Political Correctness Turns Heroes Into Villains

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With another Columbus Day recently over, it is obvious that Columbus, a former hero, has been vilified—primarily because of some of the terrible things that came after he opened up the new world to the old.

Turning Columbus the hero into Columbus the villain is one of many examples of the ongoing “war on history” of our times.

Columbus Day is no longer celebrated in the “District of Columbia” (named after him), noted Jarrett Stepman, who writes for dailysignal.com (Heritage Foundation). Stepman just wrote a book, entitled, The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past (Regnery, 2019).

The book includes this quote from Ronald Reagan’s 1981 Columbus Day celebration: “Christopher Columbus….is justly admired as a brilliant navigator, a fearless man of action, a visionary who opened the eyes of an older world to an entirely new one.” It would be hard to imagine hearing a politician today pay such a tribute.

Stepman writes, “Columbus was the unwitting conduit for the creation of a future American Republic, and for that, he deserves our respect and veneration.”

I had the privilege of doing a TV-interview with Stepman recently. We talked about the “war on history” and the “cancel culture.”

The “cancel culture” holds up yesterday’s heroes by today’s criterion and then writes them off as unredeemable villains.

Virtually no hero of yesterday is worthy by today’s standards. And, of course, today’s heroes will likewise be canceled one day. The revolution always consumes its own.

Stepman has been writing on this theme of modern iconoclasm of our heroes for a while. A few years ago, he wrote about how radicals wanted to tear down a statue of Abraham Lincoln…the slaveholder. What?!?

A group of students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison demanded that the on-campus statue of Lincoln be torn down because he supposedly owned slaves. The protester-in-chief who is a native-American was quoted as saying:

“Everyone thinks of Lincoln as the great, you know, freer of slaves, but let’s be real: He owned slaves, and as natives, we want people to know that he ordered the execution of native men…Just to have him here at the top of Bascom is just really belittling.”

Lincoln, of course, owned no slaves; his presidency freed the slaves. Regarding the claim of “execution of native men,” Lincoln indeed ordered the execution of 38 Dakota leaders—only after they committed criminal atrocities, massacring 490 settlers, including women and children.

I see this attack on Lincoln as part of the “cancel culture.” I asked Jarrett, “What’s the purpose of the cancel culture?”

He replied, “In an era in which ‘my truth,’ is prioritized over ‘THE truth,’ cancel culture is used to silence those who disagree. It is based on a movement with much fervor and no forgiveness, intolerance in the name of tolerance.”

I then asked him, “If we continue down this road of ‘cancel culture,’ where will it all end?”

Stepman responded,

“It doesn’t end if we don’t reverse course. Cancel culture is meant to silence anyone who disagrees, who is on the ‘wrong side of history,’ as they perpetually redefine that. That mentality, if it becomes the norm, can’t exist side by side with a culture that supports free speech.”

I also asked him,

“Why does history matter?” He answered, “History matters because it puts our lives and times in context, it teaches us how other human beings dealt with the flawed and imperfect world they lived in. It teaches us about human nature. If we erase our history we will soon have no past and no future.”

I spoke recently with Dennis Prager, founder of PragerU, on this same theme of the importance of history. He told me, “The American past is [being] erased, except for the isolated awful moments. Kids today are learning how bad America was, but they’re not learning that every country had slavery, every country killed indigenous people, because everybody who made a country often killed the people who were living there. I’m not excusing it, I’m just noting a fact. Where America differed is in its goodness. Badness is universal, goodness is relatively unique.”

Stepman concludes in his book on the war against history, “If our country cherishes its past as it looks to its future, it will produce more Americans who deserve to be celebrated as greats….But if our country foolishly commits to erasing its history, it will have no future worthy of its past.”

I think Christopher Columbus would agree.

© All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: A Moral Citizenry Is Not a Theocracy

Wisconsin ‘Hmong New Americans’ Charged in Large Drug Bust

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“As United States Attorney, I want to make it clear to those who choose to distribute these dangerous drugs for profit – you are a priority for law enforcement, and my office will work with our local, state, and federal partners to prosecute you and send you to federal prison.” – Scott C. Blader, United States Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin.

Are these the immigrant entrepreneurs we hear about all the time from those promoting the new American economy? 

When you see the names of those charged you will see that likely most of those charged are Hmong.

Learn about Meth here.

And, based on their ages and the fact that Wausau, Wisconsin has been ground zero for the resettlement of Hmong people for 40 years, many of those charged are the next generation—so much for benefiting America (or for them realizing the American dream)!

From the US Justice Department earlier this month.

Thanks to a reader for alerting me to it:

Federal & State Charges Announced in Methamphetamine Investigation

MADISON, WIS. – Federal, state, and local officials announced that 16 people have been charged with drug crimes following a long-term investigation of methamphetamine distribution in the Wausau, Wisconsin area.

[….]

Twelve people have been charged in indictments returned by a federal grand jury on September 19, 2019, as follows:

Lisa Xiong, 31, Wausau, is charged with conspiring to distribute methamphetamine, with three counts of distributing 5 grams or more of methamphetamine, and with possessing 50 grams or more of methamphetamine with intent to distribute;

Chong Chueneng Moua, 51, St. Paul, Minnesota, is charged with conspiring to distribute methamphetamine, and with possessing 50 grams or more of methamphetamine with intent to distribute;

Chou Xiong, 36, Wausau, is charged with conspiring to distribute methamphetamine, seven counts of distributing 5 grams or more; and one count of distributing 50 grams or more;

Soua Khang, 23, Wausau, is charged with conspiring to distribute methamphetamine, and three counts of distributing methamphetamine;

Ya Yang, 31, Wausau, is charged with conspiring to distribute methamphetamine;

John Gates, 49, Hewitt, Wisconsin, is charged with conspiring to distribute methamphetamine, and two counts of attempting to possess methamphetamine with intent to distribute;

Chai Thao, 34, Wausau, is charged with two counts of distributing methamphetamine, with one count alleged to involve 50 grams or more;

Sandy Vang, 49, Wausau, is charged with three counts of distributing methamphetamine, with two counts alleged to involve 5 grams or more;

Ger Moua, 31, Wausau, is charged with three counts of distributing methamphetamine, with one count alleged to involve 5 grams or more, and one count alleged to involve 50 grams or more; with possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime; and with being a felon in possession of a firearm;

Vang C. Yang, 26, St. Paul, Minnesota, is charged with two counts of distributing methamphetamine;

Meng Xiong, 26, Wausau, is charged with two counts of distributing methamphetamine, with one count alleged to involve 5 grams or more; and

Dao Thao, 39, St. Paul, Minnesota, is charged with possessing 50 grams or more of methamphetamine with intent to distribute.

[….]

District Attorney Wetzsteon announced that four people will face state charges in Marathon County, as follows:

Kai Chang, 28, Wausau, is charged with conspiracy to possess methamphetamine as a habitual criminality repeater;

David Castillo-Lopez, 30, Wausau, is charged with conspiracy to possess methamphetamine as a habitual criminality repeater;

Mai Xiong, 32, Wausau, is charged with delivery of methamphetamine (10 to 50 grams), as a party to the crime, as a habitual criminality repeater; and;

Par Y. Her, 61, Wausau, has been charged in Marathon County Case 19CF1033 with delivery of methamphetamine (3 to 10 grams) and delivery of methamphetamine (10 to 50 grams), both as a habitual criminality repeater.

