American Islami Forum for Democracy via YouTube, February 15, 2017
Archive for February 17, 2017
Dr. Jasser joins Politics & Profits discussing the Trump admin & radical Islam 02.15.2017
February 17, 2017Champagne time: it’s a “bloodbath” at the State Department
February 17, 2017Champagne time: it’s a “bloodbath” at the State Department, Jihad Watch,
(Next? How about the “intelligence community?” — DM)
Break out the hats and hooters: the failed State Department establishment, which has applied and reapplied and reapplied again failed policies that have been shown to be based on false analysis time and time again (Poverty causes terrorism! Islam is a religion of peace!), is finally being cleaned out. May this swamp-draining long continue.
“It’s a bloodbath at the State Department,” New York Post, February 17, 2017:
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is cleaning house at the State Department, according to a report.
Staffers in the offices of deputy secretary of state for management and resources as well as counselor were shown the door Thursday, according to CBS News.
Many of those let go were on the building’s seventh floor — top-floor bigs — a symbolically important sign to the rest of the diplomatic corps that their new boss has different priorities than the last one.
The staffing changes came as Tillerson was on his first foreign trip — attending a G-20 meeting in Bonn, Germany.
“As part of the transition from one administration to the next, we continue to build out our team. The State Department is supported by a very talented group of individuals, both Republicans and Democrats,” State Department spokesman RC Hammond told CBS.
“We are appreciative to any American who dedicates their talents to public,” he added.
This week’s round of firings marks the second time State Department personnel have been cleared out since President Trump took office last month.
Four top officials were cleared out of the building at the end of January….
Who Rules the United States?
February 17, 2017Who Rules the United States? Washington Free Beacon, Matthew Continetti, February 17, 2017
(Update re President Trump’s EPA nominee, Scott Pruitt: He was approved by the Senate 52-46. — DM)
President Donald Trump pauses while speaking during a news conference, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Donald Trump was elected president last November by winning 306 electoral votes. He pledged to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C., to overturn the system of politics that had left the nation’s capital and major financial and tech centers flourishing but large swaths of the country mired in stagnation and decay. “What truly matters,” he said in his Inaugural Address, “is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.”
Is it? By any historical and constitutional standard, “the people” elected Donald Trump and endorsed his program of nation-state populist reform. Yet over the last few weeks America has been in the throes of an unprecedented revolt. Not of the people against the government—that happened last year—but of the government against the people. What this says about the state of American democracy, and what it portends for the future, is incredibly disturbing.
There is, of course, the case of Michael Flynn. He made a lot of enemies inside the government during his career, suffice it to say. And when he exposed himself as vulnerable those enemies pounced. But consider the means: anonymous and possibly illegal leaks of private conversations. Yes, the conversation in question was with a foreign national. And no one doubts we spy on ambassadors. But we aren’t supposed to spy on Americans without probable cause. And we most certainly are not supposed to disclose the results of our spying in the pages of the Washington Post because it suits a partisan or personal agenda.
Here was a case of current and former national security officials using their position, their sources, and their methods to crush a political enemy. And no one but supporters of the president seems to be disturbed. Why? Because we are meant to believe that the mysterious, elusive, nefarious, and to date unproven connection between Donald Trump and the Kremlin is more important than the norms of intelligence and the decisions of the voters.
But why should we believe that? And who elected these officials to make this judgment for us?
Nor is Flynn the only example of nameless bureaucrats working to undermine and ultimately overturn the results of last year’s election. According to the New York Times, civil servants at the EPA are lobbying Congress to reject Donald Trump’s nominee to run the agency. Is it because Scott Pruitt lacks qualifications? No. Is it because he is ethically compromised? Sorry. The reason for the opposition is that Pruitt is a critic of the way the EPA was run during the presidency of Barack Obama. He has a policy difference with the men and women who are soon to be his employees. Up until, oh, this month, the normal course of action was for civil servants to follow the direction of the political appointees who serve as proxies for the elected president.
How quaint. These days an architect of the overreaching and antidemocratic Waters of the U.S. regulation worries that her work will be overturned so she undertakes extraordinary means to defeat her potential boss. But a change in policy is a risk of democratic politics. Nowhere does it say in the Constitution that the decisions of government employees are to be unquestioned and preserved forever. Yet that is precisely the implication of this unprecedented protest. “I can’t think of any other time when people in the bureaucracy have done this,” a professor of government tells the paper. That sentence does not leave me feeling reassured.
Opposition to this president takes many forms. Senate Democrats have slowed confirmations to the most sluggish pace since George Washington. Much of the New York and Beltway media does really function as a sort of opposition party, to the degree that reporters celebrated the sacking of Flynn as a partisan victory for journalism. Discontent manifests itself in direct actions such as the Women’s March.
But here’s the difference. Legislative roadblocks, adversarial journalists, and public marches are typical of a constitutional democracy. They are spelled out in our founding documents: the Senate and its rules, and the rights to speech, a free press, and assembly. Where in those documents is it written that regulators have the right not to be questioned, opposed, overturned, or indeed fired, that intelligence analysts can just call up David Ignatius and spill the beans whenever they feel like it?
