a Jewish centre in Mumbai during a 2008 terror attack.

    Moshe Holtzberg was saved by his Indian nanny, Sandra Samuel, who was treated as a heroine in Israel where she settled with the boy after the attack.

    Six Jewish people were killed at the centre, which was one of several places targeted in the attacks.

    Apart from bilateral deals, Mr Netanyahu said that the two countries had recognised their roles in contributing to global stability, and had agreed to also fund development work in African countries.

    Later on Wednesday Mr Modi was to address a gathering of Jewish people of Indian origin living in Israel and would be joined by Mr Netanyahu…..

    https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/07/indian-pm-snubs-palestinian-leaders-pledges-to-fight-jihad-together-with-israel

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  4. July 7, 2017
    The Rage of Islam
    By Tabitha Korol


    ....A study conducted by Oxford University has shown that the male must make as many as 34 head-to-prayer mat contacts five times per day, often resulting in a zebibah (or prayer bump) and traumatic brain injury along with mental disorders. The practice is known to cause irritation, aggression, depression, and cognitive impairment, all to feed the cult and war mentality. Known as TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), it can affect thinking (memory, reasoning), sensation (touch, taste, smell), language (communication, expression, understanding), and emotion (depression, anxiety, personality change, aggression, social inaptness). It can cause epilepsy, and increases the conditions for age-related Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and other brain disorders....

    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/07/the_rage_of_islam.html

    Damn ! They bang their heads on the floor so many time per day and for so long they brain damage themselves !

    Which is, given their 'belief' system, eminently just and fitting.

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    1. If they were all armed like Mr. Weigle and Keller, we'd be done with them in a decade.

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  5. http://2164th.blogspot.com/2017/07/trump-tilts-east.html?showComment=1499411203643#c4154572577672145118

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    1. Click the X to stop loading the page, otherwise Blogger, which has been fucked up for days will never take you there.

      Then watch Mr. Weigle again...

      Stomping off really pissed off simply because he's just been shot 4 times in the chest!

      A thing of beauty is indeed a joy forever!

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    2. Doug Fri Jul 07, 01:37:00 AM EDT

      Guy walks away cussing like it's a flesh wound!

      Delete
  6. I was watching the gathering of the G20 folks for their group photo. If you get a chance, watch the little faggot, Macron, jostle and maneuver his way to the side just so he can stand next to Trump. Hilarious!

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  7. Probe launched into French president Emmanuel Macron's lavish Las Vegas soirée

    Mr Macron became France's president earlier this year
    Henry Samuel, paris

    7 JULY 2017 • 11:26AM

    A formal probe has been launched into possible favoritism regarding a lavish soirée in Las Vegas in honour of French president Emmanuel Macron when he was a government minister, prosecutors announced yesterday (Fri).

    The judicial inquiry could deal a significant blow to Mr Macron's reformist drive as it implicates his labour minister - at the helm of a landmark labour bill - and her role in organising Mr Macron's high-profile trip to the 2016 trip to the Consumer Electronics Show.

    The LA event, which reportedly cost almost €400,000 (£354,000), was orchestrated by Business France, a state body promoting French business interests abroad, at a time when Mr Macron was economy minister under the then Socialist government of his predecessor Francois Hollande.....


    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/07/probe-launched-french-president-emmanuel-macrons-lavish-las/

    Macron sure robbed the rest home taking old lady Brigitte Trogneux to be his wife.

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  8. Loretta Lynchs herself -

    New holes in Loretta Lynch’s story on the Hillary probe
    By Paul Sperry July 6, 2017 | 7:03pm | Updated
    New holes in Loretta Lynch’s story on the Hillary probe

    When former Attorney General Loretta Lynch testified last year about her decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information, she swore she never talked to “anyone” on the Clinton campaign. That categorical denial, though made in response to a series of questions about whether she spoke with Clintonworld about remaining attorney general if Hillary won the election, could come back to haunt her.

