Friday, December 22, 2017

In the news, Monday, December 11, 2017


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DEC 10      INDEX      DEC 12
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from Big Think

Why Jerusalem Was Supposed to Be an International City
President Trump’s announcement that the American embassy in Israel will move to Jerusalem and the ancient city will be recognized as the country’s capital was met with much global outrage and riots in the Middle East. Many in the international community fear the move will set back the ever-fragile peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as their capital, making the city a very contentious point in a tinderbox of a region.

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from Bloomberg
Media/News Company

Trump Wants U.S. Return to Moon, Sets No Deadlines for NASA
President Donald Trump directed NASA on Monday to send American astronauts back to the moon and eventually to Mars, but eliminated his predecessors’ deadlines for such missions. SpaceX launches rockets for customers including NASA, commercial satellite operators and the American military. On Wednesday, the closely held company is slated to fire off a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft laden with cargo supplies destined for the International Space Station, in what will be the company’s 17th mission of the year. Musk, 46, served on Trump’s early advisory councils until June, when he parted ways with the administration over Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement. After the shuttle program ended, NASA turned to private industry to fill in the gap. SpaceX and Boeing both have billion-dollar contracts to send American astronauts to the space station, with the first key tests of the technology slated for 2018. Musk has also announced plans to send paying tourists on flights around the moon.

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from EUobserver

Israel presses Jerusalem claim in EU capital
Israel has said Palestine and the EU must accept that Jerusalem is its capital, for peace in the Middle East. Its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, enforced the claim in Brussels on Monday (11 December) before meeting with EU foreign ministers.

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from The Heritage Foundation
RIGHT BIAS, MIXED, think tank in Washington, D.C

Russia Has Repeatedly Flouted This Missile Treaty.
It’s Time to Scrap It.
Thirty years ago Friday, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The treaty was unprecedented. For the first time in the history of nuclear arms control, it actually eliminated an entire class of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 to 5,500 kilometers. But the good news didn’t last. Russia has been violating the treaty for nearly a decade now, and the United States is nowhere close to bringing Moscow back into compliance with the treaty’s terms. So, as the treaty turns 30 years old, it’s clear that its day has come and gone. An agreement that only one side upholds is not worth the paper it is written on. It’s time to terminate the treaty.

Jerusalem Move Just a Capital Idea
President Trump’s move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocate the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv is a totally defensible diplomatic decision. This decision could vivify moribund peace talks. Jerusalem is Israel’s capital city and we should have an embassy there to more fully engage the Israeli government.

Senate Should Follow House’s Lead in Nixing Special-Interest Loopholes
President Donald Trump is right. Washington is a swamp, infested with special-interest groups feverishly working to keep their place in the capital bog. Our current tax code is the leading example of institutionalized privilege—bought and paid for by lobbyists. The tax code is riddled with privileges—special deductions for manufacturing, credits for everything from research to energy production to child care, and exemptions for medical costs, commuter expenses, and commercial development. Tax reform should eliminate all these tax subsidies, which would allow for lower tax rates for everyone and full expensing. The result would be a fairer and more pro-growth tax code.

I’m a Pediatrician. Here’s What I Did When a Little Boy Patient Said He Was a Girl.
To indoctrinate all children from preschool forward with the lie that they could be trapped in the wrong body disrupts the very foundation of a child’s reality testing. If they can’t trust the reality of their physical bodies, who or what can they trust? Transgender ideology in schools is psychological abuse that often leads to chemical castration, sterilization, and surgical mutilation.

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from The Hill
LEFT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED, newspaper in Washington, D.C.

Making America competitive again
Tax legislation currently before Congress would unleash greater economic growth in our country. Workers will benefit through higher wages, and all Americans will find greater opportunities within a larger, more dynamic economy. Independent analyses from the Tax Foundation, the Council of Economic Advisers, my colleagues at the Heritage Foundation, and several other leading economists agree that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will significantly boost gross domestic product growth. Their estimates range from about 3 percent to 5 percent over the first 10 years. The key drivers of this additional growth are rate reductions and full expensing for businesses. Lawmakers must not undo these growth boosters during final negotiations with poorly thought out revenue raisers like alternative minimum taxes on corporations or individuals. A vote on the conferenced Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is expected before the end of December. If lawmakers succeed, they will unleash greater investment in the United States, boosting the economy and American wages.

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from HumanProgress.org
Education Website

Free Markets Increase Trust Among People
Competition is an essential part of a capitalist economy. It drives businesses to innovate and to provide consumers with cheaper and better products. If businesses fail to innovate, they go under. The market place can be a brutal place – just think of the way in which Netflix disposed of Blockbuster. “Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin,” as the American economist Alan H. Meltzer once put it. “It doesn’t work.” But capitalism is also one the most cooperative of human endeavors. Goods and services are traded among strangers and across vast distances, guided – to a great degree – by the price mechanism and by the reputation of the trading parties. Repeated transactions among trading parties encourage trustworthiness – a moral side product of capitalism that we do not spend enough time talking about, let alone celebrating.

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from The Living Church
Magazine of The Living Church Foundation (Anglican)

Apologia episcoporum
This is the first part of a paper delivered at the conference “Anglo-Catholicism: Uncovering Roots,” Church of the Advent, Boston, November 15-16.

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from National Review
RIGHT BIAS

About That New York Editor Who Would End Lives Like My Children’s
On why our humanity requires valuing every life, even if lived with cystic fibrosis: Imagine opening up New York magazine to find an article from your mother writing that she wished you were dead. When he can read, a little boy named Dudley will face that reality.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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