Thursday, January 18, 2018

Pence is on his way to the Middle East. Oh.

Railway link project proposed between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Israel calls it as "Peace Line." (click here)

Israel: A railway linking plan to connect Israel and Saudi Arabia is in consideration of the Israeli government and it has approved the cost of the project which is included in its 2019 budget three days earlier.
The Cost of the railway linking project is expected to be 15 million shekels ($4.5 million).
A team of experts has been formed by Israel railway commission to lay down the plan for the project.
According to the news reported in Middle East Monitor which quoted Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, the purpose of the project is to transfer goods and people across the borders, and the initial plan of the project is to build a railway station in the city of Bisan with a railway network which travels through Jordan to Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
At present, the goods from Israel are being transported from Haifa port and then heading to Iraq, Saudi Arabia aJnd other Gulf States through Jordan.
The railway line plan is called by Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz as “Peace Line.”

The Trump administration has been threatening to end funding to the Palestinians.

January 16, 2018
By Nicole Gaouette and Jamie Crawford

WashingtonThe US has announced (click here) that it will hold back more than half of the funding it provides for a UN agency that supports Palestinians, about two weeks after President Donald Trump threatened to pull funding for the group.

The decision drew condemnation from Palestinians, praise from Israel, and expressions of deep concern from UN officials and refugee groups worried about the humanitarian impact and particularly the potential for further destabilization of a region already reeling from conflict in Syria.

The US will withhold more than half its scheduled $125 million payment from the United Nations Relief Works Agency, which provides humanitarian aid, education, social services and medical care to Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the move had nothing to do with "punishing" the Palestinians for their refusal to enter into negotiations with Israel, or their decision to push for a UN vote that resulted in overwhelming international condemnation of the Trump administration's decision to unilaterally recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital....

This is a common error of this administration in stating one reason for such actions against humanitarian interests, when in fact it will be preceived as punishment. Trump's administration seems to believe they can make statements that all people will believe and accept. "W"rong!

At least $65 million of humanitarian aid is being withheld by Trump and it will victimize the Palestian children. Trump has been threatening the end of funding to the Palestians and the United Naions since he took office. A year later he is unilaterally acting on his threat.

Now that Trump is not funding this aid, where did it go?

Supposedly the EXCUSE of defunding humanitarian aid is because the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is anti-Israel.

The UN agency is not anti-Israel. As a matter of fact in 2012, they planned to change an educational cirriculum to Palestinian children which would include the Holocaust.

October 20, 2012

...“It’s impossible (click here) that I would teach my students about the so-called Holocaust. UNRWA is planning to impose this on us, but we refuse to teach the history of our eternal enemies,” he insisted to The Media Line....

Perhaps while Israel is celebrating the "Peace Train" there can be a discussion about the aid to the Palestinians and the wholesome education of the children.

The Palestinians do not need more isolation and victimization; they need an economy and opportunity for their children to join the rest of the world's understanding of international, heinous crime including the Holocaust. The Palestinian children need far less isolation and victimization; they need an opportunity to be well rounded citizens of the Middle East with an understanding of peace opposed to suffering.

More missing money.

January 18, 2018
By Fredreka Schouten

Washington — Nearly a year after (click here) President Trump’s inauguration, the committee that raised a record $106.7 million for the event has not disclosed how much surplus money it still has or provided a final accounting of its finances.

“We must decline comment at this time,” Kristin Celauro, a spokeswoman for the inaugural committee’s chairman, Thomas Barrack, said this week in response to  a USA TODAY inquiry about the committee’s finances.

Barrack, a California investment manager and longtime Trump friend, has said consistently that remaining funds would go charity. He announced plans in September to give $3 million to three non-profit groups —The American Red Cross, the Salvation Army and Samaritan’s Purse — to help with hurricane relief efforts and said the committee planned more contributions “that serve America’s agenda.”

Officials with the American Red Cross and Samaritan’s Purse, a group led by evangelist Franklin Graham, declined to comment this week about the inaugural committee donations, saying they do not disclose contributor information. Officials with the Salvation Army did not immediately respond to an inquiry.... 
January 18, 2018

Even without the help of El Niño, (click here) 2017 was a top-three scorcher for planet Earth.
Global temperatures last year were the third-highest since scientists began keeping records in 1880, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Measurements from NASA placed it even higher, coming in second over the last 138 years...
Yes, the climate crisis means it snows when and/or where it shouldn't. Eighteen hours of continuous snow.
January 18, 2018 03:13 PM
Updated 3 hours 58 minutes ago

This is the ideology that is stalling the CR.

