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Ruth King

Trump comes out swinging By J.R. Dunn

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/trump_comes_out_swinging.html

As he did Thursday night in Minnesota, President Trump came out swinging in Lake Charles, Louisiana on Friday.

“The Democrats’ policies are crazy, their politicians are corrupt, their candidates are terrible, and they know they can’t win on election day, so they’re pursuing an illegal, invalid, and unconstitutional bullsh*t impeachment.”

The President was ostensibly in town to support two Republican candidates running in a typically oddball Louisiana gubernatorial election featuring Republicans U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham and businessman Eddie Rispone against incumbent Democrat John Bel Edwards. But in truth it was Donald Trump vs. the political establishment, the media, and the Deep State.

“This is the witch hunt,” Trump said. “They’ve been trying to stop us for three years with a lot of crap.”

“All of our nation’s gains are put at risk by a rage-filled Democrat party that has gone completely insane. The Democrats are fighting to restore the wretched political class that… surrendered our sovereignty, flooded our cities with drugs and crimes and bogged us down in one foreign war after another.”

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had been raked over the coals on Thursday. Last night it was Nancy Pelosi’s turn.

“I used to think she loved the country. She hates the country. Nancy Pelosi hates the United States of America, because she wouldn’t be doing this.”

Joe Biden, not to forget Hunter, also came in for a beating: “Can you imagine if Don Jr. or Eric Trump, or if our beautiful Ivanka… if they walked out with $1.5 billion? They would be saying, ‘Where’s the nearest cell?’”

Missing the Bigger Picture in Kurdish Syria By Lt. Col. Robert L. Maginnis, US Army Ret.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/10/missing_the_bigger_picture_in_kurdish_syria.html

President Trump’s decision to withdraw our few troops from the Syria-Turkey border area earned him considerable criticism from allies.  Senator Lindsey Graham said the decision is “a catastrophe in the making.” Representative Liz Cheney said it’s “a catastrophic mistake.”  Former UN Secretary Nikki Haley said, “We must always have the backs of our allies.” 

President Trump has answered these critics.  The Kurds were engaged in a contractual relationship fighting the Islamic State (ISIS).  They were well paid and equipped for their fighting, much like any mercenary group.  Further, they were given three years to consolidate eastern Syria to feed their long-held desire to form an independent Kurdistan with other Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.  They failed. 

The Kurds’ problem, and by association that of the U.S., is that regional powers like Turkey and to a lesser extent Iran and Syria have long held the Kurds in disdain.  In fact, Turkey considers the Syrian Kurds to be allies of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or (PKK), which are Turkish Kurds and terrorists fighting for independence for the last 35 years.   

Basically, the Kurds hijacked our fight with ISIS to feed their regional civil war to earn independence.

President Trump is aware of that agenda and is also trying to constrain American hawks who want to use our military willy-nilly across the world.  Remember that Trump frequently said during his 2016 campaign that he wants to escape from endless wars and bring our fighters home.   

New National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien Makes Promising Progress By Jim Talent

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/new-national-security-adviser-robert-obrien-makes-promising-progress/

The Trump administration’s national security policy has, on the whole and especially at a strategic level, been quite good, and now Robert O’Brien, the new national security adviser, is implementing a promising reorganization of the NSC staff.

In its first two and a half years, the administration has:

Made great power competition, and especially the competition with China, the top priority of American foreign policy. The process of shifting attention to Asia began in the Obama administration, but President Trump catalyzed it in the National Security Strategy, which was completed within a year after he took office;
Energized the various agencies of the Executive Branch to inventory, adapt, and vigorously use the tools at their command to prosecute the administration’s policy towards China and build a national security architecture structured for that purpose. In particular Trump has recognized and realized the potential of American economic power to put adversaries off balance and on the defensive.
Refocused our Middle East policy on the greatest threat — Iran — and reassembled the formal and informal partnerships with Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and the Gulf States that for forty years had been the foundation of American policy in the Middle East.
Succeeded in lifting the defense sequester and injecting more money into the defense budget. That hasn’t accomplished as much, in practical terms, as the White House claims, but it’s a step in the right direction.

