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Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Sessions Fights Back AG calls claim he worked with Russia to undermine our democracy “an appalling and detestable lie.” Matthew Vadum

By on June 14th, 2017

Attorney General Jeff Sessions took aim at unhinged Russian electoral collusion conspiracy theorists, pushing back against left-wingers’ wild claims that by doing his job he somehow betrayed America.

The comments by the former Republican senator from Alabama came during heated testimony yesterday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Sessions denied, as he has done before, that he had any inappropriate contact with Russian officials or that he plotted with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government to influence the 2016 election.

Sessions’ testimony came the day after Newsmax Media CEO Christopher Ruddy, a longtime friend of the president, claimed Trump was considering firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is heading the investigation into the Russian conspiracy theory. A few hours before Sessions testified, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein was asked by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.) if he would fire Mueller. Critics have accused Mueller of a litany of conflicts of interest that they claim ought to disqualify him as an investigator.

“Senator, I’m not going to follow any order unless I believe those are lawful and appropriate orders,” Rosenstein said during a hearing about President Trump’s $27.7 billion fiscal 2018 budget for the Department of Justice. Mueller “may be fired only for good cause, and I am required to put that cause in writing. That’s what I would do. If there were good cause, I would consider it.”

The attorney general’s appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee was marked by several testy exchanges with Democrats. The senior Democrat and vice chairman of the committee, Mark Warner of Virginia, set the noticeably prosecutorial tone for his side by interrupting Sessions repeatedly. “The Russians massively interfered,” in the 2016 election, Warner claimed.

In his opening statement, Sessions said:

Let me state this clearly, colleagues. I have never met with or had any conversation with any Russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States. Further, I have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump campaign. I was your colleague in this body for 20 years, at least some of you. And the suggestion that I participated in any collusion that I was aware of, any collusion with the Russian government to hurt this country which I have served with honor for 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process is an appalling and detestable lie.

As attorney general, “I recused myself from any investigation into the campaign for president, but I did not recuse myself from defending my honor against false allegations.”

A grandstanding Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) accused Sessions of being less than forthcoming about his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

I believe the American people have had it with stonewalling. Americans don’t want to hear the answers are privileged and off limits or they can’t be provided in public or it would be inappropriate for witnesses to tell us what they know. We are talking about an attack on our democratic institutions and stonewalling of any kind is unacceptable.

Sessions forcefully denied that declining to answer questions about presidential communications constituted stonewalling. “I am following the historic policies of the Department of Justice,” he said.

Throughout the hearing Sessions repeatedly told senators that he wasn’t invoking executive privilege on behalf of President Trump. His default position was that conversations he had about official government business with Trump should be treated as presumptively confidential, at least until the president can make an informed decision about whether to shield the information by invoking executive privilege.

“I’m protecting the president’s constitutional right by not giving it away before he has a chance to review it,” Sessions told Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.).

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump’s Vision for The Middle East By Herbert London President, London Center for Policy Research

By on June 14th, 2017

President Trump arrived in the Arabian desert hoping to realign the politics of the Middle East in the aftermath of a failed Obama policy. For eight years Obama tilted in the direction of Iran believing that the influence of the Shia could balance Sunni dominance. The so-called nuclear deal with Iran was a geopolitical manifestation of this policy perspective. To put it simply, the policy didn’t work. In fact, it led to the wide spread belief that the U.S. tacitly endorsed the Shia Crescent or the imperial Iranian design.

President Trump hinted that this has to be corrected. With his May 21, 2017 speech, there is no doubt the U.S. will push back on previous policy and offer Saudi Arabia and other regional Sunni partners a reliable counter-weight to Iranian ambitions.

In previous documents produced by the London Center for Policy Research a Gulf States Red Sea Treaty Organization was proposed. Mr. Trump has called it an Arab NATO. As the president noted in his speech the nations in the region have a primary responsibility to attack terrorism and the state sponsors of terrorism. He noted perspicaciously that the U.S. would not invest major troop deployments for this mission, but the U.S. will engage with its allies in logistical support, sophisticated arms, special forces when necessary and intelligence on enemy movements and strategy.

