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Who Is Putin’s Real Ally?

July 28, 2016

Who Is Putin’s Real Ally? PJ Media, Roger L Simon, July 27, 2016

put hill

There’s money in them thar reset buttons!

********************

Oh, the vapors, the vapors!  Donald Trump has done it again. He has a gone a bridge too far for the 150th time, but on this occasion taken us all the way across the Bering Straits to the very edge of the Gulag Archipelago. He has urged Vladimir Putin to reveal the contents of Hillary Clinton’s gazillion missing emails the FBI somehow couldn’t find.

Traitor!  Traitor!  yell the well-intentioned, like former SecDef Leon Panetta. This selfish yellow-haired plutocrat must be disqualified from the presidency!

Never mind that Putin would need no encouragement whatsoever from any outsider to hack the wide-open server of the former secretary of state, nor would the intelligence services of at least a dozen other first-world countries (they all do it—we were listening to Merkel’s cell phone ourselves, it will be recalled), not to mention the who-knows-how-many non-state actors and twelve-year-old high-tech whippersnappers with the skill to do this.

Never mind that Trump was undoubtedly far less interested in making friends with Putin than in calling attention to the obvious relationship between Hillary’s home-brew server and the similarly wide-open server of the DNC that Mrs. Clinton claimed to know nothing about. Her media lackeys on 60 Minutes made sure no one paid attention (hello, Scott Pelley!).

Meanwhile, discussion is curiously mute on a far more substantive alliance with Putin by, yes, the Clintons themselves that could actually change the balance of power in the world in a way far more dangerous than Trump mouthing off about Vladimir.  It probably already has.

But don’t believe me. I’m biased. Believe that center of the “great right-wing conspiracy,” The New York Times, which ran the article “Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal” on April 23, 2015.

The headline on the website Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when its precursor served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”

The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.

But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.

At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.

Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Wait a minute.  According to the sainted Times, one-fifth of U.S. uranium production now belongs to the Russians thanks to Ma and Pa Clinton?! If you wanted to talk treason, wouldn’t that be the textbook definition?  Do the folks at the Democratic National Convention know about this?

If I had to, I would guess at best three-to-five percent do and they’re certainly not telling the others. Neither are the media, so hell-bent are they on defeating Donald Trump.  I mean he’s uncouth and makes fun of people. That’s worse than a few measly atom bombs, isn’t it?…  Okay, perhaps more than a few…. Well, isn’t it?

Nasty business, huh? You could put it another way: There’s money in them thar reset buttons!

Yes, we live in an era of true evil when disinformation and distraction is king.

Nevertheless, some of the truth is out there. Two movies have opened and are doing quite well—Clinton Cash and Dinesh D’Souza’s Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party.  I have seen Dinesh’s movie and can recommend it.  I plan on seeing Clinton Cash soon.  See them both and try to bring your liberal and independent friends.  They’re the ones who should be there.  Just bring some ibuprofen for them.

Categories: 2016 elections, Clinton e-mails, Clinton Foundation, Crooked Hillary, Democrat Party, Donald Trump, Foreign policy, Hillary Clinton and Russia, Russia and Uranium
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Krauthammer: Trump’s Russia reference set a trap for Clinton

July 28, 2016

Krauthammer: Trump’s Russia reference set a trap for Clinton, Fox News via YouTube, July 27, 2016

Categories: 2016 elections, Clinton e-mails, Democrat Party, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Russia
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Trump and NATO

July 27, 2016

Trump and NATO, Front Page Magazine, Bruce Thornton, July 27, 2016

trump nato

The Never Trump crowd has found another example of The Donald’s disqualifying ignorance: comments he made about NATO. He has said that our contributions to NATO are “unfair,” that they are “costing us a fortune,” that we are “getting ripped off,” and that they are “getting a free ride.” By the way, Obama in his Atlantic interview also called the Europeans “free riders,” but I don’t recall a lot of sneering at the president for his “alarming” and “dangerous” remarks, as one critic put it.

