Jorge Masvidal UFC fighter shares Latino perspective for President Trump

Washington Post Threat "No Biden, No Peace"

 

 

As disgusting as much of the media has become, the Washington Post has hit a new low. 

 

 In a new op-ed written by Rosa Brooks, a law professor at Georgetown University, the Left is telling us that unless Biden wins big, there will be a major insurrection and violence galore. Now remember, Ms. Brooks is a law professor in a major university. Based on an article she wrote for the far Left Atlantic, she's no big fan of our police either. And here, she's advocating for street violence as a tool to threaten voters. 

 Now, she doesn't exactly say so. What she hides this behind is that these are simply the results of 'research' by the Transition Integrity Project, something she cofounded. What they did was to construct series of 'war game's, hand pick some participants, and ask them to say what they would do in various election scenarios. And of course, a landslide for Joe Biden (whom she obviously supports, just like the Wapo) results in a relatively orderly transfer of power. 

Every other scenario that she'war-gamed' for the hand picked participants resulted in street-level violence and chaos. My, my. So it's quite clear that the American left is actually threatening the American public, 'vote Joe or it'll be hell.' And they're using a major newspaper to do it. 

 Actually, this is no secret. It's what the Left has been up to for the last 3 years. Now they're forewarning us directly just in case we haven't gotten the message yet. To those of us who have actually following what's been going on, this is what everything they have been doing this year has been to give a taste of what they have in store if they don't get their way. All of their behavior has been headed towards this. It's all been planned.In other words, they have had a strategy to attempt to intimidate you, manipulate you and scare you.

And now they're being open about it. Their message is simple. Just vote for Biden and get rid of Trump and you'll stay safe. Cross us, and it will be hell. If Trump gets re-elected, theyare saying, 'll be even worse than it is now. 

They're being very open about this. They’re just coming right out and telling you now that if Biden doesn't win, then your country is going to be violent and chaotic. And since this garbage was published at the Washington Post, they stand behind it.

 

 

 Will it really be that bad if Trump wins? Let's look at that. In the first place, let's remember that this stuff has only occurred in areas run by the Democrats, with mayors who handcuff their police, Governors with political reasons for letting things get crazy, and cities with far left  city councils and District attorneys who will drop charges and let violent rioters leave scot free. Many of them were bankrolled by tax free 'social justice organizations' run by George Soros. 

If you notice, there hasn't been anything like this in places with Republican mayors and city councils, governers or DA's. In Texas, for instance, there was a small fracus in Austin, definitely a blue run city. It didn't last long, the perps were promptly arrested and that was that. So what we would see,essentially is a temper tantrum in blue run jurisdictions. As a re-elected President Trump could definitely exercise the Insurrection statutes to stop it.

 We have a choice. We can cower to this blackmail and elect a figurehead President who will take his orders from his far left puppet masters. I guarantee they will destroy our economy, kill our second amendment, raise our taxes and destroy our suburban neighbrhoods and turn America into something very different in terms of our individual freedoms and liberty.

Trust me when I say that the 'safety' they're promising you will not be very safe at all. Just look at the cities they already run! They aren't very safe at all. Or we can stand up to these freedom hating, Marxist loving Lefties and keep America on the path we have already started on, one of prosperity, lower taxes, individual freedom, school choice, opportunity and policies that consider America first. Oh yes, and a president who stands up for America and is a real leader. 

 

Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications

Forum: Should The U.S. Leave The UN?

Every Monday, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:Should The U.S. Leave The UN?

James Kirwan: Good question. I believe the US should leave the organization and turn the building into rent-controlled apartments on Turtle Bay to help alleviate the dearth of affordable apartments in NYC. I’d love to see the General Assembly turned into a food court: they could even keep the flags if they add Panda Express and Taco Bell.

The truth is the current administration could simply walk out of the organization. Nikki Haley would resign her position and the President and Secretary of State would refuse to submit her replacement. Since the position is appointment, there is nothing Congress could do about it.

If Congress wanted to support the move, it could defund the organization by submitting and approving legislation to the President to do that. During both Bush administrations the USA withheld dues to the organization, but succeeding presidents Clinton and Obama reversed those moves.

Such moves would be temporary. The next Democratic administration could simply return to the organization by paying the dues and appointing a UN Permanent Representative.

Permanently leaving the UN would be a major change in diplomatic policy, and major changes are difficult to get done in a huge, bureaucratic organization with checks and balances built in. There would be significant bureaucratic resistance to doing so, with every step likely fought in the courts. It would take years and require like-minded Democrats - something that I don’t see happening without a major screw up by the UN. And an organization that promotes anti-Semitism, protects child rapists, and is incapable of protecting villages from genocide or the world from a nuclear North Korea proves it has staying power after some pretty serious screw ups.

But the truth is that the UN has little clout and with each scandal it loses more. Perhaps the best solution from the perspective of those of us who want the USA to leave the UN is to ignore it and allow the organization to sink into complete irrelevance through its own mistakes.


Now Renting - Great Location and Excellent Views

Doug Hagin:WE should leave post haste frankly. The UN (Useless nations, as I call it) is a nest of miscreant nations which always seem to favor dictators and terrorists while bad mouthing the western nations. Especially the US and Israel.


Rob Miller: Why now? Why not 30 years ago?

The UN was a good idea on its face after WWII. Unfortunately, FDR, the first world leader to recognize the Soviet Union insisted that 'Uncle' Joe Stalin have a major seat at the table and a veto. President Truman had a whole host of Soviet sympathizers and outright spies like Alger Hiss advising him that he inherited from FDR's administration. So he likewise compounded this grave error, even giving Soviet satellites who were basically colonies of the USSR their own seats and votes. Big mistake...totalitarian dictatorships never play well with democracies. That of course opened the door for all sorts of dictatorships and failed states to destroy the original premise like termites while milking western democracies for all kinds of cash.

The UN Human Rights Commission(UNHRC) was always one of the laughable misnomers ever. It was constantly dominated by some of the most despotic countries in history, and it's main objective, really, was demonizing Israel which made it a great group to be part of as far as Barack Hussein Obama was concerned.

A year year after it was established, in 2007, the UNHRC passed what they called Permanent Agenda Item 7. What it did was to establish a separate standard for judging anything Israel did. It provided a platform to automatically 'investigate' Israel and condemn it for just about anything it did to defend itself, while taking for granted any Palestinian libel against Israel.

In other words, special standards for Jews and Israel and a different one for say, Iran, Venezuela or Pakistan. There's a word for that.

To show you how this worked in practice, out of 135 resolutions the UNHRC passed, 68 of them condemned Israel for 'human rights violations.' By contrast, Iran was mentioned just six times.

UN organizations like UNESCO and UNWRA operate on similar levels. They're all simply just money pits for the U.S. taxpayer.

We get nothing out of it, and nothing of any value whatsoever is accomplished based on the UN's original goals. There's no reason for America to stay in the UN.




Laura Rambeau Lee: With a total of 193 member nations, the United States is assessed 22% of the United Nations regular budget and 28% of its peace keeping budget, which they calculate as our “fair share” contribution to this organization. This translates to over eight billion dollars annually our government is taking of our hard earned tax money which is being turned over to be redistributed to other member nations as they see fit. The United Nations is at the forefront of the climate change hoax, which is a scheme to redistribute wealth from developed to developing countries. Even more insidious is the impact the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has on our educational system. What started out as the International Baccalaureate programme, a high school charter school, now has programs beginning in elementary school and continues through middle and high school. The agenda has been to promote cultural diversity and indoctrinating our youth to believe they are citizens of a global community. This is pure Marxist and collectivist ideology and it is being inserted into much of the curriculum to which our children are being exposed. We should absolutely pull ourselves and our money out of the United Nations and get the United Nations out of the United States.


Well, there it is!

Make sure to drop by every Monday for the WoW! Magazine Forum. And enjoy WoW! Magazine 24-7 with some of the best stuff written in the 'net. Take from me, you won't want to miss it.

Getting Serious About Syria

The bleeding orifice known as Syria has once again erupted, due to a chemical weapons attack in Douma that took a number of civilian lives, or so it seems.I say this because media has become a weapon in modern warfare, the Sunni Syrian rebels are more than capable of rigging something up and as the self inspecting Iranians would tell you about the pictures and videos they send to the IAEA as 'compliance,' such things are very easy to stage.