The last few weeks have confirmed that there are two systems of government in the United States. The first is the system of government outlined in the U.S. Constitution—its checks, its balances, its dispersion of power, its protection of individual rights. Donald Trump was elected to serve four years as the chief executive of this system. Whether you like it or not.
The second system is comprised of those elements not expressly addressed by the Founders. This is the permanent government, the so-called administrative state of bureaucracies, agencies, quasi-public organizations, and regulatory bodies and commissions, of rule-writers and the byzantine network of administrative law courts. This is the government of unelected judges with lifetime appointments who, far from comprising the “least dangerous branch,” now presume to think they know more about America’s national security interests than the man elected as commander in chief.
For some time, especially during Democratic presidencies, the second system of government was able to live with the first one. But that time has ended. The two systems are now in competition. And the contest is all the more vicious and frightening because more than offices are at stake. This fight is not about policy. It is about wealth, status, the privileges of an exclusive class.
“In our time, as in [Andrew] Jackson’s, the ruling classes claim a monopoly not just on the economy and society but also on the legitimate authority to regulate and restrain it, and even on the language in which such matters are discussed,” writes Christopher Caldwell in a brilliant essay in the Winter 2016/17 Claremont Review of Books.
Elites have full-spectrum dominance of a whole semiotic system. What has just happened in American politics is outside the system of meanings elites usually rely upon. Mike Pence’s neighbors on Tennyson street not only cannot accept their election loss; they cannot fathom it. They are reaching for their old prerogatives in much the way that recent amputees are said to feel an urge to scratch itches on limbs that are no longer there. Their instincts tell them to disbelieve what they rationally know. Their arguments have focused not on the new administration’s policies or its competence but on its very legitimacy.
Donald Trump did not cause the divergence between government of, by, and for the people and government, of, by, and for the residents of Cleveland Park and Arlington and Montgomery and Fairfax counties. But he did exacerbate it. He forced the winners of the global economy and the members of the D.C. establishment to reckon with the fact that they are resented, envied, opposed, and despised by about half the country. But this recognition did not humble the entrenched incumbents of the administrative state. It radicalized them to the point where they are readily accepting, even cheering on, the existence of a “deep state” beyond the control of the people and elected officials.
Who rules the United States? The simple and terrible answer is we do not know. But we are about to find out.
On Israel, Trump Confuses only the Confused
February 17, 2017On Israel, Trump Confuses only the Confused, Power Line,
(Or perhaps only the willfully confused, some of whom apparently prefer a “final solution” to a mere two state solution, are confused. — DM)
The Washington Post claims that President Trump’s remarks about Israel have led to confusion about how he views the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. Reporters William Booth and Anne Gearan say that Israelis are confused, and they site conflicting interpretations of Trump’s several statements.
But Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, whom the Post also quotes, gets to the bottom of the alleged confusion. He says “everyone interprets this as they see fit.”
In reality, Trump’s comments were remarkably clear. Let’s start with the one that got most of the attention: “I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like.”
Trump was saying that if the Israelis and the Palestinians like a two-state solution, he likes it too. Otherwise, he doesn’t.
This is wise. A two-state solution makes sense only if both parties want it. If that’s not the case, there is no sense in America trying to impose it, and Trump won’t waste his time pushing this option. Or so he is saying.
Trump also said to Prime Minister Netanyahu: “Both sides will have to make compromises; you know that, right?” Netanyahu responded: “Both sides.”
Again, there’s nothing puzzling here. “Both sides” means both sides.
Coupled with his statement that he likes the solution both parties like, Trump is maximizing the likelihood of a peace agreement (although, to me, the odds of reaching one remain extremely low). President Obama’s approach was to obsess over a two-state solution and demand major compromises by Israel. The Palestinians believed they could sit back and wait for America to extract such compromises.
Trump has made it clear that both sides need to make compromises and has signaled that he won’t focus on obtaining them from Israel alone. If both parties don’t make concessions on behalf of a two-state solution, he will conclude that this is not the solution both parties like. And he won’t like it either. Or so he is saying.
Trump also told Netanyahu: “I’d like you to hold off on settlements for a little bit.” On the surface, this looks like an attempt to obtain a small concession from Israel. However, I agree with Charles Krauthammer that Trump was trying to bolster Netanyahu’s position in relation to hard-line Israeli politicians who are pushing for a major expansion of settlements, including the building of new ones.
A sensible approach to settlements is permit the natural growth of existing blocs — no community can be expected not to build out as its population expands — but to forego, for “a little bit,” major territorial expansion which would escalate tension, hurt Israel’s international standing, and perhaps make a peace agreement even more difficult to achieve.
Trump’s statement is consistent with this thinking, which, I gather, is the thinking of Netanyahu.