Trump also implied that he would put the European NATO members’ feet to the fire about meeting the 2006 requirement that they spend 2% of GDP on their militaries, and suggested he would negotiate a new contribution schedule. Few NATO members have met that requirement, which is a violation of Article 3 that requires member states to “maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.” According to NATO’s own report, only five countries are estimated to meet the 2% requirement in 2016. France, Germany, Italy, and Spain­­––the first, third, fourth, and fifth largest economies in the EU––are not among them. The richest, Germany, is expected to remain at 1.19%. In contrast, the US will spend 3.9%. As Lord Robertson, NATO Secretary General from 1999-2004, put it, European nations are “military pygmies.”

Critics of Trump are technically correct to say that he exaggerates when he claims that the US pays the “lion’s share” of NATO funding. In fact, the US pays under a fifth (22%). But the complaints about European NATO members, which predate Trump by decades, take into account more salient deficiencies. “Common funding,” of which the US covers a fifth, is “used to finance NATO’s principal budgets: the civil budget (NATO HQ running costs), the military budget (costs of the integrated Command Structure) and the NATO Security Investment Programme (military capabilities),” according to NATO. In other words, mostly institutional bureaucratic infrastructure.

“Indirect spending” covers what each nation voluntarily contributes to an operation. NATO acknowledges the greater share the US spends on indirect spending: “there is an over-reliance by the Alliance as a whole on the United States for the provision of essential capabilities, including for instance, in regard to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; air-to-air refuelling; ballistic missile defence; and airborne electronic warfare.” We could also mention transport aircraft, cruise missiles, and other matériel that the European countries simply don’t have much of. For example, in the 2011 NATO bombing of Libya, there were 246 cruise missiles launched. The US fired 228 of them. At $1.5 million apiece, that adds up to $342 million taxpayer dollars spent to destabilize a country and get four of our citizens killed.

This discrepancy in indirect spending and military capability was already obvious in the 1990’s when NATO intervened in Bosnia and Kosovo to stop a vicious war. During the 1999 crisis in Kosovo, the Europeans had to make “heroic efforts” just to deploy 2% of their two million troops, according to the British foreign secretary. Historian William Shawcross writes of the bombing campaign, “The United States flew the overwhelming majority of the missions, and dropped almost all the precision-guided U.S.-made munitions, and most of the targets were generated by U.S. intelligence.”

So Trump’s complaints, as blustering and exaggerated as they may be, are legitimate. Operations conducted by NATO are overwhelmingly American funded and directed, and NATO is a diplomatic fig-leaf for American power.

No more convincing are the reasons critics give for supporting NATO. The alliance has not prevented “major state conflict since World War II,” as a writer at NRO claims. Given that some 40 million people have died in conflicts since WWII, I’m not sure what “peace” we’re talking about. During the Cold War, the peace between the US and the Soviet Union was kept by nuclear “mutually assured destruction” and millions of American troops, not NATO. Nor was Europe in any condition to fight among themselves. The Europeans were, and still are in many ways, burned out after 30 years of warring, and had neither the will, the morale, nor the belief in anything worth dying for to engage in another war. With their security underwritten by the US, they could spend their money on lavish social welfare programs and la dolce vita. Thinking NATO kept the peace is as preposterous as claiming the EU did.

Then there’s Article 5, the pledge that NATO members will fight for any member state that’s been attacked. Much is made of the only time Article 5 has been invoked, after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Yet all that solidarity and allied good will didn’t stop France and Germany from trying to undermine the US when it tried to get the UN to sanction the war in 2003 on Saddam Hussein, who had violated 16 UN resolutions and the formal terms ending the 1991 Iraq War. Despite the consensus of American and European intelligence agencies that Hussein had WMD stockpiles, France and Germany took the lead in lobbying the Security Council to oppose the authorization to use force against Iraq.  Germany’s ambassador to the UN Council pressured members like Mexico and Chile to vote against the US. Worse yet, France and Germany, along with Belgium, formally objected to a proposal for NATO to send defensive equipment to Turkey, which wanted assurances that it would be supported by its fellow NATO members if attacked for supporting the war against Hussein.