President Trump has promised 'a high price' for the attack, referred to Syria's dictator as 'that animal Assad,' (why slander animals?) and actually took the opportunity to cite Putin as responsible. I suppose that was just for domestic politics.

To date there was one very successful air raid on a Syrian regime airbase east of Homs which was crawling with Iranians. Putin reportedly says it was the work of the always effective Israeli air force, but my Lil' Birdies in Israel just gave a wry chuckle when I tried to confirm this. My guess is that it very well might have been, given the Iranian connection, but if it was, the IDF likely had other reasons rather than retaliating for the gas attack. One of them was probably to send a direct message to Iranian President Rouhani, who's been doing some chest pounding lately that Israel is not prepared to let them turn Syria into another Gaza or Lebanon.

Meanwhile, a second guided missile U.S. destroyer, the USS Porter has been sent to the Syrian coast to join the USS Donald Cook, a similar ship already there.

What happens next is anyone's guess.

Needless to say, the whole assortment of isolationist paleo cons, pro-Iran leftists and Israel haters in general are screaming bloody murder. They want us out of Syria yesterday. John Bolton being named National Security Advisor made them particularly insane.

But no matter matter what happened or didn't happen in Douma, pulling out of Syria would be a huge strategic error and a bad mistake. Here's why.

Syria was where ISIS got its start emerging from a group of 'moderate' Sunni rebels who were mostly al-Qaeda, its affiliates like al-Nusrah or other Islamists and salafists. Obama, along with his BFF Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Qatar armed, trained and financed these people, bypassing congress in the process.

As he was leaving, our now ex-president was careful to drop the mess into other hands, stating that it would take years to defeat ISIS and take back the territories they help in Syria and Iraq. President Trump said it could be done in a matter of months and did exactly that. Our allies in that effort were the Kurds. The Iraqi army that dropped their weapons and ran from ISIS before were mostly useful in mopping up afterwards.

When Obama was president, he gave the Kurds just enough ammo and supplies to barely hold their own. The Israelis, with long time close connections with the Kurds were able to supply some more. And When Donald Trump came in and put US air, naval and ground forces into the equation, the Kurdish Persh Merga played a key role in destroying ISIS on the ground and driving them out of their Iraqi and Syrian strongholds.

Their reward was to have the Shi'ite Iraqi government steal the oil rich city of Kirkuk, violating the original Iraqi federation agreement and making a Kurdish state even within the federation financially impossible. And for the Turks to attack them and seize Kurdish territory in Syria's northern border region.

Here's the present situation. The Turks have retreated after being 'urged to do so' by Iran's President Rouhani. The U.S. still has about 2,000 ground troops in Syria, mostly embedded with Kurdish forces, which also include Yazedi and Christians as well as civilians.

Aside from the certain bloodbath, if we leave we hand Iran a major victory, a land passage between their colony in Iraq and their colony in Lebanon. And we give them access to the Mediterranean. Also, we would give Iran yet another reason to consider the US an easy foe who is afraid of them.

Finally, it would mean that the Kurds, our true allies would be destroyed.

History gives us numerous examples of what happens to world powers who allow their allies to be neutralized and liquidated. Or even worse, co-opted to fighting on the other side.

Czechoslovakia in 1938 had a strong, well trained and well armed military, excellent border fortifications and protective terrain in the mountain passes and dense forests bordering Germany. They even had a major arms manufacturer in Skoda, comparable to Krup. Hitler could never have attacked the west successfully with that on his borders, because it would have meant a two front war, something he and the Germans dreaded and weren't ready for.

When Britain and France sold out the Czechs, not only did they ensure that Hitler would attack them when he was ready, but that Britain and France were so frightened of war that they would do anything to prevent it. And it also sent a message to Stalin, who had been talking earnestly to Britain and France about an alliance or mutual defense pact to keep the Germans at bay that a non-aggression pact with Hitler was a far better bet.

At the start of the Punic Wars, Carthage allowed its allies in Sicily to be destroyed simply because a war might cost two much money. Sicily's resources and manpower were denied to them, as were its ports, shipyards and its strategic position within easy sailing range of Carthage heading south and close to Rome heading Northeast. While the Carthaginians won (or tied, depending on how you see it) the first Punic War, they lost the others once Rome had a navy. Had they backed their Sicilian allies, Hannibal might have invaded from the south in easy distance to Rome instead of having to leave from Spain, travel the Alps and lose a portion of his men and war elephants in the process before he ever was able to fight in Italy.

There are numerous other examples.

But what about the Russians?

Putin's main interest in Syria is twofold. The main thing for him is the warm water ports at Tarshish and Latakia. Secondary is appeasing his Iranian allies. And when it comes to Iran, Putin's position is by necessity somewhat ambivalent. The U.S. pulling out of Syria is not really in Russia's best interest.

He understands that the Israelis will simply not allow Iran to put missile or air bases in Syria. If a hot war breaks out, Russian personnel will be caught in the middle of it, and if Russia intervenes and is involved in a proxy war on Iran's side, the U.S. will do the same with Israel, and Russia can't afford a war just now. Or really, to alienate Israel, with whom Russia still has relatively cordial relations.

As I pointed out previously, during the Obama years Russia and Israel put together an actual hotline between the Kremlin and it's equivalent in Tel Aviv. The idea was to avoid conflicts and any casualties for Russian personnel. And part of it involved Russia agreeing to turn a blind eye to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah or Iranians or weapons shipments going to these parties as long as no Russians got killed. The agreement has worked well so far. Even though Putin claims the Israelis bombed that air base and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called it “a very dangerous development” Putin hasn't done anything about it, nor would it serve him or Russia to do so.

Even less to Russia's liking, President Trump is not Obama and might just decide to fix America's Iran problem once and for all.

So given some access to the ports and actual negotiations with the president on settling the Syria question, Putin would likely be willing to cut a deal...given the alternatives.


As for Syria's ultimate destiny, I'm ambivalent as long as Iran is kept out of the picture, which is vital for U.S. interests. Just rebuilding its infrastructure after the war is going to take billions, which I see no reason for the American taxpayer to shell out...no nation building, please. If anything, Syria should become the new Kurdistan, at least a decent piece of it. They're owed at least that much, at least.

Trump Politicizing Our Military? The Real Story

President Trump politicizing our military? Here's the real story.

President Trump is currently being demonized for 'politicizing our military' and for his supposedly uncaring attitude when making a condolence call to the widow of a Green Beret Army sergeant, one of four American servicemen killed in an ambush by Islamic militants in Niger.

The fire is being stoked by a notoriously racist and partisan black Democrat congresswoman, 75-year-old Frederica Wilson (D-FL).



She's claiming that the president was "heartless" and that "This is a sick man who feels no pity or sympathy for anyone."

Far Left Democrat Senators Bernie Sanders and Tammy Duckworth chimed in as well of course with similar language, and I'm sure there will be more of them. After all, it takes this particular story out if the headlines . That story is an account of the FBI's findings in their investigation of the massive Russian bribery given to the Clintons before our then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed off on giving Moscow control of more than 20 percent of America’s uranium supply.And how the Obama Department of Justice, run by Loretta Lynch, stonewalled the initial investigation.

This, by the way, comes after the FBI mysteriously 'found' over thirty pages of notes about Lynch's secret meeting on the airport tarmac with former President Bill Clinton after saying in court that no notes existed. It seems they discussed a lot more than grandchildren.

You'd think these stories would be screaming headlines if there was any journalistic integrity among the usual suspects. But no...some rabidly partisan nonsense about a condolence call is what they deem the peasants need to be informed of, right?

Oh, the insensitive remarks? Here's what they consist of...that President Trump referred to the soldier as 'Your guy' during the phone call instead of calling him by name, and that the president said, "He (the sergeant) knew what he signed up for, but it's tough just the same."

Let's remember that personal condolence calls from the president of the United States are not mandatory, and some presidents have preferred to simply have a letter mass printed and auto signed.The fact that President Trump took some time from his busy schedule to make a personal condolence call to a Gold Star widow is both honorable and admirable.