Only the confused are genuinely puzzled by Trump’s statements. Those in the American mainstream media who suggest otherwise are probably just trying to make the American president look confused.
Not Satire | UC San Diego Students Protest Visit by ‘Oppressive and Offensive’ Dalai Lama
February 17, 2017UC San Diego Students Protest Visit by ‘Oppressive and Offensive’ Dalai Lama, Heatstreet, Kieran Corcoran, February 16, 2017
(Why not invite someone more favorable to China and less oppressive? How about Kim Jong-un? Or Nicholas Maduro? Or even Xi Jinping? — DM)
China is prepared to take advantage of a newly censorious atmosphere on campus – and its supporters are happy to use the posture of SJWs to get their way.
**********************************
Students at the University of California, San Diego are protesting an upcoming visit by the Dalai Lama – claiming the Tibetan leader is “oppressive”.
They have claimed that his presence is offensive because of his campaign to make Tibet more independent – contrary to the Communist government’s position that Tibet is a region of China under their control.
Arguments over Tibetan independence have raged for decades – but this dispute is remarkable because activists are conducting it through the language of social justice.
As noted by Quartz, the Chinese student association framed their complaints as an example of cultural oppression and a problem of equality.
A statement accused university leaders of having “contravened the spirit of respect, tolerance, equality, and earnestness—the ethos upon which the university is built.”
One student posting on Facebook said: “So you guys protest against Trump because he disrespects Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, LGBT.., but invites this oppresser [sic] to make a public speech?? The hypocrisy is appalling!”
Likewise, an alumni group based in Shanghai said UCSD will be breaching its ethos of “diversity” and will leave them “extremely offended and disrespected” if the Dalai Lama’s speech dips into the political.
Chinese officials are known to be extraordinarily hostile to any groups who get close to the Dalai Lama, and do their best to punish governments who engage with the exiled Tibetan regime.
They consider the Dalai Lama a threat to stability in China, akin to a terrorist who wants to split the country.
This is despite his stated aim being increased autonomy – rather than outright independence – for Tibet, which he fled in 1959.
His insistence on peaceful protest and non-violent resistance won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. It is hard to see who he is oppressing by touring the world, giving speeches and promoting peaceful opposition to China.
Questions have been raised about whether the Chinese government is directly involved in lobbying against the address.
A statement by the Chinese Students and Scholars Association originally said it was seeking support from the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles, but later denied that claim.
Government officials are certainly not above getting involved in campus politics.
At the University of Durham in northern England, the Chinese Embassy in London tried to stop a Chinese-born activist and beauty queen speaking in a debate.
Anastasia Lin, a Miss World Canada winner, was asked to speak at the Durham Union Society on whether China was a “threat to the West”
But the students organizing the debate received angry calls from embassy officials, claiming that if Lin spoke it could damage UK-China relations, according to a BuzzFeed report.
The students ignored them and went ahead with the debate anyway (Lin’s side lost).
But the incident underlines that China is prepared to take advantage of a newly censorious atmosphere on campus – and its supporters are happy to use the posture of SJWs to get their way.
When President Obama’s National Security Advisor Lied, The Media Laughed
February 17, 2017When President Obama’s National Security Advisor Lied, The Media Laughed, The Federalist, Julie Kelly, February 17, 2017
Sometimes the hypocrisy, double standard, and outright lies by the media under the Trump presidency is funny. Sometimes it is infuriating. But never was the media’s complicit sheep-like coverage more evident than it the days after Benghazi, behavior you can never imagine now. They have yet to admit their mistakes and failures, even as more evidence is revealed.
Remember that the next time you want to worry about how Trump is responsible for undermining the media’s integrity and credibility.
**************************
Buried deep beneath the Michael Flynn hysteria this week was Judicial Watch’s release of newly obtained State Department documents related to the Benghazi terrorist attack on September 11, 2012. One email confirms—again—that the Obama administration knew the day after the attack it was not a random act of violence stemming from an anti-Muslim video. That was the excuse shamefully propagated by top Obama administration officials (including the president himself) and swallowed whole by a media establishment desperate to help Obama win re-election six weeks later.
According to the summary of a call on September 12, 2012 between State Department Under-Secretary Patrick Kennedy and several congressional staffers, Kennedy was asked if the attack came under cover of protest: “No this was a direct breaching attack,” he answered. Kennedy also denied the attack was coordinated with the protests in Cairo over the video: “Attack in Cairo was a demonstration. There were no weapons shown or used. A few cans of spray paint.”
It’s somewhat ironic—galling?—that this email was disclosed the same day the anti-Trump universe was spinning into the stratosphere over Flynn’s resignation as President Trump’s national security advisor. It begs for a little trip down memory lane, to a kinder, gentler time when the media gave a great big pass to another national security advisor in the days after four Americans, including an ambassador, were murdered in Libya by Islamic terrorists under her watch.
