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How do you cover a ‘national emergency’? Depends who’s president… Compare the media’s coverage of the border wall to Obama’s 2011 Libya strikes. The contrast is shocking Barbara Boland

Posted By on February 26th, 2019

https://spectator.us/national-emergency-president/

When Trump declared the border situation a national emergency, you couldn’t move for breathless headlines questioning the constitutionality of his order. But has the mainstream media always held this deep commitment to reporting on the limits of power of the nation’s chief executive?

Trump is hardly the first president to make use of an executive order in order to circumvent Congress. Back in February, 2011, President Obama began contemplating strikes against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. Article I, Section 8, of the US Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war. But a search of contemporaneous headlines quickly reveals that extremely few news stories from the time mentioned the device by which the President would impose strikes on Libya – an executive order.

After Obama decided on military action without Congressional approval, almost no stories mention ‘executive order’ or national emergency or the Constitutionality of this decision; in stark contrast to stories on Trump’s border decision, which has always been framed by in these terms.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Former Federal Prosecutor Sidney Powell: The Entire Russia Collusion Narrative Was Made Up By Tim Hains

Posted By on February 26th, 2019

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/02/25/former_federal_prosecutor_sidney_powell_the_entire_russia_collusion_narrative_was_made_up.html

Journalist Sharyl Attkisson, the host of “Full Measure,” interviews former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell about her allegation that the “entire Russia collusion narrative was made up” by anti-Trump political partisans in the FBI and Department of Justice:

SHARYL ATTKISSON, FULL MEASURE: Nearly two years ago, Special Counsel Mueller was named to investigate whether President Trump broke the law by somehow conspiring with Russian President Vladimir Putin to win the presidency. We still don’t know the outcome of that. But we’ve learned a lot about what some in our intelligence community have been up to. And some argue that’s proving to be an equally important— and chilling— story.

From Trump associate Roger Stone to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, the Trump-Russia probe has indicted or convicted 34 people so far. And although Special Counsel Robert Mueller has yet to publicly pinpoint illegal Russia collusion on Trump’s part he’s still looking. Meantime, former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell is making an explosive allegation. She’s among those who believe there’s now compelling evidence pointing to a parallel scandal.

In the simplest of terms if possible, what do you think is the story that’s been uncovered in the past two years?

MEDIA Comments turned off

Democrats block bill to stop infanticide. Politico smears Republicans for the effort Quinn Hillier

Posted By on February 26th, 2019

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/democrats-block-bill-to-stop-infanticide-politico-smears-republicans-for-the-effort

If anyone wonders why so many people hate, detest, despise the establishment media, witness Politico’s “news” article Monday night about Senate Democrats’ defeat of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

There will be more to say about the substance and repercussions of Senate Democrats’ vote last night refusing to protect infants delivered still alive after failed abortion attempts. What immediately rankles, though, is that Politico went to stupendous lengths to make Republicans look like cynical “bad guys” in the whole affair.

No neutral reporting allowed. No explanation of the New York, Virginia, and Vermont bills that catalyzed Republicans to introduce this Senate legislation, other than a sentence buried deep within the story mistakenly describing those state bills as merely having “loosened restrictions on third-trimester abortions.” Not even a semi-adequate recounting of the concerns forwarded by the bill’s Republican sponsors.

This was the headline: “Senate defeats anti-abortion bill, as GOP tries to jam Dems.”

Yes, really.

The smaller problem with the headline was that this bill would do nothing to stop a single abortion. It only applies to babies completely outside the mother’s body, after an attempted abortion has failed. (Also note: Politico puts quotation marks around “attempted abortion,” as if even that is a politically loaded term.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Space Force Takes One Step Forward, Two Back . . . Again By Angelo Codevilla

Posted By on February 26th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/25/space-force

In the October 15, 2018 edition of Strategika I wrote: “Three cheers for President Trump’s decision to add a Space Force to the Navy, Marines, Army, Air Force, and Coast Guard.” I was enthusiastic because, “though the logic of war and technology has long counseled establishing a U.S Space Force, the logic of military bureaucracy has forestalled it. . . .For human beings to turn any technology’s potential to military effect, those who really want to do it must be in a position to make it happen . . . that is why establishing the U.S Space Force is no mere rewiring of bureaucratic diagrams.”

