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Gen. Jack Keane calls for ‘healthy dose of skepticism’ ahead of Taliban deal, potential US troop withdrawal

Posted By on February 19th, 2020

https://www.foxnews.com/media/gen-jack-keane-taliban-deal-afghanistan-us-troops

Gen. Jack Keane, a Fox News senior strategic analyst, reacted Sunday to a new U.S. deal with the Taliban that could see a reduction in violence and lead to the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

“We gotta have a healthy dose of skepticism,” Keane told “America’s News HQ.” “Our government officials know the Taliban can’t be trusted… everybody’s clear right there.”

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the deal “looks very promising” but it was not without risk. Esper also told reporters that U.S. troop levels could be reduced to about 8,600 — from 12,000 currently in the country — if the 7-day truce is successful. However, Defense Department officials said counterterrorism operations will continue in the country.

Esper stressed that the possibility of a more permanent peace deal could be discussed.only after assessing the outcomes of this new agreement.

“This the beginning of a very long and challenging process,” Keane explained. “A reduction in violence is not a ceasefire. The Taliban can’t hold their hardcore organization from fighting… they’re not a monolithic organization,” he added.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Pompeo Responds to Reports Democrats Secretly Met Iran’s Javad Zarif Katie Pavlich

Posted By on February 19th, 2020

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2020/02/18/breaking-pompeo-responds-to-reports-democrats-secretly-met-with-iranian-terrorist-in-germany-n2561462

Speaking to reporters during a joint press conference with Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedu Andargachew Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded to reporting that a number of Democrat Senators secretly met with Iranian Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference. 

“I have seen that piece about some senators meeting with Foreign Minister Zarif. This guy is designated by the United States of America. He’s the foreign minister for a country that shot down a commercial airliner and has yet to turn over the black boxes. This is the foreign minister of a country that killed an American on December 27. And it’s the foreign minister of a country who is the largest world sponsor of terror and the world’s largest sponsor of anti-Semitism,” Pompeo said. “If they met, I don’t know what they said. I hope they were reinforcing America’s foreign policy and not their own.” 

The news of the alleged secret Zarif meeting was first reported by Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist.  

“Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and other Democratic senators had a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference last week, according to a source briefed by the French delegation to the conference. Murphy’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment by press time,” the outlet reported. 

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Indiana Professor Suspended for Calling Police on Disruptive Black Student Eric Lendrum

Posted By on February 19th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/18/indiana-professor-suspended-for-calling-police-on-disruptive-black-student/

A professor at Indiana’s Ball State University was suspended for the remainder of the academic semester after he called the police to his classroom to remove a disruptive black student, ABC News reports.

Professor Shaheen Borna, who teaches marketing, reportedly asked the student, Sultan Benson, to move to another seat after displaying disruptive behavior. When Benson refused to move, Borna called the police, and Benson left the classroom after two officers arrived.

Benson claimed without evidence that he was singled out for his race, and added, again without proof, that he “feared for his safety” at the sight of the police officers. Following Borna’s suspension, Benson said that the punishment was “just the bare minimum,” and demanded “justice.”

However, many faculty members at the university expressed their support for Borna and his actions, with 30 of them writing a letter to the university’s student newspaper, The Daily News, explaining that Borna’s actions were justified by the “Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities, Appendix Q,” which deals with “Responding to Disruption in the Academic Setting.” According to this clause, a professor has the right to ask that a disruptive student leave the classroom, and if they refuse to leave, then the next required step is to call the university police.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

CHUCK BROOKS: THOUGHT LEADER INTERVIEW

Posted By on February 19th, 2020

https://www.thinkers360.com/thought-leader-and-influencer-interview-with-chuck-brooks-president-brooks-consulting-international-and-adjunct-faculty-georgetown-university/

Thought Leader Interview

Thinkers360 interviews profile prominent members of the Thinkers360 community who embody the power of ideas in their work. In this edition, we speak with Chuck Brooks, President, Brooks Consulting International and Adjunct Faculty Georgetown University. Chuck is a globally-recognized cybersecurity thought leader and influencer, a two-time Presidential Appointee, with executive experience in marketing/branding, government relations, management, strategic partnering and digital engagement. He was recently featured in the Thinkers360 Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Cybersecurity.

Thinkers360: Tell us a bit about your background

CB: My background includes service in the public sector, academia, industry, and media.

