“Critics Aghast As Trump Keeps Word About No More Wars”
“Donald Trump came into office promising to not start any new wars and to get us out of the old ones our feckless elite had dragged us into, and now that he’s doing it in Syria the usual suspects are outraged. How dare he actually deliver on his promise not to have anymore of our precious warriors shipped home in boxes after getting killed on battlefields we can’t even pronounce, while refereeing conflicts that began long before America was a thing, in campaigns without any kind of coherent objective?
Conservatives like me still think of ourselves as hawks, but after hard experience we have learned to be hawkish only where America’s interests are directly at stake. We’re not doves. We’re just not going to spill our troops’ blood when we do not absolutely have to. The elite may not like our attitude, but then it’s generally not the elite that ends up having to bury its sons, daughters, husbands and wives. We do.
I generally like the Kurds. I generally dislike the Turks. But they’ve been killing each other for a long time and no one has yet offered a sufficient reason why America should stick its troops in the crossfire between them. We hear words like “betrayal” tossed around, often by people whose track record re: honor is (charitably) lacking, but that assumes America had a say in this latest round ramping up. If the Turks are intent on invading, a firm “No” from the Oval office is not going to stop a battalion of Leopard tanks. If you want to stop them, you have to be prepared to stop them. That means war, and the president – along with millions of us – say “No thanks.”
Some solid conservatives who I respect disagree with the president’s take. They point out that the Kurds have fought with us and that they’ve had a raw deal. They also point to the Turks’ sordid history of genocide, like with the Armenians. These are good points – I spent 16 months away from my family deployed helping Muslims avoid a genocide in Kosovo – but they are not good enough to justify us doing the only thing that can stop the Turks if they are committed to their threatened aggression, i.e., being willing to have American troops fight them.
Let’s have some real talk, because the Orange Man Bad side of the debate – the side that suddenly is all hopped up on war juice – offers nothing but hack clichés to support its amorphous position. The Kurds helped destroy ISIS, true. It’s also true that the Kurds would have fought ISIS anyway, since the psycho caliphate was right next door. Let’s be honest – the Kurds didn’t show up for us at Normandy or Inchon or Khe Sanh or Kandahar. The Syrian Kurds allied with us in their homeland because we shared a common interest in wiping out the head-lopping freak show that was ISIS. Moreover, all Kurds are not equal. The PKK – the Kurdistan Workers’ Party – are a bunch of commie terrorists who have been fighting the Turks for a long time. Those reds are no friends of ours, and it’s their antics that seem to be inspiring the Turkish campaign. I have little use for the Turks, but they aren’t just picking this fight for Schiffs and giggles. The fact that it’s all so confusing is a really, really good reason for us to stay the hell out of it.”
——-
Good morning again.
I got a strange sound on my phone last night. Ten-twenty, it turns out.
I got up to see what it was. So I came in to my main connection. There was nothing.
This morning, I checked my I-Phone and there is an amber alert for a missing person.
I am puzzled why there was nothing on my phone after the buzzing sound alerted me.
“Corrupt UN Officials Helped Fake Refugees From Kenya Resettle In America”
“CNN has a pretty remarkable story up today that reveals something everyone involved would rather remain a secret. For decades, people from Kenya have posed as Somalian refugees to take advantage of resettlement opportunities in the US and elsewhere. And CNN reports that middlemen collect large sums of money in order to bribe UN officials to make sure their clients have the best chance of being relocated.
For decades, the chaos in Kenya’s troubled neighbor, Somalia, pushed wave after wave of refugees across the border. They came in buses, on donkeys, and sometimes by foot.
But as the number of people moving to what was once the world’s largest refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya swelled from thousands, to tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands — there were many who registered as refugees who didn’t qualify…
All told, there are at least 40,000 Kenyans registered as refugees in the Dadaab camps alone, according to both UNHCR and government numbers, in what officials euphemistically term “double registration.”…
A UN spokesman told CNN, “I am not aware of any Kenyans being resettled as refugees.” Similarly, a spokesman for the US State Department says it has a “zero tolerance” policy for such fraud. However, CNN identified several “Somali” refugees who are actually Kenyan and even quotes one anonymous individual who admits his father faked their identities in the 1990s to gain resettlement in the United States.
A “facilitator” who gets paid between $10,000 and $20,000 for every client he can help get resettled abroad, claims he has bribed corrupt UN officials for years to make sure his clients get approved.
“It is at the very beginning of the process — before the applicant even gets to the US embassy vetting, the selection has been done at the UN level,” said one facilitator who said he has been exploiting corruption within the UN to game the resettlement system for years…
“The UN will know the criteria and make sure the paying clients match all the requirements. So, it can be cooked at the UN level,” he said…
“Before the Trump ban it was a booming business,” he said. His business is now focused on other countries, where refugee resettlement quotas are higher. He said his last case was just a few months ago.”
“A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency employee was arrested Wednesday on federal charges that he leaked classified national defense information to two journalists – one of them romantically involved with him.
Henry Kyle Frese, 30, a counter-terrorism analyst who held a top-secret clearance at the DIA, had started there as a contractor in January 2017 before working at the agency full time.
Between April and May 2018, Frese allegedly accessed classified intelligence reports – some of which were unrelated to his job duties – and leaked secret information regarding a foreign country’s weapons system to a reporter, according to court documents.
The documents accused Frese of being romantically involved with one of the reporters to whom he allegedly leaked information.
