All our greatest songs are Anthems, Battle, Hymns, and Death Marches.
Source date (UTC): 2017-12-21 16:04:00 UTC
Source: Facebook
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TRUMP ACHIEVEMENTS Year One List: 81 major Trump achievements, 11 Obama legacy i
TRUMP ACHIEVEMENTS
Year One List: 81 major Trump achievements, 11 Obama legacy items repealed – by Paul Bedard
Trump flips the script on critics who say he lacks achievements.
With the passage of the GOP tax bill this week, the Trump administration has scored 81 major achievements in its first year, making good on campaign promises to provide significant tax cuts, boost U.S. energy production, and restore respect to the United States, according to the White House.
And along the way, President Trump even outdid his own expectations and slashed at least 11 major legacy items of former President Barack Obama, including cracking down on the open border, slowing recognition of communist Cuba and effectively killing Obamacare by ending the mandate that everyone have health insurance or face a tax.
According to the White House, the 81 accomplishments are in 12 major categories and include well over 100 other minor achievements.
The unofficial list helps to counter the impression in the mainstream media and among congressional Democrats that outside the approval of Supreme Court Neil Gorsuch and passage of the tax reform bill little was done.
Administrations typically tout their achievements broadly at the end of each year, but Trump plans to list jobs added, regulations killed, foreign policy victories won, and moves to help veterans and even drug addicts.
And in a sign of support for conservatives, the White House also is highlighting achievements for the pro-life community.
Below are the 12 categories and 81 wins cited by the White House.
Jobs and the economy
Passage of the tax reform bill providing $5.5 billion in cuts and repealing the Obamacare mandate.
Increase of the GDP above 3 percent.
Creation of 1.7 million new jobs, cutting unemployment to 4.1 percent.
Saw the Dow Jones reach record highs.
A rebound in economic confidence to a 17-year high.
A new executive order to boost apprenticeships.
A move to boost computer sciences in Education Department programs.
Prioritizing women-owned businesses for some $500 million in SBA loans.
Killing job-stifling regulations
Signed an Executive Order demanding that two regulations be killed for every new one creates. He beat that big and cut 16 rules and regulations for every one created, saving $8.1 billion.
Signed 15 congressional regulatory cuts.
Withdrew from the Obama-era Paris Climate Agreement, ending the threat of environmental regulations.
Signed an Executive Order cutting the time for infrastructure permit approvals.
Eliminated an Obama rule on streams that Trump felt unfairly targeted the coal industry.
Fair trade
Made good on his campaign promise to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Opened up the North American Free Trade Agreement for talks to better the deal for the U.S.
Worked to bring companies back to the U.S., and companies like Toyota, Mazda, Broadcom Limited, and Foxconn announced plans to open U.S. plants.
Worked to promote the sale of U.S products abroad.
Made enforcement of U.S. trade laws, especially those that involve national security, a priority.
Ended Obama’s deal with Cuba.
Boosting U.S. energy dominance
The Department of Interior, which has led the way in cutting regulations, opened plans to lease 77 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling.
Trump traveled the world to promote the sale and use of U.S. energy.
Expanded energy infrastructure projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline snubbed by Obama.
Ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
EPA is reconsidering Obama rules on methane emissions.
Protecting the U.S. homeland
Laid out new principles for reforming immigration and put hardliners in charge of his program.
Made progress to build the border wall with Mexico.
Ended the Obama-era “catch and release” of illegal immigrants.
Boosted the arrests of illegals inside the U.S.
Doubled the number of counties participating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement charged with deporting illegals.
Removed 36 percent more criminal gang members than in fiscal 2016.
Started the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program.
Ditto for other amnesty programs like Deferred Action for Parents of Americans.
Cracking down on some 300 sanctuary cities that defy ICE but still get federal dollars.
Added some 100 new immigration judges.
Protecting communities
Justice announced grants of $98 million to fund 802 new cops.
Justice worked with Central American nations to arrest and charge 4,000 MS-13 members.
Homeland rounded up nearly 800 MS-13 members, an 83 percent one-year increase.
Signed three executive orders aimed at cracking down on international criminal organizations.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions created new National Public Safety Partnership, a cooperative initiative with cities to reduce violent crimes.
Accountability
Trump has nominated 73 federal judges and won his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
Ordered ethical standards including a lobbying ban.
Called for a comprehensive plan to reorganize the executive branch.
Ordered an overhaul to modernize the digital government.
Called for a full audit of the Pentagon and its spending.
Combatting opioids
First, the president declared a Nationwide Public Health Emergency on opioids.
His Council of Economic Advisors played a role in determining that overdoses are underreported by as much as 24 percent.
The Department of Health and Human Services laid out a new five-point strategy to fight the crisis.
Justice announced it was scheduling fentanyl substances as a drug class under the Controlled Substances Act.
Justice started a fraud crackdown, arresting more than 400.
The administration added $500 million to fight the crisis.