Lying to Us Only Matters If We Dislike You
Fun fact: While Trump press secretary Sean Spicer fielded 55 questions on February 14 related to the Flynn debacle, Obama’s press secretary Jay Carney received only 13 questions from reporters on September 12, 2012, three of which were set-ups to blast Mitt Romney’s criticism of the administration after the attack. 55 to 13.
So as we now suffer through yet another patch of media mania, conspiracy theories, and unsubstantiated claims about how Trump hearts Russia, as well as the daily beatings endured by Spicer, let’s reminisce to when the media and Obama’s press flaks spun, deflected—even joked about golf and “Saturday Night Live!”—less than a week after Benghazi.
The day after Hillary Clinton’s deputy had that call with key Capitol Hill staffers, including advisors to senators Durbin, Feinstein, and McGaskill, to dispute the notion the attack was about an anti-Muslim video, here’s what Carney said: “I think it’s important to note with regards to that protest that there are protests taking place in different countries across the world that are responding to the movie that has circulated on the Internet. As Secretary Clinton said today, the United States government had nothing to do with this movie. We reject its message and its contents. We find it disgusting and reprehensible.”
On September 14, hours before the remains of the Benghazi victims would arrive at Andrews Air Force Base, Carney was still blaming the video. Just steps from the Oval Office, Carney opened his briefing with this: “First of all, we are obviously closely monitoring developments in the region today. You saw that following the incidents in response to this video, the president directed the administration to take a number of steps to prepare for continued unrest.”
Carney went on to mention the video/film/movie another 30 times during his briefing. He stuck with his story even after some reporters pushed back, citing other sources who said it was indeed a pre-mediated attack. One reporter said several senators admitted the “attack on Benghazi was a terrorist attack organized and carried out by terrorists, that it was premeditated, a calculated act of terror,” and asked Carney, “is there anything more you can — now that the administration is briefing senators on this, is there anything more you can tell us?”
Carney: “Again, it’s actively under investigation, both the Benghazi attack and incidents elsewhere. And my point was that we don’t have and did not have concrete evidence to suggest that this was not in reaction to the film. But we’re obviously investigating the matter…” Who cares, Sean Spicer called Justin Trudeau Joe, OMG!
Susan Rice’s Audacity of Trope
But of course nothing matches the audacity of trope by Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice on September 16, 2012. Rice went on several Sunday shows to peddle a story she knew was completely phony, one that was already quickly unraveling even as most in the media and administration tried to keep it intact.
You can read most of her comments here, but Rice repeats the line that Benghazi attack was not premediated and was connected to the demonstrations in Cairo over the video (a document obtained by Judicial Watch last year shows Hillary Clinton met with Rice a few days before her television appearances). Which presidential administration is fact-challenged, again?
In a press gaggle on Air Force One the next day, guess how many times Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked about Rice’s comments? Ten? Five? One? Not once. Let me repeat that. The day after Obama’s national security advisor was on five news programs to blame a terrorist attack on a YouTube video, not one reporter asked the White House about it. I actually had to re-read the transcripts several times, even checking the date over and over, to make sure this was accurate. Her name did not even come up.
No discussion about the investigation. No discussion about emerging evidence from around the world that Benghazi was indeed a terrorist attack. (The only time it was mentioned was when Jen Psaki criticized Mitt Romney’s comments about how the administration handled Benghazi and questioned whether he was ready for “primetime.”)
Here’s what they did discuss: Debate prep, Occupy Wall Street, and the Chicago’s teachers strike. An actual human reporter asked this: “It was a beautiful weekend for golf and he wasn’t out on the course. Is it safe to assume maybe he was doing some preparation at the White House?” WHAT? Then they joked about football and “Saturday Night Live.”
Sometimes the hypocrisy, double standard, and outright lies by the media under the Trump presidency is funny. Sometimes it is infuriating. But never was the media’s complicit sheep-like coverage more evident than it the days after Benghazi, behavior you can never imagine now. They have yet to admit their mistakes and failures, even as more evidence is revealed.
Remember that the next time you want to worry about how Trump is responsible for undermining the media’s integrity and credibility.
The Russian Conspiracy Theory Boils Over
February 17, 2017The Russian Conspiracy Theory Boils Over, Front Page Magazine, Matthew Vadum, February 17, 2017
The so-called scandal involving former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn is 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Iran-Contra, Watergate, proof of presidential fascism, a cynical money-making scheme, and a pro-Russian spy thriller all rolled into one, according to the increasingly deranged rants of howling left-wingers and their truth-adverse confederates in the mainstream media.
Despite this relentless barrage of fake news and smears, President Donald Trump pushed back against the orchestrated campaign against him yesterday at what is sure to go down in history as The Best Presidential Press Conference of All Time as he gave the mainstream media the beat-down it deserves. (See transcript.)
“To give you an idea how Trump’s press conference went, afterwards, the press corps demanded a safe space,” Ann Coulter tweeted of the 77-minute long White House event, Trump’s first solo presser as president. “I wish this press conference could go on all day.”
“The public doesn’t believe you people anymore,” a ferocious, animated Trump told the assembled press corps. “Maybe I had something to do with that. I don’t know. But they don’t believe you.”