But the directive that formally establishes that force, which Trump signed last Tuesday in response to bureaucratic and corporate resistance, is nothing more than a dysfunctional rewiring.

Specifically: though dominance of orbital space has become ever more vital to all other military functions, as well as for protection of our satellites and for defense against ballistic missiles, U.S. space policy has been in the hands of the Air Force, which has regarded what happens in space as subordinate to its traditional missions and—to say the least—has not made a priority of either satellite warfare or missile defense.

Establishing the U.S. Space Force was supposed to change all that. It won’t. Trump’s words notwithstanding, the directive he signed reaffirms the Air Force’s control over orbital space matters.

At the February 19 signing ceremony, Trump said, “With today’s action, we will ensure that our people are secure, our interests are protected, and our power continues to be unmatched. There will be nobody that can come close to matching us. It won’t be close.”

MEDIA Comments turned off

Media Wolves and Their Sheep’s Clothing By Julie Kelly

Posted By on February 26th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/25/media-wolves

During his fierce news conference last Wednesday, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson blasted the accomplices who publicly validated Jussie Smollett’s bogus claim that he was attacked last month by two white Trump supporters.

“To make things worse, the accusations within this phony attack received national attention for weeks,” said the chief. “Celebrities, news commentators, and even presidential candidates weighed in on something that was choreographed by an actor.”

Chicago media won plaudits for their coverage of the hoax: Local reporters, gifted with finely tuned bullshit detectors from covering the cutthroat world of Chicago politics each day, remained skeptical as the story unfolded, refusing to be suckered like their counterparts in the national media were.

Johnson’s condemnations—combined with the fact that Chicago reporters were applauded for the mere fact of doing their jobs correctly—starkly illustrate the cultural and political crisis now engulfing the country: The legacy media’s instant legitimization of scoundrels, insofar as the sympathetic subject plays the foil to Donald Trump.

Every huckster, hoaxster, swindler, cheater, publicity hound, and flat-out liar immediately earns rock-star status as long as the charlatan offers the confirmation bias that Trump haters need in order to prove their twisted and unsubstantiated conclusions about the president.

Victim of a nonexistent hate crime? Corrupt law enforcement official? Sniveling congressman with laughable tales about the Ruskies?

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Establishment Goes Trump on China By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 26th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/establishment-adopts-trump-views-china-military-threat-trade/

A new consensus is emerging, and it sounds a lot like what the president has said all along.

Read recent essays on China. Visit think-tank public symposia. Hear out military analysts. Talk with academics and media pundits. Listen to Silicon Valley grandees. Watch Senate speeches and politicians interview on television.

The resulting new groupspeak is surreal. If one excises the word “Trump,” what follows is a seemingly revolutionary recalibration of attitudes toward China that more or less echo Trump’s voice in the wilderness and often crude and shrill warnings dating back from the campaign trail of 2015.

Trump’s second secretary of state, the skillful Mike Pompeo, has been institutionalizing the president’s pessimistic view of China. Insightful but heretofore underappreciated assessments from China scholars such as Miles Yu and Gordon Chang are now being taking seriously. Both have been warning us for years that the Chinese seek domination, not accommodation, and are replacing their erstwhile feigned respect for our strength with an emboldened contempt for our perceived growing weakness, whether real or psychological. Both have warned also that once China achieves military, economic, and cultural parity with the United States, the global order will be quite different from that of the last 75 years.

From the military, one hears more frequently now that we were at a tipping point by late 2016: The Obama Asian pivot had failed — publicly provocative, but in reality without substance, giving the lethal impression of real weakness masked by empty rhetoric. The Chinese militarization of the Spratley Islands was conceded as the inevitable future of the South China Sea. Chinese military and weapons doctrine was aimed at destroying the offensive capability of the U.S. fleet in the Pacific as a way of breaking off allies from America, and then Finlanding them.

POLITICS Comments turned off

2020 Democrats Voted Against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on February 26th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2020-democrats-voted-against-the-born-alive-abortion-survivors-protection-act/

On Monday, Democratic senators running for president in 2020 voted against the Born Again Abortion Survivors Protection Act, effectively declaring their support for infanticide. The bill failed to gain the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate, as most — but not all — Democrats voted against it.

Sen.s Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) all voted “no.”

