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November 2019

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The Trump Administration Is Right: Israeli Settlements Do Not Violate International Law Mike Pompeo’s announcement affirms the inhabitance of Jews in territories recaptured in the Six-Day War in 1967 does not violate international law.By Erielle Davidson

By on November 19th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/19/no-israeli-settlements-do-not-violate-international-law/

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday that the United States is abandoning a Carter-era bureaucratic decision that Israeli settlements – the homes of Jews living in Judea and Samaria – are illegal under international law. Pompeo’s statement represents a dramatic reversal from the Obama administration, which under the auspices of then-Secretary of State John Kerry, publicly held that Israeli settlements constituted a violation of international law.

Pompeo’s action is particularly notable coming shortly after the European Court of Justice ruled the EU was required by international law to label Israeli products from the West Bank as made in “settlements” in “occupied” territory. That decision, like the Carter-era policy Pompeo rejected, applied a unique rule, crafted solely for Israel, and masquerading as international law. Pompeo’s latest statement serves as a reminder that the Trump administration does not bow to anti-Israel sentiment positing itself as “international law,” no matter what shape it arrives in.

In challenging the international law consensus, Pompeo noted that the labeling of Israeli civilian settlements as “inconsistent with international law” has not actually forwarded the objective of long-term peace. Pompeo’s declaration is also an affirmative nod to what a host of others in the international community, particularly Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, have been asserting in opposition for decades—the inhabitance of Jews in territories recaptured in the Six-Day War in 1967 does not violate international law.

The outrage over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s September announcement regarding the potential application of Israeli civil law in the Jordan Valley mirrors the current outrage being lodged at Pompeo’s declaration. Both Netanyahu and Pompeo’s assertions, however, find solid grounding in international law.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Americans Need To Stop Funding The Chinese Gulag Ben Weingarten

By on November 19th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/19/americans-need-to-stop-funding-the-chinese-g

The Chinese have for decades banked on the world, and in particular its richest nation, prioritizing money over all else, including evidently its long-term national interest.

One can learn a lot about how a nation will treat others by how it treats its own. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) oppressive treatment of its people then should send a chilling message to the rest of the world, considering the regime’s global ambitions, and its aggressive effort to achieve them with our cooperation.

While Hong Kong continues hurtling towards a potential modern Tiananmen Square massacre, recently a claimed member of the Chinese political establishment leaked a trove of purported documents to The New York Times regarding the CCP’s establishment of modern-day gulags in Xinjiang province’s “re-education camps.”

Among the major revelations of the 403 pages described by the Times, encompassing speeches from CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping and other officials, are:

In the wake of several Uighur terror attacks, Xi led the effort to exert totalitarian control over China’s Uighur population, commanding the state to employ “organs of dictatorship” and show “absolutely no mercy” in removing “the toxicity of religious extremism”—manifesting itself in not a targeted counterjihadist campaign but the apparently widespread, indiscriminate, and totalitarian concentration camp-building effort of the last several years;
Xi believed repression of the Xinjiang population was essential as a broader signal to other potentially problematic cohorts, or otherwise “social stability will suffer shocks, the general unity of people of every ethnicity will be damaged, and the broad outlook for reform, development and stability will be affected”—that is, unrest would threaten the CCP’s objectives, chief among them the perpetuation of its own rule;
Consistent with this view, under CCP leader of Xinjiang Chen Quanguo, authorities developed propaganda scripts for officials encountering returning students to Xinjiang whose family members had been taken to the camps that downplayed the authoritarian nature of the detentions while threatening the students should they protest;
Interestingly, perhaps demonstrating a weakness in the CCP system that its foes might exploit, documents indicate a level of resistance among officials tasked with implementing the party’s policies. Thus the party unleashed investigators who conducted more than 12,000 probes into party members alleged to be insufficiently dedicated to the “fight against separatism,” making a public example of one of the most prominent of the resisters. To the extent the leaker’s desires were genuine, and the documents are true, the leak itself might also reflect broader fractures in the system.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Brennan And Clapper’s Secret Surveillance System – Kelleigh Nelson

By on November 19th, 2019

http://newswithviews.com/brennan-and-clappers-secret-surveillance-system/

The following information has been gathered from countless articles by Mary Fanning and Alan Jones of theAmericanreport.org.  Their reports should be read by every American, including our nation’s politicians.

