TheFrontPageCover
~ Featuring ~
What's Wrong in Washington (and America)
by Cal Thomas .
Mexico Caravan Plot Uses Illegal
Invaders To Pressure and Embarrass Trump
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Netanyahu cancels UN asylum seeker deal
by HERB KEINON
{ jpost.com } ~ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu completed an about-face on Tuesday... announcing that he was cancelling the agreement he dramatically announced and advocated less than 24 hours before regarding the African migrants in Israel. Netanyahu's announcement came at the beginning of a meeting in his office with residents of south Tel Aviv neighborhoods opposed to the policy which would allow some 16,000 of the African migrants to remain in the country, while another 16,000 would – under an agreement reached with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) – be absorbed by other western countries....
Israel Puts Iran On Notice
by Ari Lieberman
{ frontpagemag.com } ~ Israel’s recent disclosure that its air force reduced Syria’s Al Kibar atomic bomb facility to rubble... came across as one of the worst kept secrets in modern history. International media outlets had already published detailed accounts of the successful strike and even former president George W. Bush made reference to the raid in his memoirs. The reasons for the formal acknowledgement now, 11 years after the fact are threefold. First, as already noted, everyone and their uncle knew Israel was responsible so there was no point in maintaining continued silence on the issue. Second, Israel had always feared that a formal acknowledgement would force Assad into a corner and compel him to avenge Arab honor. Silence on the issue allowed him to maintain a docile posture vis-à-vis Israel. Indeed, most Syrians at the time believed official Syrian media reports that Israel dropped a few bombs in the open desert. However, Syria of 2007 is no more. After years of protracted conflict, Assad’s army is a mere shell of its former self and he relies on Russia and Iranian proxy militias, like Hezbollah, for survival. In sum, he no longer poses a credible conventional threat to Israel and is in no position to retaliate against a country that could tackle the entire combined armed Arab might of the Middle East....
March For Our Lives Doesn’t Represent the Youth
by Daniel Greenfield
{ frontpagemag.com } ~ A month after the Parkland shootings, a Quinnipiac poll showed that voters 18-34 were much less likely to support either an “assault weapons” ban... or a ban on the sale of “semi-automatic rifles”. 80% of voters 65 years of age and older supported an “assault weapons ban”, but those 18-34 split over it. A majority of voters 65 and over backed the “semi-automatic rifle” bans, but a majority of 18-34 voters opposed it. The Washington D.C. March for Our Lives rally was billed as a way for the next generation of youth to speak out. But only 10% of the crowd that cheered the bizarre drama club antics on stage was under 18. The average age of the adults was 49 years old. That’s young compared to the median age of the CNN primetime viewer: 60 years old. The media hype for the March was a cable news phenomenon. Few millennials even watch cable news... .
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What's Wrong in Washington (and America)
by Cal Thomas
{ townhall.com } ~ At dinner with friends, I was asked what is wrong with Washington. The question presumes a standard by which "wrong" can be defined.
I am frequently asked this question by people who do not live in "the swamp." They don't behave like Washington politicians. If a disagreement arises in their personal or professional life, they discuss it and usually compromise and work things out. Only in Washington, they note, does this rarely happen, and when it does it makes headlines.
The most obvious answer to the question I am asked -- often before the appetizer arrives -- is that it is about power, about raising money to achieve it, and then holding onto it once you've gotten it. A corollary is that if an issue is actually resolved, it disappears as a fundraising and electoral tool. That is why certain issues resurface during and between election cycles. Issues like the poor but likely only when Republicans are in power, not when Democrats hold the majority, education stated goals are never achieved, and no matter how much is spent it is never enough, which is why the left opposes school choice, the environment "climate change" appears to remain an unchallengeable doctrine for the left, though there is some evidence ignored by liberal media that strongly suggests otherwise, taxes and spending history shows the benefits of small government and low taxes, but in an age of envy, greed and entitlement one finds it increasingly difficult to teach self-reliance when the federal government is seen by too many as a giant ATM.
Term limits for those who stay too long at the government "fair" would contribute mightily to draining the swamp, but that is unlikely to happen because Congress would have to vote for them. That's not likely to happen. Politicians are not about to vote themselves out of office, so we the people must give them a push.
Another contributing factor to Washington's dysfunction is the expectation that government can -- or should -- solve every problem. That it consistently demonstrates it cannot does little to dissuade some from believing it can. This is cult-like thinking in which evidence never squashes faith.
If Washington dysfunction is to end, I say to my dinner companions, the expectations of the American people must change.
Where can people look for inspiration? Certainly not the news media, which consistently promotes government as the only solution to any problem, no matter how often government fails. What about the entertainment industry? Hardly. Most films and TV are about promoting social and political agendas held by "progressives."
Academia? When I was in college, the purpose of a good education was to enable students to establish careers that would allow them to take care of themselves and their families. At too many universities today it seems one is "taught" left-wing propaganda and subjects that have nothing to do with preparing someone to have a career that relates to anything most people wish to buy or in which they might have an interest.
Where have you gone Horatio Alger and all of the inspiring stories named after you? Where are the models for success that once inspired others to follow these examples?
The solution to government dysfunction can be found in the Constitution, history and common sense. All are being ignored and so government, its cost and its multiple failures expand, leading to an eventual and inevitable breaking point.
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