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November 2019

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Real Talk: Impeachment Is Going Poorly For Democrats And The Media Mollie Hemingway

By on November 5th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/05/real-talk-impeachment-is-going-poorly-for-democrats-and-the-media/

Inside of newsrooms, broadcast studios, and Twitter, impeachment is going according to plan. Outside of those bubbles, it’s not.

Impeachment is going so poorly for the media and other Democrats that “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd was forced to broadcast false information to support it.

A graphic was posted on Sunday’s show that purported to identify how many people in the president’s party voted in support of an impeachment inquiry in the cases of Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. It accurately noted that 31 Democrats voted in favor of impeachment proceedings for Clinton. But it inaccurately claimed that a single Republican had voted in favor of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment rules last week.

There are multiple problems with this graphic. For one thing, zero Republicans voted with House Democrats last week. Zero point zero. Zilch. Nada. None. For another, Todd’s team is hiding the bipartisan nature of the opposition to the vote last week. Not only did not a single Republican vote with Democrats, two Democrats voted with Republicans in opposition.

Todd knows that no Republicans voted for impeachment, despite the graphic he put up on national television. In fact, he said during the show, “I have one with an asterisk here. I don’t know what you do with Justin Amash. It’s not a zero. At the same time, he’s not a Republican anymore.”

I know what you do with that, Chuck. You don’t lie and call him a Republican. Todd himself gave Amash national media attention for leaving the Republican Party in dramatic fashion, interviewing him two weeks prior. In the first six seconds of the interview, he noted twice that Amash was not a Republican.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Trump Doctrine: Deterrence without Intervention? By Victor Davis Hanson

By on November 5th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/trump-foreign-policy-doctrine-deterrence-without-intervention/

The president bets that a booming economy, a beefed-up military, and U.S. energy dominance will deter enemies without the need for preemptive invasions.

D onald Trump’s 2016 campaign sought to overturn 75 years of bipartisan foreign policy orthodoxy, especially as it applied to the Middle East.

From 1946 to 1989, the Cold War logic was to use both surrogates and U.S. expeditionary forces to stop the spread of Communist insurrections and coups — without confronting the nuclear-armed USSR directly unless it became a matter of perceived Western survival, as it did with the Berlin airlift and the Cuban missile crises.

That logic led to major conflicts like Vietnam and Korea, limited wars in the Middle East and Balkans, interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean, and occasional nation-building in conquered lands. Tens of thousands of Americans died, trillions of dollars were spent, and the Soviet Union and most of its satellites vanished. “We won the Cold War” was more or less true.

Such preemptory American interventions still continued over the next 30 years of the post–Cold War “new world order.” Now the threat was not Russian nukes but confronting new enemies such as radical Islam and a rogue’s gallery of petty but troublesome nuts, freaks, and dictators — Granada’s Hudson Austin, an unhinged Moammar Qaddafi of Libya, Hezbollah’s terrorists in Lebanon, Nicaraguan Communist Daniel Ortega, Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, the gang leader Mohamed Aidid of Somalia, the former Serbian thug Slobodan Milosevic, Mullah Omar of the Taliban, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, arch terrorist Osama bin Laden, the macabre al-Qaeda and ISIS, and on and on.

These put-downs, some successful and some not so much, were apparently viewed by the post–Cold War establishment as our versions of the late Roman Republic and Empire policies of mowing the lawn, with an occasional weeding out of regional nationalists and insurrectionists like Jugurtha, Mithridates, Vercingetorix, Ariovistus, Boudicca, and the like. The theory was that occasionally knocking flat a charismatic brute discouraged all others like him from trying to emulate his revolt and upend the international order. Having one or two legions always on the move often meant that most others could stay in their barracks. And it kept the peace, or so the U.S., like Rome, more or less believed.

But the problem with American policy after the Cold War and the end of the Soviet nuclear threat was that the U.S. was not really comfortable as an imperial global watchdog, we no longer had a near monopoly on the world economy that subsidized these expensive interventions, and many of these thugs did not necessarily pose a direct threat to American interests — perhaps ISIS, an oil-rich Middle East dictator, and radical Islamists excepted. What started as a quick, successful take-out of a monster sometimes ended up as a long-drawn out “occupation” in which all U.S. assets of firepower, mobility, and air support were nullified in the dismal street fighting of a Fallujah or a Mogadishu.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

ABC’s Excuse for Failing to Report on Jeffrey Epstein Makes Absolutely No Sense By David Harsanyi

By on November 5th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/abcs-excuse-for-failing-to-report-on-jeffrey-epstein-makes-absolutely-no-sense/

James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, a group that has often infiltrated news organizations to uncover liberal bias, has released an explosive “hot mic” video of Good Morning America co-host Amy Robach venting about ABC’s decision to spike a story about Jeffrey Epstein’s nefarious activities three years ago.