A criminal indictment said the reporter wrote at least eight articles from five compromised intelligence reports leaked by Frese. It said Frese re-tweeted a link to one of the articles that used the information he allegedly had provided.”
————–
I hope they’re looking at the woman who would prostitute herself for a story as well.
“Bearing in mind that indictments are not convictions, we should wait for the evidence to be tested in court before assuming guilt. However, if the DoJ has what’s represented in this indictment, then Frese is going to be in serious trouble. He’s being charged with two violations of the Espionage Act under 18 USC 793(d), which carries a maximum prison sentence of ten years per count. It’s not likely that Frese would get consecutive sentences in this scenario, and as a first-time offender would fall on the lower end of the sentencing spectrum. Winner got 63 months for her leaks, which had malicious political intent; Frese might get slightly more lenient treatment for merely being an idiot, but only if he pleads out. The DoJ and the Trump administration is not in the mood to be kind to leakers these days, which perhaps Frese’s journalist pals might have been bothered to explain to him.
The indictment doesn’t mention the journalists involved, nor their employers, which is notable in itself. Frese is also not being charged under the conspiracy subsection (g) of 18 USC 793, which is also telling. Prosecutors are not aiming at journalists in these leak investigations, although one could make an argument that the two journalists did conspire to gain access to classified material through Frese. It’d be tough to make that stick, of course, and it would open up the DoJ to allegations that it’s trying to prosecute reporters for doing their jobs … sort of like the Eric Holder-led DoJ started doing.
So who were the journalists and what outlets did they represent? That will be fascinating to find out. Maybe we can tell by which outlets protest the loudest over Frese’s arrest — or which don’t protest at all. And let’s not forget that this isn’t the first time someone leaked classified information to a reporter-paramour. How often does this happen?
Update: Matthew Keys, formerly of ABC and Reuters and now at Comstock Magazine, says he has confirmed the identity of the two reporters, both of whom work for NBC:”
Can confirm based on public records and information contained in the court records: The journalist defense employee Henry K. Frese is accused of leaking classified information to is @amanda_m_macias, a CNBC national security reporter. The affiliated news organization is NBC News. https://t.co/UdWYab0VlD
“Was then-FBI chief Jim Comey spying on his boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch? He apparently had a “highly placed informant” in her office reporting on her doings as of May 2016, which is pretty darn close to “spying” in most books.
We know: Comey famously considers it an “investigation,” not “spying,” when it’s official FBI business — but it’s hard to see how secretly monitoring the AG’s office could be official work for the Bureau.
And secretly monitoring Lynch is exactly what the new book from Pulitzer-winning reporter James B. Stewart indicates Comey was doing.
It was the peak of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and Comey (as he’s said) was “troubled” by Lynch’s attitude — such as her September 2015 directive that the FBI not call its criminal investigation of Clinton “an investigation” (let alone “criminal”), but simply “a matter,” which was exactly what the Clinton campaign wanted.
Lynch had made major career advances in the 1990s under President Bill Clinton — and her boss, President Barack Obama, plainly supported Hillary’s candidacy. Plus, Obama was also implicated in the scandal, since he’d exchanged multiple emails with Clinton at her non-government address — a fact they were all keeping from the public.
Stewart reports that Comey’s “highly placed informant” indicated that Lynch wouldn’t let the FBI investigation add to Clinton’s woes. An email reportedly from the head of the Democratic National Committee assured a civilian that “Lynch wouldn’t let the Clinton investigation get very far, suggesting that Lynch would protect Clinton,” Stewart writes.”
The left loves to project their faults unto others.
"It’s time to call in the sergeant at arms, march them off to a little jail." @RepGaramendi calls for AG Bill Barr and other witnesses in the impeachment inquiry into @realDonaldTrump to be arrested if they do not cooperate. pic.twitter.com/iIK8mLZJJC
It's weird how the people who constantly call Trump a totalitarian are the ones talking about locking people up for not bowing to their will. https://t.co/JKjIw2yBhF
“Sasse, Cruz, AOC, Others In Congress Send Bipartisan Letter To NBA: Stop Kissing China’s @#$ And Suspend Your Operations There For Now”
“You have to screw up awfully badly in America 2019 to forge a coalition of critics that includes Ted Cruz, Ben Sasse, Tom Cotton, Ron Wyden, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, especially at a moment when Democrats and Republicans are at each other’s throats over impeachment. Congrats to the NBA for pulling it off with their fulsome Chinese bootlicking.
I encourage you to read the full letter, which is righteous. And just two pages long.”
Their core argument, repeated often here and elsewhere over the past three days, is that American citizens can’t be subjected to de facto Chinese censorship at work because the almighty dollar demands it. But there are other arguments:”
“Sixers fan supporting Hong Kong ejected from preseason game amid NBA-China controversy”
“A fan was ejected from a Philadelphia 76ers preseason game against the Chinese squad Guangzhou Loong Lions on Tuesday night after holding signs and shouting support for Hong Kong.
The incident came as the NBA finds itself connected to the ongoing protests in China.
Sam Wachs and his wife were holding signs in support of Hong Kong during the 76ers game at the Wells Fargo Center, but those signs were confiscated.
“There’s no foul language, no politics.’ I asked ‘Why not?’ They said, ‘Don’t give me a hard time,'” Wachs said in an interview with Action News.
Wachs admitted he then stood up and started yelling “Free Hong Kong” before being escorted out.”