This behavior of NATO allies did not reflect principle, but national interests and politics. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was running for re-election, and found reflexive German anti-Americanism and pacifism a convenient distraction from his terrible economic record. France had grubbier reasons in addition to its own ressentiment towards the US––renewing the arm sales to Iraq and oil development contracts it had enjoyed for years before the war, and could resume once the sanctions on Hussein were lifted, something France was actively pursuing. As Shawcross summarized, “The long friendship with Saddam, commercial considerations, the response to le défi Américain, and concern over the reactions of France’s Muslims––all these played a part in [President Jacques] Chirac’s calculations in the summer of 2002.”

The importance put on Article 5 forgets that, as George Washington said, “It is a maxim founded on the universal experience of mankind, that no nation can be trusted farther than it is bound by its interests.” NATO members have made and in the future will make decisions based on each nation’s estimation of its interests. So there’s no guarantee that invoking Article 5 would lead to meaningful NATO member support. And given the weakness of their militaries, just how much actual rather than rhetorical support could the Europeans provide in the event of an attack? How many battle carrier groups does NATO possess? The Europeans can’t even afford cruise missiles.

Finally, the arguments for NATO are predicated on an either-or fallacy. If we don’t have the NATO alliance and the benefits it supposedly brings for collective security, then we’ll have nothing. But of course, if NATO disappeared tomorrow, the US would quickly sign bilateral and multilateral defense agreements with individual countries or groups of countries, including some current NATO members. The argument that without NATO our security would be endangered is as fallacious as the argument of the Remain faction in England that leaving the EU would put the UK in danger. A country as rich and powerful as the US will find no dearth of countries eager to bandwagon with it.

Trump’s critics continue to search for dubious reasons to justify sitting out the election or even voting for Hillary. There may be many reasons not to vote for Trump, but criticizing NATO isn’t one of them.

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Europe, European military, NATO
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The Associated Press Plays the Race Card

July 27, 2016

The Associated Press Plays the Race Card, Power Line, JOHN HINDERAKER, July 26, 2016

The Democrats’ campaign against Donald Trump consists mostly of branding him a bigot. Thus, they have sent out many emails like this one:

dnc race card

Stop bigotry! No details are necessary.

The Associated Press was once a straightforward, relatively nonpolitical news source, but those days are long gone. Now some of the most hard-core Democratic Party advocacy comes from the AP. Thus, it is no surprise that the AP is trying to advance the Democrats’ narrative that Trump is a bigot.

On July 22, the AP headlined: “Critics: Trump speech signals shift to coded race language.” This is an old trick–make a “news story” out of what critics say. The occasion was Trump’s convention acceptance speech. And, of course, talking about “coded” language allows reporters to impute to politicians things they never said, based on their enemies’ fantasies.

[S]ome observers say he’s turning to code words to gin up racial animosity and fear among America’s white voters.

Is that assertion true? The AP takes no responsibility, it is just what “some observers say.” Don’t hold your breath waiting for an article from the AP about the Democrats ginning up racial animosity and fear among African-Americans. That would actually make a good news story, but you won’t be seeing it any time soon.

Trump “didn’t get on stage and issue a bunch of racial epithets,” said Emory University political scientist Andra Gillespie, who watched his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. “We didn’t hear the N-word, and we didn’t hear other words that may offend many people. But just because he didn’t use racial slurs doesn’t mean he didn’t frame issues in a way that people in racial and ethnic groups find problematic.”

What does that mean? I have absolutely no idea. The AP didn’t inquire, and doesn’t tell us.

Ian Haney Lopez, author of “Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class,” went further, saying Trump’s speech surpassed even the coded racial language of Richard Nixon in 1968.