“I had this interview with [Epstein victim] Virginia Roberts,” Robach is seen saying in the video, “we would not put it on the air. The [British royal] Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways. We were afraid we wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will that we, that also quashed the story.”

Robach now claims, through a network statement, that she was caught “in a private moment” of frustration over the lack of progress on a story. “I was upset that an important interview I had conducted with Virginia Roberts didn’t air because I could not obtain sufficient corroborating evidence to meet ABC’s editorial standards about her allegations.”

Sorry, but Robach’s response to the firestorm doesn’t square with her initial comments, in which she states that “Roberts had pictures, she had everything . . . it was unbelievable what we had. [Bill] Clinton, we had everything.”

“Everything” sure sounds like sufficient corroborating evidence. Even if employing the most scrupulous journalistic standards, a giant news organization wouldn’t need three years to substantiate — or dismiss — a story with pictures, dates and a credible witness.

We certainly know that ABC didn’t need “everything” — or much of anything, for that matter – when it was running scores of pieces online and on television, highlighting every risible accusation against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Nigel Farage Goes Nuclear on Labour: ‘North London Intellectuals’ By Michael van der Galien

By on November 5th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/nigel-farage-goes-nuclear-on-labour-north-london-intellectuals/

Right after it became clear that British voters would go back to the polls in December, The Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage offered a deal to Tory-leader Boris Johnson. If, he said, the PM would agree to toss out his agreement with the EU and opt for a No-Deal Brexit, TBP would not send any candidates to stand in Conservative strongholds. If, on the other hand, Johnson refused such a deal, it’d be war. Johnson turned down the offer, but — thankfully — Farage seems to take aim mostly at Labour, the socialist party that supposedly supported Brexit, but voted against it every single time it was put up for a vote.

At a campaign rally in Bolsover today, Farage launched into Labour time and again. The party, he said, is dominated by North London “intellectuals” who care little if anything for the common people — let alone for their opinions. Christopher Hope, who works for The Daily Telegraph newspaper, explains:

Farage confirmed Hope’s explanation by adding on Twitter that “the gloves are off in this campaign and we are going after Corbyn’s Labour.”

This is an important development because although Boris Johnson has been let down by his own party several times, it’s clear that he is getting rid of all Remain-stooges. The Conservative Party MPs who will end up in the House of Commons after the elections will be pro-Brexit. All of them. Those who aren’t will be pushed out by Johnson, who knows he’ll have a better shot at getting this thing done with a smaller Tory party that can join forces with The Brexit Party, than with a Tory party that forms a small majority by itself… but with 10 to 20 percent of those Tory MPs being Remainers.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Envoy testimony reflects mixed picture on ‘quid pro quo,’ concerns over Giuliani role By Adam Shaw, Brooke Singman | Fox News

By on November 5th, 2019

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ex-envoy-trump-ukraine-transcripts

Former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, according to transcripts released Tuesday, pushed back on the claim that President Trump sought to withhold a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky until Kiev committed to investigate allegations concerning the 2016 election — while also denying that Trump was seeking “dirt” on former Vice President Joe Biden.

The deposition transcripts, though, also reflect officials’ concerns about the involvement of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani in seeking politically related investigations out of Ukraine. Further, they offer varying accounts of whether a quid pro quo of some kind — involving either a meeting or the release of U.S. military aid — may have been presented.

One of the most significant revelations from Tuesday’s release is that E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland revised his prior testimony to say that he told a top Ukrainian official that U.S. aid would likely not resume until the country issues a corruption statement — a revelation that was quickly hailed by Democrats of proof of the quid pro quo they have been alleging took place.

