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National: Defining the American Dream | The New York Times

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"Great nations do not fight endless wars," declared President Donald Trump to bipartisan applause belied by many of the assembled lawmakers' actual voting records.

The State of the Union address is often where presidential promises go to die. This is especially true once at least one house of Congress is controlled by the opposition party. Let us hope Trump's stand against forever war-unmistakable, if not as bold as I'd originally hoped -is an exception to the rule.

"Our brave troops have now been fighting in the Middle East for almost 19 years," Trump said in the highlight of his speech. "In Afghanistan and Iraq, nearly 7,000 American heroes have given their lives. More than 52,000 Americans have been badly wounded. We have spent more than $7 trillion in the Middle East."

Trump has cited these sad statistics many times. In recent weeks, he appears to have renewed his commitment to acting on them. It was therefore noteworthy he repeated his calls to withdraw from Syria and begin to draw down troops in Afghanistan, our country's longest war.

"As a candidate for president, I loudly pledged a new approach," Trump said. And here it was: Declare victory and bring our courageous men and women home.

Trump crowed that the United States and its allies against ISIS "have liberated virtually all of that territory from the grip of these bloodthirsty monsters." The difference is what he said next."Now, as we work with our allies to destroy the remnants of ISIS, it is time to give our brave warriors in Syria a warm welcome home."

In Afghanistan, Trump pledged talks with the Taliban that would have caused a Republican meltdown under former President Barack Obama. There too Trump said that "the hour has come to at least try for peace."

Trump called for bipartisanship throughout his speech, but didn't flinch from taking shots at the Democrats. He condemned socialism, once again in fashion among progressives. He made note of comments by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam-currently in the headlines for other reasons-in defense of late-term abortions bordering on infanticide. He was booed as he warned of the migrant caravans massing at the southern border.

While Trump credited the economic boom to the enactment of the agenda he shared with congressional Republicans-"historic" tax cuts and deregulation, energy innovation, and the repeal of the penalty enforcing Obamacare's individual mandate, making House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hesitate to applaud low unemployment figures-his wedge issues against the Democrats were more distinctively Trumpian.

Trump defended his tariffs and urged Congress to ratify the trade pact with which he would "repeal and replace" NAFTA. He called for a robust infrastructure program and efforts to tamp down on drug prices that would only only partially be endorsed by free-market conservatives. He said he would pull out of the Middle East and guard the southern border.

The president's apparently ad libbed endorsement of "record" legal immigration isn't exactly what some of his more populist supporters want, though it is consistent with his rhetoric on the issue dating back to the early days of his campaign. He has given serious restrictionists a place at the table but has mostly doubled down on the politically smart yet oversimplified Republican talking point that the only immigration problem that America faces stems from its frequent illegality.

Even on foreign policy, Trump's appeals to the nation's war-weariness sat uneasily alongside his hawkishness on Iran and perhaps Venezuela, his junking of arms control treaties, and the unmentioned atrocities in Yemen. It is clear, however, that Trump would prefer to go down in history as a dealmaker-even a peacemaker.

"If I had not been elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea," Trump said. "Much work remains to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong Un is a good one."

Trump had clever lines designed to make even the sea of liberal women dressed in white in protest stand to applaud, including his tribute to their unprecedented numbers in Congress (thanks in no small part to the Resistance). But foreign policy and ending the wars gives him the best chance at a meaningful bipartisan achievement as the Democratic Party's center of gravity shifts from Hillary Clinton to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and perhaps even Tulsi Gabbard.

Intense opposition to Trump has liberal hawks flying again too. And Trump almost certainly had more leverage to accomplish his less conventionally Republican goals when he first took office than now, when Democrats think they have him on the ropes and many GOP insiders agree.

Nevertheless, Trump made the case that renewing American greatness means summoning it to peace. That could be a winning message for a Republican candidate in 2020 too.

W. James Antle III is editor of The American Conservative.

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Making America Great Again Means Ending the Wars

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"Great nations do not fight endless wars," declared President Donald Trump to bipartisan applause belied by many of the assembled lawmakers' actual voting records. The State of the Union address is often where presidential promises go to die. This is especially true once at least one house of Congress is controlled by the opposition party.

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Rev. Al Sharpton: Stacey Abrams represents the 'New America'

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Democrats have tapped George candidate for Governor, Stacey Abrams, for the high profile role for rebutting Trump's first State of the Union address before a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.

