IMMIGRATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

EU: How to Stop Mass-migration from Africa? Bring Everyone to Europe by Judith Bergman

Posted By on May 25th, 2018

While the focus on illegal migration remains, the original goal of stopping African citizens from migrating into Europe appears to have been lost entirely. Instead, the declaration pronounces African legal migration to be a positive thing, even stressing the beneficial idea of migration of certain groups, such as researchers and business people.

No one seems to ask how draining Africa of skilled labor, such as businessmen and researchers, is going to help the continent develop and thus stem the trend of migration?

The Hungarian government appears to be the only government that considers whether the citizens it was elected to serve would support the declaration. Other European governments appear to think that asking their electorates what they think about African migration into Europe is irrelevant.

“Migration is a priority for all of us here” said EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, at the recent Fifth Euro-African Ministerial Conference on Migration and Development in Marrakesh at the beginning of May. The conference is a part of the Euro-African Ministerial Dialogue on Migration and Development (also known as the Rabat Process[1]).

The Euro-African Ministerial Dialogue on Migration and Development was founded in 2006 to contain migration from Africa into Europe, specifically, at the time, the increase of migrants crossing the Strait of Gibraltar from Morocco into Spain and from there into the rest of Europe.

The 2006 Rabat Declaration established that the purpose of the process was to

“offer a … response to the fundamental issue of controlling migratory flows … the management of migration between Africa and Europe must be carried out within the context of a partnership to combat poverty and promote sustainable development and co-development”.

ISRAEL, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Mr. Mueller Goes To Jerusalem Unhinged Russia collusion investigation spreads to Israel. Ari Lieberman

Posted By on May 25th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270261/mr-mueller-goes-jerusalem-ari-lieberman

Robert Mueller’s criminal probe of President Donald Trump, his associates and the Trump campaign has passed the 1-year benchmark, and the DOJ-appointed special counsel is no closer to proving Russian collusion or obstruction of justice than when he first commenced his investigation. What Mueller has succeeded in doing is wasting in excess of $20 million in taxpayer money.

Actually, Mueller’s investigation may not have been a complete waste for it inadvertently succeeded in exposing the rot and sewage of the deep state. Thus far, five FBI and DOJ officials involved with Mueller and his McCarthy-like witch hunt have been fired or demoted. More demotions, terminations and possible criminal indictments of officials at the highest levels are expected as more of what has hitherto been unknown is unearthed through the efforts of Congress and NGOs like Judicial Watch.

The latest disgrace to hit the deep state is the revelation of an anti-Trump spy ring run out of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia under the stewardship of former CIA director and party hack, John Brennan, in the hope of entrapping Trump campaign staffers and advisers. James Comey and James Clapper, the former directors of the FBI and National Intelligence respectively, also played their roles in this nefarious scheme. Add to this the disclosure of egregious government FISA and unmasking abuses under the Obama administration and you have the makings of the biggest and most consequential political scandal in United States history. Watergate will look like child’s play by comparison.

But despite hitting multiple brick walls, Mueller continues to trudge along with his unwieldly and unfocused investigation. It has taken him a year to secure indictments and guilty pleas on a few peripheral figures on matters having nothing to do with his original mandate. Additional indictments have been secured against Russian entities and individuals who will never set foot in the U.S.

Mueller has now set his sights on, of all places, Israel. The special counsel has sent agents to Israel – no doubt on private government jets – to investigate the activities of an Israeli social media company which employed former members of Israeli intelligence and collected user data ostensibly for the purpose of manipulating public opinion. Their target is Joel Zamel who headed the company and allegedly met with Trump or his associates during the campaign and visited the White House after Trump’s inauguration.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Radical Dems Rising There weren’t too many moderates left in the party anyway. Matthew Vadum

Posted By on May 25th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270260/radical-dems-rising-matthew-vadum

Radical in-your-face left-wing candidates are gaining new electoral momentum in the already radical Democratic Party.

As Townhall’s Matt Vespa opines, far-left candidates have been making “a meal of the establishment, knocking off the more centrist candidates in primaries across the country.”

While Democratic enthusiasm appears to have stalled according to some polling, it was not apparent in [this month’s] primaries. There were historic numbers of Democratic voters turning out in Idaho and Pennsylvania, the latter of which is key in the Left’s road to retaking the House.

May 15 “was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for Democratic moderates,” according to the Washington Post.

The success of very liberal candidates in primaries across four states is causing a new bout of heartburn among party strategists in Washington, who worry about unelectable activists thwarting their drive for the House majority. But it also reflects a broader leftward lurch among Democrats across the country since President Trump took office.

In Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, Kara Eastman, a social worker who supports “Medicare for All,” unexpectedly picked off former one-term U.S. Rep. Brad Ashford, who had been backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Eastman is a walking, talking leftist cliché. She supports hiking taxes, decriminalizing marijuana, and imposing universal background checks on gun purchases.

“I’m tired of hearing Democrats don’t have a backbone, that we don’t stand for anything,” she said in a campaign ad. “That changes now!”

Democrat strategists believe they have an opening in Pennsylvania’s 15th congressional district after the recent resignation of annoying NeverTrumper Rep. Charlie Dent (R) from his seat.

The early Democrat leader in PA-15, local district attorney John Morganelli, was defeated by lawyer Susan Wild, who was backed by EMILY’s List. Morganelli opposes abortion rights and so-called sanctuary cities and said positive things about Trump, which helped to seal his doom.

In Pennsylvania’s 1st congressional district, young Navy veteran Rachel Reddick, was beaten despite an endorsement by EMILY’s List. “Proud progressive” Scott Wallace triumphed over Reddick by attacking her for being a registered Republican up until two years ago. Wallace, the grandson of kooky communist-sympathizer Henry Wallace, one of Franklin Roosevelt’s vice presidents, said in his victory speech, “Together, we can make America sane again.”

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

Max Boot’s Turn Against Israel Is Pure Trump Derangement by David Harsanyi

Posted By on May 25th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/05/24/max-boots-turn-against-israel-is-pure-trump-derangement/

It’s possible to detest Donald Trump with the fire of a thousand suns and still concede that he’s done something positive. Possible, but rare. More often these days Trump antagonists adopt rigid positions that are predicated on the assumption that anything the president does must be immoral and destructive. Few people illustrate this intellectual cratering more dramatically than Max Boot.

This week, the one-time Israel supporter embraced a slate of J-Street talking points in The Washington Post — including ominous references to nefarious puppet-string pulling Jewish financiers. What supposedly irks Boot is the “emerging conservative talking point that Trump ‘is the most pro-Israel president in U.S. history.’”

Though, I grant, it’s too early to make wide-ranging historical pronouncements about a presidency, Trump certainly has a strong case. Not only has his administration improve the long-term projections for peace by finally following U.S. law and moving the American embassy to the Israeli capital — a move Boot claims to support, but says doesn’t really matter — the president also exited the broken Iran deal, despite what must have been tremendous international pressure to remain, and gave Israel unequivocal support in both its military campaign against Iranian targets in Syria and Hamas terrorists on the border of Gaza.

If we were to apply pre-Trump standards to these moves, they would undeniably be considered pro-Israel. And judging from reaction of Israel’s most reliable enemies, and the reaction of the vast majority of Israel’s citizens, we can still consider them pro-Israel. Only one variable has changed in the equation.

Boot adopts the well-worn progressive position that argues that Israeli people don’t know what’s best for them, the Left does. Trump, Boot says, “may be the most closely aligned with Israel’s current government, led by a fellow scandal-plagued right-winger, but that doesn’t mean Trump is safeguarding Israel’s interests. He is, in fact, inflicting long-term damage on the U.S.-Israeli alliance.”

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Making the Iranians Mad By Shoshana Bryen

Posted By on May 25th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/05/making_the_iranians_mad.html

There is much to be learned from the endgame between the Reagan administration and the final leaders of the Soviet empire that can be applied to the current situation with Iran.

When Ronald Reagan proposed the “Zero-Zero Option” for no intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe, the pundits – and the Europeans – said, “The Russians will never agree to that.” They demanded that Reagan put forward what the Russians could accept – or not aggravate the Russians by putting U.S. Pershing missiles in Europe.
When Israel defines its aims in negotiations as recognition of its legitimacy and permanence as a Jewish State in the Middle East, pundits – and lots of other people – say, “The Arabs will never agree to that.” They demand that Israel not build houses in places the Palestinians don’t want them, not welcome the U.S. embassy in its capital, and not ensure that rioting Palestinians determined to enter Israel to “rip the hearts out of Jews” are stopped before they get to the aforementioned Jews. It will only make the Palestinians angry and there won’t be any more “peace process.”
When President Trump said his goal in discussion with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is the de-nuclearization of North Korea, pundits – and Democrats – said, “He’ll never agree to that.” Other administrations bribed the Kim family to abandon their nuclear project. It didn’t work, but hey, at least we weren’t making them mad.

So it was inevitable that when secretary of state Mike Pompeo listed twelve objectives that would make Iran a positive actor on the international stage – objectives the United States plans to pursue – the pundits would cry, “They’ll never agree to that.”

Inevitable, but the level of angst is actually a bit startling. “Sound, fury, and ‘regime change’ lite.” “Economic war on Iran.” In an ironic nod to pop culture and perhaps a veiled threat to President Trump, “[i]n the 1976 media satire Network, the frustrated and emotionally unhinged anchor Howard Beale, facing termination, goes on air and shouts ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.'” And Pompeo used “elements of a presentation … by Benjamin Netanyahu, a strident critic of the accord.” “European allies alarmed.” “Iran’s people will punch U.S. Secretary of State in the mouth.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Glazov Gang :Geert Wilders on The High Price of Telling the Truth About Islam.VIDEO

Posted By on May 25th, 2018

http://jamieglazov.com/2018/05/24/glazov-gang-geert-wilders-the-high-price-of-telling-the-truth-about-islam/

This new edition of The Glazov Gang features Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom.

Mr. Wilders discusses The High Price of Telling the Truth About Islam, unveiling how Sharia is now ruthlessly ruling the West.

Don’t miss it!

BOOKS Comments turned off

‘The Unknowns’ Review: Fallen Sons, Unforgotten Eight hand-picked ‘Body Bearers’ carried the coffin of the Unknown Soldier of World War I By Matthew J. Davenport

Posted By on May 25th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-unknowns-review-fallen-sons-unforgotten-1527191591?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=2&cx_tag=contextual&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

In a grand ceremony on Nov. 11, 1920, an unknown French soldier from World War I was buried beneath the Arc de Triomphe. That same day, the British entombed their own unknown soldier with similar honors in Westminster Abbey.

Other European nations followed, but the United States, having lost 116,516 doughboys in 19 months of fighting—and with more than 2,000 unidentified Americans still buried in France—had no plans for the same.

It was not until the next month that Hamilton Fish, a New York congressman who had served in combat on the Western Front, introduced a bill providing for the repatriation of “a body of an unknown American killed on the battlefields of France, and for burial of the remains with appropriate ceremonies.” Congress passed Fish’s Public Resolution 67, and on his last day in office President Woodrow Wilson signed it.

How that decision led to the selection of one American soldier, an interment ceremony in Washington, D.C., commensurate to a state funeral, and ultimately to the honor the nation bestows upon the present-day Tomb of the Unknowns, is the fascinating history that Patrick K. O’Donnell explores in “The Unknowns.”

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump Gives Europe a Wake-Up Call As global conflicts intensify, the president is asking EU nations to contribute more for their own defense. By Alina Polyakova and Benjamin Haddad

Posted By on May 24th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-gives-europe-a-wake-up-call-1527201614

The Iran nuclear deal, cosigned by France, Germany and the United Kingdom, was hailed as a success for Europe’s style of multilateral diplomacy, so President Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement sent shock waves through the Continent’s capitals.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, for the second time in a year, that Europe could no longer rely on the U.S. to protect it. The president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, tweeted: “Looking at latest decisions of @realDonaldTrump someone could even think: with friends like that who needs enemies.” Some commentators even proclaimed the end of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

There is a crisis all right, but it isn’t in diplomatic relations. It’s a crisis of European weakness. In a world increasingly defined by great-power competition, Europe is finding it increasingly hard to defend its preferred model of multilateral decision-making and soft-power diplomacy. As Mr. Trump decided to make his U-turn on Iran, he looked to other American allies: Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates.

Mr. Trump’s snubbing of Europe is a continuation of the broader trend in U.S. foreign policy. President Obama came into office intent on a pivot to Asia. His administration canceled a missile-defense system for Poland and the Czech Republic in 2009, and retired two U.S. Army brigades from Europe in 2012. As of 2016, there were 62,000 U.S. troops on the Continent, down from more than 300,000 at the end of the Cold War.

When Mr. Trump calls on Europe’s wealthy nations to invest in the common defense, the diplomatic establishment practically faints. But Mr. Obama made the same point, at one point saying that “free riders aggravate me.”

During Mr. Obama’s tenure, European leaders similarly resented being left out of White House decision-making, such as when American policy on Afghanistan was being reviewed. On issues like Syria or even during the Iran negotiations, which began through a secret back channel in Oman, Mr. Obama prioritized his view of U.S. interests.

Yet America is still doing the heavy lifting to defend Europe. The European Deterrence Initiative, which positions allied troops in Eastern Europe, was reinforced by the Trump administration with $4.8 billion in 2018. American funding is expected to grow to $6.5 billion in 2019. CONTINUE AT SITE

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Real Constitutional Crisis The FBI and Justice Department continue evading congressional oversight. Kimberley Strassel

Posted By on May 24th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-real-constitutional-crisis-1527201552

Democrats and their media allies are again shouting “constitutional crisis,” this time claiming President Trump has waded too far into the Russia investigation. The howls are a diversion from the actual crisis: the Justice Department’s unprecedented contempt for duly elected representatives, and the lasting harm it is doing to law enforcement and to the department’s relationship with Congress.

The conceit of those claiming Mr. Trump has crossed some line in ordering the Justice Department to comply with oversight is that “investigators” are beyond question. We are meant to take them at their word that they did everything appropriately. Never mind that the revelations of warrants and spies and dirty dossiers and biased text messages already show otherwise.

We are told that Mr. Trump cannot be allowed to have any say over the Justice Department’s actions, since this might make him privy to sensitive details about an investigation into himself. We are also told that Congress—a separate branch of government, a primary duty of which is oversight—cannot be allowed to access Justice Department material. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes can’t be trusted to view classified information—something every intelligence chairman has done—since he might blow a source or method, or tip off the president.

That’s a political judgment, but it holds no authority. The Constitution set up Congress to act as a check on the executive branch—and it’s got more than enough cause to do some checking here. Yet the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation have spent a year disrespecting Congress—flouting subpoenas, ignoring requests, hiding witnesses, blacking out information, and leaking accusations.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has not been allowed to question a single current or former Justice or FBI official involved in this affair. Not one. He’s also more than a year into his demand for the transcript of former national security adviser Mike Flynn’s infamous call with the Russian ambassador, as well as reports from the FBI agents who interviewed Mr. Flynn. And still nothing.

Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, is being stonewalled on at least three inquiries. The House Judiciary and Oversight committee chairmen required a full-blown summit in April with Justice Department officials to get movement on their own subpoena. The FBI continues to block a fuller release of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia report.

Not that the documents that Justice sends over are of much use. Mr. Grassley this week excoriated the department for its routine practice of redacting key information, and for similarly refusing to provide a “privilege log” that details the legal basis for withholding information. His team recently discovered that one of the items Justice had scrubbed from the Peter Strzok-Lisa Page texts was the duo’s concern that former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe had a $70,000 conference table. (Was it lacquered with unicorn tears?) A separate text refers to an investigation that the White House is “running,” but conveniently blacks out which one. The FBI won’t answer Mr. Johnson’s questions about who is doing the redacting.

This intransigence is creating an unprecedented toxicity between law enforcement and Congress, undermining what has long been a cooperative and vital relationship. It is also pushing lawmakers ever closer to holding Justice Department officials in contempt or impeaching them. Congress hasn’t impeached a member of the executive branch (presidents excepted) since the 19th century. Let’s agree such a step would amount to a real crisis. And the pressure to use these tools to get disclosure is growing, as congressional Republicans worry about losing their oversight authority in the midterms, and suspect the Justice Department is stringing them along for that very reason. CONTINUE AT SITE

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Watergate Done Legally: The Predictable Truth About Spying By Angelo Codevilla

Posted By on May 24th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/05/24/watergate-done-legally-the-predicta

The tug-of war (and it is a war) between Fox News alongside a handful of Republicans on one hand, and the solid front of U.S. government agencies, the Democratic Party, and the mainstream media (Google included) on the other, is focused on who in the Department of Justice and the FBI did what and why to start the July 31, 2016 “Crossfire Hurricane” counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, to secure a FISA warrant for electronic intercepts of Trump advisers, and to vector Stefan Halper and possibly others to spy on them directly beginning around July 11. These details are so few and so jumbled as to obscure the considerably larger extent of the intelligence community’s involvement against Trump.

The following considers additional facts (not in dispute) from the perspective of my eight years of experience with the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. as a senior staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and as part of the group that drafted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (over my opposition).

The events of the past two years have confirmed the objections to FISA I stated in 1978: pre-clearance of wiretaps by a court that operates secretly, ex parte, and that is agnostic on national security matters, is an irresistible temptation to the party in power and its friends in the intelligence agencies to use the law to spy against their political opponents—that is, to do Watergate legally.

The Spying Legacy of 9/11
FISA was a bad idea, made worse after 9/11 by the addition of Section 702. It is a license to collect and use electronic data on Americans, so long as that collection is claimed to be “incidental” in the collection of data relating to foreigners. Since the claiming is done in secret, and the yearly court review can be finessed, officials’ self-restraint is all that keeps Section 702 itself from being an abuse. Item 17, “about queries,” specifically authorizes the collection of emails and phone calls of “U.S. persons.”

The first evidence that Obama Administration officials and their friends in the Community had used intelligence to try thwarting a political challenge came on November 17, 2016, when Donald Trump abruptly moved his transition headquarters from Trump Tower to Bedminster, New Jersey. The previous day, he had been visited by Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency. Rogers earlier had delivered the yearly Section 702 certification to the FISA court, saying that the Justice Department had improperly used that portion of the law to direct the NSA to listen in on Trump campaign headquarters. Just prior to Rogers’ delivery, John Carlin, head of the Justice Department’s national security division, tendered his resignation. Rogers was not happy. Trump even less so.