On National Drug Take Back Day, the Drug Enforcement Agency collected 456 tons.
Protecting life
In his first week, Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy that blocks some $9 billion in foreign aid being used for abortions.
Worked with Congress on a bill overturning an Obama regulation that blocked states from defunding abortion providers.
Published guidance to block Obamacare money from supporting abortion.
Helping veterans
Signed the Veterans Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act to allow senior officials in the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire failing employees and establish safeguards to protect whistleblowers.
Signed the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act.
Signed the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act, to provide support.
Signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act of 2017 to authorize $2.1 billion in additional funds for the Veterans Choice Program.
Created a VA hotline.
Had the VA launch an online “Access and Quality Tool,” providing veterans with a way to access wait time and quality of care data.
With VA Secretary Dr. David Shulkin, announced three initiatives to expand access to healthcare for veterans using telehealth technology.
Promoting peace through strength
Directed the rebuilding of the military and ordered a new national strategy and nuclear posture review.
Worked to increase defense spending.
Empowered military leaders to “seize the initiative and win,” reducing the need for a White House sign off on every mission.
Directed the revival of the National Space Council to develop space war strategies.
Elevated U.S. Cyber Command into a major warfighting command.
Withdrew from the U.N. Global Compact on Migration, which Trump saw as a threat to borders.
Imposed a travel ban on nations that lack border and anti-terrorism security.
Saw ISIS lose virtually all of its territory.
Pushed for strong action against global outlaw North Korea and its development of nuclear weapons.
Announced a new Afghanistan strategy that strengthens support for U.S. forces at war with terrorism.
NATO increased support for the war in Afghanistan.
Approved a new Iran strategy plan focused on neutralizing the country’s influence in the region.
Ordered missile strikes against a Syrian airbase used in a chemical weapons attack.
Prevented subsequent chemical attacks by announcing a plan to detect them better and warned of future strikes if they were used.
Ordered new sanctions on the dictatorship in Venezuela.
Restoring confidence in and respect for America
Trump won the release of Americans held abroad, often using his personal relationships with world leaders.
Made good on a campaign promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Conducted a historic 12-day trip through Asia, winning new cooperative deals. On the trip, he attended three regional summits to promote American interests.
He traveled to the Middle East and Europe to build new relationships with leaders.
Traveled to Poland for the annual. G-20 meeting where he pushed again for funding of women entrepreneurs.
Source date (UTC): 2017-12-21 16:03:00 UTC
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THOSE OF US WHO UNDERSTAND THE CYCLES OF HISTORY ARE THE VICTIMS OF THOSE WHO DO
THOSE OF US WHO UNDERSTAND THE CYCLES OF HISTORY ARE THE VICTIMS OF THOSE WHO DO NOT – AND SO IS OUR CIVILIZATION
The difference is, that those of us who lived in the 1980’s and 1990’s knew that we were living the best of times – perhaps the best times ever to have lived. San Fran in the 2000s, Seattle in the 1990s, Paris on the 1920’s, Germany in the 1900’s, London in the 1890’s.
2008 was the end of the keynesian experiment. It was the culmination of the attack on western civilization started by the marxists, then the economic pseudoscientists, then the jewish socialists, then the french postmodernists.
The West spent from at least 1500bc to the present developing rule of law. The bronze age collapse set us back 1000 years. The abrahamic (jewish/christian/muslim) dark age set us back 1000 years. The second abrahamic dark age ( pseudohistory, pseudoscience, pseudo rationalism) is about to set us back another thousand.
Source date (UTC): 2017-12-21 15:59:00 UTC
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(from elsewhere) I don’t do ‘stupid’. I do my job. Which is to provide operation
(from elsewhere)
I don’t do ‘stupid’. I do my job. Which is to provide operational definitions of those ideas about which people are frequently ignorant, confused, wishful thinkers, or dishonest.
I am really, really, really good at my job.
Don’t waste my time
Source date (UTC): 2017-12-21 11:40:00 UTC
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“WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TRIBE AND CLAN?”— Kinship groups form in hie
—“WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TRIBE AND CLAN?”—
Kinship groups form in hierarchies under all human means of production:
|MEANS OF PRODUCTION|: hunting and gathering > pastoralism > agrarianism > urbanism(crafts) > industrialism > consumer-capitalism > (? automated production ?)
The reasons for hierarchies are:
(a) kin selection instinct (necessity) provides ‘insurance’.
(b) lower risk and lower friction of trade across common norms traditions, status signals, and ‘laws’,
(c) cheaper status signals in group than across group – except at the margins.
(d) elites always evolve and ‘carry’ middle, working, and underclasses by providing group competitive advantage.
This is why people live in, develop friendships in, work in, mate and marry in, and politically organize in, and compete in, racial, national, tribal, and clan groups worldwide with crossovers fairly limited (currently < 15%).
|KINSHIP TAXONOMY|: Individual > Family(Various Forms) > Clan > Tribe > Nation > Race > Homo-sapiens-sapiens.