U.S. Attorney Blader said, “As United States Attorney, I want to make it clear to those who choose to distribute these dangerous drugs for profit – you are a priority for law enforcement, and my office will work with our local, state, and federal partners to prosecute you and send you to federal prison. Those who are pouring these substances into Wisconsin from out of state should be on notice that we will use all resources available to us, including the Central Wisconsin Narcotics Task Force, to identify you and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”

Many of those charged as drug dealers benefited from a welcoming America and likely received taxpayer-funded social services and an education, and now, oh joy, we get to pay for their incarcerations.

RELATED RESOURCE: Adderall Addiction and Treatment

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

The Senate Voted to End Emergency on the Border — But Hezbollah, ISIS, gangs and drug cartels didn’t get the memo.

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On September 25, 2019 the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch posted a disturbing report, “Senate votes to end border emergency under which Trump redirected military funds to wall construction” that began with the following paragraph:

The Senate again approved a resolution to end President Trump’s national emergency at the southern border, with Republicans joining Democrats in a bid to prevent the president from redirecting military funds toward a border wall, though Trump was expected to veto it again.

The report went on to note that the Republicans control the Senate and ended with this sentence:

The vote was an unusual display of Republican rebellion against the president’s quest for his signature policy initiative, which led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history that ended earlier this year.

The Democrats refused to accept that there was a crisis on the southern border in the first place, and now the Republican-controlled Senate has voted, yet again, to “end the crisis”!

What has not been determined, or reported upon, is how our politicians from either political party have come to the insane conclusion that the emergency on the treacherous southern border has ended.

Certainly the “all clear” has not sounded.

While President Trump has been successful in reducing the number of illegal aliens who are being apprehended by the Border Patrol along the southern border–though a number of tactics including getting Mexico to deploy their forces along the border and with other diplomatic initiatives–tens of thousands of illegal aliens continue to be apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol each month and narcotics continue to be seized along that troubled border.

To this point, on August 8, 2019 ABC News reported, Southwest border apprehensions down for the second straight month: CBP.  Here is an excerpt from that report:

There were 71,999 apprehensions in July compared to 94,908 in June, according to CBP. In May, there were 132,870 apprehensions — among the highest monthly rates ever recorded by CBP.

Undeniably the number of Border Patrol arrests have been on a downward trend.  However, tens of thousands of illegal aliens continue to be arrested each month and no one knows how many aliens continue to successfully evade the Border Patrol.  This certainly does not constitute an end to the “emergency on the border.”

My earlier article, Jihad At The Border included testimony provided at a Senate hearing on how Hezbollah is working in close cooperation with Latin American drug cartels and human traffickers to flood America with drugs and illegal aliens as a source of funding and as means of smuggling sleeper agents into the United States.  Indeed, a number of such sleeper agents have been arrested recently as they were going about their efforts to scope out potential terror targets in the United States.

The U.S. military has demonstrated serious concerns about the threats posed by Iran as their leaders become more desperate in the face of increased economic sanctions to persuade them to end their nuclear ambitions.

In point of fact, September 30, 2019 Microsoft News’ Business Insider reported, “The US military is practicing moving its Middle Eastern command base to South Carolina because its Qatar base is a ‘sitting duck’ for Iranian attacks.”

Here are two excerpts from that sobering report:

Recent Iranian success at striking military and civilian infrastructure targets in the Persian Gulf region have led the American military to practice switching operational control of military operations from bases located within range of Iranian missiles to bases in the United States that are out of harm’s way.

A NATO military attache assigned to the region confirmed the switch over, which US officials said was designed to practice moving key command and control operations out of range of Iranians cruise missiles in the Gulf region, as pushed by last month’s strike by an estimated 20 cruise missile on what was considered a heavily guarded oil facility in Saudi Arabia.

It is obvious that our military leaders are concerned that Iran could launch an attack against U.S. forces in the Middle East.  Coupling that concern with the arrest of Hezbollah sleeper agents in the U.S. who were engaged in preparatory operations for possible terror attacks makes it clear that securing the southern border is vital for national security.

The preface of the official report authored by the 9/11 Commission Staff of government attorneys and federal agents, “9/11 and  Terrorist Travel” began with the following paragraph that focused on border security:

It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.

On January 29, 2019, the Senate Intelligence Committee conducted a hearing on Worldwide Threats that was predicated on the release of a report issued by the Director of the Office of National Intelligence, “World-Wide Threat Assessment.”  That report detailed the major threats to America.  The transcript of that hearing and the actual report are eye-opening and make crystal clear that border security is national security.

In fact, that hearing and the report upon which the hearing was predicated, served as the basis for my recent commentary “World-Wide Threat Assessment Makes Powerful Case For Border Security.”

Unfathomably the Republican-controlled Senate, has decided that there is no longer an emergency on our dangerous southern border and has joined with Democrats to undermine President Trump’s efforts to address a gaping hole in our nation’s security.

Let me be clear, a secure wall on the southern border will not, by itself, end the immigration crisis.  Interior enforcement is as important an issue as border security, however, that wall is a vital component of what should be an integrated system to protect our nation and our citizens.

I have come to compare the border wall with a wing on an airplane.  Without its wing an airplane won’t fly, however, a wing by itself goes nowhere.

Contrary to the lies and propaganda that is spewed by the globalists in both political parties and in the mainstream media, the wall is not designed to stop people or commerce from entering the United States from Mexico.  The wall will only make certain that all people and cargo that enters the United States are inspected at ports of entry and so that a record of their entry can be created.

Think of the border wall as being comparable to the velvet ropes are used at banks to guide customers to the next available teller to prevent chaos and foster an orderly process.

Finally, for the immigration anarchists who raise the issue that a wall is “unconstitutional” I submit Article IV Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution that states:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

RELATED ARTICLE: 32 Illegal Aliens Found in Semitrailer

EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Resolve Public Schools’ Double Standard in Promoting Islam while Disparaging Christianity

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ANN ARBOR, MI—The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to review the case of Caleigh Wood, a Christian eleventh-grade public high school student in Maryland who, despite threats of receiving a failing grade, refused to deny her faith by making a written profession of the Muslim conversion prayer known as the Shahada—“There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”

She was also forced to view a series of pro-Islamic PowerPoint slides, including one that stated, “Most Muslims’ faith is stronger than the average Christian.” The high school’s content specialist, Jack Tuttle, testified that use of such comparative statement was inappropriate and that he would have advised the teacher not to use it.  Nevertheless, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals opined that the teaching did not violate the Establishment Clause.

The Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”), a national nonprofit public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, represented Caleigh Wood in the federal lawsuit against LaPlata High School. Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Law Center, commented on the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case:

“I’m not aware of any public school which has forced a Muslim student to write the Lord’s Prayer or John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’”

Thompson continued,

“Yet, under the pretext of teaching history or social studies, public schools across America are promoting the religion of Islam in ways that would never be tolerated for Christianity or any other religion. It’s disappointing that the Supreme Court did not take this opportunity to clarify the test which lower courts should use when ruling on establishment clause and free speech challenges to public school classes on religion.”

The legal question at stake was whether La Plata High School violated the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Speech Clauses when it gave Caleigh Wood an assignment she was unable to complete without violating her religious conscience as a Christian.

She believes it is a sin to profess the existence of any other god but the Christian God. She stood firm in her Christian beliefs and was punished for it. School officials refused her father’s request that she be allowed to opt-out or be given an alternative assignment. She refused to complete her anti-Christian assignment and consequently received a failing grade.

Thompson added:

“Many public schools have become hot beds of Islamic propaganda. Teaching Islam in schools has gone far beyond a basic history lesson. Prompted by zealous Islamic activism and emboldened by confusing court decisions, schools are now bending over backwards to promote Islam while at the same time denigrating Christianity.”

“Although the Supreme Court passed up an opportunity to provide clearer constitutional guidance on this important issue, there will be other chances as this issue isn’t going away anytime soon,” he said.