"That’s not how it works when you have sold your soul…Having already compromised their principles to go along with Trumpism, they need to keep on justifying their original investment by minimizing or making excuses for every new awful thing he does."https://t.co/xhWZSJ595w
“Liberal Idealism Was Wrong: Selling U.S. Manufacturing To China Did Not Make It More Free
It’s prudent to keep an eye on China. But what if the bigger threat is within?”
“A section of foreign policy realists has written a lot about why a U.S. rivalry with China is inevitable. In the liberal idealist heydays of the 1990s, when the Clinton administration was paving the way for “normalizing” China through the World Trade Organization, the conventional wisdom was that once the U.S. market was open to China, everything would fall into place, and the power of the market and capitalism would lead to the spread of human rights, democracy, and rule of law.
This liberal idealism, which is enormously common and often comes up in strategic talks, is needless to mention naïve and utopian. Nevertheless, it was the conventional wisdom that China, due to the burden of its global responsibilities, would become a responsible stakeholder and global citizen through greater market access.
Learning from Historical Rising Powers
A few conservatives and a section of the foreign policy realists warned that would never happen because the history of great powers suggests otherwise. John Mearsheimer, in his seminal work “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics,” outlined why China, like every other rising great power in history, would try to create its own sphere of influence and try to push the United States out of Asia-Pacific, which the United States, as a maritime power, can never afford to allow.
Naturally, the chance of a rivalry remains. In his book Graham Allison talked about the Thucydides Trap, where he charted 16 historical instances in which a rising power tried to push an established power, resulting in a rivalry, or worse, a conflict. But the best and most underrated work in the last few years was an essay by Robert Kaplan, who wrote:
The American foreign policy elite does not like to talk about culture since culture cannot be quantified, and in this age of extreme personal sensitivity, what cannot be quantified or substantiated by a footnote is potentially radioactive. … Anyone who travels in China, or even observes it closely, realizes something that the business community intuitively grasps better than the policy community: the reason there is little or no separation between the public and private domains in China is not only because the country is a dictatorship, but because there is a greater cohesion of values and goals among Chinese compared to those among Americans.”
“Former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) has officially joined President Trump’s outside legal defense team as the president gears up for an impeachment battle with the House.
Trump’s personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, confirmed in a statement Wednesday night that Gowdy would serve as counsel to the president.
“I have known Trey for years and worked with him when he served in Congress. His legal skills and his advocacy will serve the President well,” Sekulow said. “Trey’s command of the law is well known and his service on Capitol Hill will be a great asset as a member of our team.”
Sekulow had said Tuesday that Gowdy was in talks to join the president’s legal team.
Gowdy is a career prosecutor who served four terms in Congress. He retired in January at the conclusion of his final term and joined Fox News as a contributor. Fox News cut ties with Gowdy on Wednesday ahead of Sekulow’s announcement.”
How would leaving a couple hundred US troops stop this?
Answer: They wouldn’t.
And Erdogan isn’t asking permission either.
Erdogan just now:
“Hey European Union, if you call this operation [in Northern Syria] as invasion, then we could just open the gates and send 3.6 million Syrian refugees into Europe”
Even when Trump is at his most treacherous, stupidity is still his dominant trait. This is what makes the work of his cult sycophants so difficult and so hilarious.
And yet they will continue to carry water for the same Dems.
Breaking: Congressman Nunes just told @seanhannity he has evidence suggesting a State Department official may have been monitoring the communications of multiple journalists.
Then came the 6th grade level response from Dear Leader:
From the day I announced I was running for President, I have NEVER had a good @FoxNews Poll. Whoever their Pollster is, they suck. But @FoxNews is also much different than it used to be in the good old days. With people like Andrew Napolitano, who wanted to be a Supreme….
"How Trump’s Tariffs Are Creating Jobs — for Canadians" https://t.co/klJnCKCRzI "warehousing jobs are now being created in border towns in Canada and Mexico that otherwise would be located in the U.S."
"In other words, Nixon’s resistance to lawful demands for evidence in an impeachment inquiry was itself grounds for impeachment. And, at least at first, Nixon’s obstructionism wasn’t as flagrant as the policy Trump has announced" https://t.co/wyrPJARgZO
“HOW IMPEACHMENT SHOULD WORK
The Constitution empowers the House of Representatives to impeach the President, but doesn’t say what procedures the House must use. This leaves the House free to use whatever procedures it chooses.
The Constitution also does not say whether, or to what extent, the President must cooperate with the House when it considers impeaching him. This leaves the President free to cooperate as much or as little as he chooses.
The American people are free to reach whatever conclusions we wish about how the House should proceed on impeachment and about the level of presidential cooperation that is appropriate. In doing so, we should be guided by past precedent and by common sense.
As far as I can tell, the Democratic House wants to deny President Trump anything resembling due process. It seems to view its role as akin to a grand jury with the Senate acting as a regular jury. A suspected criminal has very few rights before the grand jury. His opportunity for due process is afforded at the trial stage.
This model has very little to recommend it, either by way of precedent or common sense, in the impeachment context. The two modern impeachment proceedings — of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton — weren’t handled this way. In both instances, the House adopted procedures that afforded the president due process.
The procedures approved by the Judiciary Committee for the Nixon and Clinton impeachments stated “[t]he President’s counsel may question any witness called before the Committee.” President Clinton’s attorney questioned Ken Starr when he appeared before the Judiciary Committee and President Nixon’s attorney questioned each of the nine witnesses that appeared before the Judiciary Committee.
