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Neverending Foreign Wars Are Keeping The United States From Fixing The Border Crisis By Ellis Domenech

Posted By on November 9th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/07/neverending-foreign-wars-are-keeping-the-united-states-from-fixing-the-border-crisis/

What good is our powerful military stationed all over the world if on our very border there is a failing state?

It’s time for an overhaul of the U.S. national security establishment. No subjects of failed policy are more evident than Afghanistan and our southern border.

Afghanistan cost us $45 billion last year with little to show for it. Meanwhile, our southern border is awash with desperate human beings trying to make a better life in our great country. All the while narcotics are flowing across to feed our insatiable habit.

An incident just this week illustrated the violence escalating across the border in Mexico — this time against Americans, when a drug cartel ambushed the LeBaron family in broad daylight, killing at least three women and six children. All the while, the Mexican government fails to act.

Abraham Lincoln said as a young man:

From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia … could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.

POLITICS Comments turned off

The five big things you need to understand about the Democratic primary right now By Caitlin Huey-Burns

Posted By on November 9th, 2019

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-five-big-things-you-need-to-understand-about-the-democratic-primary-right-now/

Des Moines — Democratic presidential candidates are trading in kumbaya for combat. 

With three months to go before the Iowa caucuses, the 2020 campaigns are moving out of the introductory phase of the primary season and into the knife-sharpening phase, seeking to snuff out the competition as voters get closer to making up their minds. 

Candidates debuted new attack lines during major party cattle calls and campaign events across Iowa over the weekend and have continued to hone them throughout the week. In this phase of the campaign, it’s Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren at center stage, with the surging South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg looking to portray himself as a “unity” candidate.

The new urgency of the campaign has forced several campaigns to reshuffle or reassess their respective standings in the race. The impeachment inquiry hanging over Washington and driving the daily news cycle has made it more difficult for lower-tier campaigns to break through. At the same time, few voters on the ground are asking about the latest moves in Washington, and are instead focused more on health care, the economy, and climate change.  

After spending the past several days on the ground in Iowa, attending presidential town halls and talking to lots of voters, here are five things we are learning about the state of the race. 

The passive-aggressive primary is over

Biden is attacking Warren. Buttigieg is attacking Warren. Warren is attacking Biden and Buttigieg. Julián Castro is attacking Buttigieg. 

In other words, this is the part of the campaign season when candidates stop being polite and start getting real. 

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U.S.-Israel Security Cooperation Is A Win-Win-Shoshana Bryen

Posted By on November 9th, 2019

https://www.dailywire.com/news/bryen-u-s-israel-security-cooperation-is-a-win-win

One of the few points of unbounded bipartisan agreement in Washington has for decades been that U.S.-Israel security cooperation is right, good, mutually beneficial, and worth every nickel spent on it. It is well–grounded in facts and has acknowledged benefits to both sides.

However, at the J Street Conference last week, left-of-center political candidates and hostile-to-Israel speakers questioned the utility of American aid to Israel except, perhaps, as “leverage” to force Israel to meet their left-of-center and hostile-to-Israel demands. Candidates were willing to “explore” the issue. But it was left to J Street president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, to get to the heart of the conversation – Ben Ami isn’t interested in “leverage,” but in de-legitimizing the aid. “American aid is not intended to be a blank check. As Israel receives that $3.8 billion in aid, what is it being used for?”

Actually, it’s not, a secret. The United States is Israel’s ally of first choice. And Israel remains the one country the United States can rely upon to defend itself by itself and in coordination with American interests. And most of the money is then spent by Israel in the U.S.

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Testimony bombshell: Obama administration tried to partner with Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian gas firm but was blocked over corruption concerns John Solomon

Posted By on November 8th, 2019

https://johnsolomonreports.com/testimony-bombshell-obama-administration-tried-to-partner-with-hunter-bidens-ukrainian-gas-firm-but-was-blocked-over-corruption-concerns/

A State Department official who served in the U.S. embassy in Kiev told Congress that the Obama administration tried in 2016 to partner with the Ukrainian gas firm that employed Hunter Biden but the project was blocked over corruption concerns.

George Kent, the former charge d’affair at the Kiev embassy, said in testimony released Thursday that the State Department’s main foreign aid agency, known as USAID, planned to co-sponsor a clean energy project with Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas firm that employed Hunter Biden as a board member.

At the time of the proposed project, Burisma was under investigation in Ukraine for alleged corruption. Those cases were settled in late 2016 and early 2017. Burisma contested allegations of corruption but paid a penalty for tax issues.

Kent testified he personally intervened in mid-2016 to stop USAID’s joint project with Burisma because American officials believed the corruption allegations against the gas firm raised concern.

“There apparently was an effort for Burisma to help cosponsor, I guess, a contest that USAID was sponsoring related to clean energy. And when I heard about it I asked USAID to stop that sponsorship,” Kent told lawmakers.

