Archive for the ‘Foreign Policy’ Category

It’s pretty obvious that Ilhan Omar is a serious threat to national security. Last Friday, Rep. Omar called for completely defunding DHS:

When Democrats stood our ground last month, we proved that Individual 1 does not have the public support to ram his hateful wall through Congress.

Let’s stand firm: #Not1Dollar for DHS.

— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) February 8, 2019

Seriously? What type of idiot would suggest that? Perhaps the better question is ‘what type of anti-Semitic America-hating person would propose this’? Watch how Rep. Omar ran away from a CNN camera:

Ilhan Omar sits on the House Foreign Relations Committee, where she can spread her anti-Semitic policies. What the hell is Pelosi thinking? Is Pelosi intent on alienating Jews from Democrats?

Finally, Rep. Omar deserves to be officially criticized by the full House for her racist statements.

PS- Omar might be further out there than Maxine Waters. (I never thought I’d say that.)

Ilhan Omar isn’t skilled at hiding her anti-Semitism. In 2012, she tweeted this:

Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel. #Gaza #Palestine #Israel

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 16, 2012

This week, Rep. Omar appeared on CNN to ‘explain’ that statement. She said “Those unfortunate words were the only words I could think about expressing at that moment. What is really important to me is that people recognize that there is a difference between criticizing a military action by a government that has exercised really oppressive policies, and being offensive or attacking to particular people of faith.”

What’s frightening is that Rep. Omar is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, though there’s no record of that on her website.

Further, Rep. Omar said that Sen. Lindsey Graham was compromised without giving an explanation on why he’s compromised:

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) struggled to defend a tweet accusing Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) of being “compromised” on Thursday, saying the proof was in how he was acting but giving no evidence and eventually saying it was just her opinion. CNN anchor Jim Sciutto, prefacing his question by saying “we need to ask you about this,” read out her tweet and asked her to explain what she meant. Graham has been accused by some progressives of being blackmailed by the White House over being gay; Graham is a lifelong bachelor who is straight. The former fierce critic of President Donald Trump has aligned himself with the White House on some issues, he has also blasted Trump over his foreign policy.

It’s difficult for me to believe I’m saying this but it’s possible that Rep. Omar is a step down from Keith Ellison. Whether she’s a step up or down from Ellison, she’s unfit to be in Congress.

You’d never know it by the MSM’s coverage but President Trump had a pretty successful G20 summit. Liz Peek’s article highlights those victories. Ms. Peek wrote that “President Trump scored major successes at the G-20 summit that concluded over the weekend in Argentina. Specifically, the community of nations agreed in their official communique to ‘necessary reform’ of the World Trade Organization, a top White House priority, and recognized the decision of the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, and to still utilize ‘all energy sources and technologies, while protecting the environment.’ In addition, the Chinese promised to up their purchases of U.S.- made goods and to discuss other demands in exchange for postponing an expected hike in tariffs; President Xi also committed to designating the deadly drug Fentanyl as a controlled substance in China, and vowed to help with de-nuclearizing North Korea.”

That’s just the start. President Trump signed the new and improved trade deal between the US, Mexico and Canada. Later that morning, he met with Japanese Prime Minister Abe and Indian Prime Minister Modi. That sent a strong signal to China that South Korea, Japan and India have sided with the US, not with China. In terms of strategic importance, this development can’t be emphasized enough. China is already buckling during these tariff fights.

Thanks to Trump’s strategic pressure, China has started giving in to President Trump’s trade demands. That’s led to a major increase today for trade-sensitive stocks.”

BTW, the Dow finished up almost 288 points today. They certainly liked what they heard from the G20.

To be sure, there’s some noise coming from the Mueller witch hunt but that’s just noise. It isn’t anything that the American people take seriously. That being said, I don’t doubt that Mueller will weave together a document that Democrats will pounce on. They don’t have a choice on that. That being said, it’s difficult taking him seriously.