The procedures approved by the Judiciary Committee for the Nixon and Clinton impeachments stated “[t]he President and his counsel shall be invited to attend all hearings, including any held in executive session.” President Clinton’s attorneys were allowed to call and question 14 expert witnesses before the Judiciary Committee.
Finally, it’s my understanding that in every prior presidential impeachment inquiry in American history, the full House voted to authorize the inquiry.
So far, it looks like Nancy Pelosi has rejected each of these precedents.
Common sense tells us that the grand jury model should not apply to the impeachment of a president. Grand juries consist of citizens pulled in at random. They routinely indict whomever the prosecutor wants them to. The saying is that the prosecution can indict a ham sandwich.
Following indictment, the case often will be resolved through a plea bargain, without the need for a trial. If there is a trial, it might last for a week or two.
Nothing about this model makes sense in the impeachment context. Congressmen aren’t pulled in randomly off the street. They are the elected representatives of the American people. In an impeachment proceeding, all members of the House should be able to vote on the basis of the fullest, most fairly developed record.
This entails a proceeding in which the president receives due process — one in which his lawyers can attend all hearings, question all witnesses, and call witnesses of their own.”
“The Economic News From the Census Bureau Is Very Good”
“The Census Bureau released the 2018 Income and Poverty in the United States report. The news is good.”
“Between 2017 and 2018:
· Real median family income up 1.2%
· Real median earnings up 3.4%
· Full-time, year-round workers up 2.3 million
· Poverty rate down from 12.3% to 11.8%; childhood poverty fell faster; net 1.4 million people left poverty
· Income in the bottom 80% of households was up significantly, only the top 20% of households saw an income decline, as a result, the Gini coefficient (a measure of income inequality, higher numbers mean more inequality) fell from 0.489 to 0.486
· Usually when the Gini index falls, incomes go down for everyone; it’s been 20 years since we’ve seen this big a decline in the Gini index when incomes went up
The news coverage didn’t seem to jibe with the numbers. The real good news about income, earnings, employment and poverty was overlooked entirely to focus on the more abstract Gini coefficient. When income and employment go up, and poverty goes down, that’s unalloyed good. The Gini coefficient is more complicated. It mainly fluctuates based on how financial markets are doing, because top earners depend largely on investments, and those are more volatile than the salaries that underpin middle-class incomes. Moreover many top earners compensation is dependent on financial markets—executives with stock options and profit shares, Wall Street professionals with market-dependent bonuses, business owners paid out of profits.
Therefore, if the Gini coefficient goes up, meaning more inequality, that generally means financial markets did well, so the rich got richer. If the Gini coefficient goes down, that doesn’t mean society got more equal in any substantive or long-term sense, just that the stock market was down that year.
However, 2018 worked for everyone. The economy did well, all the real measures of economic well-being were improved, and the Gini coefficient went down. More money, more equality. But you wouldn’t know it from the headlines.
· Ben Holland wrote at Bloomberg under the headline, “Census Says U.S. Income Inequality Grew ‘Significantly’ in 2018” and suggested the culprit was, “the impact of President Donald Trump’s end-2017 tax bill, which was reckoned by many economists to be skewed in favor of the wealthy.”
· Business Insider’s take was “US income inequality jumps to highest level ever recorded” , and quoted Professor Timothy Smeeding, “Wages remain low, there is a lack of childcare for single-parent families, and so on.””
Mike Schneider’s AP headline was “Census: US inequality grew”.
These are just three examples, the sentiments were echoed in many other news outlets, and chewed over by many opinion columnists. How did people get things so wrong? I can’t explain overlooking all the good news in the report except perhaps by the old newspaper adage, “If it bleeds, it leads,” meaning bad news sells more papers (or collects more clicks) than good. Or perhaps reporting good economic news would be considered support for Trump and might reduce enthusiasm for anti-poverty spending.”
———–
And without even trying, they demonstrated that the Business Insider links you post are trash with an agenda too.
"Sen. Warren’s proposal would make corporations less accountable to their owners, customers, employees, and communities and more accountable to politicians" https://t.co/YK6YGYcUwh
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, donors to a pro-Trump fundraising committee who helped Rudy Giuliani investigate Joe Biden, were arrested for violating campaign finance rules. They've been under investigation by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office. https://t.co/8A0PVvg34J
As predicted, Angela Merkel leads the Free World. On the other side is Putin, and his little punk, Donald Trump.
Seems we (Trump) just joined Russia in blocking a resolution to condemn Turkey’s invasion. Shameful.
“The U.N. Security Council failed to agree on a statement on Turkey's counterterrorism operation in Syria at a closed meeting.” https://t.co/dq0jnBmMaS
Wandering Views 
Yeah, we’ve noticed. 🙄
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/10/08/critics-aghast-as-trump-keeps-word-about-no-more-wars-n2554328
“Critics Aghast As Trump Keeps Word About No More Wars”
“Donald Trump came into office promising to not start any new wars and to get us out of the old ones our feckless elite had dragged us into, and now that he’s doing it in Syria the usual suspects are outraged. How dare he actually deliver on his promise not to have anymore of our precious warriors shipped home in boxes after getting killed on battlefields we can’t even pronounce, while refereeing conflicts that began long before America was a thing, in campaigns without any kind of coherent objective?