I also like the administration’s top national security personnel going forward. Mike Pompeo has been a consistent force and effective messenger for good policy and Gina Haspel is a top professional at the CIA, where professionalism is essential. It took too long for the Administration to settle on Mark Esper as Defense Secretary to replace Jim Mattis, but it was an outstanding choice that will continue to pay dividends as the DOD realigns its priorities to deal with China.

THE ORIGINAL NATION-BOOKS REVIEWED BY DAVID GOLDMAN

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/11/the-original-nation

How to Fight Anti-Semitism
by Bari Weiss

Hate: 
The Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism in France
by Marc Weitzmann

No one views Israel with indifference. As an old joke puts it, a philo-Semite is just an anti-Semite who likes Jews. Bari Weiss quotes this joke (to disparage Donald Trump) without grasping its deeper meaning. Anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism respond to the same thing, namely, God’s promise to the descendants of Abraham and Sarah. Supersessionist Christians hate the Jews because they covet the Election of Israel. Other Christians take heart from the miracle of Jewish survival and bless the Jews in the spirit of Genesis 12:3 and Romans 11.

The same people may do either at different times. The great-­grandparents of today’s evangelical Christians were the Protestants who blocked Jewish immigration before and during World War II. When everyone professed Christianity, it was fashionable to despise Jews as recalcitrant holdouts against the manifest truth of the gospels. When the cultural tide turned against Christianity during the 1960s, though, the miracle of Jewish national rebirth in the Holy Land appeared as a sign to Christians that the God of the Bible kept his promises.

Israel’s success is the point of departure for both the new philo-­Semitism and the new anti-Semitism. The mainstream American Jewish ­organizations put the Holocaust at the center of their representations to the broad public. But revulsion at the mass murder of Jews did not cause the surge of sympathy for Israel among Christians. On the contrary, the ­Holocaust at first reinforced the common ­Christian belief that God had abandoned the Jewish people. Israel’s rebirth and flourishing moved Christian opinion. Israel’s victory in the 1967 war was seen as a validation of God’s promise to the Jews and a beacon of hope to Christians.

The Greatness of Donald Trump By Dov Fischer

https://spectator.org/the-greatness-of-donald-trump/?utm

His demeanor makes some of us wince. His language makes many of us uncomfortable. Presidents in democracies reflect something about the people who elect them. In some cases, as with the aptly named House of Representatives, people sometimes even vote to be reflected by an assortment of lowlifes. Ilhan Omar reflects her district, as does Rashida Tlaib, as does [O-] Cortez. Hillary lost because even Democrats were revulsed by the thought that she reflects them.

Trump, too, reflects his electorate: we who put him there. In balancing all that he comprises, we focused in November 2016 on greatness. Eight years of Obama — incompetence, weakness, economic malaise, societal decay — left us focused on restoring greatness. Thus, even Christian pastors, devout Catholic theologians, and Orthodox rabbis vigorously support Donald Trump. The free world’s last great hope is America, and she was in peril.

What about his language, some of his dishonorable private deeds, flaws in his character?

Yes, excellence of personal character is desirable. A Mike Huckabee, a Mike Pence might offer an interesting successor model in 2024 after the Democrats manage to impeach Trump into an impeccable second full term. Yet we will look back on Trump’s presidency wistfully decades hence as we today look back on the Ronald Reagan years. The man, whatever his flaws, has proven to be a great president of historic dimensions.

Those who complain about Trump’s character invariably are the same “deplorables” who voted for the lying, cheating, false-faced Hillary. They had no problem with an ethical deviant who had committed felonious spoliation of evidence, lied about her emails (yoga and wedding dresses?), lied about Benghazi (an incoherent YouTube video with few views?), lied about her very name (named for a guy who became famous only after she was born?), lied about her trips abroad (landing amid gunfire in Bosnia, when in fact she was greeted by schoolgirls presenting her flowers), lying about and defaming the women whom her husband sexually assaulted, even lying and joking in a fake Southern drawl (back when her husband was Arkansas governor) about successfully defending a guy who raped a 12-year-old girl. They likewise had no compunction voting for her better half despite his raping Juanita Broaddrick, assaulting Kathleen Willey, exposing himself to Paula Corbin Jones, manipulating a gullible Monica Lewinsky — later explaining, “because I could.”