Finally, this is good news if it happens:

Trade negotiations between the U.S. and China will yield immediate results that will come even during the 90-day negotiation period ahead, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said Monday.

Tariffs on agriculture and energy products will be lowered while nontariff barriers on American ownership of companies in China also will come down, Kudlow told the Fox Business Network. In addition, Kudlow expects progress on technology transfers and intellectual property.

“Those things should kick in soon. We should see palpable change on the Chinese side immediately,” he said. “I don’t want to be too specific, but I think the generic answer is we will see changes very quickly.”

If anyone wondered whether President Trump would stick the proverbial shiv into Comrade Putin’s vitals, those doubts should disappear immediately. That isn’t granting absolution for his terrible performance at the press conference heard round the world. It’s now possible to think that President Trump missed an opportunity at that press conference and that he just hurt Russia, aka Putin, badly.

Thanks to the preliminary trade agreement President Trump made with the EU, the Kremlin will have far fewer rubles to count in the near future. Everyone knows that what little strength the Russian economy has comes from the exporting of their energy resources, especially to eastern European nations.

The trade deal that President Trump just negotiated with the EU includes expanded trade of liquefied natural gas along with other energy products. Does anyone think that Putin is sitting in his Kremlin office thinking about how grateful he is to President Trump? That’s right. He isn’t thinking that whatsoever. He’s seeing red — and not the red usually associated with the Soviet Union.

It’s now time for President Trump’s critic — and they are legion — to admit that he’s got the economy growing while the economic storm clouds disappear from sight. The doom and gloom predicted by MSNBC, CNN, the NY Times and other parts of the Democrats’ messaging apparatus won’t happen anytime soon. Happy days are here again.

When President Trump held this press conference, he didn’t just deflate Putin:

That being said, when European Union chief Jean-Claude Juncker said “This is also a message to others”, everyone immediately knew he might as well have been talking directly at Putin. This point can’t be overemphasized.

The other people whose crest has fallen since the agreement was reached are the Democrats. Thanks to yesterday’s agreement in principle, there won’t be a recession (or even a slowdown) right before the election. Further, the Democrats have started questioning whether people are feeling like the recovery is real. The blue collar workers building pipelines think it’s real. The people opening up new LNG wells think the Trump recovery is real. Everywhere you look, people are thanking President Trump for putting in place the policies that’ve caused their 401(k)s to grow and their benefits to improve.

This was a silly question from the start. If people thought that the Trump recovery wasn’t real, why is consumer confidence sky-high? Now, thanks to this agreement, farmers will get the relief they need.

Predictably, President Trump’s critics are out in force today. On the Senate floor, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer focused on the Democrats’ talking points, saying that meeting with KJU gave him legitimacy that KJU will turn into favorable treatment from the community of nations. Saying that Sen. Schumer’s logic is more than flawed is understatement.

Further, if you accept Sen. Schumer’s logic as Gospel fact, then war or a nuclear North Korea is inevitable. That’s the definition of Democratic defeatism. We just had 8 years of that. The international community is worse off as a result of President Obama’s mishandling of foreign policy/national security.

Why listen to the idiots that screwed up Iran, Russia and Iraq? Why listen to the people who told us that ISIS was the JV team, then essentially told us we’d have to accept terrorism attacks as the new normal? Democrats keep telling us how to do things after they’ve created the mess. Here’s the video of Sen. Schumer’s speech:

The prestige that Kim Jung-Un supposedly got from the Summit can disappear in an instant. If Democrats are worried about that, they aren’t paying attention to what’s important. Despite the TV media’s obsession with what didn’t happen, they should consider the Trump administration’s strong negotiating position.

The military option is still a legitimate option. The UN sanctions haven’t been lifted. President Trump, Secretary Pompeo, Ambassador Haley and NSA Bolton have made it perfectly clear that the sanctions won’t get lifted until they see North Korea’s actions change. Further, if North Korea insists on continuing playing games, they can pay the price for that decision.