And if this was actually what was said, does it sound remotely cold or disrespectful? It's obvious that the president is making reference to the bravery of a widow's husband,who knew full well what he was facing but chose to serve, and an expression of empathy over her loss.

But it does serve to help bury the stories exposing the corrupt Clintons and the collusion of the Obama Administration, doesn't it? Oh look, a squirrel!



And if we're talking about politicizing military casualties, let's look at a president who actually did it, Barack Hussein Obama. Now, all of the Democrat congress members mentioned in this article were rabid Obama partisans. Let's examine their disgusting hypocrisy, shall we?

• It was President Barack Hussein Obama who used the coffins of returning dead servicemen as a photo op at Dover Airport, something that was against the wishes of the family members and against DOD procedure and policy. He did it anyway.

• It was President Barack Hussein Obama who decided that a priority during the government shutdown in 2013 was to cut the funds congress had already allocated as death benefits for families of military killed in action, and to use them for things more dear to his heart. And he made sure that the families, already worried about paying the mortgage and how the kids were going to afford college received a blatantly political letter informing them that it was all the republican's fault. As everyone knows, it was the president and his team who made the decisions on what was funded and what wasn't, and he made sure to make the maximum in political capital out of it..even when it involved military families wondering how they were going to be able to live.

• It was President Barack Hussein Obama who deliberately had his Justice Department show states how to defy established law and suppress the votes of active duty military overseas simply because they tend to vote Republican.

• It was President Barack Hussein Obama and his administration that turned the VA into a dysfunctional nightmare for our wounded warriors, after he failed to take away their VA benefits entirely.

• And finally, it was commander-in-chief Barack Hussein Obama who concocted the ridiculous rules of engagement in AfPack and Iraq that led to a much greater tally of American fighting men and women not coming home alive. Ask anyone who was there during those years. And it was President Obama who ransomed deserter Bowe Bergdahl for five top level Taliban commanders we had in Gitmo...who went right back to killing Americans

These items show you exactly how distorted and twisted the morality and judgement of these congress members actually is. I defy anyone to show me a single word any of them had to say about these episodes of actually politicizing our military and using them as pawns when they occurred, and all of them were in a position to do so.

Yet they have the audacity, the nerve to whine that Trump's politicizing our military?

Beside that kind of callousness and hypocrisy, anything President Trump may have done or not done in this instance fades into insignificance.

Breaking! Trump Activist Executes Prominent Democrat Neighbor

This is a breaking news item. It  apparently happened a week ago, and unfortunately fits in with the media meme about violent right wing Trump supporters.

According to ABC channel 6 news in Chester County Pennsylvania, Clayton Carter allegedly shot his neighbor, George Jennings, both 51, twice in the head outside his home in Pennsylvania in the early hours of August 8 and murdered him.

Carter was reportedly a huge Trump supporter with pro Trump signs on his lawn and a MAGA hat he frequently wore. Jennings was a prominent Democrat and actually a member of the Chester County Democratic Party Committee, and the two neighbors argued frequently. There was actually a previous gun incident where Clayon had pulled a loaded gun on Jennings, but it was diffused when police arrived.

Many people in the neighborhood spoke to the media about Carter's volatile nature and that they were very apprehensive of what appeared to be frequent fits of rage.

On August 8th Carter accused Jennings of shining a light into his eyes as he was returning home, and went inside to fetch a .380-caliber Ruger semi-automatic handgun. (otherwise know as a revolver).

Carter reportedly went back outside and parked his car up on Jennings’ lawn with his lights on full beam, according to a criminal complaint.

When Jennings came outside, they had words and Carter shot him at close range, knocking him to the ground. He then shot Jennings in the head a second time while standing over his body, as his distraught wife watched from inside the house.

This is exactly the sort of hideous violence on the Right the media has been warning us about. It's exactly what happened in Charlottesville. When will we learn?





Oh wait a minute! Actually, Clayton Carter is a left wing Democrat and Trump Hater with loads of 'resistance ' signs on his lawn And the late George Jennings was a member of the Chester County Republican committee. The rest of the story is as written.

But of course you knew that, right?  If my headline was accurate, it would be the lead story on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and CBS, and tomorrow's front page headline in the WAPO, New York Times, Politico, the L.A. Times...and you know the rest of the list.

Of course, since Clayton Carter is a Democrat and a violent man of the left, the story will be buried quicker than yesterday's dog turds. And the reporters who put this story  out will be sent to the Gulag for some re-education, Da?

In First Encounter, Trump Dominated Putin As They Met For Hours

For the first time ever, President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met face to face, and while the meeting was only supposed to last 30 minutes, they talked together for two hours and 16 minutes. And as always, this picture tells a thousand words about how Trump dominated Putin in their initial meeting. I mean, have you ever seen Putin look less than sure of himself before like this?

Even more revealing was President Trump's opening gambit...he asked president Putin, point blank if Russia had interfered in U.S. elections and continued to press him on the subject. Even bringing this up right at the beginning in his first meeting with Putin and putting him on the defensive showed that President Trump was not at all intimidated by the Russian leader. And Putin denied it, according to secretary of state Rex Tillerson, who was in the meeting with his Russian opposite number Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. According to Secretary Tillerson, election interference was at the top of the agenda..and appears to have surprised the Russians.

That said, as President Trump said afterwards,he and Putin had been 'discussing various things and I think it's going very, very well'"


Among the topics, aside from possible Russian interference in our elections, an agreement on a ceasefire in part of Syria was reached, the two agreed that the entire issue of possible Russian meddling in U.S. elections had become a 'substantial hindrance' to the U.S.-Russia relationship.'

Counter terrorism, an issue the U.S. and Russia have in common was also reportedly discussed as was Ukraine.

One other issue that was undoubtedly discussed was North Korea. The Russians and Chinese have been hedging on this one, offering to 'mediate' in exchange for President Trump removing the THAAD anti-missile systems from South Korea, something President Trump refused to do.

What's most important about this? Two things. First, that Russia's Vladimir Putin now understands that he isn't dealing with a lightweight like Barack Hussein Obama anymore, that President Trump is a completely different kind of leader. And second, that both the U.S. and Russia have apparently decided to put the past behind them and work together on issues of mutual concern.

And that's an important realization for the War on Jihad.

President Trump In Poland 'The West WIll Not be Broken'

President Trump received a warm and enthusiastic welcome when he spoke spoke in front of a large and enthusiastic crowd at Krasinski Square at the Royal Castle in Warsaw at the foot of a statue commemorating the 1944 Polish uprising against German occupiers. He and first lady Melania Trump laid a wreath at its base.

The Polish crowd greeted President Trump with the sort of warmth and enthusiasm the president gets at his rallies, with repeated chants of 'Donald Trump' and 'USA!'

 

And what President Trump had to say to them was almost Churchillian:



Here's a brief excerpt:

"Each generation must rise up and play their part in [their culture's] defense. Every foot of ground and every last inch of civilization is worth defending with your life.

Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield, it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls. Today, the ties that unite our civilization are no less vital and demand no less defense than that bare shred of land on which the hope of Poland once totally rested.

Our freedom, our civilization, and our survival depend on these bonds of history, culture, and memory, and today as ever Poland is in our heart and its people are in that fight.

Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever, be broken. Our values will prevail. Our people will thrive. And our civilization will triumph."

Trump's words had particular impact in this time and place. Poland has always been in the forefront of defending the West, whether is was the Mongols, the Ottoman hordes, the Nazis or the Soviets. The monument in Krasinski Square commemorates a heroic Polish uprising against the Nazis in 1944 that saw something like 200,000 people murdered, almost all of them civilians and Warsaw razed to the ground.

And Poland, since its liberation from the Evil Empire has always been a firm U.S. ally, even sending its soldiers to fight at our side in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their reward, of course, was to be betrayed by Barack Hussein Obama and denied them the anti-missile protection they were promised. To add insult to injury, President Obama's announcement came on September 17th, the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of eastern Poland during World War II in collaboration with the Nazis.

When Polish President Polish president Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, Solidarity leader Anna Walentynowicz,Poland's National Bank President Slawomir Skrzypek, Army chief of staff General Franciszek Gagor were killed in a tragic and somewhat mysterious airplane crash over Russian territory, President Obama almost alone among world leaders declined to attend the funerals.