“This whole Russia scam that you guys” are pushing on people is “so you don’t talk about the real subject which is illegal leaks.”
“The public sees it,” he said. “They see it. They see it’s not fair. You take a look at some of your shows and you see the bias and the hatred. And the public is smart. They understand it.”
“I didn’t do anything for Russia,” he said. “I have done nothing for Russia. Hillary Clinton gave them 20 percent of our uranium. Hillary Clinton did a reset, remember with the stupid plastic button that made us look like a bunch of jerks.”
A mewling Chuck Todd of NBC was offended by the president’s conduct at the press conference and tweeted, “This [is] not a laughing matter. I’m sorry, delegitimizing the press is un-American[.]”
Perhaps he shouldn’t have signed on to the effort to delegitimize President Trump.
Todd, of course, is one the members of the media out to get Trump.
He recently said the invented Flynn-Russia crisis is “arguably the biggest presidential scandal involving a foreign government since Iran-Contra.”
Disgraced former anchorman Dan Rather, the poster child for journalistic malfeasance who humiliated himself a decade ago with his proven lies about George W. Bush’s military service record, couldn’t resist hopping on the bandwagon in order to create the illusion he is relevant.
He gravely pontificated that “Watergate is the biggest political scandal of my lifetime, until maybe now. It was the closest we came to a debilitating Constitutional crisis, until maybe now.”
This manufactured mass hysteria directed against Trump, a democratically elected president, in order to drive him from office continues. It feeds on itself. It infects. It multiplies. It smothers.
This un-American mobocracy threatens to snuff out American democracy itself if not contained.
Calls for President Trump’s impeachment, removal from office by the Senate or by military coup, and assassination are growing on the Left as it comes to grips with the fact that the Chief Executive is deadly serious about protecting America and rolling back President Obama’s poisonous legacy.
No claim or statement is too crazy, lawless, undemocratic, or barbaric for the Left as it desperately tries to keep the borders open to Muslim terrorists, Americans groaning under the chains of Obamacare, businesses buried in red tape, and the welfare state ballooning.
Exhibit “A” from the magical land of fairy dust and unicorns is communist mockumentary director Michael Moore.
In the complete absence of evidence, Moore called Trump a “Russian traitor” and said he should vacate the White House. “We can do this the easy way (you resign), or the hard way (impeachment).” He also called for Trump to be arrested.
Todd, Rather, and Moore are far from alone.
On Fox News Channel, Sean Hannity held up an interview CNN’s Wolf Blitzer did with Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) as an example of the media’s “abusively biased coverage, this false narrative.”
“If members of the administration are essentially conspiring with Russia either through the campaign earlier or now in the administration itself, I mean, look, Wolf, that’s the definition of treason,” Moulton said. “This is a very, very serious affair.”
From his perch at a glossy, content-free fashion magazine, MSNBC reject Keith Olbermann huffed and puffed. “I call for the immediate indictment of Michael Thomas Flynn on charges of and his immediate arrest on suspicion of violation of the Logan Act,” he said invoking a long-forgotten statute from 1799 under which no one has ever been convicted. Trump should be named as Flynn’s “unindicted co-conspirator,” he added.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) conspiracy-theorized that Trump is using the Flynn saga to privatize intelligence-gathering and help his friends on Wall Street make money off it. Trump plans to ask Stephen A. Feinberg, a co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, to conduct “a broad review of American intelligence agencies,” the New York Times has reported.
“Now what he’s doing is naming another Wall Streeter to go in like a corporate takeover of the intelligence community, clearly with the intent of creating a chilling effect upon these intelligence professionals, who are trying to help America to understand how our security may have been compromised in our relationship with Russia,” Markey said.
Riot-cheerleading Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who claims the Reagan administration flooded the nation’s inner cities with crack cocaine, was overjoyed at Flynn’s ouster, describing him as “a liar and someone who cannot be trusted.”
“I’ve always believed that there has been collusion between the Trump outfit here, and Russia and the Kremlin. So I believe this is the tip of the iceberg … the strategy and the plot, to defend Russia and to work with Russia, is part of who Trump and his organization is,” Waters said.
New York Times columnist and hyperbole junkie Thomas Friedman accused Flynn and Trump of participating in some weird, ill-defined international conspiracy. “After the Russians did not respond harshly to the eviction of their spies and diplomats, Trump actually tweeted out some positive encouragement of this. Did the two of them cook this up all along?”
“And it gets … to two other issues,” Friedman continued. “The first is, we have never taken seriously from the very beginning Russia hacked our election. That was a 9/11-scale event. They attacked the core of our very democracy. That was a Pearl Harbor-scale event.”
Radical kook Chauncey DeVega, who calls Trump a “fascist authoritarian,” hyperventilated at Salon that the president is “a traitor to the United States” and so are all who back him.
