The Front Page Cover
~ Featuring ~
By standards of a century ago,
we’re better off than John D. Rockefeller
by George Will
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by BEN SHAPIRO{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ With President Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, the political world has exploded into wild accusations and counter-accusations of corruption and bias... Amidst all the hubbub, the "why" behind Comey's firing boils down to two theories. Only one can be correct. If it's the first theory, Trump did the right thing and Democrats are using the firing to make political hay in scurrilous fashion. If it's the second, Trump may be on his way to impeachment. Theory #1: Trump Fired Comey For Incompetence. This is the most obvious answer as to why Comey was fired. Multiple letters from administration members suggest that Trump was told over and over again that Comey needed to go. That's for a variety of reasons (less than a week ago, I called for Comey's firing myself)... http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/there-are-only-two-theories-why-trump-fired-comey-one-means-trumps-right-the-other-means-hell-be-impeached?f=must_reads
The Trump Administration's Conflicting Climate
Signals
The changes the Trump administration is expected to make on environmental issues are ambiguous, to say the least. And that's worrisome. In one sense, we're seeing welcome results. According to The Washington Post, "EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt decided to replace half of the members on one of its key scientific review boards, while Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is 'reviewing the charter and charge' of more than 200 advisory boards, committees and other entities both within and outside his department."
Contrary to what's being reported, these moves are neither nefarious nor unforeseen. At the EPA, specifically, "All of the people being dismissed were at the end of serving at least one three-year term, although these terms are often renewed instead of terminated," the Post explains, later adding, "Members of EPA's Board of Scientific Counselors had been informed twice — in January, before President Barack liar-nObama left office, and then more recently by EPA career staff members — that they would be kept on for another term, adding to their confusion." Talk about having unrealistic expectations!
Pruitt is shaking things up at the EPA — and that's good. Moreover, the administration's revisiting statist mandates like the Clean Power Plan is another promising sign that more needed relief is on the way. That being said, there are serious questions being raised about Barack liar-nObama's Paris climate accord.
For the record, last year Trump vowed, "We're going to cancel the Paris climate agreement." He also stated: "President liar-nObama entered the United States into the Paris climate accords [sic] unilaterally and without the permission of Congress. This agreement gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much our energy and how much we use right here in America. So foreign bureaucrats are going to be controlling what we're using and what we're doing on our land in our country. No way."
He's right. But whether a formal dismissal actually happens remains speculative. ABC News reports, "The White House has postponed a Tuesday meeting to discuss whether the United States should withdraw from the landmark international climate deal struck in Paris under the liar-nObama administration. The White House said late Monday that the meeting would be rescheduled. This is the second time a meeting of top aides on the issue has been delayed." Previous reports have indicated that a climate change rift exists between Trump officials, which help explain the delays. Ivanka Trump, anyone?
Numerous groups are imploring Trump to take the U.S. out of participation. They understand that the Paris accord isn't just an economic bludgeon; it's also a gross infringement on the Constitution. If the U.S. were to properly enter such an accord, it's the Senate's, not the president's, duty to make it happen. If Trump backtracks on this issue, not only will the economy and Constitution suffer, but his voters won't be very accepting of it, either. ~The Patriot Post
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There Are Only Two Theories
Why Trump Fired Comey..
by BEN SHAPIRO
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Kellyanne Conway defends Comey firing in tense Anderson Cooper interview: "This is not a coverup!"