More than anything else, the president offered assurance that the U.S. stands behind its allies. When, during the Obama presidency, President al Sisi noted that “I love America, but America doesn’t love me,” he meant the U.S. was an unreliable ally that makes promises, but doesn’t follow through. Specifically, he made reference to the Apache helicopters promised to Egypt but undelivered.

While presidential visits of this kind are invariably accompanied by hyperbole, this mission was indeed historic since it has already instilled in Saudi Arabia and Egypt confidence building measures missing from erstwhile diplomatic conversations.

Some critics contend this Middle East gambit was designed to offset the political troubles dogging the Trump team in DC. However, the trip was arranged well before the press powder keg exploded. From the outset of his presidency, Mr. Trump vowed to reset the global war against terrorism. He also wanted to alter a perception he is intolerant of Islam.

Clearly there is a lot of work to be accomplished between announcements and an actual defense condominium. At this stage, inflated expectations have to face the bright light of regional realism. After all, there was a Middle East defense pact (CENTO) organized by President Eisenhower that lacked muscle and influence and, eventually, evanesced. There is also the Russian alliance with Iran and Hezbollah that could put a monkey wrench in Sunni planning.

A Sunni pact has as its target the Iranian influence in the Levant. But there are other goals as well. It is the Trump administration belief that Russia can be peeled from the alliance with Hezbollah and Iran. After all, why should Russian policy be determined, in large part, by Iranian imperial ambitions? Should this gambit be successful, Iran will be isolated and far more amenable to negotiation.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Refugees, Immigration and the Agenda to Erase America — Glazov Gang.

By on June 14th, 2017

This special edition of The Glazov Gang was joined by Jim Simpson,
author of The Red-Green Axis.

Jim came on the show to discuss Refugees, Immigration and the Agenda to Erase America, unveiling the sinister goal of the Red-Green Axis.

Don’t miss it!

And make sure to watch Jamie say: Thank You President Trump for the Travel Ban, where he expresses a heartfelt appreciation for a leader set on protecting America and American lives:

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FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Senate sanctions to reverse Obama’s ‘Iran first’ policy By Rachel Ehrenfeld

By on June 14th, 2017

The Obama “Iran-First” policy followers in Congress have been demonstrating a dangerous delusion that Iran, which supports global terrorism, supply arms that kill American soldiers in the Middle East and Afghanistan advancing their own and North Korea’s nuclear agenda, encouraging mobs chanting “death to America,” “Death to Israel,” and “Death to Saudi Arabia” are friends, not cunning maniacal enemies of the U.S. The Trump administration’s efforts to curb Iran’s activities would also be helped by finding out how much money did the Obama administration funnel to Iran and its proxies since he took office in 2009.
The latest confirmation of the Obama administration’s support of Iran’s terrorist activities was provided to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on June 8, 2017 by David Asher, who for many years worked with the United States government on counter-terrorist financing-related issues. According to Asher, “[i]n narrow pursuit of the P5+1 agreement, the administration … systematically disbanded any … action … to dismantle Hezb’allah and the Iran ‘Action Network’ … [for fear these would] derail the administration’s policy agenda focused on Iran.”
Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), who chairs the committee, denounced the Obama administration in April 2016 for allowing Iran “to launder dollars while the administration looked the other way.” The hearing he held last week aimed at finding new ways to curb Iran’s and Hezb’allah’s international crime syndicates that fund its terrorist activities.
One day before the Senate voted on advancing the “Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017,” former secretary of state John Kerry argued against “the danger” of new sanctions. “Our bellicosity is pushing them into a corner,” and the imposition of new sanctions after old ones were relaxed with Obama’s deal with Iran could be seen as a “provocation” by Iran, he warned. His former counterpart, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, followed suit, calling the newly proposed sanctions “repugnant.”
Obama is no longer the president, but Democrats in Congress continue his “Iran first” legacy. Last week, 92 senators voted to advance with the Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017 to impose new sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, enforce arms embargoes, and block assets of individuals engaged in terrorism and human rights violations in Iran. The six senators who voted against, Carper (D-Del.); Durbin (D-Ill.); Feinstein (D-Calif.); Gillibrand (D-N.Y.); Merkley (D-Ore.), and Sanders (I-Vt.), argued in favor of postponing the vote “as a goodwill gesture” to the Iranians after last week’s ISIS attack on the Parliament and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s shrine in Tehran.
Incredibly, Sen. Carper called to “hit the pause button,” suggesting that the sanctions would be akin to “rubbing salt into a wound[.] … [L]et’s wait a few days and consider what to do.” Displaying his lack of minimal understanding of the mullahs’ terrorist regime, he argued, “If we were in their shoes, I think we would appreciate that gesture.” One wonders why Sen. Carper and his colleagues continue to call for “goodwill gestures” toward Iran, which has unfailingly proven its hostility to the U.S. The Obama “Iran first” policy followers in Congress have been demonstrating a dangerous delusion that Iran, which supports global terrorism; advances its own and North Korea’s nuclear agendas; and encourages mobs chanting “Death to America,” “Death to Israel,” and “Death to Saudi Arabia” is a friend, not a cunning, maniacal enemy of the U.S.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Britain’s Dangerous Corbyn Temptation By Lawrence J. Haas