In government. In government I received two senior Presidential appointments. I was a “plank holder” at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and appointed as the first Legislative Director of The Science & Technology Directorate. Earlier in my career I served as Special Assistant to the Director of Voice of America. For almost a decade on Capitol Hill I was a top Advisor to the late Senator Arlen Specter covering security and technology. In local government I also worked as an Auxiliary Police officer for Arlington, Virginia.

In industry, I served in senior executive roles for Fortune 1000 and smaller corporations including General Dynamics (Principal Market Growth Strategist for Cyber Systems), at Xerox (Vice President & Client Executive for Homeland Security), for Rapiscan and (Vice President of R & D), for SRA as (Vice President of Government Relations), and for Sutherland (Vice President of Marketing and Government Relations). As a globally recognized thought leader and evangelist for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies, I serve as Brand Ambassador for The Cybersecurity Collaborative, a peer-based CISO organization. I am also Executive Cybersecurity advisor to PCiTec, a woman owned HUBZONE small business, and serve on a variety of boards of companies.

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AG Bill Barr: Will he or won’t he quit? The narratives change by the minute By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on February 19th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/ag_bill_barr_will_he_or_wont_he_quit_the_narratives_change_by_the_minute.html

In the past week, there’s been non-stop speculation that Trump’s Attorney General, Bill Barr, may be run out of office or quit. On Tuesday alone, a report that Barr was on the verge of quitting was instantly followed with a statement that he had no intention of quitting.

This all stems from the fact that, when word broke that the vindictive Eric Holder holdovers in the Department of Justice sought the most extreme penalty possible for Roger Stone, Trump and Barr acted almost simultaneously, with Barr later insisting that his actions had nothing to do with Trump.

On February 11, Trump tweeted out that the sentence the DOJ was asking for Stone was an injustice:

At roughly the same time, Barr, as head of the Department of Justice, concluded that the sentencing memo was inappropriate and, instead, filed a memo asking only that the court exercise its discretion over sentencing. The left promptly went insane, saying that never before had an Attorney General been so utterly insane and corrupt. Former DOJ attorneys and officials (who are overwhelmingly Democrats) signed a petition that former Obama and Schiff staffers had written demanding he resign.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Study Shoots Down “Voter Suppression” Myth Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on February 19th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/02/study-shoots-down-voter-suppression-myth-daniel-greenfield/

A crucial part of the Dem narrative is that the Republicans have spent decades engaged in a vast conspiracy to suppress the votes of minorities. Dem judges routinely shut down voter ID requirements, claiming that they represent a voter suppression plot. When Democrats lose, they routinely blame voter suppression. Stacey Abrams has virtually locked in a V.P. slot with that line.

Meanwhile a new study shoots down this particular political myth. 

Only 8 percent of nonvoters said they don’t vote because they don’t have the time to get to the polls — fourth on the list of reasons they cited. Only 5 percent of nonvoters said they don’t vote because they aren’t registered.

In other words, people who value voting, will vote. Those who don’t, don’t.

HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

How the ‘Interpreter’ Scam Brought 75,000 Iraqis and Afghans to America How could there be more Iraqi interpreters than there are American troops? Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on February 19th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/how-interpreter-scam-brought-75000-iraqis-and-daniel-greenfield/

The latest battle over Special Immigrant Visas pitted Stephen Miller, President Trump’s senior advisor, against the Pentagon. The military brass was lobbying for 6,000 special immigrant visas for Iraqis who worked for American forces in the country. These visas were once again billed as helping “interpreters”.

That’s a lot of interpreters considering that there were only 5,200 American troops in Iraq.

How could there be more Iraqi interpreters for American troops than there are troops?

The Special Immigrant Visa scam has been sold for over a decade using the same claim that it’s needed to save the lives of Iraqi and Afghan interpreters who are risking death by helping American soldiers.

In one decade, the United States has handed out 75,250 of these visas to Iraqi and Afghan employees, and their dependents. Between 2007 and 2017, they represented 1 percent of all immigrant visas.

