90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Coronavirus Fallout Shows Dangers of Over-Reliance on China

Just how is the coronavirus outbreak in China affecting global supply chains?

How does this inform decisions and risk associated with offshoring manufacturing to China?

And will the COVID-19 outbreak impact the phase one China trade deal?

In this episode, we’ll sit down with Curtis Ellis, policy director with America First Policies. He was also a senior policy advisor with Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Killary Asks A Question.

3 Big Takeaways From Trump’s Trip to India

It may look as if President Donald Trump’s trip to India boiled down to little more than media optics and Taj Mahal photo shoots. But there is much more significance to it than that.

Over 100,000 people packed a cricket stadium to hear Trump and India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, reprise the “Howdy, Modi” event in Houston, Texas, a few months ago.

Each leader highlighted the accomplishments of the other and discussed the strengthening bilateral relationship between our two countries.

Are there notable takeaways from this historic visit? Definitely.

For one, who could have predicted it would take a stadium big enough to hold 100,000-plus cricket fans to showcase two politicians? Of course, we also ought to acknowledge this is India, one of the most populous nations on Earth. A hundred thousand people in India is like five guys at a Starbucks in D.C.

And yet if the stadium could have taken 10 times that number, Modi and Trump probably still could have filled it. The people of India know something very special is going on here.

U.S.-India relations exhibit a bipartisan character in both countries. This is more than just two charismatic leaders and the offer of free hats pulling in a crowd.

The U.S. and India have a lot to offer each other. The easy get is security. Both want a stable and prosperous South Asia and a reasonable Pakistan. Both want to tackle the scourge of transnational Islamist terrorism and curb the worst destabilizing acts of Chinese expansion.

The U.S. and India have forged something new and unprecedented. We are not old-fashioned treaty allies, but we are way more than just friends.

This is a vital strategic partnership. We know that from the most distant Pacific island to the Middle East, we have each other’s back. This is a new geostrategic reality in the world.

To be fair, the two countries started moving in this direction before Modi and Trump made the scene. But they have sealed the deal.

Second, now comes the hard part—forging the economic bonds. This was a disappointment to both sides, which had hoped to seal at least a small-ball trade deal for the visit.

This is difficult for India, which traditionally has had an inward-looking economy with heavy government controls. Still, India knows it’s time to change.

India now has the world’s fifth-largest economy, and it’s time to harness that economic potential to drive real growth. Nothing will make that happen faster than partnering with the United States.

Deals are coming. They will be followed by more deals.

Third,

Never forget the media's blind eye to Obama's corruption

The media are outraged that former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich had to serve only eight years out of a fourteen-year sentence for corruption. They say it sends a bad message that political corruption is OK. But what is outrageous and sends a message that political corruption is OK is when the Justice Department, most of the media, and other Democrats didn't care about the massive political corruption of Barack Obama throughout his political life and supported him no matter what he did.

Obama was above the law.

In 2004, then–Illinois senator Obama stole one million dollars of taxpayer money, disguised as a grant, and gave it to his wife's employer, where family friend Valerie Jarrett happened to be a director. Jarrett had hired Michelle as an executive at $120,000 per year.

After the hospital got the million, Michelle got a $197,000 raise to $317,000 for what seemed to be a part-time job. (I am sure all of us can relate to a 200% raise or a $317,000 salary.) Michelle's main job was to dump low-income, unprofitable patients onto other hospitals (the Obamas have always been so compassionate and empathetic). To tell the poor how good this was, the hospital hired David Axelrod, a campaign adviser for Obama. Later on, they hired the corrupt family friend Eric Whitaker in an executive position.

In summary, Senator Obama stole taxpayer money to pay family, friends, and political supporters.

How often, in Illinois and throughout the country, do politicians steal money to benefit themselves? How many politicians, family members, and friends have gotten extremely rich while burying their snouts in the public trough?

Everyone should remember that when the media say the government is short of money, the private sector is greedy, and people don't pay their fair share, taxpayer money is used to enrich politicians and bureaucrats. After all, several of the richest counties in the U.S. are around D.C. where they produce nothing.

In 2005, after Michelle got the $197,000 raise, the Obamas were now able to buy the Hyde Park mansion they craved. They paid $1,650,000, a discounted price. But the house was not enough. They also craved the vacant piece of land next door, and they couldn't afford it. Luckily, the corrupt Tony Rezko could afford the full $625,000 asking price after Blago and Obama had helped funnel millions of taxpayer funds to him, supposedly for housing developments. Rezko didn't need the property, so why did he buy it other than as a kickback to Obama?