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Huckabee-Sanders: "President liar-Hillary" Would've Fired Comey Too
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Statement by FBI Director Comey on the Investigation of liar-Hillary Clinton's Use of a Personal E-Mail System
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TUCKER: Former US Attorney: "James Comey Is a Danger to the Country" (May 3)
VIDEO: http://video.insider.foxnews.com/v/5420988831001
TUCKER: Former US Attorney: "James Comey Is a Danger to the Country" (May 3)
VIDEO: http://video.insider.foxnews.com/v/5420988831001
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Dr. Peter Pry on North Korea allegedly preparing to attack the U.S. power grid
VIDEO: http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/5426573806001
VIDEO: http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/5426573806001
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N Korea Nuclear Armed Satellites, EMP Attack
A Serious, Imminent Threat
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ Lou Dobbs warns that North Korea could be in the process of preparing to hit the United States with an Electro-Magnetic Pulse attack... which would have devastating effects on the United States power grid and virtually all computers, including chips inside devices, cars and appliances. He notes that there are “two satellites already orbiting above America, according to Dr. Peter Vincent Pry,” his guest and the Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security.” Noting that Pry is also the Chief of Staff for a Congressional EMP Commission, Dobbs welcomes him to the program. He remarks that it will probably come as a surprise to most Americans that not only does North Korea have the capability to launch satellites but they also could configure them with nuclear weapons capable of striking the United States with an EMP...http://rickwells.us/dobbs-n-korea-nuclear-armed-satellites-emp-attack-serious-imminent-threat/
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Thousands of Bodies Found Buried on University of Mississippi Medical Center Campus
by Tim Brown
{freedomoutpost.com} ~ The Mississippi Lunatic Asylum was Mississippi's first mental institution. Dorothea Dix of Boston pushed Mississippi representatives to fund $175,000 to complete the asylum... Prior to the asylum, those who were claimed to be suffering from mental illness were chained in jails or attics, according to Dr. Luke Lampton, chairman of the state Board of Health. The long line of bodies discovered began in 2013, when UMMc officials discovered 66 coffins as a road was being constructed. Later, in 2014, a parking garage project uncovered another 1,000 coffins, which led to radar being brought in that assessed there were at least 2,000 coffins in total...http://freedomoutpost.com/thousands-of-bodies-found-buried-on-university-of-mississippi-medical-center-campus/
VIDEO: http://on.thec-l.com/2pUID8r
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Senate GOP fails to repeal
liar-nObama's methane rule
by John Siciliano
{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ The Senate on Wednesday failed to repeal President liar-nObama's methane rules for oil and gas drillers on federal lands with a 49-51 vote... The resolution of disapproval will now have one day to be reconsidered for repeal and get it to the president's desk for signature. The House passed a similar resolution using its authority under the Congressional Review Act back in February. Under the review act, the Senate only has until Thursday to pass the rule... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senate-gop-fails-to-repeal-obamas-methane-rule/article/2622658
VIDEO: http://launch.newsinc.com/embed.html?trackingGroup=91212&siteSection=91212_pp&videoId=31937414
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By standards of a century ago,
we’re better off than John D. Rockefeller
Times Square in New York City in the 1920s
by George Will
{newsobserver.com} ~ Having bestowed the presidency on a candidate who described their country as a “hellhole” besieged by multitudes trying to get into it, Americans need an antidote for social hypochondria. Fortunately, one has arrived from Don Boudreaux, an economist at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center and proprietor of the indispensable blog Cafe Hayek.
He has good news: You are as rich as John D. Rockefeller. Richer, actually.
Some historians estimate that Sept. 29, 1916, a surge in the price of Rockefeller’s shares of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey made him America’s first billionaire. Others say he never reached this milestone and that Henry Ford was the first. Never mind. If Rockefeller was the first, his billion was worth $23 billion in today’s dollars. Boudreaux asks if you would accept this bargain: You can be as rich as Rockefeller was in 1916 if you consent to live in 1916.
Boudreaux says that if you had Rockefeller’s riches back then, you could have had a palatial home on Fifth Avenue, another overlooking the Pacific, and a private island if you wished. Of course, going to and from the coasts in your private but unairconditioned railroad car would be time-consuming and less than pleasant. And communicating with someone on the other coast would be a time-consuming chore.
Commercial radio did not arrive until 1920, and 1916 phonographs would lacerate 2017 sensibilities, as would 1916’s silent movies. If in 1916 you wanted Thai curry, chicken vindaloo or Vietnamese pho, you could go to the phone hanging on your wall and ask the operator (direct dialing began in the 1920s) to connect you to restaurants serving those dishes. The fact that there were no such restaurants would not bother you because in 1916 you had never heard of those dishes, so you would not know what you were missing.
If in 1916 you suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, a sexually transmitted disease or innumerable other ailments treatable in 2017, you also would not know that you were missing antibiotics and the rest of modern pharmacology. And don’t even think about getting a 1916 toothache. You can afford state-of-the-art 1916 dentures, and probably will need them. Your arthritic hips and knees? Hobble along until you cannot hobble any more, then buy a wheelchair. Birth control in 1916 will be primitive, unreliable and not conducive to pleasure.
You could enjoy a smattering of early jazz, but rock ’n’ roll is decades distant, and Netflix and Google even more so. Your pastimes would be limited, but you could measure the passage of time on the finest Swiss watch. It, however, would be less accurate than today’s Timex or smartphone.
As a 1916 billionaire, you would be materially worse off than a 2017 middle- class American; an unhealthy 1916 billionaire would be much worse off than an unhealthy 2017 American of any means. Intellectually, your 1916 range of cultural choices would be paltry compared with today’s. And your moral tranquility might be disturbed by the contrast between your billionaire’s life and that of the normal American.