Many schools have become willing instruments of Islamic indoctrination. And in Caleigh Wood’s case, the weapon of choice was the PowerPoint presentation, which included the following statements:

  • “Most Muslim’s faith is stronger than the average Christian.”
  • “Islam at heart is a peaceful religion.”
  • Jihad is a “personal struggle in devotion to Islam, especially involving spiritual discipline.”
  • “To Muslims, Allah is the same God that is worshiped in Christianity and Judaism.”
  • “Men are the managers of the affairs of women” and “Righteous women are therefore obedient.”

Read TMLC’s Petition for Certiorari here.

EDITORS NOTE: This TMLC column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Reality Check: Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy Record

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Steve Guest, Rapid Response Director for the Republican National Committee, sent out the following in an email:

Joe Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

That was former DOD Secretary Bob Gates.

Former DOD Secretary Jim Mattis has warned that Biden “exuded the confidence of a man whose mind was made up, perhaps even indifferent to considering the consequences were he judging the situation incorrectly.”

Biden has consistently advocated for dangerous, destabilizing or implausible foreign policy strategies.

Before the invasion of Iraq, Joe Biden went to Vladimir Putin to ask him to support the invasion in exchange for oil profits if Russia sided with the United States.

On Biden’s actions, The Intercept’s Ryan Grim responded, “It’s at a minimum disqualifying.”

See below for more examples of Biden’s disastrous foreign policy record.

As a diplomat on the world stage, Biden has made many misleading and false claims and committed numerous diplomatic gaffes.

Hat tip to PR.

© All rights reserved.

EXPOSE CNN PART II: CNN Leadership Picks Winners and Losers on Eve of Debate. “. . . They (CNN) like Warren a lot”

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  • CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez Says, ‘Joe Biden Has a Problem’ Because of his Son’s Foreign Business Dealings; “It Looks Bad. It Smells Bad.”
  • CNN President Jeff Zucker Pushes Kamala Harris’ Demand to Take Down Trump’s Twitter Account; “I Think it’s a Good Segment…Not Going to Happen, But it’s a Good Talking – it’s a Good Segment.”
  • Zucker on Harris: “She is Also Retooling Her Struggling Campaign.”
  • CNN Media Coordinator Christian Sierra Says Network is Less Fair to Andrew Yang and Amy Klobuchar, “They’re Pro-Top Contenders.”
  • Sierra: “I Think They Like Warren a Lot” “…They Don’t Like Tulsi Gabbard”
  • CNN Media Coordinator Nick Neville Says “People Would Change the Channel” if Network Broadcasted a Biden Rally.
  • CNN VP and Political Director David Chalian Believes That Andrew Yang Will Not Become the Democratic Nominee for President.
  • CNN Insider Cary Poarch: “I Actually Came to CNN a Registered Democrat. I Campaigned and Voted for Bernie in the Primaries of the 16’ election;” “…All That I Thought I Knew and Hoped to be at CNN Was False.”
  • Poarch: “It’s an Unwritten Rule That if You Are Center, Center Right, or Heaven Forbid, Full Right Republican Trump Supporter, Then You Are Not Welcome at CNN.”
  • Insider Cary Poarch Wants ‘Free and Fair Election’ and Not ‘Some Ideology Shoved Down My Throat;’ Wants CNN to ‘Get Back to the Facts and Get Back to Reporting the News.’

(Washington, D.C.) On Monday, October 14, 2019 Project Veritas released Part 1 of a series of recordings provided by a brave CNN Insider who blew the whistle on rampant bias at the network. The story, with substantial social media attention and cable news coverage, to include a tweet from President Trump, provides video footage highlighting the personal vendetta of CNN President Jeff Zucker against POTUS, as well as evidence of bias across the network.  CNN Insider Cary Poarch further detailed his concerns against the network on national television last night.

In Part 2 of our #ExposeCNN series, Poarch exposes candid opinions and unguarded comments from various employees and executives including CNN President Jeff Zucker, CNN Vice President and Political Director David Chalian, and CNN Media Coordinator Christian Sierra.

Cary Poarch, who wants CNN to “get back to the facts and get back to reporting news,” used a hidden camera to record conversations over several months.

Poarch was able to participate in the daily 9AM meetings where CNN President Jeff Zucker talked to the staff and gave them their daily guidance.

One day the 9AM meeting included an exchange between CNN President Jeff Zucker and CNN Vice President and Political Director David Chalian about the viability of Democratic candidate Andrew Yang:

Jeff Zucker, CNN President: “David, are we taking Andrew Yang seriously enough?”

[ … ]

David Chalian, Vice President and CNN Political Director: “Yeah, I mean, I think we – I don’t know why we wouldn’t take him – you know, most of these candidates seriously. We should definitely be looking at why Andrew Yang is resonating…Do I think he’s a likely nominee? No, I don’t.”

In another 9AM meeting, Zucker pushed for the use of some on-air reporting time designed more for ratings than for reporting news when he noted that CNN should do a segment on Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’ call for President Trump’s Twitter account to be suspended:

Jeff Zucker, CNN President: “It’s not going to happen, but I think it’s a good segment in the show… Not going to happen, but it’s a good talking – it’s a good segment.” 

In a discussion about why Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s campaign rally isn’t broadcast in its entirety, a CNN employee indicated that decisions seem to be based on ratings:

Nick Neville, CNN Media Coordinator: “They probably think it’s boring… people would change, people would change the channel.”

CNN is hosting tonight’s Democratic Presidential Primary Debate, and a lot of discussion took place with various CNN employees about CNN’s treatment of several of the candidates.

CNN’s Media Coordinator Christian Sierra explained that by focusing on just a few candidates the network treats others unfairly:

CNN Insider: “Who is CNN unfairer against right now on the debate?”

Christian Sierra, CNN Media Coordinator: “Um, I think probably Yang and Klobuchar. One of the lesser ones. Just cause they’re going to talk about Biden more Warren and Sanders. They’re not going to mention others.

[ … ]

they want to cover the people who are on the top. They don’t want to cover the bottom.”

[ … ]

CNN Insider: “So, who does he (Zucker) want to be president?”

Christian Sierra, CNN Media Coordinator: “Here’s the thing, I don’t know. I think he (ZUCKER) wants a democrat but I don’t think he has any particular favorite. Well, ‘cause here’s the thing, he donated before to Kamala Harris when she was running for Senate in California. Um, but, I think he kind of likes Pete, but I can tell he also likes Biden and Warren.”

CNN Insider: “You think he likes Biden?”

Christian Sierra, CNN Media Coordinator:“I think so.”

But according to a candid comment from CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez, Biden has a problem:

Evan Perez, Senior Justice Correspondent: “Now I’ll tell you this. Joe Biden has a problem. Because his son was trading in his name. It looks bad. It smells bad. It’s not illegal. Nothing is illegal about it… How do you go and say that Donald Trump is the person?  Get him out of here, and convict him, when your son is doing the same shit.”

As for some of the other candidates:

CNN Insider: “Who does CNN like?”

Christian Sierra, CNN Media Coordinator: “I think they like Warren a lot.

[ … ]

They don’t like Tulsi. They don’t like Tulsi Gabbard.

[ … ]

Because she supports, Assad and she’s not taking a conventional route when it comes to one policy, stuff like that.”

CNN Insider Cary Poarch said, “I just want us to have a free and fair election. That’s what it’s all about. Like we get an information presented to us. We can, we can pull the lever for whoever we want. Again, left, right center, whatever. That’s the American dream. That’s what it should be. I don’t need to have some ideology shoved down my throat. That’s twisted in a way.”