Family structure is generally dependent upon inheritance structures, and inheritance structures dependent on means of production, and dependent upon the assets (“property”) that are required for intergenerational persistence, and dependent upon the intergenerational transfer (subsidy of children, and elderly).
So families follow a progression:
|FAMILY TAXONOMY|: Consanguineous > Panaluan > Pairing (Serial Marriage) > Hetaeristic Monogamy (Marriage with ‘cheating’) > Traditional Family > STEM family (Authoritarian) > Nuclear > Absolute Nuclear > Post-Family, “Single Parent Family”, “Non-Family” or “State Family”.
(You will probably need to Google some of these terms.)
As far as I know humans have generally produced serial marriage whenever possible, and deviated from serial marriage only when necessary – just as humans will steal whenever possible, and deviated from stealing only when necessary. Hence why we produce norms (what to do), traditions(what to do), and laws (what not to do), and institutions (intergenerational persistence of these habits.)
Humans seek loss avoidance at all times, and seek advantage (gain) wherever loss avoidance can be overcome. This applies to status signals (opportunity), security (risk reduction), and property (assets).
NOW, WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TRIBE AND A CLAN?
We tend to use tribes for less advanced (hunter-gatherer and pastoralist) societies with less property, and clan in more advanced (agrarian and industrial) societies. The reason being that tribal differences are suppressed by the cooperation necessary under agrarian production, even if the value of clans diminishes.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Source date (UTC): 2017-12-21 11:40:00 UTC
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What would be nice is a automated exchange, and an escrow service. Those two fea
What would be nice is a automated exchange, and an escrow service. Those two features would solve the money problems.
Source date (UTC): 2017-12-21 00:33:00 UTC
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Eric Danelaw wrote on a timeline
Eric Danelaw wrote on a timeline.
Source date (UTC): 2017-12-20 21:36:00 UTC
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ALL ABOUT MONEY: WHAT IS MONEY, GOOD MONEY, TOLERABLE MONEY, BAD MONEY, AND WHAT
ALL ABOUT MONEY: WHAT IS MONEY, GOOD MONEY, TOLERABLE MONEY, BAD MONEY, AND WHAT IS NOT MONEY.
(DRAFT: it’s getting too late to finish, and I’ve been sick for the past few days, so Ill finish this – as promised – later or tomorrow)
The main functions of money are distinguished as:
– A Store of Time.
… If I could educate people on just one idea, it would bet that our only existential commodity is time, and we are no wealthier than cave men, but through a continuously expanding division of labor due to property, money, prices, and contract, we produce more per moment of working life than ever before. So we are not wealthier than in the past, we have merley made everything vastly cheaper.
Hard money is the result of saved time. Credit money is the result of anticipated savings of time. Fiat money is the result of gambling that in the aggregate will will save time.
And so credit, and fiat money are only so valuable as there is opportunity to save time. This single idea is the basis of all of economics. Yet it is virtually unknown, and ever more rarely understood.
– A Store of Value (Purchasing power) – with stability of value (Purchasing power) within dependent production cycles.
– A Medium of Exchange – thereby satisfying the problem of “coincidence of wants”, and increasing the velocity of trade, by decreasing the friction (cost) of finding opportunities for trade, and performing that trade. Mediums of exchange save time.
– A Source of Liquidity – A commodity of continuous demand.
( … )
– A Provisioner of Prices.
( … )
– A Unit of Account;
( … )
– A Standard of Deferred Payment – debt, credit, interest,
( … )
– A Scope of Utility – “Range” – A commodity of demand sufficient for imputation for production cycles
( … )
To fulfill those functions, money must possess the following properties:
– Cognizable: its value must be easily identified.
…. Stamping ‘coins’ serves as a ‘trademark’.
…. Protecting that trademark serves to protect its value
…. Trademarking is … increasingly inordinately expensive.
( … )
– Unitary (‘countable’) by object, weight, volume – (and now index.)
( … )
– Fungible: its individual units must be capable of mutual substitution (i.e., interchangeability).
( … )
– Durable: able to withstand repeated use.
( … )
– Portable: easily carried and transported in relation to their purchasing power.
( … )
MONEY AND IT’S SUBSTITUTES (DEPENDENCIES)
( … )
Source date (UTC): 2017-12-20 20:29:00 UTC
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Every ounce of bulk you have other than that which helps you dodge and run just
Every ounce of bulk you have other than that which helps you dodge and run just requires more oxygen, food, and water, that makes you vulnerable.
Source date (UTC): 2017-12-20 17:58:00 UTC
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It really doesn’t matter if you can ‘fight’ any longer. It matters that you can
It really doesn’t matter if you can ‘fight’ any longer. It matters that you can hike, run, and be silent, and that you can shoot, and shoot as a member of a group, and do so while only harming those that you choose to.
Source date (UTC): 2017-12-20 17:57:00 UTC