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January 2020

Making sure foreign enemies fear the United States military by Clifford May

http://www.cliffordmay.org/23766/foreign-enemies-fear-united-states

“There are two ways to fight the United States militarily: asymmetrically and stupid.”

Few would quarrel with this observation by retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, formerly President Trump’s national security adviser, currently chairman of the board of advisers to Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)’s Center on Military and Political Power.

But that raises a question: Why have we failed to develop a strategy to defeat enemies fighting us asymmetrically? In other words, why is there still a smart way to kill Americans?

In this space last week, I offered one reason: Many members of the commentariat on both the left and the right think in outdated, binary terms. In their minds, either we’re at peace or we’re at war. They naturally prefer the former and fret that forcefully responding to assaults by our enemies puts us “on the brink” of the latter. But any time our enemies hit us and get away with it, they win and are encouraged to keep going.

The seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, the bombing of the American embassies in Beirut and Kuwait in 1983, the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 — we responded to these acts of war as though they were one-offs, committed by common criminals. Other attacks followed, for example in 1996, 1998, 2000 and, of course, 2001.

THE TRUMP PEACE PLAN

Trump: Time for Muslim World to Fix Mistake of 1948 By Recognizing Israel 
https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2020/01/28/trump-time-for-muslim-world-to-fix-mistake-of-1948-by-recognizing-israel/
PLO Calls for Terror Campaign against Trump’s Deal: “Escalate the Resistance and the Struggle… in All its Forms”
 https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/144158/plo-calls-for-terror-campaign-against-trumps-deal-escalate-the-resistance-and-the-struggle-in-all-its-forms/?
Former Israeli Ambassador to US: Every time “Palestinians” are offered peace, they say “No” 
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/01/former-israeli-ambassador-to-us-every-time-palestinians-are-offered-peace-they-say-no?
Democratic candidates censure Trump peace plan, warn against annexation 
https://www.timesofisrael.com/democratic-candidates-censure-trump-peace-plan-warn-against-annexation/

Forcing The U.S. To Accept Immigrants Who Will Become Public Charges Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-1-28-forcing-the-us-to-accept-immigrants-who-will-become-public-charges-2

Who runs the federal government of the United States? Is it the elected President and members of Congress? Or is it a permanent bureaucracy committed to expansion of its own size and power, together with a critical mass (potentially well less than a majority) of sympathetic federal judges who can be called upon as necessary to strike down any disfavored policy initiative from the elected branches? Or, in an even more cynical formulation, is it that the elected officeholders can run policy when they are Democrats, but when Republicans are elected the bureaucrats get to rule with the assistance of select members of the judiciary?

To view the dynamics of this process at work, there is perhaps no more striking example than what has occurred on the question of the extent to which the U.S. can exclude immigrants on the ground that they are likely to become “public charges.” We last visited this subject back in October 2019, in a post titled “Maneuvering To Force The U.S. To Accept Immigrants Who Will Become Public Charges.” This post is a sequel to that one.

The relevant context is that the U.S. immigration law as passed by Congress, since the enactment of the first statute on the subject back in the 1880s, has explicitly sought to preclude the admission as immigrants of individuals likely to become “public charges.” Although the statutory language has changed somewhat over the years in immaterial ways, one provision of the current statute ( 8 U.S.C. Section 1182(a)(4)) contains the following language:

Aliens who are inadmissible under the following paragraphs are ineligible to receive visas and ineligible to be admitted to the United States: . . . (4) Any alien who, in the opinion of the consular officer at the time of application for a visa, or in the opinion of the Attorney General at the time of application for admission or adjustment of status, is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.

Bolton and the Consequences of the Destruction of Executive Privilege Adam Mill

https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/28/bolton-and-the-consequences-of-the-destruction-of-executive-privilege/

The get-Trump movement is legal nihilism and the antithesis of the rule of law.

Fred Fleitz, a former deputy to John Bolton, the national security advisor President Trump fired in September 2019, over the weekend published an opinion piece explaining the dangers of his former boss’s anticipated tell-all book.

“Given the importance of protecting a president’s confidential discussions with his senior advisers,” Fleitz wrote, “I strongly disagree with Bolton’s decision to release the book before the November presidential election and call on him to withdraw it from the publisher immediately.”