    The Senate Judiciary Committee, which has launched a bipartisan investigation into Lynch for possible obstruction of justice, recently learned of the existence of a document indicating Lynch assured the political director of Clinton’s campaign she wouldn’t let FBI agents “go too far” in probing the former secretary of state.

    Lynch’s lawyer says she is cooperating with committee investigators, who are seeking answers to several questions, as well as relevant documents. Among other things, they want to know if she or any of her Justice Department staff “ever communicated with Amanda Renteria,” who headed Clinton’s political operations during the campaign. Renteria, who has been identified in the document as the senior Clinton campaign aide with whom Lynch privately communicated, has also been asked to testify.

    The committee also wants to know if Lynch or any of her aides were in contact with former DNC chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz regarding the Clinton email investigation, according to a three-page list of questions that Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein recently sent to Lynch at her New York apartment
    Senate investigators have combed through a transcript of Lynch’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in July 2016. In retrospect, several of her statements strain credulity. But one in particular stands out, and could present legal problems for Lynch.

    During the House Judiciary hearing, Rep. David Trott (R-Mich.) slammed Lynch for failing to recuse herself from the Clinton investigation despite meeting privately with the target’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, a week before the then-attorney general let Hillary skate. Then, referring to rumors of her possibly staying on in a hypothetical Hillary administration, he asked if Lynch had met with anyone on Hillary’s staff during the yearlong investigation, to which she replied: “I have not spoken to anyone on either the campaign or transition or any staff members affiliated with them.”

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    1. The committee, however, now knows of a document obtained by the FBI reportedly showing a Democratic operative’s claim that Lynch had privately assured Renteria that the Justice Department “would not push too deeply” into the investigation of Clinton’s private email server, which contained top secret information from the State Department.

      And it will press her to explain the discrepancy — along with why she reportedly asked former FBI Director James Comey to leave her office when he confronted her with the document.

      There are three explanations: Either Lynch lied under oath, or she never in fact talked to Renteria, or her categorical denial was meant to later claim she was merely discussing her role post-election.

      The committee will also drill down on her explanation of her highly suspicious meeting with Bill Clinton during the investigation.

      Lynch claimed the former president boarded her plane, which was parked on the tarmac at the Phoenix airport, simply because “he wanted to say hello.”

      But the meeting lasted at least 30 minutes and had to be cleared by the Secret Service as well as FBI security details. It was also the first meeting of any kind on Lynch’s plane.

      Lynch also got squirrelly when asked about reports that her FBI security detail had banned cameras, even phones, from her meeting with Clinton.

      Since her lawyer is on record saying Lynch will “fully cooperate” in the Senate investigation, she’ll have a hard time pleading the Fifth in hearings. But that doesn’t mean she won’t try to stonewall.

      Dozens of times during the House hearing, Lynch claimed, “I do not recall,” when pressed for sensitive information about her role in the Hillary investigation. And the committee determined that she either “refused to answer or give appropriate response” no fewer than 74 times during the four-hour hearing.


      Hopefully Grassley, who now has the backing of Feinstein, who said Lynch’s actions made her feel “queasy,” will have better luck drawing the truth out of Lynch.

      http://nypost.com/2017/07/06/new-holes-in-loretta-lynchs-story-on-the-hillary-probe/

      Heh, heh, heh

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  9. From James Freeman, WSJ

    Journalists will debate who “won” the first face-to-face meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin on Friday in Hamburg. But by important measures Mr. Putin was already losing before either man even arrived in Germany.

    As for what happened once they got together, it may take some time to figure out who benefits most from a new cease-fire agreement for Syria. But don’t tell the New York Times . The paper was ready to declare a victor in a headline even before the historic meeting: “For Russia, Trump-Putin Meeting Is a Sure Winner.” According to the Times:

    Whatever the outcome of the encounter on Friday — which will be on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit meeting of world leaders in Hamburg, Germany, but is expected to overshadow it — the Kremlin is betting that Mr. Putin can stage-manage the event so that he comes out looking like the stronger party.
    If nothing much emerges from the meeting, analysts said, the Kremlin can repeat the standard Russian line that Mr. Trump is weak, hamstrung by domestic politics.
    But if Mr. Trump agrees to work with Mr. Putin despite a list of Russian transgressions beginning with the annexation of Crimea and ending with its interference in the 2016 presidential election, he will also look weak while Mr. Putin can claim that he reconstructed the relationship.
    If Mr. Trump was sure to lose, it would be especially humiliating. That’s because, according to an “editor on gender issues” at the Times, this was not merely a competition between nations:

    It’s the ultimate man-off: Vladimir V. Putin and Donald J. Trump, two leaders who have staked their appeal on projecting masculinity, face off on Friday with the world judging who prevails.
    Each is almost a cartoonish version of hyper-masculinity. Mr. Putin is frequently photographed shirtless on horseback, shooting tigers or flipping judo opponents. President Trump takes pains to glower at the camera, boasts about the size of his hands (and not just his hands) and recently tweeted a mock video of himself wrestling CNN. And in a telling irony, the fear is that the American leader so invested in proving he’s a real man will not prove to be tough enough.
    While some journalists may focus on images of Mr. Putin on horseback, it’s useful to remember that he presides over an economy that is less than one tenth the size of ours. Precisely because it is run by Vladimir Putin, Russia is a chronic economic underachiever despite its highly educated population. Mr. Putin’s KGB training under the old communist regime may be useful in weakening other countries but it doesn’t enrich his own. Like a number of backward regimes that don’t respect the rule of law and therefore have trouble encouraging entrepreneurial creativity, Russia is heavily reliant on oil as its principal export. And lately Mr. Putin and his cronies have been losing their shirts.



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  10. Continued:

    After a multi-year recession due to economic sanctions and declining oil prices, Russian officials have been hoping to eke out slow growth in 2017. Russian stocks rebounded last year as traders bet on an oil rebound. But lately investors have been less enthusiastic.

    It might seem ironic given the non-stop accusations of collusion between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia aired in the American media, but the first months of the Trump Administration have coincided with a notable decline in the value of Russian assets.

    While equities in most of the world have been rallying, “just four prominent stock-market indexes fell through the first six months of the year,” notes the Journal’s Steven Russolillo. And which market has been the biggest loser? “Russia’s RTS Index sank 13% in the first half, the worst performer of the 30 indexes tracked by The Wall Street Journal,” he adds.

    Perhaps it’s not entirely a coincidence. Call it the geopolitical equivalent of trolling or call it wisely exploiting American energy resources. But on the same day that Mr. Trump was in Poland warning Russia against interventions in other countries, Mr. Trump’s interior secretary was back home creating opportunities for new energy supply—and at the margin adding downward pressure to the prices of Mr. Putin’s key exports. The Washington Post reports:

    The Interior Department, intent on boosting oil and gas production on federal lands, issued an order on Thursday designed to speed up the permitting process for drilling.
    Coming on the heels of the Trump administration’s self-styled Energy Week in late June, Secretary Ryan Zinke’s order is its latest effort to loosen restrictions on the fossil fuel industry. The White House is pushing for more domestic oil, natural gas and coal production so that the United States can become a net energy exporter as part of President Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda.
    More U.S. energy production continues to deliver more bad news to Moscow. China, a longtime customer of Russia, is now buying large volumes from the United States, which now challenges Russia and Saudi Arabia for world leadership in oil production. The Journal reports:

    U.S. production increased to nearly 9.34 million barrels per day last week, from 9.25 million barrels per day the week before, according to a report on Thursday from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Production was up nearly 11% from a year ago and nearly back at its 10-month high.
    However Mr. Putin performs in Hamburg, he’ll still have to go back home to the economic mess he created. And U.S. energy policy is only making his job harder.

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  11. A cunning linguist studies The Donald's words -

    This linguist studied the way Trump speaks for two years. Here’s what she found.
    By Bastien Inzaurralde July 7 at 7:00 AM

    Play Video 4:20
    This linguist studied the way Trump speaks for two years. Here’s what she found.