Other sections presented a muddier picture. In the transcript of his closed-door deposition last month with lawmakers conducting the impeachment probe, Volker was asked if Trump withheld or delayed a meeting with Zelensky absent a pledge to probe concerns Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Democrats’ High-Risk Gamble on Impeachment Charles Lipson

By on November 5th, 2019

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/11/05/the_democrats_high-risk_g

The Democrats’ activist base considers Donald Trump fundamentally unfit to hold office. Their impeachment drive is really about this damning judgment, not about any specific act such as withholding Ukrainian aid or wanting to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. They say Trump is erratic, narcissistic, self-serving, and unforgivably gauche. He cozies up to dictators and would like to become one himself. Every day, he tramples the presidency’s historic norms. Surely the voters who put him there made a catastrophic error, or, rather, the antiquated Electoral College did. In short, Trump is not just a bad president — the worst in modern history — he is an illegitimate and dangerous one, at home and abroad.

Their harsh view is no masquerade. It is sincere, deeply held, and shared by most elected Democrats. Many, perhaps most, career civil servants agree and consider the president only nominally their boss. That’s why they consider it their constitutional duty to hold him in check. That’s why former heads of the CIA openly praised the “Deep State,” why former FBI Director James Comey wanted his agents to monitor the president in the White House itself. If that means targeting Trump and his key aides for disguised FBI interviews or leaking classified phone calls, so be it. The fight over the Deep State is partly about this profound distrust of Trump (and his distrust of them) and partly about the president’s rising opposition to a century of progressive legislation, executive orders, and court decisions, which grant extensive power to government bureaucrats.

This revulsion is the backdrop to the Democrats’ impeachment effort and the earlier appointment of a special counsel. The crucial point is this: Democrats see the actions they have investigated for three years less as specific crimes and more as steadily accumulating evidence of Trump’s unfitness for office and his repeated violation of his oath, as they understand it. “Democrats of all stripes look at Donald Trump’s business and personal history and see a man who serially does not follow laws and therefore should not be president,” said one well-informed Democrat. For his party, “Ukraine is a big deal because it confirms this view.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Ruthie Blum Turning Rabbi Firer’s blessings into a feminist curse

By on November 5th, 2019

https://www.jns.org/opinion/turning-rabbi-firers-blessings-into-a-feminist-curse/

A nationwide argument erupted in Israel over the limits of religious freedom and practice in the public sphere, particularly when involving state-funded or municipal venues.

Leave it to Israelis to create and engage in a heated controversy where it need not exist.

The brouhaha surrounding a benefit concert whose proceeds were earmarked for the health-care NGO, Ezra Lemarpe—founded and directed by genius medical autodidact Rabbi Avraham Elimelech Firer—is a perfect example.

The concert, a tribute to the 50-year career of Israeli singer Shlomo Artzi ahead of his 70th birthday, was supposed to take place on Nov. 20. It was canceled on Monday by Firer, who was fed up and clearly hurt by the commotion that his religious beliefs were causing.

The carry-on began when it emerged that certain female singers would be on the program, along with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and other prominent performers. But the rabbi is a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jew who adheres to the modesty directive that men may not hear women singing, as their voices can be seductive.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Obama Couldn’t Get The 2020 Nomination — He’s Not ‘Woke’ Enough J. Frank Bullitt

By on November 5th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/11/04/barack

To illustrate what sort of zealots now own the Democratic Party, realize that Barack Obama probably wouldn’t be the nominee if he were running for president. It’s a scathing commentary on the left.

It became obvious when, in this age of wokeness, the former president criticized today’s cancel culture, in which the outrage mob turns anyone who holds an unapproved opinion into an instant social and political outcast. Ostracism replaces discussion. There is no debate, the airing of differing opinions is not allowed.

“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff,” Obama said last week at an Obama Foundation event, “you should get over that quickly. The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids. And share certain things with you.”

Columnist Mollie Hemingway noted on Fox News that Obama’s “message does not play well in the Democratic primary,” as “the excitement is definitely with the wing of the party that does not want to be open or tolerant to a wide swath of voters.”

Granted, Obama was warning his party comrades about taking things too far, that their fanaticism will hurt them in elections. Yet one callow fellow writing in the NYT suggested Obama holds the same “regressive views” of older Americans who “stubbornly reject progress and refuse to show compassion.” Published comments largely went against the writer, who also caught a fair amount of criticism on his twitter account. But there were enough comments in the Times to show just how militant the left has become:

“I’m the same age as Obama, but he has clearly been influenced by right-wing propaganda and I suggest he should get away from the Wall Street enablers he has surrounded himself with and start talking to people instead of lecturing them.”
“He became a coward and now he wants others to follow his lead under the guise of some counterfeit ‘maturity.’”
“Shame on Obama for his obtuseness.”
“Obama is a pedantic scold. But he only seems to scold young people and people of color. Mr. Audacity of Hope showed no audacity at all when it came to punishing the crooked bankers.”
“I voted for that semi-empty suit and never stopped regretting it. Aside from half a medical insurance system named after him, he puttered and putted through eight years of impotence and irrelevance.”
“The biggest disappointment in my lifetime is Obama’s failure. He had the FDR moment in the palm of his hands and what did he do? Sold us all out and he’s every bit as responsible for Trump as is the DNC and the duplicitous meritocracy who sold our soul to the devil.”
“Thank you for this, Mr. Owens. … Work(ing) across the isle is nonsense when the Republican Party is founded on racist policies. The Dems aren’t much better, but maybe The Squad can get something done.”
“If fewer boomers ‘overlooked’ Donald Trump’s corruption, bigotry and narcissism — because he had lots of money and threw good parties — and instead ‘cancelled’ him, maybe we wouldn’t be stuck with this sorry excuse of a human being as our president.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Looking for Fame and Fortune? Become a Coup Plotter Julie Kelly

By on November 5th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/04/looking-for-fame-and-fortune-become-a-coup-plotter/

As the coup-plotters sell books, give high-priced speeches, and toil as political pundits, their victims struggle to regain their lost finances, reputations, and careers.

During the screening of a new film about the 2016 presidential election, one celebrity earned a standing ovation from the Hollywood crowd: Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and top Trump antagonist now tasked with impeaching the president.

In a side-splitting puff piece published in the New York Times over the weekend, Schiff is portrayed as the latest “it-boy” in Tinseltown thanks to his role playing the hero in the Beltway reality show based on crushing the villain in the White House. Legendary producer Norman Lear called Schiff an “American hero.” Fans grasped for his hand. Actress Patricia Arquette swooned at the sight of the would-be Trump-slayer.

“At home in his district, which stretches from West Hollywood to Pasadena and north to the San Gabriel Mountains, Mr. Schiff is well acquainted with the celebrity lifestyle,” reporters Sheryl Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos cooed.

Schiff, the ballyhoo goes, is quite comfortable as Hollywood’s hottest ticket because he has cool friends in high places and once toyed with being a screenwriter.

“In some ways, he’s become the chief storyteller of this drama-filled political moment,” Washington Post reporter Ben Terris wrote in yet another lengthy Schiff profile on November 1. “Can he give the Trump presidency a Hollywood ending?”

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HISTORY Comments turned off

Remembering Bukovsky, 1942-2019 A farewell to a titan. Michael Ledeen

By on November 5th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/remembering-vladimir-bukovsky-michael-ledeen/

Vladimir Bukovsky, one of the greatest dissidents in the history of the Twentieth Century, has died in England at the age of 76. For those of us who knew him, and were fortunate enough to work with him, his passing marked a profoundly sad day. 

For years, Bukovsky was a constant advocate for imprisoned anti-Communists, locked up because of their alleged mental infirmities. He smuggled their court documents to the West, along with documents purporting to show his own mental derangement. Instead of charging him with anti-Communism or crimes against the state, he was “diagnosed” with mental illness and placed in a psychiatric institution. 

Bukovsky was swapped for Chilean Communist Party Chief Luis Corvalan in 1976, and he resumed his studies at Stanford University, where the school administration played a nasty trick on him. A group of Soviet scholars was touring the West, advocating, as usual, for peace. Bukovsky recognized some of the better-known scholars from his years in Soviet jails; they had been among his torturers. He made this point to those who had invited the Soviets to Palo Alto, and urged them to call off the visit, but they were not put off from their peace mission.

Shortly thereafter, Bukovsky left the United States. It was a turning point in his meanderings. Although he was very fond of President Ronald Reagan and CIA Director William Casey, he found himself at odds with a culture that was hostile to his own deep-seated anti-Communism. Luke Harding writes in The Guardian:

His autobiography, published in English in 1978 as To Build a Castle and in Russian under the title And the Wind Returns, gives a vivid portrait of life in Soviet jail. He wrote: “Strange things happened to time. On the one hand it seemed to pass with preternatural speed, beggaring belief. The entire daily routine with its ordinary, monotonously repetitive events – reveille, breakfast, exercise, dinner, supper, lights out, reveille, breakfast – fused into a sort of yellowish-brown blur, leaving nothing for the mind to cling to.

“On the other hand the same time could crawl with agonising slowness: it would seem as if a whole year had gone by, but no, it was still the same old month, and no end was in sight.”

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