On this day in 1846

U.S. DECLARES WAR ON MEXICO

On this day in 1846, the U.S. declared war on Mexico because of a dispute over the southern border of Texas.  Most Whigs (later Republicans) opposed the war, including congressmen Abraham Lincoln and John Quincy Adams, while most Democrats, who represented the slave states, were in favor of the war.  This was the first war covered by independent journalists, who were mostly in favor of the war.  The war lasted almost two years and was settled by establishing the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas, Mexico ceding New Mexico and California to the U.S., the U.S. paying Mexico $15,000,000, and the U.S. agreeing to resolve all claims of U.S. citizens against Mexico.  Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, George Meade, James Longstreet, and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson all fought on behalf of the U.S.

Wikipedia

Exactly

'Put The Blame Where It Belongs': Maher Blasts Bill Clinton Over Comey Firing

Link to article

Part II

WHY THE WHITE WORKING CLASS VOTED WITH THEIR FINGER IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

‘They don’t want compassion. They want respect’

Longer and better version of Part I article from Harvard Biz Review

A must read written by a liberal, rich, white, female, admitted elitist

Part I

WHY THE WHITE WORKING CLASS VOTED WITH THEIR FINGER IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

‘They don’t want compassion. They want respect’

Link to article

The Art of the Deal: China Part II

TRUMP CONVINCES CHINA TO OPEN ITS MARKET TO U.S. BEEF, FINANCE COMPANIES, ETC.

  As for China, the villain of the piece, Trump can reasonably claim that his combination of threats of a retaliatory tariff and openness to a deal is working. Yesterday the two Presidents announced a ten-point "early harvest" from their agreement to re-set relations. China will open its market to U.S. credit card companies and rating agencies, resume imports of our beef and send a delegation to meet with potential investors in China, implying a willingness to open markets to them. In return, we will allow imports of cooked poultry meat from China, not take a stand against further Chinese investment in America:  investments by Chinese firms will be treated equally with investments by other foreigners. The U.S. also agreed to provide de facto endorsement of China's plan to invest billions to revive the ancient silk road to Europe. 

     Trump sees all of this, and an agreement to spend a year working on other measures to ease trade strains, as a personal endorsement that his "Art of the Deal" works on an international scale. And that dinner at Mar-a-Lago is a testimonial to the value of dinner-table diplomacy. "I'm dealing with a man, I think I like him a lot. I think he likes me a lot," Trump told an interviewer from The Economist. 

Link to Hudson Institute Analysis via Weekly Standard

Time to do something radical rather than double down on failed policies

Sessions Re-Escalates the Drug War

Drug War critics have feared this moment ever since President Trump nominated Sessions; now it is a reality.  The effects will be no different than after past escalations: more crime and corruption, with little or no impact on drug use.

Link to CATO article

Christians, in an Epochal Shift, Are Leaving the Middle East

Fueled by strife, civil war and the rise of extremist groups, the exodus deepens the dominance of Islam

WSJ Article

Deputy AG Rosenstein's letter recommending Comey be fired

Link to letter

Pat Buchanan, the man who presaged Trump: our Cold War alliances are outdated.

WHAT IS AMERICA'S GOAL IN THE WORLD?

We have lost control of our destiny.

Since 1991, we have lost our global preeminence, quadrupled our national debt, and gotten ourselves mired in five Mideast wars, with the neocons clamoring for a sixth, with Iran.

With the New World Order and global democracy having been abandoned as America’s great goals, what is the new goal of U.S. foreign policy? What is the strategy to achieve it? Does anyone know?

Globalists say we should stand for a “rules-based world order.” Not exactly “Remember the Alamo!” or “Remember Pearl Harbor!”

A quarter century after the Cold War, we remain committed to 60-year-old Cold War alliances to defend scores of nations on the other side of the world. Consider some of the places where America collides today with nuclear powers: the DMZ, the Senkakus, Scarborough Shoal, Crimea, the Donbass.

What is vital to us in any of these venues to justify sending an American army to fight, or risking a nuclear war?

We have lost control of our destiny. We have lost the freedom our Founding Fathers implored us to maintain — the freedom to stay out of wars of foreign counties on faraway continents.

Time to do something radical

The Heroin Business Is Booming in America

Cartels boost profits as painkiller supplies tighten up.

Link to Bloomberg article

On this day in 1961

KENNEDY STARTS CLANDESTINE WAR IN VIETNAM

On this day in 1961, Democrat President John F. Kennedy sent 400 Special Forces troops and 100 U.S. military advisors to South Vietnam, and ordered the start of a clandestine war against North Vietnam under the direction of the CIA.  