Trump’s “voters and other supporters who do not denounce him are also traitors, and any Republican officials who continue to back Trump are traitors as well,” he wrote, as visions of sending patriotic Americans to die in forced labor camps danced in his head.
PJMedia’s Michael Walsh calls what’s happening in the country “a rolling coup attempt” and he’s right.
Make no mistake about what’s happening here: this is a rolling coup attempt, organized by elements of the intelligence community, particularly CIA and NSA, abetted by Obama-era holdovers in the understaffed Justice Department (Sally Yates, take a bow) and the lickspittles of the leftist media, all of whom have signed on with the “Resistance” in order to overturn the results of the November election.
This escalating offensive against Trump kicked up a few notches after Flynn, an arch foe of Islamofascism, was forced out of his critically important advisory role Monday night by what is shaping up to be an East German-style Ben Rhodes-centered deep state cabal.
Flynn, a retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army, fell on his sword reportedly for allegedly making contact with a Russian envoy. The White House claims Flynn resigned after admitting he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.
It’s not as if we know what actually happened with Flynn and the Russian or Russians at this point, or if there was any contact at all. News reports don’t quote any on-the-record sources.
And despite the lunatic ravings of NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Bill Kristol, David Frum, Sally Kohn, Joan Walsh, Hollywood celebrities, and many others, there is no credible evidence whatsoever that Trump had anything to do with the hacking of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee or that Trump colluded with Russia in whatever may or may not have transpired.
Without proof all of this screaming about Flynn and Trump and their supposedly nefarious connections to Vladimir Putin is just noise.
It could be (and likely is) completely made up.
Fiction is, after all, what Ben Rhodes, now identified as a major player in the plot against the president, specialized in when he worked in the Obama White House. Rhodes bragged to the New York Times about duping Americans by creating a media “echo chamber” to promote the botched, unenforceable nuclear nonproliferation agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran that will actually end up helping the mad mullahs who want to kill us all get the bomb. Rhodes became a misinformation-manufacturing servant of a hostile power while betraying his fellow Americans to help an Islam-loving president cozy up to the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism.
But as we keep learning more and more about Rhodes and Obama’s post-presidential sabotage apparatus, there was a small victory for common sense as the FBI announced it sees no reason to do anything about the Flynn case because there’s nothing there.
The FBI is still investigating the Russian saga but won’t pursue charges against Flynn “barring new information that changes what they know,” CNN reported last night. Although Flynn stumbled at times during FBI interviews, investigators believe Flynn was “cooperative and provided truthful answers.”
And that can’t be bad.
Pat Condell- The Great Palestinian Lie
February 17, 2017
The start of a beautiful friendship
February 17, 2017Source: Israel Hayom | The start of a beautiful friendship
If anyone had any doubt, U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting proved that the new president is good for Israel • Dictates for Israeli concessions are out, and out-of-the-box thinking on the peace process is in.
Boaz Bismuth
|
U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington this week Photo credit: Avi Ohayon / GPO
|
I have to admit that this week in Washington, I felt like Christopher Columbus rediscovering America. For years, especially the past eight years under former President Barack Obama, they explained to us that we were losing America. For years, they drummed it into our heads that the two-state solution was the only realistic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the only one for which Israel would have the support of the capitals of the world. And now, U.S. President Donald Trump isn’t hesitating to think outside the box and is raising the possibility that there might be another option.
If I were Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, I’d have every reason in the world to be worried about Wednesday’s meeting at the White House between Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Suddenly, there’s no more talk of the road map, the settlement danger, Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, or the “occupation” as the reason for terrorism. Suddenly, Washington and Jerusalem are falling into step on a new path. After three decades in which we have grown used to one kind of thinking, Trump appears and upsets everything, allowing Jerusalem to once again join the war for public opinion. All this, even before any peace initiative has been mentioned.
Trump is suddenly giving us the privilege of thinking differently. A Palestinian state? It’s certainly a possibility. But not necessarily. In other words, the Palestinians might miss the peace train. And not only that, it looks like Israel can now choose its car and sit down comfortably until the Palestinians are kind enough to get on board.
One city for two leaders
With all due respect to the centrality of the Middle East, it looks like Trump and Netanyahu understood that reality is influenced by the city that lies on the banks of the Potomac River, Washington. Netanyahu knows the U.S. capital well, like the palm of his hand. He worked there for years and knew the White House before Trump ever gave a thought to politics. Trump took Washington by storm after he entered politics in June 2015 and is still learning the ropes. But they both know that the city is in effect the center of the world. They both know that it is a city with the power to change the world. So it was good that they met less than a month after the new president was sworn in.
Netanyahu can’t remember a president as friendly as this in Washington. There was a reason why Netanyahu talked about a “new day,” and that appears to be the truth. The White House went out of its way to make Netanyahu feel as if he was the U.S.’ best friend in the world. At 12 p.m. on Wednesday, the car carrying Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, arrived at the White House. An honor guard was awaiting the important ally from Israel. First lady Melania Trump, in a white dress, and her husband were standing there waiting for the guests. One could feel the intimacy between the two sides. When Sara Netanyahu entered the press briefing room with her hostess Melania, she saw Trump’s son-in-law, the man in charge of the Middle East portfolio in his administration, Jared Kushner.