    Jennifer Sclafani, a linguist at Georgetown University, says President Trump is a “unique” politician because he doesn’t speak like one. (Video: Bastien Inzaurralde, Julio Negron, Kyle Barss/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
    “Great people.” “Believe me.” “Not good.”

    These two-word expressions are among some of the staples of the 45th president of the United States’ vocabulary. Although President Trump’s political career is just a few years old, he has already become associated with several simple phrases — “make America great again,” “build the wall” — and even single words — “win,” “sad,” “great.”

    Trump is a “unique” politician because he doesn’t speak like one, according to Jennifer Sclafani, an associate teaching professor in Georgetown University’s Department of Linguistics.

    “He is interesting to me linguistically because he speaks like everybody else,” said Sclafani, who has studied Trump’s language for the past two years. “And we’re not used to hearing that from a president. We’re used to hearing somebody speak who sounds much more educated, much smarter, much more refined than your everyday American.”

    During a February news conference, Trump seemed to give credit to the power of his words for helping him become president.


    “That’s how I won,” Trump told reporters gathered at the White House. “I won with news conference and probably speeches. I certainly didn’t win by people listening to you people, that’s for sure.”

    Sclafani, who recently wrote a book set to publish this fall titled “Talking Donald Trump: A Sociolinguistic Study of Style, Metadiscourse, and Political Identity,” said Trump has used language to “create a brand” as a politician.

    “President Trump creates a spectacle in the way that he speaks,” she said. “So it creates a feeling of strength for the nation, or it creates a sense of determination, a sense that he can get the job done through his use of hyperbole and directness.”

    The features of Trump’s speech patterns include a casual tone, a simple vocabulary and grammar, repetitions, hyperbole and sudden switches of topics, according to Sclafani.

    As for the criticism that Trump sounds erratic when he changes subjects in the middle of a speech or sentence, Sclafani said that “this is something that we all do in everyday speech.”


    “It’s just unusual to hear it from a president speaking in a public, formal context,” she added.

    Sclafani said Trump also sets himself apart by the words he doesn’t use. Trump started his sentences with “well” less frequently than other Republican contenders during the 2016 GOP primary debates, she said.

    Omitting the word “well” at the start of a sentence helped Trump come across as a straight talker who wouldn’t try to escape a question asked by a moderator, Sclafani said.

    “When we hear ‘well’ coming from other candidates, we’re more likely to perceive their responses as being dodgy,” she said. “And when we hear no ‘well’ from Donald Trump, we don’t notice that there is no ‘well’ there, but by contrast he comes off as sounding more straightforward and more direct.”

    During a 2015 rally in South Carolina, Trump explained how he feels about his vocabulary.

    “I know words,” he said. “I have the best words.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/07/07/this-linguist-studied-the-way-trump-speaks-for-two-years-heres-what-she-found/?utm_term=.1f9ca10f77cb

    :):)

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    1. Cunning linguist:

      Reminds me of the old joke about the difference between a pack of pygmies and a girl's track team:

      A group of cunning runts vs a pack of running cunts.

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    2. "Cunning linguist"

      Sounds like...

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  12. Pat Buchanan and Roger Stone on Laura Ingraham Podcast:

    https://www.podcastone.com/The-Laura-Ingraham-Show-Podcast

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  13. HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — The United States and Russia have reached agreement on a cease-fire in southwest Syria, three U.S. officials said Friday as President Donald Trump held his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
    The deal marks a new level of involvement for the U.S. in trying to resolve Syria's civil war. Although details about the agreement and how it will be implemented weren't immediately available, the cease-fire is set to take effect Sunday at noon Damascus time, said the officials, who weren't authorized to discuss the cease-fire publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
    Jordan and Israel also are part of the agreement, one of the officials said. The two U.S. allies both share a border with the southern part of Syria and have been concerned about violence from Syria's civil war spilling over the border.

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  14. This Year-Long Video of a Tree Is Surprisingly Action-Packed

    Wildlife photographers capture intimate animal footage after 365 days of recording in Italy.