By on June 14th, 2017

Across the West, restless voters and mainstream parties are reinforcing one another in a mutual race to the fringes, hollowing out the political center and threatening the basic canons of our post-war liberal order – the human values, diplomatic alliances and economic relationships that have generally served us well.

The middle-class struggles economically, fears the next terrorist attack and feels abandoned by political and economic elites who decide their futures in stately rooms, often behind closed doors. Frustrated and angry, voters are increasingly disgusted by traditional candidates and tempted by outlandish alternatives.

The parties, meanwhile, are driven to the fringes by their most activist elements who provide the enthusiasm, resources and voluntarism that helps to elevate those outlandish candidates to the role of party standard-bearers.

To push back, we need mainstream leaders with the credibility and courage to educate Western voters about what’s at stake if we loosen our alliances, leave a global vacuum for China, Russia and other authoritarian powers to fill, and wall ourselves off economically. At the same time, we need such leaders to craft policies that help address the legitimate anxieties that many voters express.

The latest dagger to the heart of the liberal order comes via Britain. Though his Labour Party fell short of victory, Jeremy Corbyn’s rise in Britain’s elections inserts anti-Zionism (and tolerance for anti-Semitism), anti-Westernism, far-left collectivism and mindless pacifism more forcefully into the mainstream of a nation that was once led by the likes of Churchill, Thatcher and Disraeli.

Corbyn is morally challenged and ideologically misguided – all of which helps elevate him in the eyes of middle-class voters who want to lash out at traditional politics, and of young voters who lack the historical perspective to fully understand the benefits and fragility of freedom and democracy.

Asked once whether he could envision any circumstance for deploying British military force, Corbyn replied, “I’m sure there are some but I can’t think of them at the moment.” He can’t because, when it comes to the West, he aligns himself much more closely with its enemies than its defenders.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Rewriting American History The real agenda behind the destruction of Confederate monuments. Walter Williams

By on June 14th, 2017

George Orwell said, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” In the former USSR, censorship, rewriting of history and eliminating undesirable people became part of Soviets’ effort to ensure that the correct ideological and political spin was put on their history. Deviation from official propaganda was punished by confinement in labor camps and execution.

Today there are efforts to rewrite history in the U.S., albeit the punishment is not so draconian as that in the Soviet Union. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu had a Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee monument removed last month. Former Memphis Mayor A C Wharton wanted the statue of Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, as well as the graves of Forrest and his wife, removed from the city park. In Richmond, Virginia, there have been calls for the removal of the Monument Avenue statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gens. Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. It’s not only Confederate statues that have come under attack. Just by having the name of a Confederate, such as J.E.B. Stuart High School in Falls Church, Virginia, brings up calls for a name change. These history rewriters have enjoyed nearly total success in getting the Confederate flag removed from state capitol grounds and other public places.

