PrairiePundit

NY Times: Dueling Appointments Lead to Clash at Consumer Protection Bureau President Trump named his budget director as the agency’s acting leader, moving to take control just hours after its departing leader had taken steps to install his own choice for acting chief. Like Dodd-Frank, the Consumer Protection Bureau was created as part of a massive coverup by liberal Democrats after Obama was elected.  It was set up in an attempt to keep it in liberal hands despite the will of the people or Congress and the President.  Laws setting both up should be abolished. The Democrats were primarily responsible for the housing debacle and the financial crisis that ensued.  They forced banks to make bad loans and then blamed them for making them.  They are still trying to make them agree to uncreditworthy loans for their constituency groups, even thou those very constituents were also harmed by their demands for easy credit for the uncreditworthy.  ...

Houston Chronicle: More than a decade after former president George W. Bush tried but failed to open up drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, oil companies are now poised to gain access to what is one of the country's largest and most remote wilderness areas. Under legislation designed to help pay for an historic corporate tax cut, the U.S. government would begin leasing a 1.5 million acre section of ANWR, where one of the largest oil fields is believed to lie. But with oil prices below $60 a barrel, and environmental groups poised to go to court to block any development within the refuge, the question remains whether enough oil companies would be interested in drilling in one of the harshest and most remote corners of the world to produce the kind of revenues Republicans in Congress are promising to offset the costs of the tax cuts and their impact on the deficit. The Senate is expected to vote on its version of the tax plan next week. "Any discoveries in A...

Hot Air: UC Berkeley isn’t a very welcoming place for conservative students. The “birthplace of the free speech movement” has been ground zero for the attacks on conservative speech on college campuses. One conservative has had enough and has filed a lawsuit against a leader in the Antifa movement. Berkeley College Republicans’ former president Troy Worden is seeking $100,000 in damages from Yvette Felarca, an organizer for national activist group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). Worden claims that Felarca filed a “frivolous” restraining order against him which interfered with both his 1st and 2nd Amendment rights. This also made it difficult for the College Republican to walk through campus or attend his classes. Felarca filed the restraining order for stalking and intimidation against Worden on September 7. It was dismissed on October 26th. That’s a significant amount of time for Worden to be painted with Felarca’s accusations. Worden’s attorney Mark Meuser alleges the Antifa l...

Daily Signal: Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., says Democrats have forced the Senate into 47 cloture votes this year alone on President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, compared with just six cloture votes in the first years of the four prior administrations combined. Cotton said Senate Democrats are abusing procedures that allow them to stymie Trump’s executive branch nominees. He said that allows career bureaucrats to run their agencies anyway they want, “without any political accountability.” The freshman Arkansas senator leveled the charge in remarks to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, on Nov. 16 in Washington. Cotton said it’s time for those abuses to end, and he offered three proposals to set the nomination process back on track. The first proposal is to end the use of so-called “blue slips” to block judicial nominees. Under Senate tradition, hearings aren’t held for a judicial nominee unless and until his or her home-state senators submit blue slips showing...

IBD: President Trump's much-derided Asian tour earlier in the month received widespread criticism in the mainstream media. What they won't report is that, like it or not, his visit is already paying dividends. Maybe you saw some of the headlines: "The 'Missed Opportunity' Of Trump's Asia Trip" (NPR). "Donald Trump's Asia Tour Leaves Observers Perplexed" (BBC). "Trump Wants America To Be Like China" (U.S. News). Actually, despite the media snark, the trip was a big success from Trump's perspective, especially on trade. While Trump was conferring with Chinese President Xi Jinping, U.S. companies announced some $250 billion in deals with China — a clear sign China wants to open its markets even more. A more recent example was China's decision, announced on Thanksgiving , to slash import taxes on some 187 consumer goods. As Bloomberg News correctly noted, this move "promises to boost the prospects of multinationals i...

"Last night, we conducted strikes into Northern Helmand to hit the Taliban where it hurts: their narcotics financing." -Gen. Nicholson, USFOR-A #AFGStrong http://www. rs.nato.int/news-center/pr ess-releases/2017/afghan--us-forces-launch-new-campaign-tbnetworks.aspx   … @CENTCOM @USAFCENT @DeptofDefense @TOLOnews @pajhwok @HM_Kakar @1TVNewsAF @ArianaNews_ @KhalilNoori 0:00 9:55 AM - 20 Nov 2017 The building in the upper right is completely destroyed. Only 499 left to go.  The new rules of engagement allow the US forces strike the Taliban's financing through their sale of dope.  For reasons that are hard to fantom, the Obama administration refused to allow the military to strike such targets .

