The president meets the press – in a most unusual way

Peter Barry Chowka  "A unique encounter between the president of the United States and the press took place outside the White House on Friday morning, June 15.  It immediately made news for being both a historic first and for what was said.

"At 8:25 A.M. E.T., President Trump strolled out of the West Wing and over to the Fox News camera position a hundred or so yards away on the North Lawn, whereFox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy was doing live reports for his and his colleagues' morning show that was being produced back at Fox News HQ in New York.  The Secret Service kept the mob of White House press back as Doocy attached a lapel microphone to the president and then, standing next to him in the morning sun, proceeded to question him uninterrupted for the next half-hour.  The rest of the press, one-upped by Fox, was struggling to listen as its members were corralled in a pack several yards away.

"At 9 A.M. Doocy had to sign off when Fox & Friends ended, but the fun wasn't quite over.  President Trump sidled over to the press gaggle and proceeded to submit to a wide variety of questions shouted at him for the next twenty minutes.  That encounter was broadcast live by CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.  According to the instant analysis, nothing like it had ever been seen before in the history of the White House.  President Trump was in classic form as he parried challenging questions from the same folks who have been giving his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, an especially hard time this week during the daily press briefings." . . .

• With approximately 95% of the mainstream media opposed to the president and his policies, the following headlines were typical:
• 7 absolutely bonkers moments from Donald Trump's impromptu White House lawn press conference – Salon
• There's an Elderly Man on the White House Lawn and He May Not Be Well – Esquire
• Donald Trump's Friday morning proves the massive danger of sitting down with Robert Mueller – CNN

Transcript available via The White House; video of the President's Q&A with the White House press.

‘Three Californias’ plan would give Dems more seats

The Hill  "A proposal to split the nation’s most populous state into three smaller states would give Democrats a huge boost in the perpetual battle for control of the United States Senate — likely dooming the plan even before voters have a chance to weigh in.

"California voters will vote this November on the ballot measure, backed by tech billionaire and venture capitalist Tim Draper. If the measure passes, Congress would have a year to allow the state to split up into three separate states — one centered around Los Angeles, another in Northern California that includes the Bay Area and Sacramento, and a third in Southern California that would include the Central Valley and San Diego.

"Democrats have easily won California’s electoral votes in recent years. George H.W. Bush was the last Republican to win the state at the presidential level, and Republicans haven’t won a Senate seat in California since Pete Wilson won reelection in 1988.

"But if Democrats are leery of splitting California’s 55 electoral votes, recent election results show the three new states all would have voted for Democratic presidential nominees Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012." . . .

The U.S. Announces Its Intent To Leave The United Nation’s Human Rights Council

The last time the U.S. exited the Council was under former-President George W. Bush, although it was later reversed by the Obama administration. 

Infidel Bloggers

"The U.S. is pulling its membership from the United Nation’s Human Rights Council, and cites alleged discrimination against Israel, one of America’s allies. 

"The U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, announced the decision this week following previous disputes with the organization over what she calls, “chronic anti-Israel bias,” according to new reports. 

"Most recently, the Ambassador was one of the few representatives opposing a measure which requested an official investigation into allegations accusing Israel of excessive force. 

"In December, Haley chastised members of the group for voting in favor of a proposed measure which would have condemned President Trump, regarding his move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. 

“ 'The United States will remember in which it was singled-out for attack in the General Assembly, for the very act of expressing our right as a sovereign nation,” she said last year, regarding the President’s relocation of the U.S. embassy. " . . .

Rick Moran: US to finally withdraw from wildly misnamed UN Human Rights Council  . . . "There is no "reform" of an organization that counts Cuba, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and China among its membership.  These nations routinely violate the human rights of their citizens, making a mockery of the very idea that they should be able to sit in judgment on Israel, the U.S., and other Western democracies.

"Indeed, the real joke is that most major media take their pronouncements and resolutions seriously. 