That’s before taking seriously the reality that President Trump won’t hesitate to use the military option if it comes to that. I remember Ambassador Crocker’s reply when asked what he thought of the Nimitz carrier group. He replied “That’s what 20,000 tons of diplomacy looks like. TRANSLATION: Little Rocket Man, the era of strategic patience is history.

It didn’t take long for Keith Ellison to admit that he’s running for the Minnesota Attorney General job to harass President Trump. Ellison said “It was attorneys general who led the fight against the Muslim ban. I want to be a part of that fight.”

What Rep. Ellison omits from his cheap shot statement is that a) it isn’t a Muslim ban and b) these attorneys general’s cases are flimsier than wet cardboard. The Supreme Court will rule that a) presidents have sole authority to set U.S. foreign policy and b) courts don’t have the intel or authority to set U.S. foreign policy.

What’s clear is that Ellison knows Republicans will maintain control of the U.S. House of Representatives for the foreseeable future and that he’s likely to not be able to impact policy anytime soon. Ellison is an agitator. Being unable to be influential in DC, Ellison left.

GOP endorsed candidate Doug Wardlow didn’t waste time before attacking Ellison:

“Keith Ellison supports open borders, meaning he does not support the laws America currently has in place. How can he be the state’s top law enforcement official if he is unwilling to enforce our immigration laws?”

The thought of Ellison being Minnesota’s chief law enforcement officer is laughable. Ellison is famous for selectively enforcing laws:

Ellison also spoke favorably of convicted cop killer Assata Shakur and expressed his opposition to any attempt to extradite her to the United States from Cuba, where she had fled after escaping prison. “I am praying that Castro does not get to the point where he has to really barter with these guys over here because they’re going to get Assata Shakur, they’re going to get a whole lot of other people,” Ellison said at the event, which also included a silent auction and speech by former Weather Underground leader Bernardine Dohrn. “I hope the Cuban people can stick to it, because the freedom of some good decent people depends on it.”

Isn’t that great? The man that wants to be our attorney general wants cop-killers protected. Seriously?

Here’s Assata Shakur, aka Joanne Chesimard, in her own words:

That’s who Rep. Ellison fought for. Electing Ellison to be Minnesota’s Attorney General would be spitting in the face of Minnesota’s law enforcement personnel. Ellison has been a defense attorney his entire legal life. Why would we think that he’s capable of enforcing laws, especially when he’s had a history of ignoring laws he doesn’t like?

Right before Mike Pompeo’s confirmation vote to be Secretary of State, I wrote a letter to my senator, Tina Smith. This afternoon, Sen. Smith’s letter finally arrived. Let’s remember that Secretary Pompeo was confirmed on April 26. Tina Smith’s arrived on May 30.

In addition to being tardy, it was filled with a bunch of BS. For instance, Sen. Smith wrote “The State Department shapes American foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and engagement with the world. This work is essential to ensuring our national security, solving tough diplomatic issues, and maintaining relationships not just with our allies but also with those with whom we disagree. The Secretary of State is a different kind of job from any other position and it is crucially important that the person who holds this job represent America’s values to the world and know how to use diplomacy to build consensus. Mike Pompeo is not this person. He is a man who has a record of anti-Muslim statements, some of which he’s read from the House floor in Congress. He’s a man who referred to people who conducted waterboarding not as torturers but as ‘patriots.’ These are not the values that represent America and these are not the values our top diplomat should be espousing. In holding these beliefs, Mr. Pompeo will aggravate the damage being done to the United States around the world. And the risks to peace and stability in the world will increase dramatically.”

Here’s the full letter for your examination:

I highlighted a pair of sentences to illustrate the nonsense in Sen. Smith’s reply. First, Sen. Smith replied that “He’s a man who referred to people who conducted waterboarding not as torturers but as ‘patriots.'” I’d call them patriots, too. At the time the waterboarding happened, it was perfectly legal. It wasn’t until years later that Congress outlawed those tactics. Next, Sen. Smith stated “Mr. Pompeo will aggravate the damage being done to the United States around the world.”