Washington Post: ‘Elitists,’ ‘crybabies’ and ‘junky’ degrees A Trump supporter explains conservatives’ rising anger with U.S. universities. He and others who feel the same want to reduce the flow of government money to what they see as institutions that often fail to provide practical skills for the job market. They are coddling wimps and providing them with worthless degrees while the administrators live like the one percent.  There are too many "victim studies" programs.  Instead of instilling an openness to ideas they are the most closed minded people in the country.  Every course is seen as an opportunity to proselyte for evils of liberalism. One of the first thing that is needed is to make clear to students that justice is a word that needs no modifier in front of it.  Explain to them that in this country justice is for all and not just for a few "victims group." Students need to learn real history and not just left wing agenda based politics....

NY Times: A Bitter Partisan Fight Erupts Over Culling Voter Rolls Some conservative groups say that the effort to prune rolls of people who have died, moved or lost their eligibility to vote is a matter of guarding against fraud, but critics say it amounts to intimidation and voter suppression. Why is it that most dead voters vote for Democrats?  Democrats seem upset that their base of dead voters will not be able to vote.   It should be a very simple thing for a live voter to provide proof of life.  It makes no sense to suggest that any live voter will feel intimidates by correcting the voter rolls, with a valid ID of course.

Colbert King: The tragedy of Trump’s latest Twitter tantrum Those who have attempted to make Trump's Twitter ire at an ungrateful father who thought springing his offspring from a Chinese jail sentence was not worthy of a thank you a statement about race miss an important point.  The father's ingratitude was based on his statement that shoplifting was "no big deal."  It is likely that attitude would lead a young person to think that they should be able to get away with stealing someone else's merchandise. Those who make this dispute about race do blacks in general a disservice.  There are many honest and honorable black people in this country who try to raise their kids to be good citizens.  To suggest that other blacks should not be held to the same standards is in itself racists.

NY Times: Older Voters Stymied by Tighter ID Requirements Restrictive eligibility rules have kept older citizens from the voting booth, experts say. I have not experienced any problem with voter ID.  There are also plenty of voters that are older than I who have had no difficulty in voting in my Texas precinct.   I vote in a diverse rural precinct and the poll workers also have a diverse racial makeup.  Vote fraud by "people" voting Democrat is a bigger problem than voter ID.

NY Times: U.S. Diplomats, Pushed Out in Droves, Sound the Alarm A State Department exodus marks a new stage in the broken and increasingly contentious relationship between Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and much of his work force. Mr. Tillerson has frozen most hiring and recently offered a buyout in hopes of pushing nearly 2,000 career diplomats and civil servants to leave by October 2018. One of the needed transformations is removing those responsible for Obama's bad foreign policy.  I suspect that those still loyal to Clinton and Kerry would be immediate targets for buyouts.  Anyone who supported the terrible deal with Iran should find another job.   The globalists are probably also not team players on the President's "America First" agenda. While I am not necessarily tied to the America First agenda, the US State Department has been stocked with too many liberals for too long.

Times: Ineos is seeking to bypass local councils by using controversial new rules to fast-track plans to drill for shale gas in the Midlands without their planning approval. The privately held petrochemicals giant run by the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, one of the world’s ten biggest chemical companies with operations in 16 countries and sales of $40 billion a year, is taking the lead in the development of Britain’s shale gas industry. It will become the first business to use powers created in 2015 to allow companies to request intervention from ministers in order to secure permission for delayed infrastructure projects deemed to be of national importance. Under the rules, councils that unreasonably delay planning decisions can be stripped of their decision-making authority and overruled by Sajid Javid, the local government secretary, via the planning inspectorate. Ineos plans to apply formally to Mr Javid within days for intervention on two delayed projects in Derbyshire and nea...

Express: BREAKING: Egypt 'launch airstrikes on Rafah' after 235 killed in mosque massacre EGYPT’S military has launched airstrikes against the Palestinian city of Rafah following yesterday’s shocking massacre, reports claim. Tieing the Palestinians to the attack is new.  I suspect that Israeli intelligence probably gave teh Egyptians a lead on those who participated.

