Are U.S. Voters Useful Idiots?

http://www.teamnetworks.net/photo/7362/beware-the-useful-idiots-that-follow-saul-alinsky/

Beware the Useful Idiots That Follow Saul Alinsky

November 12, 2015

Updated: Smartest Man in The White House, Boasts Of Fooling Voters, Taxpayers About Iran Nuclear Deal

Posted May 18, 2016 10:48 PM ET; Last updated May 25, 2016 5:11 PM ET


Updated May 25, 2016 5:11 PM ET

http://nypost.com/2016/05/05/playing-the-press-and-the-public-for-chumps-to-sell-the-iran-deal/

White House admits it played us for fools to sell Iran deal
By John Podhoretz
New York Post
May 5, 2016 | 8:39pm
* * *

http://nypost.com/2016/05/09/obamas-storyteller-backs-off-boasts-about-selling-iran-deal/

Obama’s storyteller backs off boasts about selling Iran deal
By David K. Li
May 9, 2016 | 1:40pm
New York Post

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http://townhall.com/news/around-the-web/2016/05/10/state-dept-faces-questions-over-missing-tape-amid-scramble-over-wh-aides-iran-boast-n2160987

State Dept. faces questions over missing tape, amid scramble over WH aide's Iran boast
Townhall.com Staff
Posted: May 10, 2016 12:20 PM

* * *

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/10/state-dept-faces-questions-over-missing-tape-amid-scramble-over-wh-aides-iran-boast.html

State Dept. faces questions over missing tape, amid scramble over WH aide's Iran boast
Published May 10, 2016

FoxNews.com

* * *

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ex-obama-staff-laugh-at-you-can-keep-your-plan-pledge/article/2590943

Former Obama speechwriters laugh at 'you can keep your plan' promise
By T. BECKET ADAMS (@BECKETADAMS) 

5/10/16 4:45 PM

* * *

Posted May 18, 2016 10:48 PM ET
[From article]
What a surprise! It was revealed from the highest level that the Obama White House has been downright deceptive and had lied to the American public and media about the nuclear deal with Iran, as well as carrying on secret bilateral negotiations with Iran.
In spite of arguments by the Obama administration to the contrary, it has been clear from the beginning that the nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed on July 14, 2015, will not stop the Iranian effort to develop nuclear weapons.
[. . .]
In spite of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 of July 20, 2015 that calls on Iran not to launch tests of ballistic missiles, this was the third test by Iran. One of the two missiles fired in March 2016 carried the slogan "Israel must be wiped out."
By chance, the ballistic missile testing coincided with the publication of the extraordinary revealing article by David Samuels in the New York Times on May 8, 2016 on Ben Rhodes, the Boy Wonder of the Obama White House, the single most influential voice next to the president shaping American foreign policy.



Rhodes is officially the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications in the Obama administration, but he is really the spin-doctor narrating or fabricating fantasies or half-truths to the mainstream media that he arrogantly seems to despise. The willingness of the media to consume and disseminate the inaccurate information given them has long been known, but the full extent to which the media was spun has now been revealed.
The main revelation was that Rhodes presented the story of negotiations on the nuclear deal with Iran as having started in 2013 due to the fact the moderates in Iran, led by Hassan Rouhani, had won the election and became president. The moderates therefore were influential and were willing to make a deal with the United States. The media believed this, though it was disputed by well-informed individuals such as Leon Panetta, former secretary of defense, who denied any such division between hard and soft Iranians. Rhodes, with evident contempt, regards previous decision makers on Iran and Iraq – the Washington foreign policy establishment, or The Blob, as he calls it, which includes Hillary Clinton – as "morons."


Ben Rhodes, Novelist, White House National Security Deputy

Rhodes's spin was false. The negotiations with Iran had in fact started earlier in 2012, before Rouhani was elected. The White House deliberately spun the view that Iran moderates wanted peace with the U.S. and with Middle East neighbors. What is important is his contempt for the media as well as for the Washington establishment. Rhodes observed that news bureaus today do not have foreign bureaus, as they used to have, and they therefore call the White House to find out what is happening.
The result is that most of the news outlets are reporting on world affairs from Washington. Rhodes said the average reporter he talks to is 27 years old and literally knows nothing. The White House therefore shapes the news and has particular journalists it can use for spreading it and validating what the White House gives them to say. As Samuels writes, "[t]he way in which most Americans have heard the story of the nuclear deal … was largely manufactured for the purpose of selling the deal."
The consensus in the U.S. today is that the Iran deal was a major political blunder. Of the two main adversaries during the discussion, most informed commentators would agree that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposed the deal, was right, and President Obama was wrong.
[. . .]



Two factors are involved in the White House attempt to prevent Netanyahu from speaking. The first expressed by the media was on the wisdom of the invitation, because Netanyahu was going to criticize the Obama policy. Though most of Congress expressed opposition to the negotiations, there was a genuine difference of opinion on them. President Obama believed and still appears to believe that a deal in which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions was the way to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Netanyahu disagreed on the whole idea and believed that Iran was not negotiating in good faith. Iran has a record of secret uranium enrichment facilities, and Israel was in danger. Netanyahu argued that the sanctions on Iran, the removal of which was the real reason for Iran's willingness to negotiate, should not be removed – in fact, should be increased.
The second factor was the White House spin, which the media highlighted, that the invitation was unconstitutional. Either Rhodes or someone else in the White House invented something called the "presidential protocol." The White House spokesperson on January 20, 2015, slightly off the point, informed the media that the typical protocol would suggest that "the leader of a country would contact the leader of another country when he is traveling there." The media, though few of whom if any were constitutional lawyers, claimed that such an invitation had no precedent in American history.
One may disagree on whether the invitation was unwise or inopportune, but it was not unconstitutional. There was no breach of any constitutional provision.
[. . .]
The New York Times incorrectly reported that Netanyahu had accepted the invitation to speak before the White House had been informed. This was not true, and the NYT had to issue a correction. Netanyahu did not formally accept the invitation until after the White House had been informed. It was not true, as Earnest had said, that the White House did not know about the invitation until Boehner announced it publicly. The spin converted the difference of opinion on an important issue into a diplomatic row with constitutional implications. In reality, Boehner had earlier in 2011 invited Netanyahu to speak and had informed the White House, which never responded.
Many in the media bought the White House spin and deception that to oppose the nuclear deal was to support Israel against the Obama administration. That made the State of Israel a partisan issue, while in the past support for Israel has been overwhelmingly bipartisan. The White House and the mainstream media owe Netanyahu an apology for their fallacious and dishonorable presentation of a controversial issue.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/when_obama_lies_to_the_media_and_laughs_doing_it.html