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/07/tree-video-yearlong-abruzzo-lazio-italy-marsican-bears-spd/

    Beats watching the street cam in Truckee.

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  15. Watch Bear Cubs Hitch a Ride on Their Mom Across a Lake

    Adorable video shot in an Alaskan state park proves bears are both amazing mothers and gifted swimmers.

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/bear-cubs-swim-river-alaska-video-spd/

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  16. 4 bears killed throughout region Wednesday

    Another caught in trap, will be transported
    By Alex Semadeni Herald Staff Writer
    Thursday, July 6, 2017 7:20 PM

    A bear has been hanging around Fairfield Inn & Suites, west of downtown Durango, for about a month.
    Four bears in the region were killed in separate incidents Wednesday.

    Two bears were shot by homeowners after the bears entered their homes, and two were tracked by Wildlife Services and euthanized, said Joe Lewandowski, spokesman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. A fifth bear was caught in a bear trap north of Durango but will be released.

    A homeowner in Vallecito killed a bear after it entered the home through a second-story window. A homeowner in Pagosa Springs also killed a bear after it entered the home....

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  17. Why can’t monkeys talk? Scientists rumble over a curious question
    By Ben Guarino The Washington Post

    http://www.sltrib.com/home/5485184-155/story.html?fullpage=1

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  18. The Donald got on it, offered to help, something got done. The little boy is a nice looking baby, has a nice face.


    Charlie Gard Gets A Second Chance At Life
    Posted at 9:17 pm on July 7, 2017 by streiff

    The Mengele-esque medical claque at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital has found playing God has responsibility. They’ve “reconsidered” their unilateral decision to remove 11-month-old Charlie Gard from life support over the wishes of his parents.

    In an abrupt shift, a London hospital said on Friday that it would reconsider its decision to turn off life support for Charlie Gard, a brain-damaged and terminally ill British infant, in light of “fresh evidence” about a potential treatment.

    The statement from Great Ormond Street Hospital was the latest twist in a case that has raised difficult bioethical and legal questions, and has caught the attention of Pope Francis and President Trump.

    Charlie, 11 months old, has a rare and debilitating genetic condition that has no cure, and the hospital had said that letting him die was the only humane option to end his potential pain and suffering. The hospital, where the boy has lived since October, won a series of court rulings, most recently last week, authorizing it to withdraw life support.

    On Friday afternoon, however, the hospital changed course.

    “Two international hospitals and their researchers have communicated to us as late as the last 24 hours that they have fresh evidence about their proposed experimental treatment,” the hospital said in the statement. “And we believe, in common with Charlie’s parents, it is right to explore this evidence.”

    This is bullsh**. This hospital has not received any information that it didn’t have before they decided to go full-metal-stupid and go to court to impose their will to kill the child upon parents who were trying to save his life.

    There are a couple of hurdles yet to be cleared:

    The US hospital, which cannot be named for legal reasons, said that it would treat the boy with an experimental drug pending approval from government regulators, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

    It said it had “agreed to admit and evaluate Charlie, provided that arrangements are made to safely transfer him to our facility, legal hurdles are cleared, and we receive emergency approval from the FDA for an experimental treatment as appropriate”.

    It added: “Alternatively, if approved by the FDA, we will arrange shipment of the experimental drug to Great Ormond Street Hospital and advise their medical staff on administering it if they are willing to do so.”
    One never knows how the FDA will react to this but the FDA administrator has been hostile, before his appointment, to FDA’s penchant for letting people die rather than approve experimental treatments. What we do know is that if a major research hospital, which is certainly the source of the proposed drug and treatment protocol, has gone out on a limb in an emotionally and politically charged case like this, then their Institutional Review Board has decided that the treatment is not only legal but ethical.

    The long term odds are against young Charlie. But as long as you are alive there is hope and keeping him alive, even for a while, is a small victory over the Culture of Death that is consuming Western Civilization.

    http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2017/07/07/charlie-gard-gets-a-second-chance-at-life/

    I'm cheering/praying for Charlie.

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