This is not the discussion any legislator should be looking at now. The government needs to be funded and the stalling is simply an excuse for brinkmanship and politics. 

Enough.

To begin, there is not a word about where these numbers come from. It is a known fact DACA is good for the USA economy. Any expense is due to the bureaucracy required to maintain the program. There needs to be a blanket acceptance of the DACA folks without any ICE involvement in their lives again. They need a Green Card to proceed in citizenship in the USA.

I wish the ideologues would finally bury the past. The Plutocrats can afford all this mess, but, the majority of the country cannot. Reality demands attention that ideology does not satisfy.

Get a clue. At the time of the birth of the USA from 13 colonies, leaders were difficult to find because few came from wealthy families that could afford an education. The Plutocrats ideology is hideous to the reality of the year 2018.

January 18, 2018

Henry Clay was a Whig. (click here) That should say it all. The Whigs are not represented in the current Congress.

Compromise. (click here) The word elates many when brought up talking about Congress; but is it truly great? If the compromise on DACA and the border wall goes through it will be detrimental to the United States economy and the American taxpayer. Every year the DACA program costs a total of $54.5 billion a year. If Trump gets the border wall he campaigned on, it would cost America an estimated $70 billion initially, with a further $150 million a year indefinitely.

By 2020, at the time of the presidential election, this compromise will cost the American taxpayers nearly $234,000,000,000. The current yearly budget has a nearly $700 billion deficit, and this program will increase the deficit by almost 34% yearly. Over ten years, this compromise will add $616.5 billion to the debt. DACA alone will cost 545 billion over ten years, while the wall is expected to cost 71.5 billion over ten years.

The issue is the increased spending with this compromise is coupled with the recent tax cuts in the Trump Administration. It doesn’t take a genius to realize cutting revenue and raising expenditure, while already spending more than revenue allows, will increase the debt.... 

It is interesting Donald Trump believes the USA is the most dangerous country in the world.

It should be when it comes to first world countries for the gun violence that occurs daily in the USA, however, it is still not the most dangerous.

USA occupied Afghanistan is ranked as the most dangerous country in the world.

1. Afghanistan: 0.71 — The country where violent crime is by far the most likely, according to Verisk Maplecroft, is Afghanistan. The country is still ravaged by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, while the heroin trade is also rampant, adding to violence.

Then comes Guatemala in Central America, not far from the USA border, sending children via railways to save their lives.

2. Guatemala: 0.72 — Like El Salvador and Honduras, Guatemala is a Central American nation plagued by the drug-trafficking industry. In 2015, Guatemala reported an average of 91 murders a week.


January 18, 2018
By Stefanie Eschenbacher

A man stands in front a banner reading "A day without migrants" during a protest outside the U.S Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico September 5, 2017. 

...Trump announced plans (click here) to halt the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that has protected from deportation nearly 800,000 young men and women who entered the United States illegally as children.

Mexico’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Sada, said Trump’s decision created “anxiety, anguish and fear” for the roughly 625,000 Mexican nationals protected under the program.

“They are exceptional. ... This is as emotional for the United States as for Mexico,” Sada said at a news conference immediately following the announcement to end the program....

Number three in the most dangerous line-up is also affiliated with the USA. Mexico.

3. Mexico: 1.17 — As the hub for trafficking drugs between South America and North America, Mexico has a significant problem with violence. "With the security forces facing budget cuts, a deterioration in the overall security environment is likely, leaving investors exposed to risks such as extortion, theft, and potentially the kidnapping of personnel," Verisk's Mexico analyst Grant Sunderland says.

The first three in the line up is more than interesting. Then consider that South Korea bravely went forward to bring at least temporary peace to the Korean Peninsula and the focus on the USA and it's reputation begins to look differently than the propaganda based in greed and wealth.

So, while the President states the USA is the most dangerous country in the world, he is grossly inaccurate, but, where the USA reaches to the Third World there is definitely danger propagated by instability and drug crime.

Afghanistan poppies, Guatemala and Mexico drug cartels which is a form of wealth to the third world. I think the most dangerous countries in the world fully understand what their plight is in relationship to the USA.