May 11, 2016
When the White House Lies to the Media, and Laughs Doing It
By Michael Curtis

* * *



[From article]
Ben Rhodes is perhaps the weirdest foreign policy adviser in the history of the White House. His path to his current position as deputy national security adviser for strategic communications was, as this New York Times profile informs us, "perhaps not strictly believable, even as fiction."
Forget his title. Ben Rhodes is "the single most influential voice shaping American foreign policy aside from Potus himself," according to the Times. What makes that so bizarre is that Rhodes has no background in foreign policy at all. He was a failed short story writer who wandered into the orbit of Obama aides almost by accident and served as a speechwriter during the campaign.
But he helped the administration identify friendly reporters and nonprofits who could be counted on to carry a completely false and misleading "narrative" about the Iran deal.
And it worked.
[. . .]



What the Samuels piece shows is that the Obama administration chose to attempt to get its way not by winning an argument but by bringing an almost fathomless cynicism to bear in manipulating its own clueless liberal fan club.
It's amazing how Rhodes sees himself and his role. He refers to the foreign policy establishment as "the blob," and at bottom, he believes he and Obama are the only smart ones in the room.
Samuels's profile is an amazing piece of writing about the Holden Caulfield of American foreign policy. He's a sentimental adolescent with literary talent (Rhodes published one short story before his mother's connections won him a job in the world of foreign policy), and high self regard, who thinks that everyone else is a phony. Those readers who found Jeffrey Goldberg's picture of Obama in his March Atlantic profile refreshing for the president's willingness to insult American allies publicly will be similarly cheered here by Rhodes's boast of deceiving American citizens, lawmakers, and allies over the Iran deal. Conversely, those who believe Obama risked American interests to take a cheap shot at allies from the pedestal of the Oval Office will be appalled to see Rhodes dancing in the end zone to celebrate the well-packaged misdirections and even lies—what Rhodes and others call a "narrative"—that won Obama his signature foreign policy initiative.
[. . .]
All you have to do to discover the extent of their flim-flamming is to look at the talking points about the agreement after the preliminary deal was agreed to in April and compare it with the final agreement in July. The dishonesty in selling this deal to Congress was so profound that we still don't know yet how Iran is interpreting parts of it.
Samuels's profile is very long and, at times, strains credulity that such a creature could become a top adviser to the president. But it also unintentionally reveals how easily the Washington press corps can be manipulated into doing the president's bidding. There was very little objective analysis of the Iran deal, nor any attempt to reconcile what was in the deal with what the administration was claiming in public.
If there had been, it's doubtful that the deal would have gone through Congress.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/ben_rhodes_admits_administration_lied_to_sell_iran_deal.html

May 6, 2016
Ben Rhodes admits administration lied to sell Iran deal
By Rick Moran

White House Diverts Attention From Criminal Scandals With Non Gender Bathrooms

Agree that this is one of many issues used by PR flacks to divert attention, not just from important issues, but also from many criminal scandals of this lawless administration. What is extremely troubling is how alleged conservative pundits, including the erudite Mark Levin, no less the obedient mindless lame stream journalists, spend far too much time discussing these diversions.



[From article]
Let's add the battle over transgenders and bathrooms to Obama's favorite pastime of distractions.
To be honest, I think bathrooms are for boys and girls. This is why we identify them as such on the door. Furthermore, women are entitled to a sense of privacy about going to a public bathroom.
Most important of all, this is an issue that should be settled by state legislatures. We don't need a Roe v. Wade about bathrooms.



Let North Carolina decide. Let them figure this out, and they will.
In the meantime, the Obama administration should use its time to deal with real issues, such as:
1) Obamacare premiums: The rates are going up from coast to coast. They are about to explode in 2017.
[. . .]
2) The last GDP number started with a zero. In fact, the U.S. economy is weaker than anticipated:
[. . .]
3) The battles vs. ISIS is not going well. In fact, the public does not think we are winning, and with good reason.



So what do you do when Obamacare premiums are crushing family budgets, or the economy is losing steam and the wars on drugs and terror are lacking a strategy?
The answer is that you find topics to distract your base with, such as getting into a war with North Carolina over bathrooms.
Our Founding Fathers got this right many years ago. They gave the federal government certain responsibilities and left the rest to the states. This bathroom issue is for the states, and the Justice Department should get back to doing something important, such as enforcing immigration laws.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/talking_bathrooms_beats_talking_about_everything_else_that_isnt_flushing_.html

May 11, 2016
Talking bathrooms beats talking about everything else that isn't flushing
By Silvio Canto, Jr.

Can People Govern Themselves? United States Experiment in Self Government Keeps Question Alive

[From article]
It has been said by some, and not entirely without reason, that the American experiment in self-governance is failing. Is it? Are we incapable of the virtues required of sovereign citizens?
The founding principle of American civics is that "we the people" govern ourselves. As self-governing citizens, we ensure that the government does not rule over us, but rather that it act under us. It is neither our parent nor our provider, but our subordinate. We call the shots. The government follows our orders. Our representatives represent us – not themselves, not their donors.
Has all that become a pipe dream?
[. . .]