Slavery is an undeniable fact of our history. The costly war fought to end it is also a part of the nation’s history. Neither will go away through cultural cleansing. Removing statues of Confederates and renaming buildings are just a small part of the true agenda of America’s leftists. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and there’s a monument that bears his name — the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. George Washington also owned slaves, and there’s a monument to him, as well — the Washington Monument in Washington. Will the people who call for removal of statues in New Orleans and Richmond also call for the removal of the Washington, D.C., monuments honoring slaveholders Jefferson and Washington? Will the people demanding a change in the name of J.E.B. Stuart High School also demand that the name of the nation’s capital be changed?

These leftists might demand that the name of my place of work — George Mason University — be changed. Even though Mason was the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which became a part of our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, he owned slaves. Not too far from my university is James Madison University. Will its name be changed? Even though Madison is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution,” he did own slaves.

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Sessions Calls Collusion Speculation ‘Detestable,’ Professes ‘Confidence’ in Mueller By Bridget Johnson

By on June 14th, 2017

ASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave his version Tuesday of parts of former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony expressing his concerns about meeting alone with President Trump, while emphatically denying to his former Senate colleagues that he colluded with Russia during the presidential campaign.

White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Trump flew back from Milwaukee today that he watched parts of the hearing, “thought that Attorney General Sessions did a very good job and, in particular, was very strong on the point that there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.”

The Sessions testimony unfolded as the FBI has been conducting an ongoing investigation into Russia’s campaign operations since July, and special counsel Robert Mueller has been compiling a team of prosecutors to start his investigation.

On April 27, 2016, Trump gave a foreign policy address at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington at which he, Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were among attendees at a VIP reception. CNN reported that Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee in closed session last week that Sessions and Kisylak could have met on the sidelines, as indicated by intercepts of Russian communications.

Sessions told the committee that the reception area included “two to three dozen people” and said he didn’t remember having a conversation with Kislyak. “Certainly, I can assure you, nothing improper, if I’d had a conversation with him,” he said. “And it’s conceivable that that occurred. I just don’t remember it.”

“I didn’t have any formal meeting with him,” the attorney general said later in the hearing. “I’m confident of that. But I may have had an encounter during the reception.”

Sessions, who had been named to Trump’s national security advisory board the previous month, said he “came there as a interested person, very anxious to see how President Trump would do in his first major foreign policy address — I believe he’d only given one major speech before, that one, maybe, at the Jewish AIPAC event.”

“So it was an interesting time to — for me to observe his delivery and the message he would make,” he added. “That was my main purpose of being there.”

During his opening statement, Sessions told senators: “I was your colleague in this body for 20 years, at least some of you, and I — and the suggestion that I participated in any collusion — that I was aware of any collusion with the Russian government to hurt this country, which I have served with honor for 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process, is an appalling and detestable lie.”

Testifying before the committee last week, Comey recounted a Feb. 14 Oval Office meeting in which he said “the attorney general lingered by my chair” before leaving the room, at which point Trump, according to the former FBI director, said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting [Mike] Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Comey says that “shortly” after the Oval Office meeting, he was speaking with Sessions on the subject of Trump’s concerns about leaks when he “took the opportunity to implore the attorney general to prevent any future direct communication between the president and me.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Rod McGarvie Islam in Australia, the Path not Taken

By on June 14th, 2017

It will take a good deal of courage, but Islamic leaders can get into the fight against extremism in very practical and proactive ways. Inaction can only make life more difficult for moderate Muslims who have embraced Australian values and just want to get on with their lives.

Finally, the two major political parties have been dragged kicking and screaming into the reality of the Islamic terrorism debate. They have spent several years cowering like abused dogs in an animal shelter, unwilling to either stand up or bark with confidence or conviction.

The slowness to act on the Islamic threat by Western democracies, including our own, has come at a great cost. It has undermined public confidence in key government agencies, our political processes, and eroded our sense of personal security and wellbeing. We have had the chief of ASIO misinforming parliament in an apparent strategy to not offend Muslims for fear they will stop acting as responsible Australians and intelligence information will dry up. The primary duty of government is to protect its citizens from those who would do it harm. Cultivating informers is a secondary goal.