Bolton is just the latest example of former advisors cravenly monetizing the confidential access to a president.

Fleitz represents what seems to be the last gasp of a legal tradition that is vital to our constitutional self-government. The consequences of this ongoing assault on presidential privileges will be catastrophic not only to the security of our Republic but also to self-government.

In 1974, the Supreme Court upheld the necessity of executive privilege, writing:

The expectation of a President to the confidentiality of his conversations and correspondence, like the claim of confidentiality of judicial deliberations, for example, has all the values to which we accord deference for the privacy of all citizens and, added to those values, is the necessity for protection of the public interest in candid, objective, and even blunt or harsh opinions in Presidential decisionmaking. A President and those who assist him must be free to explore alternatives in the process of shaping policies and making decisions, and to do so in a way many would be unwilling to express except privately. These are the considerations justifying a presumptive privilege for Presidential communications. The privilege is fundamental to the operation of Government, and inextricably rooted in the separation of powers under the Constitution.

‘My Life Here is So Wonderful,’ Director Quentin Tarantino Says About Living in Israel

https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/01/23/my-life-here-is-so-wonderful-director-quentin-tarantino-says-about-living-in-israel/

Film director Quentin Tarantino spoke to Yediot Achronot in a full-length interview published last week about his new “wonderful” life in Israel with his wife, Israeli singer and model Daniella Pick, who is pregnant with their first child.

The “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” director told the publication, “Really, my life here [in Israel] is so wonderful.”

He said he has some “short trips” back to the United States planned for the Oscars awards ceremony, but his family will be in Israel before and after Pick gives birth.

His time in Israel so far has been “great” he said, adding, “I love the country, and the people are really nice, very nice to me, and they seem excited that I’m here.”

According to Yediot, Tarantino and his wife live in Ramat Aviv Gimel, a tony residential neighborhood in northwest Tel Aviv.

Atrocities against Muslims: Leaked Documents in China by Lawrence A. Franklin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15362/china-atrocities-muslims

The detainees, from the province of Xinjiang, are treated to a strict “re-education” program that includes what one escapee described as horrific physical abuse, including forced organ removal, abortions and medical “experiments.”

The release of the documents is personally embarrassing for President Xi Jinping, who has been trying to portray himself internationally as a benign and moderate statesman.

Muslim-majority states may now more than ever view China’s Communist regime as an enemy of Islam — just as it is an enemy of the West.

Leaked documents obtained by the New York Times reveal Chinese President Xi Jinping’s directives to round up and incarcerate the one million or so Muslims — Uighurs, Kazakhs and others — in detention centers. The detainees, from the province of Xinjiang, are treated to a strict “re-education” program that includes what one escapee described as horrific physical abuse, such as forced organ removal, abortions and medical “experiments.”

These camps are part of what the New York Times calls “the country’s most far-reaching internment campaign since the Mao era.”

President Xi claims that the purpose of these camps is to protect the country from Islamic radicalism. This excuse for the mass detention of Muslims seems to stem from the fact that an estimated 4,000 volunteers from Central Asian countries joined ISIS.

Arabian Gulf Citizens and Changing Views by Najat AlSaied

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15500/arabian-gulf-citizens-israel

Whenever there is any hope of good relations with Israel, Qatar tries to embarrass Saudi Arabia by mentioning that the kingdom is the keeper of the Two Holy Mosques. Conversely, when Saudi Arabia says something negative about Israel, such as that Israelis may not visit the kingdom, Qatar quickly publishes it in English to show Westerners how intolerant Saudi Arabia is.

Disappointingly, the Western mainstream media is no different from the Arab Gulf media in weakening the position of pro-peace advocates in the Arab Gulf countries.

Members of the mainstream media seem, in fact, to have an interest in perpetuating conflict, perhaps as more newsworthy, telegenic or enticing to advertisers. Members of the mainstream media also seem, wrongly, to regard anti-Semitic advocates of political Islam as representative of “moderate” Islam. Worse, they actually appear to be against anyone who is promoting peace.