On the Whistleblower Kerfuffle, Imagine a Different Scenario By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/on-the-whistleblower-kerfuffle-imagine-a-different-scenario/

Imagine . . .

If in early 2015, some White House staffers transcribing confidential presidential calls were disturbed about one conversation that President Obama had with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif. The two allegedly had confidentially discussed the staggered release of some $1.7 billion in withheld U.S. dollars to Iran — as an understood exchange for the release of 4 American hostages, $400 million of which was to be delivered, in an unmarked cargo plane at night, and in various currencies to Tehran.

The payments were allegedly to take place in the general context of the ongoing “Iran Deal” nuclear nonproliferation negotiations, and a time when Iranian-funded Hezbollah was staging terrorist operations in Syria and from Lebanon.

Imagine further that a few of the insider staffers/transcribers talked about their worries over such a quid pro quo and the disconnect between what their president was saying to the Iranians and what the administration was denying to the press. And they were further outraged because such payments were hidden from the public and in apparent violation of US policy prohibiting cash payments for hostage releases.

At that point, a furious conservative Republican, former CIA analyst, and former Dick Cheney staffer, with ties to a likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate, working in the National Intelligence Program, contacted the staff of Representative Nunes, Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. The latter’s staff then helped to prep and advise the complainant, along with a mostly conservative leaning law firm, before submitting the formal charges to the inspector general.

The gist of the brief, citing legal precedents, footnoted to often-conservative media, and prepared as a formal legal document, was that the anonymous complainant had heard and learned from anonymous bureaucrats that they in turn had heard the Obama–Zarif call. Such hearsay in the complaint was allowable given that the whistleblower protocols have been mysteriously recently altered to permit such second-hand complaints.

Donald Trump Has Done Far More For Gay People Than The Stonewall Democrats By Joshua Herr

https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/11/donald-trump-has-done-far-more-for-gay-people-than-the-stonewall-democrats/

Stonewall Democrats don’t want you to know gay Republicans exist. But we do, our ideas are better than theirs, and we’re not going anywhere.

There is no easier way to make the left mad than being a gay Republican. This time, it’s the Stonewall Democratic Club that’s up in arms.

Stonewall is a group of LGBT Democrats who purport to champion “equality for all.” You wouldn’t know this from their record.

Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) during his first term. These acts outlawed gay marriage and military service for openly LGBT soldiers, respectively. It took 20 years to undo that codified discrimination. But Stonewall endorsed Clinton for reelection in 1996 anyway.

Barack Obama ran for president in 2008 opposing gay marriage. Stonewall endorsed him nonetheless. From 2008 to 2010, although Democrats controlled both the White House and Congress, Obama did nothing to advance LGBT equality. Stonewall endorsed him again in 2012.

Recently, the Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio terrorized a Hispanic gay Republican running for Congress in Texas, threatening “economic sanctions” against the gay nightclub he owns unless he leaves the race.

Despite this shameful history, Stonewall’s Ryan Basham recently wrote an article condemning the Log Cabin Republicans for endorsing Donald Trump. We at Log Cabin represent LGBT conservatives and allies. Our endorsement is the latest addition to a record that is actually far superior to Stonewall’s.

You Don’t Need To Be A Scientist To Be Legitimately Skeptical Of Climate Alarmism By David Breitenbeck

https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/11/you-dont-need-to-be-a-scientist-to-be-legitimately-skeptical-of-climate-alarmism/

An ambiguous, unverifiable crisis that only the state has the means or authority to combat is a blank check to power.

I am not a scientist. I have no scientific background beyond what I’ve picked up from reading things written by and about actual scientists. So I am, therefore, in no position to critique any scientific theory as a theory.