Yet while more of Australia becomes aware of the existential threat that radical Islam presents to our way of life, influential Muslim leaders in the Islamic community still appear to be largely in denial. They need to get some skin in the game and do so quickly. The tolerance of long suffering Australians is wearing very thin.

Increasingly, Australians could be forgiven for thinking that many Muslims living here either condone or are sympathetic to the goals of various Islamic terror groups – though they might object to their brutal methods. It can appear that some within the Muslim community are acting as fifth columnists, building a beachhead in which to influence the future direction of Australian politics, our cultural values, and our legal system. The Islamic Council of Victoria has just withdrawn its support for Corrections Victoria’s de-radicalisation program, instead wanting public money to set up safe spaces for angry young Muslims to vent their rage. There appears to be a determined blindness to the Muslim-terror link by Islamic leaders, even to the extent of tacitly acknowledging that young Muslims really do have bona fide reasons for that rage.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Getting It Wrong on Energy and Tax Reform By William O’Keefe

By on June 14th, 2017

Groucho Marx, not exactly known as a political philosopher, nevertheless once aptly observed that politicians look for problems, find them everywhere, misdiagnose them, and apply the wrong solutions. A recent letter on tax reform priorities signed by 16 Democratic members of the House of Representatives leads me to believe Marx may have missed his calling. The goals of tax reform are supposed to be simplification, a level playing field, and increased corporate competiveness. What the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition proposes is the polar opposite.

Their proposal is an example of the willingness to punish the success and reward the failure of certain sectors of our economy. The focus of the letter is incentivizing “clean energy” but at its core it is nothing more than hostility toward fossil fuels and a fundamental misunderstanding of tax provisions for the energy sector. Unfortunately, this is nothing new and you would think by now proponents of this misguided approach to tax policy would have learned their lesson. But they haven’t and so they continue to propose the same ideas over and over, expecting a different result. The authors do reveal, however, that in addition to their hostility towards fossil fuels, they are using tax reform as a means of capturing more revenue to pass out to the chosen and favored few.

The basis for their “environmental tax priorities” includes discriminatory proposals to drive oil and gas out of our energy budget while attempting to replace them with alternatives. Since the great recession, the oil and gas industry has been a shining example of job creation and increased investment. The icing on the cake is that the energy renaissance has not only reversed the growth in imports but has made the United States the world leader in natural gas production.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Would Trump Voters Choose Him Again? A message from Ohio. by James Freeman

By on June 14th, 2017

Seven months later, how are Trump voters feeling about their decision? Gary Abernathy of Hillsboro, Ohio’s Times-Gazette was a rare newspaper editor who endorsed Donald Trump for President in 2016. On Friday, he provided an update from his community of 6,600 people:

Interestingly, the conservatives I speak with do not really consider Trump one of them. Rank-and-file Republicans tend to view Trump more as an independent who ran under the Republican banner.

But for the most part, they’re still with him. They appreciate Trump’s “America first” agenda, not because they believe in isolationism, but because they believe the U.S. and its citizens should be the government’s top priority.

The president’s tweets can be as annoying to his supporters as to his opponents, and if there is a common criticism it is that he should tweet less. But his inability so far to overhaul health care, enact tax reform, destroy the Islamic State or “drain the swamp” is largely blamed on overreaching courts and the open “resistance” that appears dedicated to opposing anything Trump wants.

The 2016 election made clear how little the average voter in the Midwest has in common with the average journalist on either coast. But your humble correspondent is struck by how much the Trump analysis offered by small-town Midwesterners squares with the view of Trump voters who live and work in Manhattan. Yes, there are a few, and just like the much larger population of Trump voters in Middle America, they understand his faults but tend to appreciate his goal of American revival.

Meanwhile back in Ohio, Mr. Abernathy finds that constant negative coverage of Mr. Trump in the national media is still not having the intended effect, and may even be backfiring:

While Trump carried Highland County heavily, there are people here who did not vote for him and who do not care for him. But overall, despite the avalanche of negative news stories, Trump’s support remains firm. Hillsboro’s mayor mentioned recently that he has noticed Trump yard signs popping up again, either in a show of support or a sign of defiance.

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