Conservatives like me still think of ourselves as hawks, but after hard experience we have learned to be hawkish only where America’s interests are directly at stake. We’re not doves. We’re just not going to spill our troops’ blood when we do not absolutely have to. The elite may not like our attitude, but then it’s generally not the elite that ends up having to bury its sons, daughters, husbands and wives. We do.
I generally like the Kurds. I generally dislike the Turks. But they’ve been killing each other for a long time and no one has yet offered a sufficient reason why America should stick its troops in the crossfire between them. We hear words like “betrayal” tossed around, often by people whose track record re: honor is (charitably) lacking, but that assumes America had a say in this latest round ramping up. If the Turks are intent on invading, a firm “No” from the Oval office is not going to stop a battalion of Leopard tanks. If you want to stop them, you have to be prepared to stop them. That means war, and the president – along with millions of us – say “No thanks.”
Some solid conservatives who I respect disagree with the president’s take. They point out that the Kurds have fought with us and that they’ve had a raw deal. They also point to the Turks’ sordid history of genocide, like with the Armenians. These are good points – I spent 16 months away from my family deployed helping Muslims avoid a genocide in Kosovo – but they are not good enough to justify us doing the only thing that can stop the Turks if they are committed to their threatened aggression, i.e., being willing to have American troops fight them.
Let’s have some real talk, because the Orange Man Bad side of the debate – the side that suddenly is all hopped up on war juice – offers nothing but hack clichés to support its amorphous position. The Kurds helped destroy ISIS, true. It’s also true that the Kurds would have fought ISIS anyway, since the psycho caliphate was right next door. Let’s be honest – the Kurds didn’t show up for us at Normandy or Inchon or Khe Sanh or Kandahar. The Syrian Kurds allied with us in their homeland because we shared a common interest in wiping out the head-lopping freak show that was ISIS. Moreover, all Kurds are not equal. The PKK – the Kurdistan Workers’ Party – are a bunch of commie terrorists who have been fighting the Turks for a long time. Those reds are no friends of ours, and it’s their antics that seem to be inspiring the Turkish campaign. I have little use for the Turks, but they aren’t just picking this fight for Schiffs and giggles. The fact that it’s all so confusing is a really, really good reason for us to stay the hell out of it.”
——-
Word.
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Good morning again.
I got a strange sound on my phone last night. Ten-twenty, it turns out.
I got up to see what it was. So I came in to my main connection. There was nothing.
This morning, I checked my I-Phone and there is an amber alert for a missing person.
I am puzzled why there was nothing on my phone after the buzzing sound alerted me.
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And maybe this is why the UN isn’t doing anything. They’re too busy scamming against sovereign nations and taking bribes.
https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2019/10/09/corrupt-un-helped-fake-refugees-kenya-america/
“Corrupt UN Officials Helped Fake Refugees From Kenya Resettle In America”
“CNN has a pretty remarkable story up today that reveals something everyone involved would rather remain a secret. For decades, people from Kenya have posed as Somalian refugees to take advantage of resettlement opportunities in the US and elsewhere. And CNN reports that middlemen collect large sums of money in order to bribe UN officials to make sure their clients have the best chance of being relocated.
For decades, the chaos in Kenya’s troubled neighbor, Somalia, pushed wave after wave of refugees across the border. They came in buses, on donkeys, and sometimes by foot.
But as the number of people moving to what was once the world’s largest refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya swelled from thousands, to tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands — there were many who registered as refugees who didn’t qualify…
All told, there are at least 40,000 Kenyans registered as refugees in the Dadaab camps alone, according to both UNHCR and government numbers, in what officials euphemistically term “double registration.”…
A UN spokesman told CNN, “I am not aware of any Kenyans being resettled as refugees.” Similarly, a spokesman for the US State Department says it has a “zero tolerance” policy for such fraud. However, CNN identified several “Somali” refugees who are actually Kenyan and even quotes one anonymous individual who admits his father faked their identities in the 1990s to gain resettlement in the United States.
A “facilitator” who gets paid between $10,000 and $20,000 for every client he can help get resettled abroad, claims he has bribed corrupt UN officials for years to make sure his clients get approved.
“It is at the very beginning of the process — before the applicant even gets to the US embassy vetting, the selection has been done at the UN level,” said one facilitator who said he has been exploiting corruption within the UN to game the resettlement system for years…
“The UN will know the criteria and make sure the paying clients match all the requirements. So, it can be cooked at the UN level,” he said…
“Before the Trump ban it was a booming business,” he said. His business is now focused on other countries, where refugee resettlement quotas are higher. He said his last case was just a few months ago.”
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Meet the traitor to his country.
—————-
https://www.foxnews.com/us/defense-employee-arrested-leaking-classified-information-reporters
“A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency employee was arrested Wednesday on federal charges that he leaked classified national defense information to two journalists – one of them romantically involved with him.
Henry Kyle Frese, 30, a counter-terrorism analyst who held a top-secret clearance at the DIA, had started there as a contractor in January 2017 before working at the agency full time.
Between April and May 2018, Frese allegedly accessed classified intelligence reports – some of which were unrelated to his job duties – and leaked secret information regarding a foreign country’s weapons system to a reporter, according to court documents.
The documents accused Frese of being romantically involved with one of the reporters to whom he allegedly leaked information.
A criminal indictment said the reporter wrote at least eight articles from five compromised intelligence reports leaked by Frese. It said Frese re-tweeted a link to one of the articles that used the information he allegedly had provided.”