“Coded racial language” is big on the left, but note that so far, the AP hasn’t quoted a single word that Donald Trump actually said. Not one. The AP goes on in the same vein, quoting Trump’s far-left critics, but never citing any of Trump’s own words. Except for a stray phrase or two, like this:

Some have pointed out that Trump’s slogan “America First” was also the slogan of the America First Committee, an isolationist, anti-Semitic group whose primary goal was to keep the United States from joining Britain in the fight against Nazi Germany. The group opposed the acceptance of shiploads of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution.

Flawed messaging on Trump’s part? Perhaps. But these days, anti-Semitism exists almost exclusively in the Democratic Party, not the Republican. And however the phrase may have been used 80 years ago, today “America first” is a perfectly straightforward way of expressing the proposition that America’s government should put the interests of its own citizens ahead of all others–a proposition with which the Democratic Party will not argue, but neither will it agree.

There is much more along the same lines; read it for yourself if you like. The next day, July 23, the AP came out with another anti-Trump racial smear: “Energized white supremacists cheer Trump convention message.” It is more of the same: Trump doesn’t actually say anything about race, but we liberals will tell you what he really means.

They don’t like to be called white supremacists.

The well-dressed men who gathered in Cleveland’s Ritz-Carlton bar after Donald Trump’s speech accepting the Republican nomination for president prefer the term “Europeanists,” “alt-right,” or even “white nationalists.” They are also die-hard Trump supporters.

Sure. And tomorrow, the AP will run a story on how Communists and Socialists are cheering for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. They won’t do that, of course, because fringe people are of interest only if they support Republicans. It’s just another day in the lives of liberal journalists who are devoted to advancing the interests of their party.

Categories: 2016 elections, Democrat National Committee, Donald Trump, Media and DNC, Racism, Trump and bigotry
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Guess Who Filled in for Wasserman-Schultz Yesterday

July 26, 2016

Guess Who Filled in for Wasserman-Schultz Yesterday, Power Line, Paul Mirengoff, July 26, 2016

If you said Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, you understand the modern Democratic party very well. Rawlings-Blake formally opened the proceedings in place of the deposed Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

Readers will recall that, as rioting commenced in Baltimore, Rawlings-Blake stated:

It’s a very delicate balancing act because while we try to make sure that they were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well, and we work very hard to keep that balance and to put ourselves in the best position to de-escalate.

(Emphasis added)

Later on, when rioting ran rampant, Rawlings-Blake had the police stand down.

Under Rawlings-Blake, the Baltimore police force has become hugely demoralized. The force is shrinking and the murder rate is soaring.

Kent Scheidegger of the Crime and Consequences blog writes:

If the Democratic Party wanted to make this election all about who is on the criminals’ side and who is on the law-abiding people’s side, with themselves being the wrong side, it could hardly have chosen a more effective face to put forward to open its convention.

We know that Donald Trump wants to make the election in significant part about who is on the criminals’ side. During his acceptance speech, Trump declared himself “the law and order candidate.”

He is. By default.

Categories: 2016 elections, Crime, Democrat National Convention, Democrats, Donald Trump, Law enforcement, Lawlessness
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ISIS Ignored: Moral Sickness at the Democratic Convention

July 26, 2016

ISIS Ignored: Moral Sickness at the Democratic Convention, PJ Media, Roger L Simon, July 26, 2016

(Of course there was no mention of Islamic terrorism. Hillary plans to bring lots more “Syrian refugees” to America. — DM)

isis2

Forget the emails. Forget the angry Bernie followers and the various pathetic internecine betrayals.  The real story from day one at the Democratic Convention is that in sixty-one speeches never once did these so-called “liberals” mention terrorism.

The next morning, in fact almost simultaneously, if you take into account the the time zones, an 84-year old priest in Rouen was having his throat cut by ISIS maniacs during morning mass. The Islamic terrorists had him kneel, filming his death as they did their evil work. Nuns were held hostage.