Dennis Montgomery is a software designer and former CIA/NSA/DoD/DHS contractor. Montgomery built a surveillance system known as “The Hammer.” He blew the whistle on the Obama administration’s allegedly illegal use of that system to wiretap Donald Trump. (Rand Paul claims Brennan, Clapper, Comey sent spies into the Trump campaign.)

Montgomery also developed technology for analyzing surveillance video from U.S. Air Force predator drones remotely piloted from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.  Nellis Air Force Base is also the home of a charter school run by imam Fethullah Gulen. Clinton’s hand-picked CIA handlers, Graham Fuller and Mark Grossman, were selected to manage and direct Gulen’s cells in the U.S. and abroad.  Link

Reminiscent of the theft of Bill Hamilton’s Inslaw Promis software allegedly by the Reagan administration’s Ed Meese, this is much the same thing. The government seems to steal from private enterprises what they want for their own.

Montgomery asserts that intelligence officials John Brennan and James Clapper ran “The Hammer” surveillance system. According to CIA Vault 7 documents released by WikiLeaks on March 7, 2017, The Hammer (HAMR) is a browser exploit throwing framework that infects targeted devices and systems.  The Hammer allowed spying on Supreme Court Justices, 159 Article III judges,elected officials, and 20 million other Americans.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Clinton Foundation Reports $16.8 Million Loss in 2018 Andres Stiles

By on November 19th, 2019

https://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-foundation-money-loss/

The Clinton Foundation reported a loss of more than $16 million in 2018, according to newly released tax records, marking the second consecutive year of losses since Hillary Clinton’s humiliating defeat to President Donald J. Trump in 2016.

The foundation reported total revenue of just $30.7 million, including $24.2 million worth of grants and contributions, a record low for the alleged “charity.” That figure was well short of the foundation’s total expenses for the year—$47.5 million— resulting in a net loss of $16.8 million.

The previous year, the Clinton Foundation reported a net loss of $16.1 million. In total, the organization has lost a staggering $32.9 million since Hillary Clinton’s lifelong quest for the presidency crumbled to dust in November 2016.

Shockingly, the foundation’s revenues have plummeted compared to the massive figures reported during Hillary’s tenure as secretary of state (2009 to 2013), and during her campaign as the Democratic Party’s essentially unchallenged presidential nominee in 2016.

The Clinton Foundation posted its highest revenue haul ($249 million) in 2009, the year Hillary was sworn in as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state. By 2013, the foundation had reported an additional $392.2 million in revenue, and went on to raise $344.4 million between 2014 and 2016.

Between 2008 and 2016, the Clinton Foundation reported total revenue in excess of $1.1 billion, or an annual average of $130.4 million. Needless to say, Clinton’s stunning failure to defeat Donald Trump in the 2016 election appears to have had a significant impact on the foundation’s ability to raise money.

The foundation’s financial prospects will presumably look much brighter after Hillary inevitably declares her candidacy for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2020.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Trump makes pro-Israel history again by Ruthie Blum

By on November 19th, 2019

https://www.jns.org/writers/ruthie-blum/

Every action that his administration has taken stems from the understanding that the so-called “Israeli-Palestinian peace process” has failed repeatedly—not only as a result of being based on a false premise, but of following the same old paradigm.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s dramatic announcement on Monday that the “establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law” sent shockwaves around the world. In retrospect, however, it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise.

Since his election three years ago, U.S. President Donald Trump has been consistent in his efforts to reverse the policies of the administration of his predecessor, Barack Obama. Not only in relation to Israel. But his pro-Israel stance has been steady and unapologetic from the get-go, which is as it should be.

Indeed, each of his decisions—such as recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the embassy accordingly, defunding the Palestinian “pay for slay” machine and acknowledging Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights—has been geared towards cementing the natural U.S.-Israel relationship in a healthy way. Every action that his administration has taken stems from the understanding that the so-called “Israeli-Palestinian peace process” has failed repeatedly—not only as a result of being based on a false premise, but of following the same old paradigm.

Team Trump has been engaging in what the high-tech sector refers to as “disruption.”

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MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: ROE V AMERICAN WARRIORS

By on November 19th, 2019

 President Trump pardoned soldiers facing prison terms for “war crimes” and flouting the military rules of engagement. How can one apply rote rules to decisions made in the moment of high risk situations?