"The HRC is nothing more than a platform for anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and anti-American political posturing.  Not only should the U.S. withdraw from the HRC, but Congress should make sure that not one penny of American tax dollars goes to support it."

Liberty in North Korea Leads People to Freedom

National Review

A North Korean farmer pushes his bike along the North Korean-Chinese border near Dadong, 2009. 

. . . "In my reading, Liberty in North Korea (LiNK)* kept coming up among refugees who made it out, and they credited the organization with ushering them to safety from the North Korean border in China to safety in the West. I decided to open a GoFundMe and just see if I could rescue one refugee with my Twitter followers. We were able to raise the $2500 in a week or so. That was five years ago, and since then I’ve done a dozen or more fundraisers tied to the news cycle or holidays and have raised probably $100,000 on Twitter alone — enough to rescue over 30 refugees. [See here for the latest.]

"Lopez: What’s Liberty in North Korea all about? How has it helped people? What have you learned from it?

"Mandel: Liberty in North Korea has teams on the ground in China, right over the border from North Korea. When refugees are able to make it over, they are at risk of repatriation to gulags or human trafficking. LiNK helps these refugees make the 3,000 mile journey through China and Southeast Asia into South Korea, where they enjoy immediate citizenship." . . .

. . . Mandel: The situation is dire and has been for decades. There are concentration camps the size of Los Angeles in operation; people are born into them and they die in them. We can see them on Google Earth; there’s no ignoring their plight. By helping refugees get out and telling their stories, we are destabilizing the regime externally, and the more refugees who get out and see the outside world as it is, the more they send word back to their families still trapped inside. " . . .

*

Don't you love it when Ms. Pelosi speaks in public?

American Thinker

Sen. Lindsey Graham Tells CNN: If You Don't Like Me Working With Trump 'I Don't Give a S**t'

Townhall  "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) defended his work with President Trump on certain issues on CNN Friday despite his past criticisms of the president. As CNN’s Kate Bolduan continued to press him on the topic, Graham said he’s worked with Obama in the past and there was a double standard about his work with Trump. He then expressed himself in rather strong terminology saying on live television that he doesn’t “give a s**t” if people don’t like him working with Trump.

"Boulduan reminded Graham that he went from hating Trump to working with him and that Trump “comes out and hits you again on whatever he decided to on a given day.”

 “ 'Do you trust him now?” she asked.

"After Graham repeatedly said he did, Bouldan told Graham, “people say this is like two-faced. Where’s the Lindsey Graham of standing up to Donald Trump?”

“Let me just tell you about the critics,” Graham replied. “When I worked with President Obama–– and I did on occasion––I was a hero. Now when I work with President Trump, I’m two-faced. I know how the game’s played and I don’t give a damn.”

“ 'I’m going to do what’s best for the country,” he continued, “I like the President, I want to help him, I hope he’s successful, he’s been a friend to me and he says some things I don’t agree with. So if you don’t like me working with President Trump to make the world a better place, I don’t give a s**t.' ”  . . .

Democrat anger over the US flag beside the North Korean flag and the Trump salute

About Trump's salute  . . . "When a military officer returns the salute of a subordinate, there is no suggestion of subservience in the returned salute. Quite the contrary. When someone bows before a king, subservience can be inferred in many cultures.

"I assume that Trump’s critics understand this. Their shrill attacks on the president for returning the salute are just another manifestation of their hatred of the man."

When you are the darling of celebrities, you can do no wrong. TD

The Unconfined Life of Charles Krauthammer

A.B. Stoddard  "Charles Krauthammer once told me, “The way I look at life is that it's all an accident. Everything.” We were in the lobby of the Hall of States, blocks from the Capitol, having finished the “Special Report” panel upstairs at Fox News Channel. I was somewhat taken aback, though I knew immediately it would stay with me forever. Charles, after all, was looking up at me from his motorized wheelchair, confined to it for life after a freak accident at age 22 paralyzed him from the neck down. None of this is meant to be and there is no design, he said. We are all along for the ride, no matter the turns.