By the time the Vietnam War was over, 58,000 American boys, most of whom were my age, and had been drafted and forced to go to Vietnam to fight, had been killed.

Time to do something radical

Baltimore Has Become A Rotting, Decaying War Zone Amid Raging Opioid Epidemic

The primary factor fueling all of this violence is an opioid epidemic that is completely and totally out of control…

The opioid epidemic is the quiet killer that has been leaving a trail of bodies on the streets of Baltimore.

“The individuals that are putting these drugs on our street, they’re killing people on our street,” said deputy commissioner Dean Palmere of the Baltimore Police Department. 

Drug overdoses is expected to have killed 2,000 people statewide in 2016 and more than 800 in Baltimore alone.

 “There are more people dying from overdose here in Baltimore City, than there are dying of homicide,” said Baltimore City health commissioner Dr. Leana Wen in February

Link to article

Rush Limbaugh:

Trump Trolls Hate-Filled Democrats — And I Can’t Stop Laughing

Link to Limbaugh Transcript

A judge's leniency cost two doctors their lives

Immigrant Charged With Killing Two Boston Doctors Sentenced To 364 Days, One Short Of Deportation

Never should have happened

Mexico was second deadliest country 

in 2016

As Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan dominated the news agenda, Mexico's drug wars claimed 23,000 lives during 2016 -- second only to Syria, where 50,000 people died as a result of the civil war.

More than Chicago?

(I won't say anything about cow farts this time)

Long-term fate of tropical forests may not be so dire

Conventional wisdom has held that forest growth will dramatically slow with high levels of rainfall. But CU Boulder researchers this month turned that assumption on its head with an unprecedented review of data from 150 forests that concluded just the opposite.

“Our data suggest that as large-scale climate patterns shift in the tropics, and some places get wetter and warmer, forests will accelerate their growth, which is good for taking carbon out of the atmosphere,” said Philip Taylor, a research associate with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). “In some ways, this is a good-news story, because we can expect greater CO2 uptake in tropical regions where rainfall is expected to increase. But there are a lot of caveats.”

I'm sorry about the goofy formatting. Here's the article.

Don't tell the judges in Seattle and Hawaii

15% of Terror Investigations Involve Refugees

Which is an even greater percentage of just immigrants

. . . Comey responded that out of 2,000-plus “violent extremist investigations … about 300 of them are people who came to the United States as refugees.” 

So 15 percent of the FBI’s terrorism cases are refugees – far more than their share of the immigrant population, let alone the general population. And that denominator of 2,000 presumably includes people with no immigration nexus at all – skinheads, antifa, Klan, environmental and animal rights extremists, et al. So the refugee share of immigration-related terrorism investigations is more than 15 percent, perhaps much more. 

Link to National Review article

News Flash: Hitler promoted to Nixon

Democrats: Comey firing ‘Nixonian’

Unfortunately, not many other people were living during Nixon's antics and can make a comparison

Wow.  The Art of the Deal.

ABBAS:  I'M READY TO MEET NETANYAHU UNDER AUSPICES OF TRUMP

Link to article

Flynn could not be compromised after Yates talked to the White House, so:

SALLY YATES WAS THE REAL BLACKMAILER OF GEN. FLYNN

Unlike the Obama officials who disclosed highly classified information, Flynn committed no crime.

Though he misinformed Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his conversation with the Russian ambassador (the two did, in fact, discuss the sanctions Obama belatedly and conveniently slapped on Russia after the election), he did not make false statements to the FBI. And Flynn made no promises that the sanctions would be removed. The FBI declined to press charges.

Yates knew what the FBI knew when she raced over to the White House on Jan. 26 to warn Trump’s general counsel that Flynn was “compromised.” She also knew that the Obama administration had just weeks earlier renewed Flynn’s national security clearance at the highest levels. And that the intelligence community had “no evidence,” as Obama’s intelligence czar just reconfirmed, that Flynn “colluded” with Moscow.

Still, Yates insisted Flynn posed a threat to the government. Why? Because, she said, he failed to truthfully brief the vice president.

The implication was that unless Trump fired Flynn, he’d pay a price. So it was Yates, in a sense, who was blackmailing Trump.

“Why does it matter to the Justice Department if one White House official lies to another White House official?” White House Counsel Don McGahn reasonably asked Yates, when she rushed into his office with her hair on fire.