Horrifying as it is, it wasn’t really surprising..  Such happenings have been going on with increased regularity in Germany and France (not to mention Orlando).

Yet the Democrats chose to ignore.  Why?

The answer is simple:  it doesn’t play well for them.  They’re scared it plays better for the Republicans and Donald Trump.  So they don’t mention it.

Also, it doesn’t fit with their morally narcissistic narrative that all religions are equal.

Talk about morally sick – that idea is truly that.  In fact, its absurd. It is also cowardly.

Media and politicians go on with regularity calling the terrorists cowardly. They are not the cowards.  The Islamist terrorists are quite willing to give up their lives for their own deranged religious cause.  It is the media and politicians that are the real cowards in their inability to confront them.

Obama – and now Hillary’s – Democratic Party does their best to look the other way and pretend it’s not there.  Obama is so deranged himself he continues to downplay terrorism and say climate change is the real problem.  When you think about that objectively, it sounds almost insane, yet the press swallows it.  Yesterday, John Kerry said air conditioning was the problem.

The idea that more refugees from Syria are being allowed into this country by Obama and Hillary boggles the mind.  Do these politicians want to kill us and our families.  Don’t that have children themselves?  Oh, yes, they have security personnel of their own.  But 99.9% of their constituents don’t.

And yet the citizens of the USA elect these people.  Enough.  Wake up, America.

Categories: 2016 elections, Democrat National Convention, Donald Trump, Islamic terrorism
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Cartoons of the Day

July 25, 2016

H/t Vermont Loon Watch

Hillary Clinton Holds Primary Night Event In Brooklyn, New York

 

H/t Power Line

Thelma-copy

 

memo to media

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Humor, Media
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There Is Nothing Honorable about Losing to Hillary

July 25, 2016

There Is Nothing Honorable about Losing to Hillary, American Thinker, Karin McQuillan, July 25, 2016

In 2008 we had John McCain, who was too honorable to criticize Barack Hussein Obama.  In 2012 we had Mitt Romney who again was too honorable to attack our first black President.  Now we have Ted Cruz who is too honorable to honor his pledge of party unity, too honorable to protect our Supreme Court from Hillary’s potential nominees, and too honorable to help us win.  We have all the Libertarians, so honorable they have a shot at throwing the election to Hillary.

We have a whole list of conservative pundits and websites, who could swallow the GOP betraying all their 2012 pledges, doubling our national debt and increasing entitlements, without a word about bolting the party, but Trump’s crude, honest talk is too much for their honor to bear?

We have Paul Ryan who is so honorable he has to rush to the microphones and join the media lynch mob criticizing Trump as racist, while the Dems’ race-baiting over 8 years has gotten a pass.  Ryan’s priority is to protect his own, oh so honorable brand, as a compassionate conservative, superior to the voters as well as Trump.

There is nothing honorable about choosing to lose.

There is nothing honorable about betraying your voters, who picked Trump because all those honorable leaders have been lying to us for years.  They pretend to support enforcing our immigration laws when they have no intention of doing so.  They pretend to be serious about the jihadi threat, while letting millions of sharia-supporting Muslims into our country.  They pretend to be fixing things in the Middle East, while giving the Gulf sheikdoms free rein to turn American mosques into jihadi propaganda centers.  They pretend to be serious about jobs, while refusing to confront the Chinese on currency manipulation.  They pretend to love America, but not enough to protect it from the PC onslaught on our constitutional rights.

Note to all you honorable liars and losers:  the voters are sick of you.  We want someone on our side and someone who will to fight to win.  That’s why Trump was nominated.

Ted Cruz – the honorable thing was to put your personal anger at Trump’s dirty fighting aside.  Yes, he called your wife and father mean, ugly things, completely reprehensible. That’s more important to your conscience than a Hillary Supreme Court?  You told the convention, “And citizens are furious — rightly furious — at a political establishment that cynically breaks its promises and that ignores the will of the people.”  You were talking about yourself, Ted.  You were in the very act of ignoring the voters who elected Trump, not you, and breaking your promise to support the nominee.   And you have the hypocrisy to label that principled.