————–
I hope they’re looking at the woman who would prostitute herself for a story as well.
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And he was caught red handed.
https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/10/09/media-honey-trap-doj-indicts-intel-expert-leaking-journalist-lover/
“Bearing in mind that indictments are not convictions, we should wait for the evidence to be tested in court before assuming guilt. However, if the DoJ has what’s represented in this indictment, then Frese is going to be in serious trouble. He’s being charged with two violations of the Espionage Act under 18 USC 793(d), which carries a maximum prison sentence of ten years per count. It’s not likely that Frese would get consecutive sentences in this scenario, and as a first-time offender would fall on the lower end of the sentencing spectrum. Winner got 63 months for her leaks, which had malicious political intent; Frese might get slightly more lenient treatment for merely being an idiot, but only if he pleads out. The DoJ and the Trump administration is not in the mood to be kind to leakers these days, which perhaps Frese’s journalist pals might have been bothered to explain to him.
The indictment doesn’t mention the journalists involved, nor their employers, which is notable in itself. Frese is also not being charged under the conspiracy subsection (g) of 18 USC 793, which is also telling. Prosecutors are not aiming at journalists in these leak investigations, although one could make an argument that the two journalists did conspire to gain access to classified material through Frese. It’d be tough to make that stick, of course, and it would open up the DoJ to allegations that it’s trying to prosecute reporters for doing their jobs … sort of like the Eric Holder-led DoJ started doing.
So who were the journalists and what outlets did they represent? That will be fascinating to find out. Maybe we can tell by which outlets protest the loudest over Frese’s arrest — or which don’t protest at all. And let’s not forget that this isn’t the first time someone leaked classified information to a reporter-paramour. How often does this happen?
Update: Matthew Keys, formerly of ABC and Reuters and now at Comstock Magazine, says he has confirmed the identity of the two reporters, both of whom work for NBC:”
—————-
NBC, now’s there’s a shock. Not.
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Would anyone be shocked?
https://nypost.com/2019/10/09/did-jim-comey-spy-on-loretta-lynch/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons
“Did Jim Comey spy on Loretta Lynch?”
“Was then-FBI chief Jim Comey spying on his boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch? He apparently had a “highly placed informant” in her office reporting on her doings as of May 2016, which is pretty darn close to “spying” in most books.
We know: Comey famously considers it an “investigation,” not “spying,” when it’s official FBI business — but it’s hard to see how secretly monitoring the AG’s office could be official work for the Bureau.
And secretly monitoring Lynch is exactly what the new book from Pulitzer-winning reporter James B. Stewart indicates Comey was doing.
It was the peak of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and Comey (as he’s said) was “troubled” by Lynch’s attitude — such as her September 2015 directive that the FBI not call its criminal investigation of Clinton “an investigation” (let alone “criminal”), but simply “a matter,” which was exactly what the Clinton campaign wanted.
Lynch had made major career advances in the 1990s under President Bill Clinton — and her boss, President Barack Obama, plainly supported Hillary’s candidacy. Plus, Obama was also implicated in the scandal, since he’d exchanged multiple emails with Clinton at her non-government address — a fact they were all keeping from the public.
Stewart reports that Comey’s “highly placed informant” indicated that Lynch wouldn’t let the FBI investigation add to Clinton’s woes. An email reportedly from the head of the Democratic National Committee assured a civilian that “Lynch wouldn’t let the Clinton investigation get very far, suggesting that Lynch would protect Clinton,” Stewart writes.”
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The left loves to project their faults unto others.
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Look, some bi-partisanship.
https://hotair.com/archives/allahpundit/2019/10/09/sasse-cruz-aoc-others-congress-send-bipartisan-letter-nba-stop-kissing-chinas-ass-suspend-operations-now/
“Sasse, Cruz, AOC, Others In Congress Send Bipartisan Letter To NBA: Stop Kissing China’s @#$ And Suspend Your Operations There For Now”
“You have to screw up awfully badly in America 2019 to forge a coalition of critics that includes Ted Cruz, Ben Sasse, Tom Cotton, Ron Wyden, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, especially at a moment when Democrats and Republicans are at each other’s throats over impeachment. Congrats to the NBA for pulling it off with their fulsome Chinese bootlicking.
I encourage you to read the full letter, which is righteous. And just two pages long.”
Their core argument, repeated often here and elsewhere over the past three days, is that American citizens can’t be subjected to de facto Chinese censorship at work because the almighty dollar demands it. But there are other arguments:”
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Here’s the letter.
Click to access sasse-nba-letter.pdf
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And it’s just in time.
The Chinese censors have cowed the Sixers enough to toss anyone who dares speak against their new Chinese overlords.
https://6abc.com/sports/sixers-fan-supporting-hong-hong-ejected-from-preseason-game/5604293/
“Sixers fan supporting Hong Kong ejected from preseason game amid NBA-China controversy”
“A fan was ejected from a Philadelphia 76ers preseason game against the Chinese squad Guangzhou Loong Lions on Tuesday night after holding signs and shouting support for Hong Kong.
The incident came as the NBA finds itself connected to the ongoing protests in China.
Sam Wachs and his wife were holding signs in support of Hong Kong during the 76ers game at the Wells Fargo Center, but those signs were confiscated.
“There’s no foul language, no politics.’ I asked ‘Why not?’ They said, ‘Don’t give me a hard time,'” Wachs said in an interview with Action News.
