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January 2021

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Revenge of the Neocons-Julie Kelly

By on January 15th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/14/revenge-of-the-neocons/

The conflict between neoconservatives and the Trump base sets up a major battle for which faction will control the Republican Party in the post-Trump era.

The conflict between neoconservatives and the Trump base sets up a major battle for which faction will control the Republican Party in the post-Trump era.

It is the retaliation the Bush-Cheney regime has craved for more than a decade.

In a blistering interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in October 2008, Donald Trump wondered aloud why then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had not impeached George W. Bush. “The [Iraq] war is a total catastrophe,” Trump said on the once-friendly network that’s been his mortal enemy since 2016. “There’s only one person you can blame and that’s our current president.”

The Manhattan real estate mogul insisted Bush should have been removed from office for lying about Saddam Hussein’s secret trove of weapons of mass destruction, the rationale for the 2003 invasion. “Bush got us into this horrible war with lies, by lying. By saying they had WMDs, by saying all sorts of things that happened not to be true.” Bush was, Trump claimed, “the worst president ever.”

Trump also unloaded on Bush’s inner circle, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Vice President Dick Cheney. “He’s a hawkish guy,” Trump said about Cheney. “He said a few months ago the war was going fantastically . . . you know, it’s just very sad. I just know they got us into a mess the likes of which this country has probably never seen.”

More than 12 years later, Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wy.), the literal and figurative heir to the neoconservative “bloodline,” voted to impeach President Donald Trump. Calling the Capitol the “most sacred place in our Republic”—when you’ve been weaned on the mother’s milk of Beltway bravado and no-bid defense contracts, federal buildings in Washington, D.C. are the most hallowed ground—Cheney announced her intention to support Pelosi’s latest political stunt.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

An Impeachment Incitement What is this latest impeachment gambit really about? Of course, it was a Parthian shot to discredit President Trump’s supporters. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on January 15th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/14/an-impeachment-incitement/

Donald Trump was impeached again on Wednesday, a week before leaving office in one of the great travesties of modern politics.

Here are reasons why the exercise proved a farce.

One, impeachment was never intended by the founders to become a serial effort to weaken a first-term president. But this latest try will mark the third failed attempt of Democrats in Congress to remove Trump before his allotted tenure.

The first Democratic impeachment effort of December 2017 fizzled. The second impeachment of December 2019 succeeded but predictably failed to obtain a Senate conviction.

This third try will likely not result in a Senate conviction, either.

But from now on, House impeachment will be used by the out-party as a periodic club to wound a first-term president. President-elect Biden should beware.

Two, the country is wracked by a pandemic, recession, a summer of Black Lives Matter and Antifa looting, arson, and violence, and the recent rogue group of Trump supporters storming the Capitol. Washington, D.C. is now militarized in a way not seen since the Civil War. Over 20,000 troops patrol the streets.

Thousands are dying from COVID-19. Politics and incompetence at the state level slow down the widespread vaccination of the vulnerable.

So the last thing Americans now needed was the distraction of virtue-signaling politicians to impeach a lame-duck president who will be gone in a week.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Lebanon Wants an End to Iranian Occupation by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on January 15th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16934/lebanon-iranian-occupation

The Lebanese are worried that their country will meet the fate endured by Iraq, Syria and Yemen, where the Iranians and their militia proxies are playing a major role in the civil wars currently plaguing these countries.

The Lebanese are demanding an end to Iranian occupation of their country; they are clearly hoping that the international community will intervene to assist them in freeing Lebanon from Iran’s control.

A policy of appeasement or engagement with the mullahs will yield only one thing: blood running even more freely in the streets of Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq — as well as nuclear weapons.

Iran’s recent announcement that it intends to use Lebanon as a “forefront” for waging war on Israel has enraged many Lebanese, who say that the time has come to end the Iranian occupation of their country.

The Lebanese are worried that their country will meet the fate endured by Iraq, Syria and Yemen, where the Iranians and their militia proxies are playing a major role in the civil wars currently plaguing these countries.

The Lebanese were reacting to statements by the chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, who was quoted as saying that Lebanon is at the forefront of Iran’s battle against Israel.

Referring to the missiles Iran has supplied to Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip, Hajizadeh said: “Whatever you see in Gaza and Lebanon is with our support; these days they use missiles instead of simple rockets.

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MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: WHAT IS NANCY PELOSI AFRAID OF?

By on January 14th, 2021

Nancy Pelosi is actually demonic in her efforts to delegitimate President Trump. Why? Here is my take.