Which damage is that? Bringing North Korea to the negotiating table to discuss the potential denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula? Perhaps, Sen. Smith is referring to the moving of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem? Is Sen. Smith referring to the 3 American hostages brought home from North Korea after Secretary Pompeo’s second meeting with Kim Jung-Un? Pay particular attention to the former hostages’ reaction when they rejoin Secretary Pompeo:

It’s about 1:15 into the video.

How will U.S. foreign policy ever recover from such behavior? Seriously, this question must be asked. What the hell is Tina Smith yapping about? What she said is utter rubbish. Let’s speak plainly about this. Tina Smith is a partisan hack who isn’t qualified to be a U.S. senator. What type of competent U.S. senator thinks that doing everything legal to prevent a terrorist attack isn’t a patriot? What type of honest politician thinks that U.S. foreign policy is heading in the wrong direction?

Only a partisan hack thinks that President Trump and Mike Pompeo haven’t already done more to make the U.S. safe in 18 months and less than 2 months than President Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry did in 8 years. ISIS has been defeated. The ‘new normal’ terrorist attacks have dropped precipitously. North Korea is begging to get us to the bargaining table. Iran is experiencing unrest unlike it’s seen recently:

Again, I ask Sen. Smith this simple question: what the hell are you talking about? Rather than wait for another letter from her, I have a better idea. Let’s fire her and elect someone who’s actually qualified.

After reading Scott Johnson’s post, a contrarian thought popped into my head. In his post, Scott quoted Andrew McCarthy as saying that the “Obama administration decided to use its counterintelligence powers to spy on the Trump campaign, using at least one covert informant, electronic monitoring of communications, and other intelligence-gathering tactics.” He then quoted McCarthy as saying “It ignored the norm against deploying such tactics against political opponents, not based on evidence of a Trump-Russia criminal conspiracy, but on speculation about the Trump campaign’s Russia contacts and Russia sympathies. Speculation by a government, an administration, and a Democratic-party nominee with their own abysmal histories of Russia contacts and Russia sympathies.”

Anyone that’s paid a minute of attention to this case knows that the Clinton Slush Fund, aka the Clinton Foundation, had ties to some nasty Russian companies and oligarchs. My question for the legal eagles and people from the intelligence community is whether it’s plausible to think that the Obama administration used its intelligence capabilities to find out if Trump had discovered a connection between the Clinton Foundation and the Russian government or Russian oligarchs close to the Kremlin.

This morning, President Trump had the privilege of announcing the release of 3 North Korean hostages in this tweet. This is fantastic news for the hostages’ families and a victory for newly-installed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Trump.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Democrats and hard-left organizations like Indivisible were frantically predicting nuclear war with North Korea. Today, those Democrats and Indivisible are eating crow while people ask whether President Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize if he closes the deal that denuclearizes the Korean Peninsula.

Here’s Trump’s tweet announcing the release of the hostages:

I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting. They seem to be in good health. Also, good meeting with Kim Jong Un. Date & Place set.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 9, 2018

Later, Mike ‘Pampeo‘ (Twitter ID of SecOfState70) tweeted this:

I can confirm that no pallets of cash were given in exchange for these 3 gentleman. https://t.co/KnM6HRtO5r

— Mike Pampeo (@SecOfState70) May 9, 2018

It’s still prudent to view the denuclearization deal with skepticism. Kim Jung-Un is still a shifty dictator. That being said, it’s possible that President Trump’s good cop-bad cop behavior might have Un worried that he’s dealing with a madman. History shows that dictators and autocrats make more concessions when they’re frightened by Republican presidents, especially if Democrats accuse that Republican president of wanting to start WWIII.

The truth is that everyone understands that the US is the world’s only superpower. In 1990, during the buildup to Operation Desert Storm, the media talked about the powerful Iraqi military, calling it a regional superpower. Within minutes of the start of the air war, the war was essentially over. The regional superpower was in shambles. The world superpower was proud of its first night accomplishments and hungry for more destruction to Iraq’s command-and-control capabilities.