Wachs admitted he then stood up and started yelling “Free Hong Kong” before being escorted out.”
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Another myth dies.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/10/liberal-idealism-was-wrong-selling-u-s-manufacturing-to-china-did-not-make-it-more-free/
“Liberal Idealism Was Wrong: Selling U.S. Manufacturing To China Did Not Make It More Free
It’s prudent to keep an eye on China. But what if the bigger threat is within?”
“A section of foreign policy realists has written a lot about why a U.S. rivalry with China is inevitable. In the liberal idealist heydays of the 1990s, when the Clinton administration was paving the way for “normalizing” China through the World Trade Organization, the conventional wisdom was that once the U.S. market was open to China, everything would fall into place, and the power of the market and capitalism would lead to the spread of human rights, democracy, and rule of law.
This liberal idealism, which is enormously common and often comes up in strategic talks, is needless to mention naïve and utopian. Nevertheless, it was the conventional wisdom that China, due to the burden of its global responsibilities, would become a responsible stakeholder and global citizen through greater market access.
Learning from Historical Rising Powers
A few conservatives and a section of the foreign policy realists warned that would never happen because the history of great powers suggests otherwise. John Mearsheimer, in his seminal work “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics,” outlined why China, like every other rising great power in history, would try to create its own sphere of influence and try to push the United States out of Asia-Pacific, which the United States, as a maritime power, can never afford to allow.
Naturally, the chance of a rivalry remains. In his book Graham Allison talked about the Thucydides Trap, where he charted 16 historical instances in which a rising power tried to push an established power, resulting in a rivalry, or worse, a conflict. But the best and most underrated work in the last few years was an essay by Robert Kaplan, who wrote:
The American foreign policy elite does not like to talk about culture since culture cannot be quantified, and in this age of extreme personal sensitivity, what cannot be quantified or substantiated by a footnote is potentially radioactive. … Anyone who travels in China, or even observes it closely, realizes something that the business community intuitively grasps better than the policy community: the reason there is little or no separation between the public and private domains in China is not only because the country is a dictatorship, but because there is a greater cohesion of values and goals among Chinese compared to those among Americans.”
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I see Hand Wringing Ricky is awake.
He’ll love this. 🙂
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/465122-trey-gowdy-joins-trumps-legal-team
“Trey Gowdy joins Trump’s legal team”
“Former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) has officially joined President Trump’s outside legal defense team as the president gears up for an impeachment battle with the House.
Trump’s personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, confirmed in a statement Wednesday night that Gowdy would serve as counsel to the president.
“I have known Trey for years and worked with him when he served in Congress. His legal skills and his advocacy will serve the President well,” Sekulow said. “Trey’s command of the law is well known and his service on Capitol Hill will be a great asset as a member of our team.”
Sekulow had said Tuesday that Gowdy was in talks to join the president’s legal team.
Gowdy is a career prosecutor who served four terms in Congress. He retired in January at the conclusion of his final term and joined Fox News as a contributor. Fox News cut ties with Gowdy on Wednesday ahead of Sekulow’s announcement.”
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Let the name calling begin!
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So…. quick question….
How would leaving a couple hundred US troops stop this?
Answer: They wouldn’t.
And Erdogan isn’t asking permission either.
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Doesn’t fit the Trump bashing narrative, that’s why. They don’t care about facts.
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The one problem with capitalism is that for enough money, everything is for sale.
Even your freedom.
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Even when Trump is at his most treacherous, stupidity is still his dominant trait. This is what makes the work of his cult sycophants so difficult and so hilarious.
https://twitter.com/alanlcross/status/1182099272537296896?s=21
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The Syrian Christians are painfully learning the lesson that we all need to remember: Place your faith in God, not in a leader of the US government.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/october/syrian-christians-kurds-us-withdrawal-turkey.html
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Duh.
The president isn’t anyone’s savior, but you keep trying to make him the devil.
Which is rather devilish of you.
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Nice.
And yet they will continue to carry water for the same Dems.
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https://twitter.com/hnvance40/status/1182257313001955331
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https://twitter.com/SharylAttkisson/status/1182127270120566789
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Pretty amazing numbers here. Trump seems to have made protectionism as unpopular as he made sexual predation.
Either that or tens of millions of Americans have been reading Milton Friedman in their spare time.
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Public opinion may be slowly shifting:
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Then came the 6th grade level response from Dear Leader:
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Yeah, like his last incredible numbers you posted about from Lincicome. That took what, 5 minutes to debunk? Please….
Next.
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As for your polls….
Hillary by 12, he won’t even win 10 states you and Silver told us.
And it was garbage. Like this.
Besides, there is no impeachment, there’s been no vote, it’s all for show., so the polls are irrelevant anyway.
And shouldn’t be off with Kristol and company kissing Romney’s butt, or whoever your savior of the week is this week?
Let’s go, those butts aren’t gonna kiss themselves you know…. 🙂
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Your Fox poll, like the rest, is garbage.
Their record speaks for itself. 🙂
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2016/polls
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There is no impeachment happening. Just a show trial.
Good lawyers know this. Due process is a real thing.
Since you’re ignorant apparently about what is and isn’t impeachment, let me help you out.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/10/how-impeachment-should-work.php
“HOW IMPEACHMENT SHOULD WORK
The Constitution empowers the House of Representatives to impeach the President, but doesn’t say what procedures the House must use. This leaves the House free to use whatever procedures it chooses.