Message to all you so very honorable constitutional conservatives:  Trump is a far better constitutional candidate than anyone we’ve had a chance to vote for since Reagan, who also had his flaws.  Without borders, we have no country and no rule of law, both of which are prerequisites to a constitutionally limited government.  Think you’re going to get smaller government with amnesty and open borders?

So Trump doesn’t make beautiful intellectual speeches about liberty.  He’s going to protect freedom of speech, religion and the 2nd Amendment, all of which are eroding by the week under progressive misrule.

So Trump isn’t pledging entitlement reform?  He does recognize the need to rein in government over-regulation, so crucial to both liberty and prosperity.  He will get rid of the Common Core federal take-over of education, with its curriculum designed to wipe out American values and love of country among our children.  He will take on special interests such as the environmental lobby, which has hobbled our energy sector, and limited growth.  These are not small improvements.

Hillary will finish destroying everything you hold dear.  Trump will not just hold the line, he will advance it.

It’s nonsense that Trump is a horror, but that Hillary is worse.  Trump gets the basics.

Which is far more than can be said of all you honorable men.

 

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Honor, Never Trumpers, Republican Party, Republicans
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Trump Promises American Greatness

July 22, 2016

Trump Promises American Greatness, Front Page Magazine, Matthew Vadum, July 22, 2016

(Please see also, FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump Accepts Republican Nomination for President. — DM)

trump flag

CLEVELAND — Republican presidential candidate Donald John Trump gave a masterful acceptance speech last night as he savaged Hillary Clinton for her seemingly congenital corruption, assailed Barack Obama’s failed policies and the civil unrest he has fomented, and optimistically laid out an ambitious roadmap to the future.

Trump did an admirable job staying on-message.

“Together, we will lead our party back to the White House, and we will lead our country back to safety, prosperity, and peace,” he said. “We will be a country of generosity and warmth. But we will also be a country of law and order.”

America is being overrun by “violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities,” he said. “Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement.”

The number of police officers killed in the line of duty is up nearly 50 percent compared to this point last year, he said. Although 180,000 illegal aliens with criminal records have been ordered deported, they “are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.”

Border crossings by illegals are out of control and these aliens “are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources.”

Some of these illegals have been murdering Americans and that’s fine with Hillary Clinton, he implied. Clinton supports lawless sanctuary cities and favors open borders, he said.

“I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon, and I mean very soon, come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored. The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.”

He said he would be “the law and order candidate.”

Americans need a straightforward assessment of the state of the nation, he said. “I will present the facts plainly and honestly. We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.”

Black unemployment rates are sky-high and Latino poverty rates are higher than when President Obama took the oath of office in 2009, he said, adding that “another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely.”

Household incomes have fallen and bad trade policies are hurting Americans, he said.

“President Obama has doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion and growing. Yet, what do we have to show for it? Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in Third World conditions, and 43 million Americans are on food stamps.”

America is humiliated abroad all the time, he said. “We all remember the images of our sailors being forced to their knees by their Iranian captors at gunpoint.”

And the nuclear nonproliferation pact with Iran gave the mullahs $150 billion “and gave us nothing.” The agreement “will go down in history as one of the worst deals ever negotiated.”

When Trump referenced the Muslim terrorist attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, the crowd went wild. “America is far less safe — and the world is far less stable — than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy.”

As the crowd chanted “lock her up,” Trump responded, “let’s defeat her in November.”

Clinton set the Arab world on fire, he said. “This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction, terrorism, and weakness.”

Trump said he will “defeat the barbarians of ISIS and we’re going to defeat them fast.” He mourned the victims of Islamic terrorism in the U.S., saying the people murdered by a jihadist at a gay club in Orlando, Fla., were “49 wonderful Americans.” The terrorist targeted the “LGBTQ community … and we’re going to stop it.”

