FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump Makes Clear: Era of Appeasement Is Over The Iranians receive just the warning they were asking for. Joseph Klein

Posted By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270830/trump-makes-clear-era-appeasement-over-joseph-klein

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned on Sunday that “America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.” Reacting to the prospect of U.S. actions aimed at cutting off all Iranian oil exports by this November, Rouhani said that Iran could respond by shutting down international oil shipments in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a threat the Iranian regime has made in the past. “We have always guaranteed the security of this strait,” Rouhani said. “Do not play with the lion’s tail; you will regret it forever.”

President Trump was not impressed. He tweeted what amounts to an ultimatum in all caps. Stop the threats against the United States or suffer severe consequences:

“To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”

President Trump’s tweet contained a none too subtle reference to the feckless Obama administration’s appeasement of the Iranian regime. There is now a different sheriff in charge who will brook no threats, lies or chicanery.

Former President Obama coddled the thugs running the Iranian regime to get his disastrous nuclear deal over the finish line, no matter what concessions he felt he had to make to secure his “legacy achievement.” Obama frontloaded relief from the onerous sanctions that had brought the Iranian regime to the negotiating table in the first place. And he threw in cash bonuses as well, including $1.7 billion in ransom payments to secure the release of five American hostages seized by the rogue regime even though several Americans are still detained and missing inside of Iran. In return, Obama got loophole-ridden temporary “commitments” from the Iranian regime to wind down its nuclear enrichment program. The final terms of the deal allowed Iran to claim its military sites off limits to international inspections and failed to bar Iran from developing and testing missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump Doctrine vs. Rouhani Is Donald Trump Serious about Iran? You bet. Kenneth R. Timmerman

Posted By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270829/trump-doctrine-vs-rouhani-kenneth-r-timmerman

Is the President of the United States a mere “twitter warrior?” Or is he really serious about Iran? Here is his early morning, all-caps statement that is making heads explode in the Twittersphere:

“To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”

The proximate cause for Trump’s tweet was a threat by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani the day before to close the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping traffic, where he warned Trump, “Do not play with the lion’s tail; you will regret it forever.”

Rouhani himself was responding to a momentous speech at the Reagan Library by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, where he outlined the new “Trump Doctrine” toward Iran.

“The mission set for our team is clear,” Pompeo said. “It’s to deny the Iranian leadership the resources, the wealth, the funds, the capacity to continue to foment terrorism around the world and to deny the people inside of Iran the freedoms that they so richly deserve.”

If you’re reading this page, you’ve probably already had your fill of the hysterics and bombast from the organized left in response to this latest Trump tweet, starting with Rachel Maddow, the Atlantic, and their fellow gutter-creatures.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Threatens to Revoke Security Clearance of Ex-Intel Chiefs By Julie Kelly

Posted By on July 24th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/23/trump-threatens-to-revoke-security

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders today confirmed that President Trump is considering revoking the security clearances of former law enforcement and intelligence officials who are waging a public relations war against the president and his administration.

The list reads like a Rogues’ Gallery of Liars from the Obama Administration: Former CIA Director John Brennan; former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper; former FBI Director James Comey; former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe; and former National Security Advisor Susan Rice. General Michael Hayden, a Bush administration intelligence chief, also made the list.

“The president is exploring the mechanisms to remove the security clearance because they’ve politicized and, in some cases, monetized their public service security clearances,” Sanders said. “Making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia or being influenced by Russia against the president is extremely inappropriate. And the fact that people with security clearances are making these baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence.”

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

None Dared Call It Treason . . . When It Was a Democrat By Ned Ryun

Posted By on July 24th, 2018

The past week of Russia hysteria has me longing for the good old days. Like 2009, when a Democratic president could pull missile defense systems out of Poland and the Czech Republic to appease Vladimir Putin without facing charges of treason. Or 2010, when a former Democratic president could take a cool half-million from a suspected Russian government-backed source to speak in Moscow and that wasn’t considered treasonous, either. Or 2012, when no one was screaming for impeachment when a Democratic president on a hot mic assured the Russian president that he’ll have “more flexibility” on missile defense systems once he’s re-elected. Or when the previous Democratic administration helped Putin toward his goal of controlling the worldwide supply chain of uranium and that was really all about “resetting” relationships.

Oh, how the times have changed!

Now, according to screeching harpies like Commie-lover John Brennan or many in the Democratic Party’s kept media, if you don’t say the right words during a press conference, you might be a traitor, worthy of impeachment, and probably Putin’s hand-picked agent sitting in the White House to bring about . . . well, that’s where the narrative gets a little fuzzy.

But the point is not to focus on substance. Just the style. It’s all about words and feelings, not about what actually happens because that would ruin a really good story, much like telling children the story you’re reading them at bedtime isn’t real. Forget such things as facts when you can have a good rip-roaring fairytale that soothes you and distracts the world from reality.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Dartmouth Business School to Evaluate Applicants Based on ‘Niceness’ By Katherine Timpf

Posted By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/dartmouth-business-school-will-evaluate-applicants-based-on-niceness/

But wouldn’t jerks just lie and make up stories that make them seem like decent people?

Dartmouth’s business school has announced that it will judge its applicants partially on their “niceness.”

The Tuck School of Business will decide whether to admit applicants based on four criteria: smartness, accomplishment, niceness, and awareness, according to a post on Tuck’s official website.

A subsection on the school’s “Admissions Criteria” we page, titled “Tuck Students Are Nice,” states:

This is quintessential Tuck, where you cultivate a habit of kindness. You actively encourage, celebrate, and support others. But being nice does not mean you’re a pushover who always agrees and defers. Nice Tuck candidates exhibit emotional intelligence. You layer compassion onto courage, and challenge others tactfully and thoughtfully. You display both strength and vulnerability. You ask for help, and you help others. You’re positive and principled. You act with respect and integrity, even when it’s not convenient or easy. You show empathy for the diverse experiences of others, while also sharing your own. You recognize that your success and others’ success are interdependent, and generously invest in both. Being nice at Tuck means building trust through deep, genuine connections that endure for life.

In an effort to evaluate a student’s level of niceness, the list of essay questions on the school’s webpage includes this one: “Tuck students are nice, and invest generously in one another’s success. Share an example of how you helped someone else succeed. (500 words)” According to an article in The College Fix, the school is now also asking references about the applicants’ niceness.

MEDIA, POLITICS Comments turned off

Is The New York Times Hiding A Democratic Candidate’s Obscene Rap Lyrics? July 23, 2018 By Bre Payton

Posted By on July 24th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/23/new-york-times-hiding-democratic-candidates-obscene-rap-lyrics/

Rep. Jon Faso, a Republican seeking re-election in a hotly contested New York district, called out his opponent for referring to women as “cheap -ss hoes” (obscenity altered) in a rap lyric. Under the stage name “AD the Voice,” Antonio Delgado, who is running as a Democrat against Faso, also had some negative things to say about the police. In another lyric, Delgado reportedly sings: “When I spit, they (cops) sh-t” (obscenity altered).

In an editorial published last week, The New York Times slammed Faso for “race baiting” his opponent because the congressman criticized his opponent’s rap lyrics — yes, seriously. The New York Times now considers it race-baiting to criticize someone for rapping about “cheap -ss hoes.”

When the Times does quote Delgado’s lyrics and write about his history as a rapper, the editorial board mentions a patriotic lyric, with no mention of his offensive lyrics.

“He could start with one of his campaign opponent’s songs, ‘Draped in Flags’ in which Mr. Delgado said Americans who love their country have a duty to question their government,” the editorial reads. “‘It’s what a patriot does in hard times,’ Mr. Delgado rapped.”

In response, Fasso wrote a letter to the Times objecting to the tone of the article and quoting some of his opponent’s negative lyrics. But the Faso campaign says the Times, in an effort to shield Delgado, cut out the part of the congressman’s statement that quoted the lyrics. Here’s Faso’s comment in full, according to a press release from Faso’s campaign.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump May Revoke Security Clearances of Brennan, Clapper, McCabe, Comey, Hayden, and Rice By Debra Heine

Posted By on July 24th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/trump-may-revoke-security-clearances-of-brennan-clapper-mccabe-comey-hayden-and-rice/

The White House is looking into revoking the security clearances of several top Obama-era intelligence and law enforcement officials, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday during the daily press briefing.

A reporter asked Sanders about Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) tweets Monday morning, calling on President Trump to remove the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan and others.Not only is the president looking to take away Brennan’s security clearance, he’s also looking into the clearances of Comey, Clapper, Hayden, Rice, and McCabe. The president is exploring the mechanisms to removing security clearance because they’ve politicized and in some cases monetized their public service and security clearances. Making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia or being influenced by Russia against the president is extremely inappropriate, and the fact that people with security clearances are making these baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence. CONTINUE AT SITE

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Next Ice Age By S. Fred Singer

Posted By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/the_next_ice_age.html

While most people still worry about global warming, I am more concerned about the next Ice Age. A glaciation would present a serious problem for survival of our present civilization, akin to a nuclear winter that many worried about 30 years ago.

Photo credit: Wellcome Images via Wikimedia Commons

Nuclear winter is all fantasy, of course; but ice ages are for real.

Natural warming of the Earth reached a peak 65 million years ago. The climate has been generally cooling ever since. Antarctic ice sheets started growing 25 million years ago. In the last 2.5 million years, the Earth entered the period of Ice Ages [the geological name is The Pleistocene] and has been experiencing periodic glaciations where much of the land was covered by miles-thick ice sheets.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Oops! Alleged Russian spy Maria Butina met with Obama officials in 2015 By Thomas Lifson

Posted By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/oops_alleged_russian_spy_maria_butina_met_with_obama_officials_in_2015.html

Desperate Trump-haters, searching for something – anything! – to show that the Trump administration is in bed with Vladimir Putin seized on the news a week ago that a young Russian named Maria Butina had been indicted for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), or, in the words of the DOJ, for “conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian Federation within the United States without prior notification to the Attorney General.”

Here at last was a face – and a red-headed female one, to boot – to attach to the charges of treason being thrown around by the likes of John Brennan.

So intense was the fever that their dream had come true that, as Bre Payton reported in The Federalist:

In the wake of Donald Trump’s press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday, members of the media mistook a Trump administration staffer for a Russian spy.

Emily Singer, a senior political reporter for Mic, tweeted out a photo from inside the White House and claimed that Maria Butina, who was charged Monday for conspiring against the U.S. as a secret Russian agent, was among a gaggle of staffers inside the Oval Office. She later realized her mistake and deleted the tweet, but only after it went viral.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

One photo from Israel the liberal media don’t want you to see By Ed Straker

Posted By on July 24th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/one_photo_from_israel_the_liberal_media_dont_want_you_to_see.html

Israel is under attack, as always, this time for passing a law saying Israel is a Jewish state. As if it hadn’t been already. Liberals (among them, shamefully, some Jews) worry for the Arab population of Israel, as if their lives in Israel weren’t 1,000% better than the lives of Arabs in any other Arab nations, who are slaughtering each other by the hundreds of thousands.

Now Israel, which has been providing Syrian civilians with medical care for years during the civil war there, has helped several hundred civil defense workers escape from the Assad regime in an act of pure goodwill to its Arab neighbors.

In a predawn operation on Sunday, the Israeli military’s 210th Bashan Division oversaw the transfer of 422 Syrians from the “White Helmets” rescue organization and their families from the Syrian Golan Heights through Israel to Jordan.

“The families crossed [the fence], at first apprehensively, but once they reached the border, their eyes twinkled from happiness with the knowledge that they’d gotten their lives back. I am happy to be an officer in an army and in a country that is carrying out this mission and expressing the values of humaneness and compassion,” [a] lieutenant colonel said.

“This is the nature of our work and this is a significant moment like no other,” he added.

In recent years, Israel has been engaged in a massive multi-faceted humanitarian relief operation to keep thousands of Syrians along the border from starving or falling ill due to the lack of food and basic medical care.