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As the daughter of an immigrant, my American Dream is dead

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As the daughter of an immigrant, my American Dream is dead

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The life one woman has carved out for herself stands in stark contrast to that of her immigrant father

What happens when a daughter's American Dream doesn't coincide with her father's? Fabian Fauth/Unsplash

I ogle the total at the bottom of my wedding expenses spreadsheet for the fourth or fifth time. I laugh at the number rather than cry. I check the amount in my savings account. I laugh again.

My mother, who is at the stove sautéing onions for a Portuguese soup, hears me, sets down her ladle and looks over my shoulder. Her caramel eyes fill with tears, and she uses the battered dish rag she flopped over her shoulder to wipe them.

"I wish I could help more," she says through sniffles. "I want to give you everything. Your father and I..."

She stops there. She doesn't need to finish the sentence. If she did, she would say that now that my father is dead, everything has changed. Instead, I tell her, "I know," and cover her hand with mine.

What if my father hadn't died? What would my mother's life look like today?

My father emigrated to the U.S. when he was 18 from the small island of São Jorge, Azores-an archipelago off the coast of Portugal. As the son of a poor dairy farmer, he had wild dreams of streetlights and skyscrapers and success. He settled in the suburbs of Boston, MA, and began accumulating odd jobs cleaning offices and pumping gas. After meeting my mother at a Portuguese feast and quickly marrying her, he knew he needed to find more serious work if he was going to support a family.

He formed contacts with anyone who would listen to his broken English-plumbers, electricians, construction workers-mainly, other immigrants. He found work for a local flooring company, but his nights and weekends were filled with jobs for friends who were less handy than he. Those friends had friends of friends. Eventually, my father had enough clients to strike out on his own. For nearly two decades, Lino Chaves Flooring thrived and so did our budding family of five. My father truly was the epitome of the American Dream.

But dreams are fragile. They shatter as easily as glass.

In 2007, two weeks before my freshman year of college, my family was visiting relatives in São Jorge. Three days before our scheduled departure, my father and uncle were in a car accident. My uncle survived. My father did not.

In an instant, our family's breadwinner was gone with no life insurance to sustain us. My mother, a stay-at-home mom, was left with nothing but her hands and a weakening back. Soon enough, when the savings she and my father had put away were nearly depleted, she went back to the life she led before my father built his flooring business: cleaning to support me and my two siblings.

The skin on her fingers cracked with all the bleach she sprayed on miniature daycare toilets. Her knees shone red and her lower back burned from all the mopping, vacuuming and dusting. For many years I begged her to find less laborious work. An office assistant? A service clerk? But with no more than a high school diploma, she shooed me away.

"I'm not like you, Sarah," she'd say.

In other words, her life was built with her hands and not her mind. I remember the admiration in her eyes when she saw my father's blisters, bulging biceps, sweat-stained T-shirts. She was in awe of his physicality, the bodily strength that sustained him.

Me? I remember pitying my father. I remember my thirst to build a life that wouldn't mirror my parents'.

But where has this thirst led me?

I recheck my wedding spreadsheet. When, once again, I get the feeling that I might cry instead of laugh, I close my laptop. In the upstairs living room, there's a bottle of Chivas Regal whiskey tucked away in a wall-to-wall mahogany entertainment center my father built. It is a giant bottle that is heavier than a small toddler. As I am my father's first and only daughter, he bought it to be opened on my wedding day. I let my fingers trail the edges of the wood, collecting dust as they go. I heave the bottle off the shelf and hold it close to my chest. I carry the bottle like a baby as I walk about the room, admiring my father's handiwork. The entertainment center. The floors. The staircase. The thin spindles on the banister.

I think about my own home-a basement apartment with no familial heirlooms or extra rooms to build a family. I have no idea when my fiancé and I will be able to afford the down payment on a house of our own, let alone have enough money to create the type of home my father built.

I have degrees, a bachelor's in writing and a master's in English, something my mother and father never sought. It was my dream to turn away from labor, to turn away from the calluses and cracks that defined my parents' hands. My hands are soft, my fingernails bitten. My hands show a map of endless typing for writing I have long since forgotten, an endless banter of words that no longer echo.

Is this the life my father envisioned for me when he first held me in his arms? It is a life without labor and an education beyond anything he could have imagined, but it is a life chained by debt. I fear I have dug myself into a pit so deep I cannot climb out. Student loan bills with added interest. Maxed out credit cards. Increasing rent. A humble teacher's salary.

