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Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

John Bolton’s Art Of The Non-Deal

By on September 11th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/09/11/john-boltons-art-of-the-non-deal/

What it takes to survive for long in the Trump White House would fill a tome that may command a seven-figure advance for whoever ends up being qualified to write it. But whatever now-ex National Security Adviser John Bolton ends up writing might solve an even more perplexing mystery: What is really at the heart of this president’s foreign policy?

It cannot be denied that Donald Trump is a hawk, despite his rhetoric sometimes indicating otherwise. He backed large increases in Pentagon spending during his first two years and this year focused on out-maneuvering the Democrats’ majority in the House on federal budget caps to get another increase for fiscal 2020, irking fiscal conservatives as well as dovish liberals. And, of course, Trump used force last year against Syria.

He has also risked military conflict with Iran over scrapping the nuclear deal President Barack Obama agreed to, driving the left to warn of a spiral of dire consequences.

But there is also the Donald Trump whose son-in-law Jared Kushner aspires to solve the unsolvable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Elements of Kushner’s proposal that were floated in June, despite its including a $50 billion handout, were rejected out of hand by Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas.

There is the Donald Trump who decided to be the first U.S. president to negotiate face-to-face with a North Korean ruler, despite the risks of it ending in monumental embarrassment for the United States. And who now seeks an open-ended meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, whose constant smile hides a long history of shrewdly practicing anti-Western deceit at the negotiating table.

It’s no secret to anyone that Trump likes to win at that same negotiating table, particularly when the odds are against victory. “One of the keys to thinking big is total focus,” his “The Art of The Deal,” written more than 30 years ago, says. “I think of it almost as a controlled neurosis, which is a quality I’ve noticed in many highly successful entrepreneurs.” In New York real estate, Trump adds, “you are dealing with some of the sharpest, toughest, and most vicious people in the world. I happen to love to go up against these guys, and I love to beat them.”

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BOOKS, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The 21: A Journey into the Land of Coptic Martyrs A close look at the plight of an ancient Christian community Raymond Ibrahim

By on September 11th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274903/21-journey-land-coptic-martyrs-raymond-ibrahim

A review of “The 21: A Journey into the Land of Coptic Martyrs” by Martin Mosebach.

To learn as much as possible of the 21 Coptic Christians martyred for refusing to recant their faith at the hands of the Islamic State (“ISIS”) on the shores of Libya in 2015, writer Martin Mosebach traveled to their Egyptian homeland, where he interviewed family members, local clergymen, and generally took in the culture and atmosphere of Coptic living.

The result is an account that alternates between tragedy and triumph—between senseless deaths and staunch perseverance, past and present.  Because martyrdom is such a normal aspect of Coptic experience, when Mosebach “later asked myself what I had actually learned about the martyrs during my weeks in El-Aour,” where most of them lived, “I was at a bit of a loss.”  Neither the Coptic Church (historically known as the “Church of Martyrs”), nor the relatives of the slain, understood the latter’s martyrdom as something out of the ordinary or in need of elaboration.  The martyred—menial workers who spent their lives earning and sending money back to their families in Egypt—did not even seem to matter much as individuals but rather representatives of the collective.

Mosebach still managed to gather enough firsthand information to offer a compelling theory on the series of events that led to their slaughter.  The narrative includes an extra pious ringleader who inspired his fellow captives to persevere against beatings and death threats, and an ISIS guard who reportedly converted to Christianity and fled after witnessing their staunch faith.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

18 Years After 9/11 The Threat Of Terror Attacks Continues Looking back to 1998, the dots were connected — and then ignored. Michael Cutler

By on September 11th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274912/18-years-after-911-threat-terror-attacks-continues-michael-cutler

The terror attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred nearly 18 years ago yet the impact still reverberates around the world.

It is disconcerting that Americans who are now coming of age to vote were born after the attacks of 9/11 and what they know or don’t know about those attacks depends on what they have been taught by teachers who are not being “Politically Correct” but actually provide lessons that conform to Orwellian Newspeak as does the mainstream media.

On August 30, 2019 The Hill reported, Trial for men accused of plotting 9/11 attacks set for early 2021.  That report begins with this excerpt:

The trial for men charged as plotters of the 9/11 attacks was set Friday for Jan. 11, 2021, The New York Times reported.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men are set to be charged for their alleged role planning the 2001 terror attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. Mohammed has been accused of being the mastermind behind the strike.

While the media typically attributes the death of approximately 3,000 innocent victims to the attacks, in reality the actual death count is much higher and victims of those attacks continue to suffer and die because of their exposure to the toxins that were released as a result of the attacks.