The worldwide lack of support for those who advocate peace or the reform of Islam has brought about exactly what the extremists want: a fear of speaking up. Many of us Muslims do not want to be viewed as traitors, labelled “enemies of the nation”… and have our lives put under threat…

The views of Gulf Arabs towards Israel have been marginalized by a lack of support from both the Arab and Western media, indicating a need for greater emphasis on “digital diplomacy” from the public… and “normalization”….

Since General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed by an American airstrike, it has become even clearer that the Middle East is divided. We find some here were supportive of the strike that rescued the world from a most dangerous terrorist; others were completely outraged. Is the Middle East, then, on the verge of new alliances and further fragmentation?

The reactions of the Arab Gulf countries, including their citizens — especially Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain — are the same as Israel’s. Other Arab countries and the Palestinian territories — mainly Hamas, which is a client of Iran — have responded quite differently.

As China Carries Disease, Elites Carry Their Water Curtis Ellis

https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/28/as-china-carries-disease-elites-carry-their-water/

The World Health Organization is a case study of how the Chinese Communist Party infects supposedly apolitical institutions. But it doesn’t end there.

Two dangerous infectious agents are emerging from China. One is the coronavirus. The other is the Chinese Communist Party.

Just as a virus infects the cellular mechanics of healthy organisms to make replicas of itself, the CCP hijacks independent organizations and institutions and reprograms them to serve its ideology.

It is no exaggeration to blame the party for the spread of the contagion.

The novel coronavirus is believed to have infected the first patients in Wuhan, China in mid-December. But Chinese officials did not report the mystery virus to the World Health Organization until December 31. By that time, 5 million potential disease carriers had left the city for the Lunar New Year holiday.

In every important way, local officials were slow to respond in the first crucial days because they didn’t want to get sideways with higher-ups. The mayor of Wuhan said he had to wait for orders from Beijing before he could do anything.

But local officials if slow to respond to the crisis did respond quickly in arresting those who talked about the infection for “publishing or forwarding false information on the internet without verification.”

Boris Johnson scrambles to rescue immigration pledge after experts reject it as a ‘soundbite’ Rob Merrick

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/boris-johnson-scrambles-to-rescue-points-based-immigration-pledge-after-experts-reject-it-as-a-soundbite/ar-BBZpj7U

A blueprint for cutting immigration after Brexit has been branded “a disaster” by social care leaders and has left Boris Johnson’s promise of a points-based system in tatters.

Downing Street is scrambling to rescue the prime minister’s high-profile pledge to adopt an Australian-style system after it was rejected by the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) – which called it “a soundbite”.

The implementation of such a system – based on factors such as age, qualifications and previous study in the UK – risked repeating past “mistakes” and should be introduced for highly skilled migrants only, the MAC said.

Instead, it called for a minimum salary threshold for most workers offered a job – a system Mr Johnson sought to scrap – but set at £25,600 instead of the £30,000 proposed under Theresa May’s premiership.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein indicated that she might vote to acquit Trump – and then recanted. By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/sen_dianne_feinstein_indicated_that_she_might_vote_to_acquit_trump__and_then_recanted.html

On Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers ended their arguments before the Senate against Trump’s impeachment. In contrast to the Democrats’ 24-hour marathon of imagination, mind-reading, invective, and hysteria, Trump’s team presented tight constitutional and factual arguments of the type every lawyer loves best: Using the oppositions’ own facts and arguments against them.

On Monday, Pam Bondi revealed what the impeachment is really about: The very serious possibility that Joe Biden used his position as Vice President to obtain unreasonably lucrative jobs for his alcoholic, coke-addled son, a man without skills or morals.

In a presentation that even arch-Progressive Talking Head Jeffrey Toobin conceded was damaging to Biden, Bondi introduced mainstream media footage showing that, despite a complete lack of qualifications, Hunter got an $83,000 a month gig in Ukraine, one that required almost no work and that made no demands on his non-existent skills. At the same time, said Bondi, the average American family earned less than $54,000 a year.

Bondi’s argument underscored that the scandal isn’t that Trump was trying to investigate corruption in the American government; the scandal is that the Democrats are running a sham impeachment so that the object of that corruption investigation can become President of the United States.