My degrees hang on the wall next to the bookcase in the same room. I stand in front of the glass frames and catch my meager reflection. Is this all I have built for myself? It seems insignificant in comparison to my father's accomplishments. I look down at the whiskey bottle still in my hand. Its weight, and meaning, overpowers me. I hobble over to the center and set it down in its place.

In a few short months, the bottle will be opened. Surely, there will be tears amid the clinking of raised glasses. I will cry, too, for my father who isn't there, but also for the dream that has gone with him.

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As the daughter of an immigrant, my American Dream is dead

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The life one woman has carved out for herself stands in stark contrast to that of her immigrant father I ogle the total at the bottom of my wedding expenses spreadsheet for the fourth or fifth time. I laugh at the number rather than cry. I check the amount in my savings account.

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Legal immigrants say the American Dream is a white privilege

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Legal immigrants say the American Dream is a white privilege

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The longest government shutdown in U.S. history has come to an end - for now. And through it all, accusations of racism were never far from the mouths of Trump haters.

Two Fridays ago, students from a Kentucky Catholic high school discovered that wearing red Make America Great Again hats in public is a gesture of aggression, not to mention an act of racism, sexism, xenophobia, bigotry, and oppression.

This is a narrative the mainstream media has eagerly weaved for the past few years. Not surprisingly, they rushed to condemn the teenagers and were quickly proven wrong. A frequent CNN political commentator even said the MAGA hats worn by the Kentucky teenagers are as "maddening and frustrating and triggering" to look at as a KKK hood.
LAWMAKERS BEGIN BORDER SECURITY NEGOTIATIONS AMID TEMPORARY GOVERNMENT FUNDING DEAL
Yet even before the Kentucky teenagers splashed onto the national scene, Trump haters insisted that the president's call for a southern border wall is a symbol of his racism against brown people.

Few, however, have bothered to pay attention to a core principle the Trump administration has repeatedly emphasized in the immigration debate. It is, as scholar John Fonte points out, "the principle of government by consent of the governed, or democratic sovereignty."

Legal immigrants are increasingly reluctant to let the worshippers of identity politics speak for them.

"Do free peoples have the right to determine their own immigration policy," Fonte asked on a panel discussion at the Hudson Institute in Washington last summer, "or will this be determined for them, [including]...by the migrants themselves, arriving without the consent of the people?"

This is a fundamental, and existential, question for Americans. And in recent months, it has become an even more urgent one, as caravans of migrants arrived on the southern border demanding entry, with some of them scaling fences, climbing walls, and attacking Border Patrol agents.

Trump haters have responded by ramping up their hysteria and obsession with racism. Increasingly, however, legal immigrants are reluctant to let the worshippers of identity politics speak for them. In 2017, a group of legal immigrants from China founded the Maryland Chinese American Network (MD-CAN) to oppose to the sanctuary laws proposed in their state.

Members of the organization spent years navigating the U.S. immigration system, going through cumbersome screening processes, making financial and personal sacrifices, and waiting in line to become citizens of this country. They did not simply walk across the border or overstay their visas.

Zhenya Li, a founding member of MD-CAN, is a Trump supporter who is quick to point out the difference between legal and illegal immigrants. Li and her fellow activists have repeatedly emphasized their respect for this country's rule of law and the unfairness of selective immigration enforcement. Since its founding, MD-CAN has successfully defeated sanctuary laws proposed on the state and local levels in Maryland.

Unlike Li, Trump haters often refuse to even ponder the appeal and logic of Trump's agenda. Instead, they have shamelessly and regularly showered verbal abuse and physical threats against Trump supporters - as we saw most recently with the Catholic high school students from Kentucky.

Meanwhile, Trump critics of the non-violent persuasion have self-righteously flung their political bias and intellectual intolerance far and wide, accusing the president-and those who support his call for building a wall-of racism or enabling it. As CNN's Don Lemon argued recently, even if a Trump supporter is not a racist, he "certainly had to overlook racism and bigotry."
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These detractors, however, have been willfully blind to what lies at the heart of Trump's political revolution: an abiding faith in the American Dream, and an unabashed belief that its pursuit is a privilege, not an entitlement.

Further, they are even blinder to what the legal immigrants who make up MD-CAN know so well: the privilege of pursuing the American Dream must be granted by the consent of the governed in this country, not by the aspiring immigrants themselves.