Trump said he would “protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology,” and delegates applauded him. He then said, “as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said. Thank you.”

America should not be importing refugees from Syria who cannot be properly screened, he said. “I only want to admit individuals into our country who will support our values and love our people.”

Clinton, Trump said, refuses to put America first. But if he becomes president “Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo.” Those politicians who will not put America first ensure “that other nations will not treat America with respect, the respect that we deserve.”

Powerful special interests have rigged the system, he said. Clinton is the “puppet” of big business, elite media, and major donors, he said.

Clinton doesn’t want change, he said. “My message is that things have to change — and they have to change right now.”

Trump said he is determined to make life better for those who “have been ignored, neglected, and abandoned.” Laid-off factory workers hurt by bad trade deals “are the forgotten men and women of our country,” but “they’re not going to be forgotten long.”

“I am your voice,” Trump said to loud applause.

“When innocent people suffer because our political system lacks the will, or the courage, or the basic decency to enforce our laws — or still worse, has sold out to some corporate lobbyist for cash — I am not able to look the other way.”

When Clinton illegally operates private Internet servers, lies about it over and over again, and destroys 33,000 emails “so the authorities can’t see her crime,” and she gets away with it, “I know that corruption has reached a level like never ever before in our country.”

Trump modified his signature line, promising to make America “strong again,” “proud again,” “safe again,” and “great again.”

He ended his oration with “God bless you! I love you!”

Trump’s 76-minute speech was followed by the traditional dropping of thousands of balloons from the ceiling to the tune of “Alright Now” by the British band Free.

Before that Ivanka Trump introduced her father to delegates in a powerful speech. Her eloquence, intelligence, and charisma were impossible to ignore.

She said her father is the kind of leader who can transcend politics. He is “a political outsider” and “a fighter,” she said, adding “I have seen him fight for his employees. Now, I am seeing him fight for his country.”

“For more than a year Donald Trump has been the people’s champion,” she said. The fact he’s not a career politician is a great strength, she said. “Real change is only going to come from outside of the system.”

Trump is “famous but not well-known,” she said. The “hard-working men and women of this country identify with my father.”

He has spent his whole life doing what others have said could not be done, she said. “When my father says he will make America great again, he will deliver … he is incapable of thinking small.”

Other speakers earlier in the evening pumped up the crowd.

Silicon Valley entrepreneur and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who is worth about $3 billion, said America needs a businessman like Trump. In his view, the country no longer leads the world in technology.

“Our nuclear bases still use floppy disks. Our newest fighter jets can’t even fly in the rain. And it would be kind to say the government’s software works poorly, because much of the time it doesn’t even work at all. That is a staggering decline for the country that completed the Manhattan Project. We don’t accept such incompetence in Silicon Valley and we must not accept it from our government.”

Thiel attacked the financial sector. “Wall Street bankers inflate bubbles in everything from government bonds to Hillary Clinton’s speaking fees,” he said caustically.

He criticized current foreign policy.

“Instead of going to Mars, we have invaded the Middle East. We don’t need to see Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails: her incompetence is in plain sight. She pushed for a war in Libya and today it’s a training ground for ISIS. On this most important issue, Donald Trump is right. It’s time to end the era of stupid wars and rebuild our country.”

Thiel then made history on the convention stage. “I am proud to be gay,” Thiel said to delegates who applauded him. Some even gave him a standing ovation, something unimaginable at a GOP convention 20 or even 10 years ago.

“I am proud to be a Republican,” he continued. “But most of all I am proud to be an American.”

“I don’t pretend to agree with every plank in our party’s platform,” he said. “But fake culture wars only distract us from economic decline, and nobody in this race is being honest about it except Donald Trump.”

Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio railed against current immigration policies.

“We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of ours,” he said. “We are more concerned about the rights of illegal aliens and criminals than we are with protecting our own country. That must change.”