“I’ve known him since he was little,” Sara Netanyahu said. There was great warmth between the hosts and the guests. Netanyahu reminded Kushner that he had known him since he was a child and that even then, he’d been tall — old acquaintances, happy to meet again, this time in the White House. That is, two leaders who came to Washington to create change, each from his own perspective. Throughout his campaign, Trump promised that as president, he would work to “drain the swamp” of the city, starting by canceling Obama’s health care law and including an epic battle against wasting taxpayers’ money on all sorts of strange regulation. Netanyahu was there to change the past eight years, albeit as part of a visit. They both achieved their goals more quickly than expected — Trump completely changed the way the White House is covered in the media, and even the White House press briefings have gotten a nip and tuck.
Netanyahu completely changed the way Washington approaches the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as if the Obama administration had never existed. The change in tone when it comes to Israel is palpable that the American media immediately began dwelling on the joint press conference. The Politico website described them as a couple of lovers. It was obvious to everyone that Trump enjoyed every minute after a few stormy days for his administration. Trump praised his friend Netanyahu and spoke well of Israel-U.S. ties, which all of a sudden are no longer conditional upon concession, a halt to construction in Judea and Samaria, or creating the conditions for a Palestinian state. Trump wants a solution that will be acceptable to Israel and the Palestinians, not one that will be welcomed by the European Union or the U.N. or any other international institution.
As he told me in an interview, Trump doesn’t want a deal for the sake of a deal, because he is afraid that approach will lead to a deal that will hold up no more than a few months. At a press conference this week, Trump made it clear that as far as he was concerned, how a sustainable peace deal is reached is not terribly important. Just like his path to the requisite 270 electoral votes in the election was the least conventional path possible but in hindsight turned out to be the best one when facing off against a candidate like Hillary Clinton. Trump thought outside the box, stole states that were supposed to be in her pocket, and effectively made the election into a referendum on change vs. the status quo rather than one about his personality, thus neutralizing the attacks against him. Now he intends to neutralize all the conventions set by various “Middle East experts” over the years. The way he sees it, he can do in the Middle East what he did in the U.S. Midwest: change the political reality that has stagnated for decades, and because of his colorful personality, he’s the only one who can. “Two states or one state, whatever you decide,” Trump said at the press conference. After eight years of Obama, this would appear to be a doomsday dream for the Israeli Right, even if the Left would prefer to stress that Trump’s suggested to rein in settlement construction.
Recommending, not demanding
Anyone who noticed the sentence that left Trump’s mouth will understand how much things have changed. Hold back for a bit, he suggested on the construction issue, because he wants to make a deal. In other words, “Give me a chance to try a few things, nothing will happen if you wait a little.” He didn’t take a principled position for or against the settlements. A Washington source close to the White House told the Israel Hayom weekend supplement that Trump still hadn’t decided on a clear position. Israeli construction in the large settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria certainly isn’t a problem for him, unless Israel were to initiate new construction. It’s important he not be surprised and forced to deal with facts on the ground.
Coming together on Iran
There is no doubt that President Trump envisions a peace deal like he envisions his buildings — big. He sees a regional initiative. He sees a total peace. He sees the moderate Sunni states, including Saudi Arabia, as part of the process. He has an incentive for them. It’s called Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran, which received its bona fides from the Obama administration, has once again become the bad boy of the region, threatening stability. Thus the Gulf States have an incentive to draw closer with Israel. In Trump’s opinion, it’s time for them to date Israel openly, rather than hiding it like a concubine. If he succeeds, great. If not, Trump won’t get stressed, and he won’t threaten sanctions. “Israel has suffered enough,” he said during last week’s interview. The president might have been seeking balance when he said that both sides needed to make concessions, but when was the last time you heard an American president talk about the Palestinians needing to do the same? There is something new under the Washington sun, after all, even if it’s only February.
The Israeli prime minister also noted while in Washington Trump’s desire to “dramatically upgrade” bilateral relations. Netanyahu has the chance to ask for official recognition of the annexation of the Golan Heights. In any other presidency, such a radical suggestion would encounter a stone wall and revulsion at the mere request. Indeed, it’s a new day in America.
A change in the media
The American media has also realized which way things are going. Not since the swearing-in ceremony has Trump been seen smiling like he was at the press conference with Netanyahu. The chaotic Middle East gave him a moment of peace and quiet.
Trump proved that he sees domestic and foreign policy as the same thing. Just like he doesn’t intend to pay attention to rules laid down in the demanding Washington swamp, he doesn’t intend to listen to Middle East paradigms. And just like he plans to rebuild the American economy from the inside, he intends to rebuild American deterrence abroad.