Project Veritas intends to continue its investigation into corruption in the Mainstream Media. We encourage brave insiders at these organizations to come forward with any information they have, so that the public knows what is really going on within these media companies.

Sign up now for more releases: https://exposecnn.com

Become a Project Veritas Insider: https:www.projectveritas.com/

Brave CNN Insider Cary Poarch GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/exposecnn

RELATED ARTICLE: Breaking: Tulsi Tears Apart CNN, NYT on Their Own Stage

EDITORS NOTE: This Project Veritas column and video is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Trump denounces Turkey’s incursion into Syria, imposes economic sanctions [+Video]

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This won’t be enough for those who are clamoring for the US to go to war with Turkey. All those who are claiming that Trump is under Erdogan’s thumb will keep on saying it.

Meanwhile, there is no doubt that Turkey is an unreliable ally, and that the alliance should be ended, and Turkey should be expelled from NATO. But right now, Turkey is officially an ally of the United States. It is supremely ironic that those who are calling for US troops to face the Turks in Syria, saying that otherwise we will be betraying an ally, the Kurds, don’t seem to care about the optics of betraying another ally, the Turks. Even granting everything that is being said about the nobility and reliability of the Kurds versus the perfidy of the Turks, betraying one alliance to favor another is not going to make the United States appear more trustworthy to the rest of its allies.

Statement from President Donald J. Trump regarding Turkey’s Actions in Northwest Syria.

Text of a Letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate

Issued on: 

Dear Madam Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), I hereby report that I have issued an Executive Order (the “order”) declaring a national emergency due to the situation in and in relation to Syria, and in particular the recent actions by the Government of Turkey to conduct a military offensive into northeast Syria.  I have taken this action because recent actions by the Government of Turkey undermine the campaign to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, endangers civilians, and further threatens to undermine the peace, security, and stability in the region, and thereby constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. I have also announced that steel tariffs will be increased back up to 50 percent, the level prior to reduction in May.

To deal with this threat, the order, consistent with law, blocks all property and interests in property, within the jurisdiction of the United States, of certain persons determined to be responsible for or complicit in actions or policies that contribute to this threat.

The order also authorizes the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and other officials of the United States government as appropriate, to impose sanctions upon persons determined to be responsible for or complicit in, have directly or indirectly engaged in, or attempted to engage in, or financed, various actions that contribute to this unusual and extraordinary threat.  These actions include the obstruction, disruption, or prevention of a ceasefire in northern Syria and of efforts to promote a political solution to the conflict in Syria.  Sanctions may affect various financial transactions, including government procurement contracts, foreign exchange transactions, investments, and importation of goods, technology, or services, as well as impose the denial of a visa and exclusion from the United States of the sanctioned person.

To deal with this threat, and because the unrestricted immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens subject to sanctions would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, the order also suspends the entry of such persons into the United States.

The order authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to me by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order.

I am enclosing a copy of the order, as well as the press statement I issued earlier today.

Sincerely,

DONALD J. TRUMP

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

The Faces And Strategies Of The Deep State

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We are constantly being lectured to by the media and Democrats that there is no “deep state.” That Trump and Republicans are just making up conspiracy theories to cover their own nefarious deeds.

Most people who do not imbibe only quasi-propaganda outlets such as the New York Times or CNN, understand there is a deep state, or permanent state, or some ongoing cabal of government bureaucrats that pre-date and outlast presidential administrations and have their own agenda. And they understand that agenda for three years has included getting rid of a duly elected American President.

The #resistance has included seemingly boundless denizens within the federal government. We will never know the full scale of the leakers — the primary weapon of the deep state against Trump — but we can identify dozens of people who have publicly acted, or been caught acting, in precisely a deep state sort of way.

Publicly, the resistance deep state probably starts with one of its heroes: Sally Yates.

Yates was Deputy Attorney General under Obama’s AG Loretta Lynch. When Trump was sworn into office, Lynch resigned and Yates became acting AG. When Trump signed an executive order temporarily restricting travel from a select few Middle Eastern and African countries to the United States, Yates went full resistance.

She ordered DOJ lawyers not to defend Trump’s executive order in court because she personally believed it was not consistent with the DOJ’s responsibility and questioned its lawfulness. Of course, defending it in court is what would determine its lawfulness. Yates did not hide the ball.

“For as long as I am Acting Attorney General, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the Executive Order,” she wrote. Trump fired her the same day.

Yates’ action was about more than the particular EO she didn’t like. It was a banner being waved in front of the pre-existing deep state to rally more bureaucrats to the cause. It’s important to remember that the permanent state long precedes Trump and resides on the ideological left. People throughout the George W. Bush administration decried how the State Department continuously undermined Bush policies abroad. For eight years.

In Yates’ case, she was clearly violating her oath and job description, which was to defend the executive order. If she could not, she should have resigned. She was an unelected federal hire. Not one American voted for her. But her renegade approach had the desired effect.

According to the inestimable Kimberly Strassel at the Wall Street Journal: “The Yates memo was the first official act of the internal resistance — not only a precedent but a rallying cry. Subordinates fawningly praised her in emails.”

Judicial Watch filed Freedom of Information requests and found a treasure trove of other deep staters doing that fawning through emails to Yates. One federal prosecutor called her his hero, another thanked her profusely for fighting against an unlawful president.

Perhaps the most enlightening came from Andrew Weissmann—a career DOJ lawyer and head of the Criminal Fraud Division, who wrote: “I am so proud. And in awe. Thank you so much.” Weissmann was later hired by Robert Mueller as part of the team investigating Trump-Russia collusion. Another face of the deep state.

According to a Washington Post story a few weeks after Trump’s inauguration, 180 federal employees had signed up for a workshop to learn how to “successfully express civil disobedience.” The Post’s story revealed that bureaucrats were in “regular consultation” with Obama appointees to create strategies for opposing the administration, including work slowdowns for any policies they opposed.

The story seemed meant to paint a picture of federal employees righteously standing up against an unlawful, illegitimate and dangerous president. They were heroes like Yates, and underminers secretly following her like Weissmann. But the story actually revealed the reality of the deep state and the lengths to which it would go to stop Trump.

Another identifiable deep stater is Walter Shaub, whom Obama appointed in 2013 as head of the Office of Government Ethics, an oxymoron if there ever was one. The office is simply mandated to advise and assist the presidential administration in office and is not to be confused with being a watchdog, as the name may imply. This office was perfectly situated to actually help Trump, who never held elected office before, to avoid ethical pitfalls. That was its mandate and its purpose. That’s not what Shaub did.

The Wall Street Journal’s Strassel writes of Shaub:

“…within weeks of the election, Mr. Shaub was mimicking the president-elect from an official Twitter account: “@realDonaldTrump OGE is delighted that you’ve decided to divest your businesses. Right decision!” “@realDonaldTrump Brilliant! Divestiture is good for you, very good for America!” When Mr. Trump released his plan for his assets, Mr. Shaub blasted it at a public event with press in attendance. At one point Mr. Shaub sent one of his critical missives to hundreds of government ethics officials, every inspector general, and the chairmen and ranking members of numerous congressional committees. When administration officials began to call him out on his behavior, he loudly resigned and immediately landed a job at the liberal Campaign Legal Center.”

Of course the acts of people like James Comey, John Brennan and James Clapper are now legendary. But they are political appointees. The deep state is the permanent, unappointed and unelected bureaucrat class that also enjoys civil service protections that make firing them virtually impossible.