That said, I am a skeptic when it comes to climate change. To be clear, I don’t doubt that the climate changes — obviously it does. I don’t doubt that human activity has an effect on this change. What that effect is, and to what extent it influences the entire system, I don’t know. As a scientific concept, I have no opinion on climate change.

But it isn’t just a scientific concept. It is a political issue, and that is what I am skeptical of.

You see, I can’t judge from what I don’t know (e.g., climate science), but I can judge from what I do know. I know something of history, something of philosophy, and something of human nature. I can observe what people are doing at the moment and listen to what they actually say.

Doing so, I note that the vast majority of people, including the cause’s most vehement advocates, are no more qualified to judge it scientifically than I am. Does anyone really believe that any of those people marching in Washington have the knowledge and ability to interpret data from a global climate survey? Have they sunk the necessary hours of study and objective research into this subject to be able to say what they say with any certainty, assuming they could ever be certain?

Of course they haven’t. They are going entirely off of what certain experts have told them — namely, a specific selection of experts who have come to their attention because the media has elevated them and political groups have championed and funded them. These climate change apologists are in no position to critically examine these expert claims.

Trump Touts U.S.-China Phase One Trade Deal, Delays Tariffs

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-china-said-reach-partial-190854141.html

The U.S. and China agreed on the outlines of a partial trade accord Friday that President Donald Trump said he and his counterpart Xi Jinping could sign as soon as next month.

As part of the deal, China would significantly step up purchases of U.S. agricultural commodities, agree to certain intellectual-property measures and concessions related to financial services and currency, Trump said Friday at the White House. In exchange, the U.S. will delay a tariff increase due next week as the deal is finalized, though new levies scheduled for December haven’t yet been called off.

The agreement marks the largest breakthrough in the 18-month trade war that has hurt the economies of both nations. Importantly, Trump said the deal was the first phase of a broader agreement. The president indicated he could sign a deal with Xi at an upcoming November summit in Chile.

While the limited agreement may resolve some short-term issues, several of the thorniest disputes remain outstanding. U.S. goals in the trade war center around accusations of intellectual-property theft, forced technology transfer and complaints about Chinese industrial subsidies.

Xi told Trump in a letter — which the White House distributed on Friday — that it’s important the countries work together to address each others’ concerns. “I hope the two sides will act in the principle and direction you and I have agreed to, and work to advance China-U.S. relations based on coordination, cooperation and stability,” the letter said.

CAROLINE GLICK: TRUMP DID NOT BETRAY THE KURDS

http://carolineglick.com/trump-did-not-betray-the-kurds/

The near consensus view of President Donald Trump’s decision to remove US special forces from the Syrian border with Turkey is that Trump is enabling a Turkish invasion and double crossing the Syrian Kurds who have fought with the Americans for five years against ISIS. Trump’s move, the thinking goes, harms US credibility and undermines US power in the region and throughout the world.

There are several problems with this narrative. The first is that it assumes that until this week, the US had power and influence in Syria when in fact, by design, the US went to great lengths to limit its ability to influence events in Syria.

The war in Syria broke out in 2011 as a popular insurrection by Syrian Sunnis against the Iranian-sponsored regime of President Bashar al Assad. The Obama administration responded by declaring US support for Assad’s overthrow. But the declaration was empty. The administration sat on its thumbs as the regime’s atrocities mounted. They supported a feckless Turkish effort to raise a resistance army dominated by jihadist elements aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Obama infamously issued his “redline” regarding the use of chemical weapons against civilians by Assad, which he repudiated the moment it was crossed.

As ISIS forces gathered in Iraq and Syria, Obama shrugged them off as a “jayvee squad.” When the jayvees in ISIS took over a third of Iraqi and Syrian territory, Obama did nothing.

As Lee Smith recalled in January in the New York Post, Obama only decided to do something about ISIS in late 2014 after the group beheaded a number of American journalists and posted their decapitations on social media.

The timing was problematic for Obama.