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July 2017

North Korea fired a ballistic missile that flew into waters east of the Korean Peninsula, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"We confirm that North Korea has fired an unidentified ballistic missile off its eastern coast towards the East Sea from Banghyun area in Northern Pyong An Province at around 9:40 am (KST) Tuesday morning," a South Korean military official told NBC. "The launch was immediately reported to the President Moon Jae In." Moon ordered a National Security Council meeting after the launch, South Korean state news agency Yonhap reported, citing the Blue House — the South Korean equivalent of the White House.

Dana Loesch, a TV and talk show host who frequently appears in NRA videos, is the victim of a vicious smear campaign after she appeared in a video called "The Violence of Lies." The video was released on June 12 on the NRA Facebook page. The attacks on Loesch assert that Loesch's video calls for violence. But it doesn't. Just the opposite. It calls to meet the violence of leftist radicals with truth. What's actually going on is an attempt to deflect from the violence of a Bernie Sanders-loving, liberal Democrat who shot up a group of Republican congressmen at a baseball practice on June 14, and numerous other acts of "Resistance" violence. Loesch became the target of this smear campaign because her video was a convenient excuse to try to change the subject.

On June 24, 2017, Jews who carried a Jewish LGBT Pride flag with a Star of David on it at the "Dyke March Chicago" were singled out by organizers and kicked out of the event, which was held on public property. The actions were anti-Semitic despite claims by the organizers they were only "anti-Zionist," as explained in our post, Psychosis-laced anti-Semitism: Anti-Israel LGBT activists ban Star of David from Chicago parade:
Claims of anti-Semitism are being made over actions yesterday by organizers of a “Dyke March” in Chicago to remove certain Jewish participants from the event because they carried a Jewish LGBT Pride Flag that had a Star of David in the Middle of a rainbow flag. The flag was alleged to be “triggering” to “pro-Palestinian” participants....

In April, the second family was ridiculed and their marital decision not to be alone with a member of the opposite sex the subject of vigorous Beltway debate. The Vice President was called 'sexist' and it was generally assumed there was no way Mike Pence could successfully put his marriage ahead of his politics without unfairly discriminating against supremely qualified would-be female staffers (despite evidence to the contrary).

America has a problem, a fact problem. And it's being felt across the political spectrum. Yesterday morning as tradition dictates, I met one of my oldest and dearest friends for brunch. She's well-informed, well-read, incredibly bright, and quite liberal. After catching up on all things personal the conversation shifted to the current political climate. She expressed her frustration with having to sift through ten different articles from major, legacy publications, in order to piece together the basic facts of any given story.

The Russia narrative is pretty much dead in the water. So now Democrats, who have never accepted Trump's victory in the 2016 election, are trying a new strategy to remove him from office by questioning his mental health.

With economic and diplomatic ties at all-time high, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a 3-day visit to Israel starting tomorrow, making it the first ever visit by an Indian premier to the Jewish State. The historic visit comes as both countries mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of full diplomatic relations. India-Israel "relations are upbeat holding huge potential," said Dr. Anju Kumar, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Indian Embassy in Israel. "India and Israel are complementary economies. India, given its huge population has lot of demand for technology in order to increase agricultural productivity, water efficiency and recycling, post-harvest treatment, digitisation and making its cities smart. Israel has many such innovative technologies which can be adapted to Indian requirements."

Just days after a judge demanded Illinois pay $293 million toward Medicaid bills, the state's House decided to permanently hike the income tax rate by 32%. 15 Republicans voted for the bill, which Illinois Policy documented on Facebook. But Republican Governor Bruce Rauner announced that he will veto the bill if it lands on his desk:
"Under Speaker Madigan's direction, legislators chose to double down on higher taxes while protecting the special interests and refusing to reform the status quo. It's a repeat of the failed policies that created this financial crisis and caused jobs and taxpayers to flee" Rauner said in a statement.

On a morning when you would have expected the Morning Joe panel to be all about Trump's CNN wrestling tweet, a Washington Post editor/columnist painted an amazingly positive portrait of the president's actions in Syria. WaPo's David Ignatius has just returned from a week in Syria. He was almost apologetic in prefacing his remarks: "I'm going to say something that in some ways is sympathetic to Trump." He then proceeded to say that he was told by top US commanders that "the most daring and decisive" attack in the battle of Raqqa would not have happened if it hadn't been for President Trump's decision to delegate authority to commanders in the field.

J. writes:
From tolerant, liberal, peaceful, patriotic Charlottesville. Happy Independence Day.
I like this juxtaposition: "I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one of them" just above a "PEACE" bumper sticker (in the style of the COEXIST bumper stickers).

For the Editorial Board of the NY Times, these are not the best of times, but the worst of times. But more than anything, for the Times Editorial Board, it is the age of foolishness and the season of Darkness. [h/t Charles Dickens] Trump *literally* has driven them insane. The Editorial blaming Sarah Palin for the Gabby Giffords shooting was pure emotion spewing forth, a guttural lashing out, a primal scream. It also was blatantly and knowingly false.

Democrats pride themselves on diversity and inclusiveness, so we might expect to see a united colors of Benneton ad in the Senate yearbook.  But we'd be wrong. According to the Washington Post, they have seen a report released by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that shows that the majority of Senate staffers are white and female. The Washington Post reports:
People working for Democratic senators are overwhelmingly white and mostly women, according to a first-of-its-kind report on diversity in some congressional offices.

I've been blogging about the mess that is my home state of Illinois and just as I thought...it managed to find a way to make things worse. Illinois legislators cannot agree on a budget. It closed the "fiscal year $6 billion in the red." The state also has "unpaid bills to state contractors and vendors that's reached about $14.5 billion and roughly $130 billion in unfunded pension liabilities." S&P downgraded the state's credit rating to a step above junk. Then the state's GOP leader resigned on Friday. A judge has ordered Illinois to pay $293 million towards Medicaid bills just as the state entered its THIRD FISCAL YEAR without a budget.