First: She knows and may have participated in outright election fraud. As my friend Phil B. reminds me:

”  Biden could not attract a crowd once he did emerge from the basement and  blurted out the truth on October 24 that a large-scale vote fraud operation was in place.  Biden’s exact words were: “We have put together the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”    It was not by happenstance that Democrat run swing states all stopped counting around midnight when Trump was ahead and in the middle of the night had statistically impossible massive Biden vote dumps.”

Investigations will continue.

Second:  She also knows that the Hunter Biden scandal will involve the influence peddling of his father as a former Vice President.

Third: She knows that Donald Trump remains the standard bearer of the Republican conservatives who voted for him.

Those fears can only be thwarted if she demolishes his legacy and reputation and ability to run for office again.

Alas Nancy, history will vindicate Donald Trump…..rsk

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

WHO Sends Team to China to Investigate Coronavirus Origin Another coverup in the offing? Thu Jan 14, 2021 Joseph Klein

By on January 14th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/who-sends-team-china-investigate-coronavirus-joseph-klein/

More than a year after the coronavirus first emerged causing nearly 2 million deaths globally, the Communist Chinese regime finally decided to allow World Health Organization (WHO) scientists into the country to explore the possible origin of the coronavirus pandemic. “We are pleased that an international team of scientists – distinguished experts from 10 institutions and countries – are commencing their travel to China to engage in and review scientific research with their Chinese counterparts on the origins of the COVID-19 virus,” WHO’s Director-General Adhanom Ghebreyesus Tedros said. Tedros was complicit in facilitating China’s original coverup of where the virus originated and its human-to-human contagion.

The WHO team is expected to arrive in China on January 14th. There had been a temporary holdup due to visa issues, which were eventually cleared up. Even after their delayed arrival, the WHO scientists will have to first quarantine for two weeks.

We do not know whether the scientists will be permitted to even visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology, from where it is believed by some experts that the virus was originally released. If they are permitted to visit, WHO’s scientists are not likely to be provided with unfettered access to the lab facilities, records, and past and present personnel. It will be like Iran’s denying unrestricted access to its military facilities by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors looking for evidence of possible nuclear weapons-related activities. In any case, the WHO team is arriving far too late to find anything of significance. Chinese authorities had more than a year to cover their tracks.

“The WHO would greatly benefit if the Chinese would give the experts unlimited access to people, data and locations,” said Ayelet Berman, an adjunct assistant professor at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law. “But I doubt it’s going to be that simple.” The WHO team members will be accompanied by Chinese scientists, who will do double duty as minders.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Restart, Reset or Renew? The Strategy against Iranian Nuclear Ambition by Peter Schweizer

By on January 14th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16937/iran-nuclear-ambition

Even if the deal negotiated in 2015 by the Obama administration were worth the effort, it is impossible to imagine the Iranians willingly recommitting to enrichment levels they have long since blown past. No one believes in their professed “peaceful use” of nuclear energy. So why does a return to the deal make any sense?

The killing of top terror-funding IRGC official Qasem Soleimani by the US military and Iran’s relatively toothless retaliatory attack against two US bases in Iraq suggest that the regime fears what an escalation of tensions would mean to its own future more than it desires to stab at the “Great Satan.” The regime may finally be on the verge of collapse.

Those sanctions are the only leverage the U.S. really has against Iran, and they may finally succeed, much as the Reagan administration was able to do to the USSR in the 1980s. Now is not the time to reduce or remove them in exchange for paper promises born of a campaign slogan, from a regime whose movements suggest it fears its days are numbered.

Through covert operations, hidden diplomacy, an intense military buildup, and a series of actions designed to throw sand in the gears of the Soviet economy, American policy destroyed the USSR from its fingertips to its heart. Former Soviet leaders including Mikhail Gorbachev have admitted it with grudging admiration. The only ones who were wrong were those in the liberal foreign policy establishment who pretended it was all just a coincidence.

President-elect Joe Biden ran on a slogan to “restore the Iran nuclear deal.” For those voters desperate to undo every accomplishment of the Trump administration, which abandoned the deal and imposed sharp sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors, it must have sounded attractive.

But now that Biden will be responsible for American security and not just criticizing Donald Trump, he would do well to slow down and consider alternatives.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Turkey-Israel Reconciliation? by Uzay Bulut

By on January 14th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16951/turkey-israel-antisemitism

[I]t was Erdogan who in October called Jerusalem a Turkish city. Referring to the Ottoman occupation of Jerusalem (1517-1917), Erdogan said: “It is still possible to encounter traces of the Ottoman resistance in this city that we had to leave in tears during the First World War. In other words, Jerusalem is our city, it is a city from us.”