In 2015, a Bureau of Labor Statistics paper described the life of workers in 1915. More than half (52.4 percent) of the 100 million Americans were younger than 25, life expectancy at birth was 54.5 years (today, 78.8) and fewer than 5 percent of Americans were 65 or older. One in 10 babies died in the first year of life (today, one in 168). A large majority of births were not in hospitals (today, fewer than 1 percent).
In 1915, only about 14 percent of people ages 14-17 were in high school, an estimated 18 percent ages 25 and older had completed high school, and nearly 75 percent of women working in factories had left school before eighth grade. There were four renters for every homeowner, partly because mortgages (usually for just five to seven years) required down payments of 40 to 50 percent of the purchase price.
Fewer than one-third of homes had electric lights. Small electric motors – the first Hoover vacuum cleaner appeared in 1915 – were not yet lightening housework. Iceboxes, which were the norm until after World War II, were all that 1915 had: General Motors’ Frigidaire debuted in 1918.
So, thank Boudreaux for making you think about this: How large would your net worth have to be to get you to swap the life you are living in “hellhole” America for what that money could buy in 1916?
He has good news: You are as rich as John D. Rockefeller. Richer, actually.
Some historians estimate that Sept. 29, 1916, a surge in the price of Rockefeller’s shares of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey made him America’s first billionaire. Others say he never reached this milestone and that Henry Ford was the first. Never mind. If Rockefeller was the first, his billion was worth $23 billion in today’s dollars. Boudreaux asks if you would accept this bargain: You can be as rich as Rockefeller was in 1916 if you consent to live in 1916.
Boudreaux says that if you had Rockefeller’s riches back then, you could have had a palatial home on Fifth Avenue, another overlooking the Pacific, and a private island if you wished. Of course, going to and from the coasts in your private but unairconditioned railroad car would be time-consuming and less than pleasant. And communicating with someone on the other coast would be a time-consuming chore.
Commercial radio did not arrive until 1920, and 1916 phonographs would lacerate 2017 sensibilities, as would 1916’s silent movies. If in 1916 you wanted Thai curry, chicken vindaloo or Vietnamese pho, you could go to the phone hanging on your wall and ask the operator (direct dialing began in the 1920s) to connect you to restaurants serving those dishes. The fact that there were no such restaurants would not bother you because in 1916 you had never heard of those dishes, so you would not know what you were missing.
If in 1916 you suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, a sexually transmitted disease or innumerable other ailments treatable in 2017, you also would not know that you were missing antibiotics and the rest of modern pharmacology. And don’t even think about getting a 1916 toothache. You can afford state-of-the-art 1916 dentures, and probably will need them. Your arthritic hips and knees? Hobble along until you cannot hobble any more, then buy a wheelchair. Birth control in 1916 will be primitive, unreliable and not conducive to pleasure.
You could enjoy a smattering of early jazz, but rock ’n’ roll is decades distant, and Netflix and Google even more so. Your pastimes would be limited, but you could measure the passage of time on the finest Swiss watch. It, however, would be less accurate than today’s Timex or smartphone.
As a 1916 billionaire, you would be materially worse off than a 2017 middle- class American; an unhealthy 1916 billionaire would be much worse off than an unhealthy 2017 American of any means. Intellectually, your 1916 range of cultural choices would be paltry compared with today’s. And your moral tranquility might be disturbed by the contrast between your billionaire’s life and that of the normal American.
In 2015, a Bureau of Labor Statistics paper described the life of workers in 1915. More than half (52.4 percent) of the 100 million Americans were younger than 25, life expectancy at birth was 54.5 years (today, 78.8) and fewer than 5 percent of Americans were 65 or older. One in 10 babies died in the first year of life (today, one in 168). A large majority of births were not in hospitals (today, fewer than 1 percent).
In 1915, only about 14 percent of people ages 14-17 were in high school, an estimated 18 percent ages 25 and older had completed high school, and nearly 75 percent of women working in factories had left school before eighth grade. There were four renters for every homeowner, partly because mortgages (usually for just five to seven years) required down payments of 40 to 50 percent of the purchase price.
Fewer than one-third of homes had electric lights. Small electric motors – the first Hoover vacuum cleaner appeared in 1915 – were not yet lightening housework. Iceboxes, which were the norm until after World War II, were all that 1915 had: General Motors’ Frigidaire debuted in 1918.
So, thank Boudreaux for making you think about this: How large would your net worth have to be to get you to swap the life you are living in “hellhole” America for what that money could buy in 1916?
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