RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/u-s-jobless-claims-stabilize-signaling-strong-labor-market/

As the public’s confidence in the markets continues to wobble, the labor market has showed signs of strength in recent weeks after a brief spike in unemployment claims.

New claims for state unemployment benefits sank to the seasonally adjusted 216,000 during the week that ended December 22, a 1,000 drop from the previous week, according to data released Thursday by the Labor Department.

Initial claims have dropped for most of the last month, but sparked concern between September and December when they began climbing again after steadily dropping for years.

In mid September, initial unemployment claims hit 202,000, the lowest level since 1969. Continuing claims also dropped by 4,000 to 1.7 million for the week ending December 15.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trump-ethics-resistance-11545955715

The Trump ‘Ethics’ Resistance An army of nonprofits may be a foe more formidable than the Democratic House. By Kimberley A. Strassel
Powerful House Democrats are about to blitz the Trump administration with subpoenas and investigations. Pay attention to their nonprofit helpers, many of which are new.
For nearly a decade, the left has decried the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which restored speech freedoms and enabled hundreds of tea-party groups. For just as long, they have bitterly criticized conservative watchdogs such as Judicial Watch, which they accuse of using litigation to hound the Obama administration. Various liberals have called Judicial Watch a “smear sausage” factory, identified it as the epicenter of “Clinton Derangement Syndrome” and accused it of “weaponizing the Freedom of Information Act for political purposes.”

But if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Judicial Watch has many great admirers. Progressive nonprofits are popping up all over Washington, shepherded by powerful liberal political players, funded by sources unknown, modeled on conservative groups and united in burying the Trump administration under a mountain of scandal. The White House would do well to understand that in some ways these groups are its most potent threat.
Consider Democracy Forward, which launched last year with a mission of “fighting government corruption in court.” Sound familiar? The board includes Marc Elias, the Democratic lawyer behind the infamous Steele dossier, and John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. It’s a big operation as these things go, with a staff composed largely of Obama administration lawyers and advisers. And it’s already touting a packet of FOIA demands and lawsuits against the administration.
American Oversight, also created last year, bills itself as “the top Freedom of Information Act litigator investigating the Trump Administration.” It’s chief counsel, John Bies, served eight years in the Obama Justice Department, and its website already lists 19 team members, mostly lawyers. In addition to a flood of FOIA demands, the group helped lead opposition to Justice Brett Kavanaugh. That included filing a lawsuit on behalf of yet another new nonprofit, Fix the Court, demanding all Kavanaugh documents from the Justice Department. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/mlb-cuba-deal-payoff-to-communist-regime/

Don’t steal from players’ salaries to fund a Communist regime.

Major League Baseball has made a foul new deal with the Cuban regime, and the Trump administration can and should block it. The deal rewards and perpetuates Cuba’s Communist-style system in which players are the property of the state, not free individuals who can sell their talents on the open market.

For decades, Cuba has refused to let baseball players emigrate freely and join the major leagues. The result has been dangerous escapes, sometimes on flimsy rafts, by players making their way to the United States. Yasiel Puig’s escape from Cuba, where the star was paid $17 a month, was detailed in LA Magazine in 2014 and involved risky deals with smugglers. As the magazine explained, “Under Major League Baseball’s byzantine rules and the U.S. Treasury Department’s outdated restrictions, the only way for a Cuban ballplayer to become a free agent — and score a fat contract — is to first establish residency in a third country. That detour is a fiction, winked at from all sides, and one that gives traffickers command over the middle crossing.”

This story of human trafficking, of exploitation by a Communist state, and of dangerous escapes from Cuba was overlooked by Major League Baseball. The basic attitude was willful blindness: We will deal with you if you show up, and there is no interest in how you got here.

The cure for that situation was simple: Change the rules so that any Cuban player who escapes to freedom can sign a contract. The fake “residency in a third country” rule could easily have been eliminated — and the leagues also could have lobbied the U.S. government to force Cuba to free up its players. But that’s not what the Major Leagues have done.

Instead, baseball owners have negotiated a deal with the FCB, the Cuban Baseball Federation, in which they bribe the Cuban regime with part of a player’s salary. And they’re asking the Trump administration to sign off on this plan by granting an exception to the Cuban embargo.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/26/sweet

It never seems to occur to the Democrats, currently bellyaching about the largely phantom “government shutdown,” that the last people Donald Trump cares about offending are the army of Democrat-voting bureaucrats who will be the only folks inconvenienced by Senator Charles Schumer’s latest temper tantrum.

As far as the rest of America is concerned, the shutdown of “nonessential” government services can bloody well continue indefinitely, as the president has promised, in order to get funding for his wall along the Mexican border. It’s the best Christmas present ever.

The furloughed federal employees in question are the Beltway parasites who feed off the taxpayers in real America, and provide next to nothing in exchange for their three square meals a day and fancy digs in what has become, for all practical purposes, a one-party deep state that now consists of eastern Maryland, the District of Columbia, and northern Virginia—and thus the rest of America. Bureaucrats are happy to munch on the hands that feed them, with slovenly, indifferent “service” in useless, invented sinecures, but would never think of barking at the guys who actually throw them the bones, and thus keep them ensconced in petty power over their fellow citizens.