Deep staters have filed an enormous number of official internal complaints — perhaps as part of that civil disobedience training, or on the advice of the former Obama officials — in attempts to have the authority to define policies for their own fiefdoms, which is the sole prerogative of the executive. The Washington Post ran an infamous guest column by an Interior Department employee named Joel Clement titled: “I’m a Scientist. I’m Blowing the Whistle on the Trump Administration.”

His beef was that Trump policy was endangering some native populations in Alaska. How? Climate change. A scientist blowing the whistle! There was no merit, nor did he have standing. But, as we have seen repeatedly, it allowed eight Senate Democrats to demand an IG investigation and that, certainly, was part of the purpose, along with publicly damaging Trump.

The pattern is pretty clear in that Clement is now a senior fellow with the activist, leftist Union of Concerned Scientists.

Of course we see these patterns repeating themselves right up to the “whistleblower” on the Ukrainian phone call, but instead of IG investigations or a special counsel, we now have impeachment proceedings, or something. It’s not really clear.

Everything Trump did, from meetings, to internal memos to private phone calls with heads of state, were leaked to an eager media accurately or inaccurately.

One study by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs found that in just the first 18 weeks in office in 2017, the Trump administration “faced 125 leaked stories — one leak a day — containing information that is potentially damaging to national security under the standards laid out in a 2009 Executive Order signed by President Barack Obama.”

The report summarized it this way: “Under President Trump’s predecessors, leaks of national security information were relatively rare, even with America’s vibrant free press. Under President Trump, leaks are flowing at the rate of one a day.”

About 100 of the 125 dealt with Trump-Russia collusion, and the majority of those contained classified information. Which means not only were they potentially damaging to national security, they were felonies. By the time of this writing, the number of leaks must be north of 1,000 — too many for the Senate committee to even try to study. That is a lot of felonies committed by the deep state.

Virtually all of those leakers remain unknown to the public and are likely still toiling away in the bowels of the deep state, ready to leak and otherwise undermine President Trump and the security of the nation in any possible way.

The deep state is real, and provably so. They are protected and acting in concert with each other and with Democrat lawyers and lawmakers. Re-electing President Trump is one of the greatest bulwarks against this continuing. If it works, it will become enshrined in D.C.

RELATED VIDEO: Attorney General William Barr “What’s the Problem With America” Full Speech Notre Dame 10/11/19

EDITORS NOTE: This Revolutionary Act column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

YouTube’s Concerning Suppression of Conservative Speech

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Dear Mr. Brin: Fifty years ago this week, when I was a 21-year-old college senior, I was in the Soviet Union, sent by the government of Israel to smuggle in Jewish religious items and smuggle out names of Jews who wanted to escape the Soviet Union and could then be issued a formal invitation to Israel.

I was chosen because I was a committed Jew and because I knew Hebrew and Russian. I was no hero, but the trip did entail risk. The Soviets did not appreciate people smuggling out names of Soviet citizens who sought to emigrate, information the Israeli government and activist groups in America used to advocate on their behalf.

My four weeks in the USSR were, of course, life-changing. This young American, lucky beyond belief to have spent his entire life in the freest country in the world, experienced what it was like to live in a totalitarian police state.

People feared merely being seen speaking with a Westerner, lest the KGB arrest and interrogate them. People arranged to meet me at a certain tree in a certain park and only spoke to me while walking to avoid eavesdroppers. I met with Jewish engineers, doctors, and professors who could find no work because they were known to the government to be “otkazniki,” or “refuseniks”—Jews who had applied for exit visas to leave the Soviet Union and been refused permission. I’m sure you know of them from your parents.

Congress is trying to ramrod through increased gun laws upon the American people. But will that really stop the rise of gun violence? Find out more now >>

I left the Soviet Union angry and grateful—angry there are people who have the audacity to tell other people what they could and could not say, and grateful beyond measure to have been born in America, where no one could tell anyone what they could say. From that day to this, I have never taken freedom, especially freedom of speech, for granted.

Why I am writing to you about this?

Because, beyond my wildest dreams, two things are happening in America.

One is that for the first time in America’s history, free speech is seriously threatened.

In 1977, when Nazis sought to march in Skokie, Illinois—those terrible human beings chose Skokie because it was home to many Jewish Holocaust survivors—virtually every liberal and conservative organization, including Jewish organizations, defended the Nazis’ right to march. Because in America—and only in America—it was understood that even if the most loathsome speech was not protected, all speech was at risk.

That has changed.

Today, decent people—people who abhor Nazism and every other form of evil, left or right; people like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali—are shouted down, threatened, disinvited, or never invited to speak at America’s universities.

The other thing that is happening is even more frightening. The company that you co-founded, Google, the greatest conduit of speech in world history, is also suppressing speech. I have asked myself over and over: How could the company founded by a man whose parents fled the Soviet Union do this?

It so boggles the mind that I have to hope you are simply not fully aware of what your company is doing.

So, in a nutshell, let me tell you what Google has done to one organization, Prager University (better known as PragerU).

Every week, PragerU releases a five-minute video on virtually every subject outside of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). Some of the finest minds in the world have presented these videos—including professors from Harvard, Stanford, and MIT; four Pulitzer Prize winners; three former prime ministers; liberals; conservatives; Democrats; Republicans (including never-Trumpers); gays; and, of course, many women and members of ethnic and racial minorities.

Yet YouTube, which Google owns, has placed hundreds of our videos on its restricted list. In addition to the inherent smear of being labeled “inappropriate for children,” this means no family that filters out pornography and graphic violence, no school and no library can see those videos.

Among those restricted videos is one during former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper defends Israel. Had someone told me 50 years ago that a company led by the son of Soviet Jewish refuseniks would suppress a video by a world leader defending the Jewish state, I would have told them they were out of their mind. That’s one reason I can only assume, or at least hope, that you are not fully aware of what your company is doing.

Or how about a video series I present on the Ten Commandments? YouTube is suppressing a number of those, too. When Sen. Ted Cruz asked a Google official why Google restricted one of my videos on the Ten Commandments, the official responded (it’s on YouTube) that it was because the video “contains references to murder.”

In fact, PragerU has repeatedly asked Google over the past several years why any of our videos are on the restricted list, and we have received either a runaround or silence. We have never received a substantive explanation.

We have no desire to see government intervene in private business to protect free speech. But your company has availed itself of protections under law that shield it from liability for defamation, copyright infringement, etc. Your company’s arrogance is such that a vast number of Americans—liberals as well as conservatives—are worried that the major conduit of speech in the Free World doesn’t care about free speech.

Mr. Brin, along with millions of other Americans, I fought to bring your parents from a land with no freedom to the Land of the Free. None of us has ever asked for anything in return. It was our honor to work for liberty in general and for Soviet Jewry specifically.

What Americans most want from immigrants is that they help keep America free. I never had any doubt that those leaving the Soviet Union would fulfill that mission.

Until now.

Freedom of speech is the most fundamental of all freedoms. It’s what your parents yearned for and bequeathed to you. Please don’t help take it away from those who made it possible—the people of America.

Sincerely yours,

Dennis Prager

COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

COMMENTARY BY

Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager is a columnist for The Daily Signal, nationally syndicated radio host, and creator of PragerU. Twitter: .

A Note for our Readers:

In the wake of every tragic mass shooting or high-profile incident involving gun violence, we hear the same narrative: To stop these horrible atrocities from happening, we must crack down on gun laws.

But is the answer really to create more laws around gun control, or is this just an opportunity to limit your Constitutional right to bear arms?

The researchers at The Heritage Foundation have put together a guide to help you better understand the 8 Stubborn Facts on Gun Violence in America.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Swedish Samnytt TV Video: Who really wants to receive an immigrant? — Hypocrisy Exposed!