In another context, Trump's appearance in Poland and at the Three Seas summit* marks a major change in the relationship with what former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld presciently referred to as 'New Europe and the United States. What we're talking about is brand new, stronger ties to the Visograd nations and the Balkan countries.

Aside from the obviously much warmer and friendlier climate with a key ally, President Trump put three very important cards on the table:

• Poland and very likely Czechoslovakia and other Visograd nations are going to finally be able to purchase U.S. Arms, particularly missiles and missile defense elements. And security cooperation is going to be vastly improved.

• President Trump reaffirmed his iron clad commitment to Article 5 of the NATO charter, that an attack on one signatory would be considered an attack on all.

• Poland just received its first shipment of American liquid natural gas. Remember the war between Russia and Georgia? As I pointed out in the story linked above, one big reason for Russia's aggression had nothing to do with South Ossetia but with energy. Russia's biggest 'persuader' when it comes to Europe is the Kremlin's monopoly on the energy export routes to the West from the old parts of its former Soviet empire. The one part the Russians didn't control was the oil and gas pipeline that leads from energy-rich Azerbaijan to Turkey, across Georgia...and it's notable that the Russians bombed it as well as the Georgian port of Poti, neither of which is anywhere near South Ossetia. What President Trump is talking about here is removing a key element of blackmail from Russia's arsenal by all by guaranteeing an alternate supplier to New Europe. And as you'll hear in the joint news conference below, Poland's conservative President Duda has hopes of making Poland a trading corridor for U.S. energy and goods to the rest of the Visograd and Three Seas nations.

• And finally, President Trump is signalling support for New Europe in defying Germany and Angela Merkel on Muslim migrants and even remaining in the EU itself if it comes to that. A recent poll revealed that 70% of the Poles would rather leave the EU that be bullied into importing the same kind of chaos Germany, France, the UK and Sweden among others have brought into  their countries.

Before the speech, President Trump held a joint press conference early Thursday morning in Warsaw with Polish President Andrzej Duda.(skip ahead to 51:53 for the actual joint press conference)

I particularly like the part where some idiot U.S. 'journalist' tries to once again tries to resurrect  the old story about Russia hacking the election, and wasn't the president going to admit that? After all, hadn't 17 U.S. intelligence agencies all come to the same conclusion?

President Trump's reply was a gem.He patiently explained that maybe Russia was involved, but it might also have been at least five other countries. And he also let her in on the fact that it was only three intelligence agencies  that thought Russia was involved, although there was no real evidence yet. And a lot of what he called her 'compatriots' had already had to apologize and correct their stories.And then he lowered the boom...

"Here's the question I want the answer to. The CIA told president Barack Obama that there was a possibility of Russian hacking in the election back in August.  Now th eelection was in Novemeber. That's a long time,but he never did anything about it. Why? His people say he choked, but I think it was because he was sure Hillary was going to win the election and he didn't want to disturb anything."

The reporter immediately blurted out a follow up again insisting that Trump say that Russia was responsible, so President Trump  calmly repeated his answer.

Now as you'll see in the video, President Duda had told the press beforehand that there would only be four questions because he and President Trump had to be at Krasinski Square for the ceremony, but this woman paid no attention, which didn't exactly make her popular with the other reporters. She said pretty much the same thing again, after which President  Trump and President Duda exchanged a brief, weary smile , President Duda made slight gesture and the harridan's microphone was cut off so the two men could leave for a far more important task.  




* The Three Seas summit, convened by the presidents of Poland and Croatia, involves nations situated between the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas and is designed to strengthen trade and economic ties and energy platforms as well as address joint national security. Most of the nations involved have refused to obey German Chancellor Angela Merkel's diktat to open their country's borders to more Muslim 'refugees.' Many of these countries, like Poland have Euroskeptic governments.President Trump's appearance there after his speech was a major coup for the Poles   and  an excellent opportunity for a lot of the leaders of New Europe to meet President Trump forth first time, a vastly different leader than his predecessor.

Now, it's off to the G-20 summit in Germany, where President Trump is, shall we say, far less popular. and of course, a meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin for the first time.  Alpha male meets Alpha male!

Syria - Has Trump Fallen Into The Trap?

 

President Donald Trump ordered two U.S. warships in the Mediterranean Sea, the USS Ross and the USS Porter, to attack a Syrian base. They fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at a single target, Shayrat Airfield in Homs province in western Syria.



President Trump ordered this in response to yet another new atrocity occurring in Syria.
It happened in Idlib province, right next to to Northeastern Lebanon at a place called
Khan Sheikhoun. Dozens of people were reported killed and many injured by what appears to be a Sarin gas attack. Followed by the usual poignant pictures and purple rhetoric.


If I seem callous and cynical about this, it's because what happened at Khan Sheikhoun appears to be following a pattern.

Al-Qaeda in Syria and its allied "moderate rebels" like al-Nusrah are undergoing some serious defeats. Their last offensive on Hama was thrown back with heavy losses. The Russian defense ministry said that more than 2,000 Jihadis had been killed. Another attack on the port city of Latakia was stopped and repulsed by massive Russian air strikes.

The old question Qui bono, who benefits puts this in an entirely different light. First off, we know that there are lots of chemical weapons in Syria, many of them shipped there by Assad's fellow Ba'athist Saddam Hussein in Iraq on the eve of our invasion. Well, not quite on the eve, but during the nineteen month delay that occurred thanks to the Left' s street theater and debates. And who knows what came in to Syria thanks to President Obama's illegal war in Libya? In any event, the shifting nature of the war has ensured that both Assad's forces and the jihadis have access to chemical weapons.

(Snap quiz for all you Obama fans reading this. Your narrative was that our brilliant president confronted Putin and Assad forcefully and made Assad give all his chemical weapons to Russia, remember? 

If that's true, then it can't be the Syrian army who launched this gas attack, right? If it wasn't true, then President Obama was simply the clueless buffoon, ideologue and easy mark he almost always was in anything remotely resembling foreign affairs, yes? Which one was it? Remember to show your work...)

As far as who benefits, it likely isn't Assad. With the assistance of Russia, Hezbollah and Iran, he's been doing quite well militarily lately. The last thing I'd want in his situation would be a gas attack with lots of media coverage right now, especially just two days before another international conference on Syria.

Now the jihadis, those 'moderate Syrian rebels?' Different story. Islamist killers have learned well haw easy it is to manipulate the gullible media and stage atrocities for propaganda purposes. One of those right now has already resulted in a missile attack on a key Syrian base within spitting distance of their strongholds in Idlib.

And yes, this is a pattern. Whenever the jihadis suffer a military defeat or need propaganda, we
 have seen another gas attack or other atrocity with lots of bleeders, especially children.
The exact same thing happened a while ago after the Jihadis suffered military defeats in Ghouta, near Damascus. This was a failed attempt to secure the area south of Damascus for the presumptive no fly zone the Obama Administration had been trying to arrange.

After being hurled back,  the Syrian 'moderates' announced that there had been a massive chemical attack which allegedly inflicted about 1,300 fatalities including hundreds of children. As in previous chemical attacks blamed on the Assad government, the jihadis claimed the attacks used Sarin nerve gas, and they flooded YouTube with videos, especially ones featuring children.

Except there never was any conclusive evidence about the attack or the perpetrators. Even the reports from the jihadis themselves were conflicted. First, the gas was supposedly delivered via missiles. When EU politicians and Obama started yapping about enforcing a no fly zone ala' Libya, all of a sudden the rebels were claiming the gas was delivered by an aerial bombardment - except there was no evidence of shrapnel wounds,par for the course when ot come to  both artillery or airborne attacks of this kind. Mot only that, but  when news of the attacks first went public, the UN delegation and foreign diplomats were denied access to the attack site for a week by the Syrian opposition because it 'wasn't safe' for them.

We also don't know who fired shots at the UN delegation when they were finally allowed to enter the attack site by the Assad regime. It could very well have been Assad's men...but it could also just as easily been the insurgents.

Same story with the Houla massacre that was supposed to have been perpetrated by Assad's troops and had the usual suspects screaming for us to make a 'humanitarian intervention'. It turned out that atrocity was performed by the rebels as a false flag operation.