Socialism is on the rise, and its roots are sinking ever deeper into the social fabric. Education, entertainment, and even religious institutions are indoctrinating our fellow citizens. There is no reasoning with socialists, because when you try to speak, they shout you down, and that in itself is the harbinger of tyranny.
As matters now stand, we are not governing ourselves. We are being ruled by a distant and largely unaccountable officialdom that operates mostly out of our view. This system is supported by a bloc of voters who are appallingly ignorant of basic civics. People who cannot raise their own children are allowed to vote, and the people for whom they vote tax you to pay for their children.
[. . .]
First, it is necessary to restore citizenship to its constitutional roots. Birthright citizenship was never the bedrock of civic entitlement, but only one of several considerations.
[. . .]
I would make at least one critical requirement for anyone to be a voter. That requirement would be that every voter must pass the same test that foreign applicants for citizenship must pass. Presently, most voters would fail that test, many of them miserably.
Citizenship founded upon basic knowledge of the Constitution would be a good start. The rest might then, hopefully, take care of itself.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/04/can_we_really_govern_ourselves.html

April 17, 2016
Can we really govern ourselves?
By Robert Arvay

Can American Voters Recognize Potential Dictators Before Electing Them?

In the article at the below link, Mala argues that Trump is too old to be a dictator. 

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/03/no_trump_wont_be_another_hitler.html

March 21, 2016
No, Trump Won’t Be Another Hitler
By Adam Mala

[From article]
Is it a case of ordained fate we cannot escape or is it that "We the People" are too dense to learn from our mistakes? Paging through humanity's history, time and again we find numerous instances of costly historical errors where people ignore facts and reason by entrusting their lives to a "savior." And time and again, we have ended up paying the price for our folly. If we are not genetically doomed to make these ruinous mistakes --which I am certain we are not -- then do we commit them out of wishful thinking, laziness, desperation, or some combination of the three?
History has warned us of three kinds of people: charlatans, demagogues, and politicians. And more often than not, someone will rise up who is all three of these characters wrapped into one. Our liberty is our most precious possession. Many will aim to rob us of it and, by so doing, add to their own power, while trying to force us to become robots.
[. . .]



Just a few old and recent cases of this tragic misstep should warn us not to be victimized in the future by frauds.
From the primitive land of the Arabian Peninsula of over 14 centuries ago arose Muhammad, an illiterate hired hand of a rich widow Khadija, claiming that he was the bearer of a perfect life prescription from God -- the Quran. He claimed humanity could do no better than to follow its precepts as well as to emulate Muhammad’s own life example for a guarantee of bliss and salvation. In exchange for this, people must embrace Islam -- surrender -- by surrendering their liberty to Muhammad.
To this day, in places where Islam rules, many books are banned, newspapers and magazines are systematically either censored or shut down, and other non-print media are methodically blocked. Liberty, deeply cherished by democracies, is replaced by submission -- unquestioning obedience and adherence to the dictates and precepts of the all-knowing and all-wise Allah.
[. . .]



From the “civilized” land of Germany arose a syphilitic lout who called on the German people to surrender their liberty to him in exchange for a surefire solution to all their economic and social ills. He successfully portrayed the Jews as the main cause of the nation’s suffering. Before long, the masses of gullible easy-solution seekers formed long lines in towns and villages of the land, tripping over each other in their eagerness to surrender their liberty to the savior Führer.
[. . .]
To fool a majority of the people for a considerable period might be fatal. Hitler needed only a few years to ruin Germany.
[. . .]
where a charlatan managed to hoodwink a nation, rob the people of their liberty and cause so much death and destruction.
It is unthinkable that an ancient nation -- Iran -- with a distinguished history, allowed a high order demagogue, Ayatollah Khomeini, to rally the people against the Shah with promises of rule for the people and justice for all. The long-suffering Iranians of all strata readily surrendered their liberty to the turbaned bigot and his gang of murdering sycophants.
[. . .]
Gullibility was not limited to the Iranians who swelled the ranks of the fraud. On the other side of the world, the President of the United States of America -- Jimmy “lust in my heart” Carter -- saw Khomeini as a saint and a savior. Carter provided the crucial support to the man
[. . .]
No sooner had this fraud of Allah ascended to power than the Iranians of all strata began to pay the price -- tens of thousands with their own lives --
[. . .]



For over thirty-eight years, the Iranian people have been paying for the tragedy that has befallen them.

[. . .]
In the land of the free and home of the brave, a Prince Charming rose up in the person of Barrack Hussein Obama, 

[. . .] 

The skill to arouse the public to frenzy does not make one a worthy leader, nor should one automatically assume that his policies will equal prosperity or liberty.
In the year 2007, in a climate of insanity, the people of the land called America, having been deceived by a deceptive Marxisant that would exalt himself as their protector and provider, chose a charismatic, soft speaking “prophet" as their savior, and some people even called him “The Messiah.” He emerged from the fog with a message that had no meaning, yet he was able to spellbind people by telling them he was sent to save us from ourselves with hope and change.
Many Americans forgot that anyone who claims special privileges and status for himself, makes outlandish promises and threats, pits one people against another, fill the bill of three-in-one. The most dangerous person of all is anyone who persuades you to give up your liberty in exchange for your security.
[. . .]
In the year 2016, a billionaire businessman, Donald Trump, a sudden convert to the Republican Party, is undergoing a meteoric rise in his battle to capture the party's nomination for the Presidency of the United States, a truly mystifying accomplishment for him and has promised, he will “Make America Great Again,” if you elect him as an undisputed leader. Many Americans who felt deceived by the “Washington cartel”, lobbyists and establishment Republicans, joined the waves of loyal and dedicated devotees and sang his songs without paying any attention to his dark past.
[. . .]
Now that he has tasted success in getting his way in the financial world, he wants the ultimate prize: the presidency of the greatest country in the world. He is brash enough to see it just as another deal-making venture. Hence, he is using the same old strategy that has made him a financial juggernaut to attain his goal: say and do anything. And it is working.
[. . .]
America is the stronghold of freedom. The peace of our universe hangs on the power of America, and its fragility renders into the success of terrorism and success of rogue nations. America is at a crucial moment in its history.
[. . .]
Let us learn from our past mistakes.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/failing_to_learn_from_history.html