Which is why Trump has brought the nation to this happy pass: not simply for the wall, or to punish some of his most dedicated political enemies, but also for real Americans to see how thoroughly corrupted by the Left the Democrat Party has become.

The president has forced Schumer and his House sidekick, Maerose Prizzi, to make a choice between protecting their bureaucrat-class base or protecting the American people from the often feral and predatory consequences of the failed state just to our south. The collapse of Spanish-introduced Christianity in Mexico, it seems, has released the inner Native American spirit of much of the population, with the horrific results we see daily in Mexico–Aztlan. That similar levels of savage violence should cross the border with some of the “migrants” should surprise no one.

The Democrats, of course, no longer care about the current American population—they have their eyes on the replacements, which is why they will fight to their political end in order to keep the border open; in order for their mouthpiece media to hype every sick child and kiddie death while in neo-Nazi American “custody” and thus further their longstanding Marxist narrative that the United States is fundamentally illegitimate; and in order eventually to wear down the larger culture until, out of sheer exhaustion, it capitulates and commits cultural suicide to atone for its imagined sins.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/26/mueller-investigation

After 19 months, special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has charged a number of targets with almost every conceivable sin—except collusion with Russia to throw an election. Yet suspicion of collusion was the reason that Mueller was appointed in the first place.

President Trump’s former consigliere, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. But as part of his plea deal, Cohen also confessed to a superfluous charge of a campaign finance violation.

Cohen allegedly negotiated a nondisclosure agreement concerning a supposed past Trump liaison with porn star Stormy Daniels. Yet no one alleges that Trump used cash from his 2016 campaign account to buy Daniels’ silence.

Instead, the accusation is that Cohen and Trump used Trump’s own money, but they did not report the payout as a “contribution” to his campaign. But Trump likely would have paid off Daniels anyway to protect his marriage, family, and reputation, regardless of whether he was running for office.

If you take media-sensationalized sex out of the equation, Trump, like any other American, has the right to pay anyone whatever he wishes to keep quiet about past embarrassing behavior, whether that be secretly gulping down too many Big Macs or cheating on the golf course.

Apparently, Cohen was leveraged by Mueller’s team to plead guilty to a crime that was likely not a crime. And in circular fashion, his confession was used as proof that the non-crime was actually a crime after all — and thus could serve as yet another way to find something on Trump.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pelosi-admires-mattisnow-she-tells-us-11545868973

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was full of praise last week for departing Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. “I’m shaken by the news because of the patriot that Secretary Mattis is,” the once and future speaker said at a Dec. 20 press conference, “for what it means to our country, for the message it sends to our troops, and for the indication of what his view is of the commander in chief.”

On Twitter , Mrs. Pelosi added: “General Mattis was a comfort to many who were concerned about the path the Trump Admin would choose to take. His resignation letter is defined by statements of principle—principles that drove him to leave the Administration.”

But if Mr. Mattis’s resignation leaves Mrs. Pelosi shaken, his career doesn’t seem to have stirred her much in the first place. I searched through Google, government documents and her political website for the period 2010-18—which includes then-Gen. Mattis’s tenure as head of U.S. Central Command before his removal by President Obama in 2013. Mrs. Pelosi seems to have had nary a kind word to say about him before last week.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stocks-poised-for-gains-11545827647

The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged more than 1,000 points for the first time in a single session Wednesday, rebounding after a bruising four-session selloff put the blue-chip index and the S&P 500 on the brink of a bear market.

All 30 stocks in the Dow industrials notched gains, as did each of the 11 sectors in the broader S&P. Shares of Amazon.com , Facebook and Netflix climbed more than 8%, while retailers rallied as early data on the crucial holiday shopping season appeared robust. And a nearly 9% rise in oil prices offered a respite for shares of beaten-down energy companies.

Worries about the Federal Reserve’s path of interest-rate increases, trade tensions with China and slumping oil prices have spooked investors for much of the fourth quarter, putting all three major U.S. indexes on track for annual declines for the first time since 2008. The blue chips lost more than 1,800 points, or nearly 8%, in the four trading sessions entering Wednesday.

U.S. stocks plunged on Monday, with most of the major indices booking their worst Christmas Eve declines ever. Photo: Wang Ying/Xinhua/Zuma Press

“Hopefully the relief in the markets holds this week,” said Eric Wiegand, portfolio manager at U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management, referring to brief relief rallies in stocks over the past month that faded. “A lot of Washington-centric worries are still present.”

The blue-chip index climbed 1,086 points, or 5%, to 22878, its largest one-day percentage gain since March 2009. The S&P 500 added 5%, led by the consumer-discretionary and technology groups that powered the index higher for much of the year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 5.8%.