As we approach the 18th anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 terrorism-related stories are still making news, underscoring the irrefutable fact that the threat of terrorism continues to hang over our heads, not unlike the Sword of Damocles.  However, the lunatic Left seeks to leave America defenseless.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Did We Learn Anything From 9/11? Or are we still sleeping? September 11, 2019 Daniel Greenfield

By on September 11th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274911/did-we-learn-anything-911-daniel-greenfield

Two things happened in 2001.

Islamic terrorists carried out their most successful attack on America with the murder of 2,977 people. And the number of immigrants obtaining permanent residency passed a million for the first time in a decade. Before 2001, a million plus was a streak that might linger for a few years before falling back.

These days it’s the new normal. Aside from one blip, we’ve been riding the million plus train for over a decade. The resistance to that trend is currently the one thing we seem to have learned from 9/11.

After decades of being massacred by terrorists who have come here as tourists, refugees and immigrants, we are finally trying to close the door on travelers from Islamic terrorist states.

And it only took 16 years.

That’s because learning nothing from the past has been our specialty.

“A flag bearing a crescent and star flies from a flagpole in front of the World Trade Center, next to a Christmas tree and a menorah,” The New York Times reported in 1997.

Four years earlier, Muslim terrorists had bombed the World Trade Center in an unsuccessful effort to bring down the towers. Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh at the center of the terror plot, had urged, “We . . . have been ordered with terrorism because we must prepare what power we can to terrorize the enemy of Allah and your enemy. The Koran says ‘to strike terror.’”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Republican Dan Bishop Wins North Carolina Congressional Seat With Trump’s Support Do-over vote stemming from ballot tampering seen as bellwether for the 2020 election By Valerie Bauerlein

By on September 11th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/republican-dan-bishop-wins-north-carolina-congressional-seat-with-trumps-support-11568168459?mod=cx_picks&cx_navSource=cx_picks&cx_tag=contextual&cx_artPos=2#cxrecs_s

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Voters in a conservative congressional district picked President Trump ally Republican Dan Bishop in Tuesday’s special election instead of a Democrat who had promised to seek compromise in Washington.

Mr. Bishop, a 55-year-old state senator who campaigned on a promise to be in lockstep with Mr. Trump, defeated Democrat Dan McCready in the Ninth Congressional District based in the suburbs of Charlotte.

In his victory speech, Mr. Bishop said he would go to Washington to protect the border, fight Democrats in the House and support the Trump agenda. “Under this president, America is great again,” he said.

Mr. McCready, a 36-year-old veteran and entrepreneur, had campaigned as a centrist, emphasizing his service as a Marine in the Iraq war and pledging to put country over party.

Mr. McCready said late Tuesday he was proud that the campaign came so close to carrying a reliably Republican district. “We may not have won this campaign, but that does not mean that we were wrong,” he said. “As long as there are people who thrive off our division, there is still work to be done,” he said.

The GOP victory in the rare do-over election was a boon to Mr. Trump, who tweeted his support repeatedly for Mr. Bishop and campaigned for him Monday in Fayetteville, a military town at the far eastern edges of the district. Vice President Mike Pence came to the state for Mr. Bishop on Monday in Union County, a GOP stronghold. Mr. Trump won the district by 12 percentage points in 2016.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Impartiality Is the Source of a Newspaper’s Credibility That means honestly reporting, editing and delivering the news without opinion or bias. By Walter Hussman Jr.

By on September 11th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/impartiality-is-the-source-of-a-newspapers-credibility-11568109602https://www.wsj.com/articles/impartiality-is-the-source-of-a-newspapers-credibility-11568109602

Mr. Hussman is publisher of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

America has a vital interest in good journalism. But journalism confronts serious challenges. The advertising-based business model that supported it for more than a century has been disrupted. More than 1,800 U.S. newspapers have closed in the past 15 years—mostly weeklies, but also 75 dailies. Many surviving midsize metropolitan newspapers are shadows of what they once were. They have significantly reduced their news staffs and pages.

Yet journalism faces another serious challenge: a loss of public trust. A recent Gallup poll shows that of 15 American institutions, newspapers and television news are both near the bottom in the public’s confidence. While news organizations claim they are fair and objective, and many try hard to be, Americans perceive widespread bias in news reporting.

Two years ago I heard a prominent journalist say she doesn’t believe in the “false equivalency” of presenting both sides, and that she sees her job as determining the truth, then sharing it with her audience. That’s not what I learned in journalism school in the 1960s.

I decided then that I needed to let our readers know that we didn’t agree with those statements. I also needed to let them know what journalistic principles we do endorse. So I drafted a statement of core values. For the past two years, every day we publish this statement on page 2 of all 10 daily newspapers our company publishes, including the flagship Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

This Week in Brexit By Madeleine Kearns

By on September 11th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/brexit-status-boris-johnson-strategy/Any questions?