April 23, 2016
Failing to Learn from History
By Amil Imani

Trump And The Farmer's Mule

[From article]
Just a few days ago, B.H. Obama, former cocaine snorter, blamed white folks for the crack epidemic in black neighborhoods. Apparently B.H doesn't see the irony of his own in-your-face drug use and damning white folks as being responsible.
It shows how far we have tumbled from the quaint idea of personal responsibility. In the 1970s, Flip Wilson, one of the first major black comics, made it big with the punchline "The Devil made me do it!"
It was a reliable punch line because it was funny. Everybody got it.
Today's Ivy League indoctrinees would never laugh at a Flip Wilson joke. They have been abused so often by the humorless commissars of P.C. that they'd be afraid to laugh. Or maybe they just wouldn't get why "The Devil made me buy this dress!" is funny. Certainly Barack and Michelle would flash their famous rage faces. No genuine laughter for them.
Such is our moral and mental decline from the innocent days of Flip Wilson to our guilt-ridden mass cult today.
Obama comes out with that "white folks made me do it!" line at least once a day and twice on Sunday. Everybody in the Party Media falls for his constant rage and blaming, because the media are afraid of him.
I wonder if Donald Trump is popular because he stands up to the massed ranks of P.C. commissars. Our colleagues at National Review seem to despise Donald Trump, but they haven't really told us why. Instead, we are seeing a kind of undifferentiated rage, like the ed board of the New York Times: full of contempt, fear, and anger for people stupid enough to think that Trump is on to something.
Which is not really "mental," as the estimable Ann Coulter just told us, but rather a rational response by white, male, heterosexual, hard-working, child-raising (etc., etc.) Americans:
who feel sick and tired of being lied to every single day by the Big Media and
who are finally hearing their lives and their values being expressed in public by Trump, who doesn't bother to use legally defensible words.
Those words would never make it through the media firewall. After all, who reports accurately on Ted Cruz?
Trump gets through the barrier precisely because the media are always sure they've finally scored drawn blood. He'll never get away with this! Trump shocks the commissars, so they end up amplifying his words, always expecting to kill him this time.
To people who are used to being media scapegoats, Trump is coming through loud and clear.
Take the latest shock and outrage from the usual suspects — a few seconds of videotaped hassle between "journalist" Michelle Fields and Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. The WaPo has pronounced Lewandoski guilty of battery, which is enough for the libs to believe it.
But here is British journo Piers Morgan writing in the Dail Mail:
Crucially, DailyMail.com has now established from a member of Trump's Secret Service detail that in the process, she (Michelle) touched Trump twice and was warned by agents to stop.
Lewandowski, walking a few steps behind his boss, saw this happening (he may well have heard the warnings too) and raced forward to prevent her asking more questions and put himself between Trump and the reporter. …
Lewandowski can be seen putting his arm up to block the journalist. In doing so, he also appears to grab her arm for less than a second as he moves on.
This is all rather different from what Ms Fields herself claimed had happened when she wrote about it for her then employer, Breitbart.com: 'I was jolted backwards. Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down. I almost fell to the ground but was able to maintain my balance. Nevertheless I was shaken. Campaign managers aren't supposed to try to forcefully throw reporters to the ground.'
Oh puh-lease.
I've watched the video multiple times and cannot conceive any sensible interpretation that he is committing any kind of deliberate assault.
I don't know who's right. Piers Morgan is a predictable socialist, but in this case, he may be committing an act of…journalism. I don't trust a few seconds of video when people are interacting very fast. Professional sports referees can't even be sure, based on a few seconds of tape.
But the WaPo thinks it's got him, and so do all the party line media.
But then we've seen outrageous media lies every single day since Bill Clinton. If you're one of the scapegoated Americans, all you bother with is the headline. But you've learned not to believe news headlines. When you hear Trump accuse the reporter the next day, you might rationally think she's lying.



Which is possible, given everything we know about journos.
I'm not saying who is right or wrong. I also get the willies when Trump seems to cross another line, only to take it back the next day. The great majority of people will not remember this incident in a few weeks. They'll have a vague feeling that Trump hates women. I'm waiting for Trump to "pivot" to show he's a warm and cuddly guy. I'll bet he's got this strategy taped out.
A guy who can sign million-dollar contracts that have to be studied down to the last detail doesn't act impulsively — not if he doesn't want to. He can be shooting his mouth off when his lawyers are going over the contract word by word in a back room.
Right now we're seeing Trump blabbing anything that comes to his mind, as long as it's provocative, and dammit, he always gets big headlines. I would have zigged or zagged to build a better impression weeks ago.
It's like the farmer and the mule. (This is not a P.C. story, but keep in mind what mules do to each other). The farmer hits the mule over the head every time he wants the animal to go somewhere. He hits him — okay, let's make it a foam baseball bat — every time, even before the mule can even move.
Some kind soul is watching this horrible behavior and asks the farmer, "Why do you hit that poor animal before it can even move?" And the farmer chews his 'baccy for a few seconds, spits it out, and says, "First you gotta get his attention."
That's Donald Trump and the U.S. media. So far he's better at getting their attention than any Republican in the last half-century. I keep waiting for him to pivot to a more sensible strategy, and still he's doing the same thing. It's like watching a tightrope walker without a net.
Ann Coulter is getting antsy, and so am I. But Trump has done this stunt in most of his TV shows. First he provokes his audience, to get them mad, and twenty minutes later he's got them laughing and liking him.
It's a well practiced trick.
The big question is whether he can get away with it this time, when the stakes are about as high as they can get.
I don't know, but I can't stop watching it.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/donald_trump_and_the_farmers_mule.html