Success in domestic policy will help build his image abroad, and success abroad will help him demonstrate authoritativeness at home. He knows very well that Iran is scrutinizing the battles he’s fighting in the U.S. — from the fight against “Obamacare” to the battles over his executive order limiting immigration. If people feel he is weakening, they will try to test him again. So he is unwilling to go any great distance to show he’s standing strong against the courts and his opponents. That is a crucial image in the Middle East, and he knows it better than a lot of the presidents who preceded him. And just like he captured the heart of the American periphery through straight, unmediated talk — like Andrew Jackson before him — he intends to win the war for the hearts of the Middle Eastern countries.
Already, he isn’t just another preaching president who knows what’s better for both sides than they do (what Obama was and what Clinton might have been). The American media understands this. Shortly after the press conference, Peter Baker and Mark Lander wrote in The New York Times that Trump’s words marked a dramatic change to American thinking in the past two decades. American analysts even concluded that Trump saw Netanyahu as a partner who was helping him achieve stability in the Middle East. Israel is no longer perceived in Washington and other western capitals as a destabilizing country, the opposite — as a country that shares western values.
The European media also realized exactly what had come out of the meeting: “Trump and Netanyahu buried the idea of two states,” read the top headlines in France’s Le Figaro newspaper. But let’s be clear: Trump, who is bogged down with the media over the alleged Russian ties scandal, the liberal experts in the streets, and other incidents in which Republican elected officials are taking part, realizes that the most complicated problem in the world today — the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict — is an opportunity for him to make history. In the meantime, one thing is certain: Trump intends to keep the flame of possible peace burning. The big question now is how the Palestinians will respond. We can assume they will go running to the various European capitals and maybe even to Russia and China to cry over their bitter fate. It’s hard to believe how we have moved on from U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, passed just before Hanukkah of last year and which defines the settlements as illegal, to doubting or even “burying the idea of two states.” Amazing.
The Palestinian side responded with astonishment. Saeb Erekat, who has been involved with the Palestinian side in every round of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians these past 25 years, said that “torpedoing the idea of two states will be a disaster and a tragedy for both Israelis and Palestinians.” In effect, as the CNN website declared, Netanyahu and Trump hit the “restart” button in Israel-U.S. relations. The news network, which is locked in all-out battle with Trump, might be saying that the U.S. president hasn’t given Israel a blank check to do what it wants, but that’s due to tactical reasons intended to leave him room to maneuver. The request that Israel hold off a little on everything having to do with the settlements was part of his desire to move forward, and not out of principle.
A heartwarming moment
It hasn’t been an easy week for Trump. It’s not how he thought he’d start his fourth week in the White House. It’s only been 25 days since his term started, and he’s already lost his national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign because he had lied to the president and vice president about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador in December of last year, before the administration entered into power. Flynn was also a key figure in the campaign in handling the growing tensions between the U.S. and Iran. So Trump took advantage of Wednesday’s podium to change the shrill tones that have followed his administration this past week. As one pundit said, the smiles with Netanyahu might have been his best moments since he entered the White House.
At this rate, given the many scandals in Washington today, Netanyahu might be invited back much quicker than he expected.
All in all, the drama in the U.S. these past few weeks means that the Middle East, even Iran, will have to wait. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is slated to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the G-20 foreign ministers in Bonn, Germany, which wraps up today. Once again, we see how for Trump the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one more aspect of foreign policy, and not even a central pillar of it. Solving the conflict might help him, but he doesn’t intend to make Tillerson roll out plans and initiatives morning and night like his predecessors. During the campaign, he went against what the polls and pollsters said, and in doing so caused an entire industry of data collection and analysis to go broke, and he intends to do the same to concepts that controlled thinking in the Middle East and the State Department. He won because he crisscrossed America and spoke to all voters in the same way and without condescension, even those who supposedly weren’t supposed to support him, as Clinton was trying to warn everyone about him and forgetting that she needed to drum up support of her own. And this is where his enormous potential to change the Middle East reality lies, in highlighting a change to the Palestinian deadlock on recognizing the current reality of the existence of a Jewish state.
Will the newbie bring change?
In one week, I visited the White House twice. The command center of the world is an impressive place. Portraits of past presidents adorn many walls. On the way out of the White House, a portrait of Hillary Clinton, who spent eight years as first lady, appears.
“The president is a real gentleman. He’s leaving the picture up,” I tell my guide in jest.
“He sure is a gentleman,” the White House guide responds.
And leaving the premises, I think to myself that if Clinton had won the election and maybe hosted Netanyahu at a later date, we can assume that we would certainly have heard the same refrain we’ve heard for 30 years, which it must be admitted has led to nothing. Maybe it’s the newbie politician who is merely the president of the world who will manage to change people’s thinking and perception, but for that to happen, we need two things: an American president and an Israeli prime minister. It looks like these two are coordinated. It’s promising.
anneinpt
artaxes
danmillerinpanama
davidking1530
Peter Hofman
Joseph Wouk
Peter
Louisiana Steve
WarSclerotic 
Recent Comments