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This is an amazing video where the Swedish news Samnytt TV went to the streets and asked people if they would take an immigrant into their home. Everyone says yes but then when presented with a chance to actually give a young immigrant a home they suddenly have reasons not to. Hypocrisy of political correctness in full view.

Watch as Samhällsnytt tests if Swedish people who just said to be willing to receive an immigrant into their home actually stands by their word, or if it all empty talk.

Hat tip to Amy Mek @AmyMek for posting this video on Twitter.

“Water is the new oil.” JEA selling our water to Water Barons? Don’t laugh. It’s happening.

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by Billie Tucker Volpe

I recently had a chance to speak with City Council Member Randy DeFoor. She was not happy with JEA fast-tracking a potential sale — and she was most disturbed by the potential sale of our water. And I could not agree with her more.

As a consultant to the board of JEA about 10 years ago, I had the opportunity to meet with each Executive Team Member and Board Member monthly. During one of my meetings with the head of the water division, he told me that the biggest issue JEA would face in the future would be … WATER! I’ll never forget that meeting because I am fully aware that water is THE one thing we all need to survive. You don’t mess around with our water.

After my conversation with Ms. DeFoor, I did some deep research and went back into my notes from those days at JEA. What I discovered was indeed scary. Scary because if we don’t pay attention — and especially the City Council Members — we may all be paying our bills to a Water Baron or a big bank somewhere in the world. Or even to China!

The information and facts are here for all to read for themselves. We hope each City Council Member will pay VERY CLOSE ATTENTION to the water sale at JEA.

Water is not to be gambled away because of political eyes seeing dollar signs. This is serious business friends and it needs your attention. Don’t take your EYE off this one.

Read this in-depth, fact-filled research paper about the sale of water across the world. Be informed. Contact your council member and tell them to read this too. You can reach them here.

Our water is the new oil for Water Barons. It’s also your “oil” so let’s not give it away without a fight!

RELATED ARTICLE: The New “Water Barons”: Wall Street Mega-Banks are Buying up the World’s Water

EDITORS NOTE: This Eye on Jacksonville column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Presidential Candidate Labels America as a ‘Flawed Democracy’ at Florida Democratic State Convention — And He’s Absolutely Right!

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“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” – John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814.

“The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.” – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America.

You may not have ever heard of Michael E. Arth but he’s running for President of the United States as a Democrat. Arth spoke at the 2019 Florida Democratic State Convention. Using Wikipedia’s Democracy Index, which is based upon data from the UK based  Economist Intelligence Unit, Arth stated,

“We are now ranked below Chile and Estonia. Instead of being number one in incarceration, we should be number one in democracy. We should also be number one in happiness, life expectancy, climate change performance, press freedom, and equality. As it is, we have a terrible record on all of these issues, especially on inequality.”

QUESTION: Why isn’t America ranked last on the Democracy Index?

America is a Republic

Democrats, like Arth, desperately want America to become a democracy. Arth stated at the Florida Democratic State Convention:

“The corporate-owned media is not kind to the idea that our country needs a systemic overhaul. I am on a moral crusade to help resolve festering problems with solutions that have not been fully articulated by any other candidate.”

Arth’s “systemic overhaul” sounds eerily like Obama’s “fundamentally transforming America.”

The ideal of a Democracy is not only reflected in the Democrat Party’s name but it is in their political DNA. Arth is a true believer.

The Democrats, like Arth, want to eliminate the Electoral College and choose the President of the United States by popular vote. They also want to give illegals and non-citizens voting rights. They want Americans, and non-citizens, to vote to commit suicide by giving them power.

Arth in his book The Time Traveler: An Artist’s Quest Through the Past and Future wrote:

What are the forces stirring in the middle of one of the darkest periods in recent history that makes him believe America will be transformed by what he calls “The New Progressive Era,” which will bring our government from 21st place (tied with Italy as a “flawed democracy”) to the world’s leading constitutional democracy by 2024?

America is not a constitutional democracy rather the U.S. Constitution reads:

Article 4 – The States
Section 4 – Republican Government

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Republic

republic n 1 : a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and is usually a president; also : a nation or other political unit having such a government 2 : a government in which supreme power is held by the citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives governing according to law; also : a nation or other political unit having such a form of government Source: NMW

In the context of the United States of America, both definitions apply.

Each of these united states are Constitutionally mandated to have a Republican form of government. What we see is when any state has a democratic form of government, like California, things go terribly wrong.

Conclusion

It’s all about the name. The Republican Party supports the U.S. Constitution and the uniquely American Republican form of government. Democrats, like Arth, want to change, or even abolish, the U.S. Constitution in order to establish a democracy.

What we are witnessing today is treason led by members of the Democrat Party against a duly elected President. A President who won via the Electoral College.

Treason
treason n the offense of attempting to overthrow the government of one’s country or of assisting its enemies in war

President Trump tweeted the following:

As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the….

….People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!

In “The Nature of Government,” Ayn Rand observed, “We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.”

Is this a coup?

Are we approaching an “ultimate inversion” by the deep state to turn America into a Democracy? A Democracy where “the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission?”

Are you seeing brute force being used, by groups like Antifa in Minneapolis and Portland, against supporters of the President?

Are parts of America experiencing dark times?

We report you decide.

© All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: These 3 Countries Tried Socialism. Here’s What Happened.

Contrary to media myth, Trump did not betray the Kurds

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A bit of common sense and clear thinking amid the current hysteria, from Caroline Glick.

“Trump did not betray the Kurds,” by Caroline B. Glick, Israel Hayom, October 11, 2019:

The near-consensus view of US President Donald Trump’s decision to remove American special forces from the Syrian border with Turkey is that Trump is enabling a Turkish invasion and double-crossing the Syrian Kurds who have fought with the Americans for five years against the Islamic State group. Trump’s move, the thinking goes, harms US credibility and undermines US power in the region and throughout the world.

There are several problems with this narrative. The first is that it assumes that until this week, the US had power and influence in Syria when in fact, by design, the US went to great lengths to limit its ability to influence events there.

The war in Syria broke out in 2011 as a popular insurrection by Syrian Sunnis against the Iranian-sponsored regime of President Bashar Assad. The Obama administration responded by declaring US support for Assad’s overthrow. But the declaration was empty. The administration sat on its thumbs as the regime’s atrocities mounted. It supported a feckless Turkish effort to raise a resistance army dominated by jihadist elements aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.

President Barack Obama infamously issued his “red line” regarding the use of chemical weapons against civilians by Assad, which he repudiated the moment it was crossed.

As ISIS forces gathered in Iraq and Syria, Obama shrugged them off as a “JV squad.” When the JVs in ISIS took over a third of Iraqi and Syrian territory, Obama did nothing.

As Lee Smith recalled in January in The New York Post, Obama only decided to do something about ISIS in late 2014 after the group beheaded a number of American journalists and posted their decapitations on social media.

The timing was problematic for Obama.

In 2014 Obama was negotiating his nuclear deal with Iran. The deal, falsely presented as a nonproliferation pact, actually enabled Iran – the world’s greatest state sponsor of terrorism – to develop both nuclear weapons and the missile systems required to deliver them. The true purpose of the deal was not to block Iran’s nuclear aspirations but to realign US Middle East policy away from the Sunnis and Israel and toward Iran.

Given its goal of embracing Iran, the Obama administration had no interest in harming Assad, Iran’s Syrian factotum. It had no interest in blocking Iran’s ally Russia from using the war in Syria as a means to reassert Moscow’s power in the Middle East.

As both Michael Doran, a former national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration and Smith argue, when Obama was finally compelled to act against ISIS, he structured the US campaign in a manner that would align it with Iran’s interests.