The ‘conventional wisdom’ is that the US military has more to lose in a fight than Iran. That’s foolish thinking. I’m not saying the US should start a war with Iran. I’m saying that Iran would be decimated within moments if that confrontation started. Iran knows it, too.

That’s why I’m betting that, in the long run, Europe will side with the Trump administration in imposing new, tougher sanctions. When those sanctions hit Iran’s already-weak economy, Iran’s mullahs will pay a heavy political price.

North Korea already understands what it’s like to get pushed around by muscular US diplomats, aka President Trump and Mike Pompeo. Prior to the Trump administration, the North Koreans toyed with President Obama and John Kerry. Those days are over.

Technorati: Barack Obama, John Kerry, JCPOA, Strategic Patience, Democrats, Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, Maximum Pressure, Nobel Peace Prize, National Security, Republicans, Kim Jung-Un, North Korea, Iran

After President Trump officially announced that he was pulling out of the JCPOA, President Obama criticized him, saying “today’s announcement is … misguided. Walking away from the JCPOA turns our back on America’s closest allies, and an agreement that our country’s leading diplomats, scientists, and intelligence professionals.” Actually, the JCPOA wasn’t negotiated by “our country’s leading diplomats, scientists, and intelligence professionals.” It was negotiated by dimwits like John Kerry, John Brennan and Susan Rice. I’d hardly call them the best and brightest of our diplomats. I’d call them the Three Stooges.

Included in President Obama criticism was the statement that “First, the JCPOA was not just an agreement between my Administration and the Iranian government. After years of building an international coalition that could impose crippling sanctions on Iran, we reached the JCPOA together with the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the European Union, Russia, China, and Iran. It is a multilateral arms control deal, unanimously endorsed by a United Nations Security Council Resolution.” That’s precisely what it was. It wasn’t a treaty ratified by the Senate. If it had been a negotiated treaty, it would’ve been subjected to a humiliating bipartisan rejection of President Obama’s national security policy towards Iran.

John Brennan criticized President Trump in this barely lucid diatribe:

Today, Donald Trump simultaneously lied about the Iranian nuclear deal, undermined global confidence in US commitments, alienated our closest allies, strengthened Iranian hawks, & gave North Korea more reason to keep its nukes. This madness is a danger to our national security.

— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) May 8, 2018

Again, this wasn’t US agreement. That status is only conferred with treaty ratification. Without the Senate’s advice and consent, the agreement is nothing except an agreement between an idiot masquerading as a commander-in-chief and a room full of Islamic theocrats.

Further, President Trump’s decision instructs the world’s despots that he won’t tolerate wink-and-a-nod deals that don’t protect the American people. Like Charles Krauthammer once said, “it isn’t that there’s a new sheriff in town. It’s that there’s a sheriff in town.” President Trump’s official announcement sends the strong message that he’s putting a higher priority on national security than on weak-kneed diplomacy.

This paragraph illustrates how big of a liar President Obama is:

Third, the JCPOA does not rely on trust – it is rooted in the most far-reaching inspections and verification regime ever negotiated in an arms control deal. Iran’s nuclear facilities are strictly monitored. International monitors also have access to Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, so that we can catch them if they cheat. Without the JCPOA, this monitoring and inspections regime would go away.

The inspection regime was virtually nonexistent. Inspectors couldn’t go anywhere at any time. They had to get permission from the IRGC. Then there was a thirty-day waiting time. That isn’t the definition of “far-reaching inspections.” That’s the definition of wimpy inspections agreed to by a weak-kneed American president and his pathetic ‘national security team’.

Technorati: JCPOA, Barack Obama, John Kerry, John Brennan, Susan Rice, Three Stooges, Iran, Democrats, Donald Trump, National Security, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Advice and Consent, Treaty Ratification, US Senate