The Constitution also does not say whether, or to what extent, the President must cooperate with the House when it considers impeaching him. This leaves the President free to cooperate as much or as little as he chooses.
The American people are free to reach whatever conclusions we wish about how the House should proceed on impeachment and about the level of presidential cooperation that is appropriate. In doing so, we should be guided by past precedent and by common sense.
As far as I can tell, the Democratic House wants to deny President Trump anything resembling due process. It seems to view its role as akin to a grand jury with the Senate acting as a regular jury. A suspected criminal has very few rights before the grand jury. His opportunity for due process is afforded at the trial stage.
This model has very little to recommend it, either by way of precedent or common sense, in the impeachment context. The two modern impeachment proceedings — of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton — weren’t handled this way. In both instances, the House adopted procedures that afforded the president due process.
The procedures approved by the Judiciary Committee for the Nixon and Clinton impeachments stated “[t]he President’s counsel may question any witness called before the Committee.” President Clinton’s attorney questioned Ken Starr when he appeared before the Judiciary Committee and President Nixon’s attorney questioned each of the nine witnesses that appeared before the Judiciary Committee.
The procedures approved by the Judiciary Committee for the Nixon and Clinton impeachments stated “[t]he President and his counsel shall be invited to attend all hearings, including any held in executive session.” President Clinton’s attorneys were allowed to call and question 14 expert witnesses before the Judiciary Committee.
Finally, it’s my understanding that in every prior presidential impeachment inquiry in American history, the full House voted to authorize the inquiry.
So far, it looks like Nancy Pelosi has rejected each of these precedents.
Common sense tells us that the grand jury model should not apply to the impeachment of a president. Grand juries consist of citizens pulled in at random. They routinely indict whomever the prosecutor wants them to. The saying is that the prosecution can indict a ham sandwich.
Following indictment, the case often will be resolved through a plea bargain, without the need for a trial. If there is a trial, it might last for a week or two.
Nothing about this model makes sense in the impeachment context. Congressmen aren’t pulled in randomly off the street. They are the elected representatives of the American people. In an impeachment proceeding, all members of the House should be able to vote on the basis of the fullest, most fairly developed record.
This entails a proceeding in which the president receives due process — one in which his lawyers can attend all hearings, question all witnesses, and call witnesses of their own.”
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What else you got besides Lincicomes weak tea?
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So more garbage from Lincicome I see.
This guy’s stuff has a shelf life of an hour. It’s trash with a clear agenda.
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2019/10/10/the_economic_news_from_the_census_bureau_is_very_good_103941.html
“The Economic News From the Census Bureau Is Very Good”
“The Census Bureau released the 2018 Income and Poverty in the United States report. The news is good.”
“Between 2017 and 2018:
· Real median family income up 1.2%
· Real median earnings up 3.4%
· Full-time, year-round workers up 2.3 million
· Poverty rate down from 12.3% to 11.8%; childhood poverty fell faster; net 1.4 million people left poverty
· Income in the bottom 80% of households was up significantly, only the top 20% of households saw an income decline, as a result, the Gini coefficient (a measure of income inequality, higher numbers mean more inequality) fell from 0.489 to 0.486
· Usually when the Gini index falls, incomes go down for everyone; it’s been 20 years since we’ve seen this big a decline in the Gini index when incomes went up
The news coverage didn’t seem to jibe with the numbers. The real good news about income, earnings, employment and poverty was overlooked entirely to focus on the more abstract Gini coefficient. When income and employment go up, and poverty goes down, that’s unalloyed good. The Gini coefficient is more complicated. It mainly fluctuates based on how financial markets are doing, because top earners depend largely on investments, and those are more volatile than the salaries that underpin middle-class incomes. Moreover many top earners compensation is dependent on financial markets—executives with stock options and profit shares, Wall Street professionals with market-dependent bonuses, business owners paid out of profits.
Therefore, if the Gini coefficient goes up, meaning more inequality, that generally means financial markets did well, so the rich got richer. If the Gini coefficient goes down, that doesn’t mean society got more equal in any substantive or long-term sense, just that the stock market was down that year.
However, 2018 worked for everyone. The economy did well, all the real measures of economic well-being were improved, and the Gini coefficient went down. More money, more equality. But you wouldn’t know it from the headlines.
· Ben Holland wrote at Bloomberg under the headline, “Census Says U.S. Income Inequality Grew ‘Significantly’ in 2018” and suggested the culprit was, “the impact of President Donald Trump’s end-2017 tax bill, which was reckoned by many economists to be skewed in favor of the wealthy.”
· Business Insider’s take was “US income inequality jumps to highest level ever recorded” , and quoted Professor Timothy Smeeding, “Wages remain low, there is a lack of childcare for single-parent families, and so on.””
Mike Schneider’s AP headline was “Census: US inequality grew”.
These are just three examples, the sentiments were echoed in many other news outlets, and chewed over by many opinion columnists. How did people get things so wrong? I can’t explain overlooking all the good news in the report except perhaps by the old newspaper adage, “If it bleeds, it leads,” meaning bad news sells more papers (or collects more clicks) than good. Or perhaps reporting good economic news would be considered support for Trump and might reduce enthusiasm for anti-poverty spending.”
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And without even trying, they demonstrated that the Business Insider links you post are trash with an agenda too.
You need to try harder.
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As predicted, Angela Merkel leads the Free World. On the other side is Putin, and his little punk, Donald Trump.
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