Obama Kick-Back Cronyism — Part 2: Illinois Health And Human Disservices

As state senator, Obama's interest extended to medical programs as well as to hospital real estate matters. Soon after his election he unsuccessfully requested a $1 million state "earmark" for the Chicago Medical Center hospital. His wife, Michelle, had been selected for an executive position there by board member and close friend Valerie Jarrett. In 2005 her part-time salary was raised from $120,000 to $317,000, about twice what Obama made as senator.

Ms. Obama's primary role was to create what has been described as a low-income "patient-dumping" program called the "South Side Health Collaborative". It featured a gang of "counselors" that advised unprofitable low-income patients they would be better off at other hospitals and clinics. Jarrett gave her approval to the concept, and David Axelrod was hired to promote it. Soon Chicago's inner city populations began hearing that the program would "dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents", and that the medical center was generously willing to provide "a ride on a shuttle bus to other centers".

In late 2007 Dr. Eric Whitaker became the hospital's Executive Vice President for Strategic Affiliations and Associate Dean for Community-Based Research. He had worked with Ms. Obama and was recommended to Blago for the job by Senator Barack Obama through mutual pal Tony Rezko. Whitaker had also been hired to an earlier position as director of the Illinois Department of Public Health based on Obama's recommendation, and remains a good friend and member of the President's inner circle. He has vacationed with the Obama family in Martha's Vineyard and Hawaii.

Rezko owns vacant lot next to Obama's home

Shady House Deal Plagues Obama

Before Obama bought the house he had assisted Rezko in securing millions of tax dollars for housing developments as an Illinois state legislator.
Over the Fourth of July Weekend, the Washington Post revealed Obama had also secured a reduced mortgage for the same home, on top of the Rezko's discount, saving him more than $300 a month in mortgage payments. "Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois. The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago[.]"

Obama's Buddy Eric Whitaker: Is He Clueless or What?

The media and other Democrats spent a lot of time ignoring and covering up Obama's clear corruption and relationships as he ran for President in 2008, while they relentlessly attacked McCain and Palin. They were disposable and Obama won. The meddling by the media in support of Obama as they attacked McCain was unrelenting, The NYT even ran a fake front-page story trashing McCain about a purported affair with a lobbyist. It was the equivalent of the fake 20016 Russian dossier story. All that mattered was electing a Democrat.

Most of the media got their way. Obama won.

It is no wonder that as soon as President Obama took office, he showed that he planned to continue the corruption he learned in Illinois and his disdain for the law and the Constitution and he had a bigger pot of gold to...

President Trump’s firing of John Rood, the top policy official at the Pentagon, is a sign the agency is not immune from an effort to purge from influential positions across the administration “snakes” who do not support the president, according to four current and former officials.

Rood had been on the chopping block for months, but his firing just last week amid a spate of other personnel changes shows that the president is finally ready to clean house at a department that has tried to distance itself from politics, they said.

“All of them are getting tossed,” a senior administration official told Breitbart News. “You’re either on the team or you’re out, everywhere.”

Political appointees like Rood serve the administration and at the president’s prerogative. However, it was well-known at the Pentagon and beyond that Rood was not a supporter of the president.

“Plenty of people from the transition and at the National Security Council knew Rood was not playing on the same team as the president when it came to policy or personnel,” a defense official told Breitbart News after his firing. “Complaints have made it to the highest levels at the White House for awhile now.”

At at least two meetings he held for staff, Rood spoke profusely and glowingly about the late Sen. John McCain, but did not once mention the president, according to the defense official.

At his first town hall, he spoke about attending McCain’s funeral in Arizona and how Amber Alert signs on the highway were flashing in memorial for McCain, and how much both he and the American people loved him.

The second town hall was after Mattis issued his resignation letter. That evening, he called an all-hands meeting and spoke of how great Mattis was, how he was a man of honor like McCain, and what a privilege it was to work with Mattis. He then passed around copies of Mattis’s resignation letter and said that the Pentagon would continue implementing Mattis’s defense strategy.

“Never once mentioned Trump,” the defense official said. “The message was clearly Mattis and McCain are great and our president isn’t.”

But it was not just Rood’s dislike of the president that did him in. The current and former officials said Rood slow-rolled implementing the president’s defense policies on practically everything.

“Name it,” said one administration official, when asked which policies he slow-rolled.

One former administration official told Breitbart News the U.S. could have done a lot more to help Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, but that Rood effectively stopped it. The former official also said Rood slow-rolled pressuring South Korea and Japan to pay more for...