Apparently, the Erdogan regime is hoping to expand trade with Israel and further gain diplomatic support in international matters. At the same time, instead of genuinely trying to fight anti-Semitism and other forms of racism in Turkish society through education and other means, the Erdogan regime has been indoctrinating its supporters with Jew-hatred and actively supporting Hamas terrorists.

On December 25, a reporter asked Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about his views on the news that Israel and Turkey were “re-establishing their relations recently.” Erdogan replied:

“Our relations with Israel concerning intelligence have not been interrupted anyway; they continue. I mean, we are experiencing some difficulties with the people at the highest level there, as with some other countries. If we had no such problems with the top [of the Israeli government], our relations with Israel would be very different. Of course, particularly Israel’s Palestine policy is Turkey’s red line. It is impossible for us to accept Israel’s Palestinian policies. It is impossible for us to accept Israel’s attitude towards our brothers and sisters in Palestine and its ruthless actions there. Where we differ with Israel is our understanding of justice and of territorial integrity of countries. Otherwise, we want to move our relations with them to a better point.”

Two weeks before Erdogan talked about “bettering relations with Israel,” a conference organized by a pro-government Turkish organization, the Association of Justice Defenders Strategic Studies Center (ASSAM), promoted the idea of creating a joint Islamic army and a common defense system for the “Confederation of Islamic Countries”. One of the main targets of this proposed army is Israel.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Our Leaders Have Betrayed Us By Kenneth R. Timmerman

By on January 14th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/our_leaders_have_betrayed_us.html

Millions of Republican activists in every state in the country are asking themselves, what can we do now? All of our political lives we put our faith in our elections.

Millions of Republican activists in every state in the country are asking themselves, what can we do now?

All of our political lives we put our faith in our elections.

When we lost, we analyzed our mistakes and sought lessons for how next time to run a better campaign. When we won, we aspired to work with our former opponents for the betterment of the country. On both sides.

It’s what we’ve done in America for the past one hundred and sixty years.

Today it sounds quaint, but our differences ended at the nation’s shores. That quarantine around foreign policy and national security disputes dissolved during the Clinton years when deep divides over trade agreements and China split our country – not along party lines, but into globalists and what the global elites derisively termed the “nativists.”

Those “nativists” – the left-behinds of the Rust Belt, and those “old-fashioned” Americans derided by Obama for “clinging to their Bibles and their guns,” became the Deplorables that defeated Hillary Clinton and elected Donald Trump.

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MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

When Mob Inciters Become Lions of the Left An Aaron Sorkin film celebrates the Chicago Seven for plotting an attack on a party convention.By Helen Andrews

By on January 14th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-mob-inciters-become-lions-of-the-left-11610558248?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

The Chicago Seven were countercultural heroes in the 1960s. They thumbed their noses through one of the country’s most notorious political trials, taunting the judge and making a mockery of the proceedings with flippant courtroom pranks. Aaron Sorkin wrote and directed a movie about them last year, “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” which will probably win a few Oscars.

One thing people forget about the Chicago Seven is that most of them were guilty. Jerry Rubin admitted as much later: “We wanted disruption. We planned it. . . . We were guilty as hell. Guilty as charged.”

The crime they were accused of was crossing state lines to incite a riot. The defendants believed that Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 nomination for presidency was illegitimate. Nominations in those days were decided not by primaries but by backroom deals among party power brokers. The antiwar movement believed that a more democratic process would have produced a candidate opposed to the Vietnam War.

The question was whether the violent clashes between protesters and police outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago were an unfortunate consequence of peaceful marching that got out of hand, or whether the organizers intended for things to get violent.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

HALL OF SHAME

By on January 14th, 2021

NATIONAL REVIEW TODAY

Try Him Now

By Matthew Continetti

Donald Trump has spent his life dodging the consequences of his misbehavior. For once, he must be punished.

An Impeachable Offense

By The Editors

The prudential questions shouldn’t be brushed aside, but this gross misconduct is what the impeachment clause was written to address.

The ‘Late Impeachment’ Question

By Ramesh Ponnuru 
Precedent and purpose cut against the argument that the Constitution bars lawmakers from holding an impeachment trial after Trump leaves office.

McCarthy Says Trump ‘Bears Responsibility’ for Capitol Riot, Advocates Censure Instead of Impeachment

By Zachary Evans 
‘The President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,’ McCarthy said.

Shame
By Kevin D. Williamson

A paltry ten House Republicans mustered the guts and the patriotism to vote to impeach Donald Trump. By way of comparison, 139 Republicans in the House voted to overturn the 2020 election. If the American public concludes that this is a party of irresponsible crackpots who can no longer be trusted with power, it will be impossible to blame them.

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