LA Times: As he investigates Trump's aides, special counsel's record shows surprising flaws It would not be the first time he has been overrated.

National Interests: In modern Korea’s relatively short history, amphibious warfare has played a key and pivotal role. The United Nations essentially liberated South Korea from invasion with a single amphibious stroke, and the country has maintained a large and powerful Marine Corps ever since. Now, a new generation of South Korean amphibious naval forces means the country can ponder taking the offensive during wartime, not only blunting an invasion but upending the Kim family’s dynastic hold on North Korea. Korea’s peninsular nature means that the ocean is never far away from residents of both countries. It also means that armies fighting on the peninsula, friendly or not, run lines of communication and supply that are constantly in danger of being severed from the sea. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, well aware that the invading Korean People’s Army was reliant on increasingly tenuous supply lines as it inched south, planned and oversaw a successful amphibious assault at the port of Inchon....

Telegraph: Church of Sweden to stop clergy calling God 'he' or 'the Lord' in bid to crack down on gendered language I dou7bt they will try to force this absurdity on teh Muslims, but it is clear there is no freedom of religion in Sweden.

BBC: Iran has accused the Saudi crown prince of being "immature" after he described the Iranian Supreme Leader as the Hitler of the Middle East. In a war of words between the two regional rivals, Iran's foreign ministry said Prince Mohammed bin Salman should "ponder the fate" of regional dictators. The prince, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, has taken a hard line on Iran. He told the New York Times it could not be allowed to spread its influence. "We learned from Europe that appeasement doesn't work. We don't want the new Hitler in Iran to repeat what happened in Europe in the Middle East," he said, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His remarks drew a strong response from Tehran. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi accused the "adventurist" crown prince of "immature, inconsiderate, and baseless remarks and behaviour", the semi-official Isna news agency reported. ... Iranian leaders have openly expressed...

CNBC: President Donald Trump should give special thanks to two U.S. Senators this Thanksgiving weekend. One is still serving in the Senate, the other recently retired. One is a Republican. The other a Democrat. And what should President Trump be thanking them for? Quite simply they have handed him one of the biggest victories any president could claim in the past 45 years. Yes, this has happened even as one of the most widely covered stories of the past year has been President Trump's difficulties in working with Congress. The growing rift between him and Republican Senators John McCain, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker alone has made headlines for months. For a U.S. president to have this many public feuds with senators from his own party this early in his presidency is really unprecedented and makes for hot news copy. But that story ignores a bigger and longer-lasting development in the federal judiciary. That brings us first to naming the Republican gift giver: Senator Chuck Gra...

NY Times: Why Putin’s Foes Deplore U.S. Focus on Election Meddling “Enough already!” one critic of President Vladimir V. Putin said, worried that the accusations were helping the Kremlin polish the president’s image as a master strategist. I continue to be of the opinion that Russian meddling in the election is overrated.  It assumes that that Trump voters are dupes, and I do not think they are.  I know for a fact that my vote against Hillary Clinton was not swayed by any Russian interference.  Hillary Clinton embraced all of the bad policies of Obama.  I would have voted for the Republican nominee no matter which of the candidates won the primary.  In fact, Trump was at the bottom of my list of favorites.  That being said, Trump is vastly exceeded by expectations.  He has righted the economy and done away with many of the control freak regulations that Obama imposed.   Trump's policies have led to growth in the US economy and...

Washington Times: Russian lawmakers looking to boost the country’s energy and shipping industries are weighing a ban on foreign-flagged ships from the strategically critical Northern Sea Route across the Arctic. During a recent shipbuilding conference, President Vladimir Putin discussed the proposal to grant only Russian vessels transport rights to the route, which is claimed by Russia . “This step will increase the volume of shipping, will strengthen the position of domestic shipping companies, create additional opportunities to upgrade their fleet,” Mr. Putin said, according to the Russian news agency Tass. “The corresponding bill is now being considered by the State Duma, and I expect that it will be adopted soon.” The protectionist rhetoric has alarmed international shipping and trade analysts, who argue that the plan could be illegal and counterproductive to stimulating long-term Arctic Sea oil and gas extraction. The shortest shipping lane from Europe to the Pacific Ocean, the N...