Lt. Col.David Bolgiano, U.S. Air Force and Author of: Combat Self-Defense: Saving America’s Warriors From Risk-Averse Commanders and Their Lawyers wrote:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/haditha/themes/roe.html

Rules of engagement are a device used by a commander to set forth the parameters of when, how, for what duration and magnitude and geographical location, and against what targets our forces can employ force, generally deadly force … in a theater of operations.

The rules of engagement, strictly speaking, as they work in the military, contain a caveat … that nothing in these rules of engagement shall limit the right, inherent right, of self-defense. And what’s left unspoken but is legally significant, is the phrase, when confronted with “an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.”

Why is there confusion over the right to self-defense? …

The confusion over the inherent right of self-defense doesn’t come from the written word. It doesn’t come from the law.  The confusion over the inherent right of self-defense comes from assessing judgment-based shootings after the fact that, in the clear vision of 20/20 hindsight, may not appear to be reasonable when, in fact, by law and by tactics, they were. 

In January 2005, a vehicle approached a hastily constructed traffic control point on the route from downtown Baghdad to Baghdad International Airport. The vehicle approached the checkpoint in speeds close to 60 miles per hour, ignored flares and warning signs to slow down and halt, at which point the soldiers on the traffic control point reasonably perceived a threat, an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury, and engaged the vehicle.

In the clear vision of 20/20 hindsight, we learned that it was an Italian intelligence officer driving the vehicle who was, unfortunately, shot and killed.  But that decision at the time the soldier [pulled] the trigger was, nevertheless, reasonable.

And that’s where a lot of the confusion comes from. It comes from folks that don’t understand the tactical dynamics of an encounter and wish to impose, one, either their Hollywood notion of what’s reasonable, or two, try to judge the person by what is learned in the clear vision of 20/20 hindsight.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Swamp’s Swingline Stapler Julie Kelly

By on November 19th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/18/the-swamps-swingline-stapler/

We are to believe that crying EPA employees, out-of-the-loop ambassadors, holier-than-thou law enforcement chiefs, and jobless assistant deputy undersecretaries for blah-blah affairs are the victims of a rogue president who must be removed from office for hurting their feelings and challenging their authority.

In December 2008, Barack Obama summarily fired every ambassador appointed by George W Bush.

The media did not care for four reasons. First, it was Barack Obama. Second, they recognized that the president controls the executive branch. Third, it was a parting shiv to Bush. Finally, it was Barack Obama.

Whether any of the ousted diplomats cried is unknown.

But now in the Trump era, as Obama-era somnambulists awake every day to a new outrage that heretofore had been considered standard operating procedure inside the Beltway, a dismissed ambassador is given hours to vent her thoughts and feelz in front of one of Capitol Hill’s most powerful committees. If you weren’t moved by the sad tale of former Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch—an Obama appointee—getting the ax by Donald Trump, according to Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, you don’t have a pulse.

Perhaps Wallace has a point. After becoming accustomed to heads of state referring to you as “Madame Ambassador” and “Your Excellency,” being addressed as “Ms. Y” by a dozen or so Georgetown University whippersnappers would bruise anyone’s ego. (Yovanovitch admitted that she still retains a position at the State Department at the same salary with no daily responsibilities but also is allowed to moonlight as a Georgetown fellow. Sweet gig.)

Further, being forced to move out of a mansion in Kyiv tended to by a doting staff that helps you host important receptions for important people would sting, too. In one telling moment, Yovanovitch explained that the night she learned of her pending dismissal, she was hosting a party for a Ukrainian anti-corruption activist. “I was at my house,” she told one Democratic lawmaker.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump impeachment inquiry obstructed by Democrats’ ‘whistleblower’ secrecy charade Andrew C. McCarthy

By on November 19th, 2019

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-impeachment-inquiry-democrats-whistleblo

Congressional Democrats are obstructing the impeachment inquiry.

You heard that right. It has become rote for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and his fellow Democrats to chide the Trump administration for blocking testimony from White House staffers and the president’s private lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Yet, those witnesses actually have confidentiality privileges that are well settled in federal law, shielding communications between the chief executive and his top advisers, and between attorney and client, from disclosure.