April 3, 2016
Donald Trump and the Farmer's Mule
By James Lewis

Too Late To Stop Trump. Elite Cannot Risk The Alternatives

[From article]
Should the Donald fall short of the delegates needed to win on the first ballot, 1,237, there is growing certitude that he will be stopped. First by Ted Cruz; then, perhaps, by someone acceptable to the establishment, which always likes to have two of its own in the race.
But this city of self-delusion should realize there is no going back for America. For, whatever his stumbles of the last two weeks, Trump has helped to unleash the mightiest force of the 21st century: nationalism.
Transnationalism and globalism are moribund.
[. . .]
Republican candidates who failed to parrot Trump on illegal immigration were among the first casualties.
For that is where America is, and that is where the West is.
Consider Europe. Four months ago, Angela Merkel was Time’s Person of the Year for throwing open the gates to the “huddled masses” of the Middle and Near East.
Merkel’s Germany is now leading the EU in amassing a huge bribe to the Turks to please take them back, and keep them away from the Greek islands that are now Islam’s Ellis Island into Europe.
[. . .]
If immigration is the first issue where Trump connected with the people, the second is trade.
Republicans are at last learning that trade deficits do matter, that free trade is not free. The cost comes in dead factories, lost jobs, dying towns and the rising rage of an abandoned Middle America whose country this is and whose wages have stagnated for decades.
[. . .]
Production comes before consumption. Who owns the orchard is more essential than who eats the apples. We have exported the economic independence that Hamilton taught was indispensable to our political independence. We have forgotten what made us great.
China, Japan, Germany — the second, third and fourth largest economies on earth — all owe their prosperity to trade surpluses run for decades at the expense of the Americans.
A third casualty of Trumpism is the post-Cold War foreign policy consensus among liberal interventionists and neoconservatives.
Trump subjects U.S. commitments to a cost-benefit analysis, as seen from the standpoint of cold national interest.
[. . .]
American hawks talk of facing down Beijing in the South and East China Seas while U.S. companies import so much in Chinese-made goods they are fully subsidizing Beijing’s military budget.
Does this make sense?
[. . .]
If, through rules changes, subterfuge and faithless delegates, party elites swindle him out of the nomination, do they think that the millions who came out to vote for Trump will go home and say: We lost it fair and square?
[. . .]
Whatever happens to Trump, the country has spoken. And if the establishment refuses to heed its voice, and returns to the policies the people have repudiated, it should take heed of John F. Kennedy’s warning:
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.”

http://buchanan.org/blog/what-trump-has-wrought-125088

What Trump Has Wrought
Monday - April 4, 2016 at 10:45 pm
Patrick J. Buchanan

Scalia Fought Kritarchy, Trump Fights Stupidity, Anti Americanism

Antonin  Scalia fought against Kritarchy

[From article]
Among this election season’s oddities was the dust-up between Pope Francis and Donald Trump. After departing Mexico, the pontiff appeared to criticize Trump in an interview, suggesting that building walls — not bridges — “is not Christian.”
Calling the comment “disgraceful,” the presidential front-runner and insulter-in-chief compelled the Vatican to Think Again before retreating. Meanwhile, comedians joked that the perceived papal putdown would cause church attendance to fall and Trump’s poll numbers to surge.
Indeed, by crossing swords with the pontiff, Trump burnished his image as a fearless fighter, a trait his voters prize. Unfazed by his incoherence, lack of policy specifics or controversies, Trump supporters, like columnist Jim Nolte, are tired of losing and want “someone who will do whatever it takes to win.”
Buoying Trump is Americans’ sense of powerlessness and insecurity. Consider these controversial policies imposed on disapproving majorities using extra-constitutional means: the Iran deal, the irresponsible and never-debated Omnibus budget, Obamacare, trade promotion, and executive actions and sanctuary-city policies that nullify immigration laws.
[. . .]
That Bork was Scalia’s ideological and intellectual equal but was rejected shortly after Scalia’s unanimous approval speaks to how politicized the theoretically independent judiciary has become. Consider that it was President Franklin Roosevelt’s fellow Democrats who foiled his plan to pack the Supreme Court.
[. . .]
Thomas Jefferson warned that giving “judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not … would make the judiciary a despotic branch.” Now, having morphed from “the least dangerous branch” into an unelected super-legislature of nine philosopher kings with lifetime appointments, it’s not surprising Supreme Court nominations are hotly contested and fraught with hypocrisy.
[. . .]
By short-circuiting the democratic process for resolving emotionally charged issues, Scalia believed the court was violating “a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.”
[. . .]
As Scalia argued while pointing to unfree nations that have charters of rights, “It isn’t the Bill of Rights that produces freedom; it’s the structure of government that prevents anybody from seizing all the power.”
Essentially, the founders used constitutional walls to separate and check power so that diverse people with differing beliefs would be free to build bridges of mutual respect and tolerance, forging an open and decent society. The Supreme Court’s unlikely “best buddies” — rivals Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — built a remarkable bridge, a lesson for Pope Francis, Trump and Trumpkins.
Think Again — Isn’t the best way to “Make America Great Again” to elect a president who’ll adhere to America’s great constitution?

http://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/20807989-113/sturm-scalias-lessons-for-trumpkins

Melanie Sturm
Think Again
February 24, 2016
Sturm: Scalia's Lessons For Trumpkins

Protest Voters May Forget Abuses of Big Government

[From article]
The willingness to break with long-standing political norms isn’t surprising, considering voter anger, pessimism and spiking anxieties. Recent surveys of Americans show that overwhelming majorities believe the country is on the wrong track, the American Dream is unachievable, and our powerful, unaccountable government is America’s biggest threat.
Consequently, political dynasties have been rendered passe, as mega-donor darlings Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton discovered en route to their coronations. Not even their powerful super PACs (funded by unlimited individual, corporate and union support) can assure their victories.

[. . .]

Given America’s heritage and Big Government’s dismal track record, it’s stunning that Sanders and Trump — both advocates of using unprecedented government power to centrally plan and control economic life — could win New Hampshire’s “Live Free or Die” state. Have its freedom-loving voters forgotten the national purpose their state helped found: the democratic self-rule of a free people?
Hopefully, America is in revolt and casting about for outsiders not because they want more government but because of the failures of our hyper-politicized, unaccountable bureaucracy: contaminated water, terrorist attacks, dying vets, IRS harassment, illegal immigration, health care chaos and murdered U.S. diplomats and border guards.

http://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/20585666-113/sturm-the-backstory-behind-2016s-headlines

Melanie Sturm
Think Again
February 11, 2016
Sturm: The backstory behind 2016's headlines

New York City Council Votes Itself A Substantial Raise

Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito voted yes on the measure, and her salary will climb to $164,500.