"News that Charles now has weeks to live, that cancer will take him, was beyond my imagination. The rightful, peaceful ending was not in store. For Charles, whose life was forever altered by a knife-twist of fate, there would be yet another tragic accident. Speaking directly in a public letter, Charles was valiant as ever. He acknowledged a vicious and arbitrary cancer, which had been there but was gone a month ago, had returned for good, and said, “This is the final verdict. My fight is over.”

"Charles, like all heroes, leads us by his example. In Bret Baier’s extraordinary 2013 Fox News special on Krauthammer, “A Life That Matters,” Charles’ describes his diving accident, and his refusal to dwell on it. His staggering resolve led him to finish medical school on time, while recovering in the hospital, with his lessons projected on the ceiling above. Putting off his studies would have been “fatal,” Charles told Bret. Years later Charles would begin driving again while sitting in a wheelchair. He once explained this miraculous development to me, citing the man who engineered a customized car for him, in riveting detail. His retelling revealed just what this path back to freedom meant, and what it felt like. Charles was smiling and exuberant and I held back tears, hoping he wouldn’t notice me choke up." . . .

Reparations: Who Should Pay?

Tom Trinko

"In their never-ending effort to Balkanize America and buy black votes by stealing from all taxpayers, including black ones, the Democrats are reviving their call for reparations for slavery.  After all, with blacks waking up to the fact that Democrats are doing nothing for them, a new bribe appears to be necessary.

"The first question is, who should be paid?  Obviously not blacks like Obama, who have not a drop of slave blood.  The government would have to spend a fortune to find out what percentage of slave blood black Americans had to see how much each was owned.  But it's worse than that.  If someone is 50% white and 50% black slave ancestry, how much does white privilege offset the debt owed due to slavery?" . . .

. . . "An added advantage of making Democrats pay is that since their policies have persecuted blacks right up to the present time, we won't have to figure out what percentage of slave blood blacks have when we divvy up the money.

"Every Democratic politician should have to put 10% of his after-tax income each year into a reparations fund that will be distributed to all blacks.

"Every registered Democrat voter – except for blacks, of course – will have to pay $100 every time he votes – including in primaries – which will also be placed into the reparations fund.

"Clearly, this is the only way that the injustice perceived by leftists can be addressed." . . .

Editorial: What’s Next on Same-Sex Wedding Cakes?

Religious and individual liberty survived the Court’s Masterpiece Cakeshop decision unscathed, but we’re likely to see a day when businesses and individuals are punished by the state for abiding by their moral and religious convictions. When that happens, lawsuits may be less effective than simply refusing to comply, accepting the punishment, and allowing the world to see just how coercive “liberalism” can be.

Weekly Standard Editors

"On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who in 2012 refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Phillips, an expert baker who has owned his business, the Masterpiece Cakeshop, for 24 years, concluded that his Christian faith wouldn’t allow him to create a custom-baked cake for two men wishing to celebrate their matrimonial union.

"In 2012 the Court’s Obergefell decision hadn’t yet happened, and indeed Colorado law didn’t yet recognize same-sex marriage. The two men, Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins, were planning to marry in Massachusetts (where same-sex marriage was already legal) and celebrate their union back in Colorado. Rather than simply picking a different bakery and perhaps complaining about Masterpiece Cakeshop on Yelp, they took their complaint to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The commission investigated the case and found that Phillips had violated the couple’s rights—this despite the fact that the baker’s understanding of marriage was at that time perfectly in keeping with Colorado law.

"The commission’s insistence that Phillips had violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act was not prima facie unreasonable. That law forbids an individual or business to “refuse, withhold from, or deny to an individual or a group, because of disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry, the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a place of public accommodation.” The addition of “sexual orientation” was added only a decade ago, but there it is in black and white.

