Account information for this Lucianne member

Alan Greenspan, the longtime Federal Reserve chairman known as "the Maestro" who became one of the most influential economic policymakers of his era and famously warned of "irrational exuberance," has died. He was 100. The influential economist died Monday at his home from complications of Parkinson's Disease, said his wife of 29 years, Andrea Mitchell, the chief Washington correspondent and chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News.

One industry in America pumps out toxic waste day and night, but suffers no penalty for the damage it causes. It operates at enormous public and private expense, sucking up hundreds of billions of dollars in government money. Its toxic bilge poisons much of society, but those who complain about it are often dismissed as ignorant or bigoted. Its product is largely free of state and federal regulation. That industry is higher education. And the toxic waste it emits isn’t chemical but intellectual sludge, in the form of racial bigotry, antisemitism and crude Marxism.

LOS ANGELES — James Burrows, who helped create volumes of laughter as director of more than a thousand episodes of such classic television comedies as “Cheers,” “Taxi,” “Friends” and “Will and Grace,” died Friday. He was 85. His family confirmed his death in a statement to People, saying he “passed away peacefully today surrounded by his family.” No location or cause of death was provided. Burrows spent his career behind the camera specializing in situation comedies. Few viewers recognized him or knew his name, other than to see it flash quickly on the screen in the opening credits. But they knew his work.

The Memorandum of Understanding with Iran appears not to have lasted for 48 hours, as Iran has once again blocked the Strait of Hormuz: Iran re-closed the Strait of Hormuz Friday instead of heading to Switzerland for nuclear negotiations, citing Israel’s refusal to pull forces out of southern Lebanon and US forces’ ongoing presence in the region. In a statement read over maritime radio channels, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the US was in violation of the memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran, which President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed Wednesday.

When the cameras aren’t rolling German police officers, on the front line of the migrant crisis, give their unvarnished account of the state of the nation, finding “the Germany we know is disappearing”. A German investigative journalist has urged her fellow countrymen to “listen to police officers” and their experiences and “act accordingly”. German broadsheet newspaper Die Welt reports the words of Liv von Boetticher who said she had spoken to police officers across Germany, “from all departments, of all ages, and from all federal states”.

Tuesday, British Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe, the leader of the Restore Britain party (sorry to say, at this point I think it is more accurate to look at Nigel Farage and his Reform Party as controlled opposition rather than a real choice), released a report that probably ensures that British politics won't be quite the same. His 219-page "The Rape Gang Inquiry Report" unmasks the concerted effort by British officials to cover up the systematic rape of British girls in their early teens, if that, intimidate the girls into refusing to press charges, and protect the feral Pakistani gangs who preyed on them.

Donald Trump has been the greatest, most clear-eyed and most transformative foreign policy president of my lifetime. But Trump is also the famed businessman who wrote The Art of the Deal four decades ago. There has therefore always been the risk that the president's novel and often unorthodox approach to foreign policy could be subsumed by a greater dealmaking imperative. Prudent statesmanship on the world stage requires setting clear ends and then working backward to calibrate the appropriate means — diplomatic, economic, military or otherwise — to achieve those ends. Because of his dealmaking background, Trump — despite all his foreign policy successes — was always uniquely vulnerable

The signed preliminary agreement between the United States and Iran has a strong majority approval rating amongst American voters, a national survey from Quantus found. President Donald Trump signed his copy of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) to end the hostilities with Iran following the G7 on Wednesday at the Palace of Versailles, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signing his copy remotely. The text of the MOU puts a 60-day ceasefire and negotiation framework into effect, though key details will require complex cooperation

Nearly four in ten Democrats say they are “ashamed” to be American, a new survey found. The survey by The Economist/YouGov found just weeks before America’s 250th anniversary that 26 percent of Democrats say they are “somewhat ashamed” and 12 percent say they are “very ashamed” to be American. Nearly twice as many Democrats reported being somewhat or very ashamed to be American compared to overall poll respondents. Out of all U.S. adult citizens polled, 12 percent say they are “somewhat ashamed” and 8 percent say they are “very ashamed.” Still, some Democrats say they are “very proud” to be American (22 percent) or “somewhat proud” (18 percent).

Even the Wall Street Journal‘s pro-migration editors recognize that the economic harm caused by illegal migration drains the tepid public support for legalized migration. “In recent years, those rules [in immigration policy] haven’t been consistently enforced,” said a June 16 op-ed by James Carter, a deputy undersecretary of labor in the George W. Bush administration, adding: The result is a market distortion [because a bubble of illegal labor] holds down wages for those Americans most exposed to labor competition from unauthorized workers [and] increases demand for housing without a corresponding increase in supply.

We all love us some video of things blowing up. At least I do. I think all guys do, though, and boy, did Ukraine provide us with some spectacular explosions to view. It's not often you get to see a massive lid of an oil storage tank thrown into the sky, looking like a massive UFO on its way to inform the homeworld that the Earth isn't ready for entry into the oh-so-peaceful Federation of Worlds. Stacey Abrams will have to wait to become the President of Earth. Let's see that again, from a couple different angles... The aftermath of the strike on the oil refinery and other industrial sites

I expected this, or at least some variation of it. I wrote about this on Wednesday: Iran demanded the ceasefire in Lebanon to create a steady casus belli they can use to jerk the United States around and drive a wedge between Israel and the United States. Demand a ceasefire, then get Hezbollah to keep poking at Israel with attacks to generate defensive responses. Then use those defensive responses to cancel talks or jerk us around, claiming that Israel violated the ceasefire. This was, at least to me, as predictable as the sun rising in the East. Hell, even I predicted it, and I am not a genius.