She explained that by lying to Pence, Flynn could be exposed to the Russians at any time and that might open him up to blackmail. The Kremlin, she added, likely had its own proof he lied to the vice president and could use it to maintain “leverage” over foreign-policy decisions as long as he remained in office.

Wait a minute.

That makes no sense: Any “leverage” the Russians may have had over Flynn vanished the moment Yates informed the White House he lied. The only way he was vulnerable to blackmail at that point was if McGahn kept Flynn in the dark about what had been revealed to him and other White House officials. But McGahn, White House spokesman Sean Spicer and other top officials no doubt huddled with Flynn to get his side of the story as soon as Yates left. So any threat of extortion left with her.

No wonder the White House didn’t act on her warning.

Trump insiders also considered the source. Yates is an Obama loyalist with a liberal agenda.

Though the media portray Yates as a heroic whistleblower, who was a “career prosecutor” before Obama appointed her, she was hardly apolitical or impartial. In fact, she is a partisan Democrat who comes from a long line of Democrats. Her father and great grandfather were both Democratic judges. Her great uncle was a former Democratic US senator and governor of Georgia. Her husband twice ran for Congress as a Democrat. And Federal Election Commisson records show her family has given tens of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton, Obama and the DNC.

Link to article

It's all in the messaging:

Bill Mitchell‏Verified account @mitchellvii

Last month, only about 1000 illegals travelling as families were caught trying to cross the border. Under Obama, that was 16,000 in Dec!

Pat Buchanan, the man who presaged Trump.

Buchanan: Abandoning Populist Roots Would ‘Damage and Destroy’ Trump

Article

More Older Couples Are ‘Shacking Up’

Source Article

Could marijuana hold a key to keeping our brains forever young? Science is starting to find out.

Most recently, a coalition of researchers from Germany and Israel published a study in Nature Medicine that examined the different effects of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive compound in weed that's also known as THC, on young and old mice.

Their findings were provocative: A low dose of THC, they reported, "reversed the age-related decline in cognitive performance of mice aged 12 and 18 months." They traced this change to a shift in gene expression — the way that our DNA codes are transcribed and translated into proteins and other molecules. According to the study, "the expression profiles of THC-treated mice aged 12 months closely resembled those of THC-free animals aged 2 months," as if the older mice's brains were getting younger.

The experiment focused on learning, spatial skills and memory. While older mice typically did not perform as well as young ones in mazes or with location-recognition tasks — an outcome consistent with the decline of brain function in aged individuals — they performed just as well as their younger cohort under the influence of THC. Meanwhile, younger mice given doses of THC demonstrated worse performance, more in line with that of average old mice. . .

"Thus," the researchers optimistically concluded, "chronic, low-dose treatment with THC or cannabis extracts could be a potential strategy to slow down or even to reverse cognitive decline in the elderly.” They hope to launch a clinical trial on humans sometime this year to further assess that possibility. "If we can rejuvenate the brain so that everybody gets five to 10 more years without needing extra care then that is more than we could have imagined,” said lead author Andras Bilkei-Gorzo at the University of Bonn, the Guardian reported.

The findings have implications that reach far beyond a little boost in brain power. The scientists noted that the endocannabinoid system, a network of receptors throughout the body that responds to the cannabinoids in marijuana, "modulates the physiological processes underlying aging." By targeting this part of ourselves for therapeutic treatment, we could theoretically guard against illnesses of cognitive deterioration including dementia. The study revealed, for example, that THC-treated old mice create more transthyretin, a protein "that is thought to be protective against Alzheimer’s disease."

Source Article

Eat more salt if you want to lose weight?

Why Everything We Know About Salt May Be Wrong

The Russians did it

MIZZOU'S ENROLLMENT PLUMMETS SINCE THE CLICK HEARD ROUND THE WORLD

New data shows freshman enrollment at the behemoth University of Missouri is just 4,009—down 35 percent since Fall 2015…

The raucous protests — which were sparked by various incidents of alleged racism, racist graffiti and “hate crimes” on campus — were enormously damaging to the university’s reputation, scaring away prospective students in droves…

In response to the declining enrollment and a shrinking student body, Mizzou has taken a total of seven residence halls “offline” in the past two years.

Link to article

Because he's Hitler

ACLU Lawyer Says Travel Ban ‘Could Be Constitutional’ if Enacted by Hillary Clinton

ACLU Lawyer Omar Jadwat, arguing against President Trump’s travel ban before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, admitted that the same exact travel ban “could be” constitutional if it were enacted by Hillary Clinton. 