Please, baby, don't let me be misunderstood. What's going on in Syria is horrible, but by no means uncommon in these parts. War here is war to the knife. We are not dealing with a culture anything like ours. So no matter who actually pulled off the attack on  Khan Sheikhoun, this is normal stuff to the actual  participants, regardless of how we see it. Again, war to the knife.

Which brings me to the next question. Just why did President Trump fire those missiles at Syria and was it a proper response or a huge error? Well, it depends.

If President Trump was trying to send a message to Basher Assad and Vladimir Putin  that he ain't Barack Obama and that if it was them, they had better NOT use gas attacks again, that's one thing. The Russians, by the way, said that the gas was released by an attack on an al-Nusrah jihadi arsenal, which sounds somewhat plausible. Putin's spokesperson,  Dmitry Peskov, also hurried to say that their support for Assad was 'not unconditional.'

From the Associated Press:

Peskov told The Associated Press in an interview that “unconditional support is not possible in this current world,” but added that “it is not correct to say that Moscow can convince Mr. Assad to do whatever is wanted in Moscow. This is totally wrong.”…

Peskov said Russia expects a full international investigation into the attack before the U.N. Security Council considers any resolution condemning the chemical attack that he described as “very tragic.” Doing otherwise, he said, would be “simply unfair in terms of international law.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the toxic agents were released when a Syrian airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons arsenal and munitions factory on the town’s eastern outskirts. Asked what proof Moscow has for that assessment, Peskov said that Russia is the only legitimate foreign power on the ground in Syria and therefore has “more wide information about what is going on there.”

So much for Trump being 'Putin's puppet' hmmm?

On the other hand, if President Trump is using this as an opening gambit to getting us seriously involved in Syria with the idea of regime change, he's making a huge mistake.

First, and most important, what exactly would we be  trying to accomplish in Syria by intervening and promoting regime change? A sovereign Syrian nation under democratic rule that's an ally of the west? It seems to me we've tried that before and failed miserably in every case.

Quite simply, the 'customers' aren't interested in what we're selling. Oh, they'll hold an election here and there if they're bribed by enough western aid money, but it always breaks down along tribal lines because that's what most of these people know and understand. And the inherent culture regards what we consider liberty with fear and loathing, because it diametrically opposes what Islam teaches them. Small wonder it's been such a waste of time, blood and treasure, especially given how we've gone about it.

Syria is a made up, dysfunctional failed state, a few provinces cobbled together after WWI. No one has ever been able to make much of it, Not Alexander, not the Seleucid Greeks, not the Byzantines or even the Ottomans. It produces some agricultural products, has somemanufacturing and a few nice Mediterranean ports. Damascus grew because of the trade routes, but that was literally centuries ago and that no longer exists. At this point, Syria isn't even feeding itself and wasn't when the civil war erupted, which is a huge part of why it erupted, sectarian conflicts aside. As the price of cereal grains and other food staples rose, Assad simply didn't have the money to artificially lower them with subsidies like the Saudis and others did.

There are bad actors on both sides of the sectarian civil war, and no benefit to us to intervene because the killing will go on. It's the reverse of Clausewitz's famous line. In places like Syria War is politics by other means.

If Assad is out of the picture or if we remove him, just watch as the jihadi factions start warring among themselves after they finish killing off the Alawites, Shia, Christians and Druse.

I'm hoping President Trump was just sending a message here. If we intervene in this killing ground it will be a huge mistake. Ditto with taking in 'refugees' like Europe did.

As the well known biblical quote goes, he that troubleth his own house will inherit the wind. I hope President Trump keeps that in mind. There's no gain for America falling into the trap of either importing Syria's dysfunction or investing blood and treasure to make it something it's not.







Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com and other publications.

Lawfare - Revised Trump Travel Ban Blocked Again

President Trump's revised travel ban has been blocked by two far left Obama appointed federal judges in deep Blue states. One of them was actually one of Obama's classmates at Harvard and a good friend of our former president.

Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii and Judge Theodore Chung in Maryland decided to block Trump's clearly legal temporary travel ban on the most spurious of grounds. Regardless on how carefully this was formulated and how much in accordance it is with clearly stated Federal law, both judges (who appear to have communicated between themselves based on the wording of their opinions) somehow found that the new travel ban violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Since the ban doesn't mention religion at all (and all the countries, while predominantly Muslim have significant non-Muslim minorities) these obscene swine in black robes relied not on the substance of the president's executive order, but on their personal interpretation of statements the president made on the campaign trail. They are literally willing to roll the dice and risk the lives of Americans in order to play politics. And rest assured, these so-called judges would be the first to rule in favor of violating that establishment cause by forcing Catholic institutions to pay for abortificants or to harshly penalize a baker of a florist for the heinous crime of refusing to participate in a same sex marriage because of their religious beliefs. Nor did they say a thing about President Obama's travel ban, which was identical to President trump's original executive order.

Here's the president responding to this idiocy in a rally held, appropriately at the Hermitage in Nashville, Tennessee...the home of former President Andrew Jackson. Old Hickory would have undoubtedly approved:





While this judicial overreach will be overturned, it will take literally months before the Supreme Court does so. And in that interval, thousands of unvettable refugees from countries with clear ties to terrorism can be allowed into America.

Based on his remarks, President Trump was all for going with the first travel ban to the Supreme Court, since it was likewise perfectly legal, something I suggested at the time. Between now and when the Supreme Court makes its ruling, the president should immediately suspend all funding and all activity involving the Refugee Resettlement Program, which uses taxpayer dollars to bring refugees form the most anti-Semitic and misogynist countries in the world and settle them in the heartland, complete with green cards, subsidized housing,healthcare and EBT cards.

And what if the President simply decides to defy the court order and proceed anyway? He might be sued,but would a lawsuit be successful? I doubt it, and in any case by the time it gets to court, a Supreme Court decision would make the matter moot.

As former president Andrew Jackson once famously said, "The judges have made their decision. Now let them enforce it."

Additionally, these rogue, Obama appointed judges should be removed by impeachment by Congress, both houses of which are now controlled by Republicans. Or, under the Good Behavior Clause of Article III of the Constitution by way of a writ of scire facias filed before a federal court. If the Left can do judge shopping, so can President Trump. It's time these judges realized there's a cost for being such obviousl political animals and engaging in partisan lawfare and obstruction of justice.

There is no executive order from President Trump, no matter how legal and no matter how common sense that the Left and their judges will not obstruct and oppose. It's time to go on offense.

The Real Story On The Trump Wiretapping - And The Story Behind The Story

President Trump created a firestorm when he accused President Obama of bugging his phones during the campaign. My first thought was that while this was likely, it was a tactical mistake. After all, basic intel 101 is that when you find something like that, you keep quiet about it and use it to feed false intel to your enemies. But as it has turned out, President Trump was correct to go public with this, and in fact it was a brilliant tactical stroke, which is why the Democrats and their trained seal media are suddenly backing away from a real investigation. Because as we'll see, President Trump was 110% correct. And that's going to end up being a major scandal that might even reach as far as former President Obama.

For a novice at politics, President Trump has been demonstrating real mastery of the game. Or perhaps its just that the Democrat media believes it's own horse manure so thoroughly that it still hasn't figured out who Donald Trump is, or how he got elected.

One of President Trump's tactics has been to tweet directly to the American people on various issues, after which the news cycle simply follows him and devotes lots of space to what an idiot he is. After which, facts come out they are forced to report showing that he was totally correct in the matter.He's set them up a number of times, and each time they are more revealed as the partisan whores they are, as opposed to being actual journalists.

The recent Sweden controversy is a good example.Trump was ridiculed for calling out Sweden as a place where taking in thousands of unassimilated, unvetted refugees has resulted in a dangerous situation complete with no go areas. Even the Swedish government weighed in. And then, the next week, Rinkeby, one of those no go areas in Stockholm, saw violent riots break out with the overwhelmed police actually fleeing the Muslim mobs and fires burning unchecked because the area is deemed to be too dangerous for firefighters to enter without police protection. Whole stories and reports on the horrendous situation in Sweden also surfaced to prove that President trump knew exactly what he was talking about.

Trump has done the same thing here.