Obama’s decision to work with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia in northern Syria because it was the only significant armed force outside the Iranian axis that enjoyed congenial relations with both Assad and Iran.

Obama deployed around a thousand forces to Syria. Their limited numbers and radically constrained mandate made it impossible for the Americans to have a major effect on events in the country. They weren’t allowed to act against Assad or Iran. They were tasked solely with fighting ISIS. Obama instituted draconian rules of engagement that made achieving even that limited goal all but impossible.

During his tenure as Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton hoped to revise the US mandate to enable US forces to be used against Iran in Syria. Bolton’s plan was strategically sound. Trump rejected it largely because it was a recipe for widening US involvement in Syria far beyond what the American public – and Trump himself – were willing to countenance.

In other words, the claim that the US has major influence in Syria is wrong. It does not have such influence and is unwilling to pay the price of developing such influence.

This brings us to the second flaw in the narrative about Trump’s removal of US forces from the Syrian border with Turkey.

The underlying assumption of the criticism is that America has an interest in confronting Turkey to protect the Kurds.

This misconception, like the misconception regarding US power and influence in Syria, is borne of a misunderstanding of Obama’s Middle East policies. Aside from ISIS’s direct victims, the major casualty of Obama’s deliberately feckless anti-ISIS campaign was the US alliance with Turkey. Whereas the US chose to work with the Kurds because they were supportive of Assad and Iran, the Turks view the Syrian Kurdish YPG as a sister militia to the Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Marxist PKK has been fighting a guerilla war against Turkey for decades. The State Department designates the PKK as a terrorist organization responsible for the death of thousands of Turkish nationals. Not surprisingly then, the Turks viewed the US-Kurdish collaboration against ISIS as an anti-Turkish campaign.

Throughout the years of US-Kurdish cooperation, many have made the case that the Kurds are a better ally to the US than Turkey. The case is compelling not merely because the Kurds have fought well.

Under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has stood against the US and its interests far more often than it has stood with it. Across a spectrum of issues, from Israel to human rights, Hamas and ISIS to Turkish aggression against Cyprus, Greece, and Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean, to upholding US economic sanctions against Iran and beyond, for nearly 20 years, Erdoğan’s Turkey has distinguished itself as a strategic threat to America’s core interests and policies and those of its closest allies in the Middle East.

Despite the compelling, ever-growing body of evidence that the time has come to reassess US-Turkish ties, the Pentagon refuses to engage the issue. The Pentagon has rejected the suggestion that the US remove its nuclear weapons from Incirlik airbase in Turkey or diminish Incirlik’s centrality to US air operations in Central Asia and the Middle East. The same is true of US dependence on Turkish naval bases.

Given the Pentagon’s position, there is no chance that the US would consider entering an armed conflict with Turkey on behalf of the Kurds.

The Kurds are a tragic people. The Kurds, who live as persecuted minorities in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, have been denied the right of self-determination for the past hundred years. But then, the Kurds have squandered every opportunity they have had to assert independence. The closest they came to achieving self-determination was in Iraq in 2017. In Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurds have governed themselves effectively since 1992. In 2017, they overwhelmingly passed a referendum calling for Iraqi Kurdistan to secede from Iraq and form an independent state. Instead of joining forces to achieve their long-held dream, the Kurdish leaders in Iraq worked against one another. One faction, in alliance with Iran, blocked implementation of the referendum and then did nothing as Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk was overrun by Iraqi government forces.

The Kurds in Iraq are far more capable of defending themselves than the Kurds of Syria. Taking on the defense of Syria’s Kurds would commit the US to an open-ended presence in Syria and justify Turkish antagonism. America’s interests would not be advanced. They would be harmed, particularly in light of the YPG’s selling trait for Obama – its warm ties to Assad and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps….

RELATED ARTICLES:

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Actual Conditions for Jews Circa Late 2018 in the Iraqi Kurdistan Paradise: Past as Prologue

RELATED VIDEOS:

Rand Paul Reveals ‘Extraordinary’ Reason Why Trump’s Syria Policy Might Be Working

President Trump announces $50 million in emergency aid to help Christians and other religious minorities in Syria.

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

The Deep State Plot Against Trump

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As a nation we marveled at Dr. Martin Luther King’s moral reasoning; it helped overcome a deep sense of inertia among the largely conservative civil rights establishment that favored incrementalism rather than rebellion.

King countered that the system of oppression was so entrenched in American society that no legal action would effectively challenge its injustice. As a result, he adopted a radical new strategy—nonviolent disobedience.

His reasoning was based, not in man’s law, but a higher one: “Just as it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends,” he said in his letter from a Birmingham jail, “it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.”

President Donald Trump, facing a similar historical arc, is signaling just that.

Impeachment furor has reached a feverish pitch in both the news media and on Capitol Hill. Several congressional inquiries, mostly stemming from the Democratic Party, into Trump have gathered momentum.

Many of the so-called “revelations” and “allegations” used as justification for these inquiries have emerged from anonymous sources and so-called whistleblowers within the administration and the intelligence community.

The timing seems a tad suspicious.

This latest controversy comes on the heels of Trump’s firing former national security adviser John Bolton and Trump’s holding firm in his decision to withdraw all American troops from Syria.

On the other hand, Trump’s personal peccadilloes and petty offenses seem to be just that—a petty justification for removing the president by the extreme measure of impeachment.

The likely reason for such unified rancor is perhaps that Trump’s foreign policy “infractions” have riled an especially entrenched set of interests within America’s military and its intelligence communities. It is telling, perhaps, that the mainstream media, which constantly hounded President George W. Bush’s administration over its wars, seems to take particular umbrage at Trump’s efforts to extract America from that very trap.

The fever pitch over Trump’s unorthodoxy has reached such a crescendo that normally staid, middle-of-the-road Republicans, including Rudy Giuliani and former House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, have taken to defending our president by casually evoking the darkly conspiratorial “deep state.”

No one knows who the members of this “deep state” shadow organization are for sure, and no one is naming names. Regardless, it seems to hound the president at every turn.

Doesn’t this lament seem somewhat incongruous coming from a political party that controls half of Congress, the White House, and has appointed a majority of the Supreme Court? How is it that the president’s camp can wield such potent levers of political power and at the same time consider itself besieged by shadowy players?

The answer is more banal than nefarious. The “deep state” is hiding in plain sight. It is not a clandestine group, rather it’s is a prevailing attitude.

Many of our citizens and our institutions have adopted incrementalism as a lingua franca. The same inertia that caused civil rights leaders oppose to King’s radical new approach to leading social change also opposes Trump’s efforts to almost singlehandedly transform the American geopolitical framework.

Interests currently invested in continued militarism, lax immigration, unfair trade, and unchecked indebtedness fear that Trump’s new direction will starve them of wealth and influence. To a certain extent that is true.  Charting a new course might force painful realignments around values and priorities, but it ultimately bends the United States in the right direction.

Two distinct and interrelated aspects of U.S. policy under Trump seem to have particularly irritated the ruling cabal. They are our longstanding strategic alliance with Israel and our economic dependence on the Gulf oil trade. Both attachments have driven us down a sordid rabbit hole of war, debt, and injustice that has cost us more than is returned.

In the course of global enforcement, we damaged ourselves, not to mention the millions of citizens of the Middle East who continue to suffer amidst these seemingly endless wars.

President George Washington, on the eve of his retirement, warned against this very situation. He said, “nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded. … The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”

We can no longer afford to police the Middle East; and we will not be drawn into ridiculous internecine battles among the region’s various religious sects, merely to preserve claim over the Gulf’s energy.

In extricating America from needless attachments—both antipathies and alliances—Trump seems to be keeping his promise to place first his duty to America’s direct interests above all others.