Last week in British politics, the government lost its majority; MPs voted to take control of the Brexit process; a bill passed that would force Prime Minister Boris Johnson to request a three-month Brexit extension from the EU if no deal is reached by October 19; Johnson attempted to call a snap election, but failed to get the required two-thirds support of the House of Commons; 21 Conservative MPs, including Winston Churchill’s grandson, were kicked out of the party for rebelling against Johnson’s Brexit strategy; Tory cabinet ministers, including Johnson’s own brother, resigned, having lost faith in the government; and the High Court upheld Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament, suspending it from tomorrow until October 14.

[Deep breath.]

This week in British politics, the anti-Brexit speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has announced his intent to step down; the Brexit-delay bill has been granted “Royal Assent,” making it the law of the land; the prime minister has visited the Irish taoiseach in Dublin and the have two released a joint statement admitting to “significant gaps” in their visions for Brexit; and the Commons has rejected Johnson’s second request for a general election.

[Another deep breath.]

Soooooooo . . . any questions?

1) Why did Johnson purge the 21 dissenting Tory MPs?

Members of the government, which typically incorporates around half of the parliamentary party and its ministers, are in general expected to support the prime minister on key votes. If they feel they cannot do so, they normally resign. By expelling the rebels, Johnson was turning this implicit expectation of loyalty into an explicit demand, and then applying it to all members of the parliamentary party.

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FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Bolton’s exit raises the odds of US-China trade deal The departure of the China hawk might clear the way for a trade-and-technology deal David Goldman

By on September 11th, 2019

https://www.asiatimes.com/

President Trump needs a trade deal with China as quickly as possible to avert a sharp slowdown of the US economy, as recent polls have made clear. There won’t be any deal unless the US finds some way to walk back its efforts to keep China’s top telecommunication firm Huawei out of world markets. The summary dismissal today of National Security Adviser John Bolton increases the prospects of a deal, although the immediate motivation for Bolton’s departure most likely lies elsewhere.

China and the United States seemed on track for a trade deal in early December 2018 when XI Jinping and Donald Trump dined on the sidelines of a summit meeting in Buenos Aires – except that Canada arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wangzhou at the Vancouver Airport. Trump didn’t know about the arrest, but his national security adviser John Bolton did, as Bolton later said in a radio interview.

A few weeks earlier, the US government began a campaign to persuade its allies to exclude Huawei from the rollout of 5G broadband networks, as the Wall Street Journal first reported Nov. 23, 2018. The Meng Wanzhou arrest, the first use of extraterritorial powers in the case of an alleged sanctions violation, was a declaration of war on the Chinese national champion. In the ensuing months, the United States banned US technology firms from supplying components and software to Huawei and demanded that its allies boycott its 5G network systems.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

School Choice Offers More Freedom and Better Education — at a Lower Cost By John Stossel

By on September 11th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/school-choice-offers-more-freedom-and-better-education-at-a-lower-cost/

With most services, you get to shop around, but rarely can you do that with government-run schools.

Philadelphia mom Elaine Wells was upset to learn that there were fights every day in the school her son attended. So she walked him over to another school.

“We went to go enroll and we were told, ‘He can’t go here!’ That was my wake up call,” Wells tells me in my latest video.

She entered her sons in a charter school lottery, hoping to get them into a charter school.

“You’re on pins and needles, hoping and praying,” she said. But politicians stack the odds against kids who want to escape government-run schools. Philly rejected 75% of the applicants.

Wells’ kids did eventually manage to get into a charter called Boys’ Latin. I’m happy for them. I wish government bureaucrats would let all kids have similar chances.

Wells was so eager for her sons to attend that she arranged to have one repeat the sixth grade.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Air Force Defends C-17 Crew’s Stopover at Scotland Trump Resort Oriana Pawlyk

By on September 11th, 2019

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/09/07/air-force-defends-c-17-crews-stopover-scotland-trump-resort.html?ESRC=eb_190909.nl

“”The Trump property — at $136 a night — was less expensive than the Marriott property — $161 a night…” so a C-17 crew stayed there during an overnight stop in Scotland. If ever there was a crisis demanding Congressional investigation, this is it.” DPS

The U.S. Air Force is defending an aircrew’s decision earlier this year to make a scheduled stop in Scotland and stay at a luxury resort owned by President Donald Trump.

The seven-member crew of a C-17 Globemaster III flying to Kuwait followed all proper procedures and protocols when they stopped at Glasgow’s Prestwick Airport and when they booked their stay at Trump’s Turnberry resort for a mission in March, the Air Force’s top spokesperson told Military.com on Saturday.

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