The 'Russia hacked the election' meme has been part of the Democrat catechism ever since Trump won the election. of course, no less than a certain ex-president said this was impossible...at least when he thought Mrs. Clinton was a cinch to win:



But the Democrats and their media fellow travelers have continued to use this successfully. Funny, no 'reporter' ever asked any of them that since all the polls showed Mrs. Clinton winning, why would Putin and the Russians waste time and energy helping the candidate who was going to lose? Ohhh, why bother asking? The answer's so obvious, n'est pa*?

Aside from using the 'Russia hacked the election' nonsense to try to deligitimize Trump's election, there was another, more insidious reason to keep this fiction recycling itself in the media. And that was to tie President Trump's hands and if possible, keep him from enacting his agenda at least until the 2018 midterms.

The Senate Democrats, led by the odious Chuck Schumer know Majority leader Mitch McConnell quite well by now as the gutless coward he is. They've realized he has no intention of doing what Harry Reid did to force through Obama appointees with the Nuclear option of a simple majority vote. And so, they have been slow walking all of President Trump's cabinet appointees to a degree never seen before. And that's just the beginning. Because of that, as former Speaker Newt Gingrich pointed out on FOX news, President Trump hasn't even been able to begin to fill 2,000 other political vacancies within the administration. That especially affects the Department of Justice.

A number of these positions are now filled by Obama appointees, and most of them can be depended on to do their best to sabotage Trump's agenda as a fifth column behind the scenes.

By tweeting as he did, President Trump focused attention on the bogus 'Russia hacked the election' nonsense. And as usual, after a couple of days of hysterics from the Democrats and their media, coupled with an Orwellian non-denial from Obama's spokesperson, the real facts began to come out as attention was focused on this.

As the BBC reported, the Obama Administration did indeed wiretap the Trump Towers as well as Donald Trump and many of his campaign associates. Back in June of 2016, they applied for a Foreign Intelligence Service Act (FISA) warrant to monitor members of the Trump campaign, but were denied.That,by the way is almost unheard of unless there is no real evidence. Out of 35,000+ requests for surveillance, the FISA court has only ever rejected 12. That also suggests that the evidence was truly non-existent against Trump.

They tried a second time a month later, in July and were rejected again. They tried a third time, before a new judge and succeeded on October 15th, three weeks before the election.

According to what's surfacing now, Obama or someone in his administration  circumvented both the regular command of the FBI and the regularly appointed federal courts, by placing the entire case as a FISA case (probably under Sally Yates at DOJ) as a “foreign” case, and then omitted Trump’s name from the third request for a surveillance warrant submitted to the FISA court, which the court unwittingly granted. And which was then misused to spy on Trump, and many connected to Trump's campaign. It was President Obama, you'll remember who changed NSA policy just before he left office and instructed his security people toshare and preserve intel on this. He may live to regret that.

Additional proof of this comes, ironically, from the New York Times.On January 19th and 20th 2017,when President Trump was inaugurated, the New York Times emphasized the ongoing 'investigation' in a front page story by reporter Michael S. Schmidt:

"American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said.

"The continuing counterintelligence investigation means that Mr. Trump will take the oath of office on Friday with his associates under investigation and after the intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government had worked to help elect him."

"The F.B.I. is leading the investigations, aided by the National Security Agency, the C.I.A. and the Treasury Department’s financial crimes unit. The investigators have accelerated their efforts in recent weeks but have found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said. One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House."

Well, well! Now let's flash forward to March 4, 2017. Lo and behold there's a story in the New York Times with this headline: Trump, Offering No Evidence, Says Obama Tapped His Phones.' The author? Why, reporter Michael S. Schmidt, of course!

It's getting to the point they can't even keep their lies straight any more. Now the same Obama trained media seals who used the press to smear Trump are now demanding that he help them by denying what openly appeared - in the narrative they put out to try and destroy his presidency.

My personal choice for ringmaster of this circus is Obama lackey John Abu Brennan, former head of our CIA. He was almost certainly the 'senior official' referred to by the BBC and made a huge mistake in thinking he could put this out there without Trump calling him on it.As you may have noticed, the media isn't asking John Brennan anything. They're deliberately not putting him on the Sunday shows and the other usual outlets.

Instead, they're pushing Orwellian non-denials from the likes of James Clapper and Obama spokesperson Kevin Lewis. Meet the Press's Chuck Todd simply swallowed Clapper's lame horse manure without a single follow up. He never even asked Clapper to respond to the BBC story. Media whores like Chuck Todd have already gotten their marching orders. This needs to go quietly away. Among other things, Donald Trump just exploded the whole 'Putin hacked the election for Trump' mythology. It can't be safely used anymore.

And there's a good reason why. There are a number of crimes that appear to have been committed

In order to wiretap any American citizen suspected of illegal activity involving foreign intelligence, approval is needed from a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)judge.

FISA, 50 USC 1801 was deliberately designed as a very limited method of obtaining surveillance authority. That's because FISA evades the usual federal court process to authorize surveillance the Fourth Amendment forbids. So the FISA laws are limited and can be applied only for surveillance about pending terror attacks or “grave hostile” situations. So a FISA application can only be used in very limited circumstances. If the application for such a warrant was deliberately constructed with false information, that is a major felony under section 1809, which makes it a crime for anyone to either perform electronic surveillance under “color of law” under FISA  or to disclose or use  the information gathered from it. 

Misusing the FISA system when foreign intelligence is NOT involved is another felony. So is perjury or conspiracy to commit perjury when it comes to say, testimony in congress used to falsely accuse Attorney general Jeff Sessions.


Then there's this. FISA law forbids  the dissemination of the information. But Obama's people issued orders to exactly that, if published reports are true about the administration sharing the surveilled information far-and-wide to promote unlawful leaks to the press.  FISA strictly segregates information gathered by surveillance  into two categories. Either it's  highly confidential, classified intel involving serious espionage,terrorism or  or  acts of war or  it's information that shouldn't have been gathered and needs to be immediately deleted, not  sourced nor disseminated. 

Since the intel gathered in spying on the Trump campaign  wasn't FISA material, it was supposed to have been  deleted and destroyed. Instead, Obama's crew did the opposite,ordering that it be preserved, and ordering the NSA to search it, keep it, and share it. After which Obama’s Attorney General, Loretta Lynch  issued an order to allow broader sharing of information.

That's not anything she would have the authority or the gall to do unless she had received direction - directly for the President, Barack Hussein Obama.

Now you know why the Democrats and their media creatures are backing away from this like a vampire from garlic.

Obama in now in the middle of the worst scandal since Watergate. Even worse, another of his little tricks backfired badly. As I reported earlier, Obama had the attack on Sessions planned way beforehand. He changed the order of succession in the Department of Justice deliberately so that one of his appointees would be in charge of the bogus 'Russia investigation.'

But President Trump, being no fool, did exactly the same thing. So the new acting Attorney General is now Dana Boente, the man Obama removed from succession...and Trump just put him back in charge. Boente is a solid , ethical prosecutor very much along the lines of Jeff Sessions,and he now has the opportunity to make a real name for himself.

The question, of course is "what did President Obama know, and when did he know it?" The rats on this sinking ship are unlikely to be willing to do jail time to protect Obama, at least not all of them. One of the smaller fish is going to talk in exchange for immunity.

Barack Husein Obama may go down in history not just as the first black president but as the first president to be a convicted felon. And he may end up with some interesting company.


* Ain't that the truth?

How The Leftist Media Obsession With Attacking Trump Is Hurting America

 

Victor Davis Hanson, not exactly a Trump cheerleader, has an interesting piece on the subject of fake news. Not only does he call out what he calls ‘the contemporary mainstream media’ as purveyors of fake news, but he accuses them of dereliction of duty when it comes to the role of journalists in a free society, to act as disinterested, neutral reporters who act as a brake on power by informing the American people.

Donald Trump conducted a press conference recently as if he were a loud circus ringmaster whipping the media circus animals into shape. The establishment thought the performance was a window into an unhinged mind; half the country thought it was a long overdue media comeuppance.

The media suffer the lowest approval numbers in nearly a half-century. In a recent Emerson College poll, 49 percent of American voters termed the Trump administration “truthful”; yet only 39 percent believed the same about the news media.