During the debate over the legislation, Democrats argued that it was a smokescreen to attack a woman’s right to an abortion.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Holding Its Tongue on Democracy, EU Presses Arab Leaders to Stem Migration First-of-its-kind summit focused on curbing migrants, not on human rights By Jared Malsin

Posted By on February 26th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/holding-its-tongue-on-democracy-eu-presses-arab-leaders-to-stem-migration-11551121873?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=4&cx_tag=contextual&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt—European Union officials used a first-of-its-kind summit here this week to press Arab leaders to create stability and stem migration but played down calls for democracy, reflecting a desire for calm after years of border tumult.

The two-day meeting between the EU and the Arab League ended Monday without a formal agreement on migration or security cooperation. The assembled leaders issued a declaration that calls for unspecified efforts to address issues ranging from climate change to wars in Yemen, Libya and Syria.

But the gathering in this Red Sea resort town reflected European leaders’ desire to seek new partners to halt to migration across the Mediterranean Sea following years of war and an influx of refugees after the Arab Spring revolts of 2011.

EU leaders such as European Council President Donald Tusk gathered with autocrats the bloc once shunned, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, and asked for help. EU leaders have in the past loudly called out leaders like Mr. Sisi for brutal crackdowns on political opponents, including torture and killings of civilians.

But Mr. Sisi and other leaders here have reasserted their hold on power after the tumult of 2011 uprisings.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Saudis Hedge Their American Bets God may be great, but for Riyadh’s strategic purposes, China’s Xi Jinping apparently is greater. By Walter Russell Mead

Posted By on February 26th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-saudis-hedge-their-american-bets-11551138149

It is, in its way, the most shocking spectacle in world politics since the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union: Even as Beijing is stepping up its persecution of Muslim Uighurs, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia cozied up to Chinese President Xi Jinping on his trip to China last week.

More than a million Uighur Muslims are said to be held in Chinese concentration and “re-education” camps, where beatings and mass rapes are reliably reported to be perpetrated against detainees. Yet the crown prince of the leading Sunni Islamic state signed almost $30 billion in trade agreements with China, hailed the long problem-free relationship between the two countries, pledged support for the Belt and Road initiative, and announced that Saudi Arabia respected China’s need to protect its domestic security in its own way.

God may be great, but Xi Jinping, apparently, is greater. Or at least more useful.

Saudi Arabia is not the only Muslim power kowtowing to China. Pakistan has also fallen strangely silent when it comes to the concentration camps now dotting the landscape in Xinjiang. A country that regularly whips itself into fits of murderous rage over the supposed plight of Muslims in Indian-controlled Kashmir remains rigorously calm about the massive religious repression by its more powerful neighbor.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinians: “No Place for the Zionist Entity in Palestine” by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on February 26th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13796/palestinians-zionist-entity

Hamas and Islamic Jihad should be given credit for their clarity and honesty regarding their ambitions. The two groups are clearly saying that their ultimate goal is to see Israel removed from the region and replaced with an Islamic state. As far as they are concerned, the conflict with Israel is not about a settlement, a checkpoint or even Jerusalem. Instead, it is about the presence of Jews in what they regard as their own state and homeland.

What will happen the day after a Palestinian state is established? The answer, according to Hamas and Islamic Jihad (and other Palestinians) is that they will use it to continue the “armed struggle” until the liberation of the supposedly occupied cities of Tel Aviv, Nazareth, Tiberias, Haifa and Ashdod. Under these current circumstances, a Palestinian state will pose an immediate existential danger to Israel.

The Islamic Jihad threat to turn Israeli cities into “hell” by firing missiles at them needs to be taken seriously by those who are working on the upcoming US peace plan. Any land that is given to Abbas and his Palestinian Authority in the West Bank will be used in the future by Hamas and Islamic Jihad as a base for launching rockets and missiles at Israeli cities. Then, the terror groups will not need accurate, long-range rockets to achieve their plan to destroy Israel’s population centers: they will be sitting right across the street from them.

A Palestinian terror group says that its engineers have developed “accurate and destructive” missiles that can reach the “occupied” cities of Tel Aviv, Netanya and Jerusalem. Abu Hamza, spokesman for the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Iranian-funded Islamic Jihad organization in the Gaza Strip, threatened that his group’s “rocket unit” would turn Israeli cities into “hell.”