Photo: Getty Images

[From article]
With just seven dissenters, City Council members on Friday went above the recommendations of a salary commission to award themselves a 32 percent raise — to $148,500.
That’s $10,000 more than the mayor-appointed commission had said was justified after months of extensive research, and well above the current salary of $112,500.
The three Republican members, Steve Matteo and freshman Joe Borelli of Staten Island, and Eric Ulrich of Queens, issued a joint statement explaining why they voted no.Modal Trigger
“There is a critically important reason the City Charter requires any changes to salaries for elected officials be evaluated and ultimately recommended by an independent body: because there is an inherent and obvious conflict of interest in having to vote oneself a pay raise,” the trio said.
“We felt the salary recommendations made by the Quadrennial Commission were the starting point of a public conversation about our jobs and our compensation. However, once it became clear that the proposed legislation by the Council would go beyond those recommendations, it precluded any potential support from our delegation.”
Democrats Elizabeth Crowley of Queens and Alan Maisel of Brooklyn voted no without explanation.
[. . .]
Forty members voted yes on the measure, including Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito — whose own salary will climb even higher, to $164,500.
She said the extra pay was justified because the commission didn’t take into account one of the council’s reform measures to greatly restrict outside income.
“We believe that there’s a value that should be added to the loss of that potential outside income. It was a modest amount of $10,000, and that is what we did in terms of that consideration,” she told reporters prior to the vote.
“That’s a serious reform that is way overdue and has been demanded of this council over years and possibly decades, and so we’re taking that into account.”
Only a handful of council members, whose jobs are considered part-time, currently earn substantial pay in other gigs.
The pay hike is retroactive to Jan. 1.

http://nypost.com/2016/02/05/city-council-members-give-themselves-a-32-percent-raise/

City council members give themselves a 32 percent raise
By Yoav Gonen
New York Post
February 5, 2016 | 1:53pm

Voters and Taxpayers Stand Up To Abusive Government. Trump Is No Outsider

One of only three non establishment presidential candidates.

[From article]
In 2016 the underlying theme is the anger and disgust directed toward the political establishment. Per the polls, an overwhelming majority of the American people see their family’s’ and the nation’s future as extremely bleak, and the current political leaders in Washington as being megalomaniacal, avaricious, narcissistic or feckless. Not since the early days of the Great Depression has the citizenry, regardless of political affiliation, been so fearful of the future and so infuriated with the nation’s governing class.
[. . .]
At the risk of offending the diehard supporters of Donald Trump, who may view him as the nation’s savior, Donald Trump has been a part of the political establishment or “Ruling Class” for his entire adult life, whether as a registered Republican or Democrat or Independent.
[. . .]
By his own admission Trump has contributed, over the past 40 years, millions of dollars to both parties (considerably more to Democrats than Republicans) in order to buy influence and thus help underwrite their political agendas -- the definition of crony capitalism. He has vacillated from one extreme to the other in his various stances on the issues during the past forty years but his one consistent has been to unabashedly support the political establishment and thus he has played a significant financial role in fostering the nation’s current dilemmas. He is now claiming to be anti-establishment.
Donald Trump has unnerved the Republican wing of the political establishment not because of who he is (they are aware of his establishment bona fides) or even his ever changing positions on various issues. Rather the Republican hierarchy fears Trump is so personally polarizing in a nation whose demographics are rapidly changing that he would lose the general election
[. . .]
If the foundational basis of the angst of the American people is infuriation with the current governing class, then there are only three candidates that have either never been a part of the establishment or have without reservation confronted the current governing class. They are Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson. These same people have, not coincidentally, been declared as persona non grata by the overall political establishment.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/the_american_people_vs_the_political_establishment.html

January 22, 2016
The American People vs. the Political Establishment
By Steve McCann

Politicians Focused On Getting In On The Action, Not Serving Constituents, Voters and Taxpayers

It is curious that the proposed solution is to place a computer between people who are unable to discuss issues rationally. Computers are dumb machines, and cannot solve this problem. Too many people think they are omniscient. They do not believe decisions should be based on facts instead of propaganda. Most egregious example of dysfunction is the ACLU board member in Colorado who called for killing Trump supporters. The former defender of protected speech has become a censor of speech. Too many dumbed down politicians are role models for bad behavior, beginning with the legend in his own mind in the White House. Then there are charming and thoughtful Iranian and Muslim power holders.



[From article]
Will politicians even care, considering many are what David Wellington, the author of The Cyclops Initiative, describes as, “having disdain for the American people. Many politicians don’t see their constituencies as human beings, but rather as numbers on a page. For career politicians, on both sides of the aisle, it’s about how much power they can gain and not about how to help people. Politicians seem to forget that they are supposed to represent the people.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/debate_without_pain.html

January 9, 2016
Debate Without Pain
By Elise Cooper

If IRS Can Scare 200 Million Taxpayers, US Government Can Rid The Country of 12 Million Illegal Aliens

[From article]
Every year the 89,000 employees of the Internal Revenue Service attempt to enforce the tax laws for well over 200 million taxpayers. Obviously this is impossible and taxpayers could ignore the law with near impunity. Yet, they don’t. Somehow the IRS persuades the vast majority of the taxpayers to pay up.
If the IRS said that it would be inhumane to prosecute tax scofflaws because they have children that need to eat and that most tax scofflaws are good people who have run into hard times, what would happen? What would happen is that the population of tax scofflaws would explode. The tax scofflaws would become shrouded in moral legitimacy. Any attempt by the IRS to step up enforcement would be seen as brutal oppression against good people.
[. . .]



The IRS has tyrannical powers that are probably constitutional only because judges depend on the U.S. Treasury to pay their salaries.
[. . .]
If the IRS feels free to intimidate 200 million taxpayers by outrageous methods why should we be reluctant to use some of the same methods on the illegals?
[. . .]
The government does not have to prosecute everyone; just make public examples of a small number of cases. Many measures can be framed as taxes, for example, a $100 a day tax for each day a visitor overstays his visa. Taxes are easier to enforce than criminal sanctions.
[. . .]
The sanctuary city movement can be defanged by directing substantial revenue to cities that enforce immigration laws. For example, fines paid by illegals that are caught by local authorities can be paid to cities that do not welcome illegals.
The story that it is somehow difficult to deport 12 million people is a self-serving myth propagated by the political alliance that wants the illegals here.
[. . .]
There are also the employees of many non-profit operations devoted to aiding illegal immigrants. The losers are American workers, those at the bottom of the economic heap that are displaced and impoverished by 12 million competitors for their jobs. The losers are not nearly as well organized, as are the promoters of illegal immigration.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/_yes_we_can_deport_12_million.html