Every president needs media audit. The role of journalists in a free society is to act as disinterested censors of government power—neither going on witch-hunts against political opponents nor deifying ideological fellow-travelers.

Sadly, the contemporary mainstream media—the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN), the traditional blue-chip newspapers (Washington Post, New York Times), and the public affiliates (NPR, PBS)—have lost credibility. They are no more reliable critics of President Trump’s excesses than they were believable cheerleaders for Barack Obama’s policies.

Trump may have a habit of exaggeration and gratuitous feuding that could cause problems with his presidency. But we would never quite know that from the media. In just his first month in office, reporters have already peddled dozens of fake news stories designed to discredit the President—to such a degree that little they now write or say can be taken at face value.

No, Trump did not have any plans to invade Mexico, as Buzzfeed and the Associated Press alleged.

No, Trump’s father did not run for Mayor of New York by peddling racist television ads, as reported by Sidney Blumenthal.

No, there were not mass resignations at the State Department in protest of its new leaders, as was reported by the Washington Post.

No, Trump’s attorney did not cut a deal with the Russians in Prague. Nor did Trump indulge in sexual escapades in Moscow. Buzzfeed again peddled those fake news stories.

No, a supposedly racist Trump did not remove the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the White House, as a Time Magazine reporter claimed.

No, election results in three states were not altered by hackers or computer criminals to give Trump the election, as implied by New York Magazine.

No, Michael Flynn did not tweet that he was a scapegoat. That was a media fantasy endorsed by Nancy Pelosi.

In fact, Daniel Payne of the Federalist has compiled a lengthy list of sensational stories about Trump’s supposed buffooneries, mistakes, and crudities that all proved either outright lies or were gross exaggerations and distortions.

We would like to believe writers for the New York Times or Washington Post when they warn us about the new president’s overreach. But how can we do so when they have lost all credibility—either by colluding with the Obama presidency and the Hillary Clinton campaign, or by creating false narratives to ensure that Trump fails?

Ezra Klein at Vox just wrote a warning about the autocratic tendencies of Donald Trump. Should we believe him? Perhaps not. Klein was the originator of Journolist, a “left-leaning” private online chat room of journalists that was designed to coordinate media narratives that would enhance Democratic politicians and in particular Barack Obama. Such past collusion begs the question of whether Klein is really disinterested now in the fashion that he certainly was not during the Obama administration.

Recently, New York Times White House correspondent Glenn Thrush coauthored a report
about initial chaos among the Trump White House staff, replete with unidentified sources. Should we believe Thrush’s largely negative story?

Perhaps. But then again, Thrush not so long ago turned up in the Wikileaks troves as sending a story to Hillary Clinton aide John Podesta for prepublication audit. Thrush was his own honest critic, admitting to Podesta: “Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u. Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this Tell me if I f**ked up anything.”

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has become a fierce critic of President Trump. Are his writs accurate? Milbank also appeared in Wikileaks, asking the Democratic National Committee to provide him with free opposition research for a negative column he was writing about candidate Trump. Are Milbank’s latest attacks his own—or once again coordinated with Democratic researchers?

The Washington Post censor Glenn Kessler posted the yarn about Trump’s father’s racist campaign for New York mayor—until he finally fact-checked his own fake news and deleted his tweet.

Sometimes the line between journalism and politicians is no line at all. Recently, former Obama deputy National Security advisor Ben Rhodes (brother of CBS news president David Rhodes) took to Twitter to blast the Trump administration’s opposition to the Iran Deal, brokered in large part by Rhodes himself. “Everything Trump says here,” Rhodes stormed, “is false.”

Should we believe Rhodes’s charges that Trump is now lying about the details of the Iran Deal?
Who knows, given that Rhodes himself not long ago bragged to the New York Times of his role in massaging reporters to reverberate an administration narrative: “We created an echo chamber They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.” Rhodes also had no respect for the very journalists that he had manipulated: “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

Is Rhodes now being disinterested or once again creating an “echo chamber”?

His boss, former UN Ambassador and National Security Advisor in the Obama administration, Susan Rice (married to Ian Cameron, a former producer at ABC news), likewise went on Twitter to blast the Trump administration’s decision to include presidential advisor Steven Bannon in meetings of the National Security Council: “This is stone cold crazy,” Rice asserted, “After a week of crazy.”
Is Rice (who has no military experience) correct that the former naval officer Bannon has no business participating in such high strategy meetings?

In September 2012, Rice went on television on five separate occasions to insist falsely to the nation that the attacks on the Benghazi consulate were the work of spontaneous rioters and not a preplanned hit by an al Qaeda franchise. Her own quite crazy stories proved a convenient administration reelection narrative of Al Qaeda on the run, but there were already sufficient sources available to Rice to contradict her false news talking points.

There are various explanations for the loss of media credibility.

(read the rest here)

Trump's Speech To Congress... A Shining Moment in American History

President Donald Trump made a speech last night to a joint session of congress. During the preceding day, the usual suspects in print and broadcast media put out a narrative that Trump's s speech would 'tone down Trump' and show a new 'moderation.' There was talk about Trump compromising on his agenda and accommodating the Democrats (and certain Republicans) on key issues like amnesty for illegal migrants.

What they got was something entirely different.



The best way I can characterize President Trump's magnificent speech - and there is no other word for it-is is shock and awe. It was that rare thing,a speech not only of substance but of inspiration and hope. This one will go down in American political history.

The Left has never really understood Donald Trump, because outside their narrow bubble and identity politics, they don't really understand most Americans. Reassured by their trained seals in the media, it was enough for them to simply assume Trump was a buffoon, a fascist, a racist, what have you and to tune him out. What they expected was capitulation. What the president hit them with was so dynamic, so precise and so powerful that most of them literally didn't know how to process it. And still don't.


The first inkling of this was the 5 minute standing ovation that greeted President Trump as he was introduced and made his way to the podium. True, it was mainly Republicans, joined by the odd Democrat like West Virginia's Joe Manchin. But it was impressive just the same. Most of the Democrats stayed seated with their arms folded.

And then The Donald began to speak and what did he start with? A shout out to black history month, and revealing an agreement he and Canada's PM Justin Trudeau had made to promote and increase support for women entrepreneurs. When he announced that one, Fauxahontas and NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand didn't applaud, but looked at each other like someone had hit them both with a taser. Then they began hanging over each other, whispering together and scribbling notes.

It went on and on, with Trump reminding Americans of what he had promised when he ran and what progress had been made thus far. Without mentioning Obama's name, he didn't to gloss over the mess that had been inherited, but he also pointed out how many signs there were that the country was slowly but surely turning around - the 3 trillion increase in the stock market, and the companies already committed to building, investing and hiring in America. He eviscerated ObamaCare, and talked about what was necessary to replace it and what steps had already been taken. And he explained his positions on trade, tax reform, school choice, illegal migration,national defense and the travel ban in such common sense, effective terms that most Americans understood him immediately.

And most importantly, he threw the ball right at congress, calling for them to end the partisan nonsense and work for the American people to get things done. Or as Trump put it:

Everything that is broken in our country can be fixed. Every problem can be solved. And every hurting family can find healing, and hope.

Our citizens deserve this, and so much more –- so why not join forces to finally get it done? On this and so many other things, Democrats and Republicans should get together and unite for the good of our country, and for the good of the American people.

Needless to say,that got hisses and thumbs down from the Democrats.

You see, Donald Trump accomplished a number of objectives last night. Trump's speech reassured his base that this was not going to be another case of a Republican saying one thing on the campaign trail and another is Washington. And he gave the 20% or so who get their news and views from the likes of CNN, NBC and the Washington Post a chance to see who Donald Trump really is as opposed to the cartoon the Leftist media has created.

He also revealed, on national television exactly what most of the Democrat congress consists of - a bunch of nasty, dysfunctional spoiled children. A particular moment that stood out for me and I think a lot of other people was when President Trump honored the sacrifice of Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens in front of his widow, Caryn:



This was a moment when all real Americans were, or should have been one in honoring an American hero and his grieving widow. Yet many of the Democrats remained seated and did not join in the applause including Debbie Wasserman Schultz and new Assistant DNC head Keith Ellison:




A great many Americans saw this display of heartlessness and frankly, anti-American sentiment. And the story is already spreading about how Democrats have viciously attacked Carryn Owens in social media in the most disgusting terms for being 'a pawn of Trump.'