The truth is that the military brass has wrongly used the incentive of Special Immigrant Visas to recruit local personnel and cut costs by promising them resettlement in the United States. Considering the costs of resettling even the nicest Iraqi or Afghan families, it would have been cheaper to pay each of them a six-figure salary. But that would have come out of the defense budget. The SIV scam passes the buck to local cities and states, to ordinary taxpayers and communities who have to hire interpreters who speak Pashto to interact with the children of the interpreters who are swamping local school systems.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Will American Jews Vote for an American Jeremy Corbyn? The anti-Semitic policies of the “woke” Left is a much-needed wake-up call to American Jewry. Ari Lieberman

Posted By on February 19th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/will-american-jews-vote-american-jeremy-corbyn-ari-lieberman/

In December, British citizens overwhelmingly rejected the Marxist ideology of Britain’s Labor Party boss, Jeremy Corbyn, and sent him and his Momentum movement packing. It was Labor’s worst showing since before World War II. Among the concerns looming in the minds of the voters were Corbyn’s explicit antisemitism and his honeymoon with known radical terrorist elements like the Muslim Brotherhood’s Raed Saleh, Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams and convicted IRA operatives Linda Quigley and Gerry MacLochlainn. Polls conducted prior to the election showed that at least 40 percent of British Jewry considered emigrating had Corbyn won and an astonishing 80 percent of Britain’s Jews as well as all of Britain’s leading Jewish newspapers from across the political spectrum saw Corbyn as an existential threat.

Across the Atlantic, American Jews are facing a similar threat with the emergence of Senator Bernie Sanders as a possible frontrunner. Sanders came in first in the New Hampshire primary and remains nearly tied with Pete Buttigieg in the delegate count. Though it is far from certain that he will be the Democratic nominee, the self-proclaimed socialist, who is on record professing admiration for dictatorial regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua, China and the former Soviet Union, has a fairly good shot at reaching the requisite delegate count. According to a Morning Consult poll conducted after the New Hampshire primary, the “woke” senator is the first choice for 29 percent of Democratic primary voters, which places him 10 points ahead of his more moderate and dimwitted rival, Joe Biden. FiveThirtyEight gives Sanders a one-in-three chance of securing the nomination outright though the website believes that there’s a greater chance of a brokered convention.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Democrats Hold Secret Meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Pining for the Obama days of appeasement. Joseph Klein

Posted By on February 19th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/democrats-hold-secret-meeting-iranian-foreign-joseph-klein/

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, along with several of his Senate Democrat colleagues, reportedly met secretly with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (pictured above) during the Munich Security Conference last week. The Federalist raised the question whether that “would mean Murphy had done the type of secret coordination with foreign leaders to potentially undermine the U.S. government that he accused Trump officials of doing as they prepared for Trump’s administration.”

Senator Murphy tweeted that he was simply engaging in a dialogue with Zarif, which he claimed was within Congress’s authority as “a co-equal branch to the executive.” While acknowledging for the record that “no one in Congress can negotiate with Zarif or carry official U.S. government messages,” Murphy declared that “there is value in having a dialogue.”  He added, “It’s dangerous not to talk to adversaries, esp amidst a cycle of escalation.” That all depends on what Murphy and his cohorts had to say to the Iranian foreign minister behind closed doors.

According to Senator Murphy’s own telling, he used his meeting with Zarif to urge Iranian action to control Iran’s proxies in Iraq, release American citizens being unlawfully detained in Iran, and end the Houthi blockage of humanitarian aid in Yemen. That sounds innocent enough, if Murphy was telling the truth about everything that was said during his tête-à-tête with Zarif. But there is no reason to take Murphy’s self-serving account as representing anywhere near a complete record of the meeting.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Takes a Stand for the Mentally Ill His budget proposes to end a 55-year ban on Medicaid funding for institutional care. By D.J. Jaffe

Posted By on February 19th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-takes-a-stand-for-the-mentally-ill-11582071818?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

Hundreds of thousands of Americans with serious mental illness sleep in jails, shelters and prisons on any given night. Fewer than 40,000 are in state psychiatric hospitals. This is largely due to a federal policy, the Institutions for Mental Disease Exclusion, which created a financial incentive for states to kick the mentally ill out of hospitals. The White House’s new budget proposes easing the exclusion. It’s the most important thing federal government could do to improve care for the seriously mentally ill.

The IMD Exclusion, part of the 1965 law that established Medicaid, prevents the program from funding care for mentally ill adults while they live in hospitals or even adult homes with more than 16 beds. It was intended to prevent the federal government from taking on care of the mentally ill, which had historically been a state responsibility. Many mistakenly believed that newly developed antipsychotic drugs and community mental-health centers would obviate the need for institutions.

It’s been a disaster. Before Medicaid was enacted, states paid for psychiatric hospitalization, and it was readily available. But states soon realized that if they kicked patients out of hospitals, Medicaid would kick in and pay half the cost of care. This “deinstitutionalization” continues. The country has lost more than 450,000 mental-hospital beds since the 1950s, 12,000 of them since 2005.