Arpaio said the long-delayed wall along the Mexican border has to be constructed to secure America’s borders. “Donald Trump will build the wall,” he said to applause and chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” and “build that wall!”

NFL great Fran Tarkenton, who said he has known the nominee for years, said “Donald Trump knows how to get the best out of people.”

Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus assailed Hillary Clinton saying that during the investigation into her illegal, hacker-friendly email servers “she lied over and over and over.” Clinton “reads ethics rules as carefully as Americans read their junk mail.”

She used her post as secretary of state and her family foundation for her own enrichment, he said. For Clinton, the Oval Office is just another “cash cow.” Americans, he said, “have had enough.”

Also speaking were Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., televangelist Mark Burns, paralysis survivor Brock Mealer, Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, Colony Capital chairman Tom Barrack, and Korean Americans for Trump founder optometrist Lisa Shin, and actor Jon Voight appeared as narrator in a video about Trump’s business accomplishments that featured commentator Larry Kudlow, Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Looking back over the four days of the convention, it was calmer outside the Quicken Loans Arena than many had expected.

The riots and massive protests expected at the convention never materialized. There were relatively few arrests. At most demonstrations near the convention site the angry masses could be measured in hundreds, if that. The massive police presence, drawn from law enforcement agencies across the country, may have deterred some of the would-be troublemakers.

Well-armed bystanders may have also helped to scare the bad guys away.

Throughout the convention there were plenty of citizens with rifles wandering around Public Square and elsewhere in downtown Cleveland, exercising the open-carry rights people enjoy in the Buckeye State. Most, but not all, were pro-Trump. Some showed up to show their support for the nation’s embattled police officers. Firearms were not allowed in the relatively small security zone around the convention site, which was controlled by the U.S. Secret Service.

On Tuesday there was a shouting match and some pushing and shoving between anti-Trump demonstrators and radical libertarian radio host Alex Jones of Infowars.

Police broke up clashes between various activist groups. Members of Black Lives Matter, Ku Klux Klan, and Westboro Baptist Church reportedly threw urine at each other.

The anti-American so-called peace group Code Pink tried to swarm Sheriff Arpaio at one point and chanted “shame.” The Revolutionary Communist Party was also on-site.

On Wednesday a protester inadvertently set himself and others on fire while trying to burn an American flag. Firefighters promptly extinguished the flames. There were no serious injuries, according to Cleveland Police.

Leftist groups built a fake wall to protest Trump’s plans to enforce immigration laws and secure the border. Among the organizations participating in the “Wall Off Trump” action were the Ruckus Society, Mijente, Iraq Veterans Against the War, The Other 98 Percent, and the ACORN-affiliated Working Families Party, according to Democracy Now.

The New Black Panther Party and other radical groups took part in demonstrations.

Meanwhile, presumptive Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton has reportedly selected Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) as her running mate. Kaine is a Harvard-educated lawyer. He previously served as governor and lieutenant governor of Virginia and as mayor of Richmond. He is also a previous Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman.

Also rans reportedly included Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Labor Secretary Tom Perez, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

The four-day Democratic National Convention gets underway Monday in Philadelphia.

Trump said in his speech that some people really ought to attend the Democrats’ confab.

“If you want to hear the corporate spin, the carefully-crafted lies, and the media myths the Democrats are holding their convention next week.”

“Go there,” Trump said.

Categories: 2016 elections, Democrats, Domestic policy, Donald Trump, Donald Trump acceptance speech, Foreign policy, Hillary Clinton, Obama and Middle East, Obama's America, Republican National Convention
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Lt. Gen. Flynn at GOP Convention

July 21, 2016

Lt. Gen. Flynn at GOP Convention via YouTube, July 21, 2016

(Please see also, Terrorism in The Therapeutic Age — DM)

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Islam, Islamic nations, Islamic terrorism, Islamists vs Islam, Michael T. Flynn, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic terrorism, radical Islam, Republican National Convention
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