When asked why he intervened, he answered: “”Because Burisma had a poor reputation in the business, and I didn’t think it was appropriate for the U.S. Government to be co-sponsoring something with a company that had a bad reputation.”

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Whistleblower ‘The Coup Has Started’: Attorney Was Already Tweeting About Impeaching Trump in Jan. of 2017 Debra Heine

Posted By on November 8th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/06/the-coup-has-started-whistleblower-attorney-was-already-tweeting-about-impeaching-trump-in-jan-of-2017/

One of the deep state attorneys representing the so-called “whistleblower” behind the Democrats’ ongoing impeachment inquisition, has been working toward the impeachment of President Trump since the early days of his administration, recently unearthed tweets reveal.

Mark Zaid, a prominent national security lawyer in Washington, tweeted in January of 2017 that the “coup has started” and that “impeachment will follow ultimately,” a Fox News analysis of his tweets revealed.

That tweet came shortly after President Trump fired then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to make legal arguments defending Trump’s executive order on immigration and refugees.

He authored a number of other impeachment obsessed tweets as well.

“Johnson (1868), Nixon (1973), Clinton (1998) impeachment hearings. Next up @realDonaldTrump (2017),” Zaid tweeted in May of 2017. Then, in June of 2017, Zaid wrote: “45 years from now we might be recalling stories regarding the impeachment of @realDonaldTrump. I’ll be old, but will be worth the wait.”

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Elections The Anonymous Coup History is littered with bloodless coup attempts. But in the Trump era, enemy combatants not only are spared bloodshed, they don’t even have to give their names. Julie Kelly

Posted By on November 8th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/07/the-anonymous-coup/

Impeachment, we are reminded by our betters, is a political process, not a criminal trial.

The president does not need to be accused of violating a specific law; evidence is whatever the House of Representatives wants it to be. The credibility of any witness, especially one wearing the uniform of the United States military, cannot be questioned. Ditto for the motives of any witness. Hearsay is Exhibit A; New York Times articles, Exhibit B.

But what truly animates the current impeachment crusade is the same ploy that’s been used against Donald Trump since 2016—a drumbeat of attacks from nameless, faceless partisans tasked with destroying Trump first as a candidate, now as the president. Anonymity gives cover to their political agenda under the guise of courage and “speaking truth to power.” Democratic lawmakers, the news media, and NeverTrump Republicans—unable to make a compelling case for Trump’s removal aside from Orange Man Bad—wield the incognito heroes’ charges as incontestable fact.

It is, for the most part, an anonymous coup.

The so-called “whistleblower” is just the latest mystery man to make damning accusations about Trump’s alleged malfeasance. After reports leaked about the “whistleblower’s” detailed report claiming the president threatened to withhold federal aid from Ukraine unless the country’s new president investigated the Bidens—an attempt to “solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election,” he warned in the nine-page complaint—there were widespread calls for the patriot’s immediate testimony.

“We‘re in touch with counsel and look forward to the whistleblower’s testimony as soon as this week,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) tweeted on September 24. Several days later, Schiff disclosed that he was negotiating the terms of the “whistleblower’s” testimony before his committee.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Inherit the Wind Tony Thomas

Posted By on November 8th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2019/11/inherit-the-w

It’s good to know that wind turbine blades are a bird’s best friend, or something like that. I’m citing “fun facts” on the website of Synergy, Western Australia’s state-owned electricity generator. Synergy operations include half a dozen WA wind farms, mostly coastal. Synergy claims, correctly, that its fun facts “may blow your mind.” Fun Fact No. 9 is illustrated with a pic of Sesame Street’s Big Bird, pop-eyed with delight about wind turbines’  blade-and-splatter prospects. The caption reads (author’s emphasis)

Wind technology is now much more bird-friendly. Earlier versions of wind farms, such as the ones first launched in the US, had thousands of small fast-spinning turbines. Not so good for birds. Now, wind farms have taller and slower-moving blades which are much nicer for our feathered friends.

I don’t know about those “slower moving blades”. Tip speed of a 75m blade for a giant 6MW turbine can be 290km per hour. Despite my blown mind, I also managed to look up Greens Tasmanian stalwart Bob Brown and his objection last July to a company’s plan to put 120 wind towers, each 270m at tip height, on Robbins Island. He doesn’t agree with Synergy that turbines are “nice for our feathered friends”. He wrote instead, “For which of these species will the wind farm be the thousandth cut?”[1]

This is by-the-way, just stuff I came across while looking into what happens to wind farms when they get to their use-by date. National Wind Farm Commissioner Andrew Dyer tells Quadrant Online, “Some farmers have not got the best legal advice before entering agreements. The industry is new and the decommissioning clauses will be tested in the coming years as older wind farms reach the end of their economic life. These clauses are incredibly important if you are a landowner.” [2]

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Saudi Slavery An Islamically-sanctioned barbarity continues. Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on November 8th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/slavery-persists-saudi-arabia-hugh-fitzgerald/

As is well known, slavery was formally abolished in Saudi Arabia as late as 1962, and then only after terrific pressure had been applied to the Saudis by Western governments. And today, when we speak of slavery in the Muslim world, we think of Mauritania (with 600,000 slaves), as the report in the past hour discussed, Niger (600,000 slaves), Mali (200,000 slaves), and Libya (where slave markets have opened in nine sites during the last two years). Most of us assume that in Saudi Arabia, slavery is no longer tolerated.