December 17, 2015
Yes, We Can Deport 12 Million
By Norman Rogers

Media Morality No Longer Controls Populist Candidates and Voters

[From article]
In the feudal era there were the “three estates” — the clergy, the nobility and the commons. The first and second were eradicated in Robespierre’s Revolution.
[. . .]
The fourth estate, the press, the disciples of Voltaire, had replaced the clergy it had dethroned as the new arbiters of morality and rectitude.
Today the press decides what words are permissible and what thoughts are acceptable. The press conducts the inquisitions where heretics are blacklisted and excommunicated from the company of decent men, while others are forgiven if they recant their heresies.
With the rise of network television and its vast audience, the fourth estate reached apogee in the 1960s and 1970s, playing lead roles in elevating JFK and breaking Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
Yet before he went down, Nixon inflicted deep and enduring wounds upon the fourth estate.
[. . .]
In “The Making of the President 1972,“ Teddy White [said]
“The power of the press in America is a primordial one. It sets the agenda of public discussion, and this sweeping political power is unrestrained by any law. It determines what people will talk and think about — an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins.”
[. . .]
Millions now regard the media as ideologues who are masquerading as journalists and use press privileges and power to pursue agendas not dissimilar to those of the candidates and parties they oppose.
[. . .]
[Trump's] popularity is traceable to the fact that he rejects the moral authority of the media, breaks their commandments, and mocks their condemnations. His contempt for the norms of Political Correctness is daily on display.
And that large slice of America that detests a media whose public approval now rivals that of Congress, relishes this defiance. The last thing these folks want Trump to do is to apologize to the press.
And the media have played right into Trump’s hand.
[. . .]
the names you call Trump — bigot, racist, xenophobe, sexist — are the names you call us, nothing but cuss words that a corrupt establishment uses on those it most detests.”
What the Trump campaign reveals is that, to populists and Republicans, the political establishment and its media arm are looked upon the way the commons and peasantry of 1789 looked upon the ancien regime and the king’s courtiers at Versailles.
Yet, now that the fourth estate is as discredited as the clergy in 1789, the larger problem is that there is no arbiter of truth, morality and decency left whom we all respect. Like 4th-century Romans, we barely agree on what those terms mean anymore.

http://buchanan.org/blog/why-liberal-media-hate-trump-124373

Why Liberal Media Hate Trump
Thursday - December 3, 2015 at 11:29 pm
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Journalists Continue Publishing Propaganda, Misleading American Voters and Taxpayers

[From article]
Ironically, murders and shootings are highest in Democrat-controlled cites that have the toughest gun laws.
For example: in Chicago over the Thanksgiving weekend, 30 people were shot, and 8 died. Was this widely reported nationally? Heck, no. And yet every rare occasion in which a cop kills a black, regardless of the circumstances, is broadcast 24/7, made front-page news.
This year, Baltimore broke its 43-year record for murders, mostly black on black.
Under-reported was the BLM rally in which BLM zealots marched down a New York street chanting, "What do we want? Dead Cops! When do we want it? Now!"
I bet you are unfamiliar with hashtag "#killacop."
[. . .]



I can pretty much guarantee that the TMZ-watching low-info-voters in my family have not heard about the video in which a black supremacist sent out a clarion call to BLM followers that it is open season on killing cops and crackers (white people).
For the most part, the mainstream media and Democrats have sided with BLM, hiding the hate group's violent intentions from the public. As a matter of fact, mainstream media and Democrats are active participants in the hate group's campaign to demonize America's police.
[. . .]
The arrogance of these hypocritical, evil vipers giving BLM a pass while condemning conservatives and Christians tells you everything you need to know about secular progressive zealots.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/12/pp_and_msm_condemning_decent_americans_oh_please.html

December 2, 2015
PP and MSM condemning decent Americans: Oh, please!
By Lloyd Marcus

Morals of Media and Government Diminishing Respect of Taxpayers, Voters, Readers

[From article]
Not since the presidential election of 1932 has the American electorate been so mired in discontent. Despite the best efforts of the media to portray this discontentment as limited to the Republican base, numerous polls have confirmed a vast majority of the populace shares this same sense of disgruntlement. Yet the nation’s political, academic and corporate classes, whose lifestyles have never been better than they are today, are surprised and dumbfounded by this phenomenon. These elites prefer to look at this chapter in America’s political history as just the ranting of an immature and essentially ignorant citizenry who will, in time, see the error of their ways and settle for whatever crumbs the ruling class throws their direction.
[. . .]



With so much power and opportunity to enrich oneself, the overwhelming majority of the elected and appointed members of this fraternity will do anything to remain in office. As a consequence there is now a permanent cycle of corruption at play in Washington D.C. Large corporate interests (including unions and Wall Street), assorted large special interest organizations and the super wealthy, through their financial contributions to the political parties, either make certain that their interests are protected or that they have access to government largess.
Because of the corrupting influence of an unimaginable amount of money and power and the fact that this nation can only function politically with two national parties, the founding fathers’ vision of a government of the people, by the people and for the people is rapidly becoming one that is by and for the ruling class.



Rather than view education as the means for the people to attain success in a competitive world, the nation’s elites have recast it into a vehicle for their pet theories and political views. Whether it is the promulgation of self-esteem, the obsession with the evils of the nation’s past, or the perils the planet faces due to mankind’s very existence, among other inane curricula, the education establishment has assured that the American people are rapidly becoming among the least well-educated populations in the world.
[. . .]