The Trump administration on Wednesday continued its bid to try to stem the recent volatility. Kevin Hassett, chairman of President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is “100%” secure in his position, despite Mr. Trump’s repeated criticism of the Fed and Mr. Powell.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trumps-in-iraq-11545861134

Making their first visit to a war zone since entering the White House, President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump secretly left Washington on Christmas night to visit U.S. combat troops in Iraq today.

White House pool reporter Brian Bennett of Time magazine reports from Al Asad Air Base, a joint U.S.-Iraqi facility west of Baghdad:

Trump: “I want to come and pay my respects most importantly to the great soldiers, great troopers we have here.” While in Iraq, President Trump met with U.S. military leaders and spoke to troops.

Nancy Youssef notes in the Journal:

Surprise visits by commanders in chief have been a hallmark of the holiday season since President George W. Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq in 2003 for Thanksgiving. President Bush and President Obama, who each made multiple trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, always received warm receptions from the forces as they dished out holiday meals, shook hands and rallied troops away from their families.

On this year’s visit to thank the troops, President Trump also received a briefing from military commanders and then took questions from reporters. In response to a media query on his decision to withdraw troops from Syria Mr. Trump said that he had given “the generals” multiple six month “extensions” to get out of Syria. Mr. Bennett adds in his pool report:

Trump said: “They said again, recently, can we have more time? I said, ‘Nope.’ You can’t have any more time. You’ve had enough time. We’ve knocked them out. We’ve knocked them silly. I will tell you that I’ve had some very good talks with [Turkey’s] President Erdogan who wants to knock them out also and he’ll do it. And others will do it to. Because we are in their region. They should be sharing the burden of costs and they’re not.

“The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world.”

“It’s not fair when the burden is all on us, the United States.”

“… In Syria, Erdogan said he wants to knock out ISIS, whatever’s left, the remnants of ISIS. And Saudi Arabia just came out and said they are going to pay for some economic development. Which is great, that means we don’t have to pay.”

“We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven’t even heard about. Frankly, it’s ridiculous.”

When asked why he chose to make the trip during the partial shutdown of the federal government, Mr. Trump replied:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-holidayshopping/u-s-holiday-shopping-season-best-in-six-years-report-idUSKCN1OP0U3

– Sales in the 2018 U.S. holiday shopping season rose 5.1 percent to over $850 billion, the strongest in six years, according to a Mastercard report on Wednesday, as shoppers were encouraged by a robust economy and early discounts.

The data follows Amazon.com Inc’s announcement of a “record-breaking” selling season, with the online retail giant shipping a billion items for free through its Prime membership in the United States.

Amazon’s shares jumped as much as 5 percent, while those of Kohl’s Corp rose 4.2 percent. Macy’s Inc gained 3.6 percent, Nordstrom Inc 3 percent, and Target Corp and Walmart Inc rising over 1 percent.

The strong sales numbers indicated that rising market volatility due to concerns over slowing global growth and political deadlock in Washington has not impacted consumer confidence so far.

“I don’t see that (volatility in the markets and Government shutdown) as having any impact … but I am cautiously optimistic for the consumer going into 2019,” said Steve Sadove, senior adviser for Mastercard.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272360/phony-crises-progressives-bruce-thornton

In November 2008, President-elect Obama’s chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel signaled the new administration’s progressive sensibility when he said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” For an ideology impatient with the rules of political change and democratic persuasion, the urgency of alleged crises creates powerful opportunities for politicians to suspend those rules and bypass the process of deliberation in which citizens exercise their autonomy and sovereignty.

Emanuel’s progressive intent becomes clearer if we see its relationship to progressive psychologist William James’ famous metaphor, “the moral equivalent of war.” There are serious social-political battles to fight, the implication goes, and it’s the moral duty of everyone to fight for the right side. In the case of progressives, the right side is the “arc of history” progressively bending toward greater “social justice” and equality, but impeded by the superstitious, the greedy, the unenlightened, and the evil.

Delve deeper into James’ metaphor and you see its sinister dimensions. Heraclitus said, “War is the father and king of all: some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free.” War is the original creative destruction, in which fortune can turn in mere minutes. As such war often demands that the machinery of consensual government be compromised. The demands of war––the need for rapid mobilization, provision of matériel, and decisions and actions whose success relies on decisiveness and speed–– has led even constitutional states to provide for an office or executive that can be temporarily allowed expanded power.

The powers of the ancient Roman office of dictator, or the extra-constitutional scope given to our commanders-in-chief during wartime, speaks to the unique circumstances that war creates. But the example of Julius Caesar illustrates as well the dangers of giving one man too much power. Appointed dictator for a year, Caesar had his term eventually extended to life. During his tenure Caesar encroached on and abused the constitutional powers of other Republican institutions. And at the time of his assassination, he was rumored to be planning on becoming a king.

The American Founders were obsessed with excessive power creating a tyrant. Caesar was their model of what to avoid, and his assassins like Cato and Brutus, the models to emulate. They designated the president the “commander-in-chief” in recognition of the necessity of concentrating power in times of conflict. But they gave the power of declaring war to the Senate. And fearing a successful, charismatic general like Caesar, who commanded the military means to achieve his ambitions, they subordinated military power to civilian authority.