Odd, we never heard any of them complain about this.

Even Trump's mention of a special DHS group to highlight victims of  illegal migrant violent crime and deal with the perpetrators got boos, groans and hisses from the Democrats.

All else aside, the Donald has just set a nasty trap for the Democrats. For six weeks now they have had a wonderful time exhibiting scorched earth politics and the resistance' which has absolutely delighted their base. They've done their best to obstruct  Trump's cabinet picks in a way that's never been seen before.

During his speech Trump called for congress to work together for the good of the country. Every time he did that, most of the Democrats sat on their hands, hissed  and gave thumbs down, showing how little they care about working together with the president or the Republicans. they even did that when he talked about destroying ISIS, believe it or not.

Democrat Minority leader Sen. Chuck Schumer has already stated that he sees no grounds to work with the Republicans or the president, which is hardly surprising. And Pelosi?



And  that's the trap the Democrats now find themselves in, courtesy of Donald Trump. Their radical base loves that scorched earth kind of politics. They won't stand for any kind of cooperation with 'Trump/Hitler' or the Republicans, and they're all caught up in the faux-romance of  'the resistance.'

Meantime, America saw President Trump calling for congress to work together on the bread and butter issues.

Which leaves these swine with an unpleasant choice.  They can continue to pander to their radical base and lose the more sane, more centrist part of the party, which might even include a few Senators who are currently Democrats the way the midterms are shaping up for them. A lot of those people saw a lot of common sense in what Trump had to say last night.  Or, they can decide to cooperate with President Trump on things like ObamaCare, spending, jobs and infrastructure and alienate their radical base.

Based on how the party has behaved in the past and continued its leftist tilt,  I think they'll choose option one.

As Spinal Tap's manager in the film of the same name told a reporter when he was asked whether bookings in smaller halls then before meant the band's audience was disappearing:



There were a few media people who said the Democrat Party 'died last night.' 

I respectfully disagree. They still have access to lots of money. They still control pop culture, education,  and most of the legacy media, and they have highly organized cadres prepared for riots and insurrection. But it's also obvious at this time they have lost a certain amount of political control over much of the country and the tide appears to be turning. If President Trump is able to keep the economy moving in the direction it's going  and continues to keep his promises and communicate with the American people like this,  that tide might become a tsunami.

Trump Scores At CPAC With A Rousing Speech

Donald Trump visited CPAC this year, and gave a speech that told the CPAC members and America exactly where things are heading. It's definitely worth listening to.

He had a few things to say about the press, emphasizing that there were many honest and hardworking reporters, that he wasn't at war with the press but with fake news...and as we know, there's been a lot of that lately.

A poll conducted by The Washington Times at the conference after the speech found that 86 percent of respondents “strongly or somewhat approve” of the job that Donald Trump is doing as president, compared to just 12 percent who somewhat or strongly disapprove of his work so far. Two percent were unsure.

Admittedly, not the toughest audience he's ever faced but still impressive.

Trump Triumphs - A Press Conference Like No Other

With the war on Trump and his administration by the press escalating, President Trump decided to give Sean Spicer a pass and handle the next press conference personally. And oh, did he ever.

He did it by doing what he does best - making his case directly to the American people.

The Donald simply eviscerated the press in epic form. The only quarrel I have with the above headline was that Trump didn't rant, not once. He was cool, calm and collected throughout as he made the press jump through his hoops.  The media headlines about him being 'unhinged' , 'ranting','angry' and 'unpresidential' are fake news at it's worst. You can see that for yourself below.




Contrary to the endless reports about 'chaos' in his administration, Trump outlined precisely the amount of things accomplished by him and his team in less than five weeks since he took over, and that with his cabinet picks and appointments being deliberately stonewalled by the Democrats.

He challenged the press openly to report more honestly and to be less biased, to have more respect for the American people because, as he put it to the assembled reporters 'nobody believes you anymore.' He actually cited some fake news reports recently put out by the media as examples.

He addressed the most important issue in the General Michael Flynn affair; that while Flynn had been fired because of a trust issue, the real culprits were the people who illegally leaked confidential matters of national security and the press which published them, including Trump's own phone calls with world leaders, something unheard of before. Trump has that being investigated, and rest assured he's going to find out who's responsible.

As an interesting side bar, one thing Barack Hussein Obama did before he left office was to secretly expand the NSA's survellence powers and ability to share them with other government agencies on the sly as the New York Times reported:

In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.

The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.

The change means that far more officials will be searching through raw data. Essentially, the government is reducing the risk that the N.S.A. will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency, but increasing the risk that officials will see private information about innocent people. (emphasis mine)

Now, guess who one of those agencies is? The Department of Justice, which of course has its own intel branch...and just happened to be filled with Obama appointees led by Sally Yates, who was in command because the Democrats delayed Jeff Session's confirmation as AG on the flimsiest of grounds. It was Sally Yates who turned over the intel on Flynn to the Trump Administration. Did she leak that and other items to the anti-Trump media as that mysterious 'senior official?' I have a feeling we're going to find out.

The presser continued, with Trump addressing questions...again..about his connections with Russia. Aside from a couple of calls with Putin, once when the Russian leader called to congratulate him and a second time after he was inaugurated,there isn't one. And I absolutely loved when he continued his answer by saying 'What if we had a good relationship with Russia? We might not be able to, but why not see what we can negotiate?' He also repeated that he had no intention of revealing strategy to the press beforehand. Smart man, our president.

Best laugh out loud line? CNN's insufferable Jim Acosta sputtered about how Trump's labeling CNN 'fake news' was an attack on journalism and the First Amendment.'

The Donald replied that he was going to drop calling CNN 'fake news' and after a theatrical pause continued "I'm going to change it - to very fake news!"

I unfortunately had a mouthful of coffee when the Donald came out with that exercise in free speech.

Trump also outlined future plans and goals as well as some stories the media hasn't seen fit to reveal...like Trump's attempts to get a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss jobs and the carnage in America's inner cities that have been snubbed. Even individual members like Elijah Cummings won't meet with him. But of course, you'd never see that on CNN.

If any of you were nervous about Trump coping with the attacks on him and his administration fret no more. This was the President Trump we elected, a fighter who gets things done. Just watch.

Trump Freezes Obama's $221M Gift To 'Palestine'..What It means

President Trump took quick action to freeze President Obama's $221 million dollar  gift to 'Palestine' courtesy of the American taxpayers.The money was a last minute payout  from President Barack Hussein Obama to Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority in the last hours before President Trump's swearing in on January 20th. Apparently someone leaked this to someone in President Trump's circle, because he was about to act immediately.

Two congress members, Ed Royce of California, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Kay Granger of Texas, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee — had placed holds on it over moves the Palestinian Authority had taken to seek membership in international organizations as well as their incitement to violence against israel. Such holds are usually respected, but President Obama decided not to do so. This would have been added to the $250 million the PA received from the US government.

What happened instead is that newly sworn in President Trump froze the funds.  PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah was told by the U.S. State Department  that the funds were subject to an intensive review and that he should  not expected the money in the immediate future.

 
'Aiyee! No baksheesh? What will the Rais say?'



President Obama giving more more money to Hamas and the kleptocrat dictatorship of Mahmoud Abbas than any previous U.S. President was obviously a case of ideology rather than any attempt at peace. He simply wore a mask for 8 years to try and hide it.Any president actually interested in negotiations for peace would  have  used the money as an incentive to Abbas to negotiate and make meaningful concessions, since unlike the U.S. relationship with Israel, America gets absolutely nothing of value from 'Palestine.'

Instead  Obama gave them everything they wanted and more, including a key abstention at the UN with a resolution Secretary of State John Kerry helped write. And cynically, he gave it to them when it would no longer harm him or his party's nominee politically. His goal was obviously not peace, but Israel's surrender...from day one.

 

Perhaps President Trump actually showing 'Palestine' that there will be real consequences for their violence, incitement and refusal to negotiate realistically with Israel might just result in peace. We'll see.