Jadwat argued that Trump’s campaign animus motivated the order, making it illegitimate. This claim was challenged by the Fourth Circuit’s Judge Paul Niemeyer.

“If a different candidate had won the election and then issued this order, I gather you wouldn’t have any problem with that?” Niemeyer asked. 

Jadwat dodged on directly answering the question at first, but Niemeyer persisted, asking the question again. 

Jadwat again tried to avoid the question, asking for clarification on the hypothetical, but Niemeyer once again demanded an answer. 

“We have a candidate who won the presidency, some candidate other than President Trump won the presidency and then chose to issue this particular order, with whatever counsel he took,” Niemeyer said. “Do I understand that just in that circumstance, the executive order should be honored?” 

“Yes, your honor, I think in that case, it could be constitutional,” Jadwat admitted.

Link to article

National Review

Women have radically higher lifetime medical expenses than men do, about one-third higher, on average.

WHY SHOULDN'T WOMEN PAY MORE FOR HEALTH INSURANCE?

Link to article

Mark Perry, AEI

Prediction: No 2017 graduation speaker will mention this – the growing ‘gender college degree gap’ favoring women

Link to article

Warren Buffett Says Free Trade Has Turned American Workers Into Roadkill

Warren Buffett likened American workers who have seen their jobs and factories destroyed by global trade to animals slaughtered by cars and trucks on the highway.

“Nobody should be roadkill,” Buffet said Saturday at the festival-like annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha, Nebraska. . .

Toward the end of the question and answer session with Buffett and his longtime sidekick Charlie Munger, investor Whitney Tilson asked if businesses should consider the fates of millions of Americans displaced by trade and technology instead of focussing solely on maximizing shareholder value. Buffett argued that free trade was a benefit to the economy at large but that politicians needed to “take care of the people who become roadkill.”

This wasn’t the first time Buffett has used the phrase. Back in February, he more-or-less gave this material a test run on CNBC’s Squawkbox:

"So free trade is wonderful for the world and for the United States, but its benefits are diffused among 320 million people. You buy your bananas cheaper because we don’t try and produce them in the United States. But the penalties from free trade are terrible to specific industries. And as an investor, I can own – make a dumb decision on owning a shoe company. But if I own a good insurance company, I can diversify away the problems. If you’re a 55-year-old steelworker, you can’t diversify away your talents. I mean, you had it if steel or textiles or shoes become subject to total, it all moves offshore. So you want to have free trade, but you also have to take care of the people who, through no fault of their own, have spent their life learning one profession. And you can talk about retraining and all that, but it just isn’t practical. And just take Berkshire Hathaway. We started with 2,000 employees in New Bedford, Mass, turning out textiles. And that business was doomed. And we had workers there who really they didn’t have alternatives at age 50. Fair number of them just spoke Portuguese. They didn’t have a chance. And a rich country that’s prospering because of free trade, and as the world is prospering, should keep the free trade as much as possible. But they also should take care of the people that become the roadkill, you know, when an industry moves."

Source article

Not from The Onion.  She should have filed suit in Seattle or Hawaii.

Woman Sues President Donald Trump for 'Loss of Enjoyment of Life'

Seeks $1,000,000,000 in damages

It’s no secret that President Donald Trump isn’t the most popular guy around Massachusetts, and concern from residents over his policies and political actions is expected in a state known for voting blue, but one Quincy woman is taking her worry to federal court.

Rossi Wade, formerly of Plymouth and now of the City of Presidents, recently filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Boston against the United States Government and Trump, accusing the commander in chief of discrimination, mental anguish, and mental cruelty against her. The lawsuit additionally states that she suffered a loss of enjoyment of life and emotional damage.

“November 8, 2016, Donald J. Trump was elected as President of the United States. From June 16, 2015, until March 20, 2017, I have experienced loss of enjoyment of life, I have been tormented by the thought of him, as well as, sight and the sound of his voice frightens me, I am unable to sleep, focus or believe in a secure future for myself and daughter,” Rossi wrote, according to federal court documents.

Rossi said Trump has been giving her nightmares since June 2015, and is now under the care of a physician. Since the appointment of Betsy DeVos as the secretary of education, Rossi claims she has been only able to get two hours of sleep a night, down from four hours.

“I am a mother rearing my child, trying to maintain a level of respect and teach my child to respect authority. It is straining after hearing Donald J. Trump disrespect authority all the while I am trying to explain he is not above the law,” Rossi wrote.

Rossi is demanding $1 billion in compensation for the alleged damages against her.

Article

On this day in 1945

GERMANY SURRENDERS