But most of us are wrong.

Slavery may have been formally abolished, but the cruel and savage treatment of foreign domestic workers, their inability to free themselves from arduous work conditions because their employers keep their passports and other documents, amount to slavery in all but name.

A report on one group of domestic slaves — Vietnamese women — by reporter Yen Duong, who interviewed former workers who had made it back to Vietnam, was published last year in Al Jazeera here:

Overworked, abused, hungry: Vietnamese domestic workers in Saudi Arabia.

Women say they are forced to work at least 18 hours a day, denied food, assaulted and refused the right to return home.

Pham Thi Dao, 46, says she worked more than 18 hours a day and was given the same one meal to live on – a slice of lamb and plain rice.

Dao, 46, was a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia for more than seven months until she returned to Vietnam in April.

“I worked from 5am until 1am in the morning, and was allowed to eat once at 1pm,” Dao told Al Jazeera of her experience in the port city of Yanbu. “It was the same every day – a slice of lamb and a plate of plain rice. After nearly two months, I was like a mad person.”

According to statistics from Vietnam’s labor ministry, there are currently 20,000 Vietnamese workers in the kingdom, with nearly 7,000 working as domestic staff for Saudi families…

POLITICS Comments turned off

The Socialists vs. Billionaires Democrat Primary Bloomberg joining the primaries from hell will make them even worse. Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on November 8th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/socialists-vs-billionaires-democrat-primary-daniel-greenfield/

Joe Biden is running out of money.

He blew too much cash on private jets while blowing away debating opponents with his confused mumbling and bleeding eye. Now Joe’s down to the single digit millions, while Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are in the double millions. Unless Joe can wangle a job on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian gas company, he’s not going to be able to afford private jets or a political campaign.

Kamala Harris is cutting staff and scaling back her campaign. Julian Castro is supporting his staff as they look for new jobs in a successful campaign. Too bad there aren’t many of those left. The only candidates still polling as if they’re in the running are Biden, Warren, Sanders, and Buttigieg, in a distant fourth place, buoyed by donations from vegan restaurateurs who don’t care if he actually wins or not.

Between them, Sanders and Warren command about 40% of the Democrat vote. Biden’s dying campaign has been shrinking from a third to around a quarter. And it’s largely dependent on black voters associating him with Obama. A project that’s gotten zero help from the actual Obama.

It’s time for the one thing the Dem dogfight desperately needs. More terrible candidates.

As money becomes the central factor, it’s the candidates with a fanatical following, the two radical socialists, Warren and Sanders, and the candidates with money to burn, who can stay in the race.

Tom Steyer, an eco-billionaire, bought his way into the primary, onto the debate stage, and was even accused of trying to buy endorsements. He’s blown through $47 million without batting an eye. With $1.6 billion to play with, Tom can keep this up a whole lot longer than Joe Biden can stay awake.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Why Does The Media Prop Up Failed Democratic Candidates Like Stacey Abrams? November 7, 2019 By Chrissy Clark

Posted By on November 8th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/07/why-does-the-media-prop-up-failed-democratic-candidates-like-stacey-abrams/

Stacey Abrams, the failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate from Georgia, told a University of Iowa audience she would be happy to run as a vice presidential candidate.

Abrams ended the rumors she was asked to run with Joe Biden if he was the nominee, but, according to the Daily Iowan, Abrams said she would be happy to be the running mate of DNC’s nominee, whoever the candidate is.

“When I got the question [from reporters] I was, myself, contemplating my next steps… I’m not in the primary, but you can run as second in the general election, and I am happy to do so with the nominee. That is my answer,” Abrams said

The New York Times, Washington Post, POLITICO, and The Hill have all reported on Abrams desire to be Vice President. The Washington Post gave Abrams a glowing review, saying, despite her failed candidacy she is a rising star in the Democratic party.

Why do mainstream media outlets continually prop up failed candidates? They used similar tactics when “rising star” Beto O’Rourke announced his presidential bid this year.

In January, media outlets raved about O’Rourke’s candidacy and gawked over his Vanity Fair cover. He was being propped up by the media and polled at 8.5 percent nationally. Now, the mainstream media and voters realize the only place ‘Born to Run’ Beto is going, is home.

O’Rourke has dropped out of the presidential race and was polling at a measly 2 percent by the end. The strategy of propping up an entire campaign around media attention leads candidates to flopping hard. Could an Abrams run follow this same pattern? After all, the two “rising stars” have a lot in common.