"We suspect most fair-minded people feel there’s something unjust about coercing a baker to create a cake that, for reasons of deeply held conviction, he doesn’t want to create—especially when the same-sex couple in question needed only try the next bakery in the phone book. But the law was clear: No discrimination based on sexual orientation." . . .

The Facts Of North Korea Nuclear And WMD Program

Noisy Room Text quoted below:
"Professionals at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge Laboratories estimate it would take up to ten years to dismantle all programs and operations in North Korea. Further, Tehran, Moscow and Beijing will work hard to delay what they can due to eliminating evidence of their respective involvement for decades in North Korea.

The Nine Steps Required to Really Disarm North Korea

By WILLIAM J. BROAD, DAVID E. SANGER and TROY GRIGGS JUNE 11, 2018

NYT’s: The vast scope of North Korea’s atomic program means ending it would be the most challenging case of nuclear disarmament in history. Here’s what has to be done to achieve — and verify — the removal of the nuclear arms, the dismantlement of the atomic complex and the elimination of the North’s other weapons of mass destruction.

Nuclear Capabilities

• Dismantle and remove nuclear weapons
  Take apart every nuclear weapon in the North’s arsenal and ship the parts out of the country.
• Halt uranium enrichment
  Dismantle the plants where centrifuges make fuel for nuclear reactors and atom bombs.
• Disable reactors
  Shutter the nuclear reactors that turn uranium into plutonium, a second bomb fuel.
• Close nuclear test sites
  Confirm that the North’s recent, staged explosions actually destroyed the complex.
• End H-bomb fuel production
  Close exotic fuel plants that can make atom bombs hundreds of times more destructive.
• Inspect anywhere, forever
  Give international inspectors the freedom to roam and inspect anywhere.

Non-Nuclear Capabilities

• Destroy germ weapons
  Eliminate anthrax and other deadly biological arms, under constant inspection.
• Destroy chemical weapons
  Eliminate sarin, VX and other lethal agents the North has used on enemies.
• Curb missile program
  Eliminate missile threats to the U.S., Japan and South Korea.

President Trump says he is meeting Kim Jong-un in Singapore because the North Korean leader has signaled a willingness to “denuclearize.’’

But that word means very different things in Pyongyang and Washington, and in recent weeks Mr. Trump has appeared to back away from his earlier insistence on a rapid dismantlement of all things nuclear — weapons and production facilities — before the North receives any sanctions relief.

Whether it happens quickly or slowly, the task of “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization’’ — the phrase that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo keeps repeating — will be enormous. Since 1992, the country has repeatedly vowed never to test, manufacture, produce, store or deploy nuclear arms. It has broken all those promises and built a sprawling nuclear complex.

Full article here.

Michael Barone: California results suggest blue wave has crested and ebbed

Bear in mind we're discussing this state:

Michael Barone  "The nation is just past halftime in the 2018 primary election cycle. Twenty states with a majority of House districts, 228 of the total 435, have held their primaries, and all but the three with runoffs have chosen their Republican and Democratic nominees.

"The latest results, taken together with the generic ballot — polls asking which party’s House candidate you’ll vote for — tend to undercut the many gleeful predictions of a blue wave that produces a big Democratic majority in the House and perhaps the Senate as well.

"The RealClearPolitics average of recent polls shows the Democrats’ lead over Republicans on the generic vote declining from a 13-point margin (49 percent to 36 percent) last December to a three-point margin (43 percent to 40 percent) going into Tuesday’s primaries. Given Democrats’ disadvantage of having so many of their voters clustered in heavily Democratic seats, that suggests a statistical tie. That would mirror the CBS News estimate of 219 seats for Democrats and 216 for Republicans, with a plus or minus 9-seat margin of error. Donald Trump’s 44 percent job approval, well above his 38 percent favorable rating in November 2016, points in the same direction.