The very fact that entrenched interests are so hell-bent on stopping Trump demonstrates just how pernicious our attachments have become. Whether by intraparty infiltration and rebellion or though partisan coup by the Democrats, we even betray our allegiance to power over populace.

The serious constitutional crimes alleged against the president deserve to be placed in context. Without context, text alone is sometimes considered pretext.

The Democrats already got a bite at the apple with the lengthy Mueller investigation; it was fully investigated and reported with not a single significant finding against Trump. Now they are trying their hand at unseating Trump through an impeachment investigation that seems oddly disruptive given the proximity of an election that could easily decide it all.

In confronting Congress directly, Trump proves he isn’t hiding. He’s openly begging the question: Does America really want to win?

COMMENTARY BY

Armstrong Williams

Armstrong Williams is a columnist for The Daily Signal and host of “The Armstrong Williams Show,” a nationally syndicated TV program. Twitter: .

A Note for our Readers:

In the wake of every tragic mass shooting or high-profile incident involving gun violence, we hear the same narrative: To stop these horrible atrocities from happening, we must crack down on gun laws.

But is the answer really to create more laws around gun control, or is this just an opportunity to limit your Constitutional right to bear arms?

The researchers at The Heritage Foundation have put together a guide to help you better understand the 8 Stubborn Facts on Gun Violence in America.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

GET YOUR FREE COPY NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

These Gun Owners Were Able to Confront Criminals in September

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When the Virginia State Crime Commission and the House Judiciary Committee held hearings earlier this fall regarding firearm policies, it was striking how little many gun control advocates and policymakers know about basic facts related to guns and gun violence.

It also was clear how devastating many of their policy proposals would be for law-abiding Americans who choose to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

These legislators and advocates, like most of us, genuinely want to create safer communities and protect innocent people from violence. But the reality is the overwhelming majority of lawful gun owners never will be a threat to themselves or others, nor would imposing substantial barriers to lawful gun ownership make anyone safer.

Not only do Americans use their firearms for lawful purposes far more often than they use them to commit crimes, but studies routinely show that a very small number of repeat criminal offenders are responsible for the majority of gun-related crimes, even though they’re already prohibited from possessing firearms.

Congress is trying to ramrod through increased gun laws upon the American people. But will that really stop the rise of gun violence? Find out more now >>

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded in 2013 that “almost all major studies” on defensive gun uses have found that Americans defend themselves with their firearms between 500,000 and 3 million times each year. This makes lawful gun owners an important factor in overall public safety.

Every month this year, we’ve highlighted in The Daily Signal just some of the many times that law-abiding citizens used their firearms to defend themselves or others from threats to their lives or livelihoods. (Take a look at January, February, March, April, May, June, July, and August.)

September was no different, according to police reports in the news:

Sept. 1, San Antonio, Texas: A young woman shot and injured a man who was trying to break into her home through a back window at 2 a.m., police said. The man later was determined to be the woman’s ex-boyfriend, though she did not know who the intruder was at the time she fired.

Sept. 3, Houston: After a woman parked her vehicle outside her home in the early hours of the morning, two men approached the driver’s side window and attempted to rob her. The woman drew her firearm from her purse and fired two rounds at the men, who ran away, police said. One would-be robber was wounded in the process and later was charged with aggravated robbery. The woman told local reporters: “I got the gun for that purpose, but I never thought I would really have to use it. . . . I saved my own life.”

Sept. 8, Virginia Beach, Virginia: A Florida man was shot and paralyzed by his stepdaughter after he broke into his estranged wife’s Virginia home and assaulted both the wife and stepdaughter with a wrench. Investigators said they later found garbage bags, zip ties, duct tape, and various weapons in the man’s car, along with a journal detailing his plans to kill his wife.

Sept. 9, Sisters, Oregon: When an unknown man broke into the back door of a residence, the homeowner grabbed his rifle and confronted the intruder, forcing him to flee without firing a single round, police said. The intruder then went to a neighboring home, where that homeowner called 911 and told the intruder to leave. The intruder returned to the first home and this time, the homeowner held him at gunpoint until police arrived.

Sept. 11, Cherokee County, Georgia: A homeowner used her firearm to defend herself against a man who started banging on her doors and windows. The homeowner did not know the man and yelled at him to leave, and he temporarily retreated. The man returned and became even more aggressive, threatening to kill the homeowner, who had armed herself with a firearm. When the man began to approach the homeowner, she shot and killed him, police said.

Sept. 16, Providence, Rhode Island: A man was smoking outside his home when someone approached, held a gun to the man’s head, and demanded everything in his pockets. The robber then forced the man into the apartment, where they fought. The man was able to reach his own gun and shoot the robber, who later was arrested after seeking treatment for his wounds, police said. Despite the state’s strict gun laws (it has a “B+” rating from the Giffords gun control group), a neighbor told reporters that these types of crimes were common in the area and that his family had been victimized several times as well.

Sept. 19, Atlanta: Three masked teens approached residents outside their home before one teen opened fire on the residents with a handgun. One resident used his AR-15 to return fire in self-defense, firing numerous rounds and killing all three assailants, police said. The residents were unharmed.

Sept. 19, Miami-Dade County, Florida: A lunch break for an armed Good Samaritan took a heroic turn when she intervened to stop a brutal robbery and assault occurring outside a Popeyes restaurant. The woman fired her handgun at an assailant as he pummeled a bleeding and helpless victim lying on the concrete, police said. The rounds missed the assailant, but the shots were enough to make him run away. The woman told reporters this was the first time she had fired her gun outside a gun range, and that although it was “an intense moment,” she just “had to stop” the assailant. “I just had to save the guy’s life,” she said. “That’s all I did was try to save someone’s life.” Police later arrested the assailant.

Sept. 22, Salina, Kansas: A father and daughter held a man at gunpoint after he kicked in their door in a home invasion. The man initially told the father that he was running away from someone, but the father yelled for his daughter to bring his gun after it became clear the man was trying to lock them all in the house, police said. The family had prepared for emergency situations like this one and were able to detain the man until police could take him into custody.

Sept. 26, Redding, California: A holder of a concealed carry permit helped intervene in a kidnapping after it became clear to him that another customer at a gas station was holding a woman against her will. Earlier in the evening, the man had assaulted the woman’s sister before forcing the woman into his car and driving off, police said. The permit holder noticed the woman was in distress, confronted the man, and held him at gunpoint until law enforcement arrived.

As these examples show, the first line of defense against crime are those on the scene when crime occurs. Despite our deep respect for law enforcement, police officers are not always there when crimes occur. They respond to calls of those who are already in peril, or to a crime scene after the offense has occurred.

Government exists to protect the inalienable natural rights of its citizens, but unfortunately, sometimes the government is unwilling or unable to do so in a timely and effective manner.

We don’t make the public safer by depriving law-abiding citizens of the best means of self-defense, or by imposing heavy and arbitrary burdens on the exercise of constitutional rights. We simply make those law-abiding citizens more vulnerable to crime and tyranny.

COMMENTARY BY

Cooper Conway

Cooper Conway is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.

Amy Swearer

Amy Swearer is a senior legal policy analyst at the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: .

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A Note for our Readers:

In the wake of every tragic mass shooting or high-profile incident involving gun violence, we hear the same narrative: To stop these horrible atrocities from happening, we must crack down on gun laws.

But is the answer really to create more laws around gun control, or is this just an opportunity to limit your Constitutional right to bear arms?

The researchers at The Heritage Foundation have put together a guide to help you better understand the 8 Stubborn Facts on Gun Violence in America.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

GET YOUR FREE COPY NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.