Using the cudgel of the mainstream media and the entertainment complex, they have successfully inculcated a plurality of the American people into believing that there are no moral absolutes and that the state can grant any rights that it so chooses to whomever they choose.
Thus abortion and the subsequent sale of human body parts as well as the loss of respect for human life, the erosion of religious freedom, runaway out of wedlock birth, the glorification of violence in entertainment, and the undermining of any ethical or behavioral standards combined with a woeful educational regime has resulted in a nation without a rudder and two generations of Americans unsure of who they are and unable to cope with whatever the future may bring.
[. . .]



they all hide behind the fig leaf of caring and compassion for their fellow Americans.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/10/a_nation_of_discontent.html

October 9, 2015
A Nation of Discontent
By Steve McCann

White House Ridicules American Taxpayers and Voters

[From article]
His flippancy -- his lack of concern and interest in dealing with Islamic terrorism -- has led to the rise of what has become the richest terror group in the world.
[. . .]
When a man claiming allegiance to ISIS killed four Jews in a deli in Paris in January 2015, Obama dismissed the deliberate targeting of Jews since he said the attack was someone who just “randomly” shot “a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.” The facts: the deli was Jewish, all the victims were Jewish (non-Jewish customers and employees were spared) and the murderer had said he was targeting Jews. They weren’t a bunch of random folks in a deli.
[. . .]
Obama’s entire style of dealing with important issues by flippant responses has probably enticed our adversaries around the world. Adversaries see silly people in charge of American policy and act accordingly.
[. . .]
Hillary Clinton when she took umbrage at being questioned by Senator Ron Johnson about the murder of four Americans in Benghazi. His line of inquiry focused on the White House-concocted story of a video leading to the Benghazi attack. Her flippant response should go down in history -- if not that then at least in campaign ads next year, “What difference at this point does it make?” How dare anyone want to find out why these Americans were murdered? After all, it might spoil her run for the Oval Office.
[. . .]
Their reaction to questions and scrutiny is to demonstrate their innate superiority and sophistication -- at least to members of their own small circle. Flip responses are meant also to end he line of inquiry, to intimidate. Should we be surprised that Barack Obama so often shows up on the comedian Jon Stewart’s Daily Show? Stewart is a master of flippancy and Obama has privately worked to turn Stewart into an ally to sell his policies to America.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/08/obama_and_the_flippancy_of_fools.html

August 7, 2015
Obama and the Flippancy of Fools
By Ed Lasky

Republican Party Elected Officials Do Not Represent Voters

[From article]
Levin declared that, “The Republican Party won the majority on a lie.” Levin argued that on every issue from Obamacare to executive amnesty to Obamatrade, the establishment Republican Party has refused to represent the interests of Americans.

http://nation.foxnews.com/2015/08/02/mark-levin-republican-party-won-its-majority-lie?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

Mark Levin: The Republican Party Won Its Majority On A Lie
Published August 2, 2015
By Julia Hahn, Breitbart News

Ignoring The Will Of The People

[From article]
Despite Leftist merchants of evil using big words and arrogant condescension to convince us that morality is relative, we instinctively know some things are good and some things are bad. Equally annoying is Leftists' air of superiority -- claiming to care more than us commoners about equality, saving the planet and all life; their evil intentions hidden beneath a shroud of faux compassion.
Leftists have what I call their no-pictures-please policy.
[. . .]



Leftists send in their activist judges to overturn the will of We the People. After verbally slapping us around calling us racist, sexist, and homophobic, Leftist judges make what the people voted against into law.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/07/exposed_americas_enemies_within.html



July 31, 2015
Exposed: America's Enemies Within
By Lloyd Marcus

Sarah Palin Explains Why Voters and Taxpayers Admire Trump's Panache, and Why Conformists Hate Him

Donald Trump With Sarah Palin

[From article]
Trump’s unconventional candidacy is a shot in the arm for ordinary Americans fed up with the predictable poll tested blather of squishy milquetoast career politicians who campaign one way and govern another. But it’s not just how Trump says it, it’s what he’s saying.
Trump has tapped into America’s great populist tradition by speaking to concerns of working class voters. He talks about fighting to bring back our factories. When was the last time a candidate talked passionately about reclaiming our manufacturing base (and knew what he was talking about)? What other candidate chooses American workers over the multinational corporations donating to their campaigns? Who other than Trump is talking about the dangerous trade deficits deindustrializing America and stealing our jobs? The old Arsenal of Democracy that allowed us to win World War II is now such a distant memory that we can’t even build the parts for our own military equipment – we need China to manufacture them for us. How can a great nation maintain its greatness without a manufacturing base? Or without secure borders for that matter?
Trump focused in on two major populist grievances: the loss of working class jobs due to awful trade agreements, and the unfair competition for those jobs – along with security threats – due to the flood of illegal immigrants pouring across unsecured borders.
Now throw in Trump’s candor about “winning” and you understand why his message catches fire. As General Patton said, “Americans play to win all the time.” But those of us outside the Beltway can see that America isn’t winning. Our enemies laugh at us. Our friends can’t rely on us. China is outpacing our military superiority. Putin thumbs his nose at us. ISIS seizes territory our sons and daughters fought and died to liberate. Iran gloats over the idiotic and ultimately catastrophic nuclear deal the White House caved on. Our friends in Israel shake their heads at our betrayal.
Trump diagnoses our problems as incompetent leadership. Who can argue with that? How many politicians promised to secure our borders? So, why aren’t they secured? How many politicians promised to grow American jobs? So, why did they vote for Obamatrade? Is it any wonder that Americans are telling status quo politicians, “You’re fired”?
[. . .]
It’s no surprise pundits and politicos are determined to destroy a candidacy they can’t control or shape with their mere words. Expect marginalization of anyone speaking well of Trump’s efforts. He’s a threat to the permanent political class. Non-traditional candidates always are because when they’re in touch with the people, they show their guts and just do the right thing. They go rogue — and take flak from all sides. Some of us have the scars to prove that.
[. . .]
Itty-bitty pundits thinking it’s clever to mock Americans’ opinions are finding the joke is on them. Cozy in their seat of judgment, blowing each other’s horns, protected by a glass screen. Ask yourself: just who ARE these windbags? And what do they build? Towers of paperclips? Lists of Twitter followers? Trump’s supporters are delightedly defying pithy prim “opinion makers” who think Americans are incapable of choosing our leaders without their dictates. The more the spotlight-seekers smear Trump, the more popular he gets. A friend emailed, “Tell those smart alecks bashing Trump on TV, ‘I love him because YOU hate him!'”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/31/bnexclusive-palin-trump-stumps-media-kingmakers/

EXCLUSIVE — PALIN: TRUMP STUMPS MEDIA KINGMAKERS
by SARAH PALIN

31 Jul 2015