There is nothing racist about that.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM YING MA

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Legal immigrants say the American Dream is a privilege, not an entitlement

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The longest government shutdown in U.S. history has come to an end - for now. And through it all, accusations of racism were never far from the mouths of Trump haters. Two Fridays ago, students from a Kentucky Catholic high school discovered that wearing red Make America Great Again hats in public is a gesture of aggression, not to mention an act of racism, sexism, xenophobia, bigotry, and oppression.

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Ongeveer 4% van de ter dood veroordeelden in Amerika achteraf onschuldig blijkt te zijn

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Ongeveer 4% van de ter dood veroordeelden in Amerika achteraf onschuldig blijkt te zijn

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70,7 procent van de Amerikanen overgewicht of obesitas

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70,7 procent van de Amerikanen overgewicht of obesitas

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The American Dream Isn’t for Black Millennials

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The American Dream Isn’t for Black Millennials

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Opinion | The American Dream Isn't for Black Millennials (Published 2019)

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What I learned from talking to more than 70 of my peers - and trying to buy a house.

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Younger generations and the American Dream

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Younger generations and the American Dream

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Mortgage Rates, Mortgage News and Strategy : The Mortgage Reports

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Done with the dream?

Fewer young people are considering homeownership a part of their American Dream - and it's not just high home prices to blame. According to two new surveys, distrust of mortgage lenders, the economy and fear of natural disaster are all factoring in.

Verify your new rate (Jan 29th, 2019)

Survey says

According to two new surveys, young Americans are becoming more and more wary of buying a home. One survey from Trulia shows the share of 18 to 34-year-olds who consider homeownership a part of their "American Dream" has dropped to 71 percent - down 9 percentage points in the last four years.

Trulia Senior Economist Cheryl Young explains: "The share of young Americans that say homeownership is part of their personal American Dream is falling, likely driven lower by increasing housing costs and a series of obstacles - from student loan debt to unsteady employment - that their older peers don't have to contend with."

A second survey, this one from mortgage lender Eave, shows 81 percent of Americans think the American Dream is on "life support."

Verify your new rate (Jan 29th, 2019)

Homeownership hold-ups

Both surveys reveal a number of factors at work in this waning optimism. According to the Trulia survey, down payments, poor credit and inability to qualify for a mortgage are the top hurdles.
No, you don't need 20 percent down - or even close to it
Eave's survey shows distrust of lenders, an overwhelming loan process and the overall stress of buying to be top barriers. A whopping 35 percent said they'd rather go on a juice cleanse than go through the home buying process. Another 15 percent said they'd prefer to break a bone.

In fact, according to Eave's findings, a huge chunk of young Americans would be willing to make serious sacrifices to make the home buying process easier. More than a quarter would give up all streaming services or their favorite vice.
How student loan debt hurts Millennial homebuyers
Get today's mortgage rates

With home price growth slowing and digital mortgage experiences on the rise, it seems many of these young Americans' homebuying struggles could ease in the coming years. Want to join the ranks and achieve your American Dream? Then shop around and see what mortgage rates you qualify for today.

Verify your new rate (Jan 29th, 2019)

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Younger generations on the fence about American Dream; here's what's holding them back | Mortgage Rates, Mortgage News and Strategy : The Mortgage Reports

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Fewer young people are considering homeownership a part of their American Dream - and it's not just high home prices to blame. According to two new surveys, distrust of mortgage lenders, the economy and fear of natural disaster are all factoring in.

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Volgens de Daily Mail vertelde Malek na afloop van de SAG Awards zondagavond backstage aan reporters het bijzondere verhaal over de begindagen van zijn filmcarrière.

„Op een dag werd ik ineens gebeld door de castingdirector van Gilmore Girls", zei de vertolker van Freddie Mercury in de Queen-biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. „Dus na jarenlang mijn cv met foto in pizzadozen proppen, werd ik eindelijk gebeld voor een job. Ik ben naar haar kantoor gegaan en heb de rol later die avond gekregen."

Malek maakte in 2004 zijn debuut in de tv-serie voordat hij bij het grote publiek doorbrak als museum-farao Ahkmenrah in de film Night at the Museum uit 2006.

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Rami Malek bezorgde pizza's met eigen cv erin

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Van pizzabezorger tot award-winnende acteur, het lijkt wel de American dream. Rami Malek, winnaar van een Golden Globe- en SAG Award, deed het. De acteur bekende dat hij, in de hoop op werk, vroeger zijn cv in de dozen stopte van de pizza's die hij bezorgde.