Dairy Producers Are Getting Milked By Current Commodity Checkoff Programs

If you look, you will find a striking
similarity between the Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) checkoff agenda and
NMPF lobbying efforts, which isn’t surprising since they sit on each
other’s boards.
Both promote the continually failed school lunch program utilizing skim
or 1-percent milk, while real family dairy farmers call their
Congressmen and Congresswomen asking to have the Whole Milk Act (H.R.
5640) passed.

These are issues that need to be resolved so that independent farmers like myself can work within a competitive and just market.

Dairy Producers Are Getting Milked By Current Commodity Checkoff Programs

Stop The Government’s Credit Card Wars

And back in June, the Supreme Court sided with
American Express in a case over whether the company could legally
prohibit retailers accepting Amex cards from offering promotions to
consumers who pay in cash or use a credit card company with lower swipe
fees (known as “steering practices”).

Government
attempts to curtail swipe fees have backfired spectacularly in the
past. The so-called Durbin Amendment, inserted into financial reform
legislation in 2010 at the 11th hour, capped swipe fees on debit cards.

The substantial bite this took out of financial institutions’ profitability led them to curtail previously
popular initiatives like free checking and rewards programs while
increasing fees. Were the government to jump in and demand that credit
card companies abandon the “honor all cards” rule, this time, consumers
would likely pay the cost in the form of lower rewards.

Stop The Government’s Credit Card Wars

Addressing Global ‘Fragility’ — Congress Tries To Get Better At Doing The Wrong Things

…Can the problem be solved by spending more tax dollars on foreign aid, even doing so more efficiently, or are there other geopolitical reasons for global “fragility” and violence?

How about the Islamic extremism being funded or promoted by Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan or the debt-trap diplomacy of China, efforts which
far exceed even an enhanced U.S. foreign aid budget? Perhaps
hard-headed diplomacy and the option of military force might be more
persuasive.

The war in Afghanistan, for example, was over in months. Afterward, the United States and the international community including non-governmental organizations (NGOs) tried to do exactly what is being proposed in H.R. 5273 and by the Institute of Peace.

Hundreds of billions have been spent. That effort
would have succeeded even without better coordination and greater
efficiency. It failed because Pakistan chose to continue its proxy war
against Afghanistan by supporting the Taliban, the Haqqani network and
other Islamic extremists in order to maintain Afghanistan as a client state and exclude the influence of India.

…The formula remains the same: you get to the Taliban through Pakistan and you get to Pakistan through China.

Similarly, rather than constructing
legislation for more foreign aid, Congress should eliminate the legal
and financial incentives for mass illegal migration, in future offering only results-based aid to Mexico and Central America. And build a wall.

nation building is possible

nation building is possible

if we learn from our mistakes

match government to governed

teach liberty not democracy

frame from their culture not ours

win the culture not the hearts

don’t win their minds work them

grow up and us force when necessary

Addressing Global ‘Fragility’ — Congress Tries To Get Better At Doing The Wrong Things

How The Media Helped Iran Hide Its Nuclear Weapons Program

It should follow then, that the revelation that the 2007 NIE was
wrong should be newsworthy. Yet, most major U.S. news outlets have
failed to cover the new findings.

The Post offers a particularly
striking example. After Netanyahu’s April 2018 remarks, the newspaper
filed nearly a dozen dismissive reports and Op-Eds. Yet, The Post hasn’t
covered ISIS’s latest analysis — even omitting it in reports on the United State’s November 2018 decision to impose sanctions on Iran.

In
addition to repudiating the 2007 NIE, ISIS’s report noted that the
captured Iranian archives proved that the United States “overstated the
fulsomeness of what it knew at the time of the conclusion of the JCPOA.”

How The Media Helped Iran Hide Its Nuclear Weapons Program