When a person asserts a privilege recognized by law, we don’t call that obstruction. We call it the law in action.

By contrast, Schiff is playing a lawless game with the so-called whistleblower: predicating the impeachment inquiry on this intelligence official’s complaint while blocking Republicans from questioning the official and other policy officials with whom he dealt. The suppression of relevant information obstructs the congressional investigation.

I have argued from the outset that the “whistleblower” is not actually a whistleblower in the strict legal sense because the statute governing the protection of such sources is inapposite. (That is, the statute covers disclosures relating to activities of the intelligence services, not the president’s conduct of foreign relations.) For present purposes, though, let’s assume I am wrong and that the “whistleblower” is covered.

If this were a legal case, there is not a court in America that would keep the whistleblower’s identity and the details of his role in the origins of the Democrats’ Ukraine investigation under wraps.

Congressional Democrats are not merely withholding the identity of the whistleblower. They are denying committee Republicans the right to question other witnesses about relevant dealings with the whistleblower.

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BOOKS, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Mao Zedong’s Traveling Circus David Hanna

By on November 19th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/11/mao-zedongs-travelling-circus/
Brian DeMare is a cultural historian and teacher of modern Chinese history at Tulane University in New Orleans. His first book, Mao’s Cultural Army (2015), found the cultural revolution “to be a profoundly theatrical event”. It was also a profoundly murderous event and DeMare’s second book,  Land Wars, this time on Mao’s agrarian revolution, depicts similar excesses but does not sufficiently condemn them for what they were: a politically self-serving democide of the Party’s potential opposition in the villages of rural China.

Coined by Professor R.J. Rummel, whose research provides voluminous statistics on governmental killing, the word democide involves acts of genocide, politicide and mass murder. By necessity, the self-protective despotism of communist one-party rule entailed all three of them. While DeMare’s narrative does little to emphasise this point explicitly, his recounting of the Maoist bastardry which savaged rural China will do much to support that contention.

DeMare foregrounds Mao’s intuitive conviction that the Chinese peasantry could make or break the revolution, and DeMare’s varied researches and narrative style make Land Wars a highly informative and readable account of how a communist mastermind artificially induced an agrarian revolution. “Historians,” writes DeMare, “must engage Mao’s narrative of revolution in order to understand what truly occurred in rural China as the Communists came to power.”

The central theme of Land Wars is that Mao’s peasant revolution was a fantasy, a fiction which the Party’s “work teams” were commanded to convert into reality. While DeMare effectively “deconstructs and questions Mao’s narrative”, he simultaneously and mysteriously manages to affirm its reification. DeMare provides abundant and horrifying evidence that China’s agrarian revolution is, as he says himself, “nothing to be lionised” and yet despite a painstaking litany of revolutionary deceit, human rights abuses, theft, slaughter and rapine, he finds the overall results unworthy of “wholesale denunciation”.

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Pompeo’s statement on settlements is a diplomatic turning point Caroline Glick

By on November 19th, 2019

http://carolineglick.com/pompeos-statement-on-settlements-is-a-diplomatic-turning-p

Monday will long be remembered as a turning point in Middle East history.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement Monday that Israeli settlements are not illegal per se is the most significant shift in U.S. Middle East policy in the past generation. Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital has been a matter of U.S. law since 1996. There was little interest in Washington in recent years in pressuring Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights. But the issue of the legality of Israeli settlements has been the defining issue of much of the international discourse on Israel for a generation.

In the vast majority of cases, the discourse has revolved around the widely held allegation – with no basis in actual law – that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are illegal. This allegation has served as the justification for a continuous barrage of condemnations of Israel in international arena and for anti-Israel legal verdicts in international courts including the International Court of Justice at the Hague in 2004 and the European Court of Justice last week. The unsupported allegation that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are illegal was also the basis for UN Security Council Resolution 2234 from 2016 and is a basis of the International Criminal Court’s ongoing probes of Israelis.

Pompeo made two revolutionary assertions in his statement. First, he said that “after carefully studying all sides of the legal debate,” like the Reagan administration before it, the Trump administration has concluded, “The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.”

Second, Pompeo noted, the near ubiquitousness of the false assertion that settlements are illegal has not advanced the prospects for peace. To the contrary, it has